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+{"text":"  \n# PRAISE FOR KERI ARTHUR\n\n## Nominated for _Romantic Times_ 2007 Reviewers' Choice Awards for Career Achievement in Urban Fantasy\n\n## Winner of the _Romantic Times_ 2008 Reviewers' Choice Awards for Career Achievement in Urban Fantasy\n\n\"Keri Arthur's imagination and energy infuse everything she writes with zest.\"\n\n\u2014CHARLAINE HARRIS\n\n# Praise for _Full Moon Rising_\n\n\"Keri Arthur skillfully mixes her suspenseful plot with heady romance in her thoroughly enjoyable alternate reality Melbourne. Sexy vampires, randy werewolves, and unabashed, unapologetic, joyful sex\u2014you've gotta love it. Smart, sexy, and well-conceived.\"\n\n\u2014KIM HARRISON\n\n\" _Full Moon Rising_ is unabashedly and joyfully sexual in its portrayal of werewolves in heat...Arthur never fails to deliver, keeping the fires stoked, the cliffs high, and the emotions dancing on a razor's edge in this edgy, hormone-filled mystery...A shocking and sensual read, so keep the ice handy.\"\n\n\u2014 _TheCelebrityCafe.com_\n\n\"Keri Arthur is one of the best supernatural romance writers in the world.\"\n\n\u2014HARRIET KLAUSNER\n\n\"Strong, smart and capable, Riley will remind many of Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton's kick-ass vampire hunter...Fans of Anita Blake and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse vampire series will be rewarded.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n\"Unbridled lust and kick-ass action are the hallmarks of this first novel in a brand-new paranormal series...'Sizzling' is the only word to describe this heated, action-filled, suspenseful romantic drama.\"\n\n\u2014 _Curled Up with a Good Book_\n\n\"Desert island keeper...Grade: A...I wanted to read this book in one sitting, and was terribly offended that the real world intruded on my reading time!...Inevitable comparisons can be made to Anita Blake, Kim Harrison, and Kelley Armstrong's books, but I think Ms. Arthur has a clear voice of her own and her characters speak for themselves....I am hooked!\"\n\n\u2014 _All About Romance_\n\n# Praise for _Kissing Sin_\n\n\"The second book in this paranormal guardian series is just as phenomenal as the first...I am addicted!!\"\n\n\u2014 _Fresh Fiction_\n\n\"Arthur's world building skills are absolutely superb and I recommend this story to any reader who enjoys tales of the paranormal.\"\n\n\u2014 _Coffee Time Romance and More_\n\n\"Fast paced and filled with deliciously sexy characters...readers will find _Kissing Sin_ a fantastic urban fantasy with a hot serving of romance that continues to sizzle long after the last page is read.\"\n\n\u2014 _Darque Reviews_\n\n\"Keri Arthur's unique characters and the imaginative world she's created will make this series one that readers won't want to miss.\"\n\n\u2014 _A Romance Review_\n\n# Praise for _Tempting Evil_\n\n\"Riley Jenson is kick-ass...genuinely tough and strong, but still vulnerable enough to make her interesting....Arthur is not derivative of early [Laurell K.] Hamilton\u2014far from it\u2014but the intensity of her writing and the complexity of her heroine and her stories is reminiscent.\"\n\n\u2014 _All About Romance_\n\n\"This paranormal romance series gets better and better with each new book....An exciting adventure that delivers all you need for a fabulous read\u2014sexy shapeshifters, hot vampires, wild uncontrollable sex and the slightest hint of a love that's meant to be forever.\"\n\n\u2014 _Fresh Fiction_\n\n\"Pure sexy action adventure...I found the world vividly realized and fascinating....So, if you like your erotic scenes hot, fast, and frequent, your heroine sassy, sexy, and tough, and your stories packed with hard-hitting action in a vividly realized fantasy world, then _Tempting Evil_ and its companion novels could be just what you're looking for.\"\n\n\u2014 _SFRevu_\n\n\"Keri Arthur's Riley Jenson series just keeps getting better and better and is sure to call to fans of other authors with kick-ass heroines such as Christine Feehan and Laurell K. Hamilton. I have become a steadfast fan of this marvelous series and I am greatly looking forward to finding out what is next in store for this fascinating and strong character.\"\n\n\u2014 _A Romance Review_\n\n# Praise for _Dangerous Games_\n\n\"One of the best books I have ever read....The storyline is so exciting I did not realize I was literally sitting on the edge of my chair....Arthur has a real winner on her hands. Five cups.\"\n\n\u2014 _Coffee Time Romance and More_\n\n\"The depths of emotion, the tense plot, and the conflict of powerful driving forces inside the heroine made for [an] absorbing read.\"\n\n\u2014 _SFRevu_\n\n\"This series is phenomenal! _Dangerous Games_ is an incredibly original and devastatingly sexy story. It keeps you spellbound and mesmerized on every page. Absolutely perfect!!\"\n\n\u2014 _Fresh Fiction_\n\n# Praise for _Embraced by Darkness_\n\n\"Arthur is positively one of the best urban fantasy authors in print today. The characters have been well-drawn from the start and the mysteries just keep getting better. A creative, sexy and adventure filled world that readers will just love escaping to.\"\n\n\u2014 _Darque Reviews_\n\n\"Arthur's storytelling is getting better and better with each book. _Embraced by Darkness_ has suspense, interesting concepts, terrific main and secondary characters, well developed story arcs, and the world-building is highly entertaining....I think this series is worth the time and emotional investment to read.\"\n\n\u2014Reuters.com\n\n\"Once again, Keri Arthur has created a perfect, exciting and thrilling read with intensity that kept me vigilantly turning each page, hoping it would never end.\"\n\n\u2014 _Fresh Fiction_\n\n\"Reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton back when her books had mysteries to solve, Arthur's characters inhabit a dark sexy world of the paranormal.\"\n\n\u2014 _The Parkersburg News and Sentinel_\n\n\"I love this series.\"\n\n\u2014 _All About Romance_\n\n# Praise for _The Darkest Kiss_\n\n\"The paranormal Australia that Arthur concocts works perfectly, and the plot speeds along at a breakneck pace. Riley fans won't be disappointed.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n# Praise for _Bound to Shadows_\n\n\"The Riley Jenson Guardian series ROCKS! Riley is one bad-ass heroine with a heart of gold. Keri Arthur never disappoints and always leaves me eagerly anticipating the next book. A classic, fabulous read!\"\n\n\u2014 _Fresh Fiction_\n\n# Praise for _Moon Sworn_\n\n\"Huge kudos to Arthur for giving readers an impressive series they won't soon forget! 4\u00bd stars, top pick!\"\n\n\u2014 _RT Book Reviews_\n\n\"The superb final Guardian urban fantasy saga ends with quite a bang that will please the fans of the series. Riley is terrific as she goes through a myriad of emotions with no time to mourn her losses....Readers will enjoy Riley's rousing last stand.\"\n\n\u2014 _Midwest Book Review_\n\n# Praise for _Darkness Unbound_\n\n\"A thrilling ride.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n# Praise for _Darkness Rising_\n\n\"Arthur ratchets up the intrigue...in this powerful sequel.\"\n\n\u2014 _Publishers Weekly_\n\n_Penumbra_ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\n2014 Dell Mass Market Edition\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2005, 2014 by Keri Arthur\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nPublished in the United States by Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.\n\nDELL and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.\n\nOriginally published in different form in paperback in the United States by ImaJinn Books, Hickory Corners, MI, in 2005.\n\nISBN 9780440246602\n\neBook ISBN 9780804179546\n\nCover design: Lynn Andreozzi\n\nCover illustration: \u00a9 Juliana Kolesova\n\nwww.bantamdell.com\n\nv4.0\n\nep\n\n# Contents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nChapter One\n\nChapter Two\n\nChapter Three\n\nChapter Four\n\nChapter Five\n\nChapter Six\n\nChapter Seven\n\nChapter Eight\n\nChapter Nine\n\nChapter Ten\n\nChapter Eleven\n\nChapter Twelve\n\nChapter Thirteen\n\nEpilogue\n\nBy Keri Arthur\n\nAbout the Author\n\n# ONE\n\nSAMANTHA RYAN PLACED HER HANDS on the front of her boss's desk and said, \"I want a transfer, not more of your damn excuses.\"\n\nShe knew that speaking to Stephan in such a manner wasn't the best idea, especially when he was the man in charge of both the Special Investigations Unit and the more secretive Federation\u2014a man who'd ruthlessly do whatever it took to get the answers he needed or the job done. She knew _that_ from firsthand experience; she'd suffered through his interrogation without the medical help she'd required after she'd been shot while trying to stop the shapeshifter imitating her partner\u2014a man who also happened to be his brother.\n\nNot that she thought he intended her any sort of harm right now. He had as much interest in finding out who and what she was as she did. But he certainly _could_ make her life hell\u2014though how much worse it would be than her current hell was debatable.\n\nShe leaned across the desk and added, _\"Sir,\"_ a touch sarcastically.\n\nStephan Stern raised one blond eyebrow, as if mildly surprised by her outburst. An outburst he'd _known_ was coming for months. \"You know I don't want to do that.\"\n\n\"I don't honestly care what you want. This is about what _I_ want.\" She pushed away from the desk, unable to stand still any longer. Damn it, she'd spent more than half her life with her head in the sand, cruising through life rather than participating, and she'd had more than enough. The time had come to get greedy\u2014to think about _her_ wants, _her_ desires, for a change. And what she wanted right now was not only a more active personal life, but a working life that involved something better than a broom closet. \"Transfer me back to State, let me resign or find me another partner. As I said, I don't care. Just get me out of my current situation.\"\n\nHer angry strides carried her the length of the beige-colored office in no time and she turned to face Stephan. His expression was as remote as ever, but she'd learned very early on that Stephan was a master at hiding his emotions\u2014and that his dead face was just as likely to mean fury as calm.\n\n\"I prefer to leave you with Gabriel, as I still believe you two will make a formidable team.\"\n\nSam snorted softly. \"That has never been an option, and I think we both realize that now.\"\n\nIt wasn't as if she hadn't tried, for God's sake. But her partner was still going out of his way to exclude her from everything from investigations to chitchat. Access to the SIU's vast computer system just wasn't worth this frustration and unhappiness.\n\nEspecially since she was getting jack shit in the way of information about the past she couldn't remember. Hell, her dreams were providing more information than the SIU's system. The only trouble was, how much could she actually trust the dreams?\n\nAnd how much could she trust the man who constantly walked through them?\n\nShe didn't know, nor did she have anyone she could talk to about it\u2014and that was perhaps the most frustrating thing about this entire situation. She _needed_ to get a life. Friends. People she could trust and talk to. Hell, even a pet would be better than going home alone to a soulless hotel room every night.\n\n\"I prefer to give the situation more time.\" Stephan crossed his arms and leaned forward. \"However, I do have another option that might suit us both.\"\n\nSam met his gaze. His blue eyes were sharp, full of cunning and intelligence. Stephan was a shark by nature\u2014and this was the reason he, rather than his twin, Gabriel, ruled the SIU and the Federation.\n\nOf course, that also meant she was beating her head against a brick wall where Gabriel was concerned, because Stephan was always going to look after his twin's interests first. Even if said twin didn't appreciate his efforts any more than Sam did.\n\nShe came to a stop in front of his desk and couldn't help feeling like a fish about to be hooked. \"What might that be?\"\n\n\"You remember Dan Wetherton?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Last I heard, no one was sure if the body Gabriel found was the real Wetherton or a clone.\"\n\n\"Well, as it happens, it was the original.\"\n\nSam snagged the nearest chair and sat down, interested despite her wariness. \"Gabriel and I theorized about the possibility of whole brain transplants making clones a viable replacement option, but officially\u2014as far as I'm aware\u2014it's still considered impossible to create a clone that exactly duplicates the mannerisms and thoughts of the original person. They may be genetically identical, but they are nevertheless different.\" She hesitated, frowning. \"Besides, I read the in-house reports and tests done on the living Wetherton. He was declared human in all scientific results.\"\n\n\"And a clone isn't?\"\n\nShe grimaced. Clones were human, no doubt about that. But whether that actually granted them _humanity_ was a point of contention between the scientists and the theologians. \"Having only met one clone, who was trying to kill me at the time, I don't feel qualified to answer that particular question.\"\n\nAmusement touched the corners of Stephan's thin lips. \"As it happens, the test results were altered by a party or parties unknown long before we got them.\" He picked up a folder from his desk and offered it to her. \"These are the originals. Have a look.\"\n\nFrom past experience she knew that it was pointless to ask how he'd gotten hold of the original papers. Stephan worked on a need-to-know basis\u2014and generally, that meant the less everyone knew, the better. She doubted even Gabriel was privy to all his secrets.\n\nNot that Gabriel himself was particularly open. Not with _her,_ anyway.\n\nShe leafed through the information inside the folder. It included the genetic tests on both Wetherton and the clone, the coroner's report and Wetherton's medical history.\n\n\"Wetherton had cancer,\" she said, looking up. \"Incurable.\"\n\n\"Which the current version no longer has.\"\n\nShe threw the folder back on the desk. \"If you know he's not the original, why not simply kill him?\"\n\n\"Because we wanted to know why he was cloned. And where.\"\n\n\"But not who had cloned him?\" Did that mean they suspected the mysterious Sethanon was behind it all?\n\n\"As I said, we don't know the where and the why. But there is only one suspect for the who.\"\n\n\"But the military is experimenting with genetics. There's no reason why Wetherton can't be their boy.\"\n\n\"No, there's not.\"\n\nHis tone seemed to dismiss her speculation, and yet she had a vague notion that she'd hit upon the very issue that was troubling Stephan. Only, for some weird reason, he didn't want to acknowledge it. \"And what about the replacement parts industry? Have you checked to see if they have started developing fully formed beings, or is that just too obvious?\"\n\nHis expression became briefly annoyed. \"We never overlook the obvious.\"\n\nOf course not. She smiled slightly. Irritating Stephan might be akin to prodding a lion with a very short stick, but when she got even the slightest reaction, it was oddly satisfying.\n\n\"The black-market trade in cloned parts is booming,\" she said. Of course, it was fueled mainly by humanity's desperation to cheat death. An incredible number of people seemed willing to pay exorbitant prices to grow new body parts, so why not take it a step further, and attempt a cloning miracle? Not just a replacement heart or liver or whatever other part had failed, but a whole new body?\n\nBut humanity was more than just a brain; it was also a heart and soul. Medical science might be able to transfer flesh and brain matter, but how could anyone transfer a soul? Even if they could pin down what a soul actually was?\n\nNot that rules ever stopped anyone\u2014especially when there was huge money to be made.\n\nAnd somewhere along the line, someone had succeeded in achieving at least part of the impossible\u2014fully fleshed, viable clones who looked and acted like the original. Wetherton, and her ex-partner, Jack Kazdan, were proof of that. Although something _had_ gone wrong with Jack's clone; it might have looked like him, but it had had serious problems speaking. But then, it had been given a shitload of growth accelerant, so it wasn't truly a surprise that it couldn't speak well. It had never really had the time to learn.\n\n\"His source is not black market. We're sure of that.\"\n\nShe studied him for a moment, then changed tactics. \"Wetherton's just been made Minister for Science and Technology, hasn't he?\"\n\nStephan nodded. \"Two years ago he was trying to shut down many of the science programs, stating that the money could be better spent on the health care system. Now he's in charge of the lot.\"\n\n\"Why hasn't anyone questioned this sudden change of heart? Surely the press has noted it?\"\n\n\"Noted a political backflip?\" Amusement touched his lips again. \"You're kidding, right?\"\n\nPoint made. Flip-flopping politicians were such a fact of life that even the press had gotten tired of them. And the public at large simply ignored them, except when the flops directly affected their bottom line.\n\n\"What advantage would having a clone in such a position be for someone like Sethanon?\"\n\n\"Sadly, we don't know the answer to that one yet.\"\n\nNot until they caught Sethanon, anyway. And _he_ had proven as elusive as a ghost.\n\n\"So you've had Wetherton watched?\"\n\n\"We've had an agent in his office for the last two months, but she can't get close enough. Wetherton plays his cards very close to his chest.\"\n\nIf the man was a clone, he'd have to. One mistake and the truth would be out.\n\n\"What does all this have to do with my wanting a transfer?\"\n\nHe smiled\u2014all teeth and no sincerity. \"The minister has recently received several death threats. He was given police protection, but the would-be killer has slipped past them on a number of occasions and left notes. The minister has now requested the SIU's help.\"\n\nShe regarded him steadily. \"So who did you use to drop the notes? A vampire or a shapeshifter?\"\n\nAmusement flickered briefly through his eyes. \"The original threats were real enough.\"\n\n_Yeah, right._ There was just a little too much sincerity in his voice for her to believe that. \"Am I the only agent being sent in?\"\n\n\"No. You'll handle the night shift\u2014it suits your growing abilities better. Jenna Morwood will do the days.\"\n\nMorwood wasn't someone she'd met. \"What's her specialty?\"\n\n\"Morwood's an empath and telekinetic.\"\n\nSo she'd be able to see an attack coming by simply reading the emotions swirling around her\u2014a good choice for this sort of work. \"Are we the only two going in?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He hesitated. \"Wetherton has requested that the night watch stay at his apartment when he's there at night. Since the first two threats were hand-delivered, I've agreed to his request. I want you to observe everyone he meets. Become his shadow and learn his secrets.\"\n\nA huge task. \"And the reason you're sending two female agents?\"\n\nOnce again, that insincere smile flashed. \"Wetherton appears less guarded around females.\"\n\n\"Meaning what? That he's likely to hit on us?\"\n\n\"It's a distinct possibility. And before it's mentioned, no, I do not expect or want you to sleep with the man.\"\n\n\"Good, because I wouldn't.\" She hesitated, frowning. \"Wetherton's made much of his caring, family-man image over the last few years. That doesn't quite jell with him hitting on anything with breasts.\"\n\n\"He and his wife separated not long after the original's death. Since then, he's bought a nice apartment on Collins Street and now spends most of his nights there. He's also been seen with an endless stream of beauties on his arms.\"\n\nShe frowned. Wetherton wasn't exactly a looker\u2014though that in itself didn't mean anything. Some of the ugliest spuds in the world had immense success with the ladies simply because of the wealth they controlled, or their sheer magnetic power. But from what she remembered of Wetherton, neither of these was a factor.\n\n\"I'm surprised the press haven't had more of a field day.\"\n\n\"They did initially, but a politician behaving badly isn't exactly news these days.\"\n\n_That_ was certainly true. \"I doubt whether I'll learn all that much doing night shift. Surely most of his business will be conducted during the day, no?\"\n\nStephan smiled grimly. \"Wetherton has a surprising number of business meetings at night\u2014and usually at nightclubs, where it's harder to get a bug in.\"\n\n\"He'll be suspicious of me. He's not likely to trust me with anything vital.\"\n\n\"Not for a while. It may take months.\"\n\nMonths out of her life and her need to find her past. But also months away from Gabriel. Would absence make his heart grow fonder? A smile touched her lips. Unlikely. \"What about time off? You can't expect either of us to work seven days a week.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"You'll each get two days\u2014though which two will depend on Wetherton's schedule. Generally, it will be the days he spends at home with his children. We have other arrangements in place there.\"\n\n\"Will the press buy our sudden appearance in his life? This sort of protection is usually handled by the feds, not the SIU.\"\n\n\"They won't question our appearance after tonight, believe me.\"\n\nThe dry coldness in his voice sent chills down her spine. \"Why? What are you planning for tonight?\"\n\n\"A spectacular but ineffectual murder attempt. Wetherton may be injured, and will, of course, demand our help.\"\n\n\"So who's the patsy?\"\n\nStephan shrugged. \"A young vampire we captured several weeks ago. He'd been something of a political dissident in life, and his afterlife has only sharpened his beliefs.\"\n\nAnd Stephan had no doubt been feeding his madness, aiming it toward Wetherton. Meaning this plan had been in motion for some time, and that this assignment was part of a bigger picture than he was currently admitting to.\n\nGoose bumps ran up Sam's arms and she rubbed them lightly. Perhaps the vampire wasn't the only patsy in this situation.\n\n\"I gather the vamp will die?\"\n\n\"He murdered seven people before we captured him. His death is merely a delayed sentence.\"\n\n\"What if he escapes?\"\n\n\"He won't.\"\n\nSam shifted in her chair. \"If Wetherton is up to anything nefarious, it's doubtful I'll be privy to it.\"\n\n\"No. There will be certain times you'll be sent from the room; this is unavoidable. To counter it, you'll bug the room.\"\n\n\"Most federal buildings have monitors. The minute a bug is activated, an alarm will sound.\"\n\n\"They won't detect the ones we'll give you. Our labs have specifically developed bugs that will function in just this sort of situation.\"\n\nAnd no doubt developed a means of detecting them, too. \"How long do you think I'll be guarding Wetherton?\"\n\nStephan shrugged. \"I can't honestly say. It could be a month; it could be a year. Parliament doesn't convene again until the middle of next month. By then, you will be such a fixture in his life that no one will comment.\"\n\nBy then, she hoped Wetherton would have revealed all his secrets and she could get on with her life. Spending months in Canberra, yawning her way through endless cabinet sessions, was not something to look forward to.\n\nShe crossed her arms and stared at Stephan. He returned her gaze calmly. The uneasy feeling that he wasn't telling her everything grew.\n\n\"You're doing this to get back at Gabriel, aren't you? You want him to care.\"\n\n\"I'm doing this because no other agents have your particular range of talents. Your ability to detect evil could be vital in this case.\"\n\nNo lies, but not the exact truth, either. She sat back, feeling more frustrated than when she'd first entered Stephan's office. Guarding Wetherton was not the job she really wanted, but what other choice did she have? It was either this or put up with endless hours of mind-numbing paperwork in her shoe-box office in the Vault.\n\n\"How do I keep in contact?\"\n\n\"You'll be wearing a transmitter that will be monitored twenty-four hours a day.\" Stephan reached into his desk and pulled out what looked like a gold ear stud. \"This is the current model. It records sound and pictures. You turn it on and off by simply touching the surface.\"\n\n\"I don't have to get my ears pierced, do I?\" She'd rather face a dozen vampires than one doctor armed with a body-piercing implement.\n\nStephan's smile held the first real hint of warmth she'd seen since she walked into his office. \"No. The studs are designed to cling to human flesh. You actually won't be able to get them off without the help of the labs.\"\n\nJust as well she could turn them off, then. She needed some privacy in her life, even if it was only to go to the bathroom. \"When do I start?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow night.\" Stephan picked up another folder and passed it across the desk. \"In here you'll find detailed backgrounds on Wetherton's friends, family and business acquaintances.\"\n\nShe dropped the folder onto her lap. There was plenty of time to look at it later. \"You were pretty certain I'd take this job, weren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes. What other choice have you actually got?\"\n\n_Indeed._ \"And Gabriel?\"\n\n\"Will be told you've been reassigned.\"\n\nWhich would no doubt please him. He'd finally gotten what he wanted\u2014her out of his life. \"And will I be? After this assignment is over, that is?\"\n\nStephan considered her for several seconds. \"That depends.\"\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On whether or not he has come to his senses by then.\"\n\nA statement she didn't like one little bit. \"You owe me, Stephan,\" she said softly. For ordering his agents to shoot when she'd been trying to stop the shifter who'd taken Gabriel's form. For the hour of questioning she'd faced afterward when she should have been in the med center. For saving his twin's life. \"All I want is permanent reassignment.\"\n\nHis gaze met hers, assessing, calculating. \"All right,\" he said slowly. \"As I said, this assignment could take more than a year to complete. If you still wish a new partner at the end, I will comply.\"\n\nShe stared at him. He had agreed to her demands far too easily. She didn't trust him\u2014and didn't trust that he meant what he said. But for the moment, there was little she could do about it.\n\n\"What happens if I need access to files or information?\"\n\n\"You'll have a portable com-unit with you, coded to respond only to your voice and retinal scan. You'll also have priority access to all files, though a copy of all requests and search results will be sent to me.\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. Priority access? Whatever it was Stephan thought Wetherton was involved in had to be huge.\n\nThe intercom buzzed into the silence and Stephan leaned across and pressed the button. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Assistant Director Stern to see you, as requested, sir.\"\n\n\"Send him in.\" He gave her a toothy smile that held absolutely no sincerity. \"I thought you might like to say goodbye.\"\n\nGabriel was the last person she wanted to see. She could barely control her temper around him these days, and hitting a superior officer would only get her into more trouble than Gabriel was worth. And Stephan damn well knew it. She thrust upright. \"You're a bastard, you know that?\"\n\n\"No, I'm a man faced with two people who won't acknowledge that they are meant to be partners.\"\n\nThe door opened, giving her no time to reply. She clenched the folder tightly but found her gaze drawn to the tall man entering the room. His hazel eyes narrowed when he saw her.\n\nBut just for an instant, something passed between them\u2014an emotion she couldn't define and he would never verbally acknowledge. And that made her even angrier.\n\n\"Sam,\" Gabriel said, his voice as polite as the nod he gave her.\n\n\"Gabriel,\" she bit back, and glanced at Stephan. \"Will that be all, sir?\"\n\nA smile quirked the corner of Stephan's mouth. He hadn't missed her reaction. \"Yes. For now.\"\n\nGabriel stepped to one side as she approached. It was probably meant to be nothing more than a polite gesture\u2014he was simply making way for her to get past\u2014but it fanned the fires of her fury even higher. One way or another, this man was always avoiding her.\n\nShe met his gaze and saw only wariness in the green-flecked hazel depths of his eyes. Ever since the factory shootout with Rose and Orrin nearly two weeks ago, he'd treated her this way. She wasn't entirely sure why. And in all honesty, it was time she stopped worrying about it. She had more important concerns these days.\n\nLike finding out who she really was. _What_ she really was. Like getting a life beyond the force.\n\nShe stopped in front of him and his scent stirred around her, spicy and masculine, making her want things she could never have. Not with this man.\n\n\"You win, Gabriel. You have your wish. I'm out of your life.\" She held out her hand. \"I wish I could say it's been pleasant, but you sure as hell made certain it wasn't.\"\n\nHis fingers closed round hers, his touch sending warmth through her soul. A promise that could never be.\n\n\"You've been reassigned, then?\" Relief edged his deep voice.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nHe released her hand and her fingers tingled with the memory of his touch. Part of her was tempted to clench her hand in an effort to retain that warmth just a bit longer. But what was the point of holding on to something that was little more than an illusion? A desire that probably came from loneliness more than any real connection?\n\n\"Who's the new partner?\"\n\nThere was something a little more than polite interest in the question. Were he anyone else, she might have thought he cared. With Gabriel, who knew?\n\nSam shrugged. \"It's really none of your business now, is it?\" She glanced back at Stephan. \"I'll talk to you later.\"\n\nHe nodded and she met Gabriel's eyes one final time, her gaze searching his\u2014though what she was looking for, she couldn't honestly say. After a few seconds, she turned and walked out, her fury a clenched knot inside her chest.\n\n\u2014\n\nGabriel watched her go and the anger so visible in every step seared his mind, reaching into places he'd thought well shielded and far out of reach. Whatever this connection was between them, it was breaking down barriers not even his twin had been able to traverse, and raising emotions he'd long thought dead.\n\nWhich was just another reason to get her out of his working life. Whether or not she should then appear in his social life was a point of contention between the two parts of his soul. The hawk half\u2014the half that had already lost its soul mate\u2014wanted no strings, no ties, nothing beyond those that already existed, but the human half wanted to pursue what might lie between them. Wanted to discover if, given the chance, it could develop into something more than friendship.\n\nNot that there ever _would_ be a chance, if her anger was anything to go by. Which was precisely what he'd wanted, what he'd been aiming for over the nine months they'd been partners. So why did his victory feel so hollow?\n\nHe shut the door and walked across the room to the chair. \"So,\" he said as he sat down. \"Where has she been reassigned?\"\n\nStephan leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes assessing. \"She's right. It really _is_ none of your business now.\"\n\n\"Don't give me that crap. Just tell me.\"\n\nStephan smiled, though no warmth touched his expression. It was that, more than anything, which raised Gabriel's hackles. Stephan was up to something, something _he_ wouldn't like.\n\n\"She's on special assignment as of tomorrow.\"\n\nGabriel regarded him steadily. His brother was enjoying this. He could almost feel his twin's satisfaction. \"Give, brother. What the hell have you done?\"\n\nStephan steepled his fingers and studied them with sudden interest. \"I've assigned her to the Wetherton case.\"\n\nThe Wetherton case? The _one_ case she should have been kept well away from, if only because of its possible links to both Sethanon _and_ Hopeworth? \"Get her off it, Stephan. Get her off it _now._ \"\n\nHis twin's gaze finally met his, filled with nothing more than a steely determination. \"She _is_ the best person for the job, whatever the risks.\"\n\n\"You haven't even warned her, have you?\" Gabriel scrubbed a hand across his jaw. _Christ,_ she could be walking straight into a goddamn trap, and there was nothing he could do to save her.\n\n\"She knows we believe Sethanon is involved,\" Stephan commented.\n\n\"Which is the _least_ of our worries. Wetherton's and Kazdan's clones can have only one source, and we both know it. Neither the government labs nor the black marketeers have succeeded with personality and memory transfers. Hopeworth has.\"\n\n\"Or so our spy tells us. It's not something we've been able to confirm.\"\n\nThe Federation had attempted to place spies in Hopeworth on several occasions, but it was only in the last few months that one of their operatives had leaked this information\u2014though so far it was only his word backing it up.\n\n\"I think Hopeworth basically confirmed their involvement when they maneuvered to get Wetherton's clone in charge of their budget.\"\n\n\"If they wanted their clone in charge of their budget, they should have got him assigned to Defense.\"\n\nGabriel crossed his arms. Hopeworth had fingers in both pies, and Stephan knew it. \"Did you even mention Hopeworth to Sam?\"\n\n\"It was mentioned. But we don't know for sure if Hopeworth is involved.\"\n\n\"Then did you at least tell her Sethanon is more than likely involved with Hopeworth?\"\n\n\"No, because we have nothing more than a suspicion to back this up. We have no photographs of him. We don't even know if he truly exists. He is currently nothing more than a name.\"\n\n\"A name that has over thirty SIU and Federation deaths attributed to it. And I don't particularly want Sam's name added to that list.\" His voice was tight with the anger coursing through him. True, he'd wanted to lose her as a partner, but he certainly hadn't wanted to throw her to the lions, and that's basically what his brother had done. She would have been safer remaining his partner than taking this mission.\n\nStephan grimaced. \"Nor do I, brother. Believe me. But we need to uncover the source of these clones. We need to draw Sethanon out, and we need to uncover whether or not he is involved as deeply with Hopeworth as we suspect. And the truth is, she's the best bait we have to achieve those aims.\"\n\n\"What about our source in Hopeworth? Has he heard any whispers about Sethanon?\"\n\nStephan shook his head. \"It's not a code name the military uses.\"\n\n\"Kazdan knew who he was, so others must. It's just a matter of uncovering the various layers of his organization.\"\n\n\"Which is why Samantha has been assigned to Wetherton. We know he's a clone. We know his name was on that list she got from Kazdan. We need to know what that list was, and what Wetherton had promised to do in return for life eternal. And why the original was deemed expendable enough to kill and clone and not directly exploit.\"\n\n\"But that still puts her too close to Hopeworth. That could be extremely dangerous.\"\n\nStephan leaned back in his chair and regarded his brother steadily. \"Only if, as you presume, she is a product of Hopeworth itself.\"\n\n\"You've seen the initial reports from O'Hearn. You've seen the coding. Whatever Sam is, she's definitely not a product of natural selection.\"\n\n\"Yet it was Sethanon who assigned Kazdan to monitor her every move. Sethanon who appears to know just who and what Samantha is. You noted that yourself. Couldn't that mean he's responsible for her creation?\"\n\nPossible, but not likely. Gabriel didn't doubt that Sethanon wanted to use her, but if the man had been responsible for her creation, why would he take the risk of releasing her?\n\n\"Sam had a military microchip in her side,\" Gabriel pointed out. \"The same sort of chip that we found in both the Generation 18 rejects and in Allars.\" She was also afraid of Hopeworth. Though she had never said anything, he could feel her fear as clearly as if it were his own.\n\n\"And yet our source in Hopeworth can find no record of her, though he can find records on every other reject.\"\n\n\"Maybe because her project was destroyed by a fire years ago.\"\n\n\"A fire would never destroy every scrap of information. Nor could it erase every memory.\"\n\n\"And yet everyone says that Penumbra _was_ destroyed that completely.\"\n\n\"People still remember the project, Gabriel. They just don't remember her.\"\n\nMary Elliot, the nurse who'd worked on the project, apparently did, but she was just one of many, and a woman with a faulty memory at that. Partially thanks to Alzheimer's, and partially thanks to the military's habit of \"readjusting\" memories. Gabriel shifted restlessly in the seat. \"What if she isn't a reject? What if she's something else entirely?\"\n\nStephan raised an eyebrow. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nHe didn't really know. It was just a feeling. The extent of Sam's memory loss, the depth to which the truth appeared to be buried and the fact that someone was willing to bomb the SIU in order to destroy her test results\u2014it all spoke of intent. It suggested that someone, somewhere, was protecting her from her past, whatever that might be.\n\nHe actually doubted that it was Hopeworth trying to conceal who she was, even if they were her creators. The military wasn't that subtle. Besides, if Sam _was_ one of their creations, they would never have let her go\u2014especially not with the potential she was now showing.\n\n\"Look,\" Gabriel said, somewhat impatiently. \"All I'm saying is that if Sethanon feared her enough to place a watch on her, we should not risk using her as bait in an attempt to catch the man.\"\n\n\"We don't even know if, in fact, it is a man we are after.\"\n\nGabriel leaned forward and glared at his twin's altered features. It was in moments like this\u2014moments when he almost wanted to punch the cold smile from his brother's face\u2014that Stephan's ability to shapeshift into the form of any male he touched became a problem. It was harder to restrain the urge to hit him when he wasn't wearing his own face. \"Damn it, Stephan, don't play word games with me!\"\n\nSomething flickered through his twin's blue eyes. Anger perhaps. Or regret. \"Do you, or do you not, agree that we must learn more about Sethanon?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but\u2014\"\n\n\"And do you, or do you not,\" Stephan continued, his voice soft but relentless, \"agree that Sethanon's interest in Sam might be the lever we need to draw him out of the shadows?\"\n\nGabriel rubbed his forehead. This was one battle he wasn't going to win\u2014not that he ever won many against Stephan. \"At the first hint of danger, I'm going in.\"\n\n\"Samantha can take care of herself. She's proven that time and time again.\"\n\nBut this was different. This was leaving her roped, tied and blindfolded in front of an express train. \"I won't see her harmed.\"\n\nStephan smiled. \"And here I thought you didn't care for her.\"\n\n\"I've never said that. All I've ever said is that I don't want her as a partner. That I don't want to see her dead.\"\n\n\"Have you ever considered the fact that this fear of losing partners is irrational, and that maybe you should seek psychiatric help for it?\"\n\n\"Considered it? Yes. Acknowledge it? Yes. Am I going to seek psychiatric help? No.\" He met his brother's stony gaze with one of his own. \"If I wanted to talk to anyone, I'd talk to our father.\"\n\n\"Because, of course, you couldn't talk to your brother.\" Stephan's voice was almost bitter.\n\nAlmost.\n\n\"My brother has a tendency to put the needs of the Federation and the SIU above the needs of everyone else\u2014including his brother.\"\n\nStephan didn't immediately comment, just leaned forward and picked up a folder from the desk. \"Here's the file on your new partner.\"\n\nGabriel ignored the offered folder and stared at his twin through narrowed eyes. \"What do you mean, new partner?\"\n\n\"I've told you before. All field agents, whether SIU or Federation, now work in pairs. There have been too many murder attempts of late to risk solo missions.\"\n\n\"How many times do I have to say it? _I don't want a partner!_ \" What was his brother trying to prove?\n\n\"Then you'll remain at your desk and leave the field work to the agents in your charge.\"\n\nHe was tempted, very tempted, to do just that. But both he and Stephan knew that being confined for any length of time would make him stir-crazy.\n\nBesides, he was more valuable to the SIU and the Federation in the field.\n\n\"Who have you assigned me?\"\n\nStephan dropped the folder on the desk and leaned back in his chair. Though there was no emotion on his face, Gabriel could feel his twin's amusement.\n\n\"James Illie.\"\n\nWho was the State Police officer they'd recruited after he'd made a series of spectacular arrests\u2014arrests that involved one of the biggest vampire crime gangs in the city. He was good, no doubt about it.\n\nThe only trouble was, the man was a womanizer who was always on the lookout for his next conquest.\n\n\"It won't work.\" And Stephan knew it.\n\n\"Then make it work. And don't try dumping Illie in the dungeons. He'll bring in the unions the minute you try.\"\n\n_Wonderful._ \"Is this all you called me in here for?\"\n\nStephan smiled. \"No. There's been a break-in at the Pegasus Foundation that we've been asked to investigate.\"\n\n\"The Pegasus Foundation?\" Gabriel frowned, trying to recall what he knew of the organization. \"They won a military contract recently, didn't they?\"\n\n\"To develop a stealth device for military vehicles, yes. But whoever broke in wasn't concerned about stealth devices.\"\n\n\"Then what were they after?\"\n\n\"That's something you'll have to find out. All I've been told is that the person or persons involved managed to get past several security stations, three laser alarms and numerous cameras. It was only due to the fact that the intruder set a lab on fire that they were even aware someone had slipped their net.\"\n\n\"So we're saying that the person who started the fire is someone who can become both invisible and insubstantial? Is such a thing even possible?\"\n\n\"We've never seen it before,\" Stephan answered. \"But then, we've never seen a lot of the things we are now encountering, so who knows?\"\n\n\"Was it just the lab that was destroyed?\"\n\n\"That I don't know. They're not giving much away\u2014not over the phone, anyway.\"\n\nNo real surprise there, given how easily phone conversations could be hacked these days. \"So why were we called in? The Pegasus Foundation has more military ties than we have agents. Why not ask them to investigate?\"\n\n\"It was the military that asked _us_ to investigate.\" Stephan hesitated. \"They asked specifically for you and your partner.\"\n\n\"So they want Sam.\" But if the military didn't know anything about her, why had they specifically asked for her to be included in the investigation?\n\n\"Who signed the request?\"\n\n\"A General Frank Lloyd.\"\n\nAs Alice would say, curiouser and curiouser. \"Sam met Lloyd at Han's.\" She'd been wary of the general and convinced they'd meet again. \"You have to warn her about the military's interest.\"\n\n\"No, I won't.\" Stephan hesitated. \"And neither will you.\"\n\nLike hell he wouldn't. It was one thing to let her go; it was another to leave her blind. He crossed his arms. \"What time is the Pegasus Foundation expecting us?\"\n\nStephan glanced at his watch. \"You're to meet with the director\u2014Kathryn Douglass\u2014at four thirty.\"\n\nIt was nearly four now. Then Gabriel frowned. \"Kathryn Douglass? Why does that name sound familiar?\"\n\n\"Because her name is on that list Kazdan gave to Sam.\"\n\nA list that had marked potential clones and vampires, as well as assassination possibilities. \"So which one is she? Clone, vampire or potential dead meat?\"\n\n\"That we can't say, as there's no note beside her name,\" Stephan said. \"Illie's requisitioned a car and is waiting out front.\"\n\nGabriel met his twin's gaze. \"Thought I'd skip without him, huh?\"\n\nStephan's smile touched his eyes for the first time. \"I know you, brother. I know the way your mind works. Don't ever forget that.\"\n\nThen he'd know Illie wasn't going to be a fixture in Gabriel's life for very long. If he'd wanted a partner, he'd have kept Sam.\n\n\"Then you'll know precisely what I'm thinking now.\"\n\nStephan's smile widened. \"Yeah, and it's not polite to abuse a family member like that.\"\n\nAlthough it was when your brother was being such a bastard.\n\nStephan's smile faded. \"Keep away from her, Gabriel. She has a job to do, and I don't want you getting in the way.\"\n\n\"What I do in my own time is my business, not yours,\" Gabriel said, voice flat. \"I'm warning you, don't ever try to control my personal life.\"\n\nStephan raised an eyebrow. \"You have an obligation to both the SIU and the Federation, just as I have.\"\n\n\"Yeah, right.\" Gabriel turned and headed for the door. The Federation and the SIU could go hang if it meant letting Sam walk into a trap out of no more than ignorance.\n\nHe may have succeeded in getting rid of her as a partner, but that didn't mean he wanted her dead.\n\n\"Gabriel, I'm warning you. Leave her alone.\"\n\nGabriel stopped with his hand on the doorknob and glanced over his shoulder, meeting his brother's gaze. \"Or you'll what? Censure me? Bust me down to field agent again? Do it. I don't really give a damn.\"\n\n\"This could be our one chance to draw Sethanon out!\"\n\n\"That doesn't justify sending her in _blind._ \"\n\n\"Gabriel, I'm giving you a direct order. Do not go near her. Do not warn her.\"\n\n\"Then you'd better get my file out and add the black mark to it now, because that's one order I have no intention of obeying.\"\n\nAnd he slammed the door open and stalked from the room.\n\n# TWO\n\nSAM GLANCED AT HER WATCH as she entered her office. It was just after four. She had an hour before she was due at the labs to have the studs attached and be shown how they worked.\n\nAll she really wanted was to go home\u2014not that she currently had a home to go _to._ Her Brighton apartment had sold almost as soon as she'd placed it on the market. The new owners had gushed over its size and closeness to the beach. That it had been bombed twice in recent months was a fact she and the real estate agents had failed to mention.\n\nShe slapped the folder on the desk and sat down. \"Computer on.\"\n\nA pink fluff ball with chicken legs appeared onscreen. \"Afternoon, sweetness.\"\n\n\"Afternoon, Iz. Any messages from that useless real estate agent of mine?\"\n\n\"Not one.\"\n\n_Typical._ Two days ago he'd promised to get right back to her with the latest housing list. The man was either extremely forgetful or was tired of her nagging and trying to get rid of her.\n\n_Probably the latter,_ she thought ruefully. She leaned back in her chair and wearily rubbed her eyes. Maybe it would have been wiser to wait until she'd found somewhere else to live before she'd sold the apartment\u2014as Gabriel had informed her the one time this week that he'd deigned to grace her broom closet with his presence.\n\nAnd yet she didn't really regret her actions, even if staying at hotels was costing a fortune. The apartment had never truly felt like hers\u2014maybe because it was something she had been given rather than earned. Or maybe because the reasons for the gift had never really been clear.\n\nOr perhaps it was the cop in her that couldn't get past the idea that, in the end, such gifts usually proved costly.\n\nShe reached forward and picked up the folder Stephan had given her. Inside she found a series of photos\u2014Wetherton's friends, family and immediate associates.\n\nShe shuffled through them until she found one of Wetherton. He was small, round and balding. Spud material, definitely. And yet, there was something in his brown eyes that was not quite right\u2014an odd sort of blankness that chilled her.\n\nShe threw the photo back down onto the desk. At least this assignment would save her some money, if nothing else. And she could still use the days to continue her search for a home.\n\nAlthough, as her real estate agent had said\u2014and more than once\u2014if she weren't so particular, she'd have something by now.\n\nSomeone knocked on the door. It opened before she could answer, revealing Gabriel.\n\n\"AD Stern. Fancy seeing you again so soon.\" She couldn't help the sarcastic note in her voice. The only time he'd ever bothered crowding into her closet was when he had some inane task for her to complete. But he wasn't her partner now, wasn't her boss, so why was he here?\n\nHe crossed his arms, leaning a shoulder against the door frame. His presence filled her small office in much the same manner as his frame did the doorway. With any other man, it might have felt threatening. With Gabriel, it felt cautious, almost aloof.\n\n\"Stephan told me about your new assignment.\"\n\nThere was a touch of concern in his rich voice. She raised an eyebrow. \"And?\"\n\n\"And he hasn't told you everything.\"\n\nLike _that_ was a surprise. \"That's because he works on a need-to-know basis. Like someone else I know.\"\n\nAnnoyance flickered through Gabriel's warm hazel eyes. \"I've never let you walk into an assignment blind.\"\n\nShe snorted softly. \"Yeah, because you've never _given_ me an assignment. Only desk work.\"\n\nHe at least had the grace to look guilty, if only for a second or two. \"Look, I just came down here to warn you, not to argue.\"\n\n\"Then warn me and leave.\" Before she asked him to stay, simply to warm the empty coldness in her office. In her life.\n\n\"Fair enough.\" He hesitated for a moment, studying her with a slight frown. \"He omitted two major facts. One, we believe that Hopeworth is the source of the Wetherton clone, and two, we think Sethanon may be linked to both Wetherton and Hopeworth.\"\n\nAnd Stephan was using her as bait to draw them out. She'd been right. The vampire set to attack Wetherton wasn't the only patsy in this situation. \"Why does he think my presence will affect Sethanon's actions?\"\n\n\"Because Sethanon placed Kazdan in your life to keep watch over you both personally and professionally. And because Sethanon had to have been the source for the birth certificate Kazdan gave you. He seems to know more about your history than anyone else. And that it implies a long-term interest.\"\n\nOr long-term responsibility. She rubbed her arms uneasily. Though she didn't want to mention it to Gabriel, the mysterious, hirsute stranger she knew only as Joe had admitted to giving the birth certificate to her\u2014yet had never explained how it had come to be in Jack's possession. And when she asked him, point blank, if he was Sethanon, he had said that Sethanon was not a name he'd ever given himself. But what did that mean? That other people had called him that? Was Sethanon her secret ally or not? But all she said now was, \"Sethanon is little more than a name. How the hell am I supposed to draw him out when no one even knows what he looks like?\"\n\n\"Stephan's hoping he might try to snatch you.\"\n\nYet if he'd intended that, why not do so before now? He'd had ample opportunities, especially when Jack was her partner. Few people would have missed her back then save Jack, and he'd been Sethanon's right-hand man.\n\n\"I doubt the man would be fool enough to try it himself.\"\n\n\"No, but the transmitter you're getting also acts as a tracking signal. Stephan hopes to trace you to Sethanon's headquarters, at the very least.\"\n\nAnd then what? A quick raid in the hope of flushing out the upper echelons of his organization? Stephan was a fool if he thought it would be so easy. They were talking about someone who had successfully covered his tracks for years.\n\n\"How deep are Wetherton's ties to Hopeworth?\"\n\n\"Very, if Hopeworth is in fact responsible for his cloning.\"\n\n\"It doesn't make sense, you know. Why clone someone like Wetherton? From what I've read of the man, he's never been considered prime ministerial material.\"\n\n\"But David Flint was. And remember, Sethanon has already tried to replace him with a clone.\"\n\nWhich suggested that if the clones _were_ coming from Hopeworth, then Sethanon was in control of the base. And yet, if that were true, why would Hopeworth be showing interest in her if Sethanon already knew what she was and was monitoring her? And what of Joe, who seemed to be actively protecting her from Hopeworth? If he were Sethanon and in charge of Hopeworth, why protect her from them? There was too much conflicting information to make heads or tails of it. \"So this whole assignment is simply a setup to discover who is pulling Wetherton's strings?\"\n\n\"Setup? No.\" Gabriel hesitated slightly. \"But is that one of its goals? Yes. We need to uncover who is behind Wetherton, and stop this whole clone replacement business before it goes any further up the government ladder.\"\n\n\"Meaning Wetherton's bait, and so am I. So what? No matter what the dangers, it's sure as hell better than spending the rest of my life in this broom closet.\" She watched the impact of her words hit him, watched the regret and annoyance flit through his expression, then added, \"And I'll be careful. Anything else, Assistant Director?\"\n\nHe hesitated again, then shook his head. \"Keep in touch,\" he said softly.\n\nA hint of regret was in his eyes and she steeled herself against it. She'd tried hard enough. Now it was his turn. \"Why? I thought it was your life's ambition to get rid of me.\"\n\n\"I never said I wanted you out of my life.\"\n\nBut he'd never said he wanted her in it, either. He had never truly thrust out the hand of friendship. Everything she knew about him she'd learned during the course of their work. And he'd never attempted to extend the boundaries of their working relationship, despite the fact that there was obviously some sort of attraction between them.\n\nWhether that attraction would have led to anything more than a night or two in the sack was anyone's guess. If she were the betting type, she would have said yes. But it takes two to tango, and Gabriel was having no part of it.\n\n\"Why do you think it's safer to have me as a friend than as a partner?\" she asked. \"I know you've lost partners, but you've also lost a sister and, I believe, a brother. _Not_ being your partner is no protection from death. Not when you, the SIU and the Federation pursue the type of characters for whom dispensing death comes as easily as breathing.\"\n\nHe stared at her. His face held no emotion, and yet she could sense his unease as clearly as if it were her own. He didn't want to examine his reasoning, didn't want to look closely at his feelings. If he had shut himself off from his twin brother, what made her think she had a hope of cracking his reserve?\n\nShe waved a hand before he could answer her question. \"Forget it, Gabriel. Call me sometime and we'll go out for coffee or something.\"\n\n\"I will.\" He stared at her a moment longer, his gaze searching her face, as if memorizing her features. Then he turned and walked away.\n\nShe picked up the folder and shoved it into her bag. Then she opened her desk drawer, grabbing the few personal items she'd left in there: perfume, the pin Joe had given her, a hairbrush and several scrunchies.\n\nThen she stood and grabbed the coat from the back of her chair. But on the verge of leaving, she hesitated. As much as she'd hated what the broom closet had represented, at least it had been hers\u2014somewhere she could escape to and be safe. A place few people knew existed or could be bothered finding. Whatever happened after the Wetherton assignment, she knew she wouldn't be coming back here. One way or another, her life was about to change.\n\nWhether it was for the good or the bad, she wasn't entirely sure. And right at this moment, she didn't really care. Any sort of change had to be better than stagnating\u2014which was precisely what she'd spent the last few years doing. She'd let Jack take over her life to the extent that she had no life beyond the force. And, in some ways, she'd started to make the same mistake again with the SIU and with Gabriel.\n\n\"No more,\" she vowed to the emptiness. From now on, she would try to follow her own course, no matter what.\n\nGrabbing her bag, she turned and headed down to the labs.\n\n\u2014\n\nGabriel climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut. The headquarters of the Pegasus Foundation was on a huge strip of barren land out in the middle of goddamn nowhere. The main building was square-shaped, draped in black glass that seemed to suck in the light and cast thick shadows over the parking lot and the nearby limp-looking garden.\n\nHe took off his sunglasses and looked upward, squinting slightly against the bright sunlight. The building was six stories high, and even from where he stood he could see the radar dishes, antennas and various other bits of apparatus bristling from the roof. But he also caught sight of something else\u2014security, armed with guns. And the uniforms those men were wearing looked a hell of a lot like military uniforms.\n\nOnce again, the same question arose. If the military was this involved with Pegasus, then why bring in the SIU? It didn't make sense.\n\nThey were clearly being played\u2014but to what ends? Well, he'd never find out by standing here. He rubbed the back of his neck and headed across the parking lot toward two black-glass front doors.\n\nBehind him, the passenger door slammed and footsteps echoed, and Gabriel found himself clenching his fists. He slowly flexed them in an effort to relax. An hour in Illie's company and he was ready to punch the man. Not the best of beginnings.\n\nThe glass doors opened. He headed across to security and flashed his badge. \"We've an appointment with Director Douglass.\"\n\nThe security officer nodded. \"Take the second elevator down to level five. Someone will meet you in the foyer and take you to the director's office.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" Gabriel continued on. His new partner followed quietly. Maybe he'd finally caught on to the fact that silence got him more than an endless stream of chatter did.\n\nAs Gabriel punched the elevator call button, Illie stopped and cleared his throat. \"Have you seen the recent photos of the director? She's quite the babe.\"\n\nThen again, maybe Illie was silent only because he'd temporarily run out of inane things to say. \"We're not here to assess the director's hotness rating.\"\n\nIllie's responding grin was pure cheese. \"Hell, man, it doesn't hurt to look, does it?\"\n\n\"I'd prefer it if you concentrated on the matter at hand, not on adding another notch to your belt,\" Gabriel said severely. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for sublevel five.\n\nIllie's gray eyes narrowed slightly. \"That would be easier if I knew why the hell we were here.\"\n\nGabriel shrugged. \"If you've read the file, you know as much as I do.\"\n\n\"Nothing like sending agents out blind,\" Illie muttered. \"Though it's no wonder this place got robbed. Security didn't even bother checking us for weapons.\"\n\nGabriel smiled. Despite his years in the State Police, Illie had a lot to learn. \"They didn't have to. Did you notice the black globe in the ceiling?\"\n\nIllie frowned. \"Yeah. Camera, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"No, it's a device that renders energy weapons ineffective. There were also metal detectors on either side of the entrance, so if we'd been carrying standard weapons, the guard would have known.\"\n\n\"I didn't see any metal detectors.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't; they're built into the frame. The only giveaway is a faint red beam.\" Something human sight rarely picked up.\n\n\"Damn,\" Illie commented. \"Must have missed that session of training.\"\n\nAccording to his file, Illie hadn't missed any\u2014but that didn't mean he was actually paying attention. \"O'Donnell was your instructor, wasn't she?\"\n\nA slow smile stretched Illie's mouth. \"Yeah.\"\n\nWhich accounted for the lack of memory. O'Donnell was a pretty blonde in her mid-thirties, and decidedly single.\n\nThe elevator doors slid open and the waiting guard led them down a sterile white corridor.\n\nThey passed through two more security stations before the whiteness began to bleed away, replaced by muted greens and blues.\n\nKathryn Douglass turned from the window when they were ushered into her office. She was a tall, slender woman with silver-flecked brown hair and alabaster skin. Her age was hard to guess. Gabriel thought mid-fifties, but he wouldn't have been surprised if she was older. Either way, she was striking.\n\n\"Assistant Director Stern,\" she said, offering her hand. \"Thank you for being so prompt.\"\n\nGabriel clasped her hand. Her touch was firm, almost challenging, more like a man's than a woman's. \"This is my partner, James Illie.\"\n\nShe ignored Illie's outstretched hand and waved them toward two well-padded armchairs before sitting down herself. Her gaze was assessing, almost critical.\n\n\"I was under the impression that your partner was a woman,\" she said.\n\nThe back of Gabriel's neck began to itch. The director's manner wasn't what he'd expected from a woman whose company had just suffered a major robbery. No concern, no tension, just an odd sort of watchfulness.\n\nHe met her cool, gray gaze. \"Then your informant was wrong. Tell us about the break-in.\"\n\nThe director leaned back in her chair, a slight frown marring her almost perfect features. \"One of our research wings was breached last night around two. The destruction was localized to one section of our secure file rooms that houses our more recent project notes and findings.\"\n\n\"Was all the research in the secure room destroyed?\"\n\n\"No, because the fire was very localized, and only lasted a few minutes. Fortunately, that project happened to be one I have a keen interest in, and I'd taken a copy of the notes home with me to study the night before.\"\n\n\"Meaning you don't use computer filing? You use _paper_?\" Illie said, almost in disbelief.\n\nThe director's smile edged toward condescending. \"Computers can be hacked too easily. Most of our top projects are paper-only. This is a high-security center. Until last night, we'd thought it perfectly safe.\"\n\nNo building or security system was ever impervious. There was always a weak spot somewhere. All you had to do was find it. \"So you had no idea this building had been breached until the culprit set fire to your files?\"\n\n\"None at all. It's most vexing.\"\n\nShe didn't sound particularly vexed. \"What was destroyed?\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"The lab is involved in the development of a light-and-matter shield for the military.\"\n\n\"Then why call us in? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to call in the military?\"\n\n\"We did. But whoever broke into the lab first managed to get past five security stations and three laser alarms, and they were never picked up by the cameras. Clearly they were in some nonhuman form\u2014and maybe in no form at all\u2014and _that_ is more SIU territory than the military's.\"\n\nBut not if what they'd learned about Hopeworth over the last month was true. \"Who recommended that you call me?\"\n\nIllie gave him a sharp glance. Obviously he hadn't known they'd been requested.\n\n\"General Frank Lloyd. He said he'd had some dealings with your partner.\" She hesitated, her gaze shifting to Illie. \"I'm sure he said your partner was female.\"\n\n\"Does it really matter what sex my partner is?\" Gabriel said, unable to keep the slight edge of annoyance from his tone. This was looking more and more like a setup. But why?\n\nThe director raised an eyebrow. \"No, I suppose it doesn't. Do you wish to see the lab?\"\n\n\"If you want us to actually solve the crime, then yes, that would be a good idea.\"\n\nA small smile stretched her too-perfect lips, but there was little amusement in her cold gray eyes. She reached to her left and pressed a button on the intercom. \"Security will escort you there. Please feel free to come back if you have any further questions.\"\n\nGabriel rose. \"We will need to see the security tapes from last night.\"\n\n\"Of course. They'll be available by the time you finish in the lab.\"\n\n\"And we will need to question the guards who were on last night.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"They're off duty, but a list of names and addresses will be provided.\"\n\nThis whole situation just wasn't sitting right. This was a top-secret facility, one with tight military ties. No matter how seriously they wanted the crime solved, the director was being entirely too helpful.\n\nNo, whatever they wanted, it had something to do with Sam, not with solving this crime. But why was Sam so important to them?\n\n\"We'll see you afterward, then,\" Gabriel said, and followed Illie from the room.\n\nAs promised, a second security guard waited for them beyond the office doors. He led them back into the antiseptic white corridors and down a series of ramps.\n\nGabriel glanced at the ceiling. Cameras tracked their movements, but as far as he could tell, there were no voice recorders attached.\n\n\"Opinion?\" he said softly. As an empath, Illie was able to read and define emotions to such a degree that he could practically tell what a person was thinking.\n\nIllie cast a wary look at the security officer in front of them, then met Gabriel's gaze. \"That woman was lying through her back teeth,\" he muttered. \"She has another agenda entirely.\"\n\nThat much he'd already guessed. \"Did any particular statement stand out?\"\n\nIllie frowned. \"Yeah. The bit about it not being important whether your partner was male or female.\"\n\nBecause they wanted Sam, not Illie. But why? What had they intended to do once they'd gotten her here? Not even the military could think they could kidnap an SIU agent and get away with it.\n\n\"Who was your partner before me?\" Illie asked.\n\n\"She's not important right now.\" But even as he said the words, he knew it for a lie. Sam _was_ important.\n\nBut he'd been through hell once with the death of Andrea, who'd been not only his childhood sweetheart but both his lover _and_ his partner, and that, more than anything, strengthened his resolve to remain alone whenever it started slipping.\n\nHe blew out a breath and added, \"Did you detect any lies when Douglass spoke about the break-in?\"\n\n\"No, that much was true.\" Illie studied him thoughtfully. \"You have unresolved issues with your former partner, haven't you?\"\n\n\"I told you, it's not important.\" And certainly it wasn't anything he intended to discuss with a man who'd been his partner for precisely an hour and a half.\n\nIllie raised a skeptical eyebrow, but amusement danced in his eyes. \"Maybe I'll have to get a second opinion on that.\"\n\nGabriel found himself clenching his fist again. \"Let sleeping dogs lie, Illie.\"\n\nThe younger man studied him a minute longer, then smiled slightly. Surprisingly, he made no further comment. Though, as an empath, he would know when to push\u2014and when to stop.\n\nThey continued on. The white corridor seemed to stretch on without end. The itch at the back of Gabriel's neck grew.\n\nHe tapped the security officer on the shoulder. \"Where the hell is this lab? Siberia?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"It's one of the outer labs. We're accessing it through the underground tunnel system.\"\n\nThey finally approached another doorway. The guard swept his pass card through the slot and the metal door slid aside to reveal a pale green corridor. Several doors led off it, though they were all currently closed. Windows lined one wall, and through them they could see several white-coated technicians going about their business.\n\nThe guard continued on, but Illie nudged Gabriel's arm and pointed toward the lab. \"They seem okay to you?\"\n\nGabriel watched a scientist measure some clear liquid into a vial. \"I suppose so. Why?\"\n\nIllie's frown deepened. \"Because I'm not getting any readings from them. It's as if they're emotionally nonexistent.\"\n\n\"Might distance be a factor? The walls look fairly thick here in the labs.\"\n\nIllie shook his head. \"It shouldn't matter when I'm this close.\"\n\n\"Maybe the labs are psi nullified?\"\n\n\"Then I wouldn't be able to read you, would I? Or the guard.\"\n\nTrue. So what was going on? \"Can you feel anything else about them? Anything odd?\"\n\nIllie hesitated, his expression thoughtful. \"No, but look at them. It's almost like they're on automatic\u2014as if they're doing nothing more than following a set list of instructions.\"\n\n\"Which they could well be if they're performing a specific experiment.\" Even so, as Gabriel stared at the five men, he couldn't help noticing that they all seemed to be doing the exact _same_ thing.\n\n\"I know,\" Illie muttered. \"But it just doesn't feel right. _They_ don't feel right.\"\n\nThe guard stopped and punched several numbers on a keypad to the right of a doorway. The door slid open.\n\n\"This is the lab, gentlemen. I'll be out here if you need anything.\"\n\nIllie stepped past the guard and Gabriel followed. The lab was narrow but long, all white walls and gleaming metal benches. The far end was lined with a map and upright cabinets, and nearby were several tables strewn with papers and folders\u2014none of which had been so much as scorched. The only things that _had_ been burned were two cabinets to the far right of the tables, and these were little more than melted blobs. A fire fierce enough to do _that_ should have destroyed the rest of the lab, let alone the nearby cabinets and scattered paperwork. But they weren't even scorched.\n\n\"None of this makes sense.\" Illie walked down the aisle between the rows of tables, his footsteps echoing in the cold silence. \"If our thieves could get into this lab unseen, why just destroy only a couple of cabinets? Why not destroy the lot?\"\n\n\"Maybe they wanted to destroy something very specific.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" Illie stopped beside one of the tables. \"Yet the alarms went off the minute the fire was set, so how the hell did they escape? I get the feeling there's only one entrance to this place.\"\n\n\"One entrance, but perhaps more than one exit.\" Gabriel bent to study the melted remains of what looked like a lock\u2014probably from one of the cabinets. It appeared to have been made of tungsten metal, which was yet another pointer as to how hot the fire had been. And that had to mean it was no ordinary fire.\n\n\"I'll tell you one thing\u2014some of these projects weren't new, if these plans are anything to go by.\"\n\nGabriel glanced up. Illie leaned against the table, studying the papers strewn there. \"Why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Simple; they're dated. These plans are over two years old.\"\n\n\"Check the other cabinets.\" Gabriel rose and walked over to the second melted cabinet. There wasn't even anything that _looked_ like a lock on this one; it was just one huge congealed mass of different metals. He glanced at the untouched cabinets; the gauge of steel used in them and the thickness of the doors suggested they were fireproofed, and he had no doubt these ones would have been as well. But what type of fire could so utterly destroy fireproofed cabinets in a matter of minutes? As far as he knew, not even firestarters were capable of creating a burn so fierce and hot in such a short space of time.\n\n\"The end cabinet has more recent projects,\" Illie said into the silence.\n\nThe end cabinet was one of the few that hadn't been ransacked. \"Maybe our thief was working his way through the plans. Maybe he wanted the complete set of plans, past and present.\"\n\n\"Good theory, except there are no plans for light or matter transmitters in this lot.\"\n\n\"Then the thieves might have taken them.\"\n\n\"If theft _had_ been their goal, they could have gotten in and out without anyone being aware. So why set the fire? It makes no sense.\"\n\n\"It does if they specifically wanted the destruction to be noted. Maybe it was some kind of message.\" But what was it about the light-and-matter project they'd destroyed that they'd wanted to make such a point about? It was a question only Douglass could answer\u2014and one he suspected she wouldn't. \"Anything else of interest in the cabinets?\"\n\n\"A lot of projects marked unviable.\" Illie slammed the cabinet door shut. \"I'm getting a bad feeling about this.\"\n\nGabriel had passed the bad feeling point a while ago. Now it was more of a sick certainty that something bad was about to happen. \"Let's head back upstairs and view the tapes. Then we'll go interview the security personnel from last night.\"\n\n\"I don't think we'll find much on the\u2014\"\n\nA strident siren cut off the rest of Illie's sentence. A muffled explosion rumbled in the distance, then the floor began to shake. Slowly at first, but with increasing intensity.\n\n\"Quake,\" Illie said, calmly studying the ceiling as if searching for any sign of collapse.\n\nGabriel did likewise. Spider-like lines began to splinter across the concrete. Too quickly, he thought, and frowned. \"I don't think so.\"\n\nAnother explosion vibrated the air around them. The siren cut off abruptly and the ensuing silence was almost eerie.\n\n\"I think we'd better get out of here, Stern.\"\n\nGabriel didn't reply. Wind stirred his hair, as if some unseen force was moving toward them. The back of his neck burned. Something was very, _very_ wrong.\n\nHe lunged forward, grabbed Illie by the scruff of the neck and thrust him toward the nearest cabinet.\n\n\"Get in there, close the door and do not come out until I say it's safe!\"\n\n\"Have you gone mad?\"\n\n\"The cabinets are fireproof.\" The concrete bucked underneath him and Gabriel stumbled several steps backward before he regained his balance.\n\n\"Holy shit.\" Illie's mutter was etched with fear. \"The back wall is melting.\"\n\nGabriel glanced over his shoulder. Rivulets of concrete rushed toward them. A good third of the wall had melted, revealing a maelstrom of fire.\n\n\"Shut the door, damn you!\"\n\nAnother explosion ripped through the air, followed quickly by a sharp crack. He glanced up and saw the cracks on the ceiling widening and joining.\n\nChunks of ceiling began to rain down as Gabriel dove for the nearest cabinet, hoping like hell it would hold against the approaching firestorm.\n\n# THREE\n\nTHE LOCKER SHUDDERED AS THE force of the storm hit. The walls began to burn, becoming too hot, too quickly. The air seethed with heat, and every intake of breath burned Gabriel's throat and lungs.\n\nHe hunched in the middle of the locker and prayed that the thing would hold up long enough to ride out the storm. Sweat skated across his body, drying as fast as it appeared in the soul-sucking heat. He shifted his arm and licked several droplets before they could evaporate. It might not be much, but his mouth felt drier than the Sahara, and he knew he had to keep some moisture in his body or he wouldn't survive.\n\nHis wristcom vibrated. It might have rung, too, only he couldn't hear it against the whirlwind of fury battering the cabinet. He didn't answer it. Couldn't. He didn't dare move, lest he touch the sides of the locker. They glowed with heat, and one touch could be deadly.\n\nTwo heartbeats later, the noise began to bleed away. Silence reigned for several more heartbeats, and then a hissing began\u2014softly at first, but then gaining in momentum. Water began to seep into the locker.\n\nThe sprinklers. Some of them must still be active, despite half the ceiling coming down. He waited several more minutes, then cautiously touched the door. Hot, but not unbearable.\n\nHe turned the handle, but the door didn't budge. He shoved harder. A crack of light appeared along one edge. Through it, he could see chunks of concrete, scattered about like some giant's abandoned toys.\n\nHe shifted around until he could get his feet against the door, then pushed with all his might. The door buckled under the force he applied, but eventually the slabs of concrete moved enough that he could climb out.\n\nWater misted the air, quickly soaking through his clothes. He lifted his face and closed his eyes, allowing the moisture to cool his skin.\n\nThen he remembered his new partner. He quickly picked his way across the rubble to the locker that held Illie. The door moved slightly and relief swept through him. At least he hadn't managed to kill yet _another_ partner\u2014though a tiny, callous part of his soul suggested that if death came in threes, then Illie's might have freed him to partner with Sam.\n\nBut it was _not_ the way he wanted to break the curse on his partners.\n\n\"Hang on,\" he said. \"There are several concrete blocks piled up against the door.\"\n\nHe threw them to one side and forced open the locker.\n\nIllie scrambled out, his face red and his suit stained black with sweat. \"Now _that_ was an experience I don't care to relive!\"\n\n\"Yeah, pretty awesome,\" Gabriel muttered.\n\nHis wristcom rang into the silence\u2014a shrill sound that made him jump. He tapped the screen and said, \"Stern,\" as he studied the mess that had once been a lab. What had probably saved them was the far wall; only a third of it had melted under the intense heat of the maelstrom. The rest had held, offering some form of protection.\n\nSam's features appeared on the vid-screen, her blue eyes clouded with worry. \"Gabriel? Are you okay?\"\n\nGabriel swore softly and rubbed a hand across his eyes. He'd hoped that by shattering their working relationship, he'd break the psi bond that was growing between them. That obviously wasn't going to happen\u2014or maybe it was just too soon to have any real effect.\n\n\"Yeah, I'm fine, but I can't talk now.\"\n\nIt came out sharper than he'd intended, and the warm concern left her face, replaced by an iciness he'd seen all too often of late.\n\n\"Sure. Talk to you later.\"\n\nShe signed off before he could say anything else. _Way to go,_ he thought sourly. _Continue speaking to her like that and she'll definitely remain a part of your life._\n\n\"You know,\" Illie said casually, \"you really have fuck-all idea how to talk to a woman.\"\n\n\"Shove it up your ass,\" Gabriel muttered, then turned at the sound of footsteps.\n\nHalf a dozen men came into the lab, some carrying hoses and others medical equipment. Prepared for the worst, Gabriel thought.\n\n\"They're surprised,\" Illie muttered. \"They didn't expect to see us alive.\"\n\n\"Relieved surprised, or annoyed surprised?\"\n\nIllie hesitated, studying the approaching white suits. \"Relieved.\"\n\nSo if this _was_ a setup, these men didn't know about it.\n\nOne man separated from the pack, pulling off his breathing mask as he approached. \"Assistant Director Stern? I'm glad to see you alive, sir!\"\n\nGabriel glanced at the man's name tag. \"What the hell happened here, Rogers?\"\n\n\"Near as we can figure, a chemical spill in the lab next door resulted in an explosion. You're lucky to be alive, sir.\"\n\n_Wasn't that the truth._ Though he had to wonder, if this _was_ a trap, what had the military hoped to achieve? \"Were there many casualties?\"\n\nRogers nodded, his face bleak. \"The security officer who escorted you down here, and the five scientists working in the lab.\"\n\n\"Those were the scientists I couldn't get a reading on,\" Illie murmured. \"The ones who felt wrong.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Gabriel said. And it would be worth ordering extra tests done on their remains, just to discover what was going on with them. And what they were.\n\n\"If you don't mind,\" Rogers continued, \"I'll have one of my men escort you down to the medical center, just to make sure that you're both okay.\"\n\nGabriel nodded. \"And we'll need to talk to the director again.\"\n\n\"Once the doc's given us clearance.\"\n\n\"Let's get it over with, then.\"\n\nRogers motioned to one of his men and moved away. Gabriel glanced at Illie, noting his frown. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"This is what they got us down here for,\" he muttered. \"So they can do tests\u2014on you and your partner.\"\n\nUndoubtedly meaning his former partner, not his current one. \"Who are you getting this from?\"\n\n\"The small gent at the back. He was surprised when he first came in, then excited.\" Illie met Gabriel's gaze. \"What's so special about your former partner that this mob is willing to kill six people just to run some tests on her?\"\n\nThe bigger question was, why did they continue with the tests when it was obvious his partner _wasn't_ Sam? What did they hope to achieve? Was it merely a means of getting rid of him and Illie? Though why would they do that, when it would only bring down closer scrutiny of their activities by the SIU?\n\n\"We don't know.\" And that was becoming more and more of a problem.\n\nRogers's assistant approached. \"If you'd like to follow me, gentlemen, we'll get this over with as quickly as possible.\"\n\nNo doubt they would. Without Sam, though, it was pretty much a pointless exercise\u2014thankfully.\n\n\"They still want to test you, you know.\" Illie muttered. \"Something you did during the firestorm has excited that scientist.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"But I didn't do anything.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you did,\" Illie said. \"You sensed what was happening early enough to save our lives.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you're reading him right?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Positive.\"\n\nThey approached a set of doors marked with a red cross. Their escort swiped a card and the doors slid open. How many med centers needed a security clearance to get into? Gabriel wondered. Why bother, unless the med center did more than simply patch up accident victims?\n\nWhatever the military was up to, he'd just have to let it play out\u2014for now. But the Pegasus Foundation and its director certainly needed closer scrutiny.\n\nTheir escort motioned them toward two well-padded chairs. Gabriel sat down and watched the man disappear through a second set of doors. \"When we get back to HQ, I want you to do a complete background check on Kathryn Douglass.\"\n\nIllie nodded. \"Including home security tapes?\"\n\n\"If you can get them.\" It would keep Illie off his back for a while, at least. In the meantime, he'd do a check of his own\u2014on one General Frank Lloyd. There had to be information about the man somewhere.\n\nHis first priority, though, was Sam. Illie was right. If the military was willing to kill six men just to get the chance to examine her, it could only mean they had a fair idea about who and what she might be.\n\nAnd that, in turn, made her current assignment even more dangerous.\n\nIf Hopeworth _was_ behind this bombing attempt, they wouldn't leave it at that. There would be more.\n\nBut he couldn't watch Sam's back twenty-four hours a day. Not without help. It was, Gabriel thought, time to arrange a meeting with his sister.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe shrill ringing of the telephone jerked Sam awake. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock. It was just past eight in the evening. She must have dozed off while reading the riveting account of Wetherton's life.\n\nShe blindly groped the coffee table behind the sofa arm and finally picked up her wristcom. \"Yeah?\"\n\n\"Samantha? Doctor O'Hearn here.\"\n\nO'Hearn was the nonhuman and rare species specialist she'd been sent to by Gabriel and Stephan. Apparently, if anyone could sort out precisely what she was, it would be this woman. A sliver of tension ran through her. Surely it was too soon to have reliable results back? She'd been told it could take months of checking and cross-checking. \"Hi, Doc. What can I do for you?\"\n\n\"I want your permission to discuss your case with Karl Morgan.\"\n\nKarl? Gabriel's friend? \"Sure, but why? Karl's an herbalist healer. How would he be able to help?\"\n\n\"He also happens to be the Federation's resident expert when it comes to extinct races. I think he might be able to help make sense of some of these results.\"\n\nObviously, O'Hearn had been unable to match the gene coding in the test samples with any known races if she was now considering extinct ones. Walkers were, apparently, a very rare race who were vaguely related to the vampires, without possessing their need for blood to survive. A race who could completely disappear into shadows. _Become_ shadows, in fact. They also apparently had eyes just like hers\u2014eyes that wavered between blue and gray. \"Karl did say he suspected there might be walker blood in me, but he never got around to doing the tests.\"\n\nMainly because he'd been blackmailed into handing her over to Jack, who'd wanted to use her emerging abilities to overthrow Sethanon.\n\n\"Yes,\" O'Hearn said. \"Gabriel mentioned Karl's suspicions, which is why I want your permission to talk to him.\"\n\n\"If it helps uncover what I might be, then sure, go ahead.\" Sam hesitated. \"Was there any match to what's supposedly on my birth certificate?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. There are traces of shifter and changer, as I mentioned earlier. We've also pinpointed the partial code of the were-people. But there's something else, something I've never seen before.\"\n\nIf she _had_ come from Hopeworth, that wasn't altogether surprising. \"I want to know the minute you come up with anything.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nSam hung up and yawned. What she needed was an early night. She shoved the folders to one side and got ready for bed.\n\nSleep came. So, too, did the dreams.\n\nShe was in a large, white room. Lights glared above her, their brightness as warm as the sun and almost as blinding. Sweat trickled down her face and her back. She was standing alone in that room, but she was being watched. Down at the far end was another room. Men in white stared at her from behind the safety of shatterproof glass.\n\nJoshua was with them, his small form dwarfed by the doctors. Silent but not afraid. Josh was never truly afraid.\n\n\"Feel the heat. Draw it in,\" the man with the dead gray eyes commanded.\n\nJust hearing him speak made her shudder. Not because of the threat in his tone\u2014though she knew from experience that threat all too often became reality\u2014but because of what lay underneath his voice and his words. Evil soaked his very essence. Just being near him sickened her.\n\nShe looked at the fire, but she saw only flames, dancing brightly. She couldn't do what he wanted. He was asking the wrong person.\n\n\"I _can't._ \"\n\nThe lights grew brighter, burning her skin as fiercely as the flames. She couldn't back away, couldn't move. They'd chained her down this time.\n\n\"Become one with the fire. Feel its power. _Use_ its power,\" Gray Eyes said.\n\nThe urge to scream ran through her, but it wouldn't matter to them if she did. It never mattered. Her gaze met Joshua's.\n\n_You have to do something, or they'll kill you,_ his voice whispered into her mind, calm despite the anger she could almost taste.\n\n_Fire is not my element._\n\n_No. They are fools who do not look beyond the obvious. But you have other abilities. Use those instead._\n\n_They'll know. They'll see the difference._\n\n_They know nothing about us, despite all their tests. Trust me, Samantha._\n\nShe briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she stared at the fire burning fiercely in the pit three feet away. The flames shivered, as if dancing away from an unseen wind. Sweat tracked down her face, stinging her eyes. She ignored it, concentrating, drawing power up from the depths of her soul. From the ground itself.\n\nThe fiery mass rose from the pit and hovered in midair for several seconds. She glanced at the control room and saw Joshua step back, well out of harm's way.\n\nShe smiled\u2014a cold smile. A hateful smile. Aimed not at him, but at the men with him. The men who wouldn't let them be, wouldn't let them go.\n\nThe burning mass leapt across the arena and smashed through the control box's glass. White coats scattered like confetti. Then the lights went out and the screaming began.\n\nLaughter filled the air, mingling with the screams. Her laughter; Joshua's laughter. Both of them old beyond their years and full of hate. The fire leapt from the men to the computers, and she realized he was feeding it, making it destroy the sensor readouts. Once again they would have no record of what had happened here today. Nothing more than the words of those who survived.\n\n_Josh, I'm chipped. They'll kill me._\n\nThe flames died suddenly, sucked back into the void that had fed them. _I know. It is not our time to escape yet. But when it is, they will taste the fires more fully._\n\nThe malevolence in his voice made her shiver...and she woke, a chill encasing her body. She ran a hand through her sweaty hair and stared at the ceiling for several seconds. Were the dreams memories trying to break free? Or simply the imaginings of a fertile mind?\n\nThere was no way to be certain. But if _this_ dream were to be believed, then she had not only killed, but she'd enjoyed it. Nor was it the first or the last time it had happened.\n\nAnd she'd been no more than seven years old at the time.\n\n\"Lights on,\" she murmured, wanting to banish the shadows and the last remnants of the dream.\n\nBrightness flooded through the hotel room. She sat up, drew her knees close to her chest and hugged them tightly. If Joshua was in fact her brother, as the dreams insisted, why did he call her Samantha? According to Mary Elliot, the woman who'd supposedly looked after the two of them in Hopeworth, Joshua's sister had been called Josephine.\n\nAnd why was she dreaming of a scientist with gray eyes when all the scientists who had dealt with the Penumbra project were dead?\n\nOr were they?\n\nThey'd had only Allars's word on that, and Allars was an old man whose memories might well have been altered by the military. No matter how reliable his information had seemed, no matter how much it had jelled with other sources, they had to take everything he said with a grain of salt.\n\nShe rubbed her arms and looked at the time. It was nearly eleven. Wetherton would be leaving the theater soon and heading home. According to the file, the vampire would attack just before Wetherton climbed into the car.\n\nThe theater was only four blocks down from her hotel. If she hurried, she just might make it there in time to see what happened. She had a horrible suspicion that things would not go as Stephan had planned.\n\nAnd investigating was certainly better than sitting here in this hotel room, trying to stay awake in an effort to avoid the dreams that made no sense, and yet terrified her.\n\n\u2014\n\nGabriel swiped his credit card through the cab's slot and climbed out. Illie had offered to drive him home, or even here, to his sister's, but he'd had more than enough of his new partner. At least Sam had been able to appreciate moments of silence\u2014not to mention being a whole lot easier on the eyes.\n\nNot that he'd ever admit either to her.\n\nHe scrubbed a hand through his hair and wished he could just stop thinking about her. Damn it, he'd gotten what he wanted\u2014and what was best for both of them.\n\nSo why did he feel so damn depressed about it?\n\nMaybe it was just exhaustion. He and Illie had spent an hour in the med center at Pegasus being poked and prodded. Then they'd wasted another three hours viewing the security tapes and talking to the evasive Kathryn Douglass. Whatever secrets the woman hid, she wasn't giving them away easily. Even Illie had trouble reading her.\n\nRight now, he wanted nothing more than to go home, have a drink and go to bed. But he couldn't\u2014not until he'd looked after the woman he couldn't stop thinking about.\n\nHe climbed the front steps and reached out to press the doorbell, but the door opened before he could. His sister stood before him, green eyes concerned despite her welcoming smile.\n\n\"A visit from my little brother at this hour of the night? Things _must_ be bad.\" Her voice was soft as she rose on her toes to kiss his cheek.\n\nGabriel smiled and kissed her back. \"I need help.\"\n\n\"I gathered that. Head on through to the kitchen. Alain's making coffee.\"\n\nHe made his way down the shadowed hall, his boots echoing loudly on the wooden floors. Alain, Jessie's brown-haired, large-limbed husband of six months, stood near the sink, pouring hot coffee into three mugs.\n\nHe glanced around as Gabriel entered, giving him a quick look over before his lips split into a wide grin. \"Man, you look like shit.\"\n\nGabriel smiled and dragged out a chair. \"That's a pretty accurate description of how I feel.\"\n\nAlain placed a mug in front of him and sat opposite. The scent of coffee wafted up, teasing him.\n\n\"Things not going well?\"\n\nThough there was a sympathetic edge in Alain's voice, amusement crinkled the corners of his brown eyes. Gabriel had an odd feeling he wasn't actually referring to work. What had Jessie been telling him?\n\n\"Yeah, you could say that. I almost got blown up this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Tough days at the office are the pits.\"\n\n\"But you're not here for sympathy, are you?\" Jessie said, as she sat down and leaned her shoulder against Alain's.\n\nLoneliness swirled through Gabriel. If only briefly, he found himself wanting what most of his siblings had\u2014someone to lean on. Someone to come home to. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. God, he _definitely_ needed some sleep if he was thinking that. Besides, his chance at such a life had slipped away when Andrea died. \"No, I want you to help me guard Sam's back.\"\n\nJessie shared a look with her husband, concern evident. Alain leaned forward, interlacing his long fingers. \"Stephan's not going to like that.\"\n\n\"Stephan doesn't have to know.\"\n\nJessie smiled slightly. \"You can't keep secrets from Stephan. None of us can. He has a nose for secrets.\"\n\nWell, this was one secret he'd better keep his nose well out of or there would be hell to pay. \"Look, Stephan's assigned Sam to the Wetherton case. He's hoping her presence will draw Sethanon out. But I think it's more likely to draw out Hopeworth.\"\n\nAlain's frown deepened. \"Why would Hopeworth be interested in her?\"\n\n\"Hopeworth's been playing in the genetic sandbox for years, and Sam is more than likely one of their creations. And even if she's not, she's caught their interest.\"\n\nJessie picked up her mug and regarded him steadily over the rim. \"Why didn't you just keep her as a partner? You wouldn't have had this problem then.\"\n\n\"My partners have a bad habit of dying.\" He hesitated and rubbed his eyes again. Andrea might have died by an assassin's bullet, but Mike's death had been _his_ responsibility. He'd fired the killing shot. \"I prefer to work alone. You know that.\"\n\nA small smile touched her lips. \"What I know, brother dearest, is that you're using your fear as an excuse.\"\n\nHe raised an eyebrow. \"An excuse for what?\"\n\n\"I remember a man holding the woman who was both his girlfriend and his partner in his arms and vowing to never let another woman come so close to his heart. A promise he has kept, until now.\" She hesitated, green eyes regarding him steadily. \"Sam threatens that vow because you know, deep down, that she is the one for you. _That's_ why you got rid of her.\"\n\nThough an empath, his sister could sometimes be surprisingly off base. He frowned and sipped his coffee. There was _some_ truth in her words, though. He _did_ have a connection with Sam, and he was definitely attracted to her. But as much as he might occasionally hunger for it, he really didn't want emotional complications of _any_ kind in his life. That was part of the reason he continued to block Stephan's thoughts. Why he was so comfortable with Sandy, another SIU officer and his sometime lover. She wanted no commitment, no emotion, beyond friendship.\n\nAs for Sam being the one...He put down his mug and tried to ignore the ache in his heart.\n\n\"Andrea was my destiny, my life mate. Not Sam. Whatever I feel for Sam, it could never evolve into something that lasts. My heart died with Andrea.\"\n\n\"Are you so sure, lad?\" Alain said, his deep voice holding a touch of compassion.\n\n\"Yes.\" At least Alain understood. Jess, and the rest of his family, probably never would. They weren't shapechangers, and weren't cursed with the knowledge that there could be only one permanent mate for them\u2014ever.\n\nJessie sniffed. \"Andrea was your first love, Gabriel. Don't be so certain that what you felt then was life-altering.\"\n\n\"Look, I came here to ask for help, not to be emotionally dissected.\"\n\nJessie placed a hand on his, squeezing gently. \"I'm sorry.\" She hesitated, her face losing animation, her green eyes suddenly clouded, distant. \"Sam is one half of a force\u2014light to his shade. You are her anchor, her reality. Push her away and you force her into his circle of influence.\"\n\n\"Whose circle?\" Gabriel said softly.\n\nJessie blinked. Warmth returned to her face and her eyes. She rubbed her arms and smiled ruefully. \"I'm sorry. The vision's gone.\"\n\nGabriel cursed silently. Perhaps he shouldn't have spoken. Her visions were fragile at the best of times. \"Will you help me?\"\n\nShe glanced at Alain and nodded. \"But I wouldn't hold much hope of keeping this from Stephan for too long.\"\n\n\"Let me worry about Stephan.\" Gabriel gulped down the rest of his coffee and rose. \"I'll head to the office now and grab a copy of Wetherton's schedule. I'll email the roster once I work it out. Hopefully, between the three of us, we can keep her out of Hopeworth's hands.\"\n\n\u2014\n\nSam shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and leaned a shoulder against the bus shelter wall. Across the width of Exhibition Street, people were beginning to file out of Her Majesty's Theatre, and reporters jostled with spectators for the best position to view the exiting celebrities. Limos lined the curb, waiting for their passengers.\n\nIt was the perfect place to attempt an assassination. With the noise and the milling crowd, it was unlikely anyone would notice anything until it was too late. As yet, though, there was no sign of anything untoward.\n\nThe latest teen sensation came into sight, his blond head promptly disappearing amongst the crowd of waiting paparazzi and fans. Two seconds later, Wetherton came into view and was greeted by resounding indifference.\n\nHe wasn't happy about it, either, if the look on his face was anything to go by. He hovered near the doors for several minutes, then roughly grabbed the woman by his side and guided her away. Three others followed in their wake\u2014two men and another woman\u2014as Sam pushed away from the bus shelter wall. Wetherton's chauffeur hadn't been quick enough to grab a good position, so he was waiting half a block away.\n\nSam ran across Exhibition Street and fell into step several yards behind them. Though she kept an eye on the shadows surrounding the nearby buildings and shop fronts and listened to the sigh of the wind, there didn't seem to be anything out of place. No sign of the vampire, no sensation of evil haunting the night.\n\nAnd yet, something _was_ here\u2014a presence that itched at the back of her mind. A memory waiting to surface.\n\nShe frowned and eyed Wetherton's group uneasily. The sensation was coming from their direction for sure\u2014but what it implied was anyone's guess.\n\nFrown deepening, Sam tore her gaze from them and checked the night again. They were now distant enough from the theater and the crowd. So why hadn't the vampire attacked? If they went much farther, there would be no witnesses, no press. No point.\n\nA chauffeur climbed out of a white limousine when Wetherton's group approached it. As the chauffeur walked around to open the passenger door, Wetherton stopped and looked around. His gaze fell on Sam before she could avoid it, but quickly moved on. _Easily dismissed,_ she thought wryly, but stepped into the shadows of a nearby shop entrance anyway. She wasn't supposed to be here, so it was better if she kept out of sight as much as possible.\n\nOnce the chauffeur had opened the car door, Wetherton climbed in, followed quickly by the two women and one of the men. The last man hesitated, one hand on the roof, his gray hair gleaming silver under the wash of the streetlights as he turned to study the night in much the same manner as Wetherton had.\n\nHis blunt-nosed profile sent shock crashing through her.\n\nHe was the man from her dream.\n\nThe evil man with the dead gray eyes.\n\n# FOUR\n\nSAM PRESSED THE EAR STUD, quickly activating it. \"I want a search done on the man with the gray hair,\" she murmured. \"All details, ASAP.\"\n\nThe man in question hesitated a bit longer, then climbed into the car. The chauffeur walked back to the driver's side and, within seconds, the car purred to life and was jockeying for position in the jam of other cars attempting to leave the theater district.\n\nSo much for Stephan's spectacular attack. What the hell was going to happen now? Without the attack, there was no reason for her to become one of Wetherton's bodyguards. No reason that wouldn't look suspicious, anyway.\n\nAnd that, in turn, meant a return to the broom closet.\n\n\"There's never a vampire around when you bloody need one,\" she muttered, as she stepped from the shadows, eyeing the car that now had its nose out into the street. \"Someone had better contact me and tell me if this assignment is still a go.\"\n\nShe touched the transmitter and switched it off. Then she resolutely turned away. A return to her hotel was her only option now.\n\nShe'd barely taken three steps when an explosion ripped through the night. As her heart leapt to the vicinity of her throat, a wave of heat hit, sending her staggering. She swore loudly, but the words were lost under the sound of screaming. She caught her balance and swung around.\n\nWhat lay before her seemed more like a scene out of an action movie than something that could happen on a Melbourne street.\n\nWetherton's car was up on two wheels, skidding through the line of cars under the force of the explosion. It spun the two closest away, then crashed into a car parked on the right side of the road and thumped back down, the back wheels on fire and the flames spreading fast.\n\nPeople were scattering\u2014some running back inside the theater and others running down the street through the line of now-halted cars\u2014most of them screaming and obviously terrified. The paparazzi were in a frenzy, cameras flashing as they jostled for the best position. Wetherton had finally gotten the attention he'd missed earlier.\n\nHad he lived to bask in it?\n\nThe chauffeur scrambled from the car, blood pouring down his face from a cut above his eye. Then a line of blue light bit through the night and hit him in the chest, and he dropped like a stone out of her sight.\n\nLaser fire.\n\nHe'd been hit with laser fire.\n\n_That_ certainly wasn't a part of Stephan's plans. Sam drew her weapon and ran forward, using the cars as cover as her gaze swept the surrounding rooftops. The laser shot had come from the top of a building to the right of the theater, but the light glaring from the many signs prevented her from seeing if the shooter was still up there.\n\nOnly there was no reason to believe he wasn't.\n\nShe glanced at the limo. There were no movements from inside. Maybe the occupants had seen what had happened to the driver and were staying put, despite the dangerous fire. Or maybe they were unconscious.\n\nOr dead.\n\nThe answers to those questions were something she had to find out\u2014fast. But the closer she got to the car, the more the heat lashed at her skin. Oddly enough, the heat seemed to concentrate on one side of her face\u2014it almost felt as if _she'd_ been burned. The smell of burning rubber damn near choked her, and thick smoke spun through the night. If Wetherton and his people _were_ alive and didn't get out soon, the fumes and the heat would kill them. Not to mention the growing danger of the gas tank exploding.\n\nFrom across the road, a familiar voice yelled at people to get back, that everything was under control. She smiled grimly. Briggs\u2014someone she'd worked with and trusted.\n\nBut she hoped like hell that Briggs wasn't the only one Stephan had sent in, because right now she had a feeling they were going to need every agent they could get.\n\nSam hesitated at the nose of the last car before the burning limo. A few feet of free space now separated her from the wreck. She blew out a breath, glanced up at the rooftop, then sprinted forward.\n\nBlue light nipped at her heels, melting the asphalt before a secondary wave of kinetic energy sent jagged asphalt pieces exploding upward. Not a laser, but rather a plasma weapon, which ionized matter and projected it with sufficient force to cause secondary impact damage in addition to the initial high thermal damage. She swore and dove behind the burning car, ripping her jeans down to her skin. She swore again and rose on one knee, squinting against the smoke and the heat as she scanned the rooftops. She could see little through the thick, soupy haze.\n\nCoughing as the smoke began to catch in her throat, she edged forward and knelt down by the chauffeur, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. Though with a hole the size of her fist burned through his chest, that wasn't too surprising.\n\nShe closed his eyes, then shifted position. Flames were beginning to lick at the underbelly of the limo, and, this close, the heat was intense, almost suffocating. Every breath burned and the sweat sliding down her forehead seemed to sizzle. She had to get out of here\u2014had to get Wetherton and his people out\u2014before they were either fried or suffocated or the gas tank exploded.\n\nSounds whispered through the crackling of flames\u2014quick footsteps, approaching from the front of the limo. She swung and sighted her laser, only to recognize the blonde who approached. She lowered her weapon hastily and said, \"What the hell is going on, Briggs?\"\n\nBriggs stepped over the chauffeur's body and squatted near her. \"I don't know. The vamp was supposed to attack as Wetherton was coming out of the theater. This wasn't part of the plan, believe me.\"\n\n\"Were you the only agent assigned?\"\n\n\"Yeah. We're only talking about one vamp, and he's little more than a kid, at that.\" Briggs hesitated, a grim smile touching her lips. \"Dead easy. Or it should have been.\"\n\n_Should_ being the operative word. \"Our first priority's getting Wetherton out.\"\n\n\"You check, and I'll cover.\"\n\nSam nodded. Smoke and flames enveloped almost every part of the car now. The paint had begun to peel, tearing away like sunburned skin. She pulled the sleeve of her jacket over her hand and opened the back door. Smoke boiled out, pungent and black. Inside the car, someone coughed. At least one of them was alive, though how, she had no idea.\n\nAnother blue beam bit through the night and the rear window of the car shattered, spraying bright shards of glass everywhere. Briggs rose and fired several shots at the rooftop of a caf\u00e9 to the left of the theater.\n\nHeat itched across Sam's skin\u2014heat that whispered secrets and had nothing to do with the flames. It wasn't a vampire up there firing at them, but a shifter. Obviously, the vamp had done a runner, and others were in control here tonight. But who? Still, if there was one thing she'd learned over her years as a cop, it was that things rarely went the way they were planned. Mainly because all the various players were usually following a different script.\n\n\"SIU,\" she said, in between coughs. \"Is anyone seriously hurt in there?\"\n\n\"Wetherton's unconscious. His girlfriend has serious facial lacerations. The rest of us have minor cuts and scrapes.\"\n\nThe voice was cold, efficient. Familiar. She knew without looking that it belonged to the man with the dead eyes.\n\n\"We're going to lay covering fire so everyone can get out. One of you will have to drag Wetherton clear.\" She hesitated, coughing again as the thick smoke and heat caught in her throat. \"Make for the foyer of the theater.\"\n\nAt least there, Wetherton and his companions should be relatively safe from the laser fire. Unless, of course, the shooter moved.\n\nOr there was more than one shooter.\n\n\"Say when,\" Gray Eyes said.\n\nSam checked the charge on the laser, then glanced at Briggs and nodded. As one, they rose and began firing.\n\n\"Go!\" she screamed.\n\nThe twin lasers seared through the night, spraying the darkness with bright beams of light that danced across the metal rooftop with deadly force.\n\nThe car lurched. A woman scrambled out, followed quickly by a man who turned, reached back and hauled Wetherton out of the vehicle. Gray Eyes appeared, blood pouring down the left side of his face as he wedged a shoulder under the minister and hoisted him up, then quickly moved away from the limo with Wetherton on his back. The other man and two women followed, the second looking dazed and with blood flowing freely down her face.\n\n\"Go with them, Briggs,\" Sam ordered, and she continued firing until Briggs and the others had reached the theater doorway, even though the shadow on the roof had disappeared as soon as they'd returned fire.\n\nIf he moved too far, they'd lose him. And with him would go any chance of understanding what the hell was going on. Sam pressed the transmitter as she rose and ran back across the road.\n\n\"The attacker is a shifter, not a vampire. I'm in pursuit. Cleanup team and ambulance required.\"\n\nSirens were already screaming in the distance and people milled on the sidewalk, drawn like moths to the flame. Though the paparazzi feasted on it all, several of them ran in her wake, as if in anticipation of a scoop. She dug out her badge and flashed it in their direction.\n\n\"SIU, gentlemen. Get the hell back!\"\n\nWith reluctance, they complied. At least initially. She had no doubt they'd follow\u2014just a lot less obviously. That was another thing she'd learned over the years\u2014the press and a good story weren't easily separated.\n\nAnd there was a hell of a good story here\u2014one she wanted uncovered as much as they did.\n\nShe ran onto Little Bourke Street, heading for the alley behind the caf\u00e9s. The nearby streetlight flickered off and on, briefly illuminating the broken asphalt and grimy puddles of water that littered the alley's mouth. She slowed. The perfume of rotting rubbish, urine and water long gone stale rose to greet her, and she wrinkled her nose. So much for the hope that she'd left places like this behind when she'd become a spook.\n\nThe alley ran behind half a dozen shops, and rubbish bins lined the rear fences, most of them either overflowing or overturned. At the far end, huddled in the rear entrance of a building, was a sticklike mass of gray hair and stained clothing. He whispered obscenities to the wind, his voice harsh, strained, as he gestured wildly at the night.\n\nA drunk, not the shifter who'd attacked Wetherton.\n\nShe holstered the laser and climbed the old wooden fence. Once on the other side, she hesitated, listening. Lights glowed from the back windows of the caf\u00e9. People talked, a distant sound of confusion and concern that meshed perfectly with her emotions.\n\nShe looked up. The shifter was still up on the roof. His evil rode the air as easily as the wind stirred her hair.\n\nWhy hadn't he run? What was he waiting for?\n\n_Her._\n\nA chill raced down her spine. It was ludicrous, it truly was, and yet the thought\u2014or rather, the certainty\u2014that it was true was absolute.\n\nAnd yet, she was here by chance, by whim. How could anyone be so certain of her actions that he would know where she'd be at any given moment? It was impossible.\n\nThough not, perhaps, for the man who shared her dreams and her thoughts.\n\nAnd perhaps it wasn't even beyond the capacity of her makers, whoever they might be. Who really knew? Not her, that was for sure.\n\nShe rubbed her arms, but it did little to erase the cold sensation of dread running through her.\n\n_One problem at a time,_ she thought, and headed resolutely for the fire escape. Her footsteps echoed on the old metal stairs as she began to climb\u2014a loud warning of her approach. Yet no sound greeted her appearance on the roof. No movement. She frowned, not liking the feel of it.\n\nA billboard dominated the concrete expanse. Spotlights lined its base, their brightness aimed upward, leaving the rest of the rooftop a wasteland of shadows. A big old air-con unit rattled to her left. The awareness trembling across her skin suggested that the shifter hid behind it.\n\nShe raised her laser. \"SIU. Drop your weapon and then come out with your hands up.\"\n\nThe man hiding in the shadows didn't respond. On the street below, the wailing sirens abruptly stopped. Flashes of red and blue light ran across the darkness, splashing color across the glass-walled office building opposite. Almost normal sights and sounds in a night that felt anything but normal.\n\nShe forced her attention back to the air-con unit and the man who hid behind it. \"I repeat, this is the SIU. I know you're there. Drop your weapon and come out.\"\n\nStill no response. She stepped onto the rooftop and edged forward. Underneath the sigh of the wind, she could hear the shifter. If the easy rhythm of his breathing was anything to go by, he wasn't worried by her presence.\n\nShe fired a warning shot. The blue beam flew across the darkness and hit the edge of the air-con unit. Metal sheared away in a jagged cut whose edges glowed with heat.\n\nStill nothing. He didn't move. Didn't twitch. She frowned and moved closer. She'd almost reached the right edge of the unit when he exploded forward, his body little more than a shadowed blur as he sprinted across the roof.\n\nHe was too fast for a shifter; his speed was more like a vampire's.\n\nShe was nowhere near _that_ fast\u2014a tortoise compared to the hare. But she ran after him anyway. If nothing else, she could track him with her senses until someone from the SIU got here to help her.\n\nSpeaking of which, where the fuck were they? This was Stephan's baby, his master plan, so why the hell didn't he have backup here already?\n\nOr was this all part of a wider scheme\u2014a scheme she knew nothing about?\n\n_No._ Whatever was going on here, with this shifter, it had nothing to do with Stephan or the SIU. She was sure of that, if nothing else. But right now, she had no time to worry about it. The shifter leapt across to the next rooftop and ran on. His body faded in and out of existence as he moved, almost as if he were an image viewed through some badly focused lens. _Weird._\n\nShe jumped the small dividing wall, then went down on one knee and sighted the laser. \"Last warning. Stop or I'll shoot.\"\n\nHis only response was a fresh burst of speed. As he became little more than a shadowed blur, she fired.\n\nThe blue beam arced across the night and hit him in the left shoulder. He flung his arms wide and went down with a thump. She waited, laser still raised and at the ready, for several seconds. When he didn't move, she rose and cautiously approached. Her shot might have caught him in the shoulder, might have torn through flesh as easily as it had his clothes, but that didn't mean he was down for the count. Far from it.\n\nHer gaze went briefly to the wound. At least with lasers there was no bleeding and little chance of infection. The laser beam cauterized the wound in an instant\u2014not that it made it any less painful.\n\nThe shifter himself was hooded and dressed in black from head to toe, his body solid but smudged around the edges, as if he were a drawing that wasn't quite complete. Odd, to say the least. There was still no movement, no sign of breathing. Warily, she nudged his foot. No response. She tried a little harder and got the same result. Maybe he was unconscious, because he couldn't be dead. Not from a shoulder wound.\n\nCautiously, she knelt and reached for his wrist to feel for a pulse. In that instant, he came to life, twisting around to throw a punch. She dodged, but not fast enough. His fist hit her cheek, the force of the blow reverberating through her skull and throwing her backward. Her head smacked back against the rooftop, sending a shock wave of pain through the rest of her body. For a moment, stars crowded her vision.\n\nAir stirred, accompanied by sound. The scrape of a heel against the roof. A grunt of effort.\n\nShe blinked back tears and tried to concentrate. She felt a force of air coming from her left and rolled right. A booted foot landed inches away, the sheer power behind the kick seeming to shudder through the entire roof. If that blow had landed, he would have crushed her face.\n\nHe laughed. _Laughed._\n\nThen he tried stomping her with the other foot.\n\n\"Bastard,\" she muttered, firing the laser even as she dodged.\n\nThe bright beam of light speared into his chest. Skin and bone were seared into blackened bits that scattered on the wind even as his body dropped lifelessly to the ground. The smell of burned flesh was fiercer than before because of her proximity.\n\nShe closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She hadn't meant to kill him, but her instincts had taken over. Yet worse than the knowledge that she'd killed was the sensation that something felt _very_ wrong.\n\nWith the speed that shifter had, he should have been able to dodge the laser. He didn't even try. Why not?\n\nDid he want to die?\n\nShe sniffed, then winced as pain slithered across her face. A light probe with her fingers revealed a rapidly swelling cheek as well as a warm stickiness that could only be blood oozing toward her chin. The cut was a good inch long. The creep must have been wearing a ring of some kind when he'd hit her. The inside of her mouth was just as tender, and at least two teeth seemed horribly loose.\n\nShe spat out a mouthful of blood and slowly climbed to her feet. For an instant, the night swam and her stomach rose. Then she swallowed and rubbed the back of her head where an egg the size of a football was forming.\n\n_Great._ Showing up looking like a boxer who'd taken one too many punches was just what she needed to impress Wetherton.\n\nSam grimaced and walked across to the body. Tendrils of smoke were rising from the wound. Maybe it was steam from his still-warm body.\n\nOr maybe it was something else entirely.\n\nWhat that something else could be she didn't _want_ to know\u2014though her imagination was certainly firing up some fantastical ideas, such as maybe it was his soul rising.\n\nAs if _anyone_ could see something like that.\n\nIgnoring the goose bumps running rampant across her skin, she picked up his hand and studied the ring on his finger. It was a thick gold band with a square front. The symbol carved into it looked like a flame wrapped in barbed wire. _Odd._\n\nShe let his hand drop, then leaned forward and pulled off the mask covering his face. He had red-gold hair and gray-green eyes that were wide with shock. So this wasn't any ordinary assassin, but a product of Hopeworth.\n\nBut if Hopeworth was the birthplace of the Wetherton clone, why would it send an assassin after him?\n\nAnd why send one after _her,_ if they wanted to find out more about her?\n\nIt didn't make any sense.\n\nBut then, when had anything in her life ever made sense? It was frustrating, to say the least.\n\nShe rose to her feet and walked across to the edge of the building. The fire had been controlled and SIU officers were headed her way. She crossed her arms and waited for them. Right now, there was nothing else she could do.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe phone rang loudly. Gabriel reached out, making several empty grabs before he hit the vid-phone's receive button.\n\n\"This had better be good.\" He opened an eye and glared blearily at the time. Six in the morning. Couldn't he have even one day off without someone contacting him?\n\n\"You should try getting an early night for a change.\" Stephan's voice sounded altogether too cheerful.\n\nSomething _must_ have happened. Gabriel rose on his elbows and looked at the vid-screen. His own image stared back at him. Stephan had to be at the Stern compound, and not at his home or at the office. It was the only place he ever used his true form.\n\n\"You should try calling at a decent time.\" Gabriel yawned and dropped back down to the pillow. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"Hopeworth tried to assassinate Wetherton last night.\"\n\nThe last vestiges of sleep skittered away and Gabriel jerked upright again. \"Is Sam okay?\" Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. Given their growing bond, he'd have known if she weren't.\n\n\"Yeah, though she shouldn't have even been there. According to her report, the assassin was one of Hopeworth's creations. We can't ID him. Hopeworth is currently denying all knowledge, but I tend to agree with her.\"\n\nWhy would Hopeworth risk the life of one of their specialist killers on a man who was supposedly one of their own? It didn't make any sense.\n\nGabriel rubbed a hand across his eyes. \"What about your vampire? Did he come through?\"\n\nStephan frowned. \"There was no sign of him. It looks like he may have taken the opportunity to run.\"\n\n\"You knew it was a possibility.\"\n\n\"A ten percent chance. And worth the risk, given what's at stake.\"\n\nTo draw out a man who was little more than a name, they'd let a killer back on the streets. _Was_ it worth the risk? They wouldn't really know until Sethanon took the bait\u2014 _if_ he took the bait.\n\n\"A warrant been issued?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Thornhill and Edmonds are turning over his known haunts.\"\n\nIf the kid had any sense, he'd avoid known haunts like the plague. But then, young vampires were inclined to think they were invincible, which tended to be their downfall. \"Anything else? Or did you call at this ungodly hour just to piss me off?\"\n\nStephan grinned, and Gabriel wondered if his brother had been drinking. The last time he'd seen him like this was when they'd gone on a weeklong twenty-first birthday bender. And _that_ was years and years ago.\n\n\"Lyssa's gone into labor.\"\n\n\"Hey, congrats.\" At least that explained why he was at the compound. He must have taken Lys there so she'd have someone close while he was at work. It also explained why he was grinning like a drunken fool. \"How's she doing?\"\n\n\"Fine. I called O'Hearn down, just to check things out. She reckons it'll be a good five or six hours before anything major happens.\"\n\nChanger births tended to be a lot longer than human births. He hoped Lyssa was strong enough. \"You want me down there?\"\n\n\"No point until something actually happens. Come down when he's born, and we'll get drunk together.\"\n\n\"Are Mom and Dad hovering?\"\n\nStephan snorted. \"Half the bloody clan is hovering. The rest are on their way.\"\n\n\"Well, your son _is_ the first male grandchild.\" Gabriel grinned. The Sterns didn't get together that often, but when they did, they made the most of it. There'd be a hell of a party at the compound tonight. \"Give me a call the minute anything happens.\"\n\n\"Will do.\"\n\nThe vid-screen went black and Gabriel scrubbed a hand across his eyes again. Though he couldn't have been happier for Stephan, this birth came at an awkward time. As much as he wanted to be with his brother, he also needed to ensure that Sam was safe. Hopeworth was after her, of that he had no doubt\u2014even though, as yet, there was no real evidence to back that up. He stared out the window for several seconds, listening to the starlings in the trees outside his window squabble, then reached for the vid-phone and quickly dialed Karl's number.\n\nHis friend answered on the second ring, looking as if he'd been up for several hours. His wild brown hair was tied back in its customary bandana, and dirt caked his weather-lined face.\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow. \"You eating mud for breakfast these days?\"\n\nKarl grinned. \"You'd think so. It's been pissing down out here. I went out to check the greenhouses and lost my footing.\"\n\n\"You busy tonight?\"\n\nKarl hesitated. \"Yeah. David's got the lead in a play at school. They're performing tonight. Why?\"\n\nDavid was Karl's youngest and Gabriel's godson. \"Thought I'd ask you to do me a favor, but it really doesn't matter.\"\n\n\"I'm free after about eleven, if that's any help.\"\n\nGabriel hesitated. \"No, it's okay.\" If Hopeworth _had_ orchestrated the attack on Wetherton, surely they'd lay low for a day or two before moving again. He was probably worrying over nothing.\n\nKarl scratched his chin, smearing the mud further. \"Are you aware that I'm seeing that pretty partner of yours today?\"\n\nGabriel smiled. He obviously didn't mean Illie. \"Why? Is something wrong?\"\n\n\"Nah. O'Hearn called me in. She wants some help decoding the gene patterns.\"\n\n\"So you've had a chance to look at the test results I gave you?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Karl hesitated. \"Look, why don't you come down to the clinic today? I think we may need to talk to you both.\"\n\nAnd no doubt Sam would be utterly delighted to see him there. He smiled grimly. He had only himself to blame. If he hadn't been such a bastard over the last few weeks, maybe she'd be a tad happier about seeing him outside of work.\n\n\"Why would I need to be there?\"\n\nKarl frowned. \"I've been doing some research on shadow walkers. If O'Hearn's samples match the test results from Finley, Sam's definitely got walker in her.\"\n\n\"That still doesn't explain why you need me there.\"\n\n\"Her appointment's at five. Be there and I'll explain.\"\n\nObviously, Karl had no intention of explaining _anything_ over the unsecured vid-phone. Gabriel blew out a breath. \"Fine. I'll see you there, then.\"\n\nThe vid-screen went black again, and Gabriel stared up at the ceiling, part of him wanting to get up and hit the gym and the other half desperate to go back to sleep. The phone rang before he could decide between them. Didn't _anyone_ sleep in these days?\n\nFrowning, he shifted and checked out the caller ID. It was Sandy. He reached out to answer the call, then hesitated and pressed the auto-answer button instead.\n\n\"Morning, Gabe. Seeing we've both got the day off, I thought we might get together.\"\n\nHer voice was mellow, sultry, but for once it had little effect on him. Maybe he was more tired than he'd thought. Maybe he was simply getting old.\n\n\"Give me a call when you wake up,\" she continued. \"Lunch is my treat.\"\n\nHer words invoked memories of the last time she'd treated him to lunch. Eating hadn't exactly come into it, and damn if it hadn't been fun. Again he reached out. Again he hesitated.\n\nIf he went and saw Sandy, he'd have a hard time breaking away anytime before dinner. He couldn't go there simply for sex and then walk away. It wasn't fair to her, no matter how casual either of them was about their relationship.\n\nBetter for them both if he simply didn't respond. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and climbed out of bed. Seeing as he had nothing else planned for today, he might as well grab the chance to exercise, then head down to Federation headquarters.\n\nSurely, somewhere in the vast archives there, he'd find something about shadow walkers.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam tucked a leg beneath her as she sat on the sofa. After placing her coffee on the table, she grabbed the portable com-unit and pressed her thumb into the lock.\n\n\"Voice identification required,\" the unit stated.\n\n\"Sam Ryan, SIU officer, badge number 1934.\"\n\nTalking still hurt, but nowhere near as much as it had only hours before. Though her mouth still felt tender, at least the swelling had gone down, her teeth seemed to have reanchored, and the bruise that stretched from her lip to her eye was already beginning to get that faded, yellow look. Even the cut had begun to heal.\n\nAt least she looked less like a boxer that had taken too many hits and more like something a cat had dragged in and toyed with for several hours. It was a definite improvement.\n\n\"Voice scan correct. Eye confirmation required.\"\n\nShe looked into the small scanner fitted into the left-hand side of the unit. A red beam swept over her eye.\n\n\"Eye scan correct.\" The unit clicked open.\n\nIzzy appeared onscreen. \"Morning, sweetness. Being portable is a new experience, I must say.\"\n\nSam grinned. Having her cyber character on the unit was an unexpected bonus. She'd thought Stephan would place voice-only response software on the portable unit, as both he and Gabriel seemed to prefer it. But maybe he wasn't as insensitive as she'd thought.\n\n\"Morning, Iz. Listen, I asked for a trace to be done on a gray-haired man last night. Are the results back yet?\"\n\nIzzy twirled her purple boa for several seconds. \"Yep. Got it right here. No ID match so far.\"\n\nSam frowned. How could there be no match? The man had to exist on a computer _somewhere._ \"Have they checked the Motor Registration records?\"\n\n\"Yup. There is no car registration, no driver's license and no Medicare card match.\"\n\nEvery adult in Australia had a Medicare card. You couldn't go to the doctor without one these days. She picked up her coffee and sipped at it for several seconds.\n\n\"What about the shooter?\"\n\n\"Again, no ID match. A formal request for ID has been sent to Hopeworth, though.\"\n\nSam raised her eyebrows. That could cause a few waves. \"Any response from Hopeworth?\"\n\n\"Not a fig, sweetie.\"\n\nNot surprising. What _was_ surprising, however, was the fact that the SIU still had the body. She'd have thought Hopeworth would have tried a clandestine retrieval by now.\n\n\"Are they doing tests on the body?\"\n\n\"Agent Finley is currently examining it.\"\n\nThen she'd have to remember to ask him what he discovered when she saw him at the meeting O'Hearn had arranged for later today.\n\n\"Do I have any mail from that real-estate cretin yet?\"\n\nThe boa twirled; the response time was slightly slower on the portable unit. \"Yep. One came through last night.\"\n\n\"Put it onscreen, and thanks, Iz.\"\n\nIzzy disappeared, replaced by a three-page list. Sam smiled slightly as she scanned it. He was obviously sending her everything in the State of Victoria that had a sea view, not just those apartments within the metropolitan area. Some of them were as far away as Warrnambool, while others were over on Western Port Bay.\n\nIt wasn't until the very last page that one caught her interest. It was an old A-frame house, surrounded by trees and close to the top of a hill, so that it overlooked the bay.\n\nKingston, she thought with a frown. It was a hell of a distance to travel to work every day, even with the recently completed Western Port tollway. Still, she had nearly a whole day ahead of her and nothing to lose by looking. Leaning sideways, she grabbed the phone and quickly dialed the real-estate agent's number.\n\n\u2014\n\n\"You could fit six to eight villa units on a block this size, easy. It's a great investment for the future.\"\n\nSam ignored the agent's ramblings and stared out the ceiling-high windows. Though listed as a part of Kingston, the house was actually several kilometers outside the resort township. Built on the side of a steep hill, the house had an almost unhindered view of Western Port Bay. Just across the dirt road, the cliffs plunged toward the ocean. With the wind blowing hard, as it was today, the waves reared high, as if trying to escape the bay's grasp, and foam sizzled across the black rocks lining the cliff top. The bay looked stormy\u2014dangerous\u2014and yet it called to something deep within her. At night, she could lie in bed and watch the sea. Watch all the brightly lit tankers glide by or the storms roll in.\n\nShe opened the sliding door and walked out onto the deck. The wind carried the rich tang of the ocean, and gum trees tossed and shivered. She leaned on the railing and looked at the ground.\n\nThe whole place was a run-down mess. Half the fence line had either fallen over or was in the process of doing so. The garden had long since turned to weeds, and the driveway had ruts deep enough to lose a football in. The house itself was in little better shape. The kitchen was decorated in orange and green, and it didn't even have an autocook. Apparently, the old couple who'd owned the house had preferred to do their own cooking and had installed an old-fashioned stove. Most of the walls were in desperate need of paint, the carpet covering the stairs leading to the upper floor was threadbare and the banister wobbled worse than a drunk after a ten-hour binge. Sections of both this deck and the one on the side above the garage were half-rotten and would need replacing.\n\nIt would cost a fortune to fix it up\u2014a fortune she didn't really have. The money she'd gotten from the sale of her apartment would pay for this outright and leave enough to buy a car. But that was it. There'd be nothing left for repairs. It would be madness to even consider buying it.\n\nShe raised her gaze and stared at the sea for several minutes, watching the foamy fingers of ocean creep across the damp black rocks. She felt the power of the waves shiver through her until her entire body seemed to tingle with its energy.\n\nCommon sense could go hang. There was something about the run-down, out-of-date old house that she just loved. And there was something about the raw closeness of the ocean that she needed.\n\nShe walked back into the bedroom. \"I'll take it.\"\n\nThe agent's face lit up\u2014no doubt from the prospect of finally having her off his client list.\n\n\"I'll just run downstairs and get my com-unit. We'll get all the paperwork signed now, if you like.\"\n\nHe disappeared in a cloud of dust, probably afraid that she'd change her mind. Smiling slightly, she turned back to the window with its amazing view.\n\nAnd noted the white Toyota parked down the road.\n\nUnder normal circumstances, she might not have taken notice. But the road was private and clearly marked as such, and it didn't lead anywhere beyond the last house. The real-estate agent had already told her that the owners of the other nine properties were summer residents.\n\nIt might simply be someone enjoying the view, or it might be someone casing his next hit.\n\nThe question was, would the car remain here at the property, or would it follow her when she left? She'd just have to wait and see. Then she would know if this was a job for the SIU or just the local police.\n\nHaving made her decision, she turned and walked downstairs. The agent bustled back inside and motioned her toward the dilapidated kitchen counter. She'd contacted her solicitor earlier, getting him to do a quick check on the property. Everything was legit. Still, just to be safe, she scanned the countless forms with her wristcom and sent them on, refusing to sign anything until he'd given the all clear. Only then did she key in her bank details and transfer the funds. The house was hers.\n\n\"It'll take a day or so for this paperwork to go through and be fully registered,\" the agent said, holding out the keys. \"I'll pass everything on to your solicitor to be double-checked, of course.\"\n\nShe took the keys, an odd feeling of elation bubbling through her. \"Thanks.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"You going to hang around for a while?\"\n\nShe glanced at her watch and regretfully shook her head. \"I can't. I'm working tonight.\"\n\nHe nodded again and held out his hand. \"It's been a pleasure doing business with you.\"\n\nThe relief in his voice made her grin. \"They make you say that, don't they?\"\n\nHis startled smile showed a hint of true warmth. \"First lesson,\" he said cheerfully.\n\nShe checked the doors, ensuring everything was locked, then followed him out. At her rental car, she stopped and breathed in the heady aroma of eucalyptus and the salty hint of sea. Excitement pulsed through her. The scent of _home._ God, how she wished she didn't have to go back to the city and Wetherton.\n\nBefore the call to stay overwhelmed her common sense, she climbed into the car and headed back to the city. She hadn't yet reached the tollway when she spotted the Toyota again.\n\nOkay, so it wasn't a thief and it wasn't a tourist. It was someone _tailing_ her. That meant the SIU. She watched the car in the rearview mirror for several minutes, then tapped her wristcom.\n\n\"Christine,\" she said, when the SIU's electronic receptionist came online, \"Agent Ryan here. Patch me through to someone in operations.\"\n\n\"One moment, please.\"\n\nThe screen flickered and a thin-looking black man replaced Christine. \"Agent Donner here. What can I do for you, Agent Ryan?\"\n\n\"I think I've picked up a tail. Four cars back from my current location. White Toyota.\"\n\n\"Hang on while I do a trace.\"\n\nHe turned away and she glanced at the rearview mirror. Whoever was driving the Toyota was damn good. She could barely see the driver behind the green four-wheel drive.\n\n\"Okay, got you. Fourth car back, you said?\"\n\n\"Yep. I'd like a license plate and registration search done, if possible.\"\n\n\"I've gotta zoom in the satellite. That could take a few minutes.\"\n\n\"I'll wait.\"\n\nDonner whistled tunelessly for a good five minutes, then gave a satisfied grunt. \"Got him. Or her, as the case may be.\"\n\n\"Who's the registered owner?\"\n\n\"One Jessie McMahon, from Eltham.\"\n\nSam swore softly. Jessie McMahon. Gabriel's sister.\n\nThe bastard was having her followed.\n\n# FIVE\n\n\"YOU WANT ME TO ARRANGE an intercept?\" Agent Donner asked.\n\nSam flexed her fingers in an effort to relax her grip on the steering wheel. \"No, I think I'll handle it. Thanks, Donner.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Give me a call if you need help.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I will.\" She flicked off the wristcom and stared at the white Toyota through the rearview mirror.\n\nWhy was Gabriel having her tailed? And why have his sister do it when he practically had the entire SIU at his beck and call?\n\nShe doubted that he'd provide any answers if she confronted him, but Jessie might. The few times she'd met his sister, she'd seemed more upfront, more accessible, than her brother.\n\nA green-and-gold sign came into view, indicating there was a side road half a kilometer ahead, on her left. _Perfect._\n\nShe leaned forward, switched the computer from auto-drive to manual and moved into the left-hand lane. Leaving the indicator on, she slowed and glanced in the rearview mirror. The Toyota had also switched lanes and was sitting behind a red Commodore.\n\nSam turned left. Not far ahead, the road did a sharp turn right and disappeared behind some trees. She put her foot down, accelerating around the corner. Once around it, she braked hard, the car shuddering as the tires struggled for purchase on the dirt road. As dust puffed around the car, she threw open the door and climbed out. A quick glance confirmed that the beginning of the road was hidden by the trees. Jessie wouldn't know Sam had stopped until she rounded the corner, though she'd left plenty of room for the Toyota to stop. She wanted to question Jessie, not hurt her.\n\nSam walked across the road to the gum trees and waited. Two minutes later the Toyota came around the corner, making an unintentional beeline straight for her car. She had a brief glimpse of Jessie's surprised expression. Then Jessie braked and the Toyota slewed to a stop. Sam hurried over and opened the door.\n\n\"You okay?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Just chagrined.\" Jessie glanced up, a wry smile touching her lips. \"Gabriel's going to kill me for being caught.\"\n\n\"If he's still alive after I get through with him.\" Sam hesitated, trying to control the swift jab of anger. \"You want to explain why he's got you tailing me?\"\n\nJessie ran a hand through her dark curls. \"There's a roadside diner about a kilometer up the road. Why don't we talk there? I need some coffee anyway.\"\n\n\"I'll follow you there.\"\n\nSam slammed the door shut, walked over to the Ford and climbed in. After starting up the car, she followed Jessie back onto the main road.\n\nOnce they reached the diner and had their order taken by the gum-chewing waitress, Sam crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. \"So, why is your brother having me tailed?\"\n\nJessie sighed. \"He's worried about your safety.\"\n\n\"Yeah, so worried he wanted me dumped as a partner.\" Sam snorted softly. \"Be honest, at least.\"\n\n\"I am.\" Jessie hesitated, her gaze suddenly intent. \"And you know why he didn't want you as a partner, don't you?\"\n\n\"He thinks he's jinxed.\"\n\nJessie nodded. \"His standard excuse for wanting to work alone.\"\n\nSam raised an eyebrow. \"Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in that statement?\"\n\n\"More than a hint.\" Jessie hesitated, glancing up with a smile as the waitress placed their coffee on the table. \"Personally, I think he was desperate to get rid of you simply because you forced him to _feel._ \"\n\n\"Well, if I had that effect on him, I sure as hell couldn't tell it.\" He'd shown more emotion with Sandy, in the brief ten minutes she'd seen them together, than he ever had with her over the nine months they'd been partners.\n\nJessie's smile was a touch wry. \"Gabriel's become very adept at controlling his emotions. But I think the fact that he's gone against Stephan's direct orders here proves he does indeed care.\"\n\n\"Or it could simply mean he wants to ensure my safety until you've all discovered just how useful I might be to the Federation, his first and greatest love.\"\n\n\"The Federation is not his greatest love. It's Stephan's.\" Jessie tilted her head. There was a sharpness in her green eyes that made Sam uncomfortable. It almost felt like this woman was capable of seeing far more than most. \"How do you feel about Gabriel?\"\n\n\"He pisses me off more than any man I have ever known.\"\n\n\"You're not alone there.\" Amusement ran through her voice. \"But other than that, I mean.\"\n\nSam raised her eyebrows. \"Why do you want to know? And what does it matter anyway?\"\n\n\"I want to know because I'm a busybody with the best interests of my brother at heart. And it matters because I think he's acting like a goddamn fool.\"\n\n\"Because he's having me followed?\"\n\n\"No, because he's ignoring the blindingly obvious.\"\n\n\"Which is?\"\n\nJessie smiled. \"Answer the question first.\"\n\nSam sighed. \"Okay, I'm attracted to him. Whether it's just a physical thing, or whether it could be more, I'll probably never find out.\"\n\n\"Why not? There's no law stating a woman can't ask a man out. In fact, in this day and age, a woman is a fool if she doesn't go after what she wants.\"\n\n\"I asked him out for coffee and he refused. I dressed sexily and he didn't bat an eyelid. If he's attracted, he obviously has no intention of acting on it.\"\n\nJessie chuckled softly. \"Yeah, well, it's going to take a little more effort than that to land this particular fish.\"\n\nSam picked up her coffee, blowing lightly on the steaming liquid as she studied Jessie over the rim. \"And what makes you so sure that I want to land him? That's his choice. It's his life.\"\n\n\"In our family, no one flies solo.\" Jessie smiled, but Sam had a feeling she was deadly serious. That it was a statement of fact and, perhaps, a warning. \"And believe me, he is worth landing under all that prickly armor. But if you want him, you must take the lead. Be the hunter, even if it isn't in your nature.\"\n\n\"Are you telling me to go after your brother?\"\n\n\"Yes. Until you nail him.\" Jessie grinned. \"And whether that be sexually, emotionally or both, I don't care.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he is going to end up a very lonely and bitter old man if someone doesn't crack his reserve, and I don't want to see that happen.\" Her grin grew. \"Besides, he's crazy about you, even if he's not willing to admit it, even to himself.\"\n\nSomething Sam found _very_ hard to believe. \"So, why me, specifically? Especially when he apparently has a sexual relationship with another agent?\"\n\nJessie waved a hand. \"That's just a mutual relieving of tension. You're the first person in a long time that he has shown any sort of emotion toward. Therefore, you're the logical choice.\"\n\n\"I can't believe you're discussing something as intimate as your brother's love life with someone you don't even know!\" And actually, she couldn't believe _she_ was doing the same. But there was something very comforting _and_ comfortable about this woman's presence.\n\n\"Ah, but I do know you. And we are going to be very good friends.\"\n\nSam raised her eyebrows. \"So, basically, you're the crazy one in the family?\"\n\n\"No. The clairvoyant. The future is my playground.\"\n\n\"I'm betting it isn't always a pleasant one.\"\n\nJessie's bright eyes briefly shadowed. \"No.\"\n\nSam sipped her coffee. Then, in an effort to get onto a safer topic, she said, \"So, Gabriel's actually having me tailed because...?\"\n\n\"Because he believes Hopeworth is after you.\"\n\nIf last night was any indication, they were. And they didn't particularly care if they found her dead or alive. Goose bumps skated beneath the small hairs along her arms.\n\n\"What makes him think that?\"\n\nJessie shrugged. \"I don't think he's got anything substantial. It's just a feeling.\"\n\nAnd feelings were often more reliable than hard evidence\u2014she'd learned that during her years as a cop. \"And as the clairvoyant, what are your feelings?\"\n\n\"That he could be right.\"\n\n\"Then he should have talked to me, not arranged this all behind my back.\"\n\n\"Would you have allowed him to arrange it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Which is probably why he didn't bother asking.\"\n\n_True enough._ Sam smiled wryly and glanced at her watch. If she didn't get moving soon, she'd be horribly late for her appointment with O'Hearn. She sipped more of her coffee and said, \"If I admit that I'm on to you, he'll simply replace you with someone I don't know, right?\"\n\nJessie smiled, tucking several dark curls behind her ear. \"Very likely.\"\n\n\"Who else has he coerced into this?\"\n\n\"My husband, Alain.\"\n\nSam raised her eyebrows. \"Just the three of you? Doesn't he intend to sleep?\"\n\n\"Obviously not. As I said, you mean more to him than he's willing to admit.\"\n\nShe'd try to remember that the next time he was giving her hell over something stupid. \"Next time you're on watch, why not give me a call? If I'm off-duty, we might as well be bored together.\"\n\nJessie nodded. \"Are you going to tell him you know?\"\n\n\"Maybe. Maybe not.\" If Gabriel had the feeling Hopeworth was after her, she wasn't about to refuse any protection he offered, however covertly. And yet all roads seemed to be leading to that place, and if she wanted answers, then maybe her only real choice was, in the end, to allow herself to be taken by Hopeworth. It wasn't something she wanted to even contemplate, but it was nevertheless a reality.\n\n\"Good.\" Jessie paused, green eyes suddenly intense. \"Give me your hand.\"\n\nSam frowned and didn't move. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I have an urge to do a reading.\" She arched a dark eyebrow. \"It doesn't hurt\u2014unless, of course, you're afraid of what I might find.\"\n\nWhich, of course, Sam was. What rational person wouldn't be? God, she had no past to speak of. Why on earth would she take the chance on knowing that there was no future, either?\n\nHow depressing would _that_ be?\n\nThough if she knew the future, then maybe she could change it. Surely such things weren't set in concrete but fluid, shifting according to the decisions she made?\n\nShe gulped down more coffee, then, after a slight hesitation, held out her hand. Jessie's fingers wrapped around hers, her touch warm.\n\nAlmost too warm.\n\nSam resisted the temptation to pull away and watched the other woman carefully. Though she'd often seen clairvoyants work the Brighton market near her old apartment, she'd never been tempted to get a reading done herself.\n\nJessie's face lost its animation, and her eyes were suddenly distant. \"Do not trust the dream man. He tells no lies and yet speaks no truths.\"\n\nDream man? Did she mean Joshua, or Joe? Both haunted her nights and her thoughts. But Sam held the question back, knowing that if she spoke, she might break Jessie's concentration.\n\n\"Do not fight the storm bond. It will save you when nothing else can.\"\n\nAgain, a statement that only raised more questions. Jessie knew about her ability to siphon the power of the storms; she'd been at the warehouse when the storm's energy had helped her defeat Orrin and Rose, and save Gabriel's life. And yet, she had an odd feeling it was not _that_ storm bond that Jessie was referring to.\n\n\"When Hopeworth tests, remember the dreams. Channel, as you did back then.\"\n\nNot _if,_ but _when._ Gabriel's feeling about Hopeworth would obviously reach fruition, and trepidation danced a chill across her skin.\n\n\"Watch the man with the dead gray eyes. He is more than his makers believe. He beds the devil and walks the path of treason. He is our enemy, but not yours.\"\n\nAnd yet he'd seemed very much her enemy in all of her dreams. So who was right? The dreams, or Jessie's sight?\n\nJessie suddenly shuddered, and she squeezed Sam's fingers lightly before releasing them.\n\n\"Not what I'd expected, to say the least,\" Jessie said, wiping a hand across her brow.\n\nSam smiled at the wry edge in her voice. \"You were trying to get a reading on me and Gabriel, weren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Worry clouded the amusement in her eyes. \"My visions merely show a possible outcome. They don't always come true, you know. Life has a way of taking its own path.\"\n\nBut Sam had a bad feeling that this was one set of visions that would come true.\n\n\"Then I'll try not to panic just yet.\" Sam glanced at her watch again. \"Look, I really have to go, or I'll be late for my appointment with O'Hearn.\"\n\nJessie smiled again. \"At least if I lose you on the way back, I'll know where you're going.\"\n\nSam grabbed the bill and stood up. \"You won't tell Gabriel about the house, will you?\"\n\nJessie raised her eyebrows. \"Did you buy it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" And no doubt he'd tell her she was a fool to spend so much money on a run-down pile on the edge of nowhere.\n\n\"I won't if you don't want me to. But be warned: Gabriel's almost as adept as Stephan when it comes to sniffing out secrets.\"\n\n\"He doesn't see me enough to know whether or not I'm keeping secrets.\" He barely saw her enough to say hello.\n\n\"That will change, believe me.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah? Saw that in your visions, did you?\"\n\nJessie's sudden smile was almost blinding. \"No, just a sister's instinct. You'd better get moving. My next shift to watch you is Monday. I'll give you a call then, okay?\"\n\nSam nodded. As she paid the bill and headed for her car, she couldn't help feeling oddly buoyed. Maybe she'd not only gained a house today, but the beginnings of a lasting friendship.\n\n\u2014\n\nGabriel drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. If the traffic didn't start moving soon, he was going to abandon the car right here and take to the sky. It was four forty already. Twenty minutes to get through the center of the city to O'Hearn's office was cutting it fine.\n\nWhy the doctor had decided to move her practice out to Southbank was beyond him. It wasn't as if she'd gained any space, and he knew for a fact that the rent wasn't any cheaper because the Federation was still picking up half the bill.\n\nOf course, he _should_ have left the archives earlier. But if he had, he wouldn't have found the journal. It had been written by a Vietnam vet back in the mid-twentieth century, at a time when the human race was still in semi-denial about the existence of \"nonhuman\" races. Amongst its catalog of death and destruction, there was a brief description of a man who had walked from the shadows and saved the soldier's life.\n\nFrom the brief description given, it might have been easy to think the soldier had encountered a vampire, except for two facts: it happened at midday, and the stranger had walked into the flames surrounding the soldier and consumed them.\n\nVampires might not be killed by fire, but they certainly _were_ killed by sunlight. Particularly midday sunlight.\n\nSo was the journal nothing more than the ramblings of a crazy man? Maybe. But Gabriel had heard more than once that walkers _had_ been used in the Race Wars. The fact that he could find no hard evidence of it didn't mean it wasn't true. And if the government had used them in those wars, then why not in earlier wars? Or later wars?\n\nAnd what did the ability to consume fire say about the walkers? Firestarters were one thing, but fire-eaters?\n\nThe sharp ring of the wristcom broke the silence and made him jump slightly. Which, he thought irritably, was just plain stupid. He pressed the receive button.\n\nIllie's cheery features came online. \"Hey boss, how's the day off going?\"\n\n\"Great.\" He'd choose a day spent hunched over a com-screen over several hours of hot sex anytime... _not._ Still, he could hardly complain when the decision had been his own. \"What do you want, Illie?\"\n\n\"I ran a background check on Kathryn Douglass. There was nothing out of the ordinary, though it struck me as odd that a woman with her salary has so damn little in the bank.\"\n\n\"How little is little?\"\n\n\"Just over fifty thou. Not much, when you consider what she makes in a year, which is over a million, if we include bonuses and perks.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"What about other assets? Stocks and such?\"\n\n\"According to her broker, she's been selling steadily over the past year, though always at huge profits. The money's obviously going somewhere other than the bank.\"\n\n\"Boyfriend? Husband?\"\n\n\"Currently, neither. Several of each in the past, but no alimony is being paid.\"\n\nSo what the hell was she doing with all her money? \"I'll put a request through for her full banking records. Did you get her home security tapes?\"\n\n\"Yeah, and she had one visitor last week who was not on the list of known associates\u2014a bloke by the name of Les Mohern. A small-time criminal\u2014petty theft, arson, that sort of stuff.\"\n\n\"So why is he associating with the likes of Douglass?\"\n\n\"A question I thought I'd ask when I caught up with him.\"\n\n\"Good. Have you had any luck with the security guards who were on duty last night?\"\n\n\"I've contacted one so far. He wouldn't let us see him till tomorrow.\"\n\nUntil after he'd been briefed, perhaps? \"What time?\"\n\n\"Nine.\"\n\n_Great._ As if he needed an early start after standing watch all damn night. \"Have our labs gotten back with the autopsy reports on those scientists?\"\n\n\"Not as yet.\"\n\n\"Follow that up this afternoon, then, and I'll see you tomorrow.\"\n\nIllie's grin was almost cheesy. \"You sure will, boss.\"\n\nGabriel punched the off button and stared at the traffic ahead. Les Mohern? He'd heard that name before. But where?\n\n\"Computer on,\" he said.\n\n\"ID required,\" the metallic voice intoned.\n\n\"AD Stern. Badge number 5019.\"\n\n\"Voice patterns correct. Please proceed.\"\n\n\"I want a search done on Les Mohern. All details, including immediate family.\"\n\n\"Search proceeding.\"\n\nHe glanced at his watch, then resumed his steering-wheel tapping. He was going to be late, no doubt about it.\n\n\"Details onscreen,\" the computer intoned after several minutes.\n\nHe studied the rap sheet. As Illie had said, Mohern had a long history of minor crimes. But it wasn't _him,_ specifically, that he'd remembered, but his brother Frank. Like Les, Frank was a small-time crim, but he'd also been listed as a source for Jack Kazdan, Sam's former partner.\n\n_That's_ where he'd seen the name before. Sam had purloined Jack's phone records and diary the day she'd been suspended from State under the suspicion of murdering him. Of course, it had been a clone she'd killed\u2014a clone sent to test her\u2014and it had been deemed self-defense in the end. Yet Jack had still ended up dead at her hands\u2014killed in the process of trying to kidnap the Prime Minister and replace him with a clone.\n\nFrank Mohern was one of two phone calls Jack had made just before he'd disappeared, but now he, too, was dead\u2014he'd been killed in a drive-by shooting, according to the report.\n\nBut why would someone like Les visit someone like Kathryn Douglass? Hell, she was more likely to be his target than his friend or even business associate.\n\nHe'd have to have a closer look at both the diary and the transcripts to find out not only why the Mohern brothers had been involved with Kazdan, but why Les might be involved with Douglass. He had an itchy feeling it just might provide some much needed clues as to what Douglass was _really_ involved with at the Pegasus Foundation.\n\nAs O'Hearn's green-glass office building came into sight, Gabriel took the car off auto-drive, sped into a side street and parked illegally. Then he flipped his ID onto the dash, just to ensure the car wasn't towed away, and ran the rest of the way to O'Hearn's office.\n\nKarl was already seated on one of the waiting-room sofas when Gabriel arrived, his bearlike frame dwarfing the seat. His blue Hawaiian shirt and the red-and-gold bandana restraining his brown hair looked totally out of place in the muted, soothing colors of the waiting room.\n\nSam wasn't in the room, but Finley, the SIU's resident research doctor, was.\n\n\"I didn't realize you were involved in this, Finley,\" Gabriel said as he sat next to Karl.\n\n\"O'Hearn called me in.\" The young doctor pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. \"She thought I might be able to sort out some of the test results.\"\n\n\"And did you?\"\n\n\"Some.\" Finley cleared his throat. \"Karl here proved of more use than me.\"\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow and glanced at his friend, but Karl merely smiled and patted Gabriel's knee.\n\n\"Wait until your partner comes; then I will explain all.\"\n\n\"You'd better.\" Gabriel stretched out his legs. \"And she's not my partner anymore.\"\n\n\"More the fool you, then,\" Karl said. And when Gabriel glanced at him, he grinned and added, \"Well, she's pretty and she's single, and you haven't exactly got a social life.\"\n\nA mix of amusement and annoyance ran through him. He got this sort of lecture from his brother, his mom and his sister. He didn't need it from his friends as well. \"And this is important to you because?\"\n\n\"Because you're my friend, and I care about your emotional well-being.\"\n\n\"I'd almost believe that if it weren't for the insincerity in your voice.\"\n\nKarl chuckled. \"Well, let's just say that a man your age needs a good woman to look after him.\"\n\nGabriel raised his eyebrows. \"A man my age? You make it sound like I'm old.\"\n\n\"Well, you _are_ rolling rapidly toward the big four-o...\"\n\n\"Which is barely a baby in shapechanger terms, and you know it.\"\n\n\"I know it, but _you_ try explaining it to my good wife.\"\n\nGabriel groaned. \"Don't tell me she's plotting another matchmaking session?\"\n\n\"Well, it seems she has this second cousin who would be perfect\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell her I have a girlfriend I'm perfectly happy with.\"\n\nKarl raised his eyebrows. \"Really? You with a girlfriend? I'm just not seeing that.\"\n\n\"Depends on how you define the term 'girlfriend.' \"\n\n\"Ah. A bed buddy.\" Karl nodded. \"Not as good as the real thing, but a suitable decoy for determined matchmakers. She won't be put off for long, though. You know that, don't you?\"\n\nGabriel opened his mouth to reply, but it was lost to a sudden buzz of awareness. Though perhaps _buzz_ was the wrong word to use\u2014it was more a flash fire that ran across his senses and then slid deep inside, seeming to warm his very soul. He glanced at the door as it opened and Sam stepped in, nodding a brief acknowledgment Finley's way before her gaze met his.\n\nThe awareness that burned his mind was more than one-way now. He could see the flame of it in her eyes.\n\nShe stopped in the doorway and said, \"What the hell are _you_ doing here?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"Karl asked me to come.\"\n\nHer angry gaze switched to Karl. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you both need to hear what I have to say.\" Karl hesitated. \"And I don't think either of you are going to like it.\"\n\nGabriel met Karl's eyes again and saw the compassion mingled with excitement in their brown depths. Something clenched in his gut. Whatever Karl had to say, it boded no good for _his_ future.\n\n\"Fine, but that doesn't mean he comes into that room with me.\" She thrust a finger in the direction of O'Hearn's office. \"My business is _not_ his business.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" Karl said heavily, \"that in this case, it is.\"\n\nKarl's comment left her looking more disgruntled than before, if that were possible.\n\nNot that Gabriel could really blame her. Hell, the last few months hadn't exactly been easy for her, and here he was, the creator of many of those problems, sitting in on her medical briefing.\n\nIt was a wonder she wasn't ranting and raving about the injustice of it all. He would be, in her place.\n\nThen the door to the office opened and O'Hearn's matronly figure appeared. \"Is everyone here? Good. Why don't you all come in and get yourselves something to drink?\"\n\nSam walked straight to the autobar and ordered a double scotch. Gabriel did likewise. She raised her glass in a brief salute, then downed half its contents before sitting on the chair nearest the window. Her hair gleamed like fire against the darkness gathering outside, but the rest of her seemed cloaked in shadows.\n\nHe sat on a chair opposite her\u2014not that he really needed to see her reaction to anything said here this evening; he could feel it all. The link that had sprung to life the minute she walked in the door had become a freeway of emotion. If it weren't for the fact that he was so used to blocking his brother, the assault might have overloaded him.\n\nKarl and Finley helped themselves to coffee and sat down to either side of him. O'Hearn leaned against the edge of her desk.\n\n\"Okay, I'll start this off,\" O'Hearn said. \"I've managed to isolate coding sequences from four different races\u2014shifter, changer, vampire and were. But there was one I couldn't identify. I called in Finley, but he's been unable to define the sequences either. Then there was the problem of the unknown chromosome.\"\n\n\"How can there be an extra chromosome?\" Sam asked, her voice terse. \"From what I understand of genetics, humans have forty-six chromosomes, and they work in pairs. So how can there be just one unknown chromosome?\"\n\nO'Hearn raised an eyebrow, as if surprised by the question. \"Humans do have forty-six. Vampires who were once human have forty-eight. Shifters have fifty, changers and weres fifty-two. If any of those becomes a vamp, then they gain an extra pair of chromosomes. You, my dear, have fifty-five.\"\n\n\"Meaning what?\" Sam crossed her arms. The gray ring around the blue of her eyes gleamed ice-bright in the fading light. \"You said you detected partial shifter coding, but even with the extra chromosome that still only gives me a max of fifty-three.\"\n\nFinley cleared his throat. \"The two extra come from the vamp coding we found.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"I thought you had to undergo the change to gain the extra chromosomes.\"\n\n\"So did I.\" O'Hearn's voice was dry.\n\n\"Normally, yes,\" Finley said. \"But in recent government tests, vamp chromosomes have been successfully introduced into both pig and rat embryos.\"\n\nSam's face echoed the horror Gabriel felt. Government meddling with the very beginnings of life could never be a good thing.\n\n\"What the hell is the government doing that for?\"\n\nFinley shrugged. \"Vampires have what humanity has long searched for\u2014life everlasting.\"\n\nSam snorted. \"Yeah, but at what cost?\"\n\n\"To some, the cost doesn't matter.\" Finley hesitated, frowning slightly. \"Anyway, while we were trying to decode the unknown strands, I remembered my father once saying he worked with a man who could melt into shadows. Handy, when you were a member of covert operations. At the time, I thought my father meant a vampire, but since AD Stern here questioned me about the existence of shadow walkers, I began to wonder.\"\n\n\"So you questioned him?\" Gabriel interrupted tersely. Finley had a tendency to ramble if left unchecked.\n\nThe young doctor nodded. \"He confirmed the man was a walker. One of six the Australian military had on the payroll.\"\n\nIf they were on the payroll, why was there no record of them now? \"What happened to them?\"\n\nFinley shrugged. \"Dad wasn't sure. It seemed they disappeared after the Race Wars.\"\n\nSent to Hopeworth, perhaps? It was certainly a possibility\u2014especially if Sam proved to have walker blood in her.\n\n\"Could he point you to anyone who might know more?\"\n\n\"He did\u2014to two men, actually. Robin Deleware and Frank Lloyd. Deleware died some three years ago, and Lloyd\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014is a general stationed at Hopeworth,\" Sam muttered. Her gaze met Gabriel's. \"That man keeps reappearing.\"\n\nAnd the reason behind Lloyd's interest in Sam was becoming clearer. \"Lloyd's not likely to help us.\"\n\n\"No,\" Finley agreed, \"but Deleware still might. It appears he was Karl's uncle.\"\n\n\"On my mother's side,\" Karl explained with a grin. \"I inherited all his books when he died, you see. Among them were his journals.\"\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow. \"I thought personal journals were banned in covert operations?\"\n\nKarl's grin widened. \"Rules are made to be broken, as you should know.\"\n\nIgnoring the jibe, Gabriel asked, \"So what did the books reveal?\"\n\n\"The answers, at least to some extent. It appears that both Lloyd and my uncle were involved in the research side of operations. Walkers are mentioned extensively in three of his journals, and then they disappear abruptly.\"\n\nBecause the walkers themselves disappeared? Or was there a more sinister reason?\n\nSam shifted slightly on her chair, and her tension was a darkness that crawled through his mind. Her thoughts flashed like fire behind that darkness. He only had to reach out and he could be there, sharing them. But he didn't reach out. He didn't dare. He had a feeling that if he breached them one more time\u2014as he had when he'd used their bond to find her at the condemned hospital\u2014he would never again be able to raise the barriers that had protected him for so long against the psychic bond of his twin, and the more recent one he'd developed with Sam. \"What did the journals say?\"\n\n\"For a start, they noted that the walkers had an extra chromosome, one that resembled an S. While it had no pair, it seemed able to fuse itself onto the X and Y pairings. To what purpose, we have no idea, but it's exactly what we've seen in Samantha.\"\n\n\"All of which means squat to me.\" She hesitated, drinking the remainder of her scotch in one quick gulp. \"Nor does it really tell us what the hell walkers were.\"\n\nKarl smiled. \"I suppose it's hard to get excited if you're not a scientist. From what the journals say, walkers were not, in fact, human\u2014not even in the sense that changers and shifters are human. They are, in fact, an entirely new species rather than a human offshoot.\"\n\nOther than a slight leeching of color from her face, there was no immediate reaction from Sam. But her shock clubbed at Gabriel's mind, almost numbing in its intensity.\n\n\"Not human in what way?\" she said, her voice soft and tightly controlled.\n\n\"They were elementals\u2014the essence of nature itself. There were apparently four types\u2014sun, earth, wind and water.\"\n\n\"Then a sun elemental could, say, control a fire, or even appear to swallow it?\" Gabriel said, remembering the story he'd read in the archives. And a water elemental could control a storm, using the lightning as a weapon, as Sam had done.\n\nKarl nodded. \"Each walker was the master of his element. Their ability to disappear into shadows came from the fact that they were more energy beings rather than flesh. Vampires disappear into shadows by exerting psychic pressure on the human sense of sight, making it appear as if the shadows have wrapped around them. A walker merely loses his human shape, reverting to an energy form.\"\n\nSam scrubbed a hand across her eyes. \"So basically, what you're saying here is that _I'm_ not human? That I never was?\" She hesitated, swallowing heavily. \"How is that even possible? I'm not made of energy, for Christ's sake. I'm flesh and blood.\"\n\n\"Sam, you have human elements in your coding, the same as a changer, a shifter or even a were.\" O'Hearn's voice was gentle, almost soothing. \"But the dominant coding in your DNA seems to be what we presume is walker coding.\"\n\n\"If the walkers were all-powerful, why even bother patching in changer or were coding? It's not as if I can shift or change.\" Sam ran a hand through her hair, eyes a little wild.\n\nShe didn't want to be anything more than human, Gabriel realized. She might want to discover her past, but in many respects she feared it, too. Or, rather, feared discovering just what she might be\u2014and what she could do. And while that fear was totally understandable, if what O'Hearn was suggesting was true\u2014and he had no doubt that it was\u2014then it was more important than ever that they press forward on the quest to discover who had made her, and why.\n\nBecause not only was the military now interested in her, but someone far worse also held an interest. Sethanon.\n\n\"But you _can_ channel the power of the storms,\" O'Hearn continued softly. \"Which suggests, perhaps, that the walker strands _are_ dominant.\"\n\n\"Meaning I'm likely to dissolve into darkness at any given minute?\"\n\nThe silence seemed filled with sudden tension, and Gabriel wondered why.\n\nFinley cleared his throat. \"As a matter of fact, you have already begun to fade.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you on, Finley?\" Gabriel snapped. Sam was sitting there, as plain as day, despite the darkness that had gathered in the office. He could see the fear in her blue-gray eyes, the whiteness of her knuckles as she clasped her hands in her lap.\n\nO'Hearn and Karl shared a look. Karl waved a hand in Sam's direction. \"You can see her?\"\n\nStupid question\u2014wasn't it? \"Yeah.\" He frowned. \"You honestly can't?\"\n\n\"No,\" Karl said, and glanced at O'Hearn again. \"It's as we thought.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" O'Hearn sighed.\n\nGabriel took a deep breath to calm a surge of anger. \"Would you three kindly explain what the hell is going on?\"\n\n\"Sorry, my friend, but we just had to be sure.\" Karl held up a hand as Gabriel opened his mouth to make a retort. \"My uncle's journals had one very interesting side note about walkers. They come as a pair. They have to, apparently. If a walker does not have a base\u2014someone to call them back, if you like\u2014there is a huge risk of them becoming lost in the powers they seek to control.\"\n\nSomething cold washed through him. _You are her anchor, her reality,_ Jess had warned. \"I'm not a walker.\"\n\n\"No,\" O'Hearn agreed. \"But I've talked to your father, and I checked your genetic background. It's highly possible that there is walker blood in your line.\"\n\n\"Meaning what?\" The question came out harsh and was, in some ways, inane. He understood the implications clearly enough. He just didn't want to face them.\n\n\"Meaning,\" Karl said softly, \"that it's possible that you and Sam are destined to be a pair, and there's not one damn thing either of you can do about it.\"\n\n# SIX\n\nSAM MET GABRIEL'S GAZE. THOUGH there was absolutely no emotion on his face or in his hazel eyes, his horror washed through her mind like lava.\n\nHe'd spent half his life fighting a similar bond with his twin, and he was not likely to accept it with her.\n\nNot that _she_ wanted to be tied to anyone right now, either. Her social life might suck, but being alone was far better than being forced into the company of a man who didn't want to be there.\n\n_Damn it,_ why was _nothing_ ever simple in her life?\n\nRight now, she wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry or rant at the heavens and fate itself for throwing so many wrenches her way...\n\nShe glanced back to Karl. \"What exactly did your uncle say about the walker pairing?\"\n\nKarl sipped his coffee, as if considering the question. Though it was more likely he was considering how to phrase his reply without upsetting anyone, she decided.\n\n\"He said it was destiny. That, in much the same manner as a shapechanger, they pair for life. They share thoughts, and to a lesser extent, powers\u2014and even when apart, they know what the other is feeling or doing.\"\n\n\"Two halves of a whole,\" Gabriel murmured. But he wasn't looking at her, wasn't looking at anyone. His gaze was withdrawn, internal. He was seeing\u2014remembering\u2014things to which none of them were privy.\n\nAnd yet his words sent a chill through her. Joe had said that exact same thing more than once. And he certainly _hadn't_ been referring to Gabriel and her.\n\n\"So simply because Gabriel can see me when I fade into shadow, you're presuming he's my...what did you call it? Base?\"\n\nKarl nodded. \"That, plus the fact that you've formed a connection, despite Gabriel's efforts to stop it.\"\n\n\"A connection that is entirely one-sided, I assure you.\" Which was not exactly true, but, damn it, she couldn't help fighting the finality of Karl's words. Life had thrown some pretty shitty things at her lately, but being stuck with a man who really didn't want her in his life had to be one of the worst.\n\nAnd it didn't matter a damn just how much she was attracted to him. Being forced together would destroy any chance she had of changing his mind.\n\n\"Since your abilities are still in their growth stage, perhaps that is to be expected,\" O'Hearn said.\n\nBut her abilities _weren't_ in their growth stage\u2014not if what she was now seeing in the dreams were to be believed. \"Or it could be taken as a sign that you are way off course.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But when you add the fact that Gabriel shares your pain when you've been injured, I think it's pretty conclusive.\" O'Hearn hesitated, her gray gaze eagle sharp. \"You might be interested to know that, now that we've noted your fading, you've become solid.\"\n\n\"A subconscious reaction rather than conscious,\" Finley murmured. \"Interesting.\"\n\nSam glanced down\u2014not that the lower half of her body looked any different now than it had a few minutes ago, when she'd apparently become one with the darkness. She met O'Hearn's gaze again. \"If I do have walker genes that are beginning to assert themselves, then there's another possibility. Base-wise, I mean.\"\n\nO'Hearn frowned. \"What?\"\n\nSam glanced at Gabriel. There was a sudden stillness about him that spoke of...not shock, not anger, but a weird mix that was both. Suddenly she wished she'd never spoken. Hell, she didn't even _know_ who Joe was. He could be a mortal enemy of everyone in this room. _She_ could be, for all she knew. She swallowed to ease the sudden dryness in her throat.\n\n\"I mean that I'm in telepathic contact with another man. I have been for months.\" _Years._ \"He seems to know an awful lot about me, and he's said more than once that we're two halves of a whole.\"\n\nGabriel didn't move, didn't physically react. But his gaze burned into hers, and his tension washed through her mind. Tension, and something else\u2014something she couldn't define.\n\n\"Who is this man?\" His voice was soft, as devoid of emotion as his face.\n\nIt was a shame she couldn't say the same about the link they seemed to have developed. She rubbed her arms. \"I don't know. He tells me his name is Joe Black, but it's an alias. There's no information on record for a Joe Black matching his description.\"\n\n\"Then you've met him?\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"I had coffee with him. He's a shapechanger. His other form is a crow.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\nShe had a horrible feeling that crows had just made his hit list, which made no sense. Surely he should be happy that there was a possibility that he wasn't her base. That there was someone else who might fill that role. He didn't want ties of any kind\u2014not with his twin and certainly not with her.\n\nO'Hearn cleared her throat softly. \"You've never mentioned this before.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I never thought it was important before.\"\n\nThe doctor glanced at Karl. \"This puts an interesting spin on things. Did the journals mention anything else about the pairings?\"\n\nKarl shook his head. \"Regretfully, no. As I said, the mention of the pairing was little more than a side note.\"\n\n\"Well, we certainly need to find out more about Mr. Black.\"\n\n\"Leave that to me,\" Gabriel said, his voice a monotone.\n\nO'Hearn raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. \"I'd also like to perform some tests with you both. See just how strong the connection is between you.\"\n\n\"We also need to perform tests,\" Finley added, \"to define your psychic talents and strengths.\"\n\nSam frowned as his words brought back memories of the dream. Memories of being chained to a chair while the flames licked her face and the trauma and anger it had caused. The deaths _she'd_ caused as a result.\n\n_If_ the dream was to be believed, that is.\n\nBut even if it wasn't, there'd been too many tests in her life already. She really didn't want to do any more. Yet if she wanted answers, what other choice did she have? Still, that didn't mean she had to be an overly willing guinea pig, either.\n\n\"That might be difficult, given my current assignment.\"\n\nEspecially since whatever spare time she _did_ have she wanted to spend down in Kingston fixing up her house, not hanging around either SIU's or O'Hearn's labs. As much as she wanted to discover who and what she was, she also longed to get on with her life. She'd already been in a holding pattern for far too long. For the first time, she actually had something she was _excited_ about.\n\nBesides, what was the point of discovering how strong the connection between her and Gabriel was when he had every intention of fighting it?\n\n\"Surely you can spare an hour or so a day.\" Finley's tone suggested she was a fool if she didn't. But then, he was the scientist, not the lab rat.\n\n\"Maybe.\" She glanced at her watch. She was due to meet Wetherton at his office by six thirty. If she left now, she'd not only make it there with time to spare, but she'd beat the storm brewing outside. And how she knew _that_ without even turning around to look was something she didn't want to think about right now. \"Look, can we wrap this up soon? I really have to get going.\"\n\nO'Hearn nodded. \"Shall we book you both in for Friday, then? After lunch, perhaps?\"\n\nSam sighed. \"Try three. That'll give me time to catch up on sleep after my shift.\"\n\nThe doctor nodded, her gaze on Sam's. Not meeting it, just _looking_ at it. Sam raised an eyebrow and said, \"What?\"\n\n\"The blue in your eyes is receding as the night falls. The silver is growing brighter.\"\n\n\"There's a storm gathering outside,\" Karl commented. \"If storms are her element, then that could be an indicator of power.\"\n\n\"Or maybe just a sign that it's easier to see the silver in my eyes at night.\" And yet, even though her back was to the window, the electricity of the oncoming storm danced across her skin, filling her with power, energy.\n\nAnd _that_ was terrifying.\n\nSam rose. \"Let's continue this Friday, then.\"\n\n\"Gabriel, perhaps you'd better escort\u2014\"\n\nShe held up her hand, halting Karl before he could finish. \"I'm a big girl now. I don't need a nanny.\"\n\n\"But the storm\u2014\"\n\n\"Is just a storm, like a thousand other storms I've walked through before without harm.\" Something clunked at her feet, and she looked down to see her phone had somehow fallen out of her pocket. As she reached down to pick it up, she noted the tiny sparks leaping from finger to finger. As if the storm's energy had filled her to overflowing.\n\nShe wrapped her hand around the phone, hiding her fingertips in the process. Maybe it was a stupid reaction since she was here to discover answers, but right now, she just wanted out. Wanted time to contemplate everything she'd been told\u2014the worst of which was not the fact that she was something other than human, but rather that she could be eternally tied to a man who\u2014no matter what his sister might think\u2014wanted nothing to do with her.\n\nShe straightened and gave the watching scientists a tight smile. \"I'll see you all Friday.\"\n\n\"Be careful,\" Karl said. \"If you _are_ a walker and the storm is your element, you could find yourself lost in its power without even realizing it was happening.\"\n\n\"The walker gene might appear dominant, Karl, but it is only one part,\" O'Hearn said. \"Don't you think the nonhuman mix might mute its force?\"\n\nKarl shrugged. \"Until we do more tests, we don't know.\"\n\n\"So, I'll be careful.\" Sam glanced at Gabriel. He didn't say anything, just looked at her with an annoyed light in his eyes. Yeah, he was _really_ pleased with the turn of events\u2014and Jessie, for all her clairvoyance, had to have been mistaken. She turned and walked out the door.\n\nIt wasn't until she stood outside the building that she remembered she hadn't asked Finley about the tests on Wetherton's would-be assassin. She half-turned to go back inside, then stopped and took a long, shuddering breath. She couldn't do it. She couldn't face them all again. Not yet. She could ring Finley later, or send him an email or something. Right now, she desperately needed time alone to absorb everything she'd been told.\n\n_God,_ that was _so_ not the result she'd been expecting.\n\nIt was finally confirmed. She _wasn't_ human. She was something else. Something created in a lab somewhere and brought up in clinical surroundings. But to what end? That was the question she had to seek an answer to, though her last dream was perhaps an indicator. Hopeworth had been playing in the genetic and psychic sandbox for some time, trying to create the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon. And her dreams indicated that she'd begun training to control her abilities at a very young age.\n\nBut if her walker genes were the strongest, did that mean she wasn't a product of Hopeworth? Her birth certificate\u2014her _real_ one, not the fake one that had been placed into the system the day she'd appeared on the steps of the State Care center for orphaned kids\u2014gave the names of the eight people who were her \"parents.\" None of them were walkers, but shifters and psychics.\n\nSo if she was a product of the Penumbra project, as they were all presuming, where in hell did the walker strain come from?\n\nThe \"real\" certificate could be a fake, of course. But she had confirmation of both the project and the people involved from a man and a woman who were at Hopeworth at the time of Penumbra. She even had confirmation, albeit from a woman with memory problems, about her presence there. But that same project had been totally\u2014and perhaps a little conveniently\u2014destroyed by fire, so there were no records available to confirm anything they were told.\n\nThe one person who might be able to shed some light on her confusion was the mysterious Joe. Every discussion she'd ever had with him had taken her just a little bit further along her path of remembering. But how much could she really trust him? She knew even less about him than she did about herself.\n\nAs she stood there, contemplating whether she should try and contact him, the heavens opened up. Big, fat, heavy drops of rain began to splatter across the pavement, quickly darkening the concrete inches away from her feet. Thunder rumbled, the sound so loud it seemed to rattle the air itself. Two seconds later, lightning split the sky, briefly turning the night as bright as day. The energy of that flash burned across her senses, as warm as the sun and as sharp as glass.\n\nA tremor ran through her, but it wasn't fear. It was something far worse.\n\n_Excitement._\n\n_Pleasure._\n\nAs if part of her soul rejoiced in the storm's energy.\n\nShe rubbed her arms and warily stared at the skies. Maybe Karl was right. Maybe she should have an escort to Wetherton's...\n\n_Damn it,_ _no._ She'd been touched by the power of the storms before and had drawn it deep into her body. This storm was no fiercer than the one she'd used to help find Gabriel, and she'd walked away from that with nothing more than a brief bout of shakiness and exhaustion. If it hadn't affected her then, why was she acting like a Nervous Nelly now?\n\nShe wasn't sure. Maybe it was just Karl's warning. Or maybe it was the growing sensation\u2014or rather, the expectation\u2014that something was about to happen.\n\nSomething that _needed_ to happen. Which made no sense at all.\n\nShe stared into the storm-locked night for a few seconds longer, then resolutely dashed out into the thickness of it. The wind tore at her as she ran, making her stagger like a drunkard, and the rain fell so heavily that visibility was almost impossible. Her pants became plastered to her legs in an instant and her shirt clung like a second skin. Only in Melbourne could a day whose weather had started off so nice do a complete one-eighty and become a bitch.\n\nAnd, of course, the closest parking spot she'd been able to find near O'Hearn's office was a block and a half down the street. Wetherton's office wasn't that much farther beyond that. She might as well run all the way, because by the time she got to her car, she'd be soaked anyway. Besides, she wasn't likely to find parking any closer to Wetherton's office at this hour. There was too much traffic.\n\nShe ran down the street, jumping over puddles and barely avoiding the other madly dashing pedestrians. Another flash of lightning lit across the stormy evening, and the power within it skipped across her skin, crackling like slivers of fire between her fingertips. Every breath she took sucked that energy inside her, until it felt as if it were surging through every pore, every fiber. Her whole body seemed more alive than it ever had been before.\n\nIt scared her. Terrified her.\n\nAnd the fact that it felt so _right_ made her fear it even more.\n\nOverhead, thunder rumbled again. The power of it echoed through her, a force that filled her to breaking, completing her in a way she couldn't even begin to understand.\n\nThen the lightning hit.\n\nIt felt like a gigantic hammer, smashing into her head, driving through her body, snatching her breath, her strength, even as it knocked her to the pavement. Her knees hit the concrete with a sickening crunch, but she felt no pain, had no awareness of anything going on around her, because everything had become white. It was as if she'd stepped beyond this world into a place of fierce brightness, in which nothing else existed but that light and the power within it\u2014and within her. The air itself burned with the intensity of that light, but not half as much as her skin.\n\nAnd it felt _good._\n\nSo very good.\n\nWithout thinking, she flung her arms wide, accepting the power burning around her, drawing it in even more. Flesh and bone seemed to burn away, until she was nothing more than a creature of energy, a being at one with the storm and the night and the intense heat of the lightning. And it called to her, that energy, wanted her, reaching for her like a lover might welcome a much-missed partner.\n\nShe raised her face to the skies she couldn't see, torn by the need to answer that call and the growing knowledge that something was wrong, that this wasn't good, no matter how good it actually felt.\n\n\"Samantha!\"\n\nThe call ran around her\u2014through her mind and past her ears. Yet it wasn't one voice, but two.\n\n_Samantha! You must resist. You are not grounded and will be lost. You cannot do this yet._\n\nThe internal voice was one she recognized. _Joe._ Always there when she needed help the most.\n\nBut the storm called her name, and the thought fled. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the caress of the power as she raised her arms a little more.\n\n_No! You cannot lose yourself to the storm. It would kill us both._\n\nHis fear vibrated through her, briefly stalling the flow of energy swirling around her. But it was a voice, a _real_ voice, hard and loud, that shook her more.\n\n\"Sam!\" Hands appeared through the maelstrom of energy, their flesh almost black compared to the brightness of the lightning-fed power. They grabbed her arm, her hand, and a shock more explosive than the storm ran through her. Suddenly she could feel the chill of the wind, the splatter of rain across her face, the throbbing in her knees and the ache in her mind.\n\nAnd with that, the energy leapt away and returned to the heavens. The feeling of oneness was gone, the light was gone, and all that was left was weakness. Complete and utter weakness.\n\nShe fell forward into arms that were warm and solid and real, and she knew without looking that it was Gabriel. She didn't ask how he was there, or why he was there, and she didn't particularly care. She simply rested in the security of his touch as her body trembled and she gasped for breath.\n\nHis grip tightened slightly, as if he'd felt her need for closeness. His warmth began to seep into her, heating her skin, leaching away the last vestiges of energy and making her feel real again, rather than a creature of the storm. She closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart, feeling her own begin to echo its rhythm.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" he asked, after a while. His breath caressed warmth across the top of her head and a tremor of desire ran through her.\n\nNot a feeling she needed right now.\n\nShe nodded in answer to his question and pulled back. His grip moved to her shoulders, holding her steady and preventing her from drawing away. His gaze searched hers, the green in those hazel depths glowing like emerald fire, as if the storm had somehow empowered him, too.\n\n\"What the hell just happened?\" he asked.\n\nShe gave a shaky laugh and wiped a hand across her wet face\u2014a useless gesture given the rain. \"I now understand what Karl meant with his warning. And he was right.\"\n\nHe raised a hand and gently brushed bedraggled strands of hair from her cheek. She didn't see the point since the wind and the rain just flung them back, but she wasn't about to object, either. His touch was too comforting. Too good.\n\n\"Then you called the storm to you?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It called me.\" She hesitated. \"It felt so right, so pleasurable, like I was coming home. It would have been very easy to get lost in that feeling, as Karl warned.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"So what brought you back?\"\n\n\"You did.\" She paused. \"And Joe.\"\n\nShe'd half-expected her answer to annoy or anger him, but he merely raised his eyes. \"Both of us?\"\n\n\"Yes. Joe contacted me, briefly halting the call of the storm. And then you touched me, loosening the storm's grip and bringing me back.\"\n\nHe studied her for a moment, then said, \"That would suggest that this mysterious Joe and I might both play a part in being your base. And yet, according to Karl, a walker has only one base.\"\n\nShe blew out a breath, her gaze searching his. \"You know, I thought you'd be pissed off about that\u2014about being my base, that is.\"\n\n\"I am, but there's no use raging against something I can do nothing about.\" He hesitated. \"Besides, we still know very little about walkers as a race. Karl's journal may have proven useful so far, but it isn't as in-depth as we need it to be. Even _if_ your dominant genes are walker, we'll still be uncovering information as we run through our trials and experiments. And it is by no means certain that I _or_ this Joe are your base. Nor is it certain that you actually need one.\"\n\nIf what had just happened was _any_ indication, she did. But he knew that as much as she did. \"But if it _is_ true, you could end up tied to me. And we both know you don't want that.\"\n\n\"I don't _need_ that, true.\" He brushed his thumb down her cheek, lightly touching the corner of her mouth. Another tremor ran through her and, like before, it had nothing to do with the night or the rain or the fact that she was drenched. He half-smiled and added, \"But if I have to be stuck with someone, then I guess I could do worse.\"\n\n\"Well, gee,\" she said dryly, glad the tremor running through her limbs wasn't evident in her voice, \"that is such an overwhelmingly sentimental statement that I might just cry.\"\n\nHe chuckled softly and dropped his hand to her shoulder again. \"Look, I've been a bastard the last few months, and I will undoubtedly be a bastard again in the future. I don't want a partner, be it you or the idiot they've saddled me with now. I play solo. I _have_ to. It's not personal.\"\n\n\"None of which is answering my original concern.\"\n\n\"I know.\" His touch left her shoulders as he sat back on his heels, and the night suddenly felt colder. \"It's not that I don't want any sort of connection with you\u2014\"\n\n\"It's just that you're afraid of it,\" she finished for him.\n\nA wry smile touched his lips. \"Not afraid, just wary. The more people in my life that I care about, the more targets I give my enemies.\"\n\n\"That doesn't mean we can't be friends.\" Nor did it mean he cared about her. Damn it, she wasn't even sure if he was physically attracted. His touch tonight might have been nothing more than concern for a workmate. And she couldn't take his sister's words as gospel, either. After all, most families weren't above a bit of matchmaking if they felt the mix was right.\n\nNot that she had firsthand experience of families and their habits, having never had a family herself. But she'd seen it often enough in her years as a cop, observing from the sidelines.\n\nGabriel rose to his feet in one smooth, almost elegant, gesture and held out his hand. \"I think we'd better get out of this storm.\"\n\nWhich was a neat way of avoiding her question and not committing himself one way or another.\n\n\"We're drowned rats anyway, so it doesn't much matter whether we stay here or not.\" But she grasped his warm fingers and let him help her up.\n\nPain slithered up her legs as she rose. She glanced down and saw the rents in her pants and the scrapes on her knees. She must have hit the concrete harder than she'd thought. \"Oh great. This is going to make such a wonderful first impression on Wetherton.\"\n\n\"As far as first impressions go, you can't get much better than saving the man's ass last night. Even if you weren't supposed to be there.\"\n\n\"If I hadn't been, all of Stephan's carefully laid plans would have been blown to hell.\" She plucked material from the wound on her left knee. Though the worse of the two, the wound wasn't deep, just nasty looking. \"And besides, Wetherton was out cold when his ass was hauled from that car, so I doubt he's even aware of my involvement. Especially since Briggs handled all the follow-up interviews.\" Mainly because _she'd_ been getting raked over the coals by Stephan for shooting their suspect.\n\n\"What time were you supposed to be at Wetherton's?\" he asked.\n\nShe grimaced and glanced at her watch. \"I start at six thirty, but I'd like to get there just after six and look around.\"\n\n\"Which leaves just enough time to buy a change of clothes.\"\n\n\"Sounds good. Wetherton doesn't seem the type to be impressed by drowned rats.\"\n\nHe grinned as he took her arm and began guiding her down the street. \"Wetherton is the type to be impressed with anything that has breasts and a figure. Even drowned, I think you'd qualify.\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow and looked up at him. \"Have you had a personality transplant or something?\"\n\nHis grin faded into a grimace. \"No, but I saw that lightning hit you, and I guess I'm just relieved to see you're unharmed.\"\n\n\"I bet it hurt admitting that.\"\n\n\"I'm not an ogre, despite what my behavior may have made you believe.\"\n\n\"So you're saying the ogre actually does have feelings?\"\n\n\"Very occasionally.\" He gave her a half-smile, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that suggested his words were more a warning. \"It doesn't mean that you\u2014or anyone else\u2014will see the other side all that often. I will never get more than casually involved with someone again.\"\n\n\"Sounds like you're setting yourself up for a very lonely old age, Assistant Director.\"\n\n\"If I make it to old age, I'll worry about it then.\" He paused. \"What can you tell me about this Joe?\"\n\nMeaning the subjects of his emotions and his life were officially closed\u2014for now, at least. She shrugged. \"He's been around for a while. He mostly used to talk to me in dreams, but lately we've been in contact through direct telepathic thought. He seems to know a lot about my past.\"\n\n\"And have you questioned him about his identity?\"\n\n\"Of course. He's more than a little cagey.\" She hesitated. \"There is a connection between us, a bond that goes beyond telepathy. I just don't know what that is as yet.\"\n\n\"Could he be another of Hopeworth's rejects?\"\n\nShe glanced at him. \"We're not actually sure that I'm a reject yet.\"\n\n\"No.\" He paused. \"Is he military?\"\n\nShe remembered the time they'd had coffee. Remembered the way he walked, the military-like alertness. \"If he isn't now, I'd say he has been.\"\n\n\"What does he look like?\"\n\n\"Brown eyes, big build, about your height. Very scruffy and very hairy.\" She shrugged. \"He reminded me somewhat of a bear.\"\n\n\"Could you work up a facial composite? That way, we could search military records and see if we find a match.\"\n\n\"Hopeworth is not likely to allow you to do a search of their personnel\u2014past or present.\"\n\nHe raised a dark eyebrow. \"You think he's from Hopeworth?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Everything else seems to be tied back to that place. I can't see why he wouldn't be.\"\n\n\"If that's the case, he might be a means of keeping an eye on you.\"\n\n\"And yet Hopeworth seemed to have no interest\u2014no idea that I even existed\u2014until I contacted them about the Generation 18 murders.\"\n\nThey reached a department store. As the front doors swished open, he ushered her through. The air in the store was so warm it felt like they'd stepped into a sauna. She resisted the urge to strip off her soaked sweater and dripped water all over their shiny floors as she made her way toward the women's section.\n\n\"That could be because all evidence of the Penumbra project was destroyed,\" he said, watching as she sorted through the racks of clothing.\n\n\"Or it could mean that I was never a part of that place and came from somewhere else.\"\n\nHe raised an eyebrow again. \"Do you believe that?\"\n\n\"No.\" They might not have gotten a whole lot of concrete information about the project or her part in it, but the little they _did_ have was convincing enough. Plus, there was now the fact that\u2014according to O'Hearn and all the tests done so far\u2014she wasn't human. And not only wasn't she human, she wasn't a creation of nature, either. Which invariably led to the conclusion that she _had_ to be lab-created. And the fact was, there weren't many labs around capable of supporting such a long-term commitment as developing a being\u2014either timewise _or_ moneywise.\n\nOnly the military. And perhaps other covert government departments they didn't know about.\n\nHer search through the racks eventually turned up suitable pants, a warm sweater, shoes and a hooded, waterproof jacket. Once she'd paid for them, she went into the dressing room, stripped off her soaked clothes and changed. After brushing her hair, she almost felt human again. Although _that_ term was apparently relative.\n\n\"The drowned rat has vanished,\" Gabriel noted, his gaze sweeping her as she came back out. \"Though I bet Wetherton would have preferred the wet\u2014and therefore see-through\u2014blouse to the bulky sweater.\"\n\n\"If that old lecher comes anywhere near me, I'm going to punch him.\" Sam gave him the plastic bags of wet clothes to hold while she donned her jacket. Now that she was beginning to warm up, she didn't want to step outside and get drowned again.\n\n\"Like that would get the two of you off on the right foot.\"\n\n\"Well, at least he'd know the boundaries.\"\n\nHis smile faded. \"Be careful with Wetherton. He might be a Hopeworth plant, or he might be one of Sethanon's, but, either way, he's going to be dangerous.\"\n\nShe zipped her coat, pulled up the hood and grabbed her bags back. \"Is that why you've placed a twenty-four-hour watch on me?\"\n\nHe had the grace to look guilty\u2014but only briefly. \"How did you find out?\"\n\nShe snorted softly. \"I've been a cop for more years than I care to remember. Why on earth would you think I _wouldn't_ notice a tail?\"\n\nShe pushed the door open and stepped back into the storm-held night. The wind seemed even stronger than before, buffeting her sideways until Gabriel touched her arm and steadied her. But unlike before, the power in the storm seemed muted. She could feel it, but it was distant, no more than an electric murmur in the background. Yet one that could sharpen instantly given the slightest provocation.\n\n\"I had some very experienced people following you,\" he said, as the doors swished shut behind them. \"I just didn't think you'd spot them so quickly.\"\n\n\"Those experienced people were your sister, her husband and you.\" She squinted up at him. \"Did you actually plan to sleep anytime?\"\n\nHis hazel eyes met hers, the green-flecked depths showing little in the way of emotion. The caring, sharing version of Gabriel Stern she'd enjoyed for the last few minutes had all but disappeared. This version she knew all too well.\n\n\"I'm a changer. We can survive on very few hours of rest,\" he said.\n\n\"Not long-term.\"\n\n\"I was hoping it wasn't going to be long-term.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" She glanced ahead, noting with a little annoyance that Wetherton's office building was less than half a block away. \"And if it was?\"\n\n\"I would have dealt with the problem when it arose.\"\n\nWhich was not very practical. \"What if your solution isn't the best solution?\"\n\nHe frowned. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"It's just a thought that occurred to me when I was talking to Jessie. All roads are leading to Hopeworth, so would it not be better\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" he cut in instantly.\n\n\"But it may be our only chance to get any sort of answers. For all we know, Sethanon might be\u2014\"\n\n\"No!\" he cut in again, more forcefully this time. He took a steadying breath, then said, \"It's too damn dangerous. Heaven only knows what that place would do to you if they got hold of you. I can't risk it, Sam. I won't.\"\n\n_He_ couldn't risk it. Not the SIU, not the Federation. _Him._ Surely that was a sign he cared far more than he was admitting? Or was it simply that he had no intention of losing her until he knew what she was capable of and how they might use her growing abilities for the benefit of the SIU and the Federation?\n\nAnd why did she even care? Hadn't she just made a resolution to stop centering her life around her work and her partners?\n\nThe trouble was, he'd touched her. Brushed the hair from her face and run his fingers down her cheek to her lips. And those two actions had her long-ignored hormones dancing.\n\nFrom the very beginning she'd been attracted to him, and while they might not have shared anything more intimate than a brief hug, that attraction still flared up at the slightest provocation. And no matter how angry she might be with him, it appeared that the attraction wasn't going away. Ignoring it might work in the long run, but only if she wasn't seeing him regularly. As long as he was still in her life, she was stuck with it.\n\nAnd since _he_ obviously wasn't going to pursue it, maybe she should just bite the bullet and do as Jessie suggested. Become the hunter.\n\nCould she do it?\n\nShe didn't know. She'd never actually pursued _any_ man, whether it was for sexual or emotional pleasure. Which wasn't to say she hadn't indulged in either\u2014she had, and had enjoyed herself immensely. But in the past, she'd always allowed men to do the pursuing, and she always knew going in that neither the man nor the relationship\u2014however good or emotional it felt at the time\u2014would last.\n\nWhy she'd always been sure of that she couldn't honestly say. Nor could she say why she was so sure that her attraction to Gabriel was more than just the natural attraction of a female to a sexy male.\n\nMaybe it had something to do with the walker gene and the bond that might be between them. Maybe it didn't. Or maybe it was nothing more than wishful thinking on her part. Whatever the reason, perhaps wondering if she _could_ pursue him wasn't the right question. Maybe what she _should_ be asking was what she actually wanted from him. What did she expect? Just another good time? Just another physically satisfying month or two in her life?\n\n_No._\n\nWhatever this thing was between them, it definitely felt bigger. Which in turn meant she was expecting something more than a month or two of mutual pleasure. Something deeper than just caring.\n\nBut given his stance against any emotional commitment in his life, wasn't she just setting herself up for heartache? If he could keep his twin\u2014his own flesh and blood\u2014at arm's length, what made her think his connection to her would be any different?\n\nSo maybe that was the _real_ question she needed to ask herself. Was she ready to face that heartache if it went belly-up? And could she live with it, face being around him day in and day out if he did in fact prove to be her base?\n\nProbably not.\n\nBut maybe she had to try, anyway. Because surely it was better to attempt a relationship on her own terms, in her own time, than to be forced into it by genes and fate.\n\nAt the very least, if she seriously tried to start something between them that went beyond friendship and duty, she'd know for sure whether Jessie was right about the attraction going both ways. Which was far better than realizing sometime down the road that he was with her only because he had no other choice.\n\nFreedom of choice was important, no matter what fate and the future planned for them both.\n\n\"Earth to Sam. Are you still with me?\"\n\nShe blinked and looked up at him. \"What?\"\n\n\"I've been talking to you for the last few minutes. Did you hear anything I've said?\"\n\n\"Ummm...no. Did you say anything important?\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes. Amusement touched his lips, yet his concern whipped around her, as chill as the wind, and his grip on her arm tightened a little. \"Is the storm calling again?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" She shrugged. \"I was just thinking about Wetherton and how little I actually want this assignment.\"\n\n\"Then why accept it? You had the choice to refuse, you know.\"\n\nShe stopped and turned to face him. \"How could I _not_ accept it? At least it got me out of the broom closet and let me do some real police work. You're not the only one who hates being confined indoors, Assistant Director.\"\n\nHe grimaced. \"You know why I was doing that\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, because you're an ass who would rather force an unwanted situation to go away than be up-front and talk about it. Cowardice is not a trait I expected from you, but you've been consistently proving me wrong for three months.\"\n\nAnger flicked through his eyes. \"I had no choice in taking you on as a partner. And the only way the situation could have been altered was if you had requested a transfer.\"\n\n\"So why not come out and say that straight off the bat? Between the two of us, I'm sure we could have come up with a strategy that would have changed Stephan's mind. But no, you found it easier just to stick me down in the dungeons and ignore me.\"\n\nHe thrust a hand through his wet hair. \"Damn it, I was doing what I thought was right\u2014\"\n\n\"No, you were doing what was easier for you,\" she corrected. \"You knew it wasn't right, or you wouldn't have apologized for being a bastard. Or didn't you mean your apology?\"\n\n\"I did\u2014\"\n\n\"Then prove it.\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows. \"How?\"\n\n\"Take me out to dinner. To a nice, expensive restaurant.\"\n\n\"And how, exactly, will that prove anything?\"\n\nHe looked a little confused, which was good, because she had a feeling confusion was a state she'd have to keep him in if she was going to get anywhere with this seduction.\n\nNot that she had a specific plan. Right now, she was just jumping at an opportunity that had presented itself.\n\n\"Well, in the brief time I've known you, you haven't exactly been free and easy when it comes to money. And word around the office is that you're a first-class tight-ass\u2014\"\n\n\"It is?\" he asked, his surprise evident in his voice.\n\n\"Yes. So, if you go to the trouble of buying me dinner at an expensive\u2014and I do stress the word _expensive_ \u2014restaurant, then you're putting your money where your mouth is. And that, in turn, means you really _are_ sorry.\" She couldn't help the smile playing around her lips. \"In which case, your apology will be graciously accepted.\"\n\n\"This sounds to me like a sneaky method of getting an expensive meal without having to pay for it.\"\n\n\"Are you saying I don't deserve it? Even after the way you treated me?\"\n\n\"No, I'm just saying that this will be a one-time apology. Don't be expecting future apologies.\" He paused. \"Or dates.\"\n\n\"I'm not after a _date,_ Assistant Director\u2014not now _or_ in the future. I don't date men I work with.\" Which was true, up to a point. She'd certainly never dated Jack, her partner in the State Police, though she _had_ dated cops in other divisions over the years. She raised an eyebrow, silently challenging him to answer honestly. \"Why would you think I'm after a date? Especially after the way you've treated me for the last few months?\"\n\nHe didn't take up the challenge. No surprise there. \"I have no idea.\" He motioned her to move on. As she did, he added, \"So, dinner at an expensive restaurant. When?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"I'm on the night shift now, so it'll have to be during the day.\"\n\nHe raised a cynical eyebrow. \"Meaning lunch? How about tomorrow, then?\"\n\n\"Get the ordeal over with as quickly as possible, huh?\"\n\nHe smiled but didn't deny it. Boy, was she ever going to have some fun attempting to shock this man's starched sensibilities! She might end up in tears, but at least the journey would be interesting. And at least she'd see if Jessie's assessment was correct.\n\n\"Give me a call when you finish your shift tonight,\" he said. \"We can make arrangements then.\"\n\nShe glanced ahead and saw that Wetherton's office was only two doors away. _Damn._ She looked back to Gabriel. \"Who's watching me tonight?\"\n\nHe hesitated, then said, \"Alain.\"\n\n\"After which?\"\n\n\"Jessie takes over. Though since we now might be having lunch, I'll probably step in and let her rest.\"\n\n\"You're expecting a bit much of your sister and her husband, aren't you? They have their own lives to live, too.\"\n\n\"No one in my family has their own life. Everything revolves around the Federation.\"\n\nThe edge of bitterness is his voice surprised her, but she didn't question him about it. He wouldn't tell her anything. When it came to family, he was tighter than a clam. \"But I'm not involved in this Federation of yours.\"\n\nHell, even though she knew the historical facts about the Federation's origins\u2014that it was formed to protect the political and legal interests of nonhumans after the Race Wars\u2014she had no idea what it truly did these days. The few things he had said about it, however, suggested that not only were they still very much involved in protecting the interests of nonhumans, but they were also some kind of undercover, independent spy agency.\n\nHis gaze met hers briefly. \"No, but who you are, and what you are, might very well affect the Federation and its operations in the future. So, in that respect, you warrant Federation involvement.\"\n\n\"So why hasn't Stephan assigned other\u2014\" She paused, remembering what Jessie had told her. The urge to grin was almost overwhelming, but she somehow kept a straight face. Which didn't mean she could resist the temptation to pull his chain a little. \"He doesn't know you've assigned me guards, does he?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"So, you're having me guarded twenty-four hours a day against your brother's direct orders, but you refuse to admit there might be anything more than professional interest motivating you?\"\n\nHe glanced at her. \"That's about it.\"\n\nAnger rose so fast she could barely restrain it. He _knew_ there was something between them, something that needed to be sorted out. Something that was more than just a fluke of DNA. Why couldn't he give her at least _that_ tiny crumb of admission, even if he never intended to pursue it?\n\n\"You're so full of shit, Assistant Director, that it's almost scary.\" Sam stopped as they reached the front of Wetherton's office building. \"And you know what? Call off your guards now, or I'll let Stephan know what you're up to.\"\n\nAnnoyance flashed through his eyes. \"But Hopeworth\u2014\"\n\n\"As I've already said, let them come. I want answers. I want this mess sorted out so I can finally get on with the rest of my life.\"\n\n\"There may not _be_ a 'rest of your life' if Hopeworth grabs you!\" His anger all but seared her senses. But underneath it, there was also fear. \"If they kidnap you, we may not be able to find you, let alone rescue you. The whole Wetherton operation last night went to hell, so it's possible this will, too.\"\n\n\"Your brother isn't a complete fool. I have trackers on me, so they can find me no matter where I'm taken.\"\n\n\"But the danger\u2014\"\n\n\"Walking across the street during rush hour is dangerous, but I do that every damn day. Back off, Assistant Director. If you wanted to be involved in this operation\u2014and my life\u2014you shouldn't have pushed me away.\"\n\n\"That is beside the point...\"\n\n\"No, it's not. It is precisely the point. I have no desire\u2014and no need\u2014for a babysitter. Especially when that person isn't courageous enough to get over the past and get on with his life.\" And with that, she turned around and walked into the building.\n\n# SEVEN\n\nGABRIEL SWORE TO HIMSELF AS Sam walked away. No one looking at her slender figure right now would guess at the steel and determination hidden within that slight frame.\n\nOr the depth of sheer, damn foolhardiness.\n\nThere was a _huge_ difference between acting as bait and walking into a situation seriously underprepared. No matter what she or Stephan thought, she _couldn't_ handle this sort of job alone. There were just too many angles they could neither guess at nor cover.\n\nAs for her last jibe, where the hell did she get off accusing him of cruising through life when she was basically doing the same thing? God, at least he had a family...\n\nHe stopped the thought. That was hardly fair. And she couldn't exactly be blamed for her reluctance to have backup. She'd been abandoned as a teenager and, for all intents and purposes, had grown into adulthood alone. She'd spent half her life having few friends and depending on no one but herself. It wasn't entirely surprising that she would reject his offer of help now.\n\nWhat was surprising was the fact that she still wanted to see him socially, even after all he'd done to her.\n\nHe blew out a breath, then he spun on his heel and hitched the collar of his jacket up in an attempt to stop the rain from dripping down his neck as he walked across the street. He'd spotted Alain as he'd followed Sam from O'Hearn's office earlier, and the big man had been their distant shadow ever since. He was glad Sam hadn't spotted Alain. Undoubtedly, that would have made the situation worse.\n\nLightning split the wet darkness\u2014a blinding, ragged streak whose power seemed to echo right through him. He frowned. When he'd stepped out into the storm earlier, he'd felt the energy in the night. It was a sensation similar to walking underneath high-voltage power lines\u2014the crackle of electricity was very audible, and static had caressed his hair and skin. If he _had_ been standing under high-voltage lines, and if he _were_ stupid enough to climb the pylons, he could have touched all that power, felt it running through him. And died in the process.\n\nThe storm had felt like that\u2014power that was both enticing and dangerous. Power he could reach out and touch if he wanted to. Power that would kill him if he tried.\n\nHe glanced at his hands. There were no burn marks, despite the fact that he'd shoved them into the middle of the lightning strike. Neither he nor Sam had been hurt, and that in itself was a miracle.\n\nOr maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just another sign that Karl was right. She'd used the storms before and was certainly no stranger to that sort of power running through her. Maybe touching her had somehow protected him.\n\nOr maybe, as Karl had stated, he and Sam had a bond in which the storms were a major component\u2014one they couldn't yet understand, and maybe never would.\n\nFor someone who didn't want bonds of any kind, he seemed to be gaining more than his fair share. And there wasn't much he could do to stop it. Ignoring the bond\u2014and trying to push her away\u2014hadn't worked.\n\nActually, he pretty much suspected that, despite her words to the contrary, he'd only made her more determined to force the issue.\n\nAnd he wasn't actually sure how he felt about that.\n\nHe didn't _want_ bonds of any kind; he'd been telling himself that for half his life. Yet part of him now hungered for it. Hungered for the closeness his brother and sisters had.\n\nMaybe the lightning _had_ affected him. Short-circuited a brain wire or two.\n\nHe hurried inside the small caf\u00e9 where Alain had settled. His brother-in-law sat at a table to the left of the entrance, out of immediate sight but with a full view of the road and Wetherton's building. Gabriel took off his coat and shook it out as he walked over. Droplets of moisture scattered over the nearby chairs and tables, but since the caf\u00e9 was almost empty, it didn't really matter.\n\n\"I ordered you a coffee,\" Alain said, sliding one of two steaming cups across the table.\n\n\"Thanks.\" Gabriel slung the coat over the spare chair and sat down. \"You saw what happened?\"\n\nAlain nodded. \"It was pretty damn scary, too.\" He glanced down, his gaze skimming Gabriel's hands. \"You don't appear to be suffering any side effects from the strike. How did Sam fare?\"\n\n\"Much the same.\" Gabriel shrugged, not wanting to get into explanations when he really didn't have them. \"But we have a bigger problem.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nAlain picked up his coffee and sipped it, but there was the faintest touch of amusement in his brown eyes. Which, knowing the man as well as he did, suggested to Gabriel that his next comment would come as no surprise. \"Sam knows we're following her. She wants you both to stop, or she says she'll call Stephan.\"\n\n\"So what are you planning to do?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I want you and Jess to keep watching as planned. Except for tomorrow. I'll take over the day shift.\"\n\n\"Will she go through with her threat if she sees us?\"\n\n\"Most likely, so you need to be careful.\"\n\nAlain raised a bushy eyebrow. \"Stephan will not be happy if he discovers what we've been up to.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly.\" Gabriel picked up his coffee and gulped down some of the steaming liquid. \"But I don't care.\"\n\n\"So, basically, you're saying the only thing you _do_ care about is Sam's safety.\" Alain paused, a grin stretching his lips. \"One could take that as an indication of emotional interest.\"\n\n\"Or professional interest. Especially if she proves to be our link to Sethanon.\"\n\nAlain put down his cup and crossed his arms. \"And do you believe that she is the link? After all these years of successfully avoiding us, do you seriously think Sethanon will come out of hiding for one woman?\"\n\n\"Seriously? Yes.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I don't believe he would have placed a watch on her if she was of no use to him.\"\n\n\"True.\" Alain paused. \"But he might have intended to cultivate her, as he had her partner.\"\n\n\"No. Kazdan's orders were to watch her, to keep her safe. That implies interest, not cultivation.\"\n\n\"And yet Kazdan was trying to recruit her.\"\n\n\"For himself, for his own takeover bid. Not for Sethanon.\"\n\n\"You can't be sure of that.\"\n\nYes, they could, because that was exactly what Kazdan had told Sam. She believed it, and so did he. Still...\"We can't be sure of anything until we know for sure who she is and where she came from.\"\n\n\"Is that why you won't admit to feeling anything for her?\"\n\nGabriel snorted softly. \"No, I'm not admitting anything because there is nothing to admit.\" And even if that wasn't the entire truth\u2014even if there _was_ destined to be a bond between them\u2014he'd successfully contained the link with his twin and he had every intention of doing the same with Sam. No matter how much a part of him might wish it otherwise.\n\nThe truth was, while he couldn't deny his attraction\u2014at least to himself\u2014he would _not_ break his vow to never get involved. He wouldn't do that to someone ever again. And if, as Jessie predicted, he became a sad and lonely old man, so what? He could at least rejoice in the fact that he'd actually lived long enough to become sad and lonely. That another human being hadn't been killed simply because he had made her a target.\n\n\"So,\" Alain said thoughtfully, \"that look of horror and panic on your face when she was hit by lightning had absolutely no emotional basis whatsoever?\"\n\n\"None at all.\" Gabriel couldn't actually remember much about that moment, because when the lightning hit her, it had echoed through him, burning away all thought and emotion. He'd reacted instinctively, without really knowing what he was doing or saying until his hands had touched her.\n\nBut before he could actually reply further, his wristcom rang. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks for the timely intervention. No matter how he answered Alain, his brother-in-law would have twisted his words.\n\nHe retrieved his phone from his coat pocket and hit the receive button. \"Agent Stern.\"\n\n\"Hey, Boss.\" Illie's usually cheerful expression looked subdued. \"We've got a problem.\"\n\n\"Just one? That would be a minor miracle.\" Gabriel rubbed his eyes wearily. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"You remember Kathryn Douglass?\"\n\n\"It was only yesterday that we visited the Foundation, Illie. I may be older than you, but I am not senile.\"\n\nHis would-be partner snorted. \"Yeah, well, the SIU just received a call from the State boys. It appears Kathryn Douglass has been murdered.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yeah. It happened last night, at her home. State called us because there was no entry or exit point. They're saying there's clear nonhuman involvement.\"\n\nGabriel glanced at his watch. \"I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes. Did you manage to interview Pegasus's security guards?\"\n\n\"Some, but they weren't able to add anything to what we already know.\"\n\n\"Have you scheduled time with the others?\"\n\n\"I have. See you in fifteen.\" And Illie hung up.\n\nGabriel looked at Alain. \"I've been called to a murder scene. Make sure you keep out of Sam's sight.\"\n\nAlain gave him a grin that held very little humor. \"I've been doing this for more years than she's been alive.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but she's a whole lot cleverer than most of our usual targets.\" Gabriel drained his coffee and stood. \"If anything happens, call me immediately.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to your lady.\"\n\nGabriel didn't dignify the comment with an answer. He just turned around and headed back out into the weather.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam leaned against the elevator wall and watched the numbers roll by. Wetherton, despite his supposed fear of heights, had moved his office from the third floor to the twenty-fifth floor, claiming a good third of the top floor for his boardroom, office and waiting area. If anyone in the government or press thought this was outrageous\u2014or out of character\u2014they weren't saying anything. Maybe they were just so used to the excesses of government ministers that they simply didn't bother questioning them anymore.\n\nOr maybe Wetherton was simply paying off the right people. It certainly wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened.\n\nThe elevator stopped and she walked out. The standard blue carpet in the lobby gave way to a plusher, more luxurious plum once she'd pushed through the doors leading into the minister's suite.\n\nA buxom blonde looked up and gave her a practiced but totally false smile. \"Good afternoon. How may I help you?\"\n\nSam dug out her badge and showed it to the woman. \"Samantha Ryan, SIU. I have an appointment to see the minister.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. If you'll just have a seat, I'll let him know that you're here.\"\n\nThe blonde picked up the phone. Sam sat on the nearest pale lemon couch and let her gaze roam. The first thing she noticed was the security camera in the corner to the left of the reception desk. It was pointed at her rather than at the doorway, meaning that someone was probably watching her.\n\nOr maybe _all_ visitors were scrutinized this intently. Paranoia surely was uppermost in the life of a clone who was trying to masquerade as the genuine object.\n\nOr did the clone actually _think_ he was original?\n\nIf, as she and Gabriel had theorized, someone had successfully found a way to transplant a brain, then it was certainly possible\u2014especially if you believed the brain was the center of not only personality and memory, but also the soul. Maybe the real Wetherton _was_ inside that clone somewhere.\n\nBut if he was, why the abrupt change in personality?\n\nIt was certainly a line they needed to explore\u2014particularly since it was obvious that whoever was making these clones had successfully traded one of his creations for an original, and had tried to do the same with the Prime Minister himself. If Sethanon was involved with Hopeworth, as Gabriel and the Federation presumed, then these attempts to replace government ministers weren't going to end here.\n\nSam let her gaze move on, studying the two other doors leading off this main room. One was a standard door, the other a double set with plusher handles. Wetherton's office, obviously.\n\nBut as her gaze rested on those doors, the feeling hit. A wash of heat, followed by the certainty that there was a shifter inside\u2014a shifter whose very essence felt malevolent.\n\nA tremor ran through her\u2014and not so much because of the thick sensation of evil, but because she'd felt this particular brand of filth before.\n\nIn her dreams of Joshua and fire.\n\nThe man with the gray eyes was in the room with Wetherton.\n\nHer heart accelerated and her stomach began to churn. She licked her lips and tried to get a grip. Damn it, she'd seen Gray Eyes last night, had even interacted with him, and she hadn't felt anything _close_ to this.\n\nSo why now and not then?\n\nIt didn't make sense. Maybe her psychic wiring had been short-circuited by the lightning strike. Or maybe there'd been too much other shit happening last night and she simply hadn't had the time to notice the psychic sensations.\n\n\"The minister won't be too long,\" the blond secretary said into the silence.\n\nSam jumped, just a little, but managed to fake a smile of thanks. _God,_ this was ridiculous. Anyone would think she was a green trainee, not a cop with years of experience. She crossed her legs, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited.\n\nAfter another five minutes or so, the doors opened and two men walked out, both of them wearing that happy-to-have-m et-you smile that was obviously as fake as the secretary's.\n\nGray Eyes was dressed in military blue that made his silver hair stand out all the more. Just watching him\u2014watching the calm, assured way he moved\u2014sharpened Sam's perception of evil until it felt like her entire body burned with his wrongness. Looking at him was making her physically ill, but she wasn't entirely sure whether it was a result of psychic distaste or a reaction left over from her dreams.\n\nWetherton stuck his hand out to Gray Eyes and said, \"I'll certainly mention your concerns when the matter comes up in Parliament, General Blaine. Thank you for speaking with me today.\"\n\nGeneral Blaine? It wasn't a name she'd heard before, but then, given the security surrounding the military base and its projects\u2014old or new\u2014that wasn't really surprising.\n\nSo was Blaine one of the scientists involved in the Penumbra project, as her dreams seemed to indicate? And if so, how had he escaped the fire that had killed nearly everyone else?\n\nAnd why was there no sign of a cut or burn marks on the left side of his blunt features? Last night, when he'd climbed out of the car with the woman, the wound on his head had looked nasty\u2014and if the amount of blood that had been pouring down his face was anything to go by, it had been deep. Wounds like that didn't disappear overnight. Not without a trace, anyway. Shapeshifters and shapechangers _did_ have the ability to heal wounds fast, but even they were usually left with scars.\n\nHer gaze flicked to Wetherton. His spudlike face bore several nasty scrapes, and he had an egg-sized lump near his right temple. No anomalies there, at least.\n\nGray Eyes nodded and shook Wetherton's hand. \"I appreciate that, Minister. The military cannot afford to have our funds cut for the third year in a row. Several projects vital for national security could be in jeopardy if they are.\"\n\n\"I'll put your case forward, General. I can't promise more at this time.\"\n\nBlaine nodded and turned for the exit. Then his gaze met Sam's and he paused. Deep in those gray, soulless depths, she saw surprise. Maybe even shock.\n\nThe sort of shock that came when you suddenly and unexpectedly met someone you knew but hadn't seen for a very long time.\n\nWhich again didn't make sense, given the events of last night. If he _did_ somehow recognize her, if he did know her from the projects, why hadn't he reacted last night?\n\n\"Do we know each other?\" he asked, eyes narrowing slightly.\n\n_Yeah,_ she wanted to say. _I helped save your ass last night._ But something inside stopped her from uttering the words. Instead, she simply said, \"I don't believe so.\"\n\nHe stepped closer and she resisted the urge to sink back into the sofa. This close, the sensation of his evil was so strong that her insides felt like they were trying to claw their way out of her body.\n\n\"Are you military? Ex-military?\"\n\nEnergy crawled around her\u2014a sensation wholly different from the evil of his soul but just as sickening. That pressure seemed to build around her, as if the energy were trying to crawl into her mind. Telepathy, she realized. He was trying to read her thoughts.\n\nAnd while the fact that she couldn't actually feel him _in_ her mind suggested he wasn't having any immediate luck, she wasn't about to give him the time to succeed, either.\n\n\"No, I've never been in the military, General.\" She rose, retrieved her badge from her pocket and flipped it out for him to see. \"Samantha Ryan, SIU. If you have questions, please ask them. I do not appreciate your attempts at mind reading.\"\n\n\"Mind reading?\" Wetherton said, voice all bluster despite the quick flick of concern he cast the general's way. \"This office is fully shielded against such intrusions, so you must be mistaken, Agent Ryan.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, her gaze not leaving Blaine's. \"And shielding is not always one hundred percent effective.\"\n\nWetherton's expression didn't give much away, but she had the distinct feeling, just from the way he was looking at the general, that the news that the general could read minds horrified him. Which meant that maybe Wetherton _did_ have secrets he had no wish for the military to uncover. It also meant that there was a whole lot more going on here than what Stephan and the SIU presumed.\n\nThe general's smile was slow and cold. \"No, psi shields are never one hundred percent effective. But you are wrong, Agent Ryan. I was not trying to read your thoughts.\"\n\nSo what the hell _had_ he been trying to do? She shoved her badge back into her pocket and decided to tackle Blaine head on. \"So, General, do you work in the same division as General Frank Lloyd?\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows. \"You know General Lloyd?\"\n\n\"Yes. I had a brief conversation with him about some former military employees that were getting murdered.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, the retired scientists.\"\n\n\"And the retired specimen donors. Don't suppose you know anything more about the projects they were involved in, do you?\"\n\n\"No. I was never involved in that side of the operation.\"\n\n\"Then what were you involved in?\"\n\n\"Why do you want to know?\" he countered. \"You caught and killed the people involved in those murders, correct? So the case is now closed.\"\n\n\"Actually, no, it's not, because one of the murderers is still loose. The kite.\" It was risky mentioning it, because few people had any idea they existed. The SIU hadn't yet released an all-points about their existence.\n\n\"Kite? What the hell is a kite?\" Irritation was very evident in Wetherton's voice. He had no idea what was going on, and he didn't like it one bit. But if he was the military's puppet, shouldn't he have had some clue? \"Beyond something flown on a string, that is.\"\n\nBlaine didn't react to the mention of the kite. He didn't do anything more than stare at her in that flat, calculating way. Either he knew about the kite and wasn't about to give her any information or he didn't know anything and wasn't going to admit it.\n\nShe ignored the minister and added, \"The kite might yet come after you and Lloyd and anyone else involved in those projects. We'd like to prevent that, and would appreciate the military's cooperation.\"\n\n\"The military takes care of its own, Agent Ryan.\" He tilted his head a little, his gaze intensifying, as if he were trying to see into her head and her memories without actually using his psi skills. Or maybe he was simply recalling the past and juxtaposing his memories of a flame-haired child against the woman who now stood in front of him. Comparing the two and drawing God knows what conclusions. \"And my involvement in those projects was in the area of training, as I'm sure you're already aware.\"\n\nA chill prickled across her skin. His words were an indication that his comparison had drawn the obvious conclusion. But for now, it was one she had to let ride.\n\n\"General, getting information out of the military is harder than getting blood out of the proverbial stone. So no, I have no awareness of either your or General Lloyd's position in Hopeworth.\"\n\n\"I would be surprised if that was the truth, Agent Ryan.\" He glanced at Wetherton. \"If you wish to discuss the funding matter any further, please call.\"\n\nWetherton nodded, his expression still a mix of confusion, irritation and concern. And Sam had every intention of finding out why.\n\nBlaine met her gaze again, gave her a remote smile that sent another bout of chills down her spine, then turned and walked out the door.\n\nShe didn't relax, and she didn't move. Not until she heard the soft ding of the elevator button and then the electronic hum of machinery as the elevator moved down.\n\n\"Would you care to explain what the hell was going on between you and General Blaine, Agent Ryan?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that would involve revealing details of an ongoing case, Minister, so no, I can't discuss it.\"\n\nHe grunted, his expression suggesting he was far from happy.\n\n\"Well, come into my office and I'll give you my schedule for the next few weeks.\" Then he spun on his heel and stalked back into the office. She followed him in. It was a huge expanse, filled with the latest chrome-and-glass furniture and plush leather sofas. The minister was a man with expensive tastes, obviously. His office was situated in one corner of the building, so two of the walls were all glass. The view over the city and the bay would have been truly amazing\u2014a vista of fading sunlight, sparkling lights and blue-gray ocean\u2014if not for the rain still sleeting down.\n\nWetherton stalked over to his desk and picked up a folder. \"My schedule. You'll notice I have several important meetings at various restaurants in the evenings. During these events, you will keep an eye on proceedings from a distance.\"\n\nWhich was standard procedure, but she wasn't about to point that out. What it did mean was that she might need to place a bug on Wetherton himself. He obviously had secrets he didn't want her to overhear. She stopped in front of the desk and accepted the folder. \"Why was the general here?\"\n\n\"As you probably heard, he was here to discuss military funding.\"\n\n\"Did he ask anything else? Or mention anything else?\"\n\nWetherton sat down on his plush chair and frowned. \"What he and I discussed is really of no importance to you. You're my bodyguard, nothing more.\"\n\nDespite his arrogant tone, she gave him her politest smile\u2014even if all she wanted to do was smack his dumb ass. But since she'd probably have to work with this man for several months, she knew she'd better play nice. At least for a little while.\n\n\"And as your bodyguard, I have the right to question you about certain people. General Blaine was with you last night, and yet he shows no obvious sign of injury. I think that's a little odd, don't you?\"\n\nWetherton's frown deepened. \"Not really. All it means is that he wasn't injured in the attack.\"\n\nShe picked up the newspaper lying on his desk and threw it across to him. \"So you're telling me that photo\u2014the one that shows blood pouring from a wound on his head as he's carrying you away from the car\u2014is fake?\"\n\nWetherton picked up the paper and studied it. \"It might not be his blood.\"\n\n\"Minister, I was there last night. I was one of the two people who helped save your ass. I know for a fact that the general was injured. So, I ask you again, what was the general doing here and what did you talk about?\"\n\n\"I told you\u2014just the military budget.\" Wetherton threw down the paper. But despite the calm assurance in his voice, the hint of concern in his eyes was stronger. Which meant that maybe he recognized something _had_ happened here this afternoon, even if he didn't know what it was.\n\nAnd did he not know because his memory had been erased? Blaine had been able to use his powers despite the deadeners, so that was more than likely.\n\n\"What time did he arrive this afternoon?\"\n\n\"He had a five o'clock appointment.\"\n\nShe glanced at her watch. \"So, you discussed the military budget for just over an hour?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And is that usual?\"\n\nWetherton shrugged. \"It all depends.\"\n\nOn what? On how much information the general needed to siphon from him? Why could he not see that something was very wrong? Or could he see it and just wasn't about to admit it to her? And if that was the case, why not admit it when she was the person being paid to protect him?\n\nNothing about this situation was making any sense\u2014including her two vastly different reactions to a man she could remember seeing in her dreams but not in real life. Until now, that is.\n\nShe frowned and tried a slightly different tactic. \"Why was Blaine in the car with you last night, anyway? Are you friends?\"\n\nWetherton hesitated. \"Not really. But my wife knows his wife, so we occasionally see each other during social events.\"\n\n\"What is his wife's name?\"\n\n\"Anne Blaine.\"\n\n\"I mean before she married him.\"\n\nHe paused. \"I think her surname was Grantham, or something like that. I'd have to ask my wife to be certain.\"\n\nSam nodded. \"Was his wife in the car last night?\"\n\n\"No.\" He hesitated, and she had a sudden feeling that he was searching for the \"right\" answer. Odd, to say the least\u2014especially since she'd sensed no outright lies so far. Just avoidances. \"He said she was ill, but they had the tickets and he didn't want to waste them. He'd come by taxi, so I said we'd take him home. He doesn't live that far from us.\"\n\n\"You mean not far from your wife's house and not your Collins Street apartment?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He paused. \"I'm afraid my wife wasn't able to cope with the long hours I worked, nor did she like the constant media attention that came with being the partner of a politician.\"\n\nAnd wasn't that a well-rehearsed excuse? \"I'm sorry to hear that, Minister.\" No sense in totally annoying him, as tempting as that might be. \"So, getting back to my original question\u2014why was the general here, talking to you about the military budget, when you're the Minister for Science and Technology, not the Minister for Defense?\"\n\n\"Easy. Certain military research allowances come out of the Science and Technology budget.\"\n\n\"But why? Isn't that why there's a defense portfolio? To assign and control the military budget?\"\n\n\"It's the _defense_ portfolio,\" he said patiently, as if he'd answered this question a million times. Or as if he were talking to a simple child. \"Therefore, it concentrates on defense items. Personnel, big hardware items, small hardware items, et cetera. The research section of the military is lumped in with my portfolio.\"\n\n_Well, there you go;_ she'd learned something new. \"Just one more thing, Minister, and I'll let you get on with your work.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"I need to do a sweep of your office, just to make sure there are no bugs or anything.\"\n\n\"I can assure you, this office is swept regularly, and nothing has ever been found.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it hasn't, but it's still part of my job to check.\"\n\nHe muttered under his breath, then stood up. \"I can go get a cup of coffee, I suppose.\" He paused. \"And the door will remain open.\"\n\n\"Minister, if I wished to snoop through your paperwork or filing cabinets, I'd simply pick up the phone and get a court order.\"\n\nHe grunted and walked out. Knowing she was in full view of the secretary, she began her check, searching quickly and efficiently. She didn't find any bugs, but she did manage to place her own.\n\nAll she had to do now was sit back and hope it picked up some clue as to what the hell was going on with Wetherton\u2014and what his true connection was to Blaine.\n\n# EIGHT\n\nGABRIEL SHOWED HIS ID TO the black-clad police officer keeping watch and ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape. The rotating red and blue lights of the nearby police vehicles washed across the night, splashing color across the white-walled ten-story apartment block directly ahead. The building had million-dollar views over Albert Park Lake, which became part of the Grand Prix racetrack when Formula One was in town. Douglass might not have had much money in her accounts, but she _did_ have this apartment. Maybe she owned others; it wouldn't be the first time someone had invested in property rather than put up with the low interest from banks.\n\n\"There are three apartments on each floor. Douglass lives in 1003, which is the one with the lake view.\" Illie was looking at his notebook more than where he was going, and Gabriel rather churlishly hoped he'd run into something. But the man seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to objects in his path and sidestepped each one at the last moment. And all without actually looking up. \"The building has keypad number and thumbprint code security in place, and the system records all visitors.\"\n\n\"You've checked the records for her apartment?\" Gabriel flashed his badge at the officer standing at the heavily barred front door and nodded his thanks when the officer keyed the door open for them.\n\n\"Yes. No visitors recorded for the last forty-eight hours,\" Illie said. \"She left her apartment at five forty-five this morning and returned at two thirty this afternoon. She was alone both times.\"\n\nAnother State Police officer stood at the elevator. Gabriel again showed his badge and asked, \"Who's the officer in charge up there?\"\n\n\"Captain Marsdan.\"\n\nWho was the head of Sam's squad when she'd been a State Police officer, and a man with no real liking for SIU interference. But he was an excellent cop and, despite his adverse opinion of the SIU, he was probably the reason they'd been called in so fast.\n\nThey made their way up in the elevator. Illie shoved his notebook in one pocket, then retrieved a small crime scene monitor from another.\n\nGabriel watched with mild amusement as Illie activated it, then tossed it into the air. It was always easy to tell raw recruits from those who had been with the bureau for years, simply because the newbies followed the rules to the letter. Those who had been around for a while recorded information only when there was actually something to record. And in cases like this one, there'd be a CSM in place anyway, so there was really no point in doubling up.\n\nBlack uniforms dominated the fifth floor, several interviewing neighbors and others guarding Douglass's door. Gabriel flashed his badge yet again and stepped inside the apartment.\n\nA spherical CSM hovered in the middle of the living room, red light flashing to indicate it was recording. It swung around as he entered. \"ID, please.\"\n\n\"Assistant Director Gabriel Stern, SIU, and Agent James Illie, SIU,\" Gabriel said almost absently as he looked around.\n\nDouglass might have made a ton of money, but aside from the location of her apartment, there was little to indicate wealth of _any_ kind. In the living room there was only a small TV, a coffee table and a brown leather sofa that had seen better years. The pale gray walls were bare, and the claret-colored, heavily brocaded curtains had that aged, dusty look that only came after years of neglect.\n\n\"A woman of minimalist taste, isn't she?\" Illie commented. \"Hard to imagine, given the image she'd presented at Pegasus.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it is. Do you want to check out the rest of the apartment, see what you can find?\"\n\nIllie nodded, and Gabriel looked around as a balding man in his mid-forties came out of a doorway to his right. The captain himself. Surprise flickered briefly through Marsdan's small brown eyes. \"I didn't think this case was big enough to bring out an assistant director.\"\n\n\"It is when the case has links to an investigation already underway.\" Gabriel walked across to the doorway Marsdan had exited through. It led into a bedroom\u2014the place where Kathryn Douglass had met her death.\n\nAnd it hadn't been an easy one, if the evidence indicator tags were anything to go by. There were at least ten of them, but only five of those caught his immediate attention. They were spread across the room, each one joined by a trail of blood that was already beginning to dry and darken. They were an indication of where the body had lain. Kathryn Douglass had been torn apart.\n\nHis gaze rose. A warning had been painted\u2014in what looked like blood\u2014on the wall.\n\n_Do not revive Penumbra._ _Douglass was warned. She chose to ignore it._\n\nSomething inside him went cold. Penumbra\u2014the project that seemed most likely to have produced Sam.\n\nWhat the hell did Kathryn Douglass have to do with _that_ project? She was far too old to be one of the children raised from those projects. And according to her records, she'd never been a part of the military, even if the foundation she controlled had deep military links.\n\nSo who was the warning aimed at? The military? The SIU? Or someone else entirely?\n\nSomeone like the mysterious, ever elusive Sethanon? But what did he have to do with someone like Kathryn Douglass?\n\nOr was it, he thought, reading the message again, nothing to do with Penumbra itself, but rather Douglass\u2014perhaps in partnership with the military\u2014attempting to revive that project in some manner? Was that why only some files had been destroyed during the break-in at Pegasus?\n\nAnd was it a coincidence that not only had a fire destroyed the Penumbra project, but whatever project Douglass might have been working on? Again, he seriously doubted it.\n\n\"Who reported the murder?\" He walked over to the wall, carefully avoiding the outlines, blood trails and evidence markers.\n\n\"A neighbor. Apparently she heard screams and strange thumping.\"\n\n\"Did she hear any voices? Or see anyone enter or leave?\" Gabriel stopped and looked a little closer at the writing. It smelled like dried blood to his hawk-sharpened senses, and given the almost scraped effect of each letter, it appeared something other than fingers had been used as a writing tool. He'd guess rolled-up paper, or something like that. It certainly wasn't the type of effect achieved with cloth, though there'd obviously been plenty of blood-soaked material lying about.\n\n\"The neighbor didn't hear the elevator or any other voices, but these apartments have very good soundproofing,\" Marsdan said. \"The screams would have to have been extremely loud for the woman to have heard them at all.\"\n\n\"How many minutes passed between the report and a squad car arriving?\" Gabriel stepped back to take another overall look at the writing. The letters sloped to the left rather than the right, which was usually a good indication that the author was left-handed. Not that that meant anything in itself. A good percentage of the population was left-handed these days.\n\n\"The report came in at three fifteen. The squad car was here by three twenty-one.\"\n\nGabriel looked around. \"That's fast work, Captain.\"\n\n\"There was a car in the area.\" Marsdan shrugged. \"They saw no one coming out of the building, and after gaining access to the apartment via the building's super and finding the body naked and in pieces, they immediately secured the main door.\"\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow. \"Naked?\"\n\nMarsdan nodded. \"The bedding was rumpled. We've already sent it to the lab to test for body fluids and DNA.\"\n\nMeaning Douglass might have known her attacker _extremely_ well. \"Is there a fire exit?\"\n\n\"Yes, but it's alarmed. No one has come in or out of it.\"\n\n\"No broken windows or anything like that to indicate entry from the rooftop?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThen how had the murderer gotten in or out? There had to be _something_ here, some access point Marsdan and his men had missed. \"What about the air-conditioning ducts or vents? Does the building share a single system, or does each apartment have separate air-conditioning units?\"\n\n\"The second option, I'm afraid.\" Marsdan paused. \"And so far, the only prints we've picked up are the victim's.\"\n\n\"Not surprising. Whoever did this obviously had it well planned.\" Gabriel paused, remembering what Douglass had said about bringing research home. \"Has she got an office? Or a safe?\"\n\nMarsdan raised an eyebrow. \"Both. The safe was open, but our murderer set fire to the contents rather than snatching them. We've asked Forensics to sift through the ashes and see if they can discover what the safe might have held.\"\n\nGabriel suspected they wouldn't find very much at all. He looked past Marsdan as Illie came to the door. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"I found something you might want to look at.\"\n\n\"What, exactly?\" Gabriel asked, as he and Marsdan followed Illie through the living room.\n\n\"This apartment has a guest bathroom as well as a regular bathroom. It's little more than a toilet and washbasin, but it's situated on an outside wall and has a small, wind-out window which I presume is meant to give ventilation.\" Illie glanced over his shoulder. \"The window was open.\"\n\n\"Big enough for someone to get in?\"\n\n\"Someone? No. Some _thing_? Yes.\"\n\nIllie stopped in the doorway and Gabriel stepped past him. As his partner had stated, the room contained nothing more than a toilet and a basin. The soap sitting on the edge of the small metal basin was old and cracked, suggesting this room hadn't been used in quite a while, though the toilet itself was spotless. The window above it was roughly two feet in diameter, which was certainly big enough for someone to crawl through if they weren't so high up. With the winder in place, though, the amount of space the window could open was severely restricted. Windows and winders could be broken, of course, but this one was still intact. And right now, it was open only a couple of inches.\n\n\"Seems your people missed this,\" he commented, without glancing at Marsdan.\n\n\"The open window was noted, but we are duty bound to assume human intervention first. Our searches are for more conventional clues and entry points.\" He hesitated, expression annoyed. \"We called you as soon as the other options were eliminated.\"\n\nGabriel squatted and looked behind the bowl. \"I would have thought the fact that she was torn apart precluded human involvement.\"\n\n\"She was ripped apart?\" Illie said, surprise evident in his voice.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"There are not many folks in the paranormal community who have the strength to do that,\" Illie said. \"I mean, bear changers would, but a bear changer couldn't get through that window.\"\n\n\"Nor could any of the big cat changers, though they certainly could tear someone apart. But there would also be tooth marks, and I presume our good captain would have mentioned it if something like that was evident.\"\n\n\"He would,\" Marsdan confirmed. \"It wasn't teeth, but the separation also wasn't clean enough to suggest a blade.\"\n\nGabriel shifted to get a better view of the S-bend area and saw something odd\u2014a feather. A _black_ feather. He frowned. Sam had mentioned that the man in her dreams was a crow shifter\u2014coincidence? He tended to think not.\n\n\"Though of course,\" Marsdan said, \"the coroner still has to make her report.\"\n\n\"I found something.\" Gabriel leaned a shoulder against the wall and said, \"Crimecorder, record image and location of feather for evidence.\"\n\nThe black sphere responded immediately, zipping into the room to hover inches from his head. \"Image recorded,\" a metallic voice stated.\n\n\"Resume original position.\"\n\nGabriel put on a glove, then reached in and grabbed the dark feather. \"It would appear our murderer is a crow.\"\n\n\"A crow shifter wouldn't have the strength to tear someone apart.\"\n\n\"This one obviously did\u2014unless Douglass herself is a changer.\"\n\n\"She's not listed as one.\" Illie frowned as he handed Gabriel an evidence bag. \"A crow is a fairly large bird. Would it even be able to get through a gap like that?\"\n\n\"Obviously, since that feather is inside rather than out. Crows don't exactly make great pets, so why else would the feather be here? Besides, there's blood on some of the quills. Could be an indication that he or she injured themselves coming in.\"\n\n\"Or going out.\"\n\nGabriel nodded. \"Are any of Douglass's known associates shapechangers?\"\n\n\"Not that I've discovered.\" Illie hesitated as Marsdan's phone buzzed. He gave them an apologetic look and stepped away. Illie continued. \"I requested a computer search through Pegasus's employee files. So far, there are several shifters listed, but none are crows.\" He paused, eyeing Gabriel critically. \"You're not expecting a result, are you?\"\n\nGabriel rose. \"No.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because this attack came a little too soon after the attack on us. I think someone is either covering his tracks or sending a warning. Maybe even both.\"\n\nIllie raised his eyebrows. \"How did you come to that conclusion?\"\n\nGabriel told him about the message on the wall. \"Penumbra is an old military project whose records were all destroyed in a fire. Given Pegasus's military links, it's possible that Douglass knew something about the project.\" Especially given her request that he and his partner investigate a break-in and her obvious disappointment\u2014or concern\u2014that the partner he'd turned up with was male. They'd wanted Sam there. Wanted her to do those tests. Douglass might have known why, but her death certainly ensured they'd never be able to ask her.\n\nIt was just too damn convenient.\n\nAnd yet, if the military _had_ killed her to prevent her from talking, why would they leave a message about Penumbra? That just didn't make sense.\n\nBut if not the military, then who?\n\nSethanon? But what reason would he have to kill Douglass and stop the military from revisiting an old project?\n\nThough if he _did_ know of Sam's history, maybe he was still trying to protect her. But why would a man who possessed a ruthless and bloody determination to start a war want to protect someone like Sam? If he planned to use her abilities for his side, why wouldn't he have snatched her long before she'd come to the notice of the SIU or the military?\n\nWhat was the damn connection between the two of them?\n\nNo one knew, not even Sam. Though given what she'd admitted this afternoon\u2014that she was in telepathic contact with a man she recently met\u2014maybe she wasn't being as truthful as he'd presumed.\n\nAnd that made it more important than ever that he keep an eye on her. If Sethanon was looking out for her, then maybe his brother was right after all. Maybe she would lead them to the one criminal they'd never been able to see, let alone catch.\n\n\"So you think the military was behind the murder?\" Illie asked, his voice holding a hint of skepticism.\n\n\"No, actually, I don't.\" Gabriel glanced past Illie as Marsdan walked toward them. \"Yes?\"\n\n\"Seeing as you SIU boys are taking over this one, I thought you might like to handle this. We've two military men outside who want to come in and view the scene.\"\n\n\"Talk about timing,\" Illie muttered.\n\n\"Let them up, Captain. I'll talk to them.\"\n\n\"And the first question that has to be asked,\" Illie commented, as they followed Marsdan back into the living room, \"is how they found out about the murder so quickly. Hell, the press aren't even here yet.\"\n\n\"Maybe they were coming to see Douglass anyway. Why don't you see if you can find an appointment book?\"\n\nIllie's wry grin flashed. \"In other words, 'Get lost while I interview the military men.' \"\n\nAmusement ran through Gabriel. \"Basically, yes.\"\n\n\"All you had to do was ask, Boss.\" And he walked away.\n\nGabriel shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for the two men. He had every intention of taking them into the bedroom to view the murder scene and watch their reaction, but first he wanted to assess them.\n\nWithin a few minutes, the apartment's front door was opened and a police officer escorted the two men in. The first was about six feet tall and broad shouldered, with a shock of silver hair that was accentuated by the dark brown of his suit. His face was flat, hard, and the red of a barely healed wound marred its left side. The second man was shorter by several inches, yet had a more powerful presence. Gabriel recognized him instantly, even though he'd seen him only once, on Sam's com-screen. General Frank Lloyd from the Hopeworth Military Base. Was he here by coincidence? Gabriel suspected the answer was no.\n\nThe CSM spun around to record the two men walking in. \"ID, please.\"\n\n\"General Frank Lloyd, from Hopeworth Military Base.\"\n\n\"General Michael Blaine, also from Hopeworth.\"\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow. \"Even with Pegasus's close military ties, surely it's overkill to send two generals to investigate.\"\n\n\"No more than the SIU sending an assistant director,\" Lloyd said and held out his hand. \"I don't believe we've met officially.\"\n\n\"No, General, we haven't.\" Gabriel shook the man's hand. Power rose when their flesh touched, an electricity that felt oddly disturbing. \"And since you specifically asked for me and my partner to investigate the Pegasus break-in, it should come as no surprise that we're now investigating the murder of the person who ran that facility.\"\n\n\"I guess not.\" Lloyd paused. \"While General Blaine here also works at Hopeworth, it's not in the same capacity. His area of expertise meant he was in contact with Douglass more than I was.\"\n\nGabriel's gaze switched to the silver-haired man. \"How much contact?\"\n\nBlaine's expression was polite, almost disinterested, and yet there was something in the man's gray eyes that had Gabriel's hackles rising. He was facing an enemy, even if they'd only just met.\n\n\"Not socially, if that's what you're implying. We were merely business acquaintances.\"\n\n\"Have you talked to her in the past few days?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And did she appear distracted? Concerned by anything?\"\n\n\"Not that I was aware of.\"\n\n\"Not even by the break-in?\"\n\nBlaine smiled. \"Aside from that, no.\"\n\nGabriel switched his gaze back to Lloyd. Of the two, he seemed the more approachable\u2014which in itself had alarms ringing simply because the general had been of very little help in the past. Except, of course, when it suited him.\n\n\"Why are you here, General? This murder hasn't even hit the headlines yet, so how did you hear about it?\"\n\n\"All of those scientists and team heads involved with military projects at Pegasus have emergency call buttons installed in their homes. As the director of the company, Douglass also had one. It was pressed at two forty.\"\n\nTen minutes after she'd arrived home. Thirty-five minutes before the neighbor heard the screams and called the police. Given what Marsdan had said about the state of the bed, did that mean Douglass pressed the buzzer and _then_ seduced her attacker? Or were the seducer and the attacker two entirely different people?\n\n\"If Douglass pressed the emergency call button at two forty, why are you only responding now?\"\n\n\"Hopeworth is a long way from St. Kilda.\"\n\n\"Not by helicopter.\" And there were military offices in the city itself. Why couldn't they have dispatched military police from one of them to investigate?\n\n\"Helicopters are not allowed to land around here, and, given the sensitivity of Pegasus's links with Hopeworth, we prefer to send out our own personnel.\" Lloyd studied him for a moment, blue eyes assessing. \"Why do you suspect us of wrongdoing?\"\n\n\"I'm an SIU agent and predisposed to be suspicious of everything and everyone. Especially those who have a vested interest in keeping their secrets.\"\n\nLloyd's smile was cold. \"The military did not silence Kathryn Douglass, I can assure you.\"\n\nOddly enough, Gabriel believed him. \"Where is the call button?\"\n\n\"In the bedroom, beside the right bedside table.\"\n\n\"The police found her dead in her bedroom at three twenty-one.\"\n\n\"Meaning the murderer savored his time with her?\" Blaine asked.\n\nGabriel glanced at him. There was an odd hint of amusement in the general's voice that rankled. \"Given Douglass's body was torn apart, I doubt the murderer savored her death too much.\"\n\nBlaine raised an eyebrow. \"There are some in this world who get off on such things.\"\n\nAnd the general was one of them. Why he was so sure, Gabriel couldn't say. Perhaps it was just the hint of hunger in the general's otherwise flat gaze.\n\n\"The police believe Douglass and her murderer had intercourse before she was murdered. They're testing for DNA.\"\n\n\"So it could be nothing more than rough lovemaking gone extremely wrong?\" Blaine asked.\n\n\"I seriously doubt it.\"\n\nBlaine's smile was unexpectedly ferocious. \"Oh, so do I.\"\n\nWhich was an odd thing to say when he hadn't yet viewed the room in which she'd been murdered.\n\n\"May we see the scene?\" Lloyd asked.\n\n\"This way.\" Gabriel led them into the bedroom and stepped to one side so he could see their reactions. Neither man gave much away, but the tiny hint of amusement touching Blaine's mouth was disturbing, to say the least.\n\n\"What do you make of the message, General Lloyd? How is Kathryn Douglass connected to Penumbra?\"\n\n\"She's not.\" Lloyd's voice was flat. \"As you are well aware, Penumbra is not an active project, but one that was shut down years ago.\"\n\n\"Forcibly shut down by fire,\" Gabriel amended.\n\nLloyd's gaze flickered toward him. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"But if the project was destroyed and Kathryn Douglass had no involvement, why would the murderer leave this particular message?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Don't know, or won't tell?\"\n\nLloyd's smile was flat. \"I cannot withhold something I do not know.\"\n\nAgain, Gabriel believed him. \"Were there any other survivors from the project that you haven't mentioned already?\" He didn't have much hope of getting a direct answer, but the question had to be asked.\n\n\"Only the peripheral project support,\" Blaine said. \"People like nurses, teachers, trainers, et cetera.\"\n\n\"And they have all been assigned elsewhere?\"\n\n\"Many have retired or died,\" Blaine said, and there was something very cold in his eyes as he said it. \"That project occurred a long time ago, and it has not been reopened or repeated since.\"\n\n\"And yet, evidence of it keeps appearing.\"\n\n\"Not through military means, I assure you,\" Lloyd said. He glanced at Blaine. \"Though we should do a check of the surviving personnel. See if any had recent contact with Douglass.\"\n\n\"They haven't. I would have been informed,\" Blaine said.\n\nGabriel frowned. Again, there was something very strange in the way Blaine said that. \"But if there has been contact?\"\n\n\"We shall investigate and let you know the results.\" Lloyd held out his hand. \"Thank you for your assistance, AD Stern.\"\n\nGabriel shook his hand and again felt that tingle of power. But if the general was trying to read him, then it wasn't through telepathic means. He would have felt any attempt to read his thoughts.\n\nBlaine didn't offer his hand, but just gave him a curt nod before following Lloyd from the room.\n\nGabriel watched them leave, unable to shake the feeling that Blaine _knew_ him. Knew him and hated him.\n\nWhich meant that, somewhere in the past, their paths had crossed, even if he couldn't remember it. He needed information on the man, and he needed it fast.\n\nHe glanced around as Illie came into the room. \"Do a full search on General Blaine. I need to see whatever you can find.\"\n\nIn the meantime, he'd contact his family and see if anyone had any memory of the man. Then he'd head to Federation headquarters and see if there were any files on him. Once all that had been done, he'd contact Sam. She needed to know that once again the Penumbra project had raised its head.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam repressed a yawn and wished, for the umpteenth time, that Wetherton would just shut up and go home. Night watch always took several days\u2014or rather, nights\u2014to get used to, and she was tired as hell.\n\nRight now, it was two in the morning and they were in a nightclub situated right in the heart of the King Street club scene. The place was packed with wildly gyrating teenagers and adults, and the music was so damn loud her body vibrated with it. The air was filled with an array of perfumes, the source of which was both male and female. When combined with the odor of sweating bodies, the result was stomach-churning.\n\nThe one thing the place _didn't_ have was someone watching her. She'd spotted the man Gabriel had following her several times and had finally phoned Stephan about it. The big man had disappeared very quickly after that. As much as his presence had offered her some comfort, she'd meant what she said to Gabriel. She wanted this done, and if that meant Hopeworth snatching her, then so be it. She _needed_ answers, because if there was one thing she was certain about, it was that she had to find her past before she could gain a future. Besides, she'd be damned if she'd allow someone to risk his life to protect hers. Especially when that someone was the husband of a woman she liked.\n\nShe stood in a corner opposite Wetherton's table and idly rubbed her arm. For some reason it had started aching a few hours ago, and although the pain was now easing, it still niggled. It was the sort of pain that came with a decent skin laceration, although she hadn't cut herself in any way, shape or form. It was just another piece of weird in a gathering pile of them. She looked around the room again. She was currently squashed between a pole and the wall, trying not to breathe too deeply. While uncomfortable, the position allowed her to watch both Wetherton and anyone who approached his table. Not that anyone _had_ for the last four hours. She sipped on a juice and wished it were coffee. She had a feeling she was going to hit a wall soon, and at least the caffeine would have helped fend that moment off a little longer. But the bar didn't serve the hot stuff. And as much as she wouldn't have minded a mixer with the juice, her exhaustion and the fact that she hadn't eaten much today meant it would more than likely go straight to her head.\n\nNot a good thing when she was supposed to be protecting the minister.\n\nAlthough _that_ was most definitely not the only reason she was here. She glanced at the other man at the table. Wetherton's meet was a tall, thin man who didn't appear to be another politician. His brown suit was rumpled, his face haggard and unshaven, and there was nothing polished or practiced about the way he spoke. On first sighting him, she'd thought he was a reporter. But after watching him for the last four hours, she'd revised that to criminal. There was something very guarded about the way his gaze continually roamed the room.\n\nThere was also something oddly familiar about him, though she'd swear she'd never met or seen him before. It wasn't even so much his looks as his feel.\n\nIf that made any sense.\n\nShe'd managed to grab a couple of shots of him with her wristcom and had sent them to Izzy, asking for a full search to be done. She figured the name he'd given her\u2014Chip Braggart\u2014was just a little too weird to be true. And she couldn't remember seeing him listed among Wetherton's known associates. Even as tired as she was, it was doubtful she'd forget a name like that.\n\nAnd why was Wetherton, a government minister, meeting with the likes of Braggart? Was he a contact from the real Wetherton's past, or was he a part of the clone's very recent past? Or was he even, perhaps, the contact between the made man and the creator?\n\nVery likely, she thought, studying the cold wariness in his dark eyes. This man was more than just a petty criminal. And there was something very familiar in the way he moved, the way he reacted.\n\nShe frowned, trying to chase down the feeling, but at that moment, the presence of evil crawled across her skin like foul electricity, making it hard not to react instinctively and draw her gun. She placed her glass on a nearby table and casually looked around.\n\nFor quite a few minutes she couldn't see the threat. The main dance floor was too crowded, and the table-lined edges were too shadowed. Then the strobe lights pulsed, briefly illuminating a group on the far side of the room and flashing off the hair of one man, making it gleam like a beacon of molten red.\n\nThe hair color of Hopeworth's creations. And the face of the man who had tried to kill both her and Wetherton last night.\n\nOnly it couldn't be the same man, because he was dead. And although this man's features were almost identical, his nose was just a little bit sharper.\n\nUnlike the rest of the people in his group, he was neither talking nor drinking, but simply standing still as his gaze roamed the confines of the room. When his gaze neared where she stood, she ducked back into shadow, but she had an odd feeling he'd know she was there anyway\u2014that he would feel her presence as easily as she felt his. When she risked another look in his direction, he was gone.\n\nFear shot through her. The hunt was on.\n\nShe pushed away from the wall and walked across to Wetherton. \"I'm sorry, Minister, but we need to leave.\"\n\nWetherton glanced up, his expression annoyed. \"I'm not finished here yet.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have reason to believe your life is under threat. Continue this conversation in the car if you must, but right now we need to move.\"\n\nHis scowl deepened. \"It would be inopportune for Mr. Braggart and I to be seen together right at this moment.\"\n\n\"Minister, you asked the SIU for protection. If you do not wish to follow my advice, I can only presume you do not, after all, wish such protection.\"\n\nWetherton sighed, though it was more a sound of exasperation than compliance. \"If you insist\u2014\"\n\n\"And I do.\"\n\nHe glanced at Braggart. \"We'll continue this tomorrow night, then. Make sure you bring the information I requested.\"\n\nBraggart nodded, but his gaze was on her and a chill ran down her spine. There was something in his eyes that suggested he saw more, knew more, about this situation and about her than she could ever guess. Yes, this man definitely _knew_ her. How or why she couldn't say, but she had a feeling she'd better find out, and quick.\n\nWetherton downed the remainder of his drink in one gulp and dug a hand into his pocket. \"I'll call my chauffeur to make sure the car is waiting out front.\"\n\nSam scanned the immediate area, but she couldn't see the flame-haired stranger. Yet she could feel him. His presence itched at her skin, stronger and closer than before. \"Hurry,\" was all she said.\n\nWetherton made his call and rose. \"Let's go.\"\n\nShe waved him ahead of her. She didn't have eyes in the back of her head, and with the crowded state of the nightclub, she wasn't about to leave his back unguarded. At least if she followed, she'd have a chance of seeing a threat coming from the front or the sides.\n\nWetherton shoved his way out of the club, seemingly oblivious to the angry retorts thrown his way. She followed, her gaze constantly on the move, watching and waiting. The foul energy of the flame-haired stranger followed them. He was close\u2014very close. And yet, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pick him out in the crowded confines of the dance club.\n\nThe sooner they were in the car and away from here, the better.\n\nThey exited the main room and were striding up the long hallway to the front doors when Sam risked yet another look behind her. Though no one else had entered the hallway after them, the doors were still swinging, as if someone had. And she could certainly still feel him. A shiver ran down her spine. If the flame-haired stranger was a Hopeworth creation, who knew what other abilities he had? Invisibility might be a figment of fiction and comic books up until now, but if _she_ had the capability to fade into shadow, then how much more of a step was it to create someone who could fade into shadow _and_ light?\n\nNot much, she thought, her gaze straying to the deeper shadows to the left of the swinging doors.\n\nWas it her imagination, or did something stir in the half-lit corners?\n\nAnother shiver ran down her spine and she pressed a hand against Wetherton's back, pushing him a little.\n\nHe swore at her, but nevertheless moved faster. Two security guards opened the door for them and the cold night air swirled in, thick with the promise of rain. Sam shivered again\u2014this time with the cold\u2014and glanced around for the minister's car. It was up the street, parked in a bus zone, and was a little too close to the nearby alley and its encroaching shadows for her liking.\n\nBut the foul energy of the stranger was behind her, still in the nightclub, and the shadows ahead held no threat as yet.\n\nIt was just nerves, nothing more, that made her fear them.\n\nShe grabbed Wetherton's arm and propelled him forward as she slipped her other hand inside her coat and wrapped her fingers around her gun. The cool feel of the metal pressed against her flesh was comforting, and some tiny part of her relaxed a little.\n\nIt shouldn't have.\n\n# NINE\n\nTHEY'D BARELY REACHED THE CAR when the sensation of wrongness rolled across her skin. Not from the man who'd followed them from the club, but from the alley and the shadows. Sam whipped the car door open, thrusting Wetherton inside as the feeling of wrongness sharpened.\n\nSomething was about to attack.\n\nShe slammed the door shut, barely avoiding the minister's feet, and swung around.\n\nShe'd expected it to be the red-haired stranger.\n\nIt wasn't.\n\nIt was the vampire Stephan had unleashed to attack Wetherton. Sam drew her weapon and pressed the trigger, but the vamp moved so fast that the bright beam of the laser tore through his shoulder rather than searing his brains to dust.\n\nThe sharp smell of burned flesh filled the air and he snarled\u2014a shrill sound of anger. Then he was upon her, spindly arms flying, face gaunt, his pupils mere pinpricks. _A junkie in need of a fix,_ she thought, and wondered if it was just blood he needed or actual drugs.\n\nShe ducked his first blow and let fly with one of her own. Her fist sank deep into his stomach, but he didn't even grunt in response. _Too far gone,_ she thought as he snarled, revealing elongated teeth.\n\nA shout came from the direction of the club entrance\u2014one of the bouncers, telling her to knock it off. Like that was going to happen! She blocked another of the vamp's blows, then hit him over the head with her gun as hard as she could. He staggered back, shaking his head and spraying blood in the process. It splattered across her coat and face, stinging like fine acid. But she ignored it and raised her weapon.\n\n\"Agent Ryan, SIU,\" she said, speaking loud enough that the rapidly approaching bouncers might hear. \"Raise your hands and don't move, or I _will_ shoot.\"\n\nThe vampire either didn't hear, didn't understand or simply didn't care. He just snarled and launched himself at her.\n\nShe pulled the trigger.\n\nThe shot hit dead center in the middle of his forehead and burned through his skull, cindering flesh and bone and brain matter along the way.\n\nHe dropped dead at her feet and didn't move. She didn't look down. She barely even dared to breathe lest the smell make her lose the control she had over her stomach.\n\nInstead, she wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat, then got out her badge and showed it to the two horrified bouncers. They stopped immediately, the aggression that had been so evident moments ago slipping away. Then she tapped her wristcom and made a call to the SIU.\n\n\"Agent Sam Ryan, badge number 1934,\" she said, when Christine came on the line. \"I need a cleanup team at my current location. And please inform Director Byrne that the escaped prisoner has been dealt with.\"\n\n\"Cleanup team three has been notified,\" Christine answered, her digital tones sexier than any computer-generated form had a right to be. \"And I've sent a message to Director Byrne.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Christine.\" Sam hung up and glanced at the bouncers. \"You want to keep the gawkers back for me?\"\n\nThey nodded and began to deal with the gathering crowd. She stepped over the body of the vamp and opened the car door. \"You all right, Minister?\"\n\nHe nodded, his face a little paler than normal. \"How did you know that vampire was outside?\"\n\n\"I didn't. He was an entirely different threat than the one I felt before.\" She lifted her gaze and let it roam the street. No sense of anything evil or even out of place. Not until she looked past the crowd to the nightclub's entrance, anyway. Braggart was there, watching, a hint of amusement touching his thin lips. And if the tingle running across her skin was anything to go by, the redheaded stranger was there, too, even if she couldn't see him.\n\nNot that she could do anything about his presence right then. She didn't dare leave Wetherton alone. After all, the red-haired man might be nothing more than a decoy meant to draw her away from the minister's side. And though she wanted to get out of here as much as Wetherton did, she couldn't whisk him away until the SIU had arrived and the vampire had been dealt with. Protocol had to be followed, most especially in this situation.\n\nShe met Wetherton's gaze again. \"I have to give my report to the SIU team I called in, and until then, I'm afraid, we'll just have to wait here.\"\n\nHe scowled. \"Why can't I just go inside and continue my meeting? Braggart hasn't left yet, surely.\"\n\n\"He hasn't, no. But we're being watched, Minister, and I prefer not to take a risk right now.\"\n\n\"Watched?\" A hint of emotion\u2014not fear, not panic, but something in between\u2014flitted through his eyes. He looked around briefly, then met her gaze again. \"By whom?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" She briefly toyed with the idea of telling him their watcher was more than likely military, but let it go. Until she knew where, exactly, Wetherton's alliances lay, it was better not to give him too much information. For her sake, as much as his.\n\nHe grunted his displeasure, then reached forward and grabbed the car's phone. \"Shut the door, please. I have a few personal calls to make.\"\n\n_Ungrateful bastard,_ she thought, as she slammed the door shut. Not even a thank-you for saving his life. But then, he probably figured she was only doing what she was being paid to do\u2014risking her life to save his lab-made ass.\n\nWhen she glanced back at the gathered crowd, Braggart had gone. She studied the street beyond the club but couldn't find any sign of him. Unusual for a human to move so fast in such a brief time\u2014unless, of course, he was something more than human.\n\nAnd she had a strange feeling Braggart was, even if she hadn't sensed him as such. Why she felt this, she couldn't say, but maybe it was connected to the odd sensation that she knew him. Knew the soul of him, if not the outer layer.\n\nWhich in itself suggested a shapeshifter of some kind.\n\nShe frowned but let the thought go, simply because it was just another question for which she had no answer.\n\nAs she looked back to the club's doorway, she noticed that the red-haired stranger had also slipped away. His presence was a fading tingle, getting more distant by the minute. And the night felt cleaner for his disappearance.\n\nShe put her weapon away and leaned back against the car, waiting and watching.\n\nIt took ten minutes for the cleanup team to arrive. Two men took care of the vamp's body, while the man in charge\u2014an agent she didn't recognize\u2014took statements from her, Wetherton and the driver.\n\nAs he moved on to interview the other witnesses, she opened the door and climbed into the car. \"We can go now.\"\n\n\"About time,\" Wetherton muttered, glancing at the driver. \"Henry, take me home.\"\n\nShe didn't comment on his tone or the implication that she'd delayed him on purpose, but simply leaned back in the seat and watched the lights flash by. Exhaustion washed over her, and it was all she could do to suppress a yawn. Thankfully, King Street wasn't that far from his Collins Street apartment. Once the driver had stopped in the secure underground garage, she climbed out and checked to make sure there was no one about, then signaled the driver to pop the trunk. She retrieved her overnight bag and com-unit, then opened Wetherton's door. He grabbed his briefcase, climbed out and headed for the elevator.\n\nIt turned out that the minister's apartment was on the top floor, with good views of the bay. The apartment's living area wasn't huge, but the floor-to-ceiling wall of glass made it seem otherwise. The city stretched before them, an unending sea of twinkling lights that merged gradually into the dark waters of the bay.\n\nShe dumped her bags on one of the black leather sofas, then caught Wetherton's arm as he walked past her.\n\n\"Minister, I should check all rooms first.\"\n\n\"This apartment building is fully secure,\" he said, exasperation in his voice. \"No one could get in here.\"\n\n\"There's no such thing as a fully secure building. All security can be breached, even that of the SIU.\"\n\nHe grunted, but waved her on irritably. She walked to the nearest room, which turned out to be the bathroom. There was nothing out of the ordinary, despite the marble tiling and the gold-plated taps. The same could be said for the bedroom\u2014though the silk-clad bed had to be the biggest she'd ever seen. It dominated the room, leaving little space for anything else. She walked past it into the walk-in closet and dressing area, noting with a frown that the minister's suits were all top of the line. And there were enough of them that he could wear a different one every day for a month. Surely politicians didn't make _that_ much money. Between the apartment, the suits, the family home and the family itself, Wetherton had to be draining himself dry.\n\nUnless, of course, he had a secondary source of income no one knew about.\n\nAs she turned to leave, her gaze fell on a grate covering what looked like a large vent. The paintwork around one edge had been scratched, as if the vent had been opened recently, or often. Frown deepening, she knelt and ran her fingers around the covering's edge. It was loose. She pried it open and looked carefully into the hole.\n\nDarkness and air rushed up at her and she shuddered, quickly drawing back. Small places had _never_ been on her list of favorites things\u2014especially when they were small places that seemed to drop down into unending darkness.\n\nBut why was this here? It didn't appear to be part of the air-conditioning system, as it seemed to go straight down. And if it was a laundry chute, why was it here rather than in the bathroom? And why wasn't there a proper cover?\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\" Wetherton appeared in the doorway, his expression darker than usual.\n\nShe sat back on her heels and indicated the vent. \"What is that used for?\"\n\n\"It's a vent.\"\n\n\"One whose cover has been removed many times.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"They're in the process of placing a laundry chute in the building. Workmen have been in and out all week, fiddling with the damn thing and generally being a nuisance.\"\n\nSome of those scratches were more than a week old, but still, the explanation was reasonable enough.\n\nSo why did she sense that he was lying?\n\n\"It's a dangerous thing to have such an easy access point in your apartment, Minister.\"\n\nWetherton snorted. \"No man could fit in that vent, let alone climb it.\"\n\n\"No man could, but a shifter is a different matter.\"\n\n\"A bird wouldn't have the strength to shift the grate with its wings or its claws, Agent Ryan. Now, will you just get out of my bedroom so I can go to sleep?\"\n\n\"Only doing my job, Minister.\" She shoved the cover back into place, taking careful note of the existing scratches, then rose. \"The agent assigned to the day shift will be here at seven. Do you wish me to wake you at that time if you're not already up?\"\n\n\"Yes. Now get out.\"\n\nShe did, but she stayed near the closed door, listening. She wasn't entirely sure what she expected to hear, but there was something about Wetherton that scratched at her instincts. He was up to no good, she was sure of that. And it was something he didn't want _her_ to know about.\n\nBut the soft sounds coming from the bedroom suggested he was doing nothing more than getting ready for bed. She gave up after a few minutes and walked over to the sofa where she'd left her com-unit. After sitting down, she pressed her thumb into the lock.\n\n\"Voice identification required,\" the unit stated.\n\n\"Sam Ryan, SIU officer, badge number 1934.\"\n\n\"Voice scan correct. Eye confirmation required.\"\n\nShe looked into the small scanner fitted into the left-hand side of the unit. A red beam swept over her eye.\n\n\"Eye scan correct.\" The unit clicked open.\n\nIzzy's pink fluff form appeared onscreen. \"It's a little early in the morning to be up and about, isn't it, sweetie?\"\n\n\"Tell me about it,\" she said dryly, and barely repressed a yawn. \"Has Hopeworth replied to our request for information about the gray-haired man?\"\n\nIzzy's feather boa twirled. \"Not a whisper, sweetie.\"\n\n\"Well, his name is General Blaine, and he apparently does work at Hopeworth.\" She paused, looking toward Wetherton's room. The soft sound of steps indicated he was still moving around. But when bedsprings squeaked, she relaxed and looked down at Izzy. \"See what you can find out about him. Use all channels available.\"\n\n\"Oooo...freedom to search where I please. Thanks, sweetness.\"\n\nShe snorted softly. \"And did you do an identity check on that image I sent you?\"\n\n\"I did. I couldn't find a thing.\"\n\n\"Then keep looking. There has to be _some_ information about him somewhere.\"\n\nIzzy's boa twirled faster. \"Darlin', I can only do so many things at once.\"\n\n\"Izzy, you're a computer, not a human.\"\n\n\"That doesn't mean I'm without limits.\"\n\nShe grinned. They were definitely making these things too real. \"You'll live, Iz. Let me know when you find anything.\"\n\nShe closed the screen and set the com-unit to one side, then lifted her feet onto the glass-and-chrome coffee table. Without really meaning to, she dozed.\n\nA soft sound woke her. She blinked, briefly noting that it was still night as she glanced sideways at the clock on the wall. Four o'clock. She'd been asleep just about an hour.\n\nShe frowned, listening to the silence, feeling guilty about sleeping on the job and wondering what the hell had woken her. Then she heard it again\u2014a whisper-soft bump of something against metal. It came from the direction of Wetherton's room.\n\nShe rose, reaching for her weapon as she padded toward the door. After grasping the handle, she carefully inched the door open. Wetherton was a blanket-covered, unmoving lump in the bed who made no noise.\n\nShe frowned and pushed the door open a little more, quickly peering around the corner. Nothing unusual. No reason for the sound she'd heard.\n\nPressing her fingertips against the door, she pushed it all the way open. The room was still and dark, and Wetherton's aftershave\u2014a spicy, musky scent that was far too powerful for her liking\u2014filled the air.\n\nShe stepped quietly into the room and looked around. Still no noise. No indication that anything was wrong.\n\nHalf wondering if the noise she'd heard was nothing more than a figment left over from stolen sleep, she took another step forward.\n\nAnd realized it wasn't Wetherton in the bed, but pillows bunched together to take on the appearance of a sleeper if anyone happened to look in.\n\nThe man himself was nowhere to be seen.\n\nShe raised her gun and cautiously approached the walk-in closet, all senses alert. Another duck around the door frame revealed that Wetherton wasn't hiding in there, either.\n\n_What the hell...?_ She lowered her weapon and looked around the room, then up at the ceiling. No trap doors, no windows. No Wetherton.\n\nA man his size couldn't just disappear...\n\nHer gaze went to the vent. It was open.\n\n\"Shit.\" She dropped to her knees and peered into the dark hole. Fear rose, threatening to engulf her, but she ignored it the best she could and listened.\n\nFrom far down came another thump and the soft squawk of a bird. Then silence.\n\nShe pulled back from the hole and sat on her heels.\n\nWetherton wasn't just a clone; he was a shapechanger.\n\nBut if he was so afraid for his life, why would he leave this apartment\u2014and her protection\u2014so abruptly? Why put himself in danger like that?\n\nUnless, of course, he needed to report to his master and this was the only way he could do it without raising suspicion. After all, the real Wetherton was human, not changer. And this Wetherton had been in a mighty hurry to get her out of the room so he could sleep.\n\nShe rose and left, closing the bedroom door behind her. Whatever his reasons, it was obvious that he didn't want her to know he was gone. And it certainly played better for her if he didn't know that she knew.\n\nAfter shoving her gun away, she flopped back onto the sofa and opened the com-unit again. Izzy's fuzzy face came online instantly. \"And here I was thinking you were sleeping.\"\n\n\"I was. Can you send an urgent email to Director Byrne? Tell him Wetherton is a changer. Tell him I need a tracer sent in with Jenna Morwood this morning, if possible.\"\n\n\"Request sent. Still waiting on search results.\"\n\n\"Ta, Iz.\" Sam shut the com-unit down and settled back to wait. It was an hour before she heard the soft sound of movement in the bedroom. After a few seconds, the door opened and Wetherton's tousled head appeared.\n\n\"Anything wrong, Minister?\" she inquired politely.\n\n\"I thought I heard something,\" he said, in the best just-woken-from -sleep voice she'd ever heard.\n\n\"Nothing's moving. I'm struggling to keep awake, in fact.\"\n\n\"Make sure that you do,\" he snapped, and closed the door.\n\n_Ass,_ she thought, and wondered how the hell she was going to get through months of this tedium.\n\nWith a sigh, she leaned back against the sofa and watched the dawn break slowly across the night-held sky. Jenna arrived just before her shift started. She was a pretty woman of Spanish descent.\n\nAfter checking her ID, Sam let her in and introduced herself. Jenna smiled, the merry twinkle in her dark eyes belying the hint of steel in her handshake. \"Director Byrne sent this for you,\" she said, handing her an interoffice envelope. \"What's Wetherton like?\"\n\nSam glanced at the still-closed bedroom door. \"He's a politician.\"\n\nJenna grimaced. \"Says it all, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Sam tore open the envelope. Inside were two small plastic packets. Stephan wasn't taking any chances\u2014he'd sent two tracers, one for each of them. She got one out and handed it to Jenna. \"He's also an unrecorded changer. He disappeared on me last night, but he doesn't know that I know. Keep an eye on him, and try to place the tracer on him without alerting him.\"\n\nJenna nodded, pocketing the packet quickly as Wetherton came out. When his gaze fell on Jenna, his whole demeanor lightened. Sam didn't know who she felt sorrier for\u2014Jenna for being placed on a twelve-hour watch with a lecher, or Wetherton if he actually tried to harass her.\n\nThough personally, she wouldn't have minded seeing Jenna kick his sorry ass to kingdom come.\n\nShe made the introductions, then donned her jacket, grabbed her bag and com-unit and got the hell out of there.\n\nAnd discovered Gabriel waiting for her outside the building. She stopped briefly as surprise and something else\u2014something close to excitement\u2014ran through her.\n\nHe was leaning against one of the concrete columns, arms crossed, and looking as tired as she felt. \"What's wrong?\" she asked, stopping a few feet away from him. His scent ran around her, spicy and warm, stirring her longing.\n\nAnd steeling her earlier resolve to pursue whatever it was between them. Whether or not she succeeded didn't matter. If she _didn't_ do something, if she simply sat back and accepted his statement that his heart belonged to someone long dead, she'd regret it.\n\n\"I heard you requested information about a General Blaine.\" He shifted his hand, revealing a manila folder. \"I thought you might like to share why over breakfast.\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. \"Breakfast doesn't get you out of lunch, you know.\"\n\nA wry smile touched his lips. \"I guessed that. But this is a business breakfast, not an apology.\"\n\nOf course. He wouldn't be here, otherwise. \"Why are you curious about my interest in Blaine?\"\n\n\"Because I met him last night. Since you saw him when the Wetherton attack went down wrong, I wanted your opinion of him.\"\n\nHe motioned her forward, and then pressed his hand lightly against her spine to guide her toward his car. The warmth of his touch trembled across her skin. _Yep,_ she had it bad. But if he noticed her reaction, he didn't say anything. Didn't react in _any_ visible way himself.\n\n\"I know this sounds catty, but why does my opinion of the man matter?\"\n\nHe slanted her a look as he opened the car's passenger door for her. \"Because you have an innate skill for sensing evil in people. I want to know if you sensed it in him.\"\n\nShe waited until he'd climbed into the car before replying, \"Yes and no.\"\n\nHe started the car and pulled out smoothly into the early morning traffic. Then he flicked on auto-drive and programmed it to head to the hotel where she'd been staying. She certainly hadn't told him she was staying there, so he'd obviously dug it out of her personnel file. If she wasn't so tired she might have felt annoyed, but right now all she felt was vague amusement.\n\n\"What does that mean?\" he asked.\n\n\"It means that when Wetherton's car was attacked and I was trying to save his ass, I felt no sense of evil from Blaine. Yet yesterday afternoon, as he was coming out of Wetherton's office, my skin fairly crawled at the sight of him. And oddly, he had no trace on him of the wounds he had received in the bombing.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"What time was that?\"\n\n\"A little after six. Why?\"\n\n\"Because when I saw him a little before seven, there were definitely traces of wounds on his face then.\"\n\nSam felt a shiver run up her spine. \"So what are you saying, that there are two different Blaines? Like a clone?\" Though it certainly made sense, given her differing reactions to the man.\n\n\"Or a shifter impersonating Blaine,\" Gabriel added. \"Do you know why he was visiting Wetherton?\"\n\n\"Something to do with military funding. But why would someone bother to impersonate Blaine just to beg for money? If your Blaine had the wounds and was with Lloyd\u2014who presumably would be able to spot a fake\u2014then clearly he was the real Blaine.\" So why was _her_ Blaine\u2014the fake Blaine\u2014the evil one? It made no sense. Then she frowned. \"And why were they both turning up at a murder scene, anyway?\"\n\n\"Because the woman murdered was Kathryn Douglass, director of the Pegasus Foundation, which has strong military ties.\"\n\n\"But that doesn't explain why Lloyd and Blaine would turn up.\"\n\n\"Many of the projects Pegasus was involved in came from Hopeworth. Blaine was Douglass's military contact.\"\n\n\"But...\" Sam hesitated, mulling over the little she'd heard or read about Pegasus. \"Don't they make big hardware, like fighter planes and stuff?\"\n\n\"Yes, but they also work on smaller, more experimental weapons for Hopeworth. Illie and I were called in there yesterday to investigate a break-in.\"\n\n\"Illie being your new partner?\" Meaning he didn't have something against partners, just against her?\n\nGabriel scowled. \"Not by choice, I can assure you.\" His gaze met hers for a long moment, and she saw not only annoyance but a loneliness and a longing that was as deep as anything she'd ever felt.\n\nIf ever she needed encouragement to carry on with her crazy seduction plan, that was it. The problem was, how far should she push? And how soon? Given the situation\u2014and her reassignment\u2014it wasn't going to be easy, no matter what she decided.\n\nWhich meant that maybe she needed to seduce him sooner rather than later\u2014and hit him hard and fast. Give him no time to think, just react.\n\nShe looked out the window and wondered if she could even do that. Wondered if she'd do nothing more than make a fool of herself. Lord, she hadn't even kissed the man, and here she was, thinking of full-blooded seduction. And she had only her hormones and his sister saying that he _was_ interested. Because while she might see loneliness and need in his eyes, it didn't actually mean that either was aimed at _her._\n\n\"Sam?\"\n\nShe jerked out of her thoughts and met his gaze. \"Huh?\"\n\nHe studied her again, his gaze shrewd and almost judgmental. \"I said the problem was, Illie wasn't the partner they were hoping to see.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"Meaning they wanted me? Why?\"\n\n\"According to Illie, it was some sort of test.\" He hesitated. \"A test they went through with regardless.\"\n\nAlarm ran through her. \"Why would they do that? What sort of test was it?\"\n\n\"There was an explosion, followed by a fire hot enough to melt the walls and damn near kill the both of us.\"\n\nThe alarm got stronger. In her dreams, they'd tested _her_ against fire, too. She swallowed heavily and said, \"How did you survive?\"\n\n\"We were lucky\u2014the room had several fireproofed cabinets.\" His gaze met hers. \"Why would they want to test you against fire, Sam? Do you have any idea?\"\n\n\"No.\" She paused. \"But in a recent dream, someone was trying to force me to control fire.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nSam hesitated, but something in the way he was looking at her suggested this was a pivotal point in their relationship. That if she lied about this, she could forget about the future and whatever plans she might have. \"I don't know who they all were, but I recognized one of them\u2014Blaine.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"From my dreams.\"\n\nHis eyebrow rose. \"And what was he doing in those dreams?\"\n\nShe blew out a breath, battling a sudden reluctance to talk about it. What if the dreams were false? What if they were nothing more than images of an overactive imagination?\n\nWhat if they weren't?\n\nIf she wanted to know the truth, she had to start trusting someone with her nightly journeys. Someone other than Joe, whom she might not be able to trust.\n\n\"They were training me to use gifts I don't appear to have.\"\n\n\"Hopeworth was?\"\n\n\"I can't say for sure it was Hopeworth, because the dreams never included a location. It was just a room\u2014or rather, an arena\u2014with the scientists in an observation room above me.\"\n\n\"And was it just you in the dream?\"\n\n\"In the training arena? Yes.\" She hesitated. \"But I am never alone in the dreams. Joshua is always with me.\"\n\n\"And is Joshua this Joe Black you mentioned earlier?\"\n\n\"In all honesty, I don't know. Joe looks nothing like the boy in my dreams. His coloring is completely different, for a start.\"\n\n\"But he could be?\"\n\n\"I guess so. Anything is possible, especially when I don't even know if the dreams are real or a figment of a warped imagination.\"\n\nHe considered her, his hazel eyes shuttered. \"Is Joe real?\"\n\n\"I've already said yes to that question. But I do know Joe is not his real name.\"\n\n\"Do the dreams feel real?\" Gabriel asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" Too real and too painful\u2014even if she didn't entirely believe them.\n\nOr maybe that should be even if she didn't entirely _want_ to believe them.\n\n\"If you are so sure, why have you never mentioned them?\"\n\nSam hesitated. \"Just because they feel real doesn't mean they _are_ real. For all I know, they could have been planted in my subconscious for some nefarious reason.\" She looked ahead as the car began to slow and saw that they were nearing the hotel. She returned her gaze to his. \"That's what you were thinking, isn't it?\"\n\nA smile fleetingly touched his lips. \"At first, yes. But I think it's becoming increasingly obvious you're from one of the Hopeworth projects, though whether that project is Penumbra or something else is anyone's guess. That being the case, you've obviously slipped their noose until now. Which means you had help.\"\n\n\"Because a teenager could not escape the might of the military alone.\"\n\n\"A normal teenager, no. But you are not normal, Sam.\"\n\n\"And if that wasn't apparent before, it sure is now.\" She smiled to counter the bitterness in her tone. \"But even so, my memories\u2014or lack thereof\u2014and the fact that there has been a careful 'refinement' of my past suggests that someone, somewhere, knows who and what I am. And they have gone to great lengths to conceal it.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Gabriel paused. \"Have you asked this Joe about it?\"\n\n\"He says I will remember when I need to remember.\"\n\n\"Helpful.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And when I've asked who he is, I get the same response.\"\n\n\"Then perhaps you need to find another source.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows. \"You don't think I've been trying?\"\n\n\"I meant another Hopeworth source. Have you ever gone back to see that woman who claimed to be your nanny in Hopeworth? The one who called you Josephine?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then perhaps we should.\"\n\n\"What? Now?\"\n\n\"Is there anything else you particularly want to do?\"\n\n\"How about sleep?\"\n\nHe looked at her for a moment, then he laughed a little sheepishly. \"Yeah, I guess you would. How about I come back later this morning?\"\n\n_How about you come join me in bed?_ She rubbed a hand across her eyes and tried to ignore the impulse to say the words out loud. For all that she wanted this man, it wasn't the right time for a seduction. And in all honesty, her planned lunch probably wasn't the best time, either, though she had a feeling there was never going to be a \"good\" time.\n\nBut if she wanted to know for sure whether that something between them was more than just a side effect of genetics, of breeding, then she had better force her reluctant feet forward and at least _try,_ wrong time or not.\n\n\"No. Let's do it now; then I can sleep for the rest of the day.\"\n\nHe raised his eyebrows. \"And the apology lunch?\"\n\n\"Can become an apology brunch. Unless you are willing to take a rain check.\" She leaned forward and programmed the nursing home's address into the auto-drive. The car shot back into traffic and drove on.\n\nHe didn't comment, just nodded. She wasn't getting much from him at the moment\u2014not even little insights via body language, which meant he was controlling himself very tightly.\n\nNo surprise, really. He'd been doing that from the first time they'd met.\n\n\"So,\" she continued, \"what did _you_ learn about Blaine?\"\n\n\"Not a great deal. Basic information on family and education. Information that all but ceased when he went into the military at eighteen.\"\n\n\"Did he go straight into Hopeworth, then?\"\n\n\"No. Records show he enlisted in the army and went through basic training. The records are listed as high security after that, though.\"\n\n\"I thought Stephan's security listing was high enough to get access to such records.\"\n\n\"He has access to everything but Hopeworth. That is a law unto itself.\"\n\nSam snorted. \"I'm thinking that's not exactly wise.\"\n\nGabriel grimaced. \"The military would argue that, given the sensitive nature of much of their research, it is a necessity.\"\n\n\"So, if Stephan has access to all but Hopeworth, why haven't you got the rest of it?\"\n\n\"Because Stephan is currently home with Lyssa and his new son.\"\n\n\"Lyssa's had her kid? Hey, send her and Stephan my congrats! What did they name him?\"\n\n\"Devyn Charles Oswald Stern.\"\n\nShe blinked. \"That's one hell of a moniker for a little kid to carry.\"\n\nGabriel grinned. \"He's the first grandson, so he was destined to carry the first name of both grandfathers. It's something of a tradition.\"\n\n\"And a nice one. The past is never forgotten that way.\" There was sudden sympathy in his expression and she knew he was thinking about her lack of a past. Given that she didn't particularly want to dwell on the reasons for that right now, she rushed on before he could say anything. \"She didn't have any problems, then?\"\n\n\"Not as many as we expected. She's had a bad pregnancy and isn't strong\u2014as you know, because you've met her\u2014and it was an extremely long birth. But she's fine. Tired, but fine.\"\n\nWhat _she_ knew was that Lyssa was stronger than her family was giving her credit for. She _had_ met the woman, and beneath that pale, frail build was a steely determination that was breathtaking. Anyone who could handle being kidnapped and isolated for six months and still come out of it sane could certainly cope with anything else life threw at her.\n\n\"So has the proud uncle been to see the newest addition to the family yet?\"\n\nHe hesitated, and darkness flashed through his eyes. \"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because sometimes there are things more important than family.\"\n\n\"Nothing is more important than family _._ \" _Says the woman who hasn't got one,_ she thought with resignation.\n\n\"Some things are.\"\n\nAnd the brief glance he gave her made her pulse skip, then race. Did that glance imply what she thought it implied? Or were her overactive hormones making her read far too much into it?\n\n\"Like what?\" she asked, as casually as she could.\n\n\"Like stopping a madman intent on starting a war.\"\n\nAmusement and perhaps a touch of disappointment ran through her. So much for her fantasies, she thought wryly. \"So, you still think Wetherton has connections to Sethanon?\"\n\n\"Do I believe it? Yes. Do I have any proof? No. Other than the body of the real Wetherton, and the fact that Sethanon was behind the attempt to replace the Prime Minister with a clone, that is.\"\n\n\"And Wetherton's connections to Hopeworth?\"\n\n\"Could be a means for Sethanon to keep track of what is going on in there. Or maybe Wetherton is merely the go-between for Sethanon and his military source.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows at that. \"You think Blaine is working for Sethanon?\"\n\n\"It's not beyond the bounds of reason. I certainly don't think it's a coincidence that it was Blaine's image the multi-shifter used.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Multi-shifters need to come in constant contact with someone to take that person's shape. It takes a little time for cells to reconfigure, and the longer the contact, the more exact the image.\"\n\n\"Really? Does it work the same for shapechangers? Or shapeshifters?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Shapechangers and shifters are born with their secondary form programmed into their cells. Multi-shifters have adaptable cells.\"\n\n\"Fascinating.\"\n\n\"Very.\"\n\nHis voice was dry and she smiled. \"Maybe not to you, because you grew up with it. Who actually knows what, exactly, I grew up with?\" She paused, frowning a little. \"You know, it seems odd to me that you all fear Sethanon, and yet you haven't been able to find out a great deal about him in all the years you've been hunting him.\"\n\n\"We _do_ know a lot about his organization. We just don't know much about the man himself.\"\n\n\"Why not? I mean, you've captured his people, interrogated them, so surely they were able to give you something more concrete.\"\n\n\"Only concrete in terms of his organization, his contacts, stuff like that. No one seems to know much about the man himself.\"\n\n\"Don't you find that a little surprising?\"\n\n\"Not really. We're talking about someone who can change his identity at will. It's hard to trace someone when you can't even pin down his true identity.\" He grimaced. \"Hell, for all we know, he could be one of the contacts we have under observation. Anything is possible when your form is mutable.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows. \"So he suddenly appears on the scene sixteen years ago and starts taking pot shots at the Federation and the SIU?\"\n\n\"It's a little more than potshots,\" Gabriel said, his voice a little testy. \"And his agenda\u2014which he's made perfectly clear in several messages he sent us\u2014amounts to war.\"\n\n\"And yet if he intended war, why hasn't he just started it? Why warn you at _all_?\"\n\n\"Because he enjoys an audience.\" Gabriel shrugged. \"And he probably enjoys watching us run around trying to find and stop him.\"\n\n\"And it's hard to stop someone when you have no idea who and what he is.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\nShe considered him, thinking about what she'd said, what he'd said, and drawing conclusions that she really didn't like. Such as the fact that Sethanon's appearance seemed to coincide with hers. True, it _was_ probably little more than a coincidence, especially given the appearance of other Hopeworth rejects over the years, but it was still a disturbing thought. After a moment, she said, \"It still doesn't make sense, you know. I mean, if he wants a war, he could have started it years ago. What is he waiting for?\"\n\n\"Who knows? It could be something as simple as the fact that it takes time to build a fighting force.\"\n\nSomething inside her clicked, and her eyes widened. \"Hopeworth.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"What?\"\n\n\"Hopeworth is the key.\" She reached out, grabbing his hand and wrapping her fingers around his. \" _That's_ what he's waiting for. Hopeworth has spent years making the perfect soldier, and from what we've seen recently, may finally be succeeding. _That's_ what he's waiting for. This Sethanon of yours is planning to take over Hopeworth.\"\n\n# TEN\n\nGABRIEL STARED AT SAM FOR a moment, then said almost automatically, \"He couldn't.\"\n\nAnd yet even as he denied it, his mind raced with the possibility. It was something they'd never even contemplated. Yet, in a twisted way, it made perfect sense. If Sethanon intended to start a war against a well-armed, well-informed alliance of nonhumans like the Federation, then it would pay to get fighters that were stronger, faster and better than those nonhumans. And that's _exactly_ what Hopeworth was breeding.\n\n\"He could if he's a multi-shifter,\" she said, her eyes bright in the pale light. \"Remember, we have two Blaines running around.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but that's not something that could be done long-term.\"\n\n\"Why not? Stephan's been doing it for years to stay in charge of the SIU, hasn't he?\"\n\n\"Hopeworth is an entirely different beast than the SIU. I doubt an imitator would go unnoticed for very long in an installation that specializes in interspecies and psi-talent development. Especially when the original is still running around.\"\n\n\"But if he's got people on the inside and the outside\u2014people like Wetherton\u2014tracking Blaine's movements, then it is totally possible.\"\n\n\"Only if Blaine didn't live on the base, and he does.\"\n\n\"But he doesn't stay on the base all the time. And who says this Sethanon of yours isn't also living on the base? You're the one who said whoever is posing as Blaine has to be in close contact to ensure a good replication.\"\n\nThat was true. And it was definitely an idea they would have to investigate. Though given the tight security on all Hopeworth information and records, it was going to be nearly impossible to get any information there. But the base itself was an entirely different proposition. They could certainly watch all the comings and goings. Gabriel shifted so that he was facing her full on, but he didn't dislodge her grip on his hand. There was something almost comforting in her touch\u2014comforting in a way that was sexual and yet not.\n\nIn the early morning light, her skin was almost as luminous as her eyes. With her fiery hair covered by the hood of her dark coat, she appeared almost ghostly. His grip on her hand tightened a little, and the fingers of his free hand itched with the sudden need to caress her cheek. To feel the softness of her skin. To reassure himself that she was real and here, and not already beginning to fade away into nothingness as Karl had warned.\n\n\"Why are you so positive about this?\" he asked.\n\nWhen she hesitated and looked away, he reached out and touched her chin, drawing her gaze back to his. She licked her lips, and he found his gaze drawn to the movement. _Not good,_ he thought, and yet he couldn't pull his gaze away.\n\n\"How the hell can I be sure?\" She hesitated again. \"But I'm right. I know I'm right.\"\n\n\"Because you were at Hopeworth with the man who is now Sethanon?\" The question came out of nowhere, and he had to wonder if it was an instinctive reaction to the pull he was feeling toward her.\n\nAnd yet, at the same time, it _was_ a natural question. She was obviously connected to Hopeworth, and there was definitely a connection to Sethanon somewhere along the line. Otherwise, why would the man have spent so much time over the years keeping an eye on her? Maybe even protecting her?\n\nShe gasped and jerked away from his grasp. Part of him regretted the loss of her touch. Part of him didn't. And he couldn't help noticing that, despite her reaction, there was no hurt in her eyes, no surprise, which suggested she'd contemplated the question herself, however lightly.\n\n\"That's not true,\" she said. Yet her eyes said, _Please don't let it be true._\n\n\"Sam, think about it. Your memories started at the age of fourteen. At that very same time, Sethanon made his first appearance. And, coincidentally, just before either event, a project named Penumbra was destroyed by a fire to the point that there were absolutely no records left. There wasn't even enough DNA left to identify who, exactly, died in that fire. Normal fires don't burn that hot. Not without help.\"\n\nShe was staring at him, eyes wide and somewhat distant, like she was seeing things he couldn't even begin to guess at. He wondered what she was remembering, wished that she'd tell him. But he'd done very little in recent months to encourage trust, and for the first time he regretted it. Truly regretted it.\n\n\"Fire is not my element.\"\n\nThe words were said softly, almost automatically. He frowned. \"Were they Joe's?\"\n\nShe blinked, and life came flooding back into her eyes. \"Joe was never at Hopeworth. At least, the man I know now as Joe wasn't. Joshua was.\"\n\n\"What if Joe is a shapeshifter? He could have been there as someone else.\"\n\n\"He's a shapechanger. A crow. Are you saying he's one of those rare types who is both shifter and changer?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" And what if it went beyond that? You could be a multi-shifter and, on rare occasions, even a multi-changer, but he'd never heard of a multi-shifter-c hanger.\n\nBut then, up until Rose Pierce began killing off Hopeworth rejects, he'd never heard of a male-female shifter, either.\n\n\"Hopeworth doesn't traffic in the normal,\" she said.\n\n\"No, they don't.\" He hesitated. \"Your dreams haven't made any connections between Joe and Joshua, have they? Was Joshua one of the instructors?\"\n\n\"No, and no.\" Her sudden smile held very little warmth. \"If I can believe the nanny, Joshua is actually my twin brother.\"\n\nHe raised an eyebrow. \"A test-tube twin, or the real thing?\"\n\nSam shrugged. \"Considering I have no idea about the manner of my birth, I can't really comment. And Mary never said either way. Nor did I think to ask.\"\n\n\"But what do your instincts say?\"\n\n\"My instincts and my dreams make me believe that Mary is telling the truth\u2014that he's my brother. My _real_ brother. The other half of me.\" She hesitated. \"But since I still don't know whether my dreams can be trusted, I wouldn't rely on them as the truth just yet.\"\n\n\"But what if they _are_ the truth?\"\n\nShe stared at him for a moment, then looked away again\u2014but not before he'd seen the sheen of tears in her eyes. \"I don't want them to be the truth. I don't want to be just another product from some mad scientist's production line.\"\n\nHe gently forced her to look at him again. \"Whether you are or not doesn't matter, Sam. The scientists may have given you life, but they haven't made you what you are.\"\n\n\"And just what am I?\" she said, and for the first time there was a hint of desperation in her voice. \"Am I a military weapon gone wrong, or one that is merely waiting for the right trigger?\"\n\n\"What you are,\" he said softly, \"is a warm, bright woman with a past that is undefined. But military creation or not, you are _not_ the sum of your making. You have a mind and a soul that are all your own, and they are not evil. You could never be evil.\"\n\nHer gaze searched his. \"Are you sure of that? Truly sure? Because if my dreams are to be believed, I did some pretty horrible things in that place.\"\n\nMaybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe the car had somehow shrunk, because suddenly her face seemed nearer to his, her lips nearer still. The urge to close the gap between them, to caress her mouth with his own, rose with a vengeance from somewhere deep inside. Suddenly he was drowning in the desire to kiss her and fighting for control.\n\n\"We all do what we must to survive,\" he said softly and gently brushed several strands of hair away from her warm cheek. She trembled slightly under the caress, but her gaze didn't leave his. And there was a challenging light in her eyes, as if she were daring him to acknowledge what was happening. Daring him to do what he wanted to do.\n\nHe didn't. He just said, \"In your case, I doubt you would have done anything that you were not forced to do.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure about that.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nAnd with that, he gave up the fight.\n\nHe kissed her slowly, passionately, as if he had all the time in the world and this kiss was not their first, but rather one of many. And it felt fantastic. As her smell entwined him, filling his every breath with the richness of vanilla and cinnamon, he groaned and deepened the kiss, wanting, needing, to taste every inch of her. As his desire fled south, she answered in kind, her hands sliding up his chest and around his neck, until she was holding him as if she never meant to let him go. It made him hunger to taste her more fully, to skim his tongue across her warm, pale skin, exploring and savoring every bit of her.\n\n_God,_ this kiss felt so right, so scarily right, unlike anything he'd ever experienced before\u2014even with Andrea\u2014that it shook him to his very core. Andrea had been his soul mate; he'd been _so_ certain of that all his life. But if that were true, he shouldn't be feeling the completeness he was feeling with this kiss, this woman, no matter how deep the attraction.\n\nAnd yet he was.\n\nSo had he been wrong so long ago, as Jessie had said, or was _this_ connection, this rightness, something altogether different? Perhaps something due to the storm bond and the shadow walker genes that ran in her blood and apparently in his?\n\nHe didn't know.\n\nBut one thing was certain. Now that he'd experienced it, he _had_ to explore it. He had no option. He was a shapechanger, and part of that heritage was the fierce desire to find the one woman who was his other half, his destiny. This kiss had woken that part of him, and there was no turning away. Especially after all these years of being convinced that his soul mate was dead and buried.\n\nAnd while now was not the time for such thoughts or such explorations, the fact was, he could no longer ignore what was between them, could no longer push her away.\n\nBut could he breach the fences he'd spent so long creating?\n\nHe pulled back from her just enough to allow some breathing room between them.\n\n\"I'm sorry\u2014\"\n\nShe placed a hand on his lips, stopping the rest of his words. \"Don't apologize for something I've wanted for a long time now.\"\n\nHe wasn't apologizing for the kiss, despite his reservations and uncertainty, but rather his timing\u2014which pretty much stunk\u2014and his treatment of her over the past few months. One kiss _shouldn't_ have changed anything, yet it had. But really, what was the point of explaining that? She probably wouldn't believe him anyway. Hell, _he_ was finding it hard to believe. \"Then I won't.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Good.\"\n\nHe glanced at the road ahead and saw, with surprise, that they were almost at Greensborough. The nursing home where Mary Elliot was being looked after was only five minutes or so away. Time sure flew when you were kissing your partner. Or rather, ex-partner. \"I think we need to talk.\"\n\n\"I agree, but not here or now. Later, over brunch.\"\n\nHe nodded and retreated to his side of the car. But her scent still seemed to surround him, filling his every breath, forcing him to fight desire. \"So, tell me about this Mary. How did you find her in the first place?\"\n\nA ghost of a smile touched her lips. She was obviously well aware that he was trying to distract himself. \"Joe gave me a pin with two figures on it\u2014an abstract man and woman standing side by side, one dark, one light. He said that by seeking its image I'd find our murderer. He also said that I'd find the first stepping-stone to my past.\"\n\n\"So the pin led you to Mary Elliot?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"And to the truth about Rose Pierce.\"\n\n\"Which begs the question, how did he know?\"\n\nShe sighed. \"Maybe he _is_ military. He walked like military, if that makes sense.\"\n\n\"So, in reality, he could be Blaine?\"\n\n\"In reality, he's a changer, as I said. A crow.\"\n\n\"Crow feathers were found at the scene of Kathryn Douglass's murder.\" And he seriously doubted it was a coincidence. _Everything_ about this case seemed\u2014one way or another\u2014to be tying back to her, Hopeworth and this mysterious Joe. Or Joshua, as the case may be. He had no doubt the two were one and the same.\n\n\"But he can't be one of Hopeworth's products because he has dark hair. Lloyd said all Hopeworth's creations have red hair, and that's certainly proven to be the case, even among the rejects.\"\n\nAll true. And yet, why did this Joe know so much? And how had he formed such an intimate connection with her? If he wasn't a Hopeworth product, he had to be at least a part of Hopeworth\u2014and a part of the project that Sam had come from. A project that had been almost totally erased.\n\nBesides, it wasn't as though a shifter capable of taking on multiple forms couldn't easily change his hair color.\n\n\"Psychic connections such as the one you appear to have with Joe just don't happen between strangers. Despite the myths, such strong connections take time, and effort and\u2014\" He hesitated and then added softly, \"intimacy.\"\n\n\"Joe and I have never been lovers.\"\n\n\"I never said that you were. But he could be someone who was close to you in that place. Someone you leaned on for strength.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"There was only Joshua. In the dreams, it was always him and me against the rest.\"\n\nYet she had said that she didn't know if the dreams could be trusted as the truth. What if someone _had_ altered them, perhaps not so much for content as for appearances? What if her twin wasn't who she thought he was?\n\nThat would certainly make the man who seemed to know too much about her more of an option as the brother.\n\nBut why would he continue to keep his identity a secret if he was in mental contact with her now? What was he waiting for?\n\nSince that was a question neither he nor Sam could answer, he switched topics.\n\n\"How trustworthy do you think the nurse's information is going to be when it comes to Hopeworth's habit of wiping out sections of their former employees' memories?\"\n\nSam shrugged. \"Mary's memories of the project _have_ been restricted. I asked her the name of the project she worked on, and she said it hurts if she tries to remember.\"\n\n\"And yet she could talk freely about you and Joshua? You didn't think that odd?\"\n\n\"No.\" Sam hesitated. \"But Mary said we were all little more than numbers, so maybe that's why she could talk about us.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"What?\"\n\nSam grimaced. \"Just something Mary mentioned the last time. She said she wished the military would give us names instead of numbers, because she couldn't keep up with all the different names we kept coming up with for ourselves.\"\n\n\"So the military might have restricted her from mentioning specific numbers, but because she knew you by particular names, she's been able to short-circuit the restrictions?\"\n\n\"Possibly.\"\n\n\"Which means she might also know what other aliases your brother went by.\"\n\nSam's eyebrows rose. \"I hadn't thought of asking that, but yeah, she might. It's worth a try, anyway.\"\n\nIt certainly was. Hell, _anything_ that gave them _any_ information about her so-called brother was a good thing, because he didn't trust her sudden revelation. Didn't like the fact that she'd been talking to someone for so many years and yet had no clue as to that person's real identity. Hell, how could they be sure it _wasn't_ Sethanon? It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, especially given Sethanon's interest in her over the years.\n\nThe car slid to a stop outside a large brick residence that had the air of a secure hospital rather than someplace homey and warm. Bars lined the front windows, and sturdy, locked gates guarded the pathways that led to the back of the building. There was a lot of landscaping evident beyond the gates, but it did little to blunt the initial impression of a prison-like environment.\n\n\"This it?\" He glanced back at Sam.\n\nShe nodded. \"Hopefully, Mary's doing a little better now than when I visited her the last time. Otherwise, we won't be talking to her for long.\"\n\n\"How ill is she?\" Gabriel climbed out of the car. The early morning sunshine was bright despite the bitter wind, so he put on his sunglasses. And in the brief shift between brightness and shade, he thought he saw something move in the thick shrubbery beyond the gates.\n\nHe frowned, lowering the sunglasses a little and squinting against the sunlight as he studied the path along the right side of the building. Nothing more than bushes moving to the tune of the breeze.\n\nAnd yet...something had moved. Something _other_ than plant life swaying back and forth. Something that had darted back into the shadows with inhuman speed, and yet had been human in shape.\n\nFrown deepening, he walked around the car, waiting until his back was to the building before he said, \"Can you feel anything out of place?\"\n\nShe gave him a sharp glance and looked at the building. \"No.\" She hesitated, frowning a little. \"Yes. There's a faint feeling of evil coming from the right of the building.\"\n\nThe right of the building was where he'd seen the shadow move. \"What do you mean by faint?\"\n\n\"It's not a solid sensation. It's wispier, like I'm feeling something ghostlike rather than human.\" She shrugged and glanced at him. \"Why? What did you see?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure.\" He stared at the side of the building for a little longer but didn't see any further movement. And yet the sense that something was out of place remained. \"I think something is about to go down. You want to get inside and talk to Mary Elliot? I'd like to check the outside of the building first.\"\n\nShe nodded and strode toward the front door. He headed sideways toward the suspect. But neither of them had taken more than a few steps when the screaming began.\n\nHe shared a brief glance with Sam, then ran like hell for the gates. One huge leap and he was over them, racing for the rear of the building.\n\nHe saw a shadow leap skyward on night-dark wings as he rounded the corner.\n\nHe shifted shape and gave chase.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam crashed through the front door, her badge raised in one hand and her weapon held low in the other. \"SIU, folks. Stand back.\"\n\n\"Officer, please, there's no need\u2014\"\n\nShe ignored the woman at the reception desk and ran down the hall. How many times in the past had she been in a similar situation? Being so close to possible answers, only to have them snatched away by some force of evil? Whether that force was military or Sethanon's didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting to Mary's room and making sure yet another source of answers wasn't shut down.\n\nBecause the screams were definitely coming from Mary. Sam pounded down the hall, chased by footsteps and protests, her gaze on the main prize\u2014the open door to Mary's room.\n\nShe slowed as she neared the room, took a deep breath, then stepped inside, weapon raised.\n\nOnly to discover the receptionist had been right. There was no need, and no threat. One of the four big windows that looked out onto the garden _was_ open, but nothing more than a few inches. Maybe enough to let a bird in, but certainly not a human. The screen covering the window had tumbled to the ground, and the curtains flapped slightly in the breeze. Surely neither could be the reason behind the screams coming from the thin gray-haired woman standing in the middle of the room. The screen dropping _could_ have frightened her, but not to this extent. Yet there was sheer terror in Mary's voice.\n\nTwo nurses stood on either side of her, talking to her in soft tones, obviously trying to calm her down. Sam had seen at least one of the women on her last visit here, so they probably weren't causing Mary's distress either.\n\nShe put her weapon away and stepped toward the trio. \"Ladies, do you need any help?\" She flashed her badge as one of the nurses looked around, then asked, \"What happened?\"\n\n\"Day terrors,\" the dark-haired nurse said grimly. \"It sometimes happens when the mind regresses.\"\n\nSam walked into the older woman's line of sight, blocking the window and whatever it was Mary had seen. Or thought she'd seen.\n\n\"Mary?\" she said softly.\n\nThe older woman blinked, then her gaze met Sam's and the right side of her face lit up in a smile.\n\n\"Josephine!\" The word was slightly slurred, but understandable. Mary's stroke had robbed the left side of her face of mobility, but thankfully had left her capable of speech. \"Oh, thank God you're here!\"\n\nShe lurched forward, pulling out of the nurses' grip with surprising ease, and staggered toward Sam. Sam caught her, wrapping her arms around the frail body. She felt the shuddering of terror through the other woman's limbs, the steel of muscle underneath it.\n\nMary might be old and frail, but she had a surprising amount of strength left.\n\n\"It's all right, Mary. I'm here. No one will get you now.\"\n\nThe old woman shuddered. \"I saw him, you know. I wasn't imagining it. I saw him.\"\n\n\"Shhhh. It's okay. You're safe.\" She stroked Mary's back with one hand and felt the terror begin to leave the older woman's body. \"Who did you see?\"\n\nBut Mary appeared not to hear her, caught up in her distress. \"He'll be back. Now that they know I'm here, he'll be back.\"\n\n\"No, he won't. My partner's out there right now, hunting him down.\" But who the hell had Mary seen? If only she could get an answer. \"He'll catch him. That's what he does.\"\n\nMary pulled back a little. \"I know. I was talking to him.\"\n\nSam frowned. \"You were talking to Gabriel?\"\n\nMary looked annoyed. \"I don't know a Gabriel. I meant Joshua. Joshua will catch him. Where is he? I want to talk to him again.\" Her voice was petulant, like that of a child deprived of a toy. And in many ways Mary _was_ a child. Much of her mind had gone, lost in memories of the past.\n\nBut did that mean she was lost now, or had she really seen Joshua? And if it wasn't Joshua who had scared her\u2014as her words seemed to indicate\u2014then who or what had?\n\n\"Maybe Joshua will come by later.\"\n\nEven as she said it, Sam glanced up at the dark-haired nurse, who shook her head and said, \"There were no visitors today.\"\n\nSo, it _was_ all in Mary's imagination. But that didn't mean Sam couldn't get something useful, as long as she didn't push Mary too far. She motioned toward the sofa. \"Mary, why don't you come sit down on the sofa with me?\"\n\n\"Oh, all right. As long as they don't stick me again. They're always sticking me with things.\"\n\nThe second nurse came back into the room with a medical trolley at that precise moment, and Sam couldn't help smiling. \"You don't want to be sick when Joshua visits again, do you?\" She helped the elderly woman onto the sofa and knelt down in front of her. \"How about you talk to me about his visit while the nurses make sure the other man didn't hurt you.\"\n\nThe old woman's smile broke loose at the mention of Joshua. \"He was such a bonny child. You both were.\"\n\n\"When was he here, Mary?\"\n\n\"Today, like I said. Just before that other man appeared.\" She shuddered. \"I never did like the look of that one. He was nasty.\"\n\n\"Who was he, Mary?\"\n\nThe woman frowned, as if trying to search for the memory was painful. \"I...I can't remember his name, I'm afraid.\"\n\nClearly this was Hopeworth's blocks at work. Time for another tactic.\n\n\"So how did Joshua get here? He never checked in with the nurses.\"\n\nThe old woman snorted. \"Well, he wouldn't, would he? He hates medical types. It's far easier for him to fly in through an open window and avoid all the fuss.\"\n\n\"So he came as a bird?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Mary smiled. \"You both had to be electronically chipped as kids so you didn't fly beyond the compound restrictions.\"\n\nIt sounded like Mary was getting her mixed up with someone else, because while she had changer genes, she certainly wasn't able to change. Though, admittedly, she'd never tried to, either.\n\nA chill ran over Sam's skin and she rubbed her arms. Whoever had blocked her memories had been very thorough indeed if she could not remember something as basic as the fact that she could change shape.\n\nWhy block it in the first place, though? She could understand why Hopeworth and everything that had happened there might have been erased, but why the total erasure? Why take away something as harmless as the fact that she had a brother, or that she could shapechange?\n\nAnd how was any of this connected to the mythical Sethanon?\n\n\"How many bird forms did he have?\" she asked.\n\n\"Several. You always seemed to prefer being a small hawk, but he liked variety. A hawk, a crow, sometimes even a pigeon. None of those could fit through the window, though. So today he came as one of those annoying birds\u2014minors, I think they call them.\"\n\nAgain Sam wondered if Mary's memories were true, or if she was getting imagination and reality mixed up. She glanced up as the nurse finished her exam.\n\n\"She's fine,\" the nurse said. \"Just keep her calm.\"\n\nSam nodded, waiting until the two nurses had left the room before continuing her questions. \"Did Joshua say why he was here, Mary?\"\n\n\"He said it was all right to talk. He said they couldn't stop me anymore.\" Fear briefly crossed her half-frozen features. \"Maybe that's why _he_ came. He knew.\"\n\n\"He who? I really need to know which one of them, Mary, so we can stop him.\"\n\nMary frowned again, then eventually said, \"The general. It was the general.\"\n\n\"Blaine? Or Lloyd?\" It had to be one of them. Lloyd was an obstetrician, and apparently in charge of the Hopeworth breeding pens. Blaine had been the man behind the experiments and training, and maybe even the whole Penumbra project.\n\nBut if it was Blaine, which of the Blaines had been here? The one she'd met in Wetherton's car, or the one who'd been in Wetherton's office?\n\nAnd did it actually matter? Just because she hadn't felt anything evil about the first Blaine didn't mean he wasn't.\n\n\"It was Blaine.\" Mary shuddered. \"We used to call him the day shadow. Always creeping about, he was, and harder to spot than a ghost at dusk.\"\n\n\"Did he say anything?\"\n\n\"Didn't get a chance, did he? He saw Joshua and scooted out of here as fast as he could.\"\n\n\"So he recognized Josh?\"\n\nMary smiled. \"You always used to call him that when you were angry with him. It was like you couldn't get his full name out fast enough.\"\n\n_Her_ dreams had never shown her angry at the man who was supposedly her brother. The only emotions in the dreams were fear and longing\u2014fear of what the scientists were doing, and of what Joshua was going to do. And longing to be free, to have what she'd never had\u2014a family, friends. Things she still didn't possess.\n\n\"Did we fight often?\"\n\nMary shrugged. \"You were as different as night and day, you two. You were always the fiery one, the one quick to judge. He was more...careful.\" She looked away for a minute, her gaze distant. \"But for all that, I always thought he was the more dangerous of the two of you. He never seemed to have limits of any kind. And he did some nasty things.\"\n\n\"We both did,\" she said softly.\n\nMary's gaze met hers again, and she raised a slightly shaking hand to brush Sam's skin with dry fingertips. \"In many ways, you were always the good one. What you did, you had to do.\"\n\nHer words made Sam remember the pin Joe had given her. Had it been more of a clue than she realized? Had the abstract man and woman on its surface\u2014one light, one dark\u2014represented her and the man who was supposedly her twin?\n\nHad Joe been trying to tell her that he knew not only who she was, but who her brother was? And did that mean he was a friend or foe? For sure, he'd warned her of trouble more than once, but that didn't mean she could trust him. Hell, for all she knew, Joe might be Blaine in disguise.\n\n\"Mary, was there anyone on the project who went by the name of Joe Black?\"\n\nMary frowned. \"Not that I remember. But then, I didn't know everyone on the project, because I was basically confined to the nursery and housing areas. Nor did I know all the secret names you two called yourselves. Only some.\"\n\n\"Can you remember some of the other names?\"\n\n\"Not really. I only remembered Josephine and Joshua because those were the names you used most often.\"\n\n\"What about Sethanon? Is that one of them? Or maybe the name of someone who worked there?\"\n\n\"Sethanon?\" Her frown deepened. \"I don't think there was anyone on the project called that. It's such an odd name that surely I'd remember it. But Joshua was once caught reading a book by that name, I'm sure.\"\n\nA chill went through her. \"Sethanon is a book title?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I caught him reading it well before they did, and I warned him. But he took no notice.\"\n\n\"So we weren't allowed to read fiction?\"\n\n\"No, only what they gave you. On technologies, weapons, stuff like that.\" Mary shrugged. \"No one ever knew how he got that book. When they took it off him, he got mad.\" She looked away again. \"Joshua would never have hurt me, I knew that, but that day I was afraid. And not just of him, but of both of you.\"\n\nSam raised her eyebrows. \"Why both of us?\"\n\nMary's gaze came back to Sam's. \"Because separately you were powerful, but together\u2014I swear, heaven and earth trembled in fear of your wrath that day.\"\n\nSam swallowed heavily but didn't ask what had happened. Right now, she really didn't want to know. It was enough to know that she was not what she'd presumed\u2014and that the past she'd spent most of her life trying to uncover was one better left shuttered. And yet, now that she'd started down the path of remembering, there was no turning back. The military and their rising level of interest ensured that, if nothing else.\n\nBesides, the dreams were becoming relentless. Remembering was being forced on her, whether she wanted it or not.\n\n\"If we were so powerful, Mary, how did they ever restrain us?\"\n\nHer smile was grim. \"Simply by placing special pellets under your skins, and threatening the death of one if the other did anything out of place.\"\n\nShe remembered the dream in which she and Joshua had been running up a slope on a moonless night. Remembered the promise he'd made as fire danced across his fingertips that soon they would have their revenge and be free.\n\nHe'd obviously found a way to remove the pellets and fulfill that promise.\n\n\"How did you escape the fire that destroyed the project, Mary?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" She frowned. \"There was an explosion, and heat\u2014horrible heat\u2014and the next thing I remember I was outside on this grassy slope.\" She rubbed her arms. \"I think an angel saved me that day. I should have died with the rest of them. The nursery was the second place the fire hit.\"\n\n\"And the first?\"\n\n\"The arena where they used to train you both.\"\n\nSomething in the way she said that scratched at Sam's instincts. \"Both of us? What about the others?\"\n\n\"There were no others. Not in...\" Mary hesitated and rubbed her forehead. \"It still hurts if I try to say the name. Joshua told me it wouldn't.\"\n\nSam lightly squeezed the older woman's free hand. \"You don't need to say the name, Mary. I know the project.\" She hesitated. \"So, Joshua and I were the only ones in Penumbra?\"\n\nMary nodded. \"There were others created. Lots of others. But none of them survived past toddlerhood. No one knew why, but I reckon it was because you were twins. You had each other, and you took care of each other. The other little ones had no one but themselves.\"\n\nKarl had said that walkers came as a pair. That they had to, or they could become lost in the very power they were destined to control. Was that the reason she and Joshua had survived when the others hadn't? Because they were twins? Yet if Joshua was her base, why did she appear to have a connection with Gabriel?\n\nAnd if Hopeworth had studied walkers, and were intermixing walker genes with those of other races, how could they not know that walkers had to come as a pair to survive?\n\n\"So we were the only twins they bred?\"\n\n\"They didn't breed you as twins. It just happened in utero. One whole became two.\"\n\nA chill went through Sam. _Two halves of a whole._ Joe had said that, too. Another clue she hadn't taken note of.\n\nGod, who _was_ he?\n\nAnd was he friend or foe? Or something else altogether?\n\n\"So once the project was destroyed, you left?\"\n\nMary nodded. \"I went on to work for several adoption agencies.\"\n\n\"And the military hasn't tried to contact you before now?\"\n\nMary shook her head. \"Not until now.\"\n\nSo what was different about now? But even as the question went through her mind, Sam remembered Blaine's reaction as he'd come out of Wetherton's office. Remembered his certainty that they'd met before, that she knew just who he was and what he did in the military.\n\n_She_ was the reason he'd come to see Mary.\n\nHe'd wanted to confirm his suspicions, and Mary was the one person left alive who seemed able to connect her with that red-haired child bred and raised in Hopeworth.\n\nThis meant Mary couldn't stay here. Blaine would be back\u2014and if there was one thing Sam was certain of, it was that she didn't want Blaine anywhere near either her or Mary. And while Mary might be living in a fantasy world most of the time, what she did remember of the past was enough to confirm any suspicions Blaine might have. And once that happened, they would come after Sam in force. She'd been bred to be a weapon. It didn't matter if her abilities were buried along with her memories. They'd want her back regardless.\n\nMaybe that was why Joshua had come here, to give Mary permission to tell all. Maybe he was trying to speed up Sam's memory so that she could escape Hopeworth's clutches once again.\n\nShe glanced around as Gabriel walked into the room. \"Any success?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I saw a crow fly away from the window, but by the time I shifted shape and flew after it, its lead was too great.\"\n\nJoshua in crow form? Or Joe? And if it _had_ been Joe, what did he want with Mary? \"I wouldn't have thought a crow would be faster than a hawk.\"\n\n\"Neither would I.\" He stopped beside the sofa and gave Mary a smile. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I don't know you,\" Mary said, somewhat crossly. She glanced at Sam. \"Do I know him?\"\n\n\"This is my new partner, Mary. His name is Gabriel, and he's going to arrange a nice place for you to stay while we track down Blaine.\"\n\nGabriel raised his eyebrows, but he didn't refute the statement. \"Somewhere nice and safe.\"\n\nThe mobile half of Mary's face lit up. \"A holiday would be nice. Gets boring, this place does.\"\n\nSam patted the older woman's knee and rose. \"We'll just go talk to the nurses and arrange it, then.\"\n\n\"And lock the damn window,\" Mary said. \"I don't want that bastard coming back to visit me while you're gone.\"\n\nSam obeyed, locking the window and closing the curtains for good measure. When they were out in the hall, Gabriel asked, \"What was that all about?\"\n\n\"Mary was screaming because she saw Blaine.\" Sam glanced back at the room to ensure Mary wasn't moving around, then looked back at him. \"And if Blaine _was_ visiting her, it's because he wanted to confirm his suspicions about me.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"But the nurses said she had no visitors.\"\n\n\"No visitors that checked in with them. That doesn't mean there weren't any.\"\n\n\"Or that Mary wasn't imagining it.\"\n\nSam nodded, conceding the point even if she didn't believe that was the case. \"What, exactly, did you see when you climbed out of the car?\"\n\n\"I thought I saw something move\u2014something that was human in shape and yet held no substance.\"\n\n\"And later, when you gave chase?\"\n\n\"A crow, as I said.\"\n\nShe blew out a breath. \"A crow is one of Joshua's shapes, apparently.\" But it was also one of Joe's. And one of them, more than likely, was Kathryn Douglass's murderer.\n\n_If_ they were two separate beings, that was. It was more than possible Joe and Joshua were one and the same.\n\n\"So this Joshua of yours is Blaine?\"\n\nThe sudden edge in his voice surprised her, though, as usual, there was little emotion to be seen in his expression. She shook her head. \"Not unless he can be in two places at the same time. Mary was talking to Joshua when Blaine appeared. Blaine apparently recognized Josh and ran. Joshua gave chase.\"\n\n\"So if it was Joshua I was chasing, what happened to Blaine?\"\n\n\"Who knows? But Mary called him a day shadow\u2014apparently he could creep around without being seen.\"\n\nHis eyebrows rose. \"Meaning he could still be here? Can you feel him?\"\n\nSam extended her senses, searching, but there was no sense of the shadowy evil she'd felt earlier. Blaine\u2014if it was indeed Blaine she'd sensed\u2014had gone. She shook her head.\n\n\"So, the question is,\" Gabriel said, \"why were both men here today?\"\n\n\"If you believe her\u2014and I do\u2014then Joshua was here to tell Mary that it was okay to tell me everything. He apparently told her the military could no longer stop her.\"\n\nHe studied her, his face unreadable. \"And Blaine?\"\n\n\"As I said, I think he was here to confirm his suspicions. Mary worked in the nursery. She's probably the only one left alive who has any true knowledge about me and Joshua.\"\n\n\"Did you ask her about Sethanon?\"\n\nSam nodded. \"She didn't know anyone by that name, but said that Joshua was punished once for reading a book with that title.\"\n\n\"A book? He named himself after a book?\"\n\n\"Well, if Sethanon is actually Joshua, then yes. But it's a bit of a long shot, isn't it?\"\n\nGabriel shrugged. \"We've never been able to find a birth record for someone with that name, so it has to be an alias. And there's no rule stating an alias can't come from a book title.\"\n\n\"But if Joshua _is_ this Sethanon of yours, then how has he managed to remain unknown so long?\"\n\n\"I think the only people who might be able to answer our questions are Blaine and Lloyd,\" Gabriel said. \"Both of them were involved in the Penumbra project.\"\n\n\"And neither of them will be inclined to be forthcoming.\"\n\n\"I agree.\" Gabriel hesitated. \"Look, let's get Mary moved; then we can talk some more.\"\n\nSam studied him for a moment, again noting the sudden edge in his voice. \"About what, exactly?\"\n\n\"About crows. The one seen here, and the people you know who are crows.\"\n\n\"Why do I get the sudden feeling I'm not going to like the direction of this conversation?\"\n\n\"Probably because you won't.\" His expression was suddenly grim. \"Remember when I mentioned Kathryn Douglass being murdered, and a crow feather being found at the murder scene?\" When she nodded, he said, \"There was something else, too\u2014a warning about not reviving Penumbra written in blood on the wall. I don't think it's a coincidence. I think that either your brother or the man you've been in psychic contact with is a murderer.\"\n\n# ELEVEN\n\n\"BUT WHY WOULD EITHER OF them want to murder Douglass when she had nothing to do with the Penumbra project?\" There was no surprise in her voice, no anger. No emotion at all, really, except perhaps a tiny hint of weary resignation. As if this was just another shock in a day that had already provided several.\n\nGabriel shrugged. In truth, he had no answer to that question, and certainly no proof yet that the feather they'd found in Douglass's apartment was linked to either the man from Sam's past or the man in her telepathic journeys. All he had was suspicion and a feeling that his guess was the correct one.\n\n\"She was in contact with both Blaine and Lloyd on an operational level. I suspect they had actually begun work on a project similar to Penumbra, and your brother or psi buddy discovered it. Hence the warning on the wall.\"\n\nShe studied him for a moment, then said, \"Why would Pegasus be employed to revive a project like Penumbra? Wouldn't the military want that sort of project under its own control?\"\n\n\"Pegasus worked in conjunction with the military on a number of projects. Given the warning also said that Douglass was told not to proceed with the project, it suggests that maybe she was the reason behind its revival. We'll never know for sure now, given that she's dead.\"\n\n\"And it's not like the military will tell us,\" Sam said. \"But the thing is, Penumbra was totally destroyed. It wasn't just the buildings, but most of the personnel and all the research materials, so neither Pegasus nor the military should have been able to revive it.\"\n\n\"Unless Douglass somehow came across research material relating to shadow walkers. If Karl has documents on it, there'll be other stuff out there as well. Maybe she started research, and then went to the military.\"\n\n\"But even then\u2014\"\n\n\"It might not have amounted to anything,\" he finished for her. \"Except for the fact that they'd discovered the possibility that one of their test subjects had survived the destruction.\"\n\nAnd that, he realized suddenly, was what the explosion at the Pegasus Foundation had been about. Those in control of Penumbra had been under the impression that fire was Sam's element to control. They'd intended to use her reaction to the firestorm at Pegasus to test whether or not she was who they thought\u2014and then the med check afterward would have confirmed it. But then, why had they gone ahead with the test when he and Illie had shown up instead?\n\nHad Douglass been confused as to the identity or sex of the test subject? Or was there, as Illie had suggested, a deeper reason for him and Illie being given the test anyway?\n\nAnd what would they have done if the two of them had died that day?\n\nIt was probably something they would never know, since Douglass was now dead. And Blaine and Lloyd were not likely to be fonts of information.\n\nHe just wished he knew what they thought about that message on the wall. Neither man had given much away, and though he believed Lloyd's comment that he had no idea why that particular message had been left with Douglass's body, Blaine had made no such comment. And Gabriel had a feeling that Blaine not only knew the reason behind it, but supported it. Which was an odd thing to think when Blaine was supposedly the man who'd been in charge of the project.\n\nBut he could admit to none of this aloud. Not to Sam, anyway. She had enough to worry about already.\n\n\"What I think,\" he said eventually, \"is that someone is still trying to protect you. Whether that person is this unseen brother of yours, or whether it's the man you're psychically connected to, is something only you can answer.\"\n\n\"Why would my brother\u2014the man you've suggested could be Sethanon\u2014want to stop Penumbra when that very project could give him the army he needs to win his war?\"\n\n\"I don't know. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the feather was found in Douglass's apartment.\" He hesitated, then added, \"But I do think it's time you started asking some hard questions.\"\n\nAnger flashed in her eyes, reminding him briefly of a burst of lightning. \"You think I haven't been?\"\n\n\"I think you've been delaying certain issues because you're afraid to uncover the truth.\"\n\nThat streak of lightning seemed brighter in her eyes, and this time it was accompanied by a stirring in the air that was vaguely reminiscent of the crackle of energy that raced just before a thunderstorm.\n\nBut before he could comment on it, his wristcom rang. He tapped it and said impatiently, \"Assistant Director Stern.\"\n\n\"Hey, partner, got some news you might not want to hear.\"\n\n\"Spit it out, Illie. I don't have time for games right now.\"\n\n\"We found another body in Kathryn Douglass's apartment. It was cut into pieces and shoved into an upright freezer.\"\n\n\"How did the State boys manage to miss that?\"\n\n\"Well, the body parts were covered by standard-issue meat trays and weren't immediately recognizable.\"\n\n\"I would have thought a severed human head would be immediately recognizable.\"\n\n\"A human head?\" Sam asked, eyebrow raised in query. Gabriel noted with interest that the electricity in the air seemed to fade away once her attention was diverted.\n\n\"Well, _that_ was at the bottom of the freezer, and it was only after undoing the black plastic around the body parts that we realized what we had.\"\n\n\"So why did you think to look in the freezer in the first place?\"\n\n\"Well, rules say we have to do a thorough search of the premises, but it was primarily curiosity that had me looking deeper into the freezer. Douglass was apparently a vegetarian, so what was she doing with a freezer full of meat?\"\n\n\"Have you sent the remains to the labs for analysis?\"\n\n\"Yeah, Finley's checking it out as we speak. I thought you might want to be there for his initial report.\"\n\nGabriel frowned. \"And why would I want to do that?\"\n\n\"Because if the head was anything to go by, the dead woman is an exact replica of Douglass herself, only a little younger.\"\n\nSurprise rippled through him. \"Did she have a sister?\"\n\n\"No immediate living family. There are two cousins and an aunt now living in the United States, but that's about it.\"\n\n\"I'll head over to headquarters now. Anything else?\"\n\n\"Not offhand. I'm still digging into her past.\"\n\n\"What about Blaine?\"\n\n\"That's a big, fat zero. The military has not been forthcoming with information, either.\"\n\nNo surprise there. \"Well, then, continue both investigations and let me know if you find anything.\" He hit the end button and met Sam's curious gaze. \"They found another body at Douglass's apartment. One that looks identical to the murdered woman.\"\n\n\"A twin? Or a clone?\"\n\n\"According to the records, Douglass had no immediate family.\"\n\n\"Well, if both Douglasses are dead, then it can't be a shapeshifter at work. Those revert to their natural forms when they die, so at least one of them has to be a clone. Right?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But nothing in this whole mess is what it seems, so maybe we've also found a shapeshifter who does not revert.\" He rubbed his head, then pulled his car keys from his pocket and handed them to her. \"Go back to the hotel and get some sleep. I'll make arrangements to get Mary transferred to a safe house and then go talk to Finley.\"\n\nShe took the keys from him, her fingers touching his only briefly, yet they sent an electric charge through his entire body. A charge reflected briefly in her eyes.\n\n\"What about our discussion?\" she said softly. \"And my brunch?\"\n\n\"I'll meet you at the hotel around four this afternoon and drive you to Wetherton's. We can talk on the way. We'll have to do that rain check on the apology lunch after all.\"\n\nSam nodded and glanced into the room, as if to reassure herself Mary was okay, then walked away. He watched her for a few seconds, then started making arrangements to secure Mary.\n\n\u2014\n\n\"How's the examination coming along, Finley?\" Gabriel asked as he strode into the lab.\n\nFinley cleared his throat and slid his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose with a gloved finger. \"Well, this is certainly an interesting situation. Two identical bodies, both chopped into pieces, one a younger version of the other.\"\n\nGabriel stopped at the end of one of the tables and examined the two sets of remains. The two women would definitely have been physically identical if not for the deeper age lines around the face of their original victim. \"The cuts on the younger version appear to be from a sharp instrument.\"\n\n\"They are. It appears she was strangled before she was sliced apart.\"\n\n\"You've done DNA testing?\"\n\n\"Yes. The younger one is the clone. It would seem Kathryn Douglass was planning to skip the whole 'age gracefully' idea.\"\n\nNo real surprise, given Douglass's name _had_ been on Kazdan's list. \"She wouldn't be the first woman in the world to resort to surgery to do that.\"\n\n\"This is a little more extreme than plastic surgery.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it's not exactly the first time we've seen this. There's Wetherton, for a start.\" Although Wetherton's reasons for transplanting into a clone seemed to be more about avoiding disease than gaining a younger body. \"Any idea where the clone was murdered?\"\n\n\"Not yet. Though there's no evidence at Douglass's that the clone was murdered there.\"\n\n\"No.\" And no reason for Douglass to want her clone dead, either. Not if she'd paid the sort of money Wetherton had to get a new body.\n\nGabriel studied the table containing the torn-apart remnants of humanity, then added, \"There aren't many shifters who would have the strength to tear apart someone like that.\"\n\nFinley sniffed. \"Most cats could, but what we're dealing with here is a bear shifter. And it's one big bear, I can tell you.\"\n\nGabriel raised an eyebrow, amused by the comment. \"Most bear shifters are big.\"\n\n\"Think brown bear, and add half the size again.\"\n\nThat _was_ one big _mother_ of a bear. \"How can you be sure?\"\n\n\"I measured the distance between the claw slashes left on the woman's back.\" Finley hesitated, then added, \"It looks like he shifted while they were...um...making love. Nasty stuff.\"\n\nEspecially for Kathryn Douglass, Gabriel imagined. The differences between the anatomy of a human male and that of a bear would in itself have caused a lot of pain and damage. Probably even have torn her up fairly badly. \"Anything else?\"\n\nFinley shook his head. \"We've collected semen samples, of course. I'll do a search of both our database and the government's to see if there's a match.\"\n\nGabriel nodded. Most criminals these days had DNA samples taken as a matter of course, but it had taken a lot of years to implement the procedure thanks to the civil rights activists. Which meant, of course, that the database was not only constantly being updated, but also only reliable when it came to criminals caught in the last ten years.\n\nAnd he very much doubted that the person behind these murders could be tracked down so easily.\n\n\"Let me know if you find anything.\"\n\nFinley nodded absently and Gabriel left the lab, heading up to his office. He grabbed a cup of coffee from the autocook and sat down at his desk.\n\n\"Computer, update.\"\n\n\"Please state name and rank for voice verification.\"\n\nHe did so. The screen flicked to life and began listing all the reports and activities going on in the SIU. With Byrne having taken official leave to cover Stephan's need to be at their parents' compound with Lyssa and his new son, control of the SIU was nominally in the hands of Harry Krane, Byrne's second in command. However, neither Stephan nor he was about to let an outsider take full control of the SIU, so all reports and decisions were covertly siphoned through to him. He then channeled all the appropriate information on, and held back the more clandestine reports for when Stephan resumed his position.\n\nHe found nothing of real interest until he read the report from the bug Sam had placed in Wetherton's office. And though it revealed little more than the name behind one of Wetherton's many phone conversations, it sparked a whole lot of questions.\n\nThat name was _Les Mohern._\n\nWhy would a petty criminal like Les Mohern suddenly come out of hiding to contact a government minister like Wetherton? For that matter, why would he even visit someone like Kathryn Douglass? Was there a connection between the two that no one knew about?\n\nMaybe so. After all, Les's brother had worked for Kazdan. He doubted that it was a coincidence that, after his brother's death, Les had gone to ground. Maybe he'd done so for a reason\u2014such as fearing for his life.\n\nBut if that were the case, why would he now surface to contact two high-profile people like Douglass and Wetherton? Surely he had to know that both would be under some sort of surveillance, given their positions. Why would he risk discovery to contact either of them?\n\nHe clicked on Mohern's name and studied the background report. _Bingo_ \u2014an address. He finished the remainder of his coffee in one gulp and stood.\n\nHe'd discovered long ago that when instinct scratched _this_ hard, it was better not to ignore it. This Les Mohern was a key. But to what, he now had to discover.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam slept.\n\nAnd, as usual, she dreamed.\n\nBut this was not a dream she'd had before. This one was new. And terrifying.\n\nThe night was filled with smoke and fire and fear. The very air burned so hot the metal walls around her were beginning to bubble and melt. And yet the heat and the flames never touched her, skittering around her as she ran through the madness. Seeking safety, seeking freedom.\n\nLights flickered ahead, scattering brief patches of luminescence through the smoke-filled darkness and highlighting the figure ahead. For an instant that figure seemed huge and hairy, with fearsome claws that rent and tore at those stupid enough to try to stop him. Then the lights went out again, and it was just Joshua running ahead, telling her to hurry, that this was their chance. Their only hope.\n\nAnd she obeyed, running after him hard, ignoring the many screams, even rejoicing in them.\n\nUntil she heard that one scream.\n\n_Mary._\n\nShe stopped abruptly. Ahead, Joshua had also stopped, his actions reminding her briefly of a puppet jerked to stillness by its master.\n\nHe swung around. \"There's no time for this, Samantha.\"\n\n\"She cared for us, Josh. I can't let her die for that.\"\n\n\"She was _paid_ to care for us. It was her job, her duty. She is no better than the rest of them.\"\n\n\"She sang us nursery rhymes and told us stories that made us laugh. She gave us dreams of a life beyond this place. And she left the window open for us at night, giving us what freedom she could. I will not let her die.\"\n\n\"It's too late. I can't let you\u2014\"\n\n\"You can't stop me.\"\n\nBefore he could react, she thrust out her hand. Power flowed through her, surging from the floor\u2014from the earth itself\u2014up through her body and out her fingertips, leaping the distance between them and hitting him hard. It flung him backward, into the thickness of the fire and out of sight.\n\nHe wasn't hurt. The fire could never hurt him. It _was_ him\u2014a part of his soul, a part of his being.\n\nBut it was _his_ protection that was keeping her safe from the flames, and as that protection briefly flickered, then went out, the full force of the firestorm hit. Heat flowed over her, scalding her skin, her lungs.\n\nShe closed her eyes and called to the sky and the power of the storms. Wind swept in, buffeting the flames away, bringing with it the coolness of the night, giving her air to breathe that wouldn't scorch her insides.\n\nWith the wind swirling around her, providing a buffer from the flames and the heat, she backtracked, running through the halls to the nursery area.\n\nTo discover hell itself.\n\nFire was a wall that ran on for as far as the eye could see\u2014a seething, writhing mass of red, gold and white fury that crawled up the nursery walls and across the ceilings. It was hot and hungry and very, very deadly. Surely no one could survive in the fiery doom that the nursery had become.\n\nAnd yet Mary's scream rent the air, her voice high-pitched and filled with pain and terror.\n\nA trap? Maybe. Probably.\n\nBut something inside wouldn't let her walk away until she discovered the truth. The older woman had made the darkness of this place survivable in so many small ways. They owed her her life, at the very least.\n\nA hand grabbed her arm, its touch cold and violent as it yanked her back. She knew without even looking that it wasn't Josh.\n\nThat it was Lloyd.\n\nFear leapt, and her heart began to race. It was instinctive, that fear, bred into her from birth itself. And yet there were monsters far worse than Lloyd walking these halls. But neither those monsters nor Lloyd himself were going to stop her tonight. Not when the havoc Josh had created had finally given them the hope of freedom.\n\nEnergy crackled across her fingertips as she swung around, but she kept her fists low, out of sight. Lloyd wore a fire suit and breathing apparatus, and though the mask distorted much of his features, his fury was still evident in the glow of his eyes.\n\n\"Stop it, you little bitch.\" He shook her violently enough to rattle her teeth. \"Stop it now, or I'll kill your brother.\"\n\nShe reached into the pocket of her overalls and pulled out the small electronic device that would have injected the lethal poison into Josh's skin. Josh had hers safely tucked away in his pocket. She had no idea why he wanted to keep them, but she obeyed his wishes, as she usually did.\n\n\"You mean with this?\" She raised the device so that he could see it.\n\nHe swore and raised his hand, as if to hit her. But she gathered the energy that danced all around them and froze his blow in mid-motion. Surprise, then fear, flickered through his eyes. It felt good. So very good.\n\n_Never underestimate your enemy_ was a lesson drilled into them from babyhood, yet it was a lesson their controllers had never fully understood.\n\nOr perhaps it was more a case of never fully understanding what they had created.\n\nEither way, it had finally culminated in this moment, where she and Josh held the power.\n\n\"No more,\" she said softly. She glanced down to where his fingers gripped her arm and telekinetically pulled them away one by one, snapping bone each time.\n\nSweat broke out across Lloyd's forehead, but he didn't utter a sound. And she wanted him to say something. Wanted him to scream, as she had screamed so many times.\n\nShe stepped back from him, keeping him still and in place as she raised her hand. Lightning arced between her fingertips, small flashes of fury that lit the smoky orange air with a pure white light. \"Fire is not my element. It was never my element, but you people would never see that.\"\n\nHe opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Probably just as well, as she had no doubt what he was trying to deliver was just more abuse or yet another threat. She smiled coldly and unleashed the lightning. It arced around him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse, touching, leaping away, then touching again. When it finally settled, he screamed.\n\nShe closed her eyes, breathing deep the sound. Again, it felt wonderful. But after a second or two, she picked him up telekinetically and threw him against the melting, bubbling metal wall. It melted his suit, his skin, and his screams reached a fever pitch before shutting off abruptly. He was dead before he hit the ground.\n\nShe studied his body for a second, feeling little\u2014not even the pleasure she'd thought she'd feel. _Damn it,_ she'd been dreaming of this moment for as long as she'd been able to form conscious thought, and yet now that it was here, there was nothing. But now was not the time to worry about such things. She spun to face the nursery.\n\nThe firestorm had grown, but Mary still screamed. Where the hell was she? There were few places that would provide shelter from such fury, not for this length of time, anyway. She bit her lip and half reached for the full power of the storms, then stopped. She couldn't afford to douse the flames, not if she wanted to escape this place, and calling to the storms would do that. She might be able to call them, might be able to channel some of their power and some of their elements, but she wasn't strong enough to control their full force, because control was something she was still teaching herself. The scientists thought she was earth and sun and that Josh was wind and water. They had it half right. She was earth and wind, and Josh was sun and water. She could call storms and quakes, Josh fire and floods. In the long, barren years of their childhood, she'd always sat in on Josh's lessons, and him on hers, each learning what they could while continuing the lie, then practicing when they were alone and beyond the watchful eyes of the scientists. Though, to some extent, their abilities _did_ overlap. If she called in the storms, he could control the water, and he would do so now because he wanted everyone dead. But she was also earth, and earth was the ruler of the other elements. She could stop him, but not without bringing the entire complex down and therefore destroying the one person she was trying to save.\n\nShe blew out a breath and directed some of the cold wind that swirled around her at the flames, forcing the heat and the fire away enough to form a corridor. Then she ran through.\n\nThe heat battered her, despite the swirling air. Sweat dribbled down her spine, her forehead. The smoke was fierce, a wall of darkness threatening to overwhelm her narrow corridor. She ran as fast as she could, following the screams and praying for a miracle.\n\nAnd after praying for such an occurrence all her life, it seemed someone was finally listening.\n\nMary was in the shower room with all the water taps turned on, so that she was surrounded by a ring of water. The heat was still enough to scald her skin and clothes, yet she was alive and awake and conscious. A miracle in itself, since the outside walls of this room were a maelstrom of destruction.\n\nMary's expression was an odd mix of fear and hope as she spun around. \"Josephine? What is happening? What have you done?\"\n\n\"We're doing what we promised we'd do. Escaping.\" She hesitated and held out her hand. \"Come with me. I'll keep you safe.\"\n\nMary studied her for a heartbeat, then her gaze went to the flames. \"The heat alone will kill us.\"\n\n\"No, it won't,\" said a voice from behind.\n\nShe turned and met her brother's gaze. Saw both the fury and the understanding. \"Don't try to stop me, Josh. I have to do this.\"\n\n\"Even at the risk of recapture?\"\n\n\"Even at.\" She hesitated. \"But Lloyd is dead.\"\n\n\"Lloyd will never be dead.\" He smiled and touched a hand to her cheek. His fingertips were tinder hot, and yet inexplicably tender. \"It seems you are not the weapon that either they or I might hope you to be. Not yet, anyway.\" He glanced past her. \"Mary, we don't have much time. Move it.\"\n\nThough he was barely a teenager, Josh's voice held a depth of command not even their trainers had achieved. Mary obeyed.\n\nHe caught Mary's hand and said, \"I have to do this for your own safety, so sorry in advance.\" And before Mary or she realized what he was doing, he'd knocked the older woman unconscious. But he didn't let her fall, catching her kinetically before glancing at Sam. \"She'd have slowed us down, otherwise. You lead. I'll keep the flames at bay.\"\n\nHe did, but it was still close. He might be flame, but flames often gained a life of their own once given the freedom to run, and these flames had grown beyond the life\u2014though maybe not the intent\u2014of their creator.\n\nThey ran from the maelstrom into the dark, cold night. But it was a far-from-silent night\u2014shouts, confusion and fear came from the many people who milled nearby. Some manned fire trucks, some hoses and some whatever came to hand\u2014such as tractors scooping earth into the flames. But no one in the crowd saw the three of them leave. Night was their ally, their only friend, and even when lit by fire, it protected them from sight.\n\nThey ran up the hill and collapsed at the top, at the place where she and Joshua had spent so many nights staring at the stars and dreaming of this moment.\n\nAnd, like when she'd confronted Lloyd, now that the moment was here, it didn't feel as great as it was supposed to feel.\n\nShe listened to the sounds filling the night, to the screams of people and the groan of a building ready to collapse\u2014sounds that were interspersed with the harshness of their own breathing. It was Josh who broke the silence.\n\n\"You must finish it.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes, knowing that for those who still remained alive inside it was better to end it quickly, and yet not wanting to be the one who took their lives. \"There are some who deserve death who are not in those buildings.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Blaine, for one.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I have plans for him\u2014never fear.\" His voice held the deadness that always chilled her. This was not her brother, but rather the weapon the military had bred but could never fully control.\n\n\"And those plans do not include death? After all he has done?\"\n\nHis smile was bitter, and yet so cold. So very cold. \"No. Not as yet.\"\n\nA shiver ran down her spine. \"If I do this, I want out. Totally out. I don't even want to remember it.\"\n\nHe glanced at her, his smoky blue eyes suddenly seeming blacker than the night itself. \"Neither of us can escape what we are.\"\n\n\"Maybe not, but I want the chance to live a normal life, Josh. Even if it's just for a while.\"\n\nHis gaze left hers. For several minutes he didn't say anything, simply studied the confusion below them. Then he sighed. \"It will be hard for both of us. We are two halves of one soul, Sammy.\"\n\nShe smiled at his use of her nickname. It was the only one no one knew about, just as his secret name was one only she knew about, though it was one she rarely used. \"I don't share your desires. I want a life. I want to be normal.\"\n\nHe glanced at her, his smile almost bitter. \"We will never be normal.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But I want to try.\" She hesitated. \"There's something else out there for me, Josh. Something, or someone, I need to find. And I need you to give me the time to do that.\"\n\nHe studied her a few seconds longer, then nodded. \"Okay. Destroy that place, and we'll leave.\"\n\n\"And Mary?\"\n\n\"She'll be safe here on the hill until they find her. She won't remember seeing us. I'll wipe out her memory of being rescued.\" He hesitated. \"We'll find somewhere safe for you to go, and then I'll wipe out yours. Completely. But it might cost you your powers...\"\n\n\"I don't care. I don't want them.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Yes. More than sure.\" She touched his arm lightly. \"Thank you.\"\n\nHis smile was grim. \"You know it won't work, Sammy. Not entirely. It's human nature to seek the unknown, and in your case, that will be the past.\"\n\n\"But in seeking, I will also be living a different life. I need that, at least for a while.\"\n\n\"And what if the powers come back?\"\n\n\"Do you think they will?\"\n\n\"They might, once you hit puberty. I don't know for sure, but it seems likely.\"\n\n\"Then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it,\" she told him firmly.\n\nHe grimaced and waved a hand toward the boundary fence. \"Then let's get away from this place.\"\n\nShe glanced at the burning buildings and called to the earth underneath it. Power filled her, stretched her, with a rawness that felt at once so right and yet so alien. She waited, letting it run through every pore, every cell, until it felt as if skin and bone and being had melted away and she was nothing more than that rawness. Then she finally released it. A shudder ran through the ground beneath them, gathering speed and strength. With a rolling, groaning sound, the earth below the hill split asunder and whole buildings began to disappear. When everything had been swallowed, she let the earth rest again. Another shudder ran through the ground, one that echoed through her soul. She rubbed her arms and glanced at her brother.\n\n\"Let's hope we never come back to this place.\"\n\n\"Let's hope _you_ never come back. Me, I have every intention of returning. There's still too much to be done here.\"\n\n\"Josh\u2014\"\n\n\"You have your dreams, and I have mine. Leave it at that, Sammy.\"\n\nHe rose and held out his hand, and she clasped it and let him lead her to freedom.\n\n\u2014\n\nThe dream came to an abrupt halt and Sam woke with a start. For several seconds she did nothing more than lie on her bed, staring up at the ceiling as her heart galloped and sweat rolled down her cheek.\n\nOr maybe it was tears.\n\nAs her heart began to slow to a more normal rate, she let her thoughts return to the dream in an attempt to grasp all the implications.\n\nBecause, as usual, the dream had answered some questions and raised many more. For a start, how had they escaped Hopeworth itself? Sure, their section might have been destroyed by flame and earth, but that quake had been very centralized and wouldn't have destroyed\u2014and indeed, didn't destroy\u2014the rest of the base. Plus, there was the fact that she'd had a tracker in her side\u2014a tracker that had been inserted at birth and had been discovered by the SIU when she was being investigated for Jack's death. Surely that would have been activated as a matter of course, even if they weren't sure who had and hadn't perished in the fires and subsequent quake.\n\nA quake _she'd_ brought to life.\n\n_God,_ how scary was that?\n\nShe thrust a hand through her sweaty hair and wondered if she still had that power now. If she did, then it was still locked behind the walls of forgetfulness Josh had raised. She hoped it remained there forever. No one should have a power like that.\n\nNo one.\n\nAnd if it started to appear, the way the storm powers were beginning to appear?\n\nShe shuddered and sat upright, hugging her knees to her chest. _Worry about one thing at a time,_ she told herself fiercely. These were dreams, nothing more, no matter how much they felt like truths. And until she found the boy\u2014the man\u2014she knew as Josh, until she talked to him, there was no proof that anything she dreamed had happened.\n\nAnd even then, this could all be part of a larger game, one in which she was a major, if unknowing, player. And the dreams might be nothing more than a subterfuge someone desperately wanted her to believe.\n\nThough she didn't think so.\n\nShe rubbed her arms and glanced at the clock. It was close to four. Gabriel would be here soon, so she had better start getting ready. And anything was better than contemplating the monster she might have been.\n\nShe climbed out of bed and walked across the room to the bathroom. A long shower made her feel better in body if not in soul, and by the time she'd dried her hair and dressed, it was nearly five.\n\nWith no sign of Gabriel.\n\nShe glanced at her watch to be sure the clock was right, then picked up the phone and dialed his cell phone number.\n\nNo answer.\n\nShe swore softly. Either he'd been sidetracked or he'd forgotten. Or both.\n\nShe left a message, then disconnected, grabbed the keys and headed out the door. If he wanted his car back, he could damn well come and get it.\n\nThe traffic was hell, as usual, and it seemed to take forever to get from the hotel to Wetherton's. She drove into the parking lot under Wetherton's building, using her SIU identification to get through the security system. Then she parked near the elevator before catching it to Wetherton's floor.\n\nJenna Morwood answered on the second knock, lines of exhaustion around her dark eyes. Her expression could only be described as relieved.\n\n\"Pleasant day, huh?\" Sam said with a grin.\n\n\"You could say that,\" Jenna said. \"Our dear minister is lucky he still has teeth left. Touchy-feely little bastard.\"\n\n\"Thankfully, I don't appear to be his type. Anything untoward happen today?\"\n\nJenna frowned. \"Not really. I thought we were being followed several times, but I couldn't spot a tail, nor could I read any thoughts of ill intent.\"\n\n\"Did Wetherton do anything unusual? Meet with anyone unusual?\"\n\n\"Nope. All that happened today was boring politician stuff. I'm hoping like hell this mission doesn't go on for more than a few days.\"\n\nSo was Sam\u2014especially now that her dreams were becoming more detailed. More graphic. She couldn't keep doing her job with any sort of efficiency if she wasn't sleeping. \"Unfortunately, the boss seems to think it'll continue for months.\"\n\n\"Then here's hoping he's wrong.\" Jenna smiled wryly. \"Though he generally isn't.\"\n\n\"No.\" Sam glanced past Jenna as a bump came from Wetherton's bedroom. \"The minister took a nap at this hour?\"\n\n\"Yeah, the poor man was so exhausted doing all that ministerial sitting about on his ass that he had to come home for a nap at four. He left via the vent at four fifteen.\"\n\nSam raised an eyebrow. \"Did you manage to get the tracker on him?\"\n\n\"With all his attempts to feel the merchandise? Oh yeah. He flew to an abandoned apartment complex on Rathdowne Street, stayed there for half an hour, and then went to a low-profile men's club on Spencer Street. He actually returned about ten minutes ago.\"\n\n\"Did we manage to get observers at either place?\"\n\n\"Not the first one, but definitely at the second.\"\n\n\"Who'd he meet?\"\n\nJenna gave an unladylike snort. \"The minister enjoyed several lap dances, and then disappeared into the members-only section. Where, we discovered, a more exotic range of services is offered.\"\n\n\"So basically, the minister had himself a hooker this afternoon?\"\n\n\"Better her than me,\" Jenna said, amusement in her voice. \"I'll do my lot for kin and country, but I have my limits. And fucking a man like Wetherton is definitely one of them.\"\n\n\"That's not just limits, that's called having taste.\"\n\n\"That, too.\" Jenna smiled as she leaned sideways and snagged her coat off the hook behind the door. \"Luckily, the lecher is yours to deal with for the next twelve hours.\"\n\n\"Joy.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Jenna waved goodbye and retreated quickly to the elevator. Sam closed the door and turned around to find Wetherton watching her from the bedroom doorway.\n\nShe raised an eyebrow and tried to ignore the heat of embarrassment touching her cheeks. She and Jenna had been speaking softly, so there was very little likelihood of Wetherton overhearing their comments. And yet the annoyance in his eyes suggested otherwise.\n\n\"Anything I can do for you, Minister?\" Sam asked politely.\n\n\"Where's Jenna going?\"\n\n\"Shift change, Minister. You have my delightful company once again this evening.\"\n\nHe looked her up and down. \"We're going out again tonight. You could have worn something more appropriate.\"\n\n\"I'm your bodyguard, not your date. I'm dressed very appropriately, believe me.\"\n\nHe grunted\u2014whether in agreement or not, she had no idea\u2014then turned around and walked back into the bedroom. She waited until he came back out and asked, \"Where are we going tonight, Minister?\"\n\nShe actually knew, because she'd read his schedule, but it never hurt to check.\n\n\"The opera. I'm meeting a friend there.\"\n\nJust as well she _had_ checked. The opera certainly hadn't been listed on the schedule. \"Minister, until we uncover who might be after you, maybe it would be better to skip some of your social engagements.\"\n\n\"No. I refuse to let the actions of an idiot unhappy with the current government curtail what I want to do. That's only giving other idiots incentive to do the same.\"\n\n\"I think the men behind these attempts are more than just idiots with a bone to pick.\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised, Agent Ryan. These days the government attracts a high caliber of idiot.\" He shoved his arms into his jacket. \"Let's go. I can't be late.\"\n\nShe opened the door, checked the corridor, then ushered him through. \"Am I permitted to ask who you might be meeting tonight?\"\n\n\"Just a friend.\" He glanced at her as he pressed the elevator button. \"A male friend.\"\n\n_Uh-huh._ He'd heard them all right. \"A trusted male friend, or merely an acquaintance?\"\n\nWetherton hesitated. \"An acquaintance, but I trust him.\"\n\n\"That doesn't mean I have to. Name, please?\"\n\n\"That's unnecess\u2014\"\n\n\"It is when your life has been threatened twice,\" she cut in. \"Name, Minister?\"\n\n\"The other girl is much pleasanter,\" he muttered, then added, \"Les Mohern.\"\n\nLes Mohern? Why did that name ring alarm bells in the back of her mind? Was it simply because it wasn't on the list of known associates and friends Stephan had given her, or was it something else? She repeated the name into her wristcom and ordered a search. With any luck, something would come up before the long night was over.\n\nNow all she had to do was hope it was a long, _unexciting_ night.\n\nBut even as the thought crossed her mind, instinct suggested it was going to be anything but.\n\n# TWELVE\n\nGABRIEL GRIPPED THE BRANCH WITH his claws, keeping his wings spread until he'd gained his balance. Once he had, he settled his wings against his sides and looked around. Dusk was settling in and, with it, a storm. Wind shook the branches, making the leaves all around him shiver and dance, and the growing darkness held a strong scent of rain. It was a clean, fresh fragrance that did little to erase the stench of the house below.\n\nLes Mohern hadn't lived at the address the SIU had on file for a good two years. It appeared that even before his brother's disappearance, Les had lived the life of a gypsy, never staying too long in one place. His subsequent trail had taken some uncovering, but the SIU's computer system was one of the best, and eventually, it had picked up a small trail of receipts that had led Gabriel here.\n\nMohern's latest stopover was a dump. Literally.\n\nWhoever it was that Mohern was scared of, it had to be pretty damn bad for him to be squatting in a place like this. The stink was almost overwhelming\u2014the sort of odor that could get under your skin and linger. The small house that Mohern was using as a refuge was situated on the corner of the refuse center, and it had to be crawling with all sorts of bugs, mice and rats. Even Gabriel, with the soul of a hawk, shuddered at the thought of staying there. Sharing his bed with cockroaches and rats was not his idea of a good time.\n\nHe studied the nearest windows carefully but could spot no movement. And though darkness was closing in, there was no light from within. He walked along the tree branch, looking into other windows, but the result was the same\u2014no immediate signs of life.\n\nHe spread his wings and took to the air again. With dusk fading into night, his brown and gold coloring was unlikely to be spotted. Though in truth, a hawk soaring over a refuse station was a good camouflage. Places like this were a haven for hunters of all varieties\u2014winged or not.\n\nHe drifted on a current, studying the mounds of rubbish, seeing smaller spurts of movement that spoke of rats and other vermin, but little else of interest.\n\nUntil he reached the far edge of the dump and saw two men forcing a third onto his knees. A fourth man watched these proceedings, a gun held at the ready by his left side.\n\nIt was, Gabriel thought, oddly silent. Though the man he presumed was Mohern struggled, he wasn't screaming. Maybe he figured there was no point. Out here, only the rats would hear.\n\nAs the fourth man raised his weapon and the captive's struggling became more violent, Gabriel swooped downward, spreading his talons and screaming as he did so. The harsh call echoed loudly across the windswept silence.\n\nThe stranger with the gun glanced up. His eyes widened and reflected fear a second before Gabriel slashed him across his face and neck.\n\nBlood spurted, spraying his feathers, its sweet aroma taunting his hawk senses. The stranger dropped the weapon, his hands going to the stream pulsing from his neck. Gabriel wheeled around and saw one of the men holding Mohern dive for the dropped gun. Gabriel dove and slashed with a talon, but the man ducked, grabbing the weapon and firing off a shot in one smooth movement. Gabriel flung himself sideways and felt the burn of the bullet's passage past his tail feathers. He squawked as if hit and dropped behind a mound of rubbish. There he shifted shape and, in human form, freed his weapon and carefully edged to the far end of the stinking mound. The man with the gun hadn't moved, his weapon held at the ready as he eyed the mound behind which Gabriel hid. The other man stood behind the still kneeling Mohern. There was no gun in evidence, though Gabriel had no doubt he had one somewhere. Thugs like these rarely went anywhere unarmed. He fired off two quick shots that took both men out, then waited for several seconds, trying to ignore the stinking reek of rubbish as he listened to the night, seeking any sound that might mean these three men had not been alone.\n\nBut the only sounds to be heard were the pleas for help from the man whose throat he'd slashed and Mohern's rapid breathing as he struggled to free his hands from their restraints. Not an easy thing when the restraints were wire and his hands were behind his back.\n\nGabriel stood up and got out his vid-phone to call in a cleanup team as he walked across to the injured man. He did a quick search for ID and other weapons, and found and secured both. Then he administered what medical help he could, using strips torn from his shirt to bandage the wound. After that, he cuffed the man. Even a man in danger of bleeding to death could be dangerous, and the look in _this_ man's eyes suggested that if he were able to finish what he'd been sent here to do, he would. Gabriel then checked the other two men to ensure they were both dead, collecting their weapons in the process, then walked over to Mohern and stripped off the tape covering his mouth.\n\nRelief was evident on Mohern's gaunt features, but his blue eyes were wary, distrustful. \"Whoever you are, thanks.\"\n\n\"You may retract that once you see this.\"\n\nGabriel showed him his badge, and Mohern grimaced. \"Typical of my luck lately. Still, being caught by a cop is better than being dead.\"\n\nGabriel put his badge away, but not the gun. He didn't trust Mohern any more than he trusted the men who'd intended to kill him. \"Why were they going to execute you?\"\n\n\"Because I know too much.\" Mohern looked past Gabriel for a second. \"Because the man they work for knows what we...I...saw.\"\n\nGabriel undid the wire restraining Mohern's hands, motioned him to rise, then quickly patted him down. No weapons, no ID\u2014not that the latter was surprising since he was about to be executed. \"Tell me what you saw, and I might be able to protect you.\"\n\nMohern snorted. \"Yeah, I've heard that song before. It wasn't true back then and I doubt it's true now.\"\n\n\"Is that because your brother told Jack Kazdan, and died as a result?\"\n\nMohern's eyes narrowed. \"Now why would you say something like that?\"\n\n\"Because Kazdan was a cop, and your brother was supposedly his source.\"\n\n\"Even if that was true, why would you suspect one of your own of killing my brother? Don't you all stick together, regardless of the crime?\"\n\n\"I'm not one of Jack's lot. I'm SIU. Big difference. And Jack might have had a badge, but he was still a criminal. I know that, and you know that. So tell me what cost Frank his life.\"\n\nMohern studied him for several seconds longer, then said, \"I want a new ID.\"\n\n\"That will very much depend on what it was you saw.\"\n\n\"I saw a murder. And I saw the murderer.\"\n\n\"A murder isn't big enough news to warrant a new ID.\"\n\n\"What if the person murdered was someone who had serious military connections? And what if the murderer wore one face coming in, and another going out?\" He paused, then added, \"What if one of those faces was the face of the man who paid us to kidnap Wetherton?\"\n\n_Fuck._ Was Mohern saying what he thought he was saying? Gabriel hoped so\u2014if only because it was about time they had some damn luck. \"Is that why you contacted Douglass last week? Why you called Wetherton and asked for a meet this evening?\"\n\nMohern's gaze widened. \"How did you know that?\"\n\n\"Because part of the SIU's duties is to randomly monitor government officials.\" Which was the truth, as far as it went.\n\nMohern grimaced. \"Well, shit. My luck has really run out this week, hasn't it?\"\n\n\"Not really. If we hadn't been monitoring things, you'd now be a feast for the rats and stray dogs.\" He studied the man for a moment, letting the words sink in before adding, \"So why contact either of them?\"\n\n\"In Wetherton's case, I thought he might help me get a new ID in exchange for my continued silence. As you can see, it was becoming harder and harder to hide out.\"\n\n\"And Douglass?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I was paid to deliver a message.\"\n\n\"What sort of message?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It was in an envelope and I didn't think it wise to open it.\"\n\n\"And the man who asked you to deliver the envelope?\" Gabriel had no doubt who it would be, but it never hurt to have it confirmed.\n\n\"Was the same man who asked me to kidnap Wetherton.\"\n\nHence the bloody message on Douglass's wall. \"Why would you think Wetherton would be willing to help someone like you?\"\n\nMohern sniffed. \"Well, Wetherton's not the real deal, and he can't afford to have that sort of information revealed, can he?\"\n\n\"How do you know he's not the real thing?\"\n\n\"Because the real Wetherton was killed and replaced months ago, wasn't he?\"\n\nThis was getting better and better. \"So who placed the clone? Jack?\"\n\nMohern shook his head. \"He gave us the job, though. Said he knew someone who was looking for a couple of hands for a snatch-and-ransom job. Said it paid well.\" He shrugged. \"He gave us a number, and we called it and got our instructions. Of course, it turned out the ransom part was a lie.\"\n\nSo why would someone like Sethanon\u2014and they were almost ninety-nine percent sure it was the elusive Sethanon behind Wetherton's replacement\u2014be using two off-the-street thugs for a job as important as snatching a government minister? Unless, of course, he wanted no traceable connection if the job went sour. \"Can you remember the phone number?\"\n\n\"Won't do you any good if I could. It was a public phone box. I checked at the time.\"\n\n_Damn_ \u2014not that he expected anything less. Sethanon was too canny to be caught by something as careless as a traceable phone number. \"So you kidnapped Wetherton, as directed. Were you also involved in the murder?\"\n\n\"No. But Frank saw the copy standing over the real version after we delivered him.\"\n\n\"Did anyone know Frank saw this?\"\n\n\"No. And we were being well paid, so silence comes as part of the package.\"\n\n\"This delivery...Was it to an abandoned apartment building on Rathdowne Street?\"\n\nIt was a loaded question in many respects, and Mohern answered it blithely. \"Yeah. How'd you find him?\"\n\n\"We know because we've been tracking the minister's whereabouts for some time. I guess you didn't find the tracer when you tried to dump the body, did you?\" Which was a lie. Gabriel had never had time to place a tracer, and the only reason _he'd_ been saved was the twin bond he'd spent so long trying to block\u2014although the tracer Karl had placed on _him_ had also helped.\n\n\"So that's how you were able to escape.\" Mohern stopped, as if suddenly realizing what he was admitting, and then shrugged. \"Jack was really pissed off about you getting away that day.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he got his ass kicked by the big man.\"\n\nSo it was Sethanon who'd wanted him that day. _Interesting._ As was the fact that they'd been heading up to the Dandenongs. Surely that would mean their enemy had a compound up in those mountains somewhere, yet the many searches since had turned up nothing. \"How'd you get paid for that job?\"\n\n\"Cash.\"\n\n\"Who were the other two men?\"\n\nMohern shrugged again. \"They were there to deliver the cash and collect the body. When you appeared on the scene, we were asked to help stop you.\"\n\n\"Who asked? The two men, or someone else?\"\n\n\"The voice on the phone. He said it would take more than two to stop you.\" He paused. \"You broke Frank's nose, you know.\"\n\n\"Frank was lucky I didn't break his damn neck.\" Not that it would have mattered. Frank died not long after, probably killed by the man they'd both trusted.\n\n\"So, if you didn't see this man at either event, why are you so sure that he's behind both Wetherton's kidnapping and Douglass's murder?\"\n\n\"Because I've got ears. The voice of the man who gave us the job was the same voice in the murdered chick's apartment.\"\n\nNo wonder Sethanon wanted this man dead\u2014Mohern could identify him by voice, and had seen at least two of his identities. As the sound of a footstep carried on the wind, he glanced around and saw Agent Briggs and three other SIU officers\u2014one of them a medic\u2014making their way through the muck. He pointed to his still-living captive, and then returned his attention to Mohern. \"Are you sure about all this?\"\n\nMohern nodded. \"I was in the apartment when she was killed.\"\n\n\"So you didn't actually see her murder?\"\n\n\"Didn't have to. I heard the screams, and saw what was left of her after.\" He sniffed. \"She was a pretty thing.\"\n\nA pretty thing who'd ignored Sethanon's warnings, and had paid the price. \"So how were you able to get into a secure building, and how come you weren't caught?\"\n\nHe grinned. \"A mate of mine was working the night watch. He gave me the codes for a share of the profits. I only took little things, things that were valuable but weren't likely to be immediately missed. It's quite a profitable scam in a building like that.\" He stopped, as if suddenly remembering he was talking to a man who was basically a cop. He cleared his throat and shrugged. \"As to how I escaped detection, I think it was pure dumb luck. My mate called me when Douglass entered the building, so I had time to hide. No one expected me to be there, so no one bothered checking for intruders.\"\n\n\"So how did you see the murderer moving about?\"\n\n\"I was hiding in the guest bathroom. I saw him through the crack between the door and the frame.\"\n\n\"Give me a description.\"\n\nMohern did. Gabriel wasn't surprised to discover that the identity he used to gain entrance to the apartment matched the description of one General Blaine. But it was nasty to discover that the second identity was that of a scruffy man with brown hair so thick and scraggly that his face couldn't be seen, giving him the appearance of someone more bear than human. Only he was a bear who walked with military precision.\n\nThat was almost the exact description Sam had given of the man she knew as Joe. So the man she seemed to place so much trust in, the man who seemed to hold so many answers about her past, was not only a murderer, but he might very well be the man they'd been hunting for so many years. The man who had vowed to subjugate or destroy the human race.\n\nSethanon.\n\n\u2014\n\nSam crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. The flocked wallpaper scratched at her back even through her sweater. Impossible, she knew, given the thickness of her sweater, and yet still her skin itched. Maybe it was just uneasiness, the growing sensation that something was very, very wrong.\n\nShe frowned and scanned the theater's foyer for the umpteenth time. The only ones out here were the usher, the pacing Wetherton and herself. Everyone else had gone inside to watch the opera. And the usher didn't appear threatening\u2014he was just a gray-haired old guy wearing a crisp blue suit and a bored expression.\n\nThere wasn't even a tingle along the psychic lines\u2014no crawling knowledge that something was here that shouldn't be here.\n\nAnd yet something was.\n\nOr rather, some _one_ was.\n\nShe could smell him. His scent was sharp, almost acidic, and though she couldn't immediately put a name or a face to the scent, recognition hummed through her.\n\nAnd then it hit her.\n\n_Duncan King._ The redheaded, green-eyed man who'd accompanied General Lloyd to their meeting at Han's restaurant a few months ago.\n\nAt the time, she'd thought him nothing more than a psychic drain, a leech who tried to suck all that he could from her mind via a seemingly harmless handshake.\n\nBut he was obviously a whole lot more. He could be invisible, for a start.\n\nHis scent was coming from the right\u2014the same area where the bored usher stood, but more toward the corridor that led to the men's room.\n\nThere was no one actually standing there, of course. And even her psychic senses weren't coming to the party, which was odd.\n\nOr maybe it wasn't.\n\nWhen she and King had shaken hands in the restaurant, she'd not only felt the leeching sensation, but a power that was similar to, and yet different from, the kind of energy that she felt in storms\u2014one that was a little more earthy in feel, and yet not the same as the energy she'd drawn from the earth during her dream. So who was to say that he hadn't been trying to use that energy to make himself invisible to all her senses? Maybe she wasn't even supposed to remember King's presence, let alone see him.\n\nSo why was he skulking around this foyer? Who was he here for?\n\nWetherton? Her? Or someone else altogether? Whatever his purpose, her best option seemed to be a cautious retreat. Better safe than sorry when confronted by someone more than human\u2014someone who didn't _need_ a weapon but was one. Her dreams, and her experiences with Hopeworth of late, had taught her that much, at least.\n\nShe pushed away from the wall and approached Wetherton. \"Minister, I think your date has stood you up.\"\n\nHe scowled and glanced at his watch. \"It's a business meeting, not a date. And I have no doubt he'll be here. The matter is important.\"\n\n\"He's over half an hour\u2014\" Her phone rang, stopping her mid-sentence. She grimaced and drew it from her pocket, stepping away from Wetherton but making sure she kept within viable protecting distance just in case the scent that was King moved or attacked.\n\n\"Agent Ryan speaking.\"\n\n\"Sam? Gabriel.\"\n\nLike she wouldn't recognize his voice? The man obviously had no idea just how attracted she was to him, despite their little encounter in the car. \"Would this be the Gabriel who was supposed to meet me at five to pick up his car?\"\n\nHe paused. \"Yeah. Sorry about that.\"\n\n\"Say that with a little more sincerity and I might actually believe you.\" She decided it was better _not_ to be a bitch\u2014as much as she might want to\u2014and said, \"What came up?\"\n\n\"Les Mohern.\"\n\nAs he said the name, the memory kicked into place. \"Mohern? Wasn't he one of the names in Jack's book?\"\n\nWetherton swung around at the mention of Mohern's name, his scowl deepening. \"What do you know of Mohern?\"\n\nHis voice was sharp, almost angry, and yet something in the set of his shoulders and the way he stood spoke of fear. She held up a hand to silence him, which didn't go down well, if the clenching and unclenching of his fists was anything to go by.\n\nNot that she thought he intended to hit her. Wetherton didn't have _that_ much courage.\n\n\"Frank Mohern was on Jack's list,\" Gabriel said. \"Les is his brother. He apparently had a meeting with Wetherton tonight.\"\n\n\"A meeting he's late for.\"\n\n\"That's because he almost got himself killed. I saved his butt, and he's been singing his little heart out in an effort to get a deal.\"\n\n\"Any particular song I need to know about?\"\n\nThere was another pause, then, \"Most definitely. The Moherns were involved in the original Wetherton's snatch and replacement, and Les happened to witness the murder of Kathryn Douglass.\"\n\n\"So he can identify the murderer in both cases?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nSomething in the way he said that made her stomach clench. And she knew, without him saying a word, just who Mohern had probably seen. She forced her voice to remain light, casual, as she said, \"Anyone I know?\"\n\nAgain he paused. \"It sounds an awful lot like the description you gave of the man you know as Joe.\"\n\nShe briefly closed her eyes. Joe. The man who had saved her life. The man who answered her many questions without ever hinting at the whole picture.\n\nThe man who might well be the enemy of humankind.\n\n_Damn._\n\nAs she opened her eyes, air shimmered. She frowned, studying the area to the right of the usher. The shimmer happened again, reminding her briefly of smoke coiling away from a small breeze. Only it wasn't smoke, wasn't just air, but a signal that King was on the move.\n\n\"Gabriel, I've gotta go. Meet me later and we'll talk.\"\n\n\"Sam, wait\u2014\"\n\nShe didn't, cutting him off and putting the phone back into her pocket. With King on the move, the sensation of wrongness had sharpened. And she had a bad feeling that she and Wetherton really should get the hell away from the theater and that man.\n\n\"Minister, I'm afraid your date has had a slight accident and has been taken to the hospital. If you'd like, I can take you there.\"\n\nShe gripped his arm as she spoke, intending to forcibly move him, but he wrenched himself free.\n\n\"Don't be ridiculous. I have tickets for this opera and I fully intend to use them!\"\n\n\"I wouldn't advise\u2014\"\n\nBefore she could get the rest of the sentence out, the shimmer that was King found form. And he had a gun pointed directly at Wetherton.\n\n\"Minister, look out!\" Even as she gave the warning, she freed her weapon and whipped off two quick shots. The laser's soft hiss seemed to reverberate across the silence but it connected with nothing more than air\u2014at least until it burned through the garish flocked wallpaper and then the wall behind it.\n\nKing reappeared several feet away from his original spot and fired. Sam threw herself sideways, hitting Wetherton and knocking him out of the way. Then she hit the carpeted floor with a grunt, the bright heat of King's laser skimming her side, burning through her jacket and scalding her hip. She swore, but rolled onto her stomach and fired another shot. Again, the bullet tore through air, not flesh.\n\nFor God's sake, how was she supposed to protect Wetherton from someone who could become as insubstantial as the wind?\n\nShe obviously couldn't. Retreat was the only option they had left. All she could hope for was that King wasn't as fast as he was invisible.\n\nShe twisted around to warn Wetherton, only to find him lying unmoving on the floor. His face was slack, his expression frozen in a mix of surprise and horror. A sharp but neat hole had been burned into the middle of his forehead. She half-imagined she could see brain matter through that hole, even though she knew logically that was impossible given the distance, the position of his body and the fact that lasers cauterized the wounds even as they created them.\n\nThis wouldn't look good on her record. First she'd killed her partner when she was in the State Police, then she'd allowed the man she was supposed to be guarding to be assassinated. If Stephan didn't haul her ass back to the broom closet, she'd be surprised. Still, it wasn't as if anyone else could have prevented this. Truth be told, no one else would have even _seen_ King.\n\nAt least one of her earlier questions had been answered\u2014King was here for Wetherton. But why would the military want him dead? Even if they knew Wetherton was a clone, he surely wouldn't have any knowledge about Hopeworth that could be dangerous to them.\n\nAnd yet Blaine had visited him. Had been in Wetherton's office for hours. Testing him, reading him, perhaps? If that _was_ the case, what had they discovered that now warranted his death?\n\nThe only person who might know the answer to that question was King. And he was on the move\u2014not toward her but rather the door. She hit the alarm button on her wristcom, scrambled to her feet and caught sight of the usher cowering behind one of the ornate columns near the staircase. She grabbed her badge from her pocket to show him.\n\n\"Call the SIU. Tell them Agent Sam Ryan has a priority-one situation. Tell them I need a med team and backup straight away.\" The wristcom's alarm _should_ evoke an immediate response, but she wasn't going to take a chance. Not this time.\n\nThe usher nodded, and Sam ran out the door and into the chilled night. King hadn't found form, but for some reason, the shimmer of air that surrounded and hid his form was more noticeable in the darkness. \"SIU, King. Stop or I'll shoot.\"\n\nPassersby glanced at her, their expressions becoming alarmed when they saw the weapon in her hand. Some hurried on and others retreated. She didn't really care either way, as long as they kept out of her line of fire. She kept her gaze on King and her finger on the trigger.\n\nHe didn't answer, didn't turn around, didn't stop.\n\nShe lowered the laser and ran after him. There were too many people out on the street to risk firing the weapon, and King was more than likely aware of that fact.\n\nThe heels of her boots hit the concrete noisily as she ran\u2014a quick tattoo that spoke of speed and urgency, and one that at least had people scrambling to get out of her way. But however free her path was, however fast _she_ was, King was faster. The farther away he got, the harder it was to see or smell him.\n\nAnd then he disappeared altogether.\n\nShe swore softly as she slowed, then finally stopped. With her gun raised, she scanned the immediate area. They'd run far enough from the theater district that foot traffic was sparse. This end of Victoria Street was close to Market and Elizabeth streets, so there were still plenty of cars passing by. Their lights skimmed the sidewalks and nearby buildings, briefly illuminating the shadows. No one hid there, not even a shimmer. Sam continued to turn slowly. Movement caught her eye in nearby Leicester Street. It was nothing more than a flare of orange that died as quickly as it gained life, and yet the sight of it had her up-until-recent ly-dead psychic senses coming to life.\n\nThe enemy waited in the deeper shadows haunting that side road. And it wasn't King.\n\nShe pressed the locator button on her wristcom again, then slowly, carefully, eased toward the road.\n\nThe closer she got, the more her skin crawled. Then the familiar wash of heat hit, bringing with it the certainty that the enemy who waited was a shifter\u2014a shifter whose very essence felt malevolent.\n\nAnd it was a malevolence she knew.\n\nHer steps faltered, and her hands suddenly felt clammy against the grip of the laser. Not so much because of the thick sensation of evil, not even because she'd felt this particular baseness before.\n\nBut because Blaine\u2014the enemy that waited in the shadows\u2014was not alone.\n\n_He_ was here.\n\nThe man who had saved her life at least twice.\n\nJoe.\n\nAnd she wasn't entirely sure whether he meant her good or ill. There was something almost...gloating in his aura. As if he'd waited for this moment for a very long time.\n\nShe took a shuddering breath and released it slowly. Her best option now was retreat. She'd be stupid to confront Blaine alone. There were two men ahead and the invisible King still floated about somewhere nearby. However much she wanted answers, however much she might want to grab King for shooting Wetherton, she wasn't a fool. She was one against three, and while she might be an enhanced human, just like them, she was the only one who _didn't_ have full knowledge of her powers.\n\nShe retreated a step, but she stopped when something cold and hard pressed against her spine.\n\n\"I can't allow you to do that.\" King's voice was so soft that she doubted the men ahead would even hear. \"Move into the side street, please. No sudden moves.\"\n\nFor all of a second she thought about spinning and knocking the weapon from his hand. Or maybe even twisting sharply to shoot him dead. But the latter had already proven impossible, and she had a sneaking suspicion he'd react faster than she ever could.\n\nSo she walked on, her arms by her side and the laser still secure in one hand. She doubted he'd forgotten its presence, and the fact that he let her keep it meant either that he had no fear of it or that she'd be dead long before she could ever press the trigger.\n\nNeither thought was a pleasant one, so she concentrated instead on the road ahead, trying to pinpoint the men who still hid in the shadows.\n\nBlaine moved out of them once she'd entered the street, stopping in the middle of the road, his expression pleased, almost amused.\n\n\"This is the last place I expected to find you, General,\" Sam said, stopping several feet away from him. King didn't object, and a covert glance over her shoulder uncovered why. He was no longer behind her. She scanned the immediate area but couldn't spot him. Nor could she smell him. But then, the soft breeze could have been blowing his scent away from her. She was sure he hadn't gone far.\n\nStill, it was odd that he was here with Blaine. She'd been under the impression that he was Lloyd's assistant, not Blaine's.\n\n\"Maybe so,\" Blaine said, voice all oily satisfaction, \"but I must say it is extremely pleasing to see you, number 849.\"\n\nThe number rang distant bells, and she had a sudden memory of a room filled with clear plastic cribs, each one not only possessing a wriggling, crying baby but a black card clipped to the front that carried a number and visual details. Hundreds of babies born to the cold sterility of a lab, many of whom were destined to die long before conscious thought or fear formed.\n\nAn odd mix of anger and apprehension shot through her, but she raised an eyebrow, trying for a calm she didn't feel inside. \"849? Sorry, General, but I have a name, not a number.\"\n\nHe raised an eyebrow, his expression still one of condescending amusement. \"Maybe now, but not when you were in Hopeworth, my dear.\"\n\nShe knew it was useless to argue. He was too certain about her. Maybe he'd uncovered hidden files in Hopeworth. Maybe that brief moment between them in Wetherton's office had given him information that he'd been able to use. Either way, it didn't matter. She was never going to admit the truth. Not to him, anyway. \"I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. I've never been near Hopeworth.\"\n\n\"Forgetfulness is not surprising, given the horrible events of that night, but you are military in birth and in design and we both know it. And I have every intention of returning you to your birthplace _and_ birthright.\" He paused, then said, \"Tonight.\"\n\nSo he thought Penumbra's destruction was an accident? That she'd escaped by chance rather than design? How could he? How could anyone in the military be breeding what they were breeding and have no true idea just what their creations were really capable of?\n\nShe took a step back, and this time King didn't stop her. \"Sorry, General, but I'm not who you think I am, and there is no way in hell I'm going anywhere with you.\" She raised the laser, letting him see it for the first time. \"Move and I'll shoot.\"\n\nHis sudden laugh sent a chill skittering over her skin. There was nothing sane in that cold sound. \"You could never hit me with the laser, child. I am faster than the wind, and lighter than shadow. You can't kill a shadow\u2014don't you know that? Didn't your precious nanny teach you anything?\"\n\nShe blew out a breath. What was the point of going on with the pretense that she didn't know what he was talking about? All he had to do was get her back to Hopeworth and the truth would be revealed. She _wasn't_ a creature of natural selection, so what she should concentrate on now was escaping both this man _and_ Hopeworth.\n\n\"My nanny taught me lots about humanity, General, and for that I owe her more than I can ever repay.\" Sam paused. \"Why did you want Mary Elliot dead?\"\n\n\"I wanted her knowledge, but the mere fact that you came to see her was enough to satisfy my uncertainties.\" He gave her a cold smile. \"And in the end, you walked into my trap much more easily than I ever dreamed possible. King, get the laser from her.\"\n\nShe tensed, waiting for some sound, some sensation, some feeling that King was obeying his master's orders.\n\nBut King didn't answer. Blaine frowned. \"King? Did you hear me?\"\n\n\"I heard.\" The answer came about half a dozen steps away from Blaine's left shoulder. If she squinted, she could just make out the slight shimmer of his position. But with Blaine so close, she didn't dare squint for long.\n\n\"I gave you an order, son. Obey it.\"\n\n\"King is not yours to command, General.\"\n\nThe voice came from behind Blaine, but it wasn't King's.\n\nIt was Joe's.\n\n# THIRTEEN\n\nGABRIEL GRIPPED MOHERN'S ARM TIGHTLY as he rushed him through the sterile halls of the SIU. Technically he wasn't a prisoner, so he wasn't cuffed, but Gabriel had a feeling the petty thief had begun to have more than a few second thoughts about \"singing like a bird\" during the car ride here.\n\nAnd though it was unlikely he'd get very far away in the monitored and tightly secured halls\u2014not to mention Briggs keeping a close eye on him from behind\u2014Mohern had escaped Sethanon's clutches for many months and therefore had to have more native cunning than what he was currently showing.\n\nThey reached one of the interview rooms and Gabriel punched in a code. Then he pressed his hand against the print pad. The machine hummed to life, a blue light sweeping his prints before the door clicked open. He waved Mohern inside, then turned to Briggs as she stopped beside him. \"Give him coffee and a meal, and then take his statement.\"\n\n\"What about my new ID?\" Mohern said from the center of the sparsely furnished room.\n\n\"That'll be under discussion after you sign the statement.\" Gabriel looked back at Briggs. \"If he doesn't sign it, keep him here until he does.\"\n\n\"Hey, you can't do that. It's against the law.\"\n\nBriggs grinned. \"We're SIU. A law unto ourselves.\"\n\n\"Great,\" Mohern muttered, as he sat down.\n\nGabriel kept his amusement to himself. \"Get him to do a photo ID of all the men present at both Wetherton's murder and Kathryn Douglass's.\"\n\nBriggs nodded. Gabriel turned and headed for the elevator. His phone rang before he got there. \"Assistant Director Stern,\" he said, as he punched the elevator's call button impatiently.\n\n\"Mitchell from Monitoring, sir. Agent Ryan just pressed her wristcom's alarm button, and we've also received a priority call from an usher at Her Majesty's Theatre. Apparently he called on Agent Ryan's orders.\"\n\nGabriel's gut clenched. He should have known something had happened when she'd hung up so abruptly. And yet she had to be all right, because he would have sensed anything else. \"What did the usher say?\"\n\n\"That she has a priority-one situation and wants a med team and backup. The man she was with has been shot. She's gone after the suspect.\"\n\nWhich under normal circumstances she undoubtedly could have handled. But given just who Wetherton might have been involved with, as well as who might have wanted him dead, it was better not to take chances.\n\n\"Send two teams immediately.\" Gabriel hesitated. \"Has she hit the locator?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Mitchell paused. \"Victoria Street, near Leicester.\"\n\n\"Tell the teams to take control of the situation at Her Majesty's. I'll back up Agent Ryan.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe elevator door opened. Gabriel stepped inside and punched the button for the rooftop. The fastest way to get there was by flight.\n\nAnd he had a growing feeling that he had better get there _damn_ fast indeed.\n\n\u2014\n\nThere was no sense of movement. One minute, the night behind Blaine was empty, and the next Joe was standing there. It was almost as if he could wear the night like a veil, shucking it off or using it as cover where necessary. Very much like she could do herself, though she had a lot less control over the ability.\n\nHe hadn't changed that much since she'd last seen him, sitting in the chair of a sidewalk caf\u00e9 and sipping coffee while avoiding direct answers to her questions. His appearance was still that of a street bum, his thick, overly long hair and beard disheveled and apparently unwashed. But his brown eyes were intense and somewhat sad, and he held himself like a soldier\u2014purposeful, balanced, powerful.\n\nA man ready to move, to fight, at a second's notice.\n\nBlaine swung around so that he was able to see both of them. \"Who the hell are you? And how the hell did you get through the cordon of my men?\"\n\n\"Who am I?\" Joe repeated the question, his voice apparently amused. But she knew him through her dreams, and she could almost taste the fury he wasn't showing. \"I am many people, General. Joe Black and Chip Braggart are the most common of my nonmilitary aliases, but they are not the ones I use most.\"\n\nNo wonder she'd sensed an odd sort of familiarity whenever she'd been near Braggart\u2014it had been Joe, in another form.\n\n\"A shifter.\" Blaine's voice was disdainful. \"I gather you were here beforehand, because there is no other way you could have gotten past my men.\"\n\n\"You think so?\" A smile touched Joe's lips, though she couldn't say how she knew this when the forest of his beard covered his mouth. \"There are a number of ways anyone with skill could have. But perhaps it is better if I show you. King, watch him.\"\n\n\"Yes, General.\" King stepped out of the shadows. In his hand was the biggest damn gun Sam had ever seen. It was similar in size to a rifle, but wider, with an oddly shaped flat end.\n\nBlaine's eyes widened, the arrogant confidence seeming to falter. \"Where the hell did you get that? You don't have the authority\u2014\"\n\n\"No, but you do, General.\" The voice was Joe's, but his hirsute countenance had gone, replaced by a replica of Blaine himself.\n\nAnd suddenly one large piece of the puzzle fell into place.\n\n\"It was you,\" Sam said. \"I pulled _you_ out of Wetherton's car that night, not the real Blaine.\" Which was why she kept getting different reactions in his presence. Her senses _knew_ Joe\u2014and obviously they saw him as no threat, no matter what form he took.\n\nThe real Blaine was a totally different story.\n\nAnd right now, Blaine's eyes were narrowed and dangerous looking. She shifted, her finger tightening just a little around the laser's trigger. He might be confident that she couldn't hit him with it, but if he moved in _any_ way, she'd damn well try.\n\nBut she had a horrible feeling he was working up to something bigger than a laser could handle.\n\nTension ran through her, and her finger tightened on the laser's trigger reflexively. A soft hum ran across the momentary silence, and Blaine gave her a quick look. There was no fear, no concern. Just amusement.\n\n\"Yes, it was me,\" Joe answered. \"Unfortunately, that was the night the military began to realize they might have a problem.\"\n\n\"Those newspaper images of me carrying an unconscious Wetherton were something of a revelation, given I wasn't even there.\" Blaine paused and studied his double for a moment. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Guess, General. Let's see how clever you really are.\" Joe's glance ran past Blaine and met Sam's. Something trembled deep inside. She knew that gaze, knew the fierce hardness behind it, even if the eyes were currently the wrong color. \"The general thinks he's calling in the troops. He doesn't realize he's already let them go.\"\n\nBlaine snorted. \"My men would not be fooled so easily.\"\n\n\"Your men have been fooled for years, General. And to continue the ruse, you must die. King?\"\n\n\"No!\" Sam said.\n\nShe raised the laser and fired, without even thinking about it. She had no real desire to protect Blaine, especially since he intended to take her back to Hopeworth. But the cop in her just couldn't stand here and let a murder happen.\n\nKing fired at Blaine at the same time she fired at King. This time her laser found its target, burning a hole through King's hand and into the weapon he held. It made a sizzling, popping sort of sound, and smoke began to rise. King swore and threw it away.\n\nThe weapon exploded before it hit the road, sending shards of metal and energy skimming through the night.\n\nDeadly, but not as deadly as the beam that had hit Blaine.\n\nHis mouth was open, as if he were screaming, but no sound came out. His body was shimmering, moving, bubbling, as if water boiled under his skin. He didn't move, just stood there, statue-like, as his skin gradually began to darken and then peel and drift away on the gentle wind, like paper held too close to a fire. And then the boiling water began to bubble out, running down his body and splashing across the roadside. Only it wasn't just water, but blood and flesh and God knows what else.\n\nHer stomach rose and she spun away, heading for the nearest curb. By the time she'd finished heaving the little bit of food she'd eaten that day, the splashing had stopped. The only sound to be heard on the whispering wind was the distant beat of traffic.\n\nKing was gone again. She couldn't say why she was so sure of that, especially when she had a hard time getting any real sense of his presence.\n\nBut Joe was here. Watching. Waiting.\n\nShe wiped a hand across her mouth, took a deep, shuddering breath and turned around. He still wore Blaine's form.\n\n\"You killed him to take his place?\"\n\n\"I've been taking his place for years. It was useful, while it lasted.\"\n\nShe remembered a teenager saying, in that same sort of dead voice, _I have plans for him, never fear._\n\nThe same teenager who said he had every intention of going back to that place once he'd taken care of her, because there was still too much to be done at Hopeworth.\n\nA chill that was soul deep ran through her. Yet she kept her thoughts to herself, saying only, \"Why did you kill Kathryn Douglass?\"\n\nHis smile was gentle, amused. \"Douglass had contacted the military about reviving the Penumbra project. I have no idea where she found the notes, but I couldn't let that happen. I _did_ give her fair warning. We are unique, Sammy, and I intend to keep it that way.\"\n\n\"Why go back as Blaine afterward? To gloat?\"\n\n\"Partially. I also wanted to see how Lloyd took the warning.\" His sudden grin was fierce. \"Neither he nor the military took it well.\"\n\n\"But that Lloyd is not the real Lloyd.\" She hesitated. \"I killed him the night Penumbra was destroyed.\"\n\n\"If you remember that, then you should remember that _that_ Lloyd was yet another replica. The real general donated his body for scientific purposes on his death years before, and his replication became the military's first real success.\"\n\nBut not their last. \"And what were we, Josh? Their fourth? Tenth? Fiftieth?\"\n\n\"We were never considered a successful creation,\" Josh said. \"More of a frustrating one. They never could control us\u2014not totally.\"\n\nHe smiled, and this time it was a smile she remembered. A smile that echoed all the way through her, bringing tears to her eyes.\n\nHe began to change, to shift, his body seeming to fade into the night for several heartbeats before it regained form. Became an older version of the boy who'd haunted her dreams for so long.\n\nPart of her was fiercely glad to see him again.\n\nPart of her feared him, because she suddenly remembered the conversation she'd had with Gabriel in the car. Her comment that Sethanon was waiting for Hopeworth to breed him an army. His comment that Sethanon was someone she knew in Hopeworth, someone who had been involved in the project.\n\n_No, no, no,_ she thought. _Not Josh. Not my brother._ She closed her eyes for a moment, then said softly, \"Are you Sethanon?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nShe stared at him, uncertain whether she was more angry or scared. \"So why tell me Sethanon was not a name you'd ever called yourself?\"\n\n\"Because it isn't. But I never denied others might have called me that.\"\n\n\"Who? Not the SIU, from what I can gather.\"\n\n\"No.\" He half shrugged. \"It started with the scientists. The day they took that book off me\u2014\"\n\n\"The day you scared the hell out of Mary?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He smiled again, but it was a cold thing that sent chills down her spine. \"Some of the scientists took to calling me Mad Seth under their breath. I simply ran with the name when it became beneficial to do so.\"\n\n\"Like when you were attacking the SIU?\"\n\n\"A strong SIU is a hindrance to my plans, so attacking them as Sethanon not only decimated their numbers, but had the side benefit of them chasing someone who doesn't exist.\"\n\n\"But they know you exist now, Josh, and they now know what you are. You've all but played into their hands.\"\n\n\"I've done nothing but confirm their suspicions. I have no problems with that.\"\n\nHe studied her for a moment, and the sadness she'd often noted in her dreams of him was back in his eyes. Only it was deeper this time. Much deeper. Then he looked up, and his expression changed, became hard.\n\n\"I can feel you up there, Assistant Director. Please come down and join the discussion.\"\n\nThere was a flutter of wings and a soft thump, then footsteps. Gabriel stopped beside Sam, close enough that his warmth washed over her, yet not so close that he was touching her. His gaze met hers. \"You okay?\"\n\nSam nodded. \"Josh won't hurt me.\"\n\nGabriel's gaze moved to her brother. \"I wouldn't be so sure of that.\"\n\n\"You would be if you knew anything at all about the two of us.\" Josh's gaze was every bit as cold and hard as Gabriel's. \"And you'd certainly not consider firing the laser you have in your hand.\"\n\nEven as he said the words, Gabriel revealed the weapon. It was a laser, all right, and a lot bigger than the one Sam held. \"I'm not firing it, just using it to place you under arrest. You willingly admitted you murdered General Blaine and Kathryn Douglass, and you more than likely destroyed her clone, as well.\"\n\nJosh raised an eyebrow. \"You were floating about up there for longer than I thought.\"\n\n\"I guess I was. Raise your hands or I _will_ shoot.\"\n\nJosh flexed his fingers. And suddenly the stirring wind seemed to be a whole lot hotter. Fear raced through Sam.\n\n\"Josh, no!\"\n\nThe words were barely out of her mouth when a bright blue beam of light lit the darkness. Her heart seemed to lodge somewhere in her throat, and her fear intensified until it seemed her entire body shook under the force of it. It wasn't just fear for Josh, but for her own safety as well.\n\n_Why, why, why?_\n\nThe question rolled through her mind as the normally swift and deadly blue beam arced across the night in seemingly slow motion. Josh watched it, eyes narrowed, moving only when it seemed too late. The laser sliced through his forearm, skimming through his jacket and shirt before burning a trail along his skin.\n\nShe knew, because she felt it. Pain ripped through her, and she staggered backward, gasping in shock and dropping her laser to the ground. Sweat broke out across her forehead, but she clamped down on the scream that bubbled up her throat, so that it came out more like a hiss. She grabbed her arm with her free hand, supporting it carefully.\n\n\"What the hell?\" Gabriel's voice was soft, but it hinted at pain. He, too, had felt the burn of the laser, but indirectly through her. \"Sam, are you okay?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She stared at her brother as the final pieces began to fall into place.\n\n\"Two halves of a whole,\" he said softly.\n\nShe closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. The pain was fading, but not the deeper pain that came with realization. She might not remember everything, but she knew enough.\n\n\"That's why you saved me,\" she said. \"You cannot exist without me.\"\n\n\"Sam, you want to explain what's happening?\" Gabriel said.\n\nShe glanced at him. The laser was still held straight and steady. He might not know what had happened, but he was still intent on capturing Josh.\n\nNot realizing\u2014or maybe not caring\u2014that Josh would never, ever, allow himself to become someone's prisoner again.\n\nNot knowing that in trying to maim or kill Josh, he'd be doing the exact same thing to her.\n\n\"You felt what I felt,\" she told him.\n\n\"I know that. But why the hell were you feeling what he was feeling?\"\n\nShe wrapped her fingers around his arm. If he tried to fire the laser, she'd feel the movement of his muscles. Would try to stop him.\n\n\"Josh and I are twins. Two parts of a whole.\"\n\nHe frowned and glanced at her quickly. \"Fraternal twins. So?\"\n\n\"You forget that we are military creations, born in a lab.\" She hesitated, then licked her lips. \"Our life forces are connected and combined. If he dies, I die.\"\n\nHis shock was evident in the way his muscles tensed. \"That's not\u2014\"\n\n\"Just as it's not possible for you to feel when she is hurt?\" Josh commented. \"We are linked, the three of us, more than any of us could want.\"\n\nShe glanced sharply at Josh. \"You once said that you would let Gabriel rot in hell except for the fact that I would come and rescue him. But that was a lie, wasn't it? You knew, even then, that hurting him would hurt me.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"It wasn't a lie. Just not the entire truth.\"\n\n\"Many things you say aren't the entire truth, Josh.\"\n\n\"Would someone care to fill me in on this conversation?\" Gabriel's voice was filled with frustrated anger.\n\nAnd that was dangerous, given the situation.\n\nShe squeezed his arm and wished he'd lower the weapon. \"Josh is Joe. They are one and the same man.\"\n\n\"And who is Joe?\" His voice was hard. Cold. He'd heard their conversation; he just needed confirmation.\n\nJosh glanced at her. \"Tell him.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. \"Sethanon.\"\n\nGabriel's muscles moved. She threw her weight against him, knocking him sideways. The deadly blue beam shot skyward, briefly illuminating the rooftop of a nearby warehouse before disappearing from sight.\n\nShe hit the ground with a grunt, but rolled swiftly to her feet. Josh was gone, cloaked by night and moving swiftly away.\n\n_You've finally found what you began searching for so long ago. You found, in Gabriel, that piece of yourself you always felt was missing, no matter how close our connection. You have chosen your path, and it is not mine._ His words rolled through her mind, at once soft and sorrowful and yet somehow determined. _I have given you time, as you asked that night, but I shall wait no more. It begins, Sammy. Do not try to stop me._\n\n_I have to, Josh. This time, I have to._\n\n_Then we shall truly discover who is the stronger power._\n\n_I guess we will._\n\nHe disappeared from her mind and her senses, just as Gabriel grabbed her arm and swung her around roughly.\n\n\"Why the hell did you do that?\"\n\n\"Because you would have killed him.\"\n\n\"And rid the world of a monster!\" He spat the words, his fury so great it was almost smothering her, making it difficult to breathe.\n\n\"And in killing him, you would have killed me!\" She raised her eyes to his. \"Or was that a price you were willing to pay?\"\n\nFor a long time, he didn't answer. She began to think he wouldn't when he released her arm and pushed her away from him, almost violently.\n\n\"He shot Andrea. That was the face of the man who shot her.\"\n\n_Oh God._ She closed her eyes and battled the sting of tears.\n\n\"I didn't know\u2014\"\n\n\"Would you have cared?\" he asked, savagely. \"She was just one of the hundreds of agents Sethanon has killed across the country, yet you protected him here tonight.\"\n\n\"Because\u2014\"\n\n\"Because you believe a lie,\" he spat. He thrust a hand through his hair. Then he made what sounded like an anguished growl and walked away without a word.\n\nShe took a deep breath and released it slowly.\n\nThe war Jack had warned her about was about to begin.\n\nAnd she was stuck in the middle between a brother she couldn't support and a man who would do whatever it took to avenge the death of the woman he had once loved.\n\nA death that had been caused by her brother.\n\nIt was laughable to think that she'd once believed that when she discovered who she really was, all would become right in her world.\n\nBut nothing was right. It had all just gone straight to hell. And it had taken whatever hopes she might have had of a relationship with Gabriel with it. With everything that had happened tonight, with all that she'd remembered and discovered, it was _that_ that probably hurt the most.\n\nShe blew out a breath and turned around. To discover Gabriel waiting for her at the end of the alley.\n\nHope ran through her.\n\nHe didn't say anything as she approached him, his expression neutral and the green-flecked hazel depths of his eyes giving little away.\n\nShe stopped in front of him. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, dread and hope combining to make her stomach churn. But she somehow kept her voice calm as she said, \"I cannot help my past. I cannot change what I am. And I certainly can't let you kill him.\" She hesitated, then added softly, \"I don't want to die, Gabriel.\"\n\nHe studied her for a moment longer and said, \"But will you help me stop him?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Because she didn't want this war any more than he did. She wanted peace. All she'd _ever_ wanted was peace.\n\nAnd somewhere to call home.\n\n\"That's all I can ask for, then.\" He held out his hand.\n\nShe placed her fingers in his, felt the strength of them wrap around hers, and for the second time in her life, she suddenly felt as if she actually belonged somewhere.\n\nIt was such a powerful feeling that tears stung her eyes again.\n\nShe'd left the ruins of the Penumbra project believing there was something out there for her. Something, or someone, she needed to find.\n\nAgainst all the odds, it seemed she'd found that someone.\n\nAll she had to do now was hold on to him.\n\n# EPILOGUE\n\nSAM WATCHED THE FOAMY FINGERS of ocean creep across the damp black rocks of the cliff not far below them. The power of the waves shivered through her, setting her soul on fire. More than ever, she felt at home here. Felt _right_ here.\n\n\"I can see why you bought this place.\" Gabriel stopped beside her, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets and his breath condensing on the cool evening breeze. \"It's wild and untamed and somehow perfect.\"\n\nShe glanced at him, a smile teasing her lips. \"You almost sound envious.\"\n\n\"I think I am.\" His gaze met hers, and there was something in his eyes that warmed her even more thoroughly than the energy of this place. \"Are you sure you want to try this?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Mary said I could shapechange. That Josh and I did it often. If I could do it then, I should be able to do it now. It's just a matter of remembering.\"\n\nGabriel nodded in agreement. \"I'll guide you through the process as best I can. Just remember, if you _do_ change shape, don't stay in it for too long. Your muscles won't be used to the stresses of your alternate shape, and I don't want to see you tumbling off the damn cliff.\"\n\n\"The sea won't hurt me,\" she said.\n\n\"No, but smashing down on the rocks certainly will. So please, just this once, do as I ask.\"\n\nA smile teased her lips. \"Afraid of getting Illie back as a partner if anything happens to me, huh?\"\n\n\"Well, you are _far_ more kissable than he is.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows. \"Meaning you've attempted to kiss Illie? I didn't know you were inclined that way, Gabriel Stern.\"\n\n\"There's a whole lot that you don't yet know about me,\" he said, amusement creasing the corners of his eyes. \"That, however, is not one of them.\"\n\n_Yet._ That one word warmed more than anything else he'd said so far. \"And thank goodness. I'd hate to think I'd have to keep an eye out for men as well as women competing for your attention. Hell, it took me long enough to even _get_ your attention.\"\n\n\"You had it from the very beginning,\" he said mildly. \"Now, are we going to attempt this? Because that storm is getting closer and I'd really rather be sitting beside the fire in that ramshackle, run-down house of yours when it hits.\"\n\nSo would she. But not yet. Not just yet. Her gaze went to the black clouds sweeping toward them. Their energy tingled through her, as fierce as the sea itself. It was the perfect night for flight. The perfect night to find a part of herself she'd lost long ago.\n\nShe took a deep breath, then said, \"Right. What do I do?\"\n\n\"First off, relax. Breathe deep and release the anger, the fear and the tension.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid.\"\n\n\"But you _are_ tense. I can feel it,\" he said. \"So breathe in deep and, when you exhale, imagine each time you're casting away a little bit more of that tension.\"\n\nShe did as he bade and, after a few minutes, a sense of calm fell around her.\n\n\"Now,\" he said. \"Imagine there's a well deep down in your soul. Imagine it filled with warm and eager light. Feel its welcoming caress surround your fingers, your hands, your arms, as you reach for it. Feel it flush through your entire body.\"\n\nEven as he spoke, energy began to pulse through her body. It tingled through her, around her, a force that was both familiar and foreign. As sharp as the storm and the sea, and yet very different in its feel.\n\n\"Imagine that light surrounding you, embracing you. Feel it in every fiber, every muscle. Let it become you, and you it.\"\n\nThe energy surged, encasing her in a pulsating mesh. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to step into the unknown. Except it wasn't unknown, because she'd been here before, and the memories were beginning to surface. In her mind's eye, she began to see the hawk she was about to become.\n\n\"Now,\" Gabriel said, voice soft, \"imagine the hawk. Welcome her into being.\"\n\nShe didn't have to imagine. The hawk was with her, in her. It always had been; all she'd needed to do was remember her. And she _did_ remember. The magic surged through her body, its touch fierce, joyful, as it unmade one shape so that she could become the other.\n\nAnd then she was soaring up into the dusk, into the electric air, into freedom. And oh, it was glorious. She laughed in sheer delight, the sound the harsh cry of the hawk. Gabriel soon joined her, following her as she wheeled around on the updrafts, his gold and brown plumage glowing in the fading light of day.\n\nIt didn't last long. As he'd warned, her muscles quickly began to tire. Reluctantly, she arrowed down, calling to the shifting energy as she neared the ground, hitting it in human form but a little too fast. She stumbled several steps before she caught her balance.\n\n\"So how was your first flight?\" Gabriel said.\n\nShe spun to face him, her grin so wide it felt like her face would split from the force of it. \"Amazing. Magical. I want to do it again, and again and again.\"\n\nHe laughed and caught her hand, tugging her toward him. \"Tomorrow,\" he said softly. \" _If_ your arms aren't leaden from this evening's efforts.\"\n\n\"You, Gabriel Stern, are a party pooper.\" She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. \"But even so, I do have this insane desire to kiss you senseless right now.\"\n\n\"Then by all means, do so,\" he said, but his smile gave way to seriousness. \"There is, however, one thing you should know before you do.\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow, and oddly felt that once again she was standing on the edge of that precipice. This time, however, she was stepping into the unknown\u2014but it was an unknown she didn't fear. \"And that is?\"\n\n\"Hawks mate for life,\" he said softly.\n\nSomething more than joy, something that was delirium and elation and euphoria all wrapped up in one explosive package, rushed through her, making her want to sing and dance and cry all at the same time. \"Meaning you could never get rid of me now, even if you wanted to?\"\n\n\"Not even if I wanted to,\" he said, his gaze fierce in the fading light of the evening. \"Not that I want to. Not anymore. You're everything I thought I'd once lost, Sam. It might have taken me damnably long to realize it, and I might have been a bastard along the way, but I want you in my life, come what may\u2014and no matter what your brother might throw at us\u2014both now and in the future.\"\n\nShe laughed then, and for the first time in a long time, that laughter was as free and as happy as she felt. Because for the first time in a long time, she had not only a past, but a future, and someone to share it with. And she didn't have to worry about holding on to him. He was hers, now and forever.\n\nAs if to prove the thought, he kissed her. It was slow, sensuous, and, most of all, it was an affirmation of belonging.\n\n\"Why don't we take this inside?\" he said after a while. \"Maybe we can explore, in greater detail, that desire of yours to kiss me senseless.\"\n\nShe smiled. The explorations wouldn't stop with just kisses, and they both knew it. \"It sounds like a perfect idea.\" A perfect beginning.\n\nAnd it was.\n\n# By Keri Arthur\n\n# THE NIKKI AND MICHAEL SERIES\n\nDancing with the Devil\n\nHearts in Darkness\n\nChasing the Shadows\n\nKiss the Night Goodbye\n\n# THE RIPPLE CREEK WEREWOLF SERIES\n\nBeneath a Rising Moon\n\nBeneath a Darkening Moon\n\n# THE DARK ANGELS SERIES\n\nDarkness Unbound\n\nDarkness Rising\n\nDarkness Devours\n\nDarkness Hunts\n\nDarkness Unmasked\n\nDarkness Splintered\n\n# THE MYTH AND MAGIC SERIES\n\nDestiny Kills\n\nMercy Burns\n\n# THE RILEY JENSON GUARDIAN SERIES\n\nFull Moon Rising\n\nKissing Sin\n\nTempting Evil\n\nDangerous Games\n\nEmbraced by Darkness\n\nThe Darkest Kiss\n\nDeadly Desire\n\nBound to Shadows\n\nMoon Sworn\n\n# THE SPOOK SQUAD SERIES\n\nMemory Zero\n\nGeneration 18\n\nPenumbra\n\n# About the Author\n\nKERI ARTHUR, author of the _New York Times_ bestselling Riley Jenson Guardian series, has written more than two dozen books. She's received several nominations in the Best Contemporary Paranormal category of the _Romantic Times_ Reviewers' Choice Awards and recently won _RT'_ s Career Achievement Award for urban fantasy. She lives with her daughter in Melbourne, Australia.\n\nwww.keriarthur.com\n\nFacebook.com\/AuthorKeriArthur\n\n@kezarthur\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Copyright\n  4. Contents\n  5. Chapter One\n  6. Chapter Two\n  7. Chapter Three\n  8. Chapter Four\n  9. Chapter Five\n  10. Chapter Six\n  11. Chapter Seven\n  12. Chapter Eight\n  13. Chapter Nine\n  14. Chapter Ten\n  15. Chapter Eleven\n  16. Chapter Twelve\n  17. Chapter Thirteen\n  18. Epilogue\n  19. Other Titles\n  20. About the Author\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Cover\n  3. Title Page\n  4. Contents\n  5. Start\n\n  1. i\n  2. ii\n  3. iii\n  4. iv\n  5. v\n  6. vi\n  7. ix\n  8. x\n  9. \n  10. \n  11. \n  12. \n  13. \n  14. \n  15. \n  16. \n  17. \n  18. \n  19. \n  20. \n  21. \n  22. \n  23. \n  24. \n  25. \n  26. \n  27. \n  28. \n  29. \n  30. \n  31. \n  32. \n  33. \n  34. \n  35. \n  36. \n  37. \n  38. \n  39. \n  40. \n  41. \n  42. \n  43. \n  44. \n  45. \n  46. \n  47. \n  48. \n  49. \n  50. \n  51. \n  52. \n  53. \n  54. \n  55. \n  56. \n  57. \n  58. \n  59. \n  60. \n  61. \n  62. \n  63. \n  64. \n  65. \n  66. \n  67. \n  68. \n  69. \n  70. \n  71. \n  72. \n  73. \n  74. \n  75. \n  76. \n  77. \n  78. \n  79. \n  80. \n  81. \n  82. \n  83. \n  84. \n  85. \n  86. \n  87. \n  88. \n  89. \n  90. \n  91. \n  92. \n  93. \n  94. \n  95. \n  96. \n  97. \n  98. \n  99. \n  100. \n  101. \n  102. \n  103. \n  104. \n  105. \n  106. \n  107. \n  108. \n  109. \n  110. \n  111. \n  112. \n  113. \n  114. \n  115. \n  116. \n  117. \n  118. \n  119. \n  120. \n  121. \n  122. \n  123. \n  124. \n  125. \n  126. \n  127. \n  128. \n  129. \n  130. \n  131. \n  132. \n  133. \n  134. \n  135. \n  136. \n  137. \n  138. \n  139. \n  140. \n  141. \n  142. \n  143. \n  144. \n  145. \n  146. \n  147. \n  148. \n  149. \n  150. \n  151. \n  152. \n  153. \n  154. \n  155. \n  156. \n  157. \n  158. \n  159. \n  160. \n  161. \n  162. \n  163. \n  164. \n  165. \n  166. \n  167. \n  168. \n  169. \n  170. \n  171. \n  172. \n  173. \n  174. \n  175. \n  176. \n  177. \n  178. \n  179. \n  180. \n  181. \n  182. \n  183. \n  184. \n  185. \n  186. \n  187. \n  188. \n  189. \n  190. \n  191. \n  192. \n  193. \n  194. \n  195. \n  196. \n  197. \n  198. \n  199. \n  200. \n  201. \n  202. \n  203. \n  204. \n  205. \n  206. \n  207. \n  208. \n  209. \n  210. \n  211. \n  212. \n  213. \n  214. \n  215. \n  216. \n  217. \n  218. \n  219. \n  220. \n  221. \n  222. \n  223. \n  224. \n  225. \n  226. \n  227. \n  228. \n  229. \n  230. \n  231. \n  232. \n  233. \n  234. \n  235. \n  236. \n  237. \n  238. \n  239. \n  240. \n  241. \n  242. \n  243. \n  244. \n  245. \n  246. \n  247. \n  248. \n  249. \n  250. \n  251. \n  252. \n  253. \n  254. \n  255. \n  256. \n  257. \n  258. \n  259. \n  260. \n  261. \n  262. \n  263. \n  264. \n  265. \n  266. \n  267. \n  268. \n  269. \n  270. \n  271. \n  272. \n  273. \n  274. \n  275. \n  276. \n  277. \n  278. \n  279. \n  280. \n  281. \n  282. \n  283. \n  284. \n  285. \n  286. \n  287. \n  288. \n  289. \n  290. \n  291. \n  292. \n  293. \n  294. \n  295. \n  296. \n  297. \n  298. \n  299. \n  300. \n  301. \n  302. \n  303. \n  304. \n  305. \n  306. \n  307. \n  308. \n  309. \n  310.\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nFirst published in Great Britain in 2013 by  \nMichael O'Mara Books Limited  \n9 Lion Yard  \nTremadoc Road  \nLondon SW4 7NQ\n\nCopyright \u00a9 Michael O'Mara Books Limited 2013\n\nAll rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.\n\nA CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.\n\nISBN: 978-1-78243-067-4 in hardback print format  \nISBN: 978-1-78243-087-2 in EPub format  \nISBN: 978-1-78243-088-9 in Mobipocket format\n\nCover design by Ana Bjezancevic  \nDesigned and typeset by K DESIGN, Somerset  \nIllustrations by Greg Stevenson  \nMaps on here and here by David Woodroffe\n\nwww.mombooks.com\n\n#### **Contents**\n\n_Acknowledgements_\n\n_Introduction_\n\n**1. The Land Before Time**\n\nGeologic time, ice ages, dinosaurs and distant cousins\n\n**2. Marking Time**\n\nEarly timekeepers: from sun to standing stones and calendars to Computus\n\n**3. Keeping Time**\n\nThe advent of hours and the first clocks to capture them\n\n**4. The Best of Times**\n\nThe golden age of timekeepers and the science of time\n\n**5. Modern Times**\n\nHow we tell and keep time today and the cleverest clocks around\n\n**6. Future Time**\n\nThe speed of time \u2013 how we experience and move through it\n\n**7. Space\u2013time**\n\nWormholes, black holes, light years and the multiverse\n\n**8. Thinking Time**\n\nTime and how we perceive it\n\n_References_\n\n_Index_\n\n#### **Acknowledgements**\n\nMy sincerest thanks to all at Michael O'Mara Books, especially to my editor Anna Marx for her support, enthusiasm and input, Ana Bje\u017ean\u010devi\u0107 for her ever-lovely design work, and Greg Stevenson for his wonderful illustrations. Thanks also to Dan O'Grady and my brother Peter Evers for all their useful suggestions. And finally the biggest thank you goes to my great friend and editor-extraordinaire, Silvia Crompton, for all the precious time she has given to me these past few years.\n\n#### **Introduction**\n\nA few years ago some startling images were captured by Brazil's Indian Affairs Department. Taken from a plane flying high above the Amazon near the border of Brazil and Peru, the images showed members of an 'uncontacted' tribe. Some were painted red, others black, but all were looking up curiously at the metal bird cutting through the sky above.\n\nLooking at these images felt a bit like time travel; looking at the past in the present, or two dimensions co-existing. These people do not know that it's the 'twenty-first century'. To them, we are the weird creatures from another time, possibly even another world. How long this 'past' in the Amazon can continue is uncertain, as modern man encroaches ever more into these ancient tribal lives, sometimes violently, in the name of progress.\n\nA few months after these images entered the public domain I came across another story, this time about a recently contacted tribe, the Amondawa in Brazil. First 'discovered' by anthropologists in 1986, the Amondawa do not have an abstract concept of time. They have no word for time, or divisions of time \u2013 such as months or years. Rather than talk about age they assign different names to each other to indicate the different stages of their lives or their status within their community. They have no 'time technology' \u2013 no calendars or clocks \u2013 and only a limited numbering system.\n\nWhat struck me is just how difficult this kind of life is to comprehend. And I realized how obsessed we modern people are with time \u2013 especially not having enough of it \u2013 and just how unique the Amondawa are in the absence of this obsession. I also realized how little I understood about time, how we capture and create it, and how our Earth and our bodies interact with it.\n\nWe each live in our own psychological time \u2013 memories of the past, anticipation for the future \u2013 and these 'time zones' co-exist with our present, our now. And we experience time subjectively \u2013 an hour is a long time in a doctor's waiting room, but can fly by with good friends.\n\nThis book goes back to the beginning of time as we know it \u2013 right back to the beginning of the universe and starts from there. It pieces together the history of time as perceived and processed by our forebears and by the great scientific minds of our current age \u2013 and it also tries to have a little fun along the way.\n\nWe'll journey through geological ages, meet dinosaurs and distant cousins, tell time by the Moon and the Sun, and learn about the clocks within us which dictate the rhythms of our daily lives. We'll look at the evolution of time technologies, from the earliest calendars etched on the bones of eagles' wings to quantum clocks. We'll see how time is speeding up and how it's slowing down, we'll travel into the future through wormholes and black holes, span light years and peek into parallel dimensions. And for aspiring time travellers, there will be tips and tricks for journeying into the past and future along the way.\n\n####\n\nHappy Birthday Planet Earth\n\nIn 1654, the Anglican Bishop of Armagh, James Usher, announced that the universe was created at six o'clock on the evening of 22 October 4004 BCE. He reportedly came to this rather definitive conclusion after years of studying the Bible and world history. This theory of the Earth's age was pretty popular right up to the nineteenth century, when the study of geology and Darwin's theory of evolution made it clear that the world was considerably older.\n\nIt is now widely believed to be 4.54 billion years old \u2013 or written out in full \u2013 4,540,000,000 years old. That's a lot of years. The 4.54 billion figure has been reached using rather complex mathematics combined with the methods of 'radiometric' dating \u2013 which include radiocarbon dating, potassium-argon dating and uranium lead dating.\n\nAt its most basic, radiometric dating looks at radioactive decay. It compares the amount of a naturally occurring radioactive chemical component (isotope) and its decay products \u2013 we know, for example, that the radioactive component uranium decays to become lead, so looking at the amount of lead left in a rock one can calculate how much uranium there would have been to start with and so how long it has taken to produce the lead.\n\nApplying these techniques to really, really old rocks and minerals \u2013 including meteorites and lunar samples \u2013 the magic figure of 4.54 billion has been reached and agreed upon. For now.\n\nThe oldest known terrestrial materials are zircon crystals found in Western Australia. These have been dated as over 4.4 billion years old. The oldest known meteorite matter is 4.567 billion years old. It is believed that our solar system can't be much older than these samples.\n\nWhich brings us to the time before there was an Earth, or a solar system to house it. To when our universe was born. The prevailing theory is that of the Big Bang, when the universe started expanding from a dense and hot state \u2013 and continues to expand into space, which is itself continually expanding.\n\n_The Big Bang is dated as starting 13.5 and 13.75 billion years ago_\n\n**The geologic time scale**\n\nComing back down to Earth again, something called the 'geologic' time scale is used by earth scientists, geologists and palaeontologists to describe timings and events in our Earth's past. It relates time to 'stratigraphy' \u2013 the study of layers of rocks (stratification).\n\nThere are many wonderful examples of stratification bearing testament to the Earth's long history. Examples are found in chalk layers in Cyprus, the stunning Colorado Plateau in Utah, exposed strata on mountain faces in the French Alps, and the amazing Stratified Island near La Paz, Mexico, to name but a few.\n\nThe units used to describe geologic time are very long. They include Eons (half a billion years), Eras (several hundred million years), Epochs (tens of millions of years), and Ages (millions of years).\n\nTaking it as read that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, the deposits of our old pal zircon, the oldest known mineral, were found during the Hadean Eon in the Cryptic Era. This is when the Moon and Earth were formed. Between 500 and 600 million years later in the Eoarchean Era, simple single-celled life came into being, evidence for which is found in microfossils \u2013 that is, fossils which are not larger than four millimetres, and often smaller than one millimetre, and which can only be studied using light or electron microscopy.\n\nSkipping ahead to the Proterozoic Eon, geologic evidence shows that our atmosphere became oxygenic (specifically during the Palaeoproterozoic Era some 2.05 billion years ago), then the first complex single-celled life, protists, came into being around 1.8 billion years ago.\n\n_The geologic time scale_\n\nIt took another 1.2 billion years for the first fossils of multi-celled animals (worms, sponges, soft jelly-like creatures) to show up during the Neo-proterozoic Era (around 635 million years ago) and these evolved into yet more complex fishy creatures during the long Palaeozoic Era (between 541 and 255 million years ago). By the end of this Era the landmass known as Pangaea had formed, comprised of North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. Various reptiles and amphibians were roaming about and basic flora, mosses and primitive seed plants had developed, while a host of marine life flourished in shallow reefs.\n\nThence to the Mesozoic Era. During its Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (between 252 and 72 million years ago) the dinosaurs, first mammals and crocodilia appeared. Then flowering plants and all manner of new types of insects. Towards the end of the Cretaceous Period there were many new species of dinosaur (though not for long) and creatures equivalent to modern crocodiles and sharks. Primitive birds replaced pterosaurs and the first marsupials appeared. Plus atmospheric CO2 was close to our present-day levels.\n\nWhich brings us to our own Era \u2013 the Cenozoic \u2013 which started some 66 million years ago and is often referred to as the 'age of mammals'. In the early part of this Era, the dinosaurs were extinct (more on this to follow) and mammals were diversifying, but it would still be another 40-plus million years before the first apes, our evolutionary ancestors, appeared.\n\nAnd it wasn't until just 200,000 years ago that the first anatomically modern humans appeared and only 50,000 years ago during the Holocene Epoch (which we're still in) that we started tinkering with stone tools.\n\nThe bottom line is the Earth is very old, and we are very young upon it. To put things in perspective, if you think of the age of the Earth as a 24-hour clock, the first humans appear just 40 seconds before midnight at 23:59:20.\n\nIt is now generally agreed that the catchily titled 'Cretaceous-Palaeogene extinction event', which happened approximately 65.5 million years ago, led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.\n\nHowever, the actual nature of the event is still a matter of considerable discussion. Theories range from a massive asteroid or meteor impact to increased volcanic activity altering the biosphere and significantly reducing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.\n\nWhatever it was, the event left behind a geological signature known variously as the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary, K-T boundary or K-Pg boundary. Non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out, their fossils lying below the boundary, indicating they became extinct during the event. The small number of dinosaur fossils that have been found above the boundary have been explained as having eroded from their original positions and preserved in later sedimentary layers. You can see exposed areas of the boundary in wilderness areas and state parks, such as at Trinidad Lake, Colorado, and Drumheller in Alberta, Canada.\n\n**Ice ages**\n\nTechnically, we are still in an ice age. Admittedly at the tail end of it, the worst was over around 12,500 years ago. It began 2.6 million years ago, but the presence of ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic signal its continued existence.\n\nThe Swiss geographer and engineer Pierre Martel (1706\u20131767) was the first to posit the theory of ice ages. On a visit to the Chamonix valley in the Alps, he observed that the dispersal of boulders pointed to the fact that the glaciers had once been much larger, but had contracted with time. And this phenomenon was observable in other parts of Switzerland, Scandinavia and later noted in the Chilean Andes. But it wasn't until the 1870s that the theory was widely accepted as fact.\n\nIn addition to the erratic dispersal of large boulders, other evidence of ice ages comes in the form of rock scouring and scratching, valley cutting, the creation of small hills called drumlins and unusual patterns in the distribution of fossils.\n\nThere have been at least five ice ages in our Earth's history \u2013 and outside of these ages the Earth appears to have been free of ice, even at high latitudes. The first ice age was the Huronian, which is thought to have extended from 2.4 billion years ago to 2.1 billion years ago (that's before the existence of complex single-celled life forms). This was followed by the Cryogenian from 850 to 635 million years ago (when multi-celled creatures were evolving); the relatively short Andean-Saharan from 460 to 430 million years ago (as more complex marine life was evolving); the Karoo Ice Age from 360 to 260 million years ago (as the landmass Pangaea was forming); and finally the current ice age, Quaternary, which started 2.58 million years ago (a few hundred thousand years before the first of the Homo genus had evolved) and continues to this day.\n\n_Contraction of a glacier in Chamonix_\n\nWe are now experiencing a relatively stable 'interglacial' period, which has provided the climate conditions that have allowed our race to flourish. Without this stability we may not have survived.\n\nAs to when the next ice age begins in earnest depends on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. A sudden drop would speed up the arrival of the next ice age \u2013 even as soon as 15,000 years hence. But estimates based on rising CO2 (the more likely case given our penchant for fossil fuels) suggest that our current interglacial period may persist for another 50,000 years or even considerably longer.\n\nHuman evolution\n\nIt is astonishing how recent is most of our knowledge about ourselves and our planet. As mentioned above, the concept of ice ages was only first posited in the mid-1700s and generally accepted in the 1870s. The ideas of the 'evolution' of species, including humans, and 'natural selection' have only been knocking around since the mid-1800s, and only brought to the fore in 1859 when Charles Darwin (1809\u20131882) published _On the Origin of Species_. Even so, it took many more decades for Darwin's ideas about evolution to become mainstream and be incorporated into life sciences. Thinking about the Earth's age as a 24-hour clock again, the most infinitesimal units of time measurement would be required to place these discoveries in our planet's natural history.\n\nThere was uproar just a century and half ago when Darwin more explicitly outlined his theories about human evolution in his seminal 1871 book _The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex_. In it he suggests that human races evolved from a common ancestor \u2013 and that common ancestor from a succession of animals over millennia. It was an idea appalling to the majority of the day.\n\nBut with close study and uncovering ever more substantive evidence, the proof for many of Darwin's ideas became too compelling to deny. The evolutionary theory that emerged is now widely accepted as fact by the scientific community, if not by various religious communities. To this day 'Creationists', like our friend James Usher (1581-1656), Bishop of Armagh, believe the world was created by God in six days around 4004 BCE.\n\nOur now considerable knowledge of the geologic time scale and fossil records gives us a fascinating portrait of the development of life on Earth. And discoveries in archaeology, palaeontology and DNA research continue to provide a vivid picture of our evolution as a species. We've seen already that it was just 200,000 years ago that the first anatomically modern humans appeared.\n\nThe Homo genus\n\nIt is thought that primates, from whom humans are descended, diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago, though the earliest fossil records we have are from around 55 million years ago. The first bipeds diverged around 4 to 6 million years ago, splitting from cousin primates like chimpanzees with whom we share a common ancestor, and eventually evolving into the genus, or biological classification, Homo. There is no definitive timeline for the Homo genus, and there are many candidates for the evolutionary links in our chain:\n\nHOMO HABILIS\n\n(3 TO 2 MILLION YEARS AGO)\n\nThe first documented members of the genus Homo, _Homo habilis_ evolved around 2.3 million years ago in South and East Africa. It is thought to be the earliest species to use stone tools. _Homo habilis_ 's brains were around the size of a chimpanzee's. In May 2010, a new species, _Homo gautengensis,_ was discovered in South Africa and may have evolved earlier than _Homo habilis_ , but this has yet to be agreed conclusively.\n\nHOMO RUDOLFENSIS AND HOMO GEORGICUS\n\n(1.9 TO 1.6 MILLION YEARS AGO)\n\nThese are proposed species names for fossils from about 1.9 to 1.6 million years ago but whose relation to _Homo habilis_ is not yet clear. There is just one _Homo rudolfensis_ specimen \u2013 an incomplete skull from Kenya, which may or may not be another _Homo habilis_. _Homo georgicus_ comes from Georgia, in the Caucasus region, and may be an intermediate form between _Homo habilis_ and _Homo erectus_.\n\nHOMO ERECTUS\n\n(1.8 MILLION TO 70,000 YEARS AGO)\n\n_Homo erectus_ had a long evolutionary lifespan. Records indicate that the species lived from about 1.8 million to about 70,000 years ago, possibly being largely wiped out by the so-called Toba catastrophe (a volcanic super-eruption in Indonesia, where many of the significant _Homo erectus_ fossil finds are). It is thought that some populations of _Homo habilis_ evolved larger brains and started to use more elaborate stone tools \u2013 leading to the new advanced classification _Homo erectus_. Other key physiological changes include the evolution of locking knees and a different location of the foramen magnum (the hole in the skull where the spine enters).\n\nHOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS\n\n(800,000 TO 300,000 YEARS AGO)\n\n_Homo heidelbergensis_ (also 'Heidelberg Man', after the University of Heidelberg) could be the direct ancestor of both _Homo neanderthalensis_ (Neanderthals, see here) in Europe and _Homo sapiens_. The missing link, if you will. The best evidence found for these hominines dates them to between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago, but it is thought that they may have lived from about 800,000 to about 300,000 years ago.\n\n_Homo heidelbergensis_ used stone-tool technology that was very close to those used by _Homo erectus_ , and recent findings of twenty-eight skeletons in Atapuerca in Spain suggest that this species may have been the first of the Homo genus to bury their dead. It is also thought that _Homo heidelbergensis_ may have had a primitive form of language, although no forms of art (often equated with symbolic thinking and language) have been uncovered in relation to this species.\n\nHOMO SAPIENS\n\n(250,000 TO 200,000 YEARS AGO TO PRESENT)\n\nThe most important evolutionary period for our species occurred between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago \u2013 the period of transition from _Homo erectus_ to _Homo sapiens_. During this time, our cranial sizes expanded, meaning bigger brains, and we began to use ever-increasingly elaborate stone tools. As a species _Homo sapiens_ are highly homogenous, genetically speaking. This is relatively unusual in any species so widely disbursed and is seen as evidence that we evolved in a particular place (Africa) and migrated from there. But we have evolved certain region-specific adaptive traits such as skin colour, and eyelid and nose shapes, for example.\n\nNeanderthal man\n\nNamed after the Neander Valley in Germany where the species was first discovered, Neanderthals are alternatively classified as a subspecies of _Homo sapiens_ or as a separate species but of the same Homo genus.\n\nThe earliest Neanderthals are though to have appeared in Europe 600,000 to 350,000 years ago (no evidence of Neanderthals has been found in Africa) \u2013 and to have survived there until around 25,000 years ago. Often characterized as primitive creatures with low brows and weak chins, they in fact used advanced tools (projectile points, bone tools), had a language and lived in complex social groups. The Neanderthal cranial capacity is thought to have been the same size as modern humans, possibly bigger. And when it comes to brains in the Homo genus, size really does matter.\n\nNeanderthals disappeared from the fossil record about 25,000 years ago. Theories abound as to what happened to them. But apart from hypotheses about a volcanic 'super-eruption' or their slowness to adapt to rapid changes in climate leading to their demise, it seems that the worst thing for Neanderthals was us. It is thought that Neanderthals were most likely driven to extinction because of living in competition with ever-expanding human populations. However, there is also evidence to suggest that we absorbed them through interbreeding. This latter idea is particular intriguing and DNA sequencing evidence from 2010 suggests that modern non-African humans in Europe and Asia share 1% to 4% of their genes with Neanderthals.\n\nNicknamed the 'hobbit' because of its small size, _Homo floresiensis_ is a recently discovered species said to have lived between 100,000 and 12,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores. In 2003, a female _Homo floresiensis_ skeleton was found and dated as approximately 18,000 years old. When alive, she would have been under one meter in height. She could just be a modern human with pathological dwarfism \u2013 after all, there were pygmies living on neighbouring islands until 1,400 years ago. Though the fact that this female had a particularly small skull size and therefore brain may keep the debate open a while yet.\n\nThe Three Ages\n\nHuman prehistory is frequently divided up into three ages: Stone, Bronze and Iron.\n\nAll members of the Homo genus, from _habilis_ to _sapiens_ , existed within a period broadly defined as the 'Stone Age'\u2013 which lasted 3 million years or so and only ended between 4500 and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking at different times among different human populations.\n\nBecause of the enormous length of the Stone Age relative to the metal ages that followed (Bronze and Iron), it has been subdivided into three eras: the Palaeolithic (itself divided into lower, middle and late \u2013 characterized by control of fire and use of stone tools); the Mesolithic (first use of advanced technologies including the bow and canoe); and the Neolithic (pottery, general domestication and significant burial\/religious site building).\n\nFollowing the length of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age was a mere blink of an eye. Characterized by the ability to smelt and fashion metals such as copper and bronze to make weapons, utensils and jewellery, the Bronze Age started at approximately the same time in the most populous regions of the Earth, between 3750 and 3000 BCE in Europe, the Near East, India and China, but later in other areas (800 BCE in Korea, for example) and it ended between 1200 and 600 BCE. Writing is considered to have been invented during this period in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, and the oldest known literary texts date from 2700 to 2600 BCE. Civilizations developed during this period \u2013 most notably in Mesopotamia which included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all now part of modern-day Iraq.\n\nNext up was the Iron Age, which wasn't just about iron, but also the use of steel. This period started earliest in the Ancient Near East (Anatolia, Cyprus, Egypt, Persia) around 1300 BCE, then Europe and India around 1200 BCE and later in other parts of Asia: China (600 BCE), Korea (400 BCE) and Japan (100 BCE). The Iron Age lasted into the Common Era, ending around 400 CE in Europe and as late as 500 CE in Japan. Significant texts dating from this period include the Indian Vedas, the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the earliest literature from Ancient Greece.\n\nBecause of its Christian connotations, BC (meaning 'Before Christ') is now often changed to BCE (meaning 'Before Common Era'). AD (Anno Domini, meaning 'In the year of our Lord') is increasingly replaced with the secular CE (meaning 'Common Era'). But whichever way one pitches it, the origin of 'Year One' is unchanged, coinciding with the assigned birth year of Jesus.\n\n**Visit the Grand Canyon!**\n\nAn astonishing wilderness of rock, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. A trip to the 277-mile-long canyon is also a trip to 2 billion years of the Earth's geological history \u2013 exposed in glorious layer after layer of rock record. Journeying into the perfectly preserved caves and cliff dwellings takes you back to the time when the ancient Pueblo people populated the region around 1200 BCE.\n\n####\n\nNature's timekeepers\n\nThe Earth, the Sun, the stars and the Moon were following their own cycles and rhythms long before humans invented the notion of timekeeping. The planet's rotation, the seasons, the gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon, the growth patterns of trees and plants, are all part of an intricate and interconnected natural timekeeping that the world does all by itself.\n\nThe Sun and the Moon\n\nEvery day as the Earth spins on its axis, the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The planet completes an annual orbit of the Sun following a pattern that demarks the seasons across the world and dictates the behaviour of all the plant and animal life that draw their nourishment from the Sun. The Sun rises and sets at radically different times depending on where you are. In the tropical areas north and south of the equator, it rises around 6 a.m. and sets at 6 p.m. with reassuring predictability \u2013 creating a near-perfect 12-hour day. But at the Earth's poles the lengths of days vary considerably. Sometimes the Sun never sets and sometimes it never rises.\n\nThe Sun lights different parts of our Moon each day of the month, though we always see the same 'face' of the Moon. About 29 days and 12 hours elapse between full moons, when the whole face is visible, and from this duration humans created months \u2013 though we've since tampered with the length to suit our solar-based calendars, with months now averaging 30.4 days.\n\nThe Moon's close proximity to the Earth (some 380,000 km away) creates a significant gravitational pull \u2013 strong enough to cause the tides in our oceans. 'High tide' occurs as the Moon passes over the world, pulling the water in its seas up into a hump, which follows around the planet behind the Moon. The Earth itself is pulled by the Moon, leaving another hump of water on the side away from the Moon that forms the second high tide. So as the Earth rotates there are two high tides every day in coastal areas.\n\nBecause it is further away from the Earth, the Sun's gravitational pull is less influential. But when the Sun and Moon align with the Earth, the two gravitational pulls combine to create stronger 'spring' tides. This happens every fourteen days. Because the Moon takes a little more than 24 hours to orbit the Earth, the gap between tides is around 12 hours and 25 minutes.\n\n_Spring tides result in higher than average high waters and stronger tidal currents_\n\nBut the Moon's influence on the sea doesn't end with the tides. It extends to creatures living within it. Oysters open and shut their shells in response to the gravitational pull of the Moon. And apparently the best time to go fishing is at the time of the new moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth, and the Sun is either completely invisible from Earth or visible only as a very narrow crescent.\n\nA 'blue moon' is indeed a rare thing. But it does happen every now and then \u2013 twice in every five years or so \u2013 when two full moons appear in a 1-month period. If there's a full moon on the first of a month with thirty-one days, then there'll be a second full moon, or blue moon, on the last day of that month.\n\nThe phrase can also relate to something a lot more literal, when pollution and dust from volcanoes or fires fill the atmosphere and alter our perception of the moon's colour, making it appear blue.\n\nTree rings\n\nEvery year trees grow during the summer and stop during the cold winter months \u2013 creating a new annual growth ring. Thinner rings show that growth was unimpressive in a given year, while the opposite is true of thicker rings. Rings can help us to find out the age of the tree and to gauge the weather conditions in certain years.\n\nThe oldest known living tree bears the appropriate name Methuselah. It is a Great Basin bristlecone pine located in Inyo County, California, and in 2013 was estimated to be between 4,845 and 4,846 years old. However, it is believed that an olive tree known as 'The Sisters' in the Batroun district of Lebanon is older still \u2013 anything between 6,000 and 6,800 years old.\n\n_Methuselah, the oldest known living tree_\n\nThe so-called Bodhi tree, a sacred fig located in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, was planted in 288 BCE and is the oldest living tree to have been grown by humans. According to legend, it was under a sapling from this tree that Buddha became enlightened.\n\nSun worship\n\nThe Sun as a deity appears throughout most of the known ancient religions. Our Neolithic ancestors built great monuments to it to celebrate significant astronomical events. The ancient Egyptians personified it as Ra or Horus, the ruler of the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. The Aztecs had Tonatiuh as their sun god and the leader of heaven, a god that required bloody human sacrifice in return for moving around the world. The Greeks had Helios, a handsome sun god crowned with a shining aureole or halo who drove his chariot of the sun around the world each day.\n\nThere are four key dates for our sun-worshipping forebears during the year: the Spring Equinox (20 or 21 March), Summer Solstice (20 or 21 June), Autumn Equinox (22 or 23 September) and Winter Solstice (21 or 22 December). In Europe, two of our most treasured Neolithic monuments, Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland, were constructed to channel the Sun's rays in a symbolic way on the Summer and Winter Solstices respectively. The Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year, when the Sun is highest in the sky, the Winter the shortest day, when the Sun is at its lowest. The Equinoxes occur when the centre of the Sun is in the same plane as the equator.\n\n_Helios, the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology_\n\nA large proportion of the planet continues to mark the Winter Solstice though many are unaware that that is what they are doing. It is no mistake that Christmas Day is in such close proximity to the Winter Solstice \u2013 being a deliberate attempt to co-opt the existing pagan festival. The same can be said of Easter (Spring Equinox) \u2013 which is why both celebrations are such a strange blend of Christian and pagan traditions.\n\nSeasons\n\nIn the Western world we divide our years up into four distinct seasons (winter, spring, summer and autumn or fall), which tie in with shifts in the weather, and the behaviour of plants and animals in relation to it, and are handily marked by Solstices and Equinoxes.\n\nBut such seasons are geographically unique. For example, India recognizes six seasons: hot, rainy or monsoon, autumn, winter, cool season and spring. And in many parts of Africa there are two seasons: dry and rainy. The ancient Egyptians talked of three: flood, winter and summer \u2013 each made up of four months. And for a long time the ancient Greeks didn't have an autumn season to go with their spring, summer and winter. Germanic peoples living in the more extreme conditions of Iceland and Scandinavian countries had just two seasons: winter and summer. The words and concepts of spring and autumn were introduced through contact with the Romans.\n\nIn Western countries it is widely agreed that the seasons begin in March (spring), June (summer), September (autumn) and December (winter). But in Ireland, for example, the seasons are considered to begin a month earlier, tying in with ancient festivals, most notably Bealtaine on 1 May and Samhain on 1 November \u2013 still celebrated with gusto by pagans in Ireland today.\n\nComputus is the calculation of the date of Easter used by the Roman Catholic Church, since the Middle Ages. In principle, Easter is determined to follow the full moon that chases the Spring Equinox (on 21 March). The earliest possible date for Easter is 22 March, the latest is 25 April.\n\n**Months, weeks and days**\n\nMonths\n\nAs previously noted, the time division of 'month' has its origin in the cycle of the Moon, with 29.5 days between full moons. It was only when the notion of the year came into play that the 29.5 number became inconvenient, as it does not tally with the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun (365.25 days) \u2013 thus a little extra time had to be added and subtracted to months to make twelve in a year, which is the easiest division.\n\nThe names we have for months come from the Romans and all but two date from the eighth century BCE. The New Year then began in March and the first few months were named after gods, for example Mars (now March, god of war), Aprilis (goddess of love), Maia (May, goddess of growth), Juno (June, wife of Jupiter). But then it would seem the calendar inventors changed their minds about this convention towards the end of the year and started using numeric references instead. So the last four months of the first Roman calendar were: Septem (seven), Octo (eight), Novem (nine) and Decem (ten), which we have retained but have skewed the numbers so that their original meaning has been lost (i.e. September is now the ninth month, etc).\n\nJanuary and February were added slightly later at the end of the year, as the Romans thought of winter as a monthless period, and relate to the god Janus (the god of the doorway) and 'februum', meaning purification and linked to a ritual in the old lunar Roman calendar. January came to be seen as the first month of the year in the fifth century BCE.\n\nThe names for July and August came later still. The first is for Julius Caesar, who oversaw the implementation of the Julian calendar in the first century BCE, and the second was named after his successor Augustus.\n\n_Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions and doorways_\n\nDays\n\nThe time unit 'day' describes the length of time the Earth takes to rotate on its own axis (around 86,400 seconds or 24 hours). The world's official, 'civil' day runs from midnight to midnight. It is used to determine international time zones and Coordinated Universal Time (the standard we use to set clocks across the globe).\n\nBut before we were able to do this fancy counting, days were defined either as the time between sunsets (Ancient Greeks and Babylonians) or sunrises (Ancient Egyptians). In Jewish and Muslim traditions to this day, the day is counted from sunset to sunset.\n\nWhile a day on Earth is 24 hours, it is considerably longer on our neighbouring planet Venus, where a solar day lasts 116.75 of our Earth days. Mars takes just a little longer than the Earth to rotate at 25 hours, while large planets rotate faster \u2013 Saturn and Jupiter's days are just 10 hours long, Uranus's is 18 and Neptune's 19.\n\n**Seven-day week**\n\nAggregating days into seven-day weeks is yet another inheritance from the Babylonians and early Jewish civilizations by way of Rome. The days of the week were named for the seven 'classical planets' \u2013 those that were visible to early astronomers. They were the Sun (Sunday) and Moon (Monday), and five other planets: Mercury (Wednesday), Venus (Friday), Mars (Tuesday), Jupiter (Thursday) and Saturn (Saturday).\n\nAs well as the planet connection, the seven-day week is related to Babylonian and Jewish traditions which endow the seventh day with religious significance. In the Old Testament it was the day God rested after six days creating the Earth, and so Jewish peoples began celebrating a holy day of rest every seventh day. The Babylonians celebrated every seventh day to coincide with the new moon, a quarter of a lunar orbit or 'lunation' (but the timing is a little off so synchronization soon suffered but the seven-day week remained). The ten-day week was favoured by the ancient Chinese and Egyptians as well as in Peru, whereas the Mayans and Aztecs had thirteen days in a week.\n\nOver the years, various nations have tried to tinker with the seven-day-week structure. Between 1929 and 1940, the Soviet Union adopted a five-day week. In 1793 in revolutionary France a whole new calendar system was briefly introduced based on the number ten \u2013 with ten newly named days per week (more on this later).\n\nIn English, our days of the week have been named for a mixture of seven Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Roman 'gods' \u2013 which tells the story of various conquerors of Britain over time. The Norse gods are roughly equivalent to the Roman gods (see below). Our neighbours on mainland Europe (e.g. France, Spain, Italy) retain the full suite of Roman gods\/planets for their day names.\n\n**DAY** | **GOD** | **ROMAN GOD**\n\n---|---|---\n\nMonday | Moon | Luna (moon)\n\nTuesday | Tyr (or Tiw in Old English) \u2013 Norse god of law, justice, and the sky among other things, including war. He is portrayed as a one-handed man. | Mars \u2013 the god of war and all things military.\n\nWednesday | Woden (Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Norse god Odin) \u2013 the god of war and victory, as well as poets, musicians and seers. | Mercury \u2013 the messenger with wings on his sandals. He is also the god of trade, merchants, and travel. He too has a connection with poetry and music.\n\nThursday | Thor \u2013 the Norse god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees and strength. And famous for his large hammer. | Jove \u2013 also known as Jupiter, the king of the gods \u2013 and the sky and thunder too.\n\nFriday | Frige \u2013 Anglo-Saxon goddess about whom little is known, but it is assumed she is associated with sexuality and fertility. | Venus \u2013 the goddess of love, sexuality and fertility whose Greek counterpart is Aphrodite.\n\nSaturday | Saturn \u2013 the Roman god associated with wealth, agriculture, liberation, and time, rather than the planet also named after him. | Saturn\n\nSunday | Sun | Sol (sun)\n\nCalendars\n\nDifferent cultures devised their own calendars at different times and using diverse markers and measurements, but broadly speaking these calendars fall into two categories: lunar and solar.\n\nThe Moon takes 29.53 days to orbit the Earth, so the lunar year runs to just 354.36 days to complete twelve orbits or 'lunations'. Meanwhile, the solar year, based on the Earth's orbit of the Sun, is 365.25 days long.\n\nThe Moon is the easier marker of the two, with full moons shining in the sky with reassuring regularity every month. It is therefore likely that lunar calendars were long in use before anyone thought to count a whole year.\n\nAncient bones\n\nAn artefact considered by some to be the earliest physical calendar was found in a cave in the Dordogne Valley in France and is dated as being some 30,000 years old. It is a fragment of bone from an eagle's wing upon which is etched a pattern of notches \u2013 the notches appear in groups of 14 or 15 and rows of 29 or 30.\n\n_An eagle's bone, found in Abri Blanchard, Dordogne_\n\nCould this be a Palaeolithic lunar calendar? Some archaeologists have suggested that the bone might have been used by women to keep track of their menstrual cycles and thus their fertility (though the menstrual cycle is shorter than a lunar month at twenty-eight days). It's an interesting thought. Perhaps this artefact is both a calendar and a contraceptive of sorts. Or neither, of course . . .\n\nWest of Kiev in the Ukraine, 20,000-year-old mammoth bones were found with notches that indicated lunar months in periods of four. This has been interpreted as a 'season'.\n\nTime markers\n\nThe Neolithic structures at Stonehenge and Newgrange can be considered to be calendars in that they demark and capture time \u2013 specifically the exact time of year at the Summer and Winter Solstices. Similar sites in the British Isles that serve as annual markers include Maeshowe on Orkney Island in Scotland and Castlerigg near Keswick in northern England. Such structures are not unique to Europe though. In China, midwinter is captured at Taosi in the Shanxi Province. And in Egypt the temple of Queen Hatshepsut is designed to welcome the midwinter sun.\n\n_Hatshepsut's Temple, found on the west bank of the Nile_\n\nAnother useful annual marker in ancient Egypt was the Nile, which flooded around the same time each year (mid-June, close to the Spring Equinox) and was used to mark 'New Year'. The flood was considered as one of three seasons that divided the year. The others were growth and harvest. And soon it was calculated that a year from flood to flood was 360 days, subdivided into twelve months of thirty days. Egyptian astronomers noticed that the time of the flood also coincided closely with the day that the sky's brightest star, Sirius, also known as the 'Dog Star', rose in the dawn sky just before the Sun. Using this marker the Egyptians started counting 365 days in the year instead. The resulting calendar became the 'official' calendar of the country used by priests and rulers.\n\nAncient Egyptians believed that the Nile flooded every year because of Isis's tears for her dead husband, Osiris.\n\nIn Egypt today, the flood event is still celebrated as a two-week annual holiday starting 15 August, known as Wafaa El-Nil. The Coptic Church marks the flood by throwing a martyr's relic into the river in an event known as Esba al-shahid ('The Martyr's Finger').\n\nThe Julian calendar\n\nGaius Julius Caesar observed the usefulness of having an 'official' calendar in Egypt and decided to adopt one for the Roman Empire in the middle of the first century BCE.\n\nThe Romans had been counting years and months for quite some time \u2013 starting in 735 BCE when the city of Rome was founded by the legendary Romulus (of Romulus and Remus). As previously mentioned, the first Roman calendar had just ten months in it. Then around 700 BCE, another two months were added to the end of the year: January and February.\n\nTo bring this old calendar in line with the solar year Caesar employed mathematicians and philosophers to find the most logical system. Through their efforts the Julian calendar was born, naming 25 December as the Winter Solstice (rather than 21 or 22 December \u2013 and later co-opted as Christmas Day), but the new calendar was two months behind the solar year \u2013 and so for the first year of its existence two months were added to balance things out. This year became known as the 'year of confusion'. Adding to this confusion, Caesar also announced that the year would start in January, rather than March.\n\nThe calendar had many teething problems but was soon adopted throughout the Empire \u2013 and provided the template for the modern 'Gregorian' calendar (see here). The calendar has twelve months and a leap year every four years (giving February twenty-nine days as it does today).\n\nSun's day versus Saturn's day\n\nWhen Constantine the Great became Emperor of Rome at the start of the fourth century CE, he set about adopting Christianity as a way of unifying his crumbling Empire. As part of this project he re-invented the seven-day week. In the Bible it says that while making the Earth, God rested on the seventh day. Constantine therefore decreed that Sunday should be the 'official' day of rest instead of Saturday (Saturn's day). This decision would have meant a fundamental change to the way people lived at the time. Some cultures have never quite adopted the change \u2013 with Jews still celebrating the Sabbath on Saturday. Though thanks to the five-day working week we can now pick and choose which day, if either, we decide to practise our faiths on.\n\nThe Gregorian calendar\n\nThe Julian calendar remained in situ for some 1,600 years before Pope Gregory XIII decided to upgrade it as a rather ambitious pet-project. The main issue with the Julian calendar was that it had wrongly assumed the length of a year was 365.25 days, which is actually 10 minutes and three-quarters too long. Over time this discrepancy pushed the Julian calendar ten days out of sync with the solar year. Gregory's mission was to align the two in a long-lasting way.\n\nFirst they had to lose ten days. There was much hemming and hawing about how best to do this \u2013 not having a leap year for forty years was one popular option. But in the end it was decided to get the pain over with all at once and so the day after Thursday 4 October 1582 was Friday 15 October. While getting people all over Europe to implement this change was an amazing feat, it was not without its problems. People in different countries reputedly felt that they had been robbed of ten days and they wanted them back.\n\nAs the edict for change came from the Pope, countries like Protestant Britain were slower to implement the change to the more logical system. In fact, they did not do so until 1752, at which stage eleven days had to be skipped over to align the Gregorian year with the solar year.\n\nOccurring once every four years in the Gregorian calendar, leap years are years that have an additional day to help keep the calendar year in sync with the solar year. In a leap year an extra day is added to the month of February, causing a shift or 'leap' in the days. So, in a 'common year' Friday 28 February would have been followed by Sunday 1 March, but in a leap year the first day of March is pushed one day along as 29 February 'leaps' into its place. Leap years are required because the solar year is a little over 365.24 days long.\n\nA person born on 29 February is called a 'leapling' or a 'leaper' and in common years usually celebrate their birthdays on 28 February, though in some places, like Hong Kong for example, a 'leapling's' birthday is legally regarded as 1 March.\n\nWhat year is it?\n\nWhile years on the standard Gregorian calendar are measured in relation to the presumed birth year of Jesus, non-Christian communities often benchmark theirs against the birth, death or particularly significant episode in the lives of their own religious leaders. Taking the millennium (2000) as a baseline, here is how some non-Western cultures determine what year it is:\n\n1379: IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN\n\n __ The Solar Hijri is the official calendar in these two countries \u2013 and in many ways is considered more accurate than the Gregorian, though it requires consultation of astronomical charts. To determine the Solar Hijri, you subtract 621 or 622 from the Gregorian year (622 CE was the year the Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina). So the year 2000 equals 1379 in the Solar Hijri.\n\n1421: SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER ISLAMIC COUNTRIES\n\n __ The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of either 354 or 355 days (lunar cycles are slightly shorter than the Gregorian month: 29.5 days versus an average of 30.4 days). The calendar is used for religious purposes, for example to determine the appropriate start date for Ramadan. Because of this disparity in the number of days, calculations are a little trickier than for the Solar Hijri, even though both calendars choose 622 CE as their 'Year One'. According to the Islamic calendar, the year 2000 is 1421.\n\nUpon seizing control of Libya in 1978, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi reportedly declared that the Islamic calendar should start with the death of the prophet Mohammed in 632 CE, rather than the traditional 622 CE, putting Libya's calendar ten years behind other Muslim countries.\n\n12: JAPAN\n\n __ While Japan uses the Gregorian calendar for all its official, day-to-day dealings, its year system is rather different and is based on the reign of the country's emperors. So Japan's Emperor Akihito acceded to the throne in 1989, making 2000 CE 'Year 12'.\n\n5760 OR 5761: ISRAEL\n\n __ The Hebrew calendar used to determine religious days and festivals takes 3761 BCE in the Gregorian calendar system as its start date, one year _before_ scriptures say the Earth was created (that happened on Monday 7 October the following year to be precise). To calculate the year 2000 in the Hebrew calendar, one adds either 3760 before Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year, usually falling in September or October) or 3761 after Rosh Hashanah. So while the West welcomed the millennium on 1 January 2000 it was 5760 in the Hebrew calendar, and as it prepared to usher in 2001 it was 5761.\n\nMany Christian groups like Creationists and Jehovah's Witnesses still embrace the idea that God created the world in the thirty-eighth century BCE \u2013 making our Earth around 6,000 years old.\n\n4637 OR 4697: CHINA\n\n __ Tradition holds that the Chinese calendar was invented by Emperor Huang-di in the sixty-first year of his reign (2637 BCE). But this is a date with a rather wide margin of error, with others using 2697 BCE, some 60 years later, as a baseline. So depending on what you fancy, it was either 4637 or 4697 in 2000.\n\n5102: INDIA\n\n __ The Hindu calendar kicks off in 3102 BCE \u2013 the year that Krishna is said to have returned to his 'eternal abode'. As the calendar follows the same 365-day and leap-year pattern as the Gregorian, we simply add 2000 to determine that the West's millennium fell in the Hindu year 5102.\n\n1992: ETHIOPIA\n\n __ Based on ancient Egyptian calendars but similar enough to the Gregorian calendar to allow easy calculation, the Ethiopian calendar celebrates New Year on 29 or 30 August. In terms of its Year One, it is pretty close to the Gregorian with just a seven- to eight-year gap due to a difference of opinion on the year date of the Annunciation of Jesus (when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive God's son). The Ethiopians place this event slightly later than the powers-that-be in Rome, making the year 2000 equivalent to 1992 at New Year in Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea, and giving them some breathing space before their own Y2K panic kicked in.\n\n**Check out the stars!**\n\nOn a clear night, take some time to look up at the stars. You won't be looking at them as they are 'now' but how they were when the light left them. That could be millions and millions of years ago. To get the full effect of the night sky, it's best to be in the countryside away from major sources of light pollution like big towns or cities that can block out all but the brightest stars from the sky.\n\nThe Sun is around 150 million kilometres away, though this varies, and it takes 8 minutes for its light to reach us. So when you see the Sun, you're seeing it 8 minutes in the past.\n\n####\n\nCounting the hours\n\nLike many things mathematics and astronomy-related, our time divisions came from ancient Mesopotamia, via the Babylonians and Sumerians, in the third millennium BCE. And also like the number of days in a week \u2013 or indeed the existence of weeks at all \u2013 these divisions are arbitrary, but exert considerable power over our lives nonetheless.\n\nWhy 12 and 60?\n\nThe 'sexagesimal' system, which uses 60 as its core number, is used not only for measuring time but for measuring angles and geographic coordinates too, though systems using multiples of ten are used for most other forms of counting and general calculation.\n\nSixty is a highly composite number \u2013 that is one with a useful number of divisors. It has 12 'factors' or ways of dividing into it (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12,15, 20, 30, 60), which helps to make fractions involving 60 or multiples of 60 simpler. It is also the smallest number that can be divided by every number from 1 to 6.\n\nBasically, 60 is a great number.\n\nThe use of the number 12 as a core number in time and mathematics is thought to come from people counting on their fingers. Specifically, counting the three joint bones in each of their fingers using their thumb as a pointer. There are of course other reasons why 12 has caught on in a big way. There are 12 lunar cycles within a solar year for example, though counting years came long after counting on fingers. The use of 12 as a base for counting is known as the 'duodecimal' system \u2013 which was widely used in the earliest civilizations in ancient Egypt, Sumer, India and China.\n\nHours\n\nDividing the day by the magic number 12 is largely grounded in the counting preferences of our forebears rather than anything more scientific. Saying that, the ancient Egyptians divided the day according to the rising of 36 'decan' stars, constellations that rise one after the other on the horizon throughout each rotation of the Earth. The rising of each decan signified an hour division (consisting of 40 minutes) and by the 'Middle Kingdom' period (sixteenth to eleventh century BCE) this system had been refined to count 24 decan hours in a day, with 12 for the daytime and 12 for night. But to define the actual length of one of these divisions, a measuring device was required. Enter the very first clocks . . .\n\nSunlight and shadows\n\nAs previously discussed, the Sun is the most useful of nature's clocks. Apart from sunrise and sunset, its easiest point to read is noon, when it is highest in the sky, casting the shortest shadows on the ground. And so this became the most popular point in the day from which to count. It is not known when humans began to use the Sun to calculate the time of day. Basic markers could have been used millennia ago \u2013 we just don't know. Nor do we know whether shadows or points of sunlight were first used to tell time, though the earliest sundials we know of indicate that measuring the time of day using shadows was the more common (shadows are longest in the early morning, getting shorter to noon, then longer again towards dusk). The earliest known sundials are from around 1500 BCE, used in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian astronomy.\n\nAt its most basic, a sundial is a horizontal or vertical base with a 'gnomon', a thin rod or upright sharp edge that casts shadows onto a surface marked to indicate different times of the day. To give an accurate reading, the sundial must be aligned with the axis of the Earth's rotation and the gnomon must point towards 'true celestial north'. In the northern hemisphere this is indicated by the pole star, Polaris.\n\n_A sundial, made up of a horizontal base with a gnomon_\n\nThe duodecimal markers on sundials were used to measure the length of an hour. This time measurement could then be applied to other time devices such as water clocks, candle clocks and hourglasses \u2013 inventions that helped solve the problem of telling the time on a cloudy day and at night.\n\nWater clocks\n\nWater clocks may have been in use as early as 4000 BCE in China, though the only hard evidence we have for them is considerably later, around 1500 BCE in Egypt and Babylon again. Time is measured by the regulated flow of water either into or out of a vessel whose size and flow rate is approximate to a specific time frame.\n\nExamples of basic water clocks include half-coconut shells called _ghati_ or _kapala_ in India. A small but precise hole was drilled into this simple device that was then placed in a bowl of water. The _ghati_ was sized to take 24 minutes to fill with water and sink \u2013 with each minute itself being equivalent to 60 seconds apiece. A day was therefore comprised of 60 of these 24-minute hours. The _fenjaan_ clocks used in Persia in the fourth century BCE applied the same principle though not the same time measurement.\n\nIn Greece, the _clepsydra_ or 'water thief' was a water clock constructed from a jar with a hole in the end. When the water ran out, the prescribed amount of time had been measured. To ensure fairness in Athenian courts, a _clepsydra_ was used in court cases to fix the amount of time both plaintiffs and defendants were allotted. They are also thought to have been used by prostitutes to measure the time spent with their clients.\n\nTo measure time over a longer period required constant maintenance and counting so water clocks became increasingly sophisticated. By the third century BCE, a clock had been invented in Greece that used a continuous supply of water and an overflow system \u2013 allowing longer periods of time to be measured. Further innovations and mechanisation were slow to develop, though there was a particularly productive period in the Middle East and China between the eighth and eleventh centuries.\n\n_A basic water clock_\n\nChinese Clock inventor Su Song (1020\u20131101 CE) created an astronomical water-powered clock, housed in a tower of some 9 metres. The clock featured a celestial globe and panels at the front that opened to display figures holding plaques announcing the time of day.\n\nAnother clock, described in an early thirteenth-century text and located in the Umayyad Mosque in the Syrian capital Damascus, split time into 12 equal hours. The clock had dials that indicated the time during the day and night respectively \u2013 and copper balls were released to ring the hour.\n\nThe hourglass\n\nIt is thought that hourglasses or sandglasses were first invented and utilized in Europe in the eighth century. The first evidence of their use is from the fourteenth century, captured in the 1338 fresco _Allegory of Good Government_ by Italian artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti. And frequent reference to them is found in ship logbooks from the same time.\n\nAn hourglass consists of two connected glass bulbs that allow a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be turned and timing begins afresh. They were particularly useful on board ships as they were unaffected by the motion of the sea and the granular material used in hourglass \u2013 sand, powdered eggshell or powdered marble \u2013 was less susceptible to temperature changes than water-powered clocks. In fact, hourglasses were used to measure time, speed and distance on ships until the eighteenth century.\n\nIn the next chapter we'll find out about the first reliable sea clocks or 'marine chronometers' as they're known in the time business \u2013 and the extraordinary life of the man who perfected them.\n\nAnother device employed by sailors to measure speed was a 'log line'. This was basically a long piece of rope with a series of evenly spaced knots in it, weighted down at one end with a piece of wood. The wood weight would be cast overboard and sailors would then count the knots in the rope as it was pulled from its coil behind the ship. The counting would happen during a fixed time (usually measured using a small sandglass) and speed would then be calculated in 'knots'.\n\nBurning the candle . . .\n\nAnother early 'clock' that was popular across Asia, the Middle East and Europe was the candle clock. In use from at least the early sixth century, but likely earlier than that, the principle was simple \u2013 the rate at which the candle burned was used to measure the passage of time.\n\nThe candle wax was marked at regular intervals to indicate time periods. Alternatively, the candle could be placed against a marked reflective background and the height of the flame used to indicate the time where the flame lit a marking. Other candles \u2013 created to burn within a specified time period \u2013 had a nail inside them, which would fall with a clatter once the candle had burned away, announcing the end of the time being measured.\n\nMinutes and seconds\n\nAs we have already seen, hours were initially calculated using sundials with divisions of the day based on the duodecimal system (multiples of 12). And we've also learned about the penchant for the number 60 among our forebears from ancient Mesopotamia, from whom we have inherited so much mathematical and astronomical knowledge. So it seems inevitable that the hour as a 1\/24 portion of a day would be subdivided by 60 minutes and in turn those 60 minutes each divided into a further 60 short units: seconds.\n\nBefore mechanical clocks, measuring how long a second took would have been far from scientific. We can only surmise as to how or if it was done \u2013 and it was likely to be as accurate as a child counting in a game of hide and seek. Perhaps they were indicated by steady finger clicks or heartbeats. Coincidentally, the rate of a healthy man's heart comes in around 60 beats per minute throughout his adult life, a woman's just a little over.\n\nSome of the more sophisticated water clocks designed in the High Middle Ages (eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries) were capable of measuring smaller units of time. The early thirteenth-century clock at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, for example, also indicated time periods of 5 minutes, as well as its hours. And smaller sandglasses where used to measure shorter periods for a variety of functions.\n\nUp to 1960, the second was defined as 1\/86,400 of a mean solar day, despite late-nineteenth-century astronomical findings that showed that the mean day is ever-so-slowly lengthening. With the invention of atomic clocks in the 1950s, seconds were captured and defined in exact terms. To give you a sense of the accuracy of these time-devices, there is one in Switzerland, in operation since 2004, that has an uncertainty of 1 second in 30 million years! (More on these here)\n\nBut it was with the advent of the first non-water-powered mechanical clocks that minutes and seconds came into their own, and formed the fundamental building blocks for time as we now know it.\n\nThe mechanics of clocks\n\nAs we've seen, ingenious water clocks with intricate moving parts were in use from at least the eleventh century (though there is anecdotal evidence to suggest they may have been in use over a thousand years earlier in ancient Greece). The breakthrough technology that made them possible is the 'escapement' \u2013 an invention that is still used in watches and clocks to this day.\n\nAn escapement is a device that transfers energy to the timekeeping element, also known as the 'impulse action', allowing the number of its oscillations to be counted (the 'locking action'). Think of the inner workings of a clock or watch you've seen, with its indented wheels ticking ever onward \u2013 it's the escapement that drives this motion and which causes the clock's ticking sound, as the mechanism moves forward and locks, moves forward and locks. The energy that sets the escapement in continuous motion comes from a coiled spring or suspended weight.\n\nIn water clocks, the escapement was designed to tip a container of water over each time it filled up, advancing the clock's wheels with every occurrence. The development of a truly mechanical clock however, required an escapement that could drive the clock's movement using an oscillating weight.\n\nClocks using this technology began to appear in Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were necessarily very large and had to be positioned high on a wall or tower because of the sizeable hanging weights required to facilitate continuous motion. Royalty and the ultra-wealthy were alone in being able to afford such devices, and so the majority were commissioned and used by the Church \u2013 and housed in monasteries and cathedrals. Their chief function was to call people to prayer.\n\nMedieval timekeepers\n\nThe fourteenth century saw the construction of impressive large-scale clocks throughout Europe, chiefly attached to and maintained by cathedrals. These clocks would have required constant maintenance and probably resetting due to inaccuracies \u2013 but represented incredible strides in timekeeping nonetheless.\n\nEscapements were developed and used as early as the third century BCE by the ancient Greeks to control the flow of water in washstands. There is anecdotal evidence from this time to suggest that this complex technology had already been applied to water clocks. The Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium, creator and user of escapements and author of a treatise on pneumatics, comments that the technology he is using in his washstand is 'similar to that of clocks'.\n\nAmong the many masterpieces produced were Richard of Wallingford's clock at St Albans (1336) and Giovanni de Dondi's in Padua (1348). Though neither clock still exists, we know from detailed descriptions that both had multiple functions. Wallingford's clock had a large dial with astrolabe detailing (a dial device used to locate and predict the positions of heavenly bodies), and an indicator of the level of the tide at London Bridge. Its bells rang on the hour, their number announcing the time. The Paduan clock featured dials showing the time of day, including minutes, the movements of the planets, a calendar of feast days and even an eclipse-prediction hand.\n\nAnother lost but reportedly spectacular early clock was at Strasbourg Cathedral. Its most impressive feature was a gilded rooster (a symbol of Jesus) that flapped its mechanical wings and emitted a crowing sound at noon, while three mechanical kings bowed to its splendour. This clock also featured an astrolabe and calendar. Other great fourteenth-century clocks include Wells cathedral's (now at the Science Museum in London and still working), the Gros Horloge at Rouen and the Heinrich von Wick clock in Paris.\n\nStill in operation today and drawing crowds daily is the Orloj in Prague's Old Town Square. Constructed in 1410, this beautiful device combines a mechanical clock, astronomical dial and zodiacal ring, and features many animated figures that are set in motion on the hour. These represent Vanity, Greed\/Usury, Death and a Turk (representing sinful pleasure and entertainment). The Twelve Apostles also make an appearance at the doorways above the clock every hour \u2013 it's quite a show! It has been repaired and augmented many times over its 600-plus years, and was heavily damaged by German forces during the Second World War.\n\n_The Orloj in Prague_\n\nThe word 'clock' came into usage in the late fourteenth century, replacing the Latin _horologium_ (though the practice of clock-making is still known as 'horology'). The reason for this name change relates directly to the earliest common purpose of clocks \u2013 that was to call a church's congregation to prayer through the related ringing of a bell. The word 'clock' comes from an earlier word meaning 'bell'. This word is probably Celtic ( _clocca_ or _clagan_ , meaning 'bell') which found its way into medieval Latin, Old French ( _cloque_ ) and Middle Dutch ( _clocke_ ) \u2013 all with the same meaning. The use of the word is thought to have been spread throughout Europe by Irish missionaries. The modern Irish word _clog_ can mean both 'bell' and 'clock'.\n\nAlive and ticking: the oldest working clock\n\nOlder though slightly less beguiling than the Orloj is the clock at Salisbury Cathedral. This clock is thought to date from 1386, making it just six years older than the Wells Cathedral clock mentioned above, which has been dated at 1392.\n\nSome horology conspiracy theorists (yes, they exist!) believe that the Salisbury clock is in fact from a later date, as the construction is quite advanced and similar to clocks made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.\n\nIn 1993, a symposium at the Antiquarian Horological Society voted that the Salisbury clock is indeed the older of the two \u2013 but around one third of the participants voted against, expressing their belief that the clock is of a much later date. The Salisbury clock has not been in continuous use. In fact, it was only rediscovered after many years' absence in 1928, and was not restored and reinstated until 1956.\n\n**Ignore all clocks!**\n\nOur lives are completely dominated by the time systems discussed in this chapter \u2013 the constructs of hours, minutes and seconds \u2013 captured in devices from the primitive to the sophisticated. Ditch your watch, hide the clock, turn off your mobile and free yourself from this time prison for a few days, and experience time as your prehistoric ancestors would have done \u2013 through the movements of the Sun, demarked by dawn, noon and dusk. For the full back-in-time experience (and to safely escape time-keeping devices which are _everywhere_ ) you're best off taking refuge in a cabin in the woods somewhere and not seeing anybody for the duration. It will likely be a very disorientating experience. Good luck!\n\n####\n\nGolden age\n\nIn this chapter we'll look at some of the great leaps forward in timekeeping during the periods of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and beyond. During this 'golden age', scientific innovations came thick and fast \u2013 from the invention of new mechanisms within clocks and watches to make them ever more accurate, to the physical and philosophical contributions of the likes of Galileo and Newton. We'll journey through some of time's most momentous events, as well as some of its silliest (see 'Cuckoo clocks' here).\n\nWe'll also meet some of the timekeeping titans of this golden age. These include John Harrison, inventor of the magnificent maritime measuring machines that revolutionized sea travel, and Abraham-Louis Perrelet, inventor of a self-winding mechanism for pocket watches \u2013 technology found in modern wristwatches to this day.\n\nSpring time\n\nThe next major development in timekeeping was the invention of the 'mainspring' as the power source for clocks. Replacing weights to drive the escapement, spring-driven clocks appeared in the early fifteenth century. The mechanism works by winding \u2013 which twists the spring spiral tight and releases energy as it unwinds over a period of time. The earliest existing spring-driven clock belonged to the Duke of Burgundy (now part of modern France) and dates from 1430.\n\nLater in the fifteenth century, clocks which indicated minutes and seconds began to appear \u2013 though none indicating seconds have survived (the earliest example is from 1560). Before that, most clocks had just one hand, with the face split into four sections of 15 minutes.\n\nThe advent of the mainspring led to a boom in clock and watchmaking, especially in the German cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg. As the technology became more affordable, demand soared.\n\nSmall timekeepers were very fashionable in the mid-sixteenth century and would have been worn ornamentally on a chain around the neck or fastened to clothing. They would have required regular winding \u2013 twice or more times a day.\n\nThe well heeled of Nuremberg who wanted to stand out from the crowd commissioned all manner of unusual and eye-catchingly shaped watches \u2013 representing animal forms, flowers, insects and skulls. The face of watches was exposed, though many had lids to protect the hands. Glass over the face only began to be used as standard in the early seventeenth century.\n\nIn 1510, the German master clockmaker Peter Henlein (1485\u20131542) created the 'Nuremberg Egg', one of the first-known watches. Henlein is often credited with 'inventing' the watch, though the Nuremberg of his time was bursting with talented clockmakers dead set on turning out ever-smaller and more intricate timekeepers for their fashionable clientele.\n\n_The Nuremberg Egg_\n\nIndeed, the business was so competitive that it turned violent. In September 1504, Henlein was involved in a brawl with fellow locksmith\/clockmaker George Glaser, in which his rival was killed. The details are sketchy but we do know that Henlein fled to a local Franciscan monastery were he sought sanctuary for four years. By 1509 he was back in favour and was appointed the master of Nuremberg's locksmith guild.\n\nWhen King Phillip II (1527\u20131598) of Spain's son and heir Charles suffered a serious brain injury his father was naturally distraught. And when Charles miraculously recovered, the king believed it could only be the work of God favouring his family and answering their prayers. Phillip vowed that he would thereafter honour God with continuous prayers. But being king is a busy job. So, instead of doing the praying himself, Phillip commissioned an automaton (aka robot) to be made to do his praying for him.\n\nUsing the latest in clockwork technology, the automaton was made of wood and iron, standing at 15 inches tall. It was driven by a key-wound spring and could walk in a square, strike its chest with one hand, and raise and lower a wooden cross and rosary with the other. When operated, its head nodded, turned, rolled its eyes and opened and closed its mouth in rickety 'prayer'.\n\nFour hundred years later, this perpetual prayer machine is still in good working order and lives in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.\n\nHuguenot horologists\n\nThe centre of European clockmaking activity moved from Germany to Switzerland in the early sixteenth century \u2013 following a highly skilled group called the Huguenots. Originally from France, the Huguenots were followers of John Calvin and members of the Protestant Reformed Church during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Highly critical of the Catholic Church, they were victims of intense persecution. During the St Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, up to 30,000 Huguenots were slaughtered by Catholics in Paris, sparking similar attacks in provincial towns and cities in the weeks that followed. This brutality was officially sanctioned \u2013 the perpetrators were pardoned for their actions against the Huguenots.\n\nIt is estimated that as many as 500,000 Huguenots fled to Protestant countries including England, Denmark, the Netherlands and North America. But it was in Switzerland that they established themselves as master clockmakers and gave that country the leading edge, which it is still famous for to this day. King Henry VIII welcomed the Huguenots into England. In fact, he personally brought a group of clockmakers over from France to attend to the clocks in his palaces.\n\nBig swing\n\nThe horological innovations continued apace, though the one I'm about to describe took quite some time to get from idea to practical application.\n\nThe story goes that the Italian polymath Galileo Galilei (1564\u20131642), known variously as the 'father of observational astronomy', the 'father of modern physics', and the 'father of modern science', was in the Cathedral or Duomo in Pisa in 1582. The young student was reportedly wiling away the service observing the swinging motion of a large bronze lamp in a draught. Galileo timed the swings against the beats of his pulse and found that regardless of how wide the swings of the lamp, the time between them was always the same \u2013 nine or ten pulses. He got home and tried a number of experiments and found that the length of the rope used to create the pendulum motion affected the swing rate \u2013 the longer the rope, the longer the swing time.\n\nGalileo applied his findings to the creation of a portable pulse meter, which he used in his medical work. The usefulness of the device was soon recognized by the medical establishment. Later in life, Galileo discovered that the pendulum could be applied to clocks and drew up plans for the first pendulum clock in 1637, but he never built it. His son Vincenzio started work on the clock in 1649, but died before he completed it.\n\nIt was another polymath, Christiaan Huygens from the Netherlands, who finally brought Galileo's vision to life in 1656 when he constructed the very first pendulum clock \u2013 which was accurate to less than 1 minute per day, highly accurate at the time. In 1675, Huygens also invented the spiral balance spring for the balance wheel of pocket watches, making them significantly more accurate.\n\n_A basic pendulum clock_\n\nWhile Huygens's pendulum clock was certainly revolutionary, the type of escapement it used, known as 'verge', gave too wide a pendulum swing and its accuracy was compromised. The invention of the 'anchor' escapement around 1670 reduced the pendulum's swing significantly, and the shorter the swing the greater the accuracy of the clock. The anchor quickly became the standard escapement used in pendulum clocks, though who actually invented it is unknown. Clockmakers Joseph Knibb and William Clement, as well as the scientist Robert Hooke, are variously credited with its creation.\n\nGrandfather clocks\n\nThe preferred swing range of pendulums was narrowed further still and soon the seconds pendulum came to be favoured, swinging once per second. The long narrow clocks built around these pendulums were first crafted by Englishman William Clement around 1680 \u2013 and became known as grandfather clocks. Minute hands were also introduced as standard around 1690.\n\nThe name 'grandfather clock' is thought to have come from a popular song from the 1870s called 'My Grandfather's Clock', written by abolitionist Henry Clay Work. The eponymous clock resided in the George Hotel in Yorkshire, England, and was renowned as a very accurate timekeeper, that is until one of its two owners passed away and it began to mysteriously lose time. When the second owner died, it reportedly stopped working altogether.\n\nThe metronome\n\nThe invention of the pendulum led to the creation of the first prototype metronome in 1696. Designed by French musical theorist Etienne Louli\u00e9, the device had an adjustable pendulum that could be set to different speeds, but it did not make a sound nor have an escapement to keep the pendulum in motion.\n\nAnother hundred years-plus would pass before the metronome proper was invented, this time in the Netherlands in 1814 by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel. Though Winkel invented it, another man called Johann Maelzel developed, patented and started manufacturing metronomes in 1816 under the name 'Maelzel's Metronome' lest there be any confusion. It was designed as a tool for musicians to keep a steady tempo \u2013 at various speeds. The tempo is measured in beats per minute (bpm) ranging from 40 to 208 bpm.\n\nSo as well as coming up with the pendulum, Galileo Galilei made significant contributions to the fields of physics, maths, astronomy and philosophy.\n\n1. As a medical student and practitioner he invented not only a pendulum-based pulse meter but a 'thermoscope', a forerunner to the thermometer.\n\n2. He was an instructor at the art school Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence where he taught perspective and _chiaroscuro_ (the lighting effect used by Caravaggio and Rembrandt).\n\n3. He made improvements to the technology of the telescope, equipping himself to confirm the phases of Venus and to discover the four largest lunar satellites of Jupiter, named the Galilean moons in his honour. He also studied sunspots and the Milky Way, which had previously been largely dismissed.\n\n4. He championed the Copernican theory that the Sun rather than the Earth was at the centre of the 'universe'. This met with opposition from both his astronomical peers and the Church. He was accused of heresy, tried and forced to spend the last fifteen years of his life under house arrest for daring to challenge the establishment. In 1939, Pope Pius XII described him as among the 'most audacious heroes of research' and eventually, in 1992, Pope John Paul II issued an official apology for how Galileo was treated, on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.\n\n5. Among his other achievements, he invented a military compass that allowed greater accuracy in cannon use, created a compound microscope, described an experiment for measuring the speed of light, and put forward a principle of relativity that provided the basics for Newton's laws of motion and Einstein's special theory of relativity!\n\nPocket watches\n\nOutside of church clock towers, time and timekeepers were very much the preserve of the moneyed \u2013 and their practical uses were often secondary to their material expression of wealth and fashion. This was especially true of the pocket watch. In fact, it is thought that the pocket watch evolved to complement a burgeoning fashion of the late seventeenth century \u2013 the waistcoat.\n\nActually, it's not entirely true to call the waistcoat a 'fashion'. The generously bewigged King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland introduced the waistcoat as a part of 'correct' dress during the Restoration of the British monarchy (his father was executed by the government of Oliver Cromwell in 1649). The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote in October 1666 that 'the King hath yesterday in council declared his resolution of setting a fashion for clothes which he will never alter. It will be a vest, I know not well how.'\n\nThe pocket watch evolved, with its close-fitting lid and rounded edges, to slip neatly into the pockets of such a vest or waistcoat.\n\nSir Isaac Newton\n\nIt's hard to know where to place Sir Isaac \u2013 so great was his contribution across so many of the areas featured in this book. His book _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, first published in 1687), set out Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation \u2013 paving the way for the study of physics thereafter.\n\nAmong his other achievements were his astronomical calculations, which cemented the belief that the Sun is the centre of our 'universe' rather than the Earth (which went without the punishment meted out to Galileo for the same). He built a reflecting telescope, studied the speed of light and contributed to the development of calculus.\n\nNewton distinguished between 'absolute' time and 'relative' time. In his conception, time was 'not liable to any change' \u2013 it exists without us, is independent and absolute, and it progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe. According to Newton, people can only perceive 'relative' time, which we measure through perceivable objects in motion like the Moon or Sun \u2013 or indeed clocks. Through these movements we create our sense of the passage of time.\n\nBut despite his apparent scientific rationalism, in later life Newton dedicated a great deal of his time to alchemy (trying to turn base metal into gold) and the study of biblical chronology. In fact, through his work on the latter, Newton estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060 \u2013 though he would give no firm prediction as to when it would actually end. Instead, he stated: 'This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.'\n\nThe end of time\n\nMost world religions, the Abrahamic (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and non-Abrahamic, have specific teachings on the 'end time'. Across belief systems, the end time is usually characterized by a period of tribulation, redemption and\/or rebirth, ushering in a new era where life is eternal.\n\nRenowned theologian Hippolytus of Rome and others predicted that Jesus would return in the year 500 CE and usher in the end time with his second coming. Following this non-event, others including Pope Sylvester II (946\u20131003) predicted the end on 1 January 1000. The anticipation of this millennial apocalypse brought thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem, as the ground zero of the Christian end time.\n\nWhen this too failed to occur, other Christians decided the end would happen on the 1,000-year anniversary of the death, rather than the birth, of Jesus \u2013 1033. Determined to keep the anniversary theme alive, 2000 was the next obvious year to focus on. The possibility of Jesus reappearing to do battle with the Antichrist tended to be overshadowed by grim apocalyptic visions of nuclear holocausts, asteroid strikes \u2013 and of course the much anticipated technological disaster of Y2K.\n\nRecent years have seen a glut of predictions. Fear of the Large Hadron Collider brought apocalyptic visions of the planet being devoured by black holes. The 'Rapture' was due to happen on 21 May 2011 according to US Christian radio host Harold Camping. He predicted that on that date around three per cent of the world's population would ascend into heaven and the rest of us would die horribly with the Earth five months later on 21 October. Camping had previously stated that the Rapture would occur in September 1994. Rather than throw his rather battered hat in the ring a third time, Camping announced that his attempt to date the end of time was 'sinful' and that his predicting days were numbered.\n\nMany people got stirred up with talk of the Mayan apocalypse \u2013 based on a very subjective reading of a stone inscription. The world was due to end on 21 December 2012 and again defied predictors.\n\nUndiminished, apocalyptic predictions for our third millennium CE abound among Christian, Muslim and Jewish theologians. Scientists are a little more generous with the end date though, giving planet Earth at least another 5 billion years or so \u2013 at which point it will likely be swallowed by the Sun. Though before that, as the Sun grows hotter, life on the planet may become impossible in a mere 1 billion years. In turn, the 'Big Rip' theory suggests that the entire universe will eventually be torn apart by its continuous expansion in around 22 billion years' time.\n\nSetting the time\n\nUp until the 1670s, nobody outside of the maritime world really cared about a fixed concept of time \u2013 and that remained the case until quite a few years later. Time was localized not synchronized. In the absence of mass communications or basic infrastructure, it really didn't matter what time it was in the next town or city \u2013 only the ringing of your own church bell counted.\n\nBut for mariners, knowing the time was essential. It gave them control over navigation (more to follow on this), and also of the tides \u2013 knowing when the tide would be high or low according to their tide tables was vital for organizing sailing times. In London, the hub of maritime life in Stuart England, Greenwich on the River Thames was selected as the place where clocks would be set before voyages.\n\nThe Royal Observatory, Greenwich\n\nIn 1675, the restored King Charles II of England (he of the waistcoats decree) established the Observatory at Greenwich as the place where his Astronomer Royal would 'apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation'.\n\nThe Observatory was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren, the man who rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral and countless churches destroyed in the Great Fire of London, as well as designing the massive Royal Greenwich Hospital for Seamen at the bottom of the hill upon which the observatory stands. The Observatory has the further distinction of being the first purpose-built scientific research facility in Britain, housing the finest equipment and telescopes in the land.\n\nBut while this worthy work of mapping the heavens for the benefit of English seafaring was going on, the Observatory's foremost use was a time collection point for mariners disembarking from the docks of Deptford and Greenwich. In the 20-foot-high Octagon room were two clocks created by Thomas Tompion (see 'Timekeeping titans' here), each with an enormous pendulum measuring 3.96 metres and giving time to an unparalleled accuracy of 2 seconds per day. Before setting sail, clocks and watches would be set at Greenwich. But despite careful maintenance, accuracy could not be safeguarded for long at sea \u2013 and we'll soon see how one master clockmaker, John Harrison, dedicated his life to creating the perfect marine timekeeper.\n\nIn 1833, to save mariners trudging up the steep hill, a time ball was installed on top of the Observatory. This bright red orb was, and indeed still is, raised just before 1 p.m. every day and drops exactly on the hour, so sailors in situ on the Thames could set their marine chronometers accordingly. A few years later in 1855, the Shepherd Gate clock was mounted on the wall outside the Observatory. It has a 24-hour dial and is an early electric slave clock \u2013 driven by electric pulses transmitted from the master clock inside the main building. It is thought that this clock was the first to display 'Greenwich Mean Time' to the public.\n\nFrom 5 February 1924, the British Broadcasting Corporation began transmitting a time signal direct from Greenwich. The 'pips' as they were known, were intended to help people to set their watches and clocks to the correct time. There were six pips in total, the last one longer than the others and announcing the exact moment of the start of the next hour. Because radio waves travel at the speed of light, the pips could be transmitted to the far side of the world and still give a time reading accurate to around a tenth of a second.\n\nHow well the skilful gardener drew\n\nOf flow'rs and herbs this dial new;\n\nWhere from above the milder sun\n\nDoes through a fragrant zodiac run;\n\nAnd, as it works, th' industrious bee\n\nComputes its time as well as we.\n\nHow could such sweet and wholesome hours\n\nBe reckoned but with herbs and flow'rs!\n\n_Andrew Marvell, The Garden, 1678_\n\nMany years after Andrew Marvell wrote the above lines, botanist Carolus Linnaeus wrote about the idea of a flower clock in the 1751 publication _Philosophia Botanica_. Subsequently a number of botanic gardens attempted to plant flowers as he suggested \u2013 that is, so flowers bloomed and closed in sequence, demarking different times of the day. Sow thistle for example, typically opens at 5 a.m. and closes at 12 p.m. Hawkweed opens at 1 a.m. and closes at 3 p.m. The latest closing flower recommended by Linnaeus was the Day-lily at 7 to 8 p.m. Seasonal and weather changes make this a rather tricky clock to maintain.\n\nThe pips are no longer broadcast from Greenwich, but from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Surrey, which uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) \u2013 the successor of GMT \u2013 for its reading.\n\nMaritime time and the longitude debacle\n\nThe 'Age of Sail' between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a worldwide revolution in trade and human movement around the planet. But as we've read, sailing was a precarious adventure, not least because of the difficulties in determining longitude \u2013 the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north-south prime meridian line.\n\nSeafarers used calculations based on astronomical maps and live readings of the stars to try to deter-mine their location at sea \u2013 but with the result that they often missed their end destinations by a considerable margin, or in worst cases experienced shipwrecks and lost lives. So great was the problem that in 1714 a competition was announced to find the best solution to the longitude problem, with the British Parliament offering a considerable prize of \u00a320,000 (approximately \u00a32.9 million in today's money).\n\nSelf-educated carpenter and watchmaker John Harrison from Yorkshire took up the challenge to invent a sea clock capable of keeping time in the harshest conditions and thus aiding a simpler, time-based calculation of longitude. In the process he pitted himself against the astronomical establishment. His chief competitor was Nevil Maskelyne, an astronomer with strong support on the Board of Longitude working on a 'Method of Lunar Distances' for calculating longitude.\n\nHarrison invented five masterpieces of maritime timekeeping over a 40-year period \u2013 each one breaking new ground in horology. He started with the large and beautifully ornate H1 and finished with the deceptively simple H4 and H5 (oversized pocket watches which could withstand the shocks of sea travel). When H4 was tested on a transatlantic journey to Jamaica, it was just 5 seconds slow. When the ship returned, Harrison expected to be awarded his \u00a320,000. He was wrong. The Board of Longitude stated that this accuracy could be luck and requested further trials.\n\nOn H4's second journey, this time to Barbados, it was accurate to within just 39 seconds. Also on this second voyage was Nevil Maskelyne, testing his Method of Lunar Distances for measuring longitude, which was accurate to within 30 miles \u2013 an impressive result, but still not as strong a performance as Harrison's H4. Plus Maskelyne's calculations required considerable time and effort, unlike the sea clock.\n\n_Harrison's H4_\n\nAgain the Board of Longitude said that H4's accuracy was a matter of luck and required that it undergo further testing by the Astronomer Royal, the newly appointed Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne unsurprisingly returned a very negative report on the sea clocks' performance and scuppered Harrison's chance of claiming the prize.\n\nThough he felt 'extremely ill used' by the establishment, the dogged Harrison began work on H5 and enlisted the support of King George III \u2013 who himself tested the clock, reported on its incredible accuracy and advised Harrison to petition parliament for the full prize. At the age of 80, Harrison eventually received \u00a38,750 of the longitude prize money but he never received the official award, nor did anyone else for that matter. He died three years later in 1776 at the age of eighty-three \u2013 bucking another time trend of the era by living so long. By the early nineteenth century, the use of sea clocks was the norm for establishing longitude in maritime travel.\n\nPrime meridian\n\nFor the purpose of global navigation, the prime meridian is the agreed point of 0\u00b0 longitude which encircles the Earth. This notional line divides the planet into eastern and western hemispheres, just as the equator divides it north and south. However, unlike the equator, the position of the prime meridian is arbitrary. As a consequence, many countries have tried to claim that the invisible 0\u00b0 line should pass through their little patch.\n\nThe first recorded meridian line is found on Ptolemy's 'world' map of 150 CE, though the idea of a prime line of longitude dates to the third century BCE. Ptolemy's map consists of about a quarter of our globe \u2013 stretching west to east from the Canary Islands in the Atlantic off Spain as far as China. And under the Arctic circle in the north to the top half of Africa in the south.\n\n_Ptolemy's world map, 150 CE_\n\nThe meridian line on this map passes through El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands, as it was the westernmost body of land known at the time. This map and location of the prime meridian were influential in cartography right up to the late fifteenth century, until explorers such as Christopher Columbus started to rapidly increase the size of the known world.\n\nThe focal point of the line moved a little south and west to Cape Verde off the coast of Africa on the advice of Columbus, becoming known as the Tordesillas line, after a treaty between Spain and Portugal to settle territorial disputes over newly discovered land. The line fluctuated between Cape Verde and the Canaries for another 200 years until the early eighteenth century, when the British went hell-for-leather trying to solve the longitude problem and assigned Greenwich as the point the prime meridian passes through. With so much nautical information and guidance pouring forth from Britain \u2013 the Greenwich meridian soon became the norm. In 1884, an International Meridian Convention held in Washington, DC officially agreed that Greenwich was indeed the site of the prime meridian, though the French continued to use Paris until 1911. Greenwich Mean Time was also established as the standard time from which the rest of the world should measure its time of day.\n\nThe site of the prime meridian in Greenwich is a major tourist draw, with lines of people queuing to get their picture taken straddling the eastern and western hemispheres. At night the observatory shines a green laser beam into the sky to proudly demark the line that determines the degrees and measurements on every contemporary map of the world.\n\nThe revolutionary power of ten\n\nNot a country to be told to fall in with either standard time or a standard calendar, France attempted to break with both during the years following its revolution. The French Republican Calendar was used for about twelve years from 1793 and was adopted as part of France's bid to embrace decimalization (using 10 instead of 12 as a fundamental unit), as well as to divorce the calendar from religious associations.\n\nThe government abandoned the Christian system for years, dating the new calendar from the birth of the Republic (Year One being 1792), and though it continued to split the year into twelve months, these were divided into three ten-day weeks called _d\u00e9cades_. Keeping the decimal theme going, these days were split into 10 hours, each made up of 100 decimal minutes of 100 decimal seconds. So the new hour was more than twice as long as the old one of 60 minutes of 60 seconds. Even the minutes got longer \u2013 they were equivalent to 86.4 seconds rather than 60, though the seconds themselves were shorter at 0.864 of a conventional second.\n\nClocks were created to report decimal time, but their makers were not inundated with orders. Decimal time was only mandatory for two years and abandoned completely in 1805, as ironically it proved a complete waste of time.\n\nThe names for the 'new' months were vivid and evocative, relating to nature and the weather. The autumn months, for example, were Vend\u00e9miaire (Grape Harvest), Brumaire (Fog) and Frimaire (Frost).\n\nThe ten days of the week were somewhat more functional: Primidi (first day), Duodi (second day), Tridi (third day) . . . ending with D\u00e9cadi (tenth day) which was a day of rest equivalent to Sunday.\n\nRather than have saints' days like the once-dominant Catholic Church, the French adopted a system of assigning an animal, plant\/food, mineral or tool to each day of the year. The twenty-eighth day of Vend\u00e9miaire (22 September to 21 October), for example, is the day of the tomato, and the fifth day of Frimaire (21 November to 20 December) is the day of the pig.\n\nTimekeeping titans\n\nThe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw so many great innovations in timekeeping and the creation of such a vast array of intricate, beautiful and sometimes just plain weird timekeepers that doing them justice would require another book. However, there are a few heroes of horology who must be mentioned.\n\nThomas Tompion (1639\u20131713)\n\nReferred to as the 'Father of English Clockmaking', Thomas Tompion created the first two 'regulator' clocks for the Observatory at Greenwich, used by the very first Astronomer Royal, Sir John Flamsteed. Accurate to within two seconds a day (the most accurate in the world at the time), these clocks could run for a full year without rewinding \u2013 and they continued to run while being rewound. They were used to literally 'keep' time at the observatory \u2013 providing the time for all other clocks and watches in use there and for seafarers.\n\nInspired by the French Republican Calendar, the Cambodian despot and head of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, declared 1975 to be Year Zero to mark the occasion he took control of Phnom Penh, the largest city in the country.\n\nBut Pol Pot was very literal-minded with his changes to time in the country \u2013 and he was determined to alter not only the calendar but the epoch in which Cambodians lived. He sought to de-industrialize the country, levelling the societal playing field by effectively making everyone a member of an uneducated, peasant class. The country's history was to be erased \u2013 and so intellectuals, teachers and artists, who might keep the cultural memory alive, were targeted for persecution.\n\nDuring the four years of Pol Pot's rule, approximately 2 million people lost their lives as a consequence of political executions and forced labour.\n\nTompion employed a number of skilled French and Dutch Huguenots (who we know were reputed for their horological talents) in his workshop, which may account for the consistently high quality of the timekeepers he produced. Tompion's workshop built about 5,500 watches and 650 clocks during his career. He also created a serial numbering system for his spring and long-case clocks, perhaps the first for manufactured goods.\n\nGeorge Graham was Tompion's most famous prot\u00e9g\u00e9e and ultimately his business partner. Graham invented the 'Graham dead-beat escapement' in around 1715, which developed on the escapement first made by Tompion in 1675 for the Greenwich clocks. His support for John Harrison was also invaluable \u2013 he loaned him \u00a3200 so he could start work on his first marine chronometer, H1.\n\nJulien Le Roy (1686\u20131759)\n\nThis master craftsman belonged to the fifth generation of a family of clockmakers and made his first clock at the age of just thirteen. He moved to Paris from his hometown of Tours a year later and rose through the ranks of guilds, the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Arts, and ultimately became the official clockmaker or _Horloger Ordinaire du Roi_ to King Louis XV in 1739.\n\nLe Roy made many mechanical innovations, including a special repeating mechanism that greatly improved the precision of watches and clocks. He made one for Louis XV that is thought to be the first to allow the owner to remove the clock face to see the intricate inner workings.\n\nDuring his professional life, Le Roy and his workshop produced some 3,500 watches \u2013 around 100 per year \u2013 while other workshops would have produced somewhere in the region of thirty to fifty timepieces per year. Examples of his work are housed in the Louvre in Paris and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.\n\nContinuing the dominance of this clockmaking dynasty, Le Roy's son Pierre (1717\u20131785) is responsible for three major innovations in horology that paved the way for the modern precision clock and marine chronometer, the latter inspired by the work of Englishman John Harrison. These are the detent escapement, the temperature-compensated balance and the isochronous balance spring.\n\nFor a pretty daft invention, the cuckoo clock has some impressive forebears. The Greek mathematician Ctesibius fashioned a water-driven automaton of an owl for his second-century BCE clock. It whistled and moved at certain times. Then in 797 CE, Harun al-Rashid of Bagdad gave Charlemagne a clock from which sprang a mechanical bird to sound the hours. And the renowned fourteenth-century clock in Strasbourg Cathedral featured a gilded rooster, which flapped its mechanical wings and emitted a crowing sound at noon each day.\n\nThere were a few clocks featuring mechanical cuckoos in the seventeenth century, but the eighteenth saw a veritable flurry of them coming out of the Black Forest region of south-west Germany \u2013 but we don't know who started the trend or why. They became increasingly more elaborate and intricate with time. So much so that the _Guinness Book of Records_ has a category for the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, which at the time of writing resides in Sugarcreek, Ohio, and is 23 feet tall and 24 feet wide, featuring a five-piece band, a couple dancing a polka and, of course, a large cuckoo singing in the half-hours.\n\nCuckoo clocks have a metaphorical association with madness \u2013 and there are a remarkable number of them which are said to be haunted. Yes, haunted. I've come across accounts of one that supposedly starts by itself and goes straight to the right time unaided, and another that produces a ghostly apparition when it chimes midnight. Some of the mechanical birds are thought to have wicked intentions \u2013 with the spirit of a real bird trapped within. Given that cuckoos are such nasty nest-stealers by nature, it's scarcely surprising.\n\nAbraham-Louis Perrelet (1729\u20131826)\n\nIn the 1770s, this ingenious Swiss horologist invented a self-winding mechanism for pocket watches. The mechanism works using the oscillating up-and-down motion of a weight as its owner walks \u2013 operating on the same 'automatic' principle as the modern wristwatch. A test conducted by the Geneva Society of Arts concluded in 1777 that 15 minutes walking would keep a Perrelet watch ticking for eight full days. Another of his inventions was the 'pedometer' \u2013 a device that measured steps and distance while walking, and now a rather popular, though usually digital, item for avid walkers and runners.\n\nThe Perrelet brand is still producing luxury timepieces in Switzerland, and claiming in its promotional tagline to be the 'Inventor of the Automatic Watch'.\n\n**Past-life regression**\n\nPut your scepticism aside and book yourself an appointment with a hypnotist. As they lull you into a trance you may have the potential to travel back in time from the comfort of their leather couch.\n\nPractitioners of past-life regression believe that you can recover and relive memories from your own past \u2013 forgotten or repressed \u2013 or go even further back into previous incarnations, lived in different physical bodies long deceased.\n\nEven if you don't believe what you find yourself saying, you'll learn something of the vividness of your imagination and the gems you have stored in the recesses of your wonderful, complex mind.\n\n####\n\nStandard time\n\nWe saw in the previous chapter how Greenwich became the centre of timekeeping and the site of 0\u00b0 longitude. But despite these advances it would take another 150 years for the notion of 'standard' time to take hold \u2013 and that was down to the arrival of the railway.\n\nA brief history of rail travel\n\nThe idea of rail travel, that is pulling goods along a purpose-built surface, goes right back to ancient Greece in the sixth century BCE. Spanning 6 kilometres of grooves cut into limestone, the Diolkos 'wagonway' was used to transport goods (in trucks pushed by slaves) for over 600 years. Railways using tracks or grooves appeared from the fourteenth century and by the sixteenth century narrow-gauge railways with wooden rails were common in European mines.\n\nBritain led the way in the development of more ambitious railway lines. By the seventeenth century, wooden wagonways were in common use for transporting coal from mines to canals, and horse-drawn railways sprang up throughout the eighteenth century. The Industrial Revolution saw the invention of the steam engine and in 1825 an engineer called George Stephenson built the 'Locomotion' for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north-east England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. He followed this with the intercity railway line from Liverpool to Manchester, which opened in 1830.\n\nThe steam locomotives built by Stephenson were soon in use throughout Britain, the US and Europe. By the early 1850s, Britain had over 7,000 miles of rail track.\n\nIn America, building railways was a much more laborious undertaking, given the sheer scale of the country, but they were critical to pioneering businessmen who wanted to open up access to the west. Keeping a keen eye on developments in Britain, America opened its first small-scale railways in the 1830s and 1840s, but it was the period between 1850 and 1890 that saw rapid expansion of the railroads and America becoming home to one third of the total track mileage on the planet. The first transcontinental railroad was aptly completed in 1869 following the civil war, connecting the country together for the first time.\n\n_An early steam locomotive_\n\nTrain time\n\nWith the surge in railway building across Europe and America, it became pretty obvious that a standard time was needed for services to run efficiently.\n\nGreenwich Mean Time was first officially used by the railway system in Britain in 11 December 1847 \u2013 with every train having its own portable chronometer set to GMT. And to facilitate the precision of 'railway time', as it became known, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich began to transmit time signals by telegraph in August 1852.\n\nHowever, it took another thirty years-plus for standard time to replace local time on the US railway system. The different railway companies in America set their own time standards. The leading standards were New York time, Pennsylvania time, Chicago time, Jefferson City (Missouri) time and San Francisco time \u2013 and with so many competing 'local' times in use, things got rather confusing.\n\nIn October 1883, the heads of all the US and Canadian railway companies met in Chicago and agreed to adopt a four-time-zone standard (five time zones are now in use). On 18 November 1883, all the railways readjusted their clocks as per their relevant time zones, though Standard Time was not enacted into law in the US until 1918.\n\nThe railways literally carried standard time around these countries and in just a few years all time was set to match it \u2013 except the time kept by the British Post Office that is, which continued to be 'London time' rather than GMT until 1872. GMT became the legal time in Britain in 1880.\n\nTime zones\n\nThere are twenty-four time zones in use across the world, which use the notional lines of longitude to define their boundaries, with each one taking Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as its reference or 'offset' time. Every 15 degrees of longitude adds or subtracts an hour to\/from GMT depending on whether it's going west (minus) or east (plus) \u2013 with 360\u00b0 of longitude ultimately adding up to 24 hours.\n\nSome nations and territories are more flexible in terms of how they interpret time zones and longitudinal boundaries. Our two most populous countries in the world, India and China, apply a single time zone to their vast expanses (more on time in China shortly). India also uses half-hour deviations, along with Newfoundland, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Burma, the Marquesas, and parts of Australia. Other nations and provinces, including Nepal and the Chatham Islands, use quarter-hour time deviations.\n\n_The world's time zones_\n\nCoordinated Universal Time\n\nCommonly known as UTC, this system is largely a continuation of Greenwich Mean Time, with the terms GMT and UTC being used interchangeably with much the same meaning \u2013 to laymen at least. The introduction of UTC was led by the International Astronomical Union, which called for a more stable and accurate time standard that took into consideration the Earth's natural 'wobble' \u2013 and the fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing ever so slightly due to the drag of the tides.\n\nThe abbreviation of Coordinated Universal Time to UTC rather than CUT may seem a little odd. In French it would be _Temps Universel Coordonn\u00e9_ , or TUC, so as a compromise with France it was agreed that Universal Time Coordinated or _Universel Temps Coordonn\u00e9_ would be used and abbreviated to UTC, even though it is most commonly referred to as Coordinated Universal Time.\n\nMany would be unaware of this, but GMT ceased to be the world's 'official' time standard in 1972. UTC is held by a number of atomic clocks, some 260 in total, in forty-nine different locations around the world (more on atomic clocks soon). The master of all these clocks is at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. Though it's unlikely to captivate the imagination as the centre of time quite like leafy, lovely historic Greenwich (I've lived there \u2013 I'm rather biased).\n\nTechnically, the colossal country that is modern China straddles five time zones, but it uses only one. Officially the entire country is 8 hours ahead of GMT (or UTC). The decision to have one time zone instead of five came in 1949 when the Chinese Civil War saw the end of the Republic of China and the start of the People's Republic of China. With this new communist era, the country was unified under one time, known as Beijing Time, though out of necessity local time continued to be unofficially used in western parts of the country that are up to two and a half hours behind Beijing Time.\n\nMecca Time\n\nWhile Greenwich is the largely agreed upon site of the prime meridian for secular, administrative purposes, there are a number of other meridians dotted around the world \u2013 the most interesting among them relating to holy sites.\n\nThe Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest and oldest of the mighty pyramids of Egypt, for example, was an obvious and popular choice for the line to pass through up until the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was a popular meridian point for devout Christians but again it didn't catch on globally. But much more recently Mecca, which is the centre of the Muslim world, has been proposed as a new and appropriate site for the prime meridian. Time at the Mecca meridian is UTC+02:39:18.2.\n\nThe idea that Mecca should become the focal point of the prime meridian came in 2008, when Muslim clerics met in Doha, Qatar, at a special conference titled: 'Mecca: the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice'. Then the world's largest clock (more on this later) ticked into life in Mecca at the start of Ramadan in August 2010 \u2013 displaying Mecca Time \u2013 well sort of. In fact, it was ultimately set to display Arabia Standard Time, which takes its lead from the meridian at Greenwich rather than leading with its own.\n\nDaylight saving time\n\nDaylight saving time is observed largely in the northern hemisphere: Europe, Canada and America, along with a couple of African and Latin American countries, New Zealand and part of south-east Australia \u2013 though many more countries observed it in the past, including Russia, China and India. The basic principle is adding an hour in spring and subtracting that hour back in autumn to make our days a little bit longer and brighter in the evening \u2013 in summer at least.\n\nDaylight saving time was first introduced in the early twentieth century during the First World War by Germany and its allies as a way of saving coal and other energy sources. Their enemies \u2013 Britain, France, et al \u2013 decided this was a good idea and followed suit, as did many of the neutral countries on the peripheries of the war. By 1918, Russia and the US had adopted daylight saving time too.\n\nMany countries abandoned daylight saving time in the years following the war with the exception of the UK, France, Ireland and Canada \u2013 though other countries dipped in and out \u2013 and with the coming of the Second World War it was widely adopted once more. The 1970s energy crisis saw a spike in popularity for pushing clocks forward in springtime to reduce the amount of fuel used for electric lighting.\n\n**From pocket to wrist**\n\nIn the last chapter we saw how the trend in portable pocket watches sprang from the seventeenth-century fashion for waistcoats \u2013 and in popular culture the image of the well-heeled gent, with a gold chain across his midriff, is familiar from that time right up to the early twentieth century. But with ever-increasing numbers of watches being produced, and continuing advances in timekeeping technology, the pocket watch went from being an item sported only by the wealthy to a much more ubiquitous one. Functional as well as fashionable, the pocket watch had to evolve to keep the market fresh and so, in the early twentieth century, along came the latest must-have item: the wristwatch.\n\nThe Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea still live their lives by the 'bird clock'. The early morning calls of certain birds tell the people to get up and the afternoon calls of others tell them to go home, ensuring that people are safely back in their villages while visibility is still good.\n\nOf course, the crowing of cocks still heralds the start of the working day in rural areas in the West, though they are likely supplemented with an alarm clock just in case. Like humans, chickens have a 'circadian' cycle \u2013 with biological processes relating closely to the 24-hour day. Light cycles exert influence over their heart, brain and liver functions and, in male chickens, testosterone, which relates to their crowing behaviour.\n\nChickens have been known to shift their roosting and crowing patterns in response to changes in light intensity caused by the changing of the seasons or living on higher ground. In a mountainous area of northern India it was found that cocks started 2 to 3 hours before sunrise. The intervals between their crows increased the closer it came to sunrise, despite the fact that the Sun was not visible to them.\n\nWristwatch No. 1\n\nThe story goes that in 1904 the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont asked his friend, the French watchmaker Louis Cartier, to design a watch for him that he could easily refer to while flying \u2013 the pocket watch being an inconvenient item to consult mid-air. And so Cartier developed the first wristwatch. Well, technically it wasn't the first \u2013 the Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe developed the 'lady's bracelet watch' in the 1860s as a stylish piece of timekeeping jewellery for the woman about town \u2013 but Cartier's wristwatch design caught on in a way that PP and others could only dream of. And the main advantage it had was war.\n\nAs well as seeing the first widespread use of daylight saving hours, the First World War also saw a surge in popularity for the wristwatch \u2013 a much more convenient item for an officer to wear on the battlefield.\n\nLuxury brands\n\nLike the pocket watch before it, the wristwatch started life as an exclusive item, worn by middle- and upper-class men because of its initial expense. The 'inventor' of the men's wristwatch Louis Cartier marketed his first 'Santos' watch to the great and good in 1911. He followed that in 1912 with two models that are still on sale today \u2013 the 'Baignoire' and 'Tortue' \u2013 and because the war created such demand, he also released the rather macho-sounding and still popular 'Tank' in 1917.\n\nCartier remains a luxury brand to this day \u2013 selling high-end watches and jewellery. Visit the Cartier website and you'll find the least expensive watch on for a tidy \u00a31,600, while the price of the most expensive is undisclosed \u2013 you have to request it. But the uppermost price on display is an impressive \u00a350,000 for a diamond-encrusted, white-gold affair.\n\nA browse through many of the online catalogues of the most luxurious of the luxury watch brands yields the same silence on price. Most of the most exclusive companies are Swiss and pretty old \u2013 TAG Heuer, Vacheron Constantin, Breitling, IWC, Zenith, Audemars Piguet, Girard Perregaux, Blancpain, Patek Philippe, Piaget, etc. It would clearly be vulgar to put a price on watches so special.\n\nSteel and plain old gold are the cheapest materials relatively speaking. But white, yellow and pink gold see the prices soar, and they go rather stellar when you throw in some precious stones, platinum, titanium or palladium.\n\nAt the time of writing, the Chopard 201-Carat Watch is the most expensive watch on the market, coming in at a cool $25 million. And it is also one of the most hideous-looking things around. A blur of gaudy precious stones, with a tiny watch face tucked away in there somewhere, it's impossible to know how you'd even wear the thing. Amusingly, the second most expensive is a pocket watch made by Patek Phillipe in 1933, priced at $11 million. Indeed, vintage Patek Phillipe watches tend to fetch millions at auction without fail \u2013 take that, Mr Cartier!\n\nBack in 1999, a Thomas Tompion clock from 1705 fetched over $2 million at Sotheby's and would likely make much more than that if re-auctioned today. But the current clock record is held by a French design by Abraham-Louis Br\u00e9guet. Built in 1795, this rare Sympathique clock is currently valued at $6.8 million.\n\nClever clocks\n\nAdvances in physics in the twentieth century revolutionized timekeeping and clocks became very, very clever indeed. It's all a bit much for my unscientific mind, but in the following pages I've done my best to outline the chief advances that have changed the way we tell time for ever.\n\nPiezoelectricity\n\nSome solid materials \u2013 crystals, ceramics, biological materials like bone \u2013 accumulate and store an electric charge. Known as piezoelectricity (from the Greek 'to squeeze' \u2013 as squeezing releases the energy), it was first discovered and demonstrated in 1880 by brothers Jacques and Pierre Curie (husband of Marie). They revealed how an electrical charge could be generated when mechanical force was applied to crystals (including quartz), sugar cane and Rochelle salt.\n\nPiezoelectricity was subsequently used in sonar devices developed during the First World War, including an ultrasonic submarine detector, phonograph cartridges, telephony devices and aviation radios, among other innovative new technologies. But more importantly for us, piezoelectricity powers the quartz crystal oscillator that is the driving force in most modern wristwatches.\n\nQuartz timekeepers\n\nQuartz crystals have been used in both clocks and watches since the 1960s. When electric pulses are applied to the crystal it vibrates \u2013 and these vibrations can be fine-tuned to any desired frequency. For clocks and watches, the crystal is cut into the shape of a tiny tuning fork and manipulated until it vibrates to a frequently of 32,768Hz \u2013 equivalent to a 1-second pulse. This is all terribly precise and revolutionized timekeeping.\n\nThe first quartz clock was developed in 1927 and the National Bureau of Standards in the US used quartz time as the time standard for the whole country from 1929 until the 1960s. The first quartz wristwatch came onto the market in time for Christmas in 1969 and cost the same as a small car. Despite the high price, Seiko's Astron model sold well and, with research and development, quartz watches were soon affordable for the majority.\n\nIn 2013, the popular men's body-spray brand Lynx unveiled a new advertising campaign during the coveted US Super Bowl ad break spot. The ad features a statuesque and fearless lifeguard undertaking a daring rescue of a damsel being distressed by a shark. After he's beaten up the shark and returned the young lady to land, the pair share a tender moment until she spies a man approaching wearing an astronaut suit. She abandons the lifeguard and races into the arms of the astronaut as the tagline 'Nothing Beats an Astronaut' appears on screen.\n\nBut the truth is nothing beats the extraordinary advertising coup of the Omega Speedmaster watch back in the late 1960s. First, it was endorsed by NASA as spaceflight-ready, then it was worn during the first American 'spacewalk' on the Gemini 4 mission in 1965 (when astronaut Edward H White floated around in space outside his ship for 20 minutes), and _then_ it was worn by none other than Neil Armstrong when he took those first steps on the Moon.\n\nAtomic clocks\n\nWhile quartz oscillators still proliferate in clocks and wristwatches, such devices are no longer used as the source of standard time. Earlier in the chapter I mentioned that Coordinated Universal Time is held and maintained by a number of atomic clocks, some 260 in total, in forty-nine different locations around the world, with the master of all these located at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. But what is an atomic clock?\n\nThese clocks are accurate to within 1 second every 30 million years. Born out of particle physics in the 1930s and 1940s, atomic clocks use minute vibrations emitted by electrons in atoms to calculate time. There are 9,192,631,770 atomic vibrations in every second. The first accurate atomic clock was invented in 1949 by the American physicist Isidor Rabi (1898\u20131988).\n\nAtomic clocks are used to control the wave frequency of television broadcasts, and in global navigation satellite systems \u2013 from which the GPS in your car or mobile phone draws its data.\n\nQuantum clocks\n\nA close relation of the atomic clocks, quantum clocks bring aluminium and beryllium ions together in an electromagnetic trap and cool them to near absolute zero temperatures. Now, I can't pretend to know what that does, except that vibrations are involved, but I do know that it makes quantum clocks even more accurate than the atomic clocks which are the current keepers of standard time \u2013 more than thirty-seven times more accurate apparently. The most accurate of these ultra accurate clocks was built in February 2010 by the clever people at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. It uses a single aluminium atom and is expected to lose just 1 second in 3.7 billion years. Though how this will be tracked is another issue entirely.\n\nReading about an invention as complex and precise as the atomic clock, accurate to within 1 second in 30 million years, it's hard to grasp the relative silliness of Y2K. Also known as 'the millennium bug', Y2K was going to be the end of us all \u2013 because we hadn't programmed our computer technology to cope with a change of date from 31 December 1999 to 1 January 2000, from the twentieth into the twenty-first century. With most computers using a two-numeral system to represent the year date i.e. 99 rather than 1999, it was thought that the change to 00 would bring about confusion and chaos in our global systems. So systems were upgraded in a hurry toward the end of the 1990s, but that didn't stop a media frenzy predicting the end of modern civilization.\n\nPeople started stockpiling food and saying prayers to protect themselves against this impending technological apocalypse. But when the date came, the apocalypse was nowhere to be seen. Though there were some computer failures, the exact number isn't known, because, well, it's a rather embarrassing thing to admit. Saying that, there were a couple of scary occurrences as a result of the 'bug'. In Japan, radiation monitoring equipment failed and at a nuclear plant an alarm sounded just after midnight causing panic. A significantly less scary thing happened in Australia, where ticket validation machines on buses failed in two states. And in America some slot machines in Delaware gave up the ghost.\n\nBearing in mind my initial comment about atomic clocks, the US Naval Observatory that runs the master atomic clock for UTC gave the wrong date on its website on 1 January 2000 \u2013 posting the year as 19100 instead \u2013 as did France's national weather forecasting service. Proofing against Y2K cost over $300 billion worldwide.\n\nFor the record\n\nSo far this book has sought to capture the history of time and timekeeping, and to report on some of the phenomenal advances in technologies and some of the silliest too. But before we take a leap into the future in the next chapter, it's time to take stock of where we are now and take a peak at some mind-boggling records of the day.\n\nThe shortest time ever measured\n\nBack in 2004, scientists claimed to have measured the shortest interval of time ever: 100 attoseconds. An attosecond is one quintillionth of a second. One attosecond is to a second what a second is to around 31.71 billion years \u2013 more than twice the commonly held age of the universe. The 100 that have been measured, if stretched so that they lasted 1 second, would last 300 million years on the same scale. It boggles the mind!\n\nWe're unlikely to hear much about attoseconds in our day-to-day lives, but milliseconds, microseconds and nanoseconds are already here and will be increasingly important in the future.\n\nFirst off, let's consider the second itself. In Chapter 3 we touched on the ancient origins of the duodecimal (12) and sexagesimal (60) counting systems and how the idea of a second was born of that (24 hours of 60 minutes, each subdivided into smaller units of 60 \u2013 aka seconds). Up to 1960 the second was defined as 1\/86,400 of a mean solar day, but now it is measured by atomic clocks and defined by atomic vibrations, so 1 second equals 9,192,631,770 vibrations.\n\nWhen you're dealing with numbers that big, there is plenty of scope to drill down into smaller and smaller parts. A millisecond is a mere one-thousandth of a second, or one beat of a midge's wings (a housefly's takes about 3 milliseconds). Milliseconds are handy for measuring computer activities, which tend to operate much faster than the human mind. For example, computer monitor response times tend to be between 2 and 5 milliseconds.\n\nA microsecond is one millionth of a second, or a thousandth of a millisecond. It takes the human eye around 350,000 microseconds to blink. These and nanoseconds (a mind-boggling one billionth of a second) are used to measure light speeds and sound frequencies. There are also picoseconds (one trillionth of a second) and femtoseconds (one quadrillionth of a second) which are used to measure things like the vibrations of atoms in molecules.\n\nThe longest-running clock\n\nThe longest-running clock, that we know of at least, is the 'Beverly Clock', which lives in the reception of the Department of Physics at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Constructed in 1864 by Arthur Beverly, the clock has never been manually wound, ever. Instead, its mechanism is driven by perpetual motion caused by variations in atmospheric pressure and changes in daily temperatures. The temperature variations either cause the air in a 1-cubic-foot airtight box to expand or contract, pushing on the clock's internal diaphragm. A variation of 6\u00b0C over the course of a day will create enough pressure to lift a one-pound weight by one inch and drive the clock's mechanism onward.\n\nNow, the clock may never have been wound, but it has actually stopped a few times. On occasion the mechanism has needed to be cleaned or it has failed and needed to be repaired, or at other times the temperature variations have not been sufficient enough to power the clock.\n\nAt the University of Oxford in England lives the Oxford Electric Bell, or 'Clarendon Dry Pile', which is an experimental electric bell that has been continuously ringing since 1840 \u2013 well, almost continuously. Thankfully for the other occupants of the building that houses the bell, its ringing is inaudible behind two layers of glass.\n\nThe biggest clocks\n\nThe biggest clock in the world, in terms of the size of its visible workings, is the same clock discussed earlier as the keeper of 'Mecca Time'. This gargantuan clock sits atop the Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Its face has a diameter of 43 metres. The clock tower that houses it is the tallest in the world (and the second tallest building in the world), and the building that houses the tower has the world's largest floor space. It'll be a while until anyone trumps this place.\n\nOther notably enormous clock faces are the Cevahir Mall clock in Istanbul (36 metres) and the Duquesne Brewing Company Clock in Pittsburgh (18 metres). The famous Big Ben in London is a mere 6.9 metres in diameter (you could fit six of them on the Mecca clock face with room to spare).\n\nWhat qualifies as a clock these days is up for discussion. Clocks are embedded in most of our technological devices and invisible apart from that digital display in the lower right-hand corner of our computer monitor or the screen of our mobile phone.\n\nThe current record holder for the 'smallest atomic clock' was constructed at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in Colorado in the US. It was unveiled in 2004 and is the size of a grain of rice and is accurate to 1 second in 3,000 years \u2013 so considerably less accurate than the most accurate atomic clock in Switzerland, which is accurate to 1 second in every 30 million years. But still, a clock the size of a grain of rice and that accurate is pretty impressive.\n\nThe longest-running time experiment\n\nBack in 1927, Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, commenced what is now the longest-running time test: the pitch drop funnel experiment.\n\nPitch is a petroleum product, an elastic polymer, with a tough rocklike appearance. When heated up pitch becomes highly malleable and is used for waterproofing boats. At room temperature pitch feels solid \u2013 even brittle \u2013 and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer. If heated and left to its own devices it takes years for it to change and move.\n\nParnell was curious about this material and wanted to demonstrate the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, so he heated a batch of it and poured it into a funnel. He sealed off the funnel, allowed the pitch three years to settle, trimmed off the end of the funnel and waited for it to drip. Eight years passed. And then the first drip fell from the pitch, in a blink of an eye, in December 1938 \u2013 eleven years after the experiment commenced.\n\nSince that time the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel. At the time of writing, over eighty years since the experiment began, the ninth drop is only just forming for its all-too-brief journey out of the funnel. The time it takes for the drips to come out is inconsistent. For example, the sixth drop fell in April 1979, 8.7 years after the previous one, but it then took 9.3 years for the seventh to come out in July 1988 and then 12.3 for the next one in November 2000.\n\nImages of the funnel can show a large droplet of pitch hanging tantalizingly from its mouth \u2013 looking ready to drop at any moment \u2013 but still with years to go. When it does drop, it takes just an eighth of a second. The experiment's current custodian is John Maidstone. He's been watching it since January 1961 \u2013 and he has never seen it happen. He has missed this grand event five times. In 1988, he missed it while making a cup of tea. In November 2000, he set up a camera to monitor it as he was away in London, only to find that the camera had failed and the drop was not captured. Maidstone described it as one of the saddest moments of his life.\n\nThe fact is nobody has ever seen it drip. But next time they definitely will \u2013 whether in real time or captured on camera. Not willing to risk missing it again, Maidstone now has three cameras continually focussed on the pitch to capture the moment it drops. And, rather sadly, people across the world are watching it live online. You can too at the University of Queenland's School of Mathematics and Physics website.\n\nIf you find you develop a taste for such things as a consequence, I recommend www.watching-grass-grow.com \u2013 the web address tells its own story.\n\nThe longest and shortest lives\n\nRelative to other creatures with which we share the world, humans live a long time, though life expectancy varies widely depending on where you are born (see here).\n\nAccording to botanist and ecologist Ghillean Prance, 'The shortest biography is said to be that of the mayfly: Born. Eat. Sex. Die. Pausing neither to eat nor to court, mayflies emerge from the nymph stage with all the food they need for their adult life, and mate in flight. Typically they live only one or two days.' It is worth noting that the immature part of the mayfly's life, the 'naiad' or 'nymph' stage, can last up to a year, before its all too brief adulthood.\n\n_The brief stages of a mayfly's life_\n\nInsects tend to dominate the 'shortest living' category. Among mammals, the house mouse probably has the shortest innings, with those living to four years being in the geriatric class. Among fish the mosquitofish is an OAP by two, and among birds hummingbirds are way over the hill if they make it to seven or eight.\n\nIn the animal kingdom, the Asian elephant has been observed to live as long as eighty-six years, while the oldest living bird is the macaw, which can live up to 100 years in captivity. The lizard-like tuatara reptile of New Zealand can live up to 200 years, while the Japanese koi fish can live more than 200 years in the right conditions. One such fish, called Hanako (meaning 'flower maid') was reportedly 226 years old upon her death in 1977. Greenland sharks, native to the North Atlantic, are believed to live to around 200, and the slow-moving Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise can keep going till around 190 according to current data \u2013 and there are many examples of tortoises living in excess of 150 years. The Bowhead whale is also thought to live to around 200 if life is relatively incident free.\n\nThe longest-living known creatures are molluscs in the bivalvia category (whose bodies live in shells of two hinged parts). One quahog clam, affectionately known as Ming (comparing its great age to that of the Chinese Ming Dynasty), was believed to be 405 to 410 years old when discovered (and killed) off the Icelandic coast in 2007. Its age was judged by the annual growth rings on its shell \u2013 it is unknown how long this creature may have continued to live on the ocean floor had it not been 'discovered'.\n\nThere are sponges near Antarctica which are thought to be at least 10,000 years old and black coral in the ocean off New Zealand that may be 4,000-plus years old.\n\nWe should consider the speed at which life is lived and experienced by these different creatures. The tortoise lives its long life with a glacial slowness that befits its age, while the tiny hummingbird can beat its wings as often as 90 times per second when hovering, while some short-lived flies like midges can beat theirs more than 1,000 times per second. So another way of looking at it is that hummingbirds and flies pack as much into their little existences as tortoises do \u2013 just a hell of a lot faster.\n\nAccording to the Guinness Book of Records, Jeanne Calment of France lived the longest life on record \u2013 dying in 1997 at the tender age of 122 years, 164 days. Prior to Calment the record was held by Japanese centenarian Shigechiyo Izumi \u2013 though it turned out that Mr Izumi's record could not be verified and he may have been a mere 105 at death rather than 120. Typically, Izumi's longevity was not hampered by the fact that he put away a daily dose of booze and took up smoking at 70. Japanese woman Misao Okawa who is 115 at the time of writing, took possession of the Guinness World Record as the oldest living person in June 2013, when her Japanese compatriot Jiroemon Kimura expired at the tender age of 116.\n\n**Dash across the International Date Line**\n\nThis imaginary line around the Earth passes through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, following the similarly imaginary 180\u00b0 longitude line. Well, it doesn't so much follow it as zigzag in proximity to it as it journeys from the North to the South Pole. On either side of this imaginary line it is a different calendar day. A traveller crossing the International Date Line going east has to subtract a day or 24 hours, heading west they add a day. So criss-crossing the International Date Line allows us to travel back and forward in time by 24 hours!\n\nIn Jules Verne's _Around the World in Eighty Days_ (1873), Phileas Fogg believes that he has lost his famous wager to complete his eighty-day journey by the evening of Saturday 21 December 1872. Disappointed, a little humiliated and believing it to be Sunday 22 December, Fogg realizes, just in the nick of time, that he forgot the Date Line in his calculations and that he did in fact complete the journey in seventy-nine days, and dashes to claim his prize. Good old-fashioned time travel in action.\n\n####\n\nReal time\n\nIn August 2011, I was living in Greenwich, London, the home of time. Between the 6th and 11th of that month, multiple riots broke out all over London and elsewhere in England. Out the window of my flat on Blackheath Hill I could see a helicopter hovering over nearby Lewisham, where clashes with the police and looting were taking place. Meanwhile I had the television tuned to the live news on the BBC where the images captured by the aforementioned helicopter were being broadcast, and in my hand I held a smartphone upon which I was following live reports on Twitter from the ground in Lewisham.\n\nThe events were happening, being reported, accessed and processed in 'real time'. In real time, events are captured and transmitted at the same rate that the audience experiences them. And for a generation of young technology users, real time is, well, real time. Information is instantaneous, as is our interaction with it. This is the new normal for now. But real time is set to get a whole lot faster.\n\nInstant messaging\n\nThe biggest change in mass communications since the advent of postal systems was the invention of the telegraph. The first electrical telegraphs were sent in Germany in the 1830s and could travel a distance of around 1 kilometre. The subsequent flurry of activity on both sides of the Atlantic in developing the technology and laying the requisite cable meant speedy advances in telegraphy in the 1830s and '40s, most notably by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in the UK, and Samuel F. B. Morse, of Morse code fame, in the US.\n\nBy the 1850s the first commercial telegrams had been sent the 750 miles between New York and Chicago \u2013 taking a mere quarter of a second to travel that distance (that's 11 million miles per hour). The first people to use it could barely fathom that such a thing was possible. By the 1860s a transatlantic telegraph cable was in operation, and by the 1870s Britain was wired to its faraway colony India. In 1902, the telegraph system spanning the Pacific was complete and the world was fully encircled by wires, relaying and receiving information over vast distances at previously inconceivable speeds. And then it went wireless.\n\nUsing radio technology, pioneer Albert Turpain sent and received his first Morse code radio signal in France in 1895. It only travelled 25 metres, but was a considerable achievement. The following year an Italian called Guglielmo Marconi sent his first radio signal a full 6 kilometres. Marconi took his technology to Britain and the rest is history. In 1901, the first wireless transmission, the letter _S_ , was sent across the Atlantic.\n\nConcurrent with these developments, other inventors were working on transmitting not just signals, but human voices through wires. The electric telephone was invented in the 1870s and the first commercial services were established in New Haven, Connecticut, and London in 1878 and 1879 respectively. Telephone exchanges were established in every major city in the US by the middle of the 1880s, but it wasn't until 1915 that the first US coast-to-coast, long-distance telephone call was placed \u2013 from New York to San Francisco. And it would be another twelve years before human speech could be carried across the Atlantic, when in 1927 radio was used to transmit voices back and forth.\n\nIt's hard to imagine how profound an impact these new forms of mass communications had on everyday life and people's perceptions of the world they lived in \u2013 and of speed and time. Where once a letter would take weeks and even months to bring news of its writer across the world, messages could now be relayed in moments. But once these things became the 'new normal' people came to expect them, and to expect faster, better ways of sending and receiving information at that.\n\n_The transmitter at Alexandra Palace_\n\nThe innovations continued thick and fast. In the UK, the BBC put out its first radio transmissions in 1922, and by 1925 some 80 per cent of the country was being reached through regional and relay stations. Also in 1925, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the transmission of moving pictures (just silhouettes at that time) at Selfridges department store in London. Two years later the cathode ray tube was invented and the BBC started its first experimental broadcasts in 1932, with an expanded service launching from Alexandra Palace on a high hill in North London in 1936 \u2013 a world first.\n\nFlash forward to today, through the innovations and inventions of colour television, videotelephony, satellite phones, radio and television and all the advances in computer technology. On a single device we can now access full-colour, high-definition television or listen to radio in 'real time', play games, read the newspaper, receive video calls, send email, and communicate with friends, family and the wider world instantly through myriad social channels, take photos or video footage \u2013 and tell the time \u2013 all while walking down the street. And it's only been possible to do all of these things together since the late 2000s. Now that's time speeding up.\n\nIf we want to slow it down again, we can always watch the pitch drop experiment livestreamed from Australia on this same device. It's due to drop any day now . . .\n\nThe speed of money\n\nThe average person's electronic interaction with their money is a speedy affair. Banks communicate with each other instantly, relaying the information necessary for us to make a quick financial transaction almost anywhere in the world, or to complete multiple transactions from the comfort of our desks through online banking. But this speed and ease is laughable next to the lightening-fast activity on today's stock markets.\n\nOn the stock market, where countless goods and financial products are traded \u2013 the tangible and intangible \u2013 50 to 70 per cent of all the trades are executed by an algorithm with no human input. And buying and selling is conducted in milliseconds.\n\nA 'high-frequency' electronic trader might do 1,000 trades in a minute, but for every trade conducted there are numerous uncompleted transactions that disappear into the ether. These high-high speed computers test the market, sending out buy-and-sell orders and when another computer connects with an order, all the others that weren't taken up are cancelled.\n\nFurther computer programs have been designed to identify and defy other similar trading algorithms. These jump into the market, push the price up and sell to other algorithms, making huge sums in seconds.\n\nIn the New York Stock Exchange there is a room that is 20,000 square feet (about three football fields) filled with row upon row of servers, around 10,000, owned by various financial institutions and each analysing 'the market' and trading. This is all done without any human involvement and significantly faster than any human can think, let alone act.\n\nInformation wars\n\nIn the highly competitive world of stocks and shares, the speed at which information travels from, say, the commodities market (basic goods) in Chicago to the equities market (stocks in companies) in New York is critical to closing deals faster than the other guy. Every millisecond counts. Fibre-optic cables allow information to travel between these markets in 15 milliseconds. But traders want that information even faster. This demand started a race to get the straightest and therefore fastest fibre-optic line from Chicago to New York to shave a millisecond or two off the speed at which information travelled, providing much-valued time to the ultra-fast trading computers.\n\nThe speed of light through air is even faster than fibre optics. So to capitalize on this, towers are now being constructed to beam information between the trading centres in an estimated 8 milliseconds. One day soon these transmissions may be conducted in microseconds, or possibly even nanoseconds.\n\nSo I hope we've established that the way we live and the way we interact with each other is accelerating. And as a consequence time is becoming ever more precious. In this fast, frenetic, multi-tasking world we're streamlining everything, including how we find our partners. Enter speed dating. Rather than spending all that time trying to meet 'the one', you can now go to one place and meet a number of 'ones', talk to them for short intervals of between 3 and 8 minutes, and if a connection is made before the bell rings, note it, pass it on to the organizers and let them tell you whether your potential beloved returns your affections. Cue wedding bells.\n\nFaster and faster and faster\n\nInformation travels far faster than humans can. But humans can travel pretty fast. The fastest footspeed record currently belongs to the appropriately named Usain Bolt, who made it up to 27.79 mph (44.72 kph) during a 100-metre sprint in 2009. Bolt completed the 100m race in 9.58 seconds, beating his own previous world record of 9.69 seconds. Humans are still considerably slower than other animals. Cheetahs are the fastest creatures on Earth and, in 2012, a Cheetah called Sarah created a new world record by running 100 metres in 5.95 seconds, reaching a top speed of 61 mph (98 kph). Saying that, even a domestic cat could outrun Usain Bolt \u2013 reaching recorded speeds of 30 mph (48 kph).\n\nTravelling faster and reducing the time spent getting from A to B has been a key human endeavour. Next, we'll look at some of the fastest modes of transport ever invented and consider the future of how we travel at ever greater speeds.\n\nPlanes, trains and automobiles\n\nThe Wright brothers' first successful engine-powered flight in 1903 reached a whopping 6.8 mph (10.9 kph) speed. By 1905 their speed record was up to 37.85 mph (60.23 kph). Today's airspeed record for a manned flight was set by the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in July 1976. This bird got up to 2,193.2 mph (3,529.6 kph).\n\nThe fastest commercially available car is the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, which can go from zero to 60 mph in 2.4 seconds and reach a top speed of 267 mph (431.07 kph). You can get your own for just $2.4 million. There are, however, no roads upon Earth on which you can legally drive at that speed \u2013 the highest legal speed limit is a mere 150 kph in Italy (followed by 140 kph in Poland, Bulgaria and the United Arab Emirates). There is no speed limit on the German autobahn, though 130 kph is recommended. Travelling 300 kph faster in a Bugatti would likely not go down too well.\n\nTo give a sense of just how fast we've speeded up over time, the first commercial automobile powered by petrol, designed by German Karl Benz (of Mercedes-Benz), hit the road in 1888 with a maximum speed of just 16 kph. The fastest train on the planet is currently the CRH380A in China, which has a top speed of 302 mph \u2013 making it the fastest legal way to travel by land.\n\nBreaking the sound barrier\n\nThe speed of sound is 343.2 metres per second (or around 768 mph). The sound barrier was first encountered during the Second World War when aircraft started to see the effects of compressibility \u2013 an aerodynamic effect that struck their crafts, impeding further acceleration. Hitting the sound barrier in an unsuitable craft creates loud cracks or 'sonic booms'. Design changes to aircraft, making them more aerodynamic, allowed them to break through this barrier and increase acceleration. The sound barrier was officially broken by American Chuck Yeager in 1947 flying an XP-86 Sabre.\n\nThe first time a land vehicle broke the sound barrier was just one year later in 1948, when an unmanned rocket sled reached 1,019 mph (1,640 kph) before jumping off its rails. The first manned vehicle was driven by Briton Andy Green in 1997, when his vehicle, the Thrust SSC (supersonic car), achieved a top speed of 763 mph (1,228 kph).\n\nIn October 2012, Austrian Felix Baumgarter became the first skydiver to travel faster than the speed of sound, reaching a maximum velocity of 833.9 mph (1,342 kph). To achieve this he jumped from a balloon floating 24 miles (39,045 metres) above New Mexico (and way above the stratosphere) \u2013 and in doing so also broke the record for the highest-ever freefall. To put that in perspective, your average Boeing 747 reaches a maximum height of 13,000 metres and Mount Everest peaks at just 8,848 metres. Baumgarter's fall to Earth took just over 9 minutes, with only the last 2,526 metres negotiated by parachute.\n\nRocket speed\n\nIn May 1969, the _Apollo 10_ space rocket set off on a dry-run mission, testing all the procedures required for landing on the Moon \u2013 without actually landing on the Moon. That was done by _Apollo 11_ in July of the same year. During that mission, _Apollo 10_ is thought to have reached the highest speeds ever attained by a manned vehicle \u2013 24,791 mph (39,897 kph).\n\nIn 2004, NASA tested a hypersonic aircraft, which used a rocket booster to launch and ultimately reached speeds of 7,000 mph (10,461 kph). If this technology could successfully be applied to manned passenger flights, it would utterly change the way we move around our planet and how we experience time and distance.\n\n_Apollo 10_\n\nFuture travel\n\n __ Flying cars: We've all seen the sci-fi movies in which sleek, aerodynamic automobiles glide through impossibly high cityscapes. But the flying cars we may drive in the future will more likely draw on microlight technology and look a bit like two-person, enclosed gliders with detachable wings. Such vehicles will allow us to fly to nearby countries with ease. With fuel-efficient engines and being able to fly at around 150 mph without having to navigate roads, flying cars will be an attractive, environmentally friendly option. And they won't cost the Earth either \u2013 perhaps the same as a new high-end family car.\n\n __ Rubbish-powered autos: The film _Back to the Future_ was made in 1985 and its closing scene featured the futuristically dressed character 'Doc' feeding waste matter into a fuel converter on this time machine\/car. Back in 1985 this seemed like a pretty far-fetched idea, but today it is already a reality. Waste-to-energy plants are mushrooming across Europe, turning our unrecyclable rubbish into electricity. This electricity could soon be used to power road vehicles. While there are only a few electric cars currently on our roads, one day they'll be the norm, if hydrogen-powered cars don't beat them to it. These cars of the future will not only be greener, but considerably safer too. Traffic may even be controlled by satellite technology with vehicles talking to each other, and traffic jams could be a thing of the past.\n\n __ Magnetic trains: Elevated train tracks and monorails are nothing new. But magnetically levitated trains, which travel at average speeds of 260 mph, are. The first 'Maglev' train line is already in operation between the city centre in Shanghai and Pudong airport. The downside is that this new style of train transport is expensive to put in place, requiring new track. However, other train technology is catching up \u2013 and can travel nearly as fast as the Maglevs on standard tracks. Soon it'll be possible to zip from city to city in new record speeds and, as it cuts out the faff of checking in, may be even be faster than air travel in some cases.\n\n __ Slow travel: While the emphasis so far has been on speeding up, environmentalists are urging us to slow down. Largely a reaction to low-cost air travel, many in the green movement look on travelling, not just as a process of being transported from one place to another, but of experiencing the journey \u2013 preferably by taking the greener options of a train or boat. We are asked to pause and question whether we really travel any more, or do we just arrive . . . This is an entirely different approach to time \u2013 valuing the journey as much as the destination \u2013 experiencing it in real time, if you will. But as we know, real time isn't really real time \u2013 but already faster-than-human time. And it doesn't look likely to slow down any time soon.\n\nTime travel\n\nHumans have been fascinated by time travel for millennia. The first known story of time travel (and indeed space or inter-dimensional travel) goes back as far as the eighth century BCE in Hindu mythology. A story in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata sees King Revaita (or Raivata) travel to a different world to meet Brahma, the god of creation, and find that many ages have passed when he returns to Earth.\n\nEinstein's work on relativity has exerted the profoundest influence over modern thinking about time and time travel. He said that time beats at different rates depending on how fast you move. If you go fast, time slows down and this has been proven true. One experiment synchronizes two clocks, then places one in an airplane that takes off, travels around at high speed, decelerates and lands. It will be a little behind the clock that stayed on land, as the clock on the plane will operate more slowly when travelling. The difference will be small, but it will be there nonetheless. According to Einstein, both times are equally true.\n\nCosmonaut Sergei Krikalev holds the current record for the longest time spent in space \u2013 totalling 803 days (2.2 years) over three expeditions, the longest of which lasted 438 days. Because of the incredible speeds he was travelling (around 17,000 mph), Krikalev actually travelled into the future. In fact, he also holds the record for time travel into the future \u2013 a whopping 20 milliseconds.\n\nThese days physicists talk with considerably more confidence about the possibility of time travel \u2013 though the conditions are rather difficult to create and capture. Options include travelling at the speed of light, using cosmic strings or black holes, or prizing open tiny fissures in the space-time continuum (wormholes) and jumping into them.\n\nBack to the beginning: finding the 'God Particle'\n\nWhat is going on in the massive collider in Switzerland is way over the head of most of us mere mortals. The variable names for things and language used to describe the experiments doesn't help much either \u2013 with the terms Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider, CERN and the God Particle all used seemingly interchangeably. To clarify: the Large Hadron Collider (aka supercollider) at CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva) is looking to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson (aka the God Particle).\n\nPhysicists hypothesize that the complex universe we currently know and the laws of physics that govern it evolved as the universe cooled in the first moments after the super-hot Big Bang. Now, by crashing together subatomic particles at mind-bending speed in the 17-mile circuit of the Large Hadron Collider, physicists hope to recreate and revisit the super-hot conditions of these pre-universe times to see what might have gone on back then. It is ultimately a search for original simplicity, before everything got so terribly complicated.\n\nOn the wishlist of things to find are particles, which could constitute clouds of dark matter (the stuff believed to produce gravity and hold everything together and in place) and, of course, the Higgs boson \u2013 a particle which creates a sort of cosmic molasses and imbues other particles with mass. To do this, physicists are recreating the conditions of less than a billionth of a second after the universe was created, and they're doing this up to 600 million times a second. In July 2012, a new particle was found that is 'consistent with' Higgs boson but at the time of writing physicists are still reticent about giving it a firm thumbs up.\n\nDavid McDermott is an American artist who refuses to acknowledge or live in the 'present day'. He lives in mod-con-free nineteenth-century house in Dublin, Ireland, surrounded by articles of a bygone era and dressed like a country gent crossed with something out of a gothic novel, top hat and all. He refitted his house with older fixtures, fittings and furniture (though he does have a phone \u2013 an old Bakelite obviously). He says, 'I've seen the future, and I'm not going.' Refusing to use the Internet or credit, David has to physically withdraw money from the bank when he needs it.\n\nHis long-standing collaborative relationship with fellow artist Peter McGough has produced a body of painting, photography, sculpture and film that uses historical rather than modern processes in its production \u2013 as well as mixing historical eras to 'destroy the linear time system'. My personal favourite is a large painting showing a Victorian garden party against a primeval backdrop of dinosaurs and smouldering volcanoes.\n\nFreezing time\n\nThe owner of the biggest railroad company in the US and racehorse enthusiast Leland Stanford was curious about how horses trot and wanted to know if all four feet leave the ground during the action. To find out, he recruited the photographer Eadweard Muybridge to try to capture the horse's motion in a brand-new way. In 1878, Muybridge set up twenty-four trip wires across a racetrack \u2013 capturing the motions of a galloping horse. His photographs did indeed show the horse with all four feet off the ground. He took many such series of pictures, freezing time to demonstrate the minutiae of movement. And when shown in rapid succession through a projector, we had our first 'movie'.\n\nLeaping forward to today and experiments in freezing time have become rather more sophisticated. Harvard physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau has been conducting experiments that may pave the way for a new form of time travel \u2013 a non-human kind anyway.\n\nHau heats room-temperature sodium so that its atoms vibrate faster and faster. At around 350\u00b0C the atoms form a vapour. Then she forces the atoms through a pinhole and hits them with a laser beam which slows them down. This traps the atoms in an 'optical molasses' \u2013 slowing them down until they are ultimately frozen using an electromagnet. At this point, 5 to 10 million atoms are suspended in a tiny cloud, colder than any known temperature and creating a totally new state of matter. Vestergaard Hau then shoots a laser beam of light into this cold atom cloud. Consequently the light is slowed down from 186,000 miles per second to just 15 miles per hour. Once the light passes through the atom cloud it speeds up again.\n\nLight can be slowed further and can even be stopped as if frozen in a block of ice. Not only that but Dr Hau can stop the light in one part of space and revive it in a totally different location. All the information about the light is imprinted in the atoms, creating a physical matter copy. This light can be stored indefinitely for later reactivation, thus the moment of the light is frozen in time.\n\nTime travellers\n\nAfter all that science it's time for a little science fiction. Below are my top-ten time travellers from popular culture.\n\n10. BILL AND TED\n\nThese two guitar-playing, Californian flakes are visited by a man from a future utopia (where they are worshipped as gods) in order to help them pass a critical history test by travelling to different eras.\n\n9. BUCK ROGERS\n\nHe started off in the 1920s and first made it onto TV in the 1950s, but the late '70s Buck Rogers is one of the most memorable time travellers around \u2013 for his ultra-tight catsuits if nothing else. An air force pilot in the year 1987, unconscious and set adrift in space for 504 years, Buck Rogers wakes up in the twenty-fifth century where he finds himself helping to defend Earth from the evil planet Draconia, with the assistance of comedy robot Twiki, and computer brain Dr Theopolis. Vintage.\n\n8. SUPERMAN\n\nIn the first of the _Superman_ films, starring Christopher Reeve (1978), we see Superman turn back time (literally) to save the woman he loves. Apparently this can be done by flying around the Earth backwards at high speed until you reverse its rotation and, therefore, time. FYI.\n\n7. EBENEZER SCROOGE\n\nIn at seven we have everyone's favourite miser from everyone's favourite seasonal tale, _A Christmas Carol_ by Charles Dickens. Scrooge leaps between past, present and future with the help of some Christmas 'ghosts' to learn lessons about generosity and love.\n\n6. SAM BECKETT\n\nPhysicist builds time machine. Physicist tests out time machine and experiment goes pear-shaped. Physicist ends up inhabiting the bodies of men and women who lived during his lifetime to help 'put right what once went wrong' \u2013 before leaping into the next body. Physicist has holographic friend who provides him with historical data about the situations he's in. I give you Sam Beckett, lead of the gloriously implausible _Quantum Leap_ (1989\u201393).\n\n5. GEORGE TAYLOR\n\nPlayed by Charlton Heston in the first of the _Planet of the Apes_ (1968) films, George Taylor is an astronaut who takes a wrong turn and ends up propelled into the future \u2013 to find that Earth is now inhabited by intelligent, if rather bloody-minded, talking apes.\n\n4. MARTY MCFLY\n\nThe hero of a generation, skate-boarding teenager Marty McFly of _Back to the Future_ (1985) is propelled back to 1955 when trying to escape from Libyan terrorists in a time-travelling car (as you do). There he accidentally ruins the moment when his parents first meet, jeopardizing his very existence \u2013 and has to get them together in a race against the clock to get back to his own reality in 1985. In the second and third films of the franchise, Marty finds himself coming face-to-face with his future self, in a dystopic present of his own creation, and back in the Wild West.\n\n3. THE TERMINATOR\n\nWhen Arnold Schwarzenegger said 'I'll be back', he really meant it \u2013 starring in the first three films of the franchise about a cyborg killer sent from the future to the past\/present to variously do away with or protect the mother of future rebel leader John Connor, then John Connor himself. Crucially, all time travel is conducted nude.\n\n2. DOCTOR WHO\n\nNot just a time traveller, but a Time Lord, the Doctor has been travelling through time and space in his blue police box getting into all manner of adventures since 1963. One of the longest-running TV franchises, _Doctor Who_ has enchanted generations and is considered to be the most successful sci-fi series of all time.\n\n1. THE TIME TRAVELLER\n\nThis gentleman inventor from Richmond in Surrey, England, is the central character of H. G. Wells' groundbreaking science-fiction novella _The Time Machine_ (1895). The book is considered to have popularized the concept of time travel and the very term 'time machine' was coined in its pages. Testing out his new invention, the Time Traveller journeys to 802,701 CE where he encounters a race of people called the Eloi, whose conquering of technology has made them lazy, undisciplined and ultimately apathetic. Perhaps with time H. G. Wells will be seen as something of a prophet, the comparisons between the futuristic Eloi and our modern couch-potato culture are uncanny.\n\n**Open up a wormhole using negative energy . . . and see where it takes you**\n\nOK \u2013 so this is a little more demanding than my other tips. And chances are, if you're reading this book you're not an experimental physicist. So my advice to you is seek one out and make them your new best friend. Preferably one researching the possibility of opening wormholes using negative energy.\n\nThis area is very much in the theoretical phase \u2013 a wormhole has never been found \u2013 but who knows what might happen in the next few years? Physicists including Stephen Hawking certainly believe that they are real.\n\nAs you'll read in the next chapter, wormholes are thought to be 'shortcuts' through space and time, potentially transporting us, well, who knows where? That's if they don't close and crush us first, of course. To avoid being crushed you'd need a really fast vehicle. So far the fastest manned vehicle in history was _Apollo 10_ at 25,000 mph. To travel in time through a wormhole, you'll need one that goes 2,000 times faster than that. Easy-peasy.\n\n####\n\nWarping time\n\nIn the last chapter we touched on wormholes, tiny invisible tears in time and space, which could be portals or shortcuts to other ages and places. At their most basic, wormholes are thought to be bridges between two points in space\u2013time. According to Stephen Hawking they are plentiful, but so small that we cannot detect them. Yet.\n\nWormholes crop up a lot in science fiction as they potentially allow interstellar travel within human time scales. Entering a wormhole can shave millennia off your journey time. The much-revered astrophysicist, astronomer and author Carl Sagan (1934\u20131996) used wormholes as a travelling device in his novel _Contact_ \u2013 in which a crew of humans make a journey to the centre of the Milky Way. Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter used wormholes for faster-than-light communication in their co-authored 2000 novel _The Light of Other Days_. And, of course, the latter-day crews of the _Star Trek_ franchise frequently plunge into wormholes.\n\nWarp speed, Mr Sulu\n\nWormholes aside, hyperdrives, warp drives and other such cunning inventions are the preferred methods of faster-than-light travel in science fiction. Though in a fantastical instance of life imitating art, some physicists are now saying that the warp drive idea may not be that far-fetched.\n\nIn 1994, Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre suggested that a real-life warp drive might be possible, though subsequent calculations have found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy. Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would allow it to run on significantly less energy. And NASA is reportedly starting to look at the idea seriously and is conducting experiments with a mini warp drive in their laboratory at the Johnson Space Center, where they are trying to 'perturb space\u2013time by one part in 10 million', according to Harold White who is leading the research.\n\nA large-scale, functioning warp drive would involve a football-shaped spacecraft with a large ring encircling it. This ring would cause space\u2013time to warp around the craft, creating a region of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind. Meanwhile, the craft would stay inside a 'bubble' of space\u2013time that wasn't being warped.\n\nIf humans are ever to travel truly great distances, we need to pursue such outlandish ideas in order to beat the speed of light (see below). The biggest stumbling block to exploring the wider universe is time \u2013 and the short amount of it we have to live.\n\nLight and dark\n\nLight travels at around 186,000 miles per second, or 671 million mph. If you cast your mind back to the section about instant messaging in the previous chapter, you'll recall that the first telegraphs travelled at around 11 million mph, taking about a quarter of a second. Well, light travels sixty-one times faster than that. The light from the Moon takes 1.3 seconds to reach us, and 8 seconds from the Sun, and four years from our next nearest star Proxima Centauri \u2013 so the light we see from it is already four years old. While we can travel faster than the speed of sound, travelling at the speed of light, let alone faster than it, is a distant dream. Unless NASA invents that warp drive, that is.\n\nAs previously mentioned, time slows down when it travels \u2013 so if we could get close to travelling at the speed of light we would age at a slower rate than the journey takes in time measured outside of the travelling craft. It is estimated that someone travelling at 99 per cent of the speed of light will age just one year in a seven-year-long journey.\n\nBlack holes\n\nBlack holes are places where gravity is so extreme that it overwhelms all other forces. Once inside, nothing can escape a black hole's gravity, not even light. Black holes are not theoretical entities. We know they exist.\n\nBlack holes are created when an object, such as a star, becomes unable to withstand the compressing force of its gravity \u2013 and the bigger the object the more gravity it has. When massive stars collapse, it is expected that they become black holes. Our Earth and Sun are too small to become black holes, but the wider universe is littered with billions of them. There is a 'supermassive' black hole at the core of our Milky Way galaxy.\n\nBlack holes do not emit any detectable light. However, astronomers can still find them. They do this by measuring visible light, X-rays and radio waves that are emitted by materials in proximity to a black hole. One way of identifying the location of black holes is by observing gas in space. If it is orbiting a black hole it tends to get very hot because of friction and then starts to emit X-rays and radio waves making the gas exceptionally bright, which can be seen using X-ray or radio telescopes. We can also detect material falling into black holes or being attracted by them.\n\nA white hole is a hypothetical region of space\u2013time, which is the opposite of a black hole. A white hole cannot be entered from the outside, and instead of pulling matter inside it pushes it out \u2013 matter and light.\n\nLight years away . . .\n\nWe've all heard the expression and we know that a light year involves a very great distance indeed. But just how long is it? And how much time (as we know it) does it take to travel one?\n\nWell, the 'simple' definition is that a light year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum during one Julian year (that's 365.25 days of 86,400 seconds each). That distance is calculated at 10 trillion kilometres (or 6 trillion miles).\n\nThis is obviously rather hard to get into perspective. If our Earth's circumference at the equator is just 24,901 miles (40,075 km), then a light year is equivalent to circumnavigating the equator 249.5 million times in a year. Or think about the distance between the Earth and Mars. At their most recent closest point in 2003, the planets were 56 million km from each other (the closest they've been in 50,000 years). That distance is only a small fraction of a light year, but in August 2012 when the Mars Science Laboratory named _Curiosity_ was launched, the distance was around 100 million km and it took seven and a half months to reach the planet, yet it only takes light from Mars a few seconds to reach Earth. Is this helping with perspective?\n\n_The Mars Science Laboratory, aka_ Curiosity\n\nWe measure in light years because we need a massive unit to make vast interstellar distances comprehensible. Our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 to 120,000 light years in diameter and contains between 200 and 400 billion stars.\n\nThe more we learn about the wider universe the larger the units of measurement we require. A trip to Mars seems like a walk in the park compared to travelling the breadth of a light year. Never mind the distances involved in parsecs (3.26 light years) or kilolight years (307 parsecs) or megalight years (307 kiloparsecs) or gigalight years (about 307 megaparsecs).\n\nThe ever-expanding universe\n\nNow we're into the big numbers it's time to cast your mind back to the opening pages of this book. There we cast a cursory glance at the origins of our universe \u2013 the so-called Big Bang, when the universe started expanding from a tiny, dense and hot state. This event has been dated to between 13.5 and 13.75 billion years ago and the universe's expansion continues apace.\n\nRecent data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope's observations of distant supernovae shows that the universe is expanding at a rate of 74.3 km per second per megaparsec (around 3 million light years) and it's speeding up.\n\nWe don't know why it's speeding up but whatever is causing it is currently being called 'dark energy'. Things we don't understand tend to be referred to as 'dark'. Dark matter is what scientists think makes up the bulk of the universe \u2013 but it can neither be seen nor detected directly with our current technologies. Over 80 per cent of our universe is believed to be comprised of this mystery material.\n\nIt is hypothesized that the continued expansion of the universe will lead to a 'big rip' \u2013 when the matter of the universe will be torn apart. Life on Earth, however, will be long over by then. It is thought that we have around 5 billion years before the Sun swallows our Earth up and burns it to a crisp.\n\nThe multiverse\n\nThe term 'multiverse' was coined by the American philosopher and psychologist William James in 1895 and refers to the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (parallel universes\/dimensions). Within the multiverse is everything that exists and everything that can exist. As appealing (or appalling) as this notion might sound, there is absolutely no proof for it and no way of testing it either.\n\nWriting in the _New York Times_ in 2003, cosmologist Paul Davies slings the worst kind of mud at the hypothesis, comparing it to religion: '. . . all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there are an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinite number of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith.'\n\nParallel dimensions in popular culture\n\nFiction writers have been very willing to take the leap of faith required to incorporate parallel dimensions into their stories \u2013 and all the lovely paradoxes they open up. Indeed, the idea of another world parallel to our own is found in ancient tales, too \u2013 heaven and hell and their variations are parallel places. And mythic creatures tend not to roam our material world but to have access to another underworld.\n\nFamous literary examples include _The Chronicles of Narnia_ series (1950\u20136) by C. S. Lewis and _His Dark Materials_ (1995\u20132000) by Philip Pullman, in which two children wander through multiple worlds, opening and closing windows between them.\n\nProbably the most famous alternate universe portrayed on screen is Oz in the 1939 film _The Wizard of Oz_. But my personal favourite alternate-reality tale is not a science-fiction fable but rather the homely Christmas story _It's a Wonderful Life_ (1946), in which the protagonist George Bailey gets to visit the hometown he has come to bitterly resent as it would have been had he never been born. He finds it a bleak and dangerous place, full of people whose lives have been stunted by his absence.\n\n**Get suspended**\n\nSuspended animation is still the stuff of science fiction \u2013 slowing the body's system right down into a deep stasis from which it can be reawakened unaffected by the ageing process. The best option available right now is cryonic freezing \u2013 that is, preserving your deceased, rather than live, body on ice in the hope that with advances in science it'll be possible for you to be raised from the dead to live in a hyper-advanced future.\n\nYou'll be in rather interesting company on resurrection day. There'll be James Bedford (1893\u20131967), a psychology professor at the University of California, who was the first man to be cryonically preserved by the Life Extension Society. There'll also be the mathematician Thomas K. Donaldson (1944\u20132006), computer-game designer Gregory Yob (1945\u20132005) and FM-2030 (1930\u20132000), an Iranian 'transhumanist' philosopher and writer, who'll definitely have the right kind of name in the future. Contrary to popular myth, Walt Disney will not be there: he was in fact cremated, not frozen.\n\n####\n\nThe time of our lives\n\nOur bodies have their own internal clocks that keep them running within their own time frame \u2013 and we all experience time differently, at different times.\n\nSubjective time\n\n'When a man sits with a pretty woman for an hour it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.' \u2013 Albert Einstein (1879\u20131955).\n\nAs the Einstein quote suggests, time _feels_ different depending on how we're spending it. A basic rule of thumb is that enjoyable experiences seem to pass quickly, unpleasant ones more slowly. In that way our experience of time is subjective \u2013 and determined by our life experiences and expectations of past, present and future (though expert on all things spiritual, Eckhard Tolle, says nothing ever happened in the past, nor will it happen in the future \u2013 everything is now).\n\nFor some, tasks performed in their first few days at work will feel laborious and long, and then feel shorter when they have grown accustomed to them. For other people the reverse is true \u2013 even if the speed at which the tasks have been performed has been consistent.\n\nThe older one gets, one can feel that time passes more quickly \u2013 this is because many of our experiences are familiar and repeated. But cast your mind back to the long summers of your childhood \u2013 when six weeks could feel like an eternity as everything was new and exciting. In extreme or dangerous situations it can feel like time slows down, indeed, that it plays out in slow motion. And for people in prison, days drag and merge into each other because there is so little to differentiate between them.\n\nThe pace or speed at which we live depends of a great number of factors \u2013 where we live: village, town, city, country; what job we do; what hobbies we have; who our friends are, etc., etc., etc. The pace at which a trader on the New York Stock Exchange lives is rather different to that of a smallholder farmer in Kansas \u2013 though they may well keep similar hours (as we've seen in Chapter 6, money moves pretty fast these days).\n\nThe pace of life in the northern hemisphere is generally considered to be much faster than in the global South \u2013 with Switzerland and Germany singled out as the countries where the pace of life is fastest.\n\nBiological clocks and circadian rhythms\n\nA healthy man's heart beats around 60 times per minute throughout his adult life, and a woman's just a little faster. We breathe at pretty consistent rates too, slowing down the older we get: a newborn baby can take up to 60 breaths per minute, but an adult at rest will likely take no more than 14 to 18.\n\nOur digestive processes and energy requirements ensure we feel hungry and need to eat at regular intervals. These are the most obviously regulated processes in our average day \u2013 but many other processes \u2013 intricate and time-dependent \u2013 are going on, collectively known as 'circadian rhythms'.\n\nMost plants and animals in the world live to their own circadian rhythms, which largely follow a pattern dictated by hours light and dark \u2013 connecting us with our Sun. The circadian rhythm in humans is controlled by the tiny 'suprachiasmatic nucleus' in our brains. Situated on the brain's midline, behind the bridge of your nose, this nucleus is the master clock of our body. There are other 'peripheral oscillators' in our bodies too, which operate independently of the master clock and are found in the lungs, liver, pancreas and skin, and other systems.\n\nHumans are monophasic sleepers \u2013 that is, we sleep by night and wake by day. Polyphasic sleepers indulge in multiple rest-activity cycles during a 24-hour period. It is believed that our earlier forebears were polyphasic sleepers, becoming monophasic around 70,000 to 40,000 BCE. Our circadian clocks follow this monophasic pattern.\n\nHumans keeping regular hours will be most alert around 10 a.m. At around 2.30 p.m. our coordination is at its optimum, at 3 p.m. our reaction time is fastest. At 5 p.m. we experience our best cardiovascular efficiency and muscle strength. At 6.30 p.m. our blood pressure is highest and at 7 p.m. our body temperature at its highest. By 9 p.m. we begin to secrete melatonin (which causes drowsiness and lowers the body temperature). Melatonin secretion decreases with age, which is why adults require less sleep than children. At 10.30 p.m. our bowel movements are suppressed. We are in our deepest slumber at 2 a.m. and lowest body temperature at 4.30 a.m., and melatonin secretion stops around 7.30 a.m. as wakefulness approaches. Bowel movements commence from 8.30 a.m., with testosterone secretion reaching its highest levels at 9 a.m., and highest alertness returning again at approximately 10 a.m.\n\nThese rhythms can vary depending on the hours we keep and exposure to the Sun depending on where we live, or indeed the time of year. If we travel into different time zones and upset our internal circadian clocks, we can experience jet lag \u2013 and we need to sleep to compensate for the time difference experienced by our bodies. Sleeping on a long journey is one way of fooling your body that it has had its expected night's sleep when it arrives in a new time zone. Many people who work through the night and sleep in the day can never fully adjust to this pattern \u2013 especially as melatonin tends to be secreted at night regardless of the hours we sleep and wake.\n\nWomen have an additional 'clock' in the menstrual cycle \u2013 which comes once every twenty-eight days between a woman's teenage years and the midlife menopause.\n\nThe 28-hour day\n\nIn the 1930s, sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman conducted an elaborate experiment with his colleague Bruce Richardson. For thirty-two days the two lived in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, disrupting their circadian clocks by depriving themselves of sunlight. In addition to that, they adjusted the length of their day \u2013 living as though it was 28 rather than 24 hours long \u2013 creating a new week of six rather than seven days. They lived in a regimented way \u2013 eating, exercising and sleeping at regular times. They slept for 9 hours and were awake for 19. At forty-three years of age, Kleitman struggled to adapt to the new 28-hour, six-day week, but the younger Richardson fared better \u2013 but their results were ultimately inconclusive. Kleitman is also credited with 'discovering' Rapid Eye Movement (REM) linking dreaming and brain activity.\n\nProgeroid syndromes (PS) are rare genetic disorders that produce symptoms that mimic ageing. People suffering these syndromes can appear older than their actual, chronological age \u2013 and are likely to have a reduced lifespan. Werner syndrome and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome are the two most widely studied of these disorders as their effects most resemble natural ageing. The global incidence rate of Werner syndrome is one in 100,000.\n\nPeople with the disorder grow normally until puberty but do not experience the expected adolescent growth spurt. Instead they exhibit a combination of growth retardation and premature ageing. They remain short, their hair grays prematurely or falls out, and their skin wrinkles. They can also experience skin atrophy, lesions, cataracts and severe ulcerations among other extreme and difficult symptoms. People afflicted with this disorder seldom live past 50 and die chiefly of cardiovascular disease or cancers.\n\nMating, migrating and hibernating\n\nThe behaviour of many mammals, fish and birds is inextricably linked to the seasons. Mating, migration and patterns of hibernation are all governed by the time of year and changes in the weather. Many species of birds fly south for the winter and fish such as the Atlantic salmon traverse vast distances from river to sea and back again to spawn in the streams they were born in.\n\nTo hibernate, bodies slow right down \u2013 body temperatures plummet, breathing slows to bare necessity, and heart and metabolic rates go to minimum-required function. In cold temperatures, when food is scarce, hibernators conserve energy until they can feed again. Hibernation can last days, weeks or months depending on the species. Rodents such as ground squirrels, marmots and dormice, the European hedgehog and some marsupials and primates are 'obligate' hibernators \u2013 that is, they enter hibernation annually regardless of the temperature or access to food.\n\nBears are among the most efficient hibernators. They rely on metabolic suppression rather than decreased body temperature to save energy during the coldest winter months and are able to recycle their proteins and urine. They can go without 'going' for months.\n\nHumans are one of the few creatures on the planet whose mating patterns are not dictated by the seasons. Similarly we do not hibernate, but back in our hunter-gatherer days we certainly migrated, following the patterns of our prey at different seasons. And there are still some nomadic tribal people on the planet, living their lives along ancient routes to an annual cycle.\n\nThe clock has been used as a sinister plot device and metaphor in many classic tales.\n\n'It was when I stood before her . . . that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at 20 minutes to 9, and that a clock in the room had stopped at 20 minutes to 9.' In Charles Dickens' _Great Expectations_ , the stopped clock represented the life of the eery Miss Havisham, frozen at the point that she learned that her fianc\u00e9 had betrayed her on the morning of their wedding. The great clock outside the house was stopped at the same time too \u2013 as the lady herself sat in darkness, still in her wedding dress, and determined to punish the male sex for the wrongs done to her.\n\nIn her mystery novel, _The Clocks_ , author Agatha Christie uses timekeepers as an elaborate plot device. When typist Sheila Webb arrives for an appointment at a house belonging to a blind lady, she finds a man lying dead in a room containing six clocks, four of which have been stopped at 4:13. Investigator extraordinaire Hercule Poirot must solve the mystery of the clocks to identify the man's killer.\n\nIn James Thurber's fantasy novel, _The Thirteen Clocks_ , the eponymous timekeepers of the creepily named Coffin Castle have all been stopped at ten to five and as a consequence the megalomaniac Duke of the castle is convinced that he has conquered time. But when Prince Zorn arrives to win the hand of the Duke's niece Saralinda, their love and her great beauty make the clocks tick back to life and chime the hour of five. The couple flee and the wicked Duke gets his comeuppance. A cautionary tale for anyone who believes they can beat time's passage.\n\nHow long have we got?\n\nFor humans, how long you live depends very much on where you were born and your socio-economic circumstances. In countries generally defined as 'Western', Japan has the longest life expectancy (around 82 to 83), followed closely by Switzerland and Hong Kong (around 81 to 82). Canada, Australia, Israel and various affluent European countries including the UK, are clustered close together around the 80 bracket, while the US, where the most money is spent on individual healthcare, scores a relatively low 77.97. It is worth noting that these figures are from the UN, and considerably more generous than the World Health Organization, which scores US life expectancy from birth at 75.9 for example, while the _CIA World Factbook_ gives it a generous 78.37.\n\nAccording to the UN, the global average life expectancy at birth is 67.2 years (65.71 years for males and 70.14 years for females), which is pretty good considering it hovered around the 30 mark from the Bronze Age to the early twentieth century for the man in the street \u2013 and a huge number of children never made it past infancy.\n\nConsider again this global average of 67.2 years against the poorest-performing Western countries at 76 to 78 years. There's a pretty grim reason for that ten-year disparity \u2013 and most of the countries with the lowest life expectancy are on the continent of Africa (between early 40s and late 50s), with the notable exception of Afghanistan which currently has an average life expectancy in the mid-40s.\n\nWe have a lot more time in the West. So when you're feeling stressed and musing on how little time there is to get the things you want to do done, just think of those fifty years you have on the unfortunate man from Swaziland, whom the CIA suggests might not see his thirty-second birthday.\n\nIn the course of writing this book I've become acutely conscious of how many expressions and phrases relate to time, as well as just how often we use the word 'time' in simple, everyday speech.\n\nTime heals all wounds, it flies when you're having fun, it runs out on us, there's no time like the present, unless what you're doing constitutes bad timing. When things are running smoothly they're like clockwork, though it's best not to wait till the last minute or the eleventh hour or to just keep things ticking over. Saying that, it's better late than never or at the very least in the nick of time. Prisoners 'do time' and have time on their hands. Time and again, and time after time, a stitch in time saves nine.\n\nTime to philosophize\n\nTime and space have long fascinated our greatest thinkers. For example, do they exist independently of our minds, and do time, space and the mind exist independently of each other? Do times other than now exist concurrently with the now?\n\nSaint Augustine of Hippo (354\u2013430 CE) summed up the difficulty in defining and expressing time in his _Confessions_ : 'If no one asks me, I know; if I seek to explain, I do not.' To him, time could only be explained by what it is not; saying what it is was another issue entirely.\n\nHow long we, and our planet, have been in existence influences our understanding of time. This book, for example, has a defined beginning point \u2013 somewhere between 13.5 and 13.75 billion years from the birth of our universe, and 4.54 billion years since the birth of our planet. But to ancient Greek philosophers there was no beginning, only an infinite impenetrable past. We've seen that later creation beliefs influenced our sense of the Earth's age \u2013 with Abrahamic religions dating our beginning to around 6,000 years ago. This was very welcome to believers as the infinite is so hard to grasp, as is nothingness and the absence of time.\n\nChronology and history are important to our sense of identity, but what about the nature of how we experience time and space?\n\nGet real\n\nEarly realist philosophers believed that time and space existed separate from the human mind. Our minds are merely processors, interacting with and making sense of these external forces. Isaac Newton (1642\u20131727) believed that time was absolute \u2013 that there's a cosmic clock created by God that sits outside the universe and that space is the stage upon which everything happens. In his conception we have no control over time, we just have our subjective interpretations of its passage. His chief detractor was Gottfried Leibniz (1646\u20131716), who in the early eighteenth century challenged Newton, arguing that his 'absolutist' position did not take into consideration God's plan \u2013 there must be a specific reason why God invented time and space, if you will.\n\nThe hugely influential Immanuel Kant (1724\u20131804) said that the notions of time and space allow us to comprehend and coordinate our senses \u2013 but that neither have substance in themselves. To Kant, such notions are a framework we use to structure our experiences. For our purposes time and space are 'empirically real' (that is, observable), in that we use them to measure objects and experiences.\n\nTo Albert Einstein (1879\u20131955) time was not absolute. He thought of it as woven into the fabric of the universe and therein created. He also thought of it as something we can influence and control, as supported by the findings of many of today's physicists.\n\nPerceiving time\n\nEarlier we touched on the way we experience time as subjective, largely in relation to speed and pace of life. Now it's time to consider how we perceive and process it. American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842\u20131910) said that to live a normal life we needed a sense of 'pastness' and that our identities are constructed largely from memory and a sense of history. But this applies to much shorter time frames \u2013 our present is constantly influenced by the immediate past and often the future \u2013 as each action and thought builds on a past one towards a future one. According to James, we live in a 'specious present', rolling time frames each lasting approximately 12 seconds, and which we experience as the flow of time.\n\nThe French philosopher Ren\u00e9 Descartes (1596\u20131650) spoke about time being perceived as a series of instantaneous 'nows'. Similarly the contemporary spiritual teacher Eckhard Tolle (1948\u2013) says, 'there never was a time when your life was not now'. It sounds plausible enough, but when you stop to think about it it's nigh on impossible to capture the essence of 'now'. Is now now? Or has it just past? And we know from developments in neuroscience that we don't experience or perceive things immediately, but shortly after they have occurred. It takes time for your brain to communicate information to the relevant body part, for example. It may only be half a second \u2013 but when we're talking about 'now' it all counts.\n\nSuperstitions around time often relate to clocks \u2013 and may well spring from the way in which such technology encroached upon and ultimately regulated lives over the last few hundred years.\n\nThe stopped clock is perhaps the most universally known. If a clock that has stopped suddenly starts working again or chimes, it heralds a death in the family. It is also considered bad luck to stop a clock in a room in which someone has just died. These days, with clocks present in so many devices, that's quite a task.\n\nDreaming of clocks is meant to be prescient of an upcoming journey, while turning the hands on a clock backwards is bad luck. This likely comes from the fact that forcing the hands of older clocks with a chiming mechanism backwards can damage their workings.\n\nIn these modern times we can now predict the date of our deaths on the Internet. It is somewhat more 'scientific' than worrying about stopped clocks and takes one's date of birth, weight and body mass index into consideration. Check yours out at www.deathclock.com. I've got till October 2050 if I don't quit smoking very soon, and July 2057 if I do. Watch this space.\n\n**Hang out with an Amazonian tribe**\n\nNow I'm not advocating that you contact an 'uncontacted' tribe \u2013 they're best left alone. But by journeying to the Amazon, or indeed other parts of the world where the indigenous people continue to live their lives as they have been lived for millennia, it's possible to step not so much into the past, but out of time. Or out of our time at least.\n\nPitch a tent with the wandering Bedouins of the Middle East, meet the Maasai of East Africa or pay a respectful visit to the Amondawa in Brazil, and you will see lives lived in a different time to your own \u2013 at a completely different pace, with different rules, and different perceptions of age, past and future.\n\n#### **References**\n\nBooks\n\nBryson, Bill _A Short History of Nearly Everything_ (Black Swan, 2003)\n\nCallender, Craig & Edney, Ralph _Time: A Graphic Guide_ (Icon Books, 2010)\n\nFranks, Adam _About Time_ (Oneworld, 2011)\n\nGriffiths, Jay _A Sideways Look at Time_ (Tarcher, 2004)\n\nHart-Davis, Adam _The Book of Time_ (Mitchell Beazley, 2011)\n\nHolford-Strevens, Leofranc _The History of Time_ (Oxford University Press, 2005)\n\nKieran, Dan _The Idle Traveller: The Art of Slow Travel_ (Automobile Association, 2012)\n\nWilkinson, Richard & Pickett, Kate _The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone_ (Penguin, 2010)\n\nArticles\n\nDavies, Paul _A Brief History of the Multiverse_ ( _New York Times_ , 12 April 2003)\n\nHawking, Stephen _How to Build a Time Machine_ ( _Daily Mail_ , 27 April 2010)\n\nJeffries, Stuart _The history of sleep science_ ( _Guardian_ , 29 January 2011)\n\nPalmer, Jason _Amondawa tribe lacks abstract idea of time, study says_ (BBC News, 20 May 2011)\n\nRadio\/Podcasts\n\nBBC Radio 4 _In Our Time: The Age of the Universe_ , broadcast March 2011\n\nBBC Radio 4 _In Our Time: The Physics of Time_ , broadcast December 2008\n\nRadioLab.org _Speed_ Season 11, Episode 4, broadcast Feb 2013\n\nRadioLab.org _Time_ Season 1, Episode 4, broadcast May 2007\n\nRadioLab.org _Beyond time_ Season 1, Episode 5, July 2007\n\n#### **Index**\n\nA\n\nAbraj Al Bait Towers, Mecca ref1\n\nabsolute time ref1, ref2\n\nAfghanistan ref1, ref2\n\nAfrica ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\naircraft ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nAkihito, Emperor ref1\n\nal-Rashid, Harun ref1\n\nalchemy ref1\n\nAlcubierre, Miguel ref1\n\nAlps, French ref1, ref2\n\nAmondawa tribe ref1, ref2\n\nAndean-Saharan Ice Age ref1\n\nAntiquarian Horological Society ref1\n\napocalyptic predictions ref1\n\n_Apollo_ space missions ref1\n\nArmstrong, Neil ref1\n\nastrolabes ref1\n\nastronomy ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11\n\natomic clocks ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nattoseconds ref1\n\nAustralia ref1, ref2\n\nautomatons ref1, ref2\n\nAztecs ref1, ref2\n\nB\n\nBabylonian empire ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6\n\nBaumgarter, Felix ref1\n\nBBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nBealtaine festival ref1\n\nBedford, James ref1\n\nBeijing Time ref1\n\nBenz, Karl ref1\n\nBeverly Clock, New Zealand ref1\n\nthe Bible ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nBig Bang ref1, ref2\n\nBig Ben, London ref1\n\nBig Rip theory ref1, ref2\n\nbirds ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nblack holes ref1\n\nblue moons ref1\n\nBodhi tree, Sri Lanka ref1\n\nbody clocks ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nBolt, Usain ref1\n\nbrains, human ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nBrazilian tribes ref1, ref2\n\nBr\u00e9guet, Abraham-Louis ref1\n\nBronze Age ref1, ref2\n\nBurgundy, Duke of ref1\n\nC\n\nCaesar, Julius ref1, ref2\n\ncalendars\n\nancient animal bones ref1\n\nChinese ref1\n\nEthiopian ref1\n\nFrench Republican ref1\n\nGregorian ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nHebrew ref1\n\nHindu ref1\n\nIslamic ref1\n\nJapanese year system ref1\n\nlunar ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nRoman ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nSolar Hijri ref1, ref2\n\nCalment, Jeanne ref1\n\nCalvin, John ref1\n\nCamping, Harold ref1\n\nCanary Islands ref1\n\ncandle clocks ref1, ref2\n\nCape Verde ref1\n\ncars ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nCartier, Louis ref1\n\nCastlerigg, England ref1\n\nCathedral clock towers ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nCatholic Church ref1, ref2, ref3\n\n_see also_ Gregorian calendar\n\nCenozoic Era ref1\n\nCERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) ref1\n\nCevahir Mall clock, Istanbul ref1\n\nChamonix Valley, France ref1\n\nCharlemagne, Emperor ref1\n\nCharles II, King ref1, ref2\n\nChilean Andes ref1\n\nChina ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9\n\nChristianity ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9\n\nChristmas Day ref1, ref2\n\nChurch of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem ref1\n\ncircadian rhythms ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nClarendon Dry Pile ref1\n\nClement, William ref1\n\n_clepsydra_ ref1\n\nclocks ref1\n\natomic ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\ncandle clocks ref1, ref2\n\ncuckoo ref1\n\ndecimal ref1\n\ngrandfather ref1\n\ngreat Medieval ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nhourglasses ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nin literature ref1\n\nlongest running ref1\n\noldest working ref1\n\norigin of the name ref1\n\npendulum clocks ref1\n\nquantum ref1\n\nquartz ref1\n\nRoyal Observatory, Greenwich ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nsmallest ref1\n\nsundials ref1\n\nsuperstitions ref1\n\nwater ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nworld's biggest ref1\n\nCO2 (carbon dioxide) ref1, ref2\n\nColorado Plateau, Utah ref1\n\nColumbus, Christopher ref1\n\ncommunication, means of ref1\n\nComputus ref1\n\nConstantine the Great ref1\n\nconstellations ref1\n\nCooke, Sir William ref1\n\nCoordinated Universal Time (UTC) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nCoptic Church ref1\n\ncoral ref1\n\nCreationists ref1, ref2\n\nCretaceous-Palaeogene extinction event ref1\n\nCretaceous Period ref1\n\nCryogenian Ice Age ref1\n\ncryonic freezing ref1\n\nCryptic Era ref1\n\nCtesibius ref1\n\ncuckoo clocks ref1\n\nCurie, Jacques and Pierre ref1\n\nD\n\ndark energy ref1\n\nDarwin, Charles ref1, ref2\n\nDavies, Paul ref1\n\ndaylight saving ref1\n\ndays of the week ref1, ref2\n\ndecan stars ref1\n\ndecimalization of time, French ref1\n\nDescartes, Ren\u00e9 ref1\n\ndinosaurs ref1, ref2\n\nDiolkos wagonway ref1\n\nDondi, Giovanni de ref1\n\nDordogne Valley, France ref1\n\nDrumheller, Alberta ref1\n\nduodecimal system ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nDuquesne Brewing Company clock, Pittsburgh ref1\n\nE\n\nEarth\n\nage of ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ndestroyed by the Sun ref1, ref2\n\nformation of ref1\n\norbit of the Sun ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nrotation around axis ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ntides ref1\n\nEaster ref1, ref2\n\nEgypt, Ancient ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10\n\nEinstein, Albert ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nEoarchean Era ref1\n\nequator ref1, ref2\n\nEquinoxes ref1\n\nEsba al-shahid 'The Martyr's Finger' ref1\n\nescapements ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nevolution ref1, ref2\n\nextinctions ref1, ref2\n\nF\n\nFirst World War ref1, ref2\n\nfish ref1, ref2\n\nFlamsteed, Sir John ref1\n\nflood, Nile River ref1\n\nflower clocks ref1\n\nfossils ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6\n\nFrance ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8\n\nfreezing light ref1\n\nFrench Republican Calendar ref1\n\nFrige ref1\n\nfuels, alternative ref1\n\nG\n\nGaddafi, Colonel Muammar ref1\n\nGalilei, Vincenzio ref1\n\nGalileo ref1, ref2\n\ngeology ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6\n\nGeorge III, King ref1\n\nGermany ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nGlaser, George ref1\n\nGMT (Greenwich Mean Time) _see_ Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)\n\nGraham, George ref1\n\nGrand Canyon, Arizona ref1\n\ngrandfather clocks ref1\n\ngravity ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nGreat Pyramid, Giza ref1\n\nGreece, Ancient ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7\n\nGreen, Andy ref1\n\nGreenwich Mean Time (GMT) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8\n\n_see also_ UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)\n\nGregorian calendar ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nGregory XIII, Pope ref1\n\nGros Horloge, Rouen ref1\n\nH\n\nHadean Eon ref1\n\nHarrison, John ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nHatshepsut, Queen ref1\n\nHau, Lene Vestergaard ref1\n\nHawking, Stephen ref1, ref2\n\nheart rates, human ref1, ref2\n\nHelios ref1\n\nHenlein, Peter ref1\n\nHenry VIII, King ref1\n\nhibernation ref1\n\nHiggs boson particle ref1\n\nHindu mythology ref1\n\nHippolytus of Rome ref1\n\nHolocene Epoch ref1\n\nHooke, Robert ref1\n\nHorus ref1\n\nhourglasses ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nhours ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\n_see also_ duodecimal system; sexagesimal system\n\nHuang-di, Emperor ref1\n\nHuguenots ref1, ref2\n\nhuman evolution ref1\n\nHuronian Ice Age ref1\n\nHuygens, Christian ref1\n\nhypnosis ref1\n\nI\n\nice ages ref1\n\nIndia ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nIndonesia ref1, ref2\n\ninsects ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ninstant messaging ref1\n\nInternational Astronomical Union ref1\n\nInternational Date Line ref1\n\nInternational Meridian Convention ref1\n\nIron Age ref1\n\nIslam ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nisochronous balance spring ref1\n\nJ\n\nJames, William ref1, ref2\n\nJapan ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nJehovah's Witnesses ref1\n\nJesus ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nJudaism ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6\n\nJulian calendar ref1, ref2\n\nJupiter (planet) ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nJurassic Period ref1\n\nK\n\nK-Pg and K-T boundaries ref1\n\nKaluli tribe ref1\n\nKant, Immanuel ref1\n\nKaroo Ice Age ref1\n\nKimura, Jiroemon ref1\n\nKleitman, Nathaniel ref1\n\nKnibb, Joseph ref1\n\nKrikalev, Sergei ref1\n\nKrishna ref1\n\nL\n\nlanguage, development of ref1, ref2\n\nLarge Hadron Collider ref1, ref2\n\nLe Roy, Julien ref1\n\nLe Roy, Pierre ref1\n\nleap years ref1\n\nLiebniz, Gottfried ref1\n\nlife expectancy ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nLife Extension Society ref1\n\nlife on Earth, development of ref1\n\n_see also_ evolution, human\n\nlight, freezing ref1\n\nlight, speed of ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nlight years ref1\n\nLinnaeus, Carolus ref1\n\nlog lines ref1\n\nLogie Baird, John ref1\n\nlongitude ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nLouis XV of France, King ref1\n\nLouli\u00e9, Etienne ref1\n\nlunar calendars ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nM\n\nMaelzel, Johann ref1\n\nMaeshowe, Orkney Island ref1\n\nmagnetic trains ref1\n\nMaidstone, John ref1\n\nmainspring, invention of ref1\n\nMahabharata ref1\n\nmammals, first ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nMarconi, Guglielmo ref1\n\nmarine life ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nmaritime timekeeping ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nMars (planet) ref1, ref2\n\nMars Science Laboratory ' _Curiosity_ ' ref1\n\nMartel, Pierre ref1\n\nMaskelyne, Nevil ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nMayans ref1, ref2\n\nMcDermott, David ref1\n\nMcGough, Peter ref1\n\nMecca Time ref1, ref2\n\nMedieval clocks ref1, ref2\n\nmelatonin ref1, ref2\n\nmenstrual cycles ref1, ref2\n\nMercury (planet) ref1\n\nmeridian lines ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nMesolithic ref1\n\nMesopotamia ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nMesozoic Era ref1\n\nmetalworking ref1\n\nMethuselah (oldest living tree) ref1\n\nmetronomes ref1\n\nMilky Way ref1, ref2\n\nmillennium bug ref1\n\nminutes ref1, ref2\n\nmolluscs ref1\n\nmonths ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nMoon ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nlunar calendars ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nlunar cycles ref1, ref2\n\nMonday ref1, ref2\n\norbit of the Earth ref1\n\nMorse code ref1, ref2\n\nmoving pictures ref1\n\nMuhammad, Prophet ref1, ref2\n\nmulti-celled animals, first ref1, ref2\n\nmultiverse concept ref1\n\nMuybridge, Eadweard ref1\n\nN\n\nNASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nNational Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ref1, ref2\n\nNational Physical Laboratory, Teddington ref1\n\nnavigation, maritime _see_ longitude; maritime timekeeping\n\nNeanderthals ref1, ref2\n\nNeo-proterozoic Era ref1\n\nNeolithic ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\n_New York Times_ ref1\n\nNewgrange, Ireland ref1, ref2\n\nNewton, Sir Isaac ref1, ref2\n\nNile, River ref1\n\nNuremberg Egg ref1\n\nO\n\nOkawa, Misao ref1\n\nOmega Speedmasters ref1\n\nOrloj, Prague ref1\n\nOsiris ref1\n\nOxford Electric Bell ref1\n\noysters ref1\n\nP\n\nPalaeolithic ref1, ref2\n\nPalaeoproterozoic Era ref1, ref2\n\nPalaeozoic Era ref1\n\nPangea ref1, ref2\n\nparallel universes ref1\n\nParis ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nParnell, Thomas ref1\n\npast-life regression ref1\n\npedometers ref1\n\npendulum clocks ref1, ref2\n\nPepys, Samuel ref1\n\nPerrelet, Abraham-Louis ref1, ref2\n\nPersia (Iran) ref1, ref2\n\nPhilippe, Patek ref1, ref2\n\nPhillip of Spain, King ref1\n\nPhilo of Byzantium ref1\n\nphilosophy and time ref1\n\nphotography ref1\n\nphrases, time related ref1\n\npiezoelectricity ref1\n\nPisa Cathedral ref1\n\npitch drop funnel experiment ref1\n\npocket watches ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nPol Pot ref1\n\nPolaris ref1\n\npoles, Earths ref1, ref2\n\nPrance, Ghillean ref1\n\nprime meridian ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nProgeroid syndromes ref1\n\nProterozoic Eon ref1, ref2\n\nProtestant Britain ref1\n\nPtolemy ref1\n\nPueblo people ref1\n\nQ\n\nquantum clocks ref1\n\nquartz timekeepers ref1, ref2\n\nQuaternary Ice Age ref1\n\nR\n\nRa ref1\n\nRabi, Isidor ref1\n\nradio technology ref1, ref2\n\nradiometric dating ref1\n\nrailways ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nRamadan ref1, ref2\n\nthe Rapture ref1\n\nrelative time ref1\n\nrelativity, theory of ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nrepeating mechanisms ref1\n\nreproduction ref1, ref2\n\nRichard of Wallingford ref1\n\nRichardson, Bruce ref1\n\nrocket speed ref1\n\nRoman Catholic Church ref1, ref2\n\nRomans ref1, ref2\n\ncalendars ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nRosh Hashanah ref1\n\nRoyal Observatory, Greenwich ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nS\n\nSamhain festival ref1\n\nsandglasses ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nSanto-Dumant, Alberto ref1\n\nSaturn (planet) ref1, ref2\n\nsea clocks ref1, ref2\n\n_see also_ maritime timekeeping\n\nseasons ref1\n\nSecond World War ref1, ref2\n\nseconds ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nSeiko's Astron watch ref1\n\nself-winding mechanism ref1, ref2\n\nsexagesimal system ref1\n\nshadows and sunlight ref1\n\nShepherd Gate clock ref1\n\nsingle-celled life, first ref1, ref2\n\nSirius 'the Dog Star' ref1\n\n'The Sisters' (ancient tree) ref1\n\n60 as unit of time ref1, ref2\n\nskydiving record ref1\n\nsleeping patterns ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nsolar calendars _see_ Gregorian calendar; Julian calendar; Solar Hijri\n\nSolar Hijri ref1, ref2\n\nSolstices ref1, ref2\n\nsound, speed of ref1\n\nspace travel ref1, ref2\n\nspecious time ref1\n\nspeed dating ref1\n\nspeed, fastest foot ref1\n\nspeed limits, road ref1\n\nspiral balance spring ref1\n\nspring-driven clocks, first ref1\n\nspring tides ref1\n\nSt Augustine of Hippo ref1\n\nSt Alban's Cathedral clock ref1\n\nSt Bartholomew's Day Massacre ref1\n\nstandard time ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nStanford, Leland ref1\n\nstars ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6\n\n_see also_ astronomy\n\nstock market trading ref1\n\nStone Age ref1\n\nStonehenge, England ref1, ref2\n\nStrasbourg Cathedral ref1, ref2\n\nStratified Island, Mexico ref1\n\nstratigraphy ref1\n\nSu Song ref1\n\nsubjective time ref1\n\nSumerian empire ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nSummer Solstice ref1, ref2\n\nSun ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9\n\ndestroying the Earth ref1, ref2\n\nlight from the ref1, ref2\n\nrising and setting ref1, ref2\n\ntime-telling ref1\n\nworship of the ref1\n\nsundials ref1\n\nsuperstitions, time related ref1\n\nsuspended animation ref1\n\nSwitzerland ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8\n\nSylvester II, Pope ref1\n\nT\n\ntelegraphs ref1, ref2\n\ntelephones ref1\n\ntemperature compensated balance ref1\n\ntides ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ntime travel ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ntime zones ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nToba catastrophe ref1\n\nTolle, Eckhard ref1, ref2\n\nTompion, Thomas ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nTonatiuh ref1\n\nTordesillas line ref1\n\ntrains ref1, ref2, ref3\n\ntree rings ref1\n\nTriassic Period ref1\n\ntribes, Brazilian ref1, ref2\n\nTrinidad Lake, Colorado ref1\n\nTurpain, Albert ref1\n\n12 as unit of time ref1\n\n_see also_ duodecimal system\n\nU\n\nUmayyad Mosque, Damascus ref1, ref2\n\nuniverse, expansion of ref1\n\nUranus ref1\n\nUnited States Naval Observatory ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nUsher, James, Bishop of Armagh ref1\n\nUTC (Coordinated Universal Time) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\n_see also_ Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)\n\nV\n\nVedas ref1\n\nVenus (planet) ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nvolcanic activity ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4\n\nW\n\nWafaa El-Nil ref1\n\nwarp drive ref1\n\nwatches ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7\n\nwater clocks ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nweeks ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nWells Cathedral clock ref1, ref2\n\nWheatstone, Charles ref1\n\nWhite, Edward H. 137\n\nWhite, Harold ref1\n\nwhite holes ref1\n\nWick, Heinrich von ref1\n\nWinkel, Dietrich Nikolaus ref1\n\nWinter Solstice ref1, ref2, ref3\n\nWork, Henry Clay ref1\n\nwormholes ref1, ref2\n\nWren, Sir Christopher ref1\n\nWright brothers ref1\n\nY\n\nY2K ref1\n\nYeager, Chuck ref1\n\nYear Zero, Cambodian ref1\n\nyears ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5\n\nZ\n\nzircon crystals ref1, ref2\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n\u00cdndice\n\nCubierta\n\n**Pr\u00f3logo: Descenso al Maelstrom**\n\n**Primera parte: Su sonrisa misteriosa**\n\n1. Un alegre y galante Romeo\n\n2. Tiemblo de pensar en las consecuencias\n\n3. Sali\u00f3 de casa el domingo\n\n4. Muy h\u00e1bil con la pluma\n\n**Segunda parte: Los horrores de la Cueva de la Sibila**\n\n5. Una persona decorosa\n\n6. La casa de los muertos\n\n7. La negra divinidad de la noche\n\n8. El comit\u00e9 de ciudadanos preocupados\n\n9. Un notorio canalla\n\n10. La hora robada\n\n11. Exc\u00e9ntricos y chismosos\n\n12. El bosquecillo del crimen\n\n**Tercera parte: El domingo fat\u00eddico**\n\n13. Un coraz\u00f3n consumido\n\n14. Una oleada escarlata\n\n15. Una serie de coincidencias\n\n16. Una mansi\u00f3n construida sobre cr\u00e1neos de beb\u00e9s\n\n17. El bote desaparecido\n\n18. En discrepancia con la verdad\n\n**Cuarta parte: La dama duerme**\n\n19. Tal vez convenga se\u00f1alar\n\n20. El demonio de lo perverso\n\n**Ep\u00edlogo: El \u00faltimo grito desesperado**\n\n**Agradecimientos**\n\n**Bibliograf\u00eda selecta**\n\n**Ap\u00e9ndice: _El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat_ , de Edgar Allan Poe**\n\nNotas\n\nCr\u00e9ditos\n\nAlba Editorial\n\nPara la se\u00f1orita Corbett.  \nSiempre nos quedar\u00e1 Breezewood\nPr\u00f3logo\n\nDescenso al Maelstrom\n\n\u00ab\u00a1Oh, Maria! \u00a1Ojal\u00e1 te lo hubieses pensado un poco antes de dar este paso!\u00bb Portada de una novela publicada en 1844, basada en el caso de Mary Rogers.\n\nCortes\u00eda del autor\nEn junio de 1842, Edgar Allan Poe cogi\u00f3 la pluma para tratar una cuesti\u00f3n delicada con un viejo conocido. \u00ab\u00bfTe he ofendido con mis malas acciones? \u2013preguntaba\u2013. Y, en tal caso, \u00bfc\u00f3mo? Hubo un tiempo en que siempre ten\u00edas unos minutos para un amigo.\u00bb\n\nEl corresponsal de Poe, Joseph Evans Snodgrass, director del Sunday Visitor de Baltimore, debi\u00f3 de imaginar lo que vendr\u00eda a continuaci\u00f3n. Una vez m\u00e1s, Poe se explayar\u00eda contra el \u00faltimo editor o rival literario que lo hubiera agraviado. Alegar\u00eda enseguida una situaci\u00f3n \u00abembarazosa desde el punto de vista pecuniario\u00bb, afirmar\u00eda que estaba sin trabajo y con pocas perspectivas de encontrarlo y pedir\u00eda a su antiguo amigo una \u00ab\u00ednfima ayuda\u00bb en forma de pr\u00e9stamo.\n\nLa \u00faltima carta de Poe, not\u00f3 con alivio Snodgrass, se apartaba del esquema habitual. \u00abTengo una propuesta que hacerte \u2013escrib\u00eda\u2013. No s\u00e9 si recordar\u00e1s un cuento que publiqu\u00e9 har\u00e1 cosa de un a\u00f1o, titulado Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, que era todo un ejercicio de ingenio encaminado a descubrir a un asesino. Estoy a punto de concluir otro similar, que titular\u00e9 El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Continuaci\u00f3n de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, y que est\u00e1 basado en el asesinato real de Mary Cecilia Rogers, que tanto revuelo caus\u00f3 en Nueva York hace unos meses.\u00bb\n\nSnodgrass no necesitaba ning\u00fan recordatorio. Mary Rogers, m\u00e1s conocida por \u00abla bella cigarrera\u00bb, hab\u00eda sido una persona muy conocida en las calles de Nueva York. Desde su puesto en el mostrador del Tobacco Emporium de John Anderson, Mary Rogers hab\u00eda ejercido su hechizo sobre la mitad de los hombres de la ciudad. Su c\u00e9lebre \u00absonrisa misteriosa\u00bb ten\u00eda fama de ser tan fulminante como las flechas de Cupido. Admiradores de todas las clases sociales, del Bowery al Ayuntamiento, acud\u00edan a disfrutar de su compa\u00f1\u00eda. Unos le ofrec\u00edan poemas dedicados a su belleza. Otros hablaban con voz engolada de sus triunfos empresariales, y a veces se daban golpecitos en la cartera y la miraban de reojo. Y entretanto la cigarrera aguardaba detr\u00e1s del mostrador, con la mirada baja y fingiendo no o\u00edrles. En ocasiones se llevaba los dedos a la boca, como escandalizada por alguna expresi\u00f3n grosera, pero sus ojos segu\u00edan calmos y c\u00f3mplices.\n\nAlgunos tem\u00edan que la joven e inocente empleada de Anderson terminara de mala manera por culpa de las malas compa\u00f1\u00edas. The New York Morning Herald recomend\u00f3 tomar medidas \u00abcuanto antes para remediar los grandes males que pueden seguirse de poner a chicas tan guapas en los mostradores de estancos y confiter\u00edas. Rufianes con dinero se dejan caer por esos locales, compran cigarros y golosinas, entablan conversaci\u00f3n con la chica y acaban por llevarla a la ruina\u00bb.\n\nTales temores se revelar\u00edan tr\u00e1gicamente prof\u00e9ticos. En julio de 1841, Mary Rogers apareci\u00f3 brutalmente asesinada, y el suceso desat\u00f3 protestas masivas y prepar\u00f3 el escenario para uno de los dramas m\u00e1s espeluznantes del siglo XIX, que empujar\u00eda a un hombre al suicidio, a otro a la locura y a un tercero a la deshonra y a la humillaci\u00f3n p\u00fablicas. La muerte de la cigarrera, escribi\u00f3 un neoyorquino, se\u00f1al\u00f3 el \u00abterrible momento en que la ciudad perdi\u00f3 su inocencia\u00bb.\n\nPara bien o para mal, el crimen se convirti\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n en el catalizador de un cambio radical. El indisciplinado y desorganizado cuerpo de polic\u00eda de la ciudad demostr\u00f3 ser incapaz de llevar una investigaci\u00f3n con eficacia, lo que abri\u00f3 paso a una ambiciosa serie de reformas pol\u00edticas y sociales, mientras los detalles m\u00e1s escabrosos del asesinato alimentaban una encarnizada guerra por aumentar la tirada de los peri\u00f3dicos que condujo al periodismo norteamericano a cotas de sensacionalismo nunca imaginadas. El marrullero James Gordon Bennett del The New York Herald aprovech\u00f3 el caso para presentarlo como un \u00abcuento macabro y aleccionador\u00bb, regodearse en los aspectos m\u00e1s morbosos y desatar una feroz pol\u00e9mica sobre los l\u00edmites del decoro period\u00edstico. \u00abNo podemos desayunarnos con la sangre de inocentes asesinados \u2013declar\u00f3 un lector escandalizado\u2013. \u00bfEs que los caballeros de la prensa no tienen verg\u00fcenza?\u00bb Las s\u00faplicas de moderaci\u00f3n cayeron en saco roto y la tragedia de Mary Rogers se convertir\u00eda en uno de los primeros y m\u00e1s significativos casos en destacar en las p\u00e1ginas de los peri\u00f3dicos norteamericanos, y servir\u00eda de base para todos los \u00abcr\u00edmenes del siglo\u00bb subsiguientes, de los asesinatos supuestamente cometidos por Lizzie Borden en 1892 al asesinato de Stanford White en 1906 y hasta nuestros d\u00edas.\n\nNo obstante, el caso estuvo plagado de pistas falsas y malentendidos desde el principio. En los d\u00edas que siguieron al descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver, casi todo el mundo dio por sentado que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una de las famosas \u00abbandas de Nueva York\u00bb, como los Plug-Uglies o los Hudson Dusters, que campaban a sus anchas en las calles, aprovechando la ausencia total de autoridad policial. \u00ab\u00bfAcaso debemos entregar nuestras calles a esos canallas? \u2013se quejaba The New York Tribune\u2013. \u00bfNo podemos exigir a nuestros jefes de polic\u00eda electos que impongan la ley a esos forajidos?\u00bb Los peri\u00f3dicos se esforzaron en crear una m\u00e1rtir. \u00abEn una palabra \u2013declaraba el Herald\u2013, Nueva York quedar\u00e1 deshonrada y ultrajada ante el mundo civilizado, a menos que se ponga en marcha un gran movimiento moral con objeto de reformar y dar nuevos br\u00edos a la administraci\u00f3n de justicia criminal, y proteger la vida y las propiedades de sus habitantes de la violencia y el latrocinio p\u00fablicos. \u00bfQui\u00e9n dar\u00e1 el primer paso para emprender esta gran reforma moral?\u00bb\n\nA medida que crec\u00eda la indignaci\u00f3n de la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica, Mary Rogers obtuvo la dudosa distinci\u00f3n de convertirse en bien de consumo. A las dos semanas de cometerse el asesinato, un daguerrotipista hizo un grabado e imprimi\u00f3 un enorme n\u00famero de copias, \u00abcon un aceptable parecido a la fallecida\u00bb. \u00abUn vendedor ambulante podr\u00eda vender un gran n\u00famero si las llevase a Hoboken \u2013declar\u00f3 en un anuncio\u2013, donde mucha gente acude a diario a visitar el lugar.\u00bb Los escritores de panfletos no tardaron en sacar tajada: se puso en circulaci\u00f3n un morboso relato titulado Un negro suceso, que se vend\u00eda por seis c\u00e9ntimos y narraba \u00abvarios intentos de cortejo y seducci\u00f3n ocasionados por sus m\u00faltiples encantos\u00bb. Pronto le seguir\u00eda una mediocre novela titulada La bella cigarrera.\n\nNo obstante, un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s, el crimen segu\u00eda sin resolver, y hab\u00eda dejado atr\u00e1s vidas arruinadas y reputaciones destrozadas. Cuando el inter\u00e9s del p\u00fablico empezaba a declinar, Edgar Allan Poe vio una oportunidad \u00fanica. Su proyecto, tal como se lo cont\u00f3 a su amigo Snodgrass, consist\u00eda en enfocar el caso de un modo que no se hab\u00eda intentado ni imaginado nunca. Estudiar\u00eda los hechos a trav\u00e9s de la lente de la ficci\u00f3n, expondr\u00eda los fallos y los malentendidos de la investigaci\u00f3n oficial, y ofrecer\u00eda sus propias conclusiones sobre lo ocurrido... incluso se\u00f1alar\u00eda con el dedo al posible criminal. En suma, Poe daba a entender que propondr\u00eda una soluci\u00f3n que obligar\u00eda a la polic\u00eda de Nueva York a reanudar sus investigaciones.\n\nEra una estrategia sorprendente. En la \u00e9poca en que se cometi\u00f3 el asesinato, Poe hab\u00eda disfrutado de un raro interludio de prosperidad como director del Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, un peri\u00f3dico mensual ilustrado. Hab\u00eda seguido con detalle el caso de Mary Rogers, e incluso se dice que hab\u00eda sido cliente del Tobacco Emporium de Anderson, donde trabajaba la joven. La \u00e9poca de Poe en Graham's se\u00f1al\u00f3 un breve per\u00edodo de calma en una carrera por lo dem\u00e1s turbulenta. A pesar de sus evidentes dotes como poeta y escritor de relatos breves, siempre tuvo que hacer grandes esfuerzos por ganarse la vida y a menudo se vio obligado a mendigar pr\u00e9stamos a amigos compasivos como el propio Snodgrass. Su escasa reputaci\u00f3n se fundaba sobre todo en su labor como cr\u00edtico literario, campo en el que hac\u00eda gala de una notable sensibilidad e intuici\u00f3n, pero tambi\u00e9n de un tono implacable que le hab\u00eda ganado muchos enemigos. Poe hab\u00eda escrito ya la mayor\u00eda de sus mejores obras cuando muri\u00f3 la joven cigarrera, pero la fama y la libertad creativa segu\u00edan si\u00e9ndole esquivas. \u00abNo s\u00f3lo he trabajado en beneficio ajeno (a cambio de un sueldo m\u00edsero) \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013, sino que me he visto forzado a modificar mi forma de pensar por culpa de personas cuya imbecilidad era evidente para todos excepto para ellos mismos.\u00bb\n\nConfiaba en que El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat cambiar\u00eda las cosas. Su innovador relato Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, donde apareci\u00f3 por vez primera el detective aficionado C. Auguste Dupin, se hab\u00eda publicado en Graham's en abril de 1841, unos dos meses antes del asesinato de Mary Rogers. Poe describ\u00eda a Dupin como un personaje brillante y solitario, recluido en un cuarto mal iluminado, que s\u00f3lo de noche se aventuraba a recorrer las calles de Par\u00eds y disfrutar de \u00abla infinidad de emociones intelectuales\u00bb que le procuraba su capacidad de observaci\u00f3n. El relato anticipaba pr\u00e1cticamente todas las convenciones de lo que ser\u00edan las novelas modernas de misterio: el investigador exc\u00e9ntrico y reservado, su compa\u00f1ero en comparaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s obtuso, el sospechoso injustamente acusado, el criminal inesperado, la pista falsa, y \u2013tal vez por encima de todo\u2013 el crimen imposible en un cuarto cerrado. Hoy el relato se considera un hito literario y la g\u00e9nesis de todo el g\u00e9nero de ficci\u00f3n polic\u00edaco, pero en el momento de su publicaci\u00f3n apenas llam\u00f3 la atenci\u00f3n. Al a\u00f1o siguiente, Poe hab\u00eda dejado Graham's y su suerte hab\u00eda dado un giro desfavorable. Buscando una idea que vender, decidi\u00f3 aplicar la capacidad de \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb de Dupin, o su razonamiento deductivo, a un enigma real, transformando el asesinato de Mary Rogers en El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat.\n\nPocas veces un escritor ha escogido un asunto m\u00e1s apropiado. La vida entera de Poe se hab\u00eda visto ensombrecida por la muerte de mujeres cercanas a \u00e9l, empezando por su propia madre, que muri\u00f3 de tuberculosis cuando su hijo no hab\u00eda cumplido a\u00fan los tres a\u00f1os. Cuando empez\u00f3 a escribir El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, su propia mujer, Virginia, estaba en la primera etapa de esa misma enfermedad, en lo que ser\u00eda el inicio de un largo y ag\u00f3nico declive. Para Poe, esas muertes no s\u00f3lo constituyeron la tragedia de su vida, sino la fuente de la que manaba su arte, y de la que brotaron esas oleadas de tristeza, en apariencia ilimitadas, que inspiraron sus hero\u00ednas m\u00e1s memorables: Helen, Lenore, Madeline Usher, Annabel Lee y otras muchas m\u00e1s.\n\n\u00abLa muerte [...] de una mujer joven \u2013escribi\u00f3 una vez\u2013 es, sin duda alguna, el tema m\u00e1s po\u00e9tico del mundo.\u00bb En el caso de Mary Rogers, el escritor parec\u00eda haber dado con una mujer sacada de una de sus obras. La v\u00edctima no s\u00f3lo era joven y hermosa, sino que sobre su muerte pend\u00eda un aura de tristeza e injusticia. Las ambiciones de su relato eran enormes: \u00abHe dado forma a mis prop\u00f3sitos de un modo totalmente novedoso en literatura \u2013le dijo a Joseph Snodgrass\u2013. He imaginado una serie de coincidences casi exactas sucedidas en Par\u00eds. Una joven grisette llamada Marie Rog\u00eat muere asesinada en circunstancias muy similares a las de Mary Rogers. As\u00ed, con la excusa de mostrar c\u00f3mo esclarece Dupin el misterio del asesinato, hago un largo y riguroso an\u00e1lisis de la tragedia neoyorquina. No omito nada. Examino, una por una, las opiniones y argumentos de la prensa sobre el asunto, y demuestro que, hasta la fecha, nadie ha enfocado debidamente el caso. De hecho, no s\u00f3lo creo haber demostrado cu\u00e1n falaz es la idea m\u00e1s generalizada \u2013que la joven fue v\u00edctima de una banda de rufianes\u2013, sino que he sugerido qui\u00e9n pudo ser el asesino de un modo que sin duda dar\u00e1 nuevos br\u00edos a la investigaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEl tono de confianza de Poe no pod\u00eda ocultar lo desesperado de su situaci\u00f3n. Tras fijar un precio de cuarenta d\u00f3lares por su relato, conclu\u00eda la carta en tono quejoso: \u00ab\u00bfMe enviar\u00e1s tu respuesta? Hazlo a vuelta de correo, si te es posible\u00bb. Al final Snodgrass no mostr\u00f3 el menor inter\u00e9s por Marie Rog\u00eat, y el cuento termin\u00f3 apareciendo en una revista llamada The Ladies' Companion, publicaci\u00f3n que Poe hab\u00eda criticado previamente por su \u00abmal gusto y charlataner\u00eda\u00bb. Aun as\u00ed, ten\u00eda motivos para albergar esperanzas sobre el \u00e9xito de Marie Rog\u00eat. Hab\u00eda examinado minuciosamente todos los giros y vuelcos del caso de Mary Rogers y elaborado una soluci\u00f3n que parec\u00eda tan emocionante como veros\u00edmil. A\u00fan m\u00e1s intrigante era el modo en que Dupin, el detective de ficci\u00f3n de Poe, hab\u00eda llegado a sus conclusiones, \u00absentado tan tranquilo en su sill\u00f3n de siempre\u00bb, y confiando \u00fanicamente en su capacidad de raciocinaci\u00f3n. \u00abEstoy convencido \u2013dec\u00eda Poe\u2013 de que el cuento llamar\u00e1 la atenci\u00f3n.\u00bb\n\nDebido a la extensi\u00f3n poco habitual de Marie Rog\u00eat, el director de The Ladies' Companion prefiri\u00f3 publicar el relato en tres partes a lo largo de tres entregas mensuales. Puede que Poe pensara que de ese modo aumentar\u00eda el suspense y despertar\u00eda el inter\u00e9s del p\u00fablico por ver c\u00f3mo resolver\u00eda Dupin el caso en las \u00faltimas p\u00e1ginas. Pero despu\u00e9s de publicadas las dos primeras entregas de Marie Rog\u00eat aparecieron nuevas y turbadoras pruebas en el caso del asesinato de Mary Rogers, y la investigaci\u00f3n, que llevaba varios meses paralizada, se reanud\u00f3.\n\nFaltaban pocos d\u00edas para que se publicara la tercera y \u00faltima entrega de Marie Rog\u00eat, que inclu\u00eda la cuidadosamente razonada resoluci\u00f3n ideada por Poe. Con el misterio a punto de resolverse y la fecha de publicaci\u00f3n cada vez m\u00e1s pr\u00f3xima, Poe hizo una apuesta a la desesperada. Sus esfuerzos por salvar su historia y su reputaci\u00f3n fueron tan audaces como brillantes, y forman un caracter\u00edstico cap\u00edtulo de su vida. Cuando concluy\u00f3, no s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda retomado la historia, sino que la hab\u00eda reencauzado seg\u00fan su voluntad.\n\nHenry James hizo en una ocasi\u00f3n una observaci\u00f3n franca y reveladora al comparar a Poe con el poeta franc\u00e9s Charles Baudelaire: \u00abPoe era con mucho el m\u00e1s charlat\u00e1n de los dos \u2013observ\u00f3\u2013 y tambi\u00e9n mucho m\u00e1s genial\u00bb. Ambos aspectos del car\u00e1cter de Poe, el genio y la charlataner\u00eda, afloraron al enfrentarse al problema de Marie Rog\u00eat. En ocasiones, pasaba de lo uno a lo otro en el espacio de una sola frase, con extraordinarios destellos de inspiraci\u00f3n que se contrapon\u00edan a una dosis id\u00e9ntica de astucia. El resultado fue una forma \u00fanica de alquimia, que transform\u00f3 la realidad en ficci\u00f3n y viceversa. Para Poe, Mary Rogers se\u00f1al\u00f3 el punto en que la vida y el arte convergen. En un momento en que su propia vida se ven\u00eda abajo, su historia le ofreci\u00f3 una forma de distracci\u00f3n, una oportunidad de emular a su famoso detective y encontrar orden en el caos. En el proceso, reescribi\u00f3 la historia \u2013tanto la suya propia como la de la cigarrera\u2013 y se las arregl\u00f3 para encontrar poes\u00eda en el mism\u00edsimo meollo de un asesinato.\nPrimera parte\n\nSu sonrisa misteriosa\n\n\u00abEstar\u00edas expuesta a las miradas de todos...\u00bb  \nSunday Morning Atlas (Nueva York),13 de septiembre de 1840\n\nCortes\u00eda de la Sociedad Anticuaria Americana\nLos anales del crimen est\u00e1n repletos de misterios. La cinta roja del asesinato ha marcado su huella en muchas de sus p\u00e1ginas, sin dejar ning\u00fan otro indicio de su identidad. De todos los episodios envueltos en esta oscuridad incompleta, no hay ninguno m\u00e1s intrigante que el caso de Mary Cecilia Rogers.\n\nLa Police Gazette neoyorquina (1881)\n\nAl aut\u00e9ntico genio lo incompleto le produce escalofr\u00edos, y a menudo prefiere callar antes que decir algo que no sea todo lo que debe ser.\n\nEDGAR ALLAN POE\n1 Un alegre y galante Romeo\n\nDesde el p\u00f3rtico de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, en el 126 de Nassau Street, se divisaba la mayor parte de la ciudad de Nueva York. En la \u00e9poca, a Nassau Street se la conoc\u00eda como \u00abel cerebro de la ciudad\u00bb a causa de sus muchas casas editoriales y redacciones de peri\u00f3dicos, que \u00absiempre vibraban con el latido de las rotativas\u00bb, aunque todav\u00eda quedaba en el vecindario quien recordaba tiempos m\u00e1s tranquilos en los que la calle de adoquines era s\u00f3lo \u00abel camino de la pasteler\u00eda\u00bb.\n\nAl norte, apenas a cien metros de all\u00ed, se hallaba la imponente mole del Ayuntamiento revestida de m\u00e1rmol de Massachusetts y coronada con una ornamentada c\u00fapula que con el tiempo se revelar\u00eda muy inflamable. En la parte de atr\u00e1s del edificio, el brillante m\u00e1rmol daba paso al ladrillo rojo de Newark, a ra\u00edz de un recorte de fondos producido durante la construcci\u00f3n y el convencimiento, en la \u00e9poca en que se termin\u00f3, en 1812, de que la ciudad no crecer\u00eda m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de Chambers Street.\n\nAl sur del parque del Ayuntamiento se alzaba el Hotel Astor House, una estructura de estilo griego moderno de la que se dec\u00eda que era la \u00abmole m\u00e1s grandiosa\u00bb de la ciudad. Cuando el hotel se inaugur\u00f3 en 1836, llovieron las cr\u00edticas sobre el empresario John Jacob Astor por haberlo construido en un lugar tan remoto. El esp\u00edritu pionero de Astor no tard\u00f3 en ser rentable en cuanto el vecindario empez\u00f3 a ponerse de moda y el hotel se convirti\u00f3 en el m\u00e1s elegante de la naci\u00f3n. Uno de sus lujos principales era el agua corriente, impulsada por vapor y disponible en cada una de las 309 habitaciones, incluso en las del quinto piso. En el suntuoso restaurante de la planta baja, los hu\u00e9spedes del hotel y los hombres de negocios de la zona pod\u00edan escoger entre unos treinta men\u00fas diarios, que iban del pastel de ostras y el jam\u00f3n dulce al pato asado y el bud\u00edn de carne de caza.\n\nUnas manzanas al norte, en unos terrenos que anta\u00f1o hab\u00edan sido un estanque de agua dulce, se extend\u00eda el laberinto de calles estrechas y fangosas conocido como Five Points, que ten\u00eda fama de ser el peor suburbio del mundo. En el centro, entre un sinf\u00edn de mataderos, f\u00e1bricas de cola y destiler\u00edas de trementina se encontraba un bloque de viviendas depauperado conocido como el Old Brewery, el edificio m\u00e1s abarrotado de la ciudad, donde cientos de emigrantes y jornaleros viv\u00edan en condiciones de extrema pobreza. De cinco pisos de altura, ten\u00eda un \u00abcallej\u00f3n de los asesinos\u00bb frecuentado por los peores criminales. \u00abEs una regi\u00f3n de maldad, suciedad y sufrimiento \u2013escribir\u00eda el reverendo Matthew Hale Smith\u2013. Las pensiones son subterr\u00e1neas, sucias y mugrientas, sin ventilaci\u00f3n, a menudo sin ventanas, y plagadas de ratas y toda suerte de alima\u00f1as. Literas cubiertas de harapos podridos sirven de camas. Se alquilan habitaciones entre dos y diez d\u00f3lares al mes en las que nadie alojar\u00eda ni a un perro. Los ni\u00f1os se acostumbran a la aflicci\u00f3n desde su nacimiento y crecen entre vicios degradantes y una bestialidad que no conoce ning\u00fan pa\u00eds pagano. Las mujeres de mala vida que recorren las calles de los peores barrios de la ciudad, que abarrotan los tugurios de baile y las tabernas, aprenden en este vil lugar.\u00bb\n\nPara quienes prefiriesen diversiones m\u00e1s saludables, el Museo Americano de P. T. Barnum, a la vuelta de la esquina de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, constitu\u00eda el centro de un barrio floreciente y consagrado al entretenimiento. Los visitantes se estremec\u00edan con atracciones tan famosas como Jenny Lind, el \u00abruise\u00f1or sueco\u00bb; el \u00abmin\u00fasculo y terror\u00edfico\u00bb general Pulgarcito, y la asombrosa y ex\u00f3tica \u00absirena de Fidji\u00bb. Pagando la entrada de veinticinco centavos, los visitantes pod\u00edan ver juglares y ventr\u00edlocuos, mujeres barbudas y hombres de goma, hombres que andaban sobre ascuas encendidas, tragasables y docenas de otros \u00abentretenimientos variados del g\u00e9nero m\u00e1s sorprendente\u00bb. Barnum hab\u00eda elegido un lugar de Broadway en Ann Street \u2013cerca de los barrios m\u00e1s acomodados y de los barrios pobres\u2013 con la esperanza de que \u00abtanto las clases bajas como las altas\u00bb pasaran bajo sus marquesinas de rayas de vivos colores. \u00abLa norma del se\u00f1or Barnum ha sido que sus clientes no tengan nunca la sensaci\u00f3n de haber malgastado su dinero \u2013declaraba el diario neoyorquino Sun\u2013, sin parar barras en los medios utilizados para atraer a las multitudes a sus exposiciones. Aunque sus procedimientos puedan no ser los que espera el p\u00fablico, cada visitante recibe diez veces el valor de su dinero en inmensas diversiones que no pueden verse en ninguna otra parte.\u00bb\n\nEl almac\u00e9n de John Anderson, en el 319 de Broadway, tambi\u00e9n se beneficiaba de una astuta publicidad y una ubicaci\u00f3n conveniente, al norte del Ayuntamiento en Pearl Street. Una estatua de sir Walter Raleigh saludaba al viandante, mientras que el cartel de encima de la puerta enumeraba los variados art\u00edculos en venta, entre ellos \u00abcigarros puros, tabaco de mascar y otras variedades\u00bb. La especialidad de Anderson era el tabaco de mascar, en los d\u00edas en que utilizar la escupidera, en lugar del suelo, se consideraba de buena educaci\u00f3n. Cuando el general Winfield Scott visit\u00f3 el almac\u00e9n y alab\u00f3 el tabaco de Anderson calific\u00e1ndolo de \u00abgran consuelo\u00bb para el combatiente, Anderson tuvo la idea de envolver porciones individuales de tabaco de mascar en brillante papel de plata. \u00abEl tabaco Anderson\u00bb se conservaba fresco y cab\u00eda f\u00e1cilmente en el bolsillo, por lo que era ideal para los soldados en la guerra entre M\u00e9xico y Estados Unidos o los buscadores de oro en California. Aquella inspiraci\u00f3n de Anderson le hizo ganar una fortuna.\n\nHombre de gran ambici\u00f3n y energ\u00eda, Anderson concibi\u00f3 el negocio del tabaco como medio para cosas mejores, incluso posiblemente una carrera pol\u00edtica. Nacido en 1812, empez\u00f3 trabajando en una planta de cardado de lana y luego fue aprendiz de un maestro alba\u00f1il que repar\u00f3 en sus posibilidades y lo ayud\u00f3 a iniciarse en el negocio de los cigarros. Al cabo de pocos meses, era evidente que llegar\u00eda a ser uno de los comerciantes m\u00e1s pr\u00f3speros de la ciudad, e incluso sus competidores lo consideraban un hombre prometedor.\n\nGracias a su ubicaci\u00f3n estrat\u00e9gica, el almac\u00e9n de Anderson pronto se constituir\u00eda en sala informal de reuniones, donde los parroquianos de las cercanas oficinas period\u00edsticas y gubernamentales se ve\u00edan social o profesionalmente, seg\u00fan requiriese la ocasi\u00f3n. Poderosos directores de peri\u00f3dico como Horace Greeley y William Cullen Bryant eran clientes habituales, igual que el gran juez y jurista James Kent y James K. Paulding, el ministro de Marina. Los literatos neoyorquinos tambi\u00e9n empezaron a frecuentarlo, y muchos de ellos dejaron de visitar la cercana Shakespeare Tavern, en la esquina de Nassau y Fulton, que hab\u00eda sido durante mucho tiempo un segundo hogar para los poetas y escritores de la ciudad. Tanto Washington Irving como James Fenimore Cooper eran clientes asiduos, y a menudo y se dice que un Edgar Allan Poe de veintiocho a\u00f1os, llegado a Nueva York desde Richmond en 1837, se pasaba por all\u00ed de vez en cuando para relacionarse con aquellas luminarias.\n\nCon gran pesar por parte de Anderson, el almac\u00e9n tambi\u00e9n se hizo popular entre otros elementos menos deseables, sobre todo lechuguinos que persegu\u00edan con id\u00e9ntico vigor a las mujeres y los juegos de azar. A Anderson le preocupaba que esos clientes de baja estofa limitaran sus posibilidades pol\u00edticas. De vez en cuando soltaba exabruptos contra los \u00abcamorristas y pisaverdes\u00bb que atestaban el local. Eso le atrajo una acerba reprimenda por parte de un peri\u00f3dico llamado Whip,* cuyo director se preguntaba si \u00abcierto b\u00edpedo de notoriedad cigarral no har\u00eda bien en moderar sus imprecaciones contra los clientes de su local, si no quiere sentir la fuerza del Whip\u00bb.\n\nEn sus primeros d\u00edas de comerciante de tabaco, Anderson no pod\u00eda permitirse ofender a nadie. Enfrentado a la competencia de otros almacenes de m\u00e1s solera, el joven empresario se esforzaba por abrirse paso y conseguir que su Tobacco Emporium destacara entre sus rivales. La soluci\u00f3n lleg\u00f3 en la forma de una joven \u00abde hermosura et\u00e9rea e hipn\u00f3tica\u00bb llamada Mary Cecilia Rogers, que pronto ser\u00eda conocida en toda la ciudad como \u00abla bella cigarrera\u00bb.\n\nNacida en 1820, Mary Rogers lleg\u00f3 a Nueva York, procedente de Connecticut, cuando era s\u00f3lo una adolescente, tras el fallecimiento de su padre en la explosi\u00f3n de un vapor. Con el dinero que les proporcion\u00f3 un hermano mayor, Mary y su madre terminar\u00edan abriendo una pensi\u00f3n cerca de Broadway en el 126 de Nassau Street, a poca distancia del almac\u00e9n de tabaco.\n\nA sus diecis\u00e9is a\u00f1os, todos consideraban a Mary una gran belleza, y un admirador compuso un poema dedicado a su figura femenina, su cabello negro como ala de cuervo y su \u00absonrisa misteriosa\u00bb. Un pretendiente, que vivi\u00f3 un tiempo en la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, dec\u00eda que era \u00abamable, complaciente y de modales fascinantes\u00bb.\n\nEl atractivo de Mary era tal que, en 1838, llam\u00f3 la atenci\u00f3n de John Anderson. Cautivado, la contrat\u00f3 con un generoso salario para despachar detr\u00e1s del mostrador de su estanco, donde pens\u00f3 que su cabello negro como ala de cuervo y sus modales fascinantes atraer\u00edan a los clientes masculinos. Aunque en Europa era costumbre, en Norteam\u00e9rica segu\u00eda consider\u00e1ndose poco apropiado contratar dependientas hermosas. Se tem\u00eda que los rudos modales de algunos clientes pudieran tener un efecto \u00abembrutecedor\u00bb en una joven inocente. Phoebe Rogers, la madre de Mary, s\u00f3lo permiti\u00f3 que su hija aceptara el puesto tras recibir garant\u00edas por parte de Anderson de que Mary nunca estar\u00eda sola en el almac\u00e9n y de que la acompa\u00f1ar\u00edan a casa cada noche.\n\nEl inter\u00e9s de Anderson no era puramente altruista. Desde el momento en que Mary ocup\u00f3 su puesto en el mostrador, su presencia atrajo multitud de admiradores y contribuy\u00f3 a garantizar el \u00e9xito del incipiente negocio. \u00abAl menos algunos de los que frecuentan el almac\u00e9n del se\u00f1or Anderson \u2013observar\u00eda un cliente\u2013 no tienen otro prop\u00f3sito que jactarse y pavonearse delante de la joven.\u00bb Un peri\u00f3dico compar\u00f3 el efecto con el de \u00abuna brillante luminaria, para atraer a las polillas que disfrutan revoloteando en torno a un centro tan atractivo\u00bb. El almac\u00e9n de Anderson, que llevaba apenas dos a\u00f1os en el negocio, super\u00f3 a sus competidores y adquiri\u00f3 una envidiable reputaci\u00f3n como sal\u00f3n literario. Adem\u00e1s de Washington Irving y James Fenimore Cooper, el almac\u00e9n tambi\u00e9n atra\u00eda a muchos aspirantes a poetas; uno de ellos tuvo la suficiente inspiraci\u00f3n para celebrar en verso a la hermosa cigarrera:\n\n> Escogida por su hermosura entre las dem\u00e1s bellas\n> \n> e instalada en la ventanilla para vender habanos\n> \n> por un jefe que sabe bien que su semblante\n> \n> es como un anuncio que vaciar\u00e1 sus anaqueles.\n> \n> \u00a1Ay! Que la necesidad haya obligado\n> \n> a una mujer a aceptar tal empleo;\n> \n> a convertirse en im\u00e1n de lechuguinos,\n> \n> petimetres y elegantes, y s\u00f3lo por dinero.\n> \n> Pero aun as\u00ed, es nuestro deber ocupar\n> \n> con humildad el lugar en que nos pone la Providencia;\n> \n> y no hay sitio en la tierra donde el honor se mancille\n> \n> si con celo conservamos el amor propio.\n> \n> \u00a1A los votos del adulador presta o\u00eddos sordos! \u00a1Nada m\u00e1s vano!\n> \n> Como el tabaco que fuma, terminar\u00e1n en humo;\n> \n> piensa en los peligros de tu puesto,\n> \n> y, pese a la tentaci\u00f3n, sal inc\u00f3lume.\n\nLos periodistas tambi\u00e9n se dejaron atrapar por los encantos de Mary. A medida que fueron apareciendo referencias a la \u00abhermosa cigarrera\u00bb en las notas sociales de diversas publicaciones, la joven adquiri\u00f3 una peculiar notoriedad y se convirti\u00f3 tal vez en la primera mujer de Nueva York que se hizo famosa s\u00f3lo porque hablasen de ella. \u00abEs curioso \u2013apuntaba secamente un periodista\u2013 que su reputaci\u00f3n no se deba a su posici\u00f3n ni a sus logros.\u00bb\n\nNo est\u00e1 claro c\u00f3mo conoci\u00f3 John Anderson a su famosa empleada, pero la preocupaci\u00f3n que ten\u00eda por su bienestar iba claramente m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de lo laboral. Seg\u00fan los archivos de la ciudad, Mary y su madre, Phoebe, se instalaron en la casa de Anderson en Duane Street a su llegada a Nueva York en 1837, aunque s\u00f3lo pasaron all\u00ed unos meses. Al a\u00f1o siguiente, cuando Anderson compr\u00f3 una nueva casa en White Street, Mary y su madre se mudaron con la se\u00f1ora Hayes, una de las hermanas de aqu\u00e9lla, que resid\u00eda en Pitt Street. Aun as\u00ed, el hecho de que las dos mujeres prefiriesen el hogar de Anderson al de una de sus parientes parece indicar algo m\u00e1s que una mera circunstancia casual. Se ha sugerido que Mary y su madre se ganaban la vida haciendo las tareas dom\u00e9sticas para el joven soltero, y que tal vez \u00e9ste se enamorara de la hermosa joven que ten\u00eda bajo su protecci\u00f3n. Sea como fuere, cuando se marcharon de casa de Anderson, Mary ya hab\u00eda empezado a trabajar tras el mostrador del estanco, y el comerciante seguir\u00eda siendo su amigo y protector mucho tiempo despu\u00e9s.\n\nMuchos de los j\u00f3venes que compet\u00edan por atraer la atenci\u00f3n de Mary dec\u00edan de ella que era amable pero un poco distante. En ocasiones, recordaba un admirador, se cern\u00eda sobre sus \u00abbellos rasgos\u00bb una sombra, como si le \u00abpreocupara un gran secreto\u00bb. Aunque es probable que tales evocaciones sean un tanto fantasiosas y est\u00e9n te\u00f1idas por el conocimiento de lo que le ocurri\u00f3 despu\u00e9s, Mary ten\u00eda motivos para sufrir breves arrebatos de tristeza. Pese a que apenas hab\u00eda salido todav\u00eda de la adolescencia, su vida hab\u00eda estado pre\u00f1ada de tragedias y zozobras.\n\nMary y su madre llegaron a Nueva York desde Connecticut en pleno p\u00e1nico bancario de 1837, \u00e9poca en la que muchos habitantes de la costa Este sufrieron las consecuencias de las malas cosechas y el hundimiento de los mercados, lo que caus\u00f3 un \u00e9xodo masivo de la regi\u00f3n. En mayo de ese a\u00f1o, la crisis golpe\u00f3 Nueva York iniciando una racha desastrosa para los bancos de la ciudad. \u00abEl volc\u00e1n ha explotado y arrasado Nueva York \u2013escribi\u00f3 Philip Hone, un antiguo alcalde de la ciudad, m\u00e1s recordado como diarista\u2013. Estuve all\u00ed [...] y conoc\u00ed la desesperaci\u00f3n de la gente. Mujeres casi aplastadas hasta morir y hombres robustos que apenas se ten\u00edan en pie se aferraban como en un postrer abrazo a las precarias pruebas de sus ahorros y gritaban con esfuerzo: \"\u00a1Pagadnos! \u00a1Pagadnos!\"\u00bb Cuando se agudiz\u00f3 la crisis, Nueva York, como la mayor parte del pa\u00eds, tuvo que enfrentarse a un declive econ\u00f3mico que durar\u00eda seis a\u00f1os y ofrecer\u00eda pocas perspectivas a la creciente oleada de reci\u00e9n llegados a la ciudad.\n\nA pesar de las dificultades, Hone observaba: \u00abLos obreros honrados que no tengan miedo del trabajo viril tendr\u00e1n motivos para alegrarse\u00bb. El panorama no estaba tan despejado para las mujeres honradas que no pod\u00edan optar a un trabajo viril. En Connecticut, Phoebe Rogers y su joven hija hab\u00edan gozado de seguridad econ\u00f3mica y una buena situaci\u00f3n, pues descend\u00edan de varias familias conocidas de Nueva Inglaterra, entre ellas los clanes Mather y Rogers, unos de los primeros colonos del condado de New London. Por el contrario, en Nueva York ambas estaban solas y casi sin amigos, frente a un futuro y un porvenir inciertos.\n\nPhoebe Rogers nunca habr\u00eda imaginado que pasar\u00eda as\u00ed los a\u00f1os de su vejez. Nacida en 1778, apenas ten\u00eda dieciocho a\u00f1os cuando se cas\u00f3 con Ezra Mather, descendiente de Increase Mather, el legendario l\u00edder puritano, y de su hijo Cotton Mather, que hab\u00edan desempe\u00f1ado un notorio papel en los juicios por brujer\u00eda de Salem en 1692. El marido de Phoebe era un pr\u00f3spero comerciante que ten\u00eda propiedades en Lyme y los pueblos de los alrededores, e incluso era due\u00f1o de un solar en Pearl Street, en Nueva York. La pareja viv\u00eda c\u00f3modamente y disfrutaba de buena consideraci\u00f3n social.\n\nEn 1808 el matrimonio ten\u00eda ya cuatro hijos y una hija, y la familia parec\u00eda firmemente asentada en una vida de convenciones y prosperidad. No obstante, ese mismo a\u00f1o Ezra Mather enferm\u00f3 y muri\u00f3 de repente a la edad de treinta y ocho a\u00f1os. Phoebe Mather, que apenas hab\u00eda cumplido los treinta, qued\u00f3 viuda y con cinco ni\u00f1os a su cuidado. Por fortuna, su marido le hab\u00eda dejado una herencia considerable: su testamento garantizaba la manutenci\u00f3n y educaci\u00f3n de los ni\u00f1os, y cuidaba de que la viuda estuviese bien atendida hasta que volviese a casarse.\n\nPhoebe Mather podr\u00eda haber vivido c\u00f3modamente hasta el fin de sus d\u00edas. No obstante, seis a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s, volvi\u00f3 a casarse y renunci\u00f3 a la generosa herencia de su primer marido. Daniel Rogers, un hombre once a\u00f1os m\u00e1s joven que ella, descend\u00eda de una de las familias prominentes de la pr\u00f3spera comunidad, dedicada principalmente a la construcci\u00f3n naval, de New London. Como los Mather, la familia Rogers hab\u00eda desempe\u00f1ado un papel en la historia de la regi\u00f3n, pero si los Mather hab\u00edan sido puritanos, los Rogers hab\u00edan sido un poco m\u00e1s rebeldes y hab\u00edan fundado una secta religiosa conocida como los \u00abrogerianos\u00bb, directamente enfrentada a la ortodoxia puritana. En ocasiones, esta oposici\u00f3n adoptaba la forma de una imaginativa desobediencia civil, y sus miembros se presentaban \u00abdesnudos o casi desnudos\u00bb a las reuniones p\u00fablicas, o se comportaban \u00abde manera desaforada y tumultuosa\u00bb para perturbar la solemnidad puritana. Por lo visto, esa vena rebelde hab\u00eda ido pasando de generaci\u00f3n en generaci\u00f3n: James Rogers, el abuelo de Daniel, se enfrent\u00f3 una vez a pu\u00f1etazos con un oficial de polic\u00eda por culpa de un barril de ternera que hab\u00edan apartado para pagar a un ministro de la Iglesia. La disputa concluy\u00f3 cuando Rogers arroj\u00f3 agua hirviendo al oficial y se march\u00f3 con el bot\u00edn.\n\nAunque el paso de los puritanos Mather a la rebelde familia Rogers parezca poco convencional, parece asimismo que el segundo matrimonio de Phoebe Rogers fue feliz. Mary Rogers naci\u00f3 en 1820, probablemente en Lyme, Connecticut, en el sexto a\u00f1o de casados. Curiosamente, los certificados oficiales de su nacimiento han desaparecido o se han destruido; en cambio, los nacimientos de los cinco hijos del primer matrimonio de Phoebe est\u00e1n bien documentados de formas diversas. Tal vez esta diferencia indique un cambio de estatus social entre el primer y el segundo matrimonio, pero hay otra explicaci\u00f3n posible: en 1820, Phoebe Rogers ten\u00eda cuarenta y dos a\u00f1os, una edad muy avanzada en la \u00e9poca para dar a luz a un hijo. Eso, unido a la ausencia del certificado de nacimiento, ha llevado a especular que Mary pudiera no ser la hija de Phoebe Rogers, sino su nieta: probablemente fruto ileg\u00edtimo de la hija de veinti\u00fan a\u00f1os que Phoebe hab\u00eda tenido en su primer matrimonio, y que ahora, casada con Daniel Rogers, habr\u00eda recogido para criarla como si fuese suya. La familia Rogers no habr\u00eda sido la primera en recurrir a ese medio de ocultar el desliz de una hija soltera.\n\nFueran \u00e9stas u otras las circunstancias del nacimiento de Mary, los a\u00f1os que pas\u00f3 en Connecticut estuvieron marcados por la muerte. Cuando cumpli\u00f3 los catorce a\u00f1os, tres de los hijos del primer matrimonio de Phoebe Rogers hab\u00edan muerto en un espacio de s\u00f3lo cinco a\u00f1os. Para acrecentar el pesar de la familia, en 1834 la explosi\u00f3n de un vapor en el r\u00edo Misisipi acab\u00f3 con la vida de Daniel Rogers, el segundo marido de Phoebe.\n\nTras enviudar por segunda vez, Phoebe Rogers se qued\u00f3 otros tres a\u00f1os en Lyme con su hija peque\u00f1a y en circunstancias cada vez m\u00e1s apuradas. No obstante, cuando se desat\u00f3 el p\u00e1nico financiero de 1837, las dos mujeres se vieron obligadas a venderlo todo y probar suerte en la ciudad de Nueva York. El hecho de que Phoebe tuviera una hermana all\u00ed influy\u00f3 probablemente en su decisi\u00f3n, aunque tambi\u00e9n es posible que John Anderson, que tal vez tuviese negocios con Ezra Mather, las ayudara a trasladarse. Independientemente de cu\u00e1les fuesen sus motivos, la transici\u00f3n de la rural Lyme, tan pac\u00edfica y familiar, a las animadas calles de Nueva York debi\u00f3 de ser muy angustiosa. A punto de cumplir los sesenta a\u00f1os, Phoebe Rogers dej\u00f3 atr\u00e1s el \u00fanico mundo que hab\u00eda conocido. En Lyme, al menos durante su primer matrimonio, hab\u00eda disfrutado de prosperidad y una buena posici\u00f3n social. Ahora se encontraba sola y desprotegida, y a cargo de una hija joven, tratando de empezar una nueva vida en una ciudad ca\u00f3tica y desconocida. Sus amigas en Nueva York afirmaban que era triste, reservada y merecedora de su \u00abcompasi\u00f3n m\u00e1s sincera\u00bb. Dadas las circunstancias, no es del todo sorprendente.\n\nMientras Phoebe Rogers inspiraba compasi\u00f3n, la vivaz Mary despertaba sentimientos m\u00e1s complicados en los hombres que se cruzaban en su camino. La joven y hermosa hija de la viuda parec\u00eda sacada de las p\u00e1ginas de Dickens, entre otras razones por su oscuro linaje y su aura tr\u00e1gica. \u00abVemos a esta joven como a nuestras propias hijas\u00bb, declaraba un admirador, pero este instinto paternal parece haber sido m\u00e1s bien minoritario. Muchos m\u00e1s hombres expresaban su admiraci\u00f3n con palabras galantes. Los antepasados puritanos de Mary se habr\u00edan escandalizado al verla vender cigarrillos en el almac\u00e9n de Anderson, pero en un momento en que muchos hombres capaces perd\u00edan su empleo, tuvo suerte de encontrar un puesto tan c\u00f3modo.\n\nMary comprendi\u00f3 desde el principio lo que se esperaba de ella, y, a medida que fue avanzando el tiempo, empez\u00f3 a demostrar cierto estilo. Un pretendiente esperanzado afirmaba que pasaba la tarde en el estanco sin otro prop\u00f3sito que intercambiar \u00abincitantes miradas\u00bb con la cautivadora muchacha del mostrador, que sab\u00eda c\u00f3mo avivar las llamas de su ardor sin darle falsas esperanzas. Un poema publicado en The New York Herald da una pista del efecto que ejerc\u00eda:\n\n> Se mov\u00eda entre el suave perfume\n> \n> que exhala la isla m\u00e1s bals\u00e1mica del cielo;\n> \n> sus ojos pose\u00edan la tristeza azulada de las estrellas\n> \n> y un atisbo del cielo era su sonrisa.\n\nJohn Anderson pagaba a su empleada un generoso salario con tal de proporcionar a sus clientes aquel atisbo del cielo. Sin duda Mary agradec\u00eda aquellas atenciones y prefer\u00eda tan leves obligaciones a trabajar como fregona para ganarse la vida y mantener a su madre. No obstante, despu\u00e9s de unos meses tras el mostrador, se vio envuelta en un extra\u00f1o e inquietante episodio. En octubre de 1838, apenas un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s de su llegada a Nueva York, desapareci\u00f3 de repente de su puesto detr\u00e1s del mostrador. Ese mismo d\u00eda, Phoebe Rogers descubri\u00f3 que su hija hab\u00eda dejado una nota de suicidio.\n\nEn esa \u00e9poca Mary y su madre segu\u00edan viviendo en casa de la se\u00f1ora Hayes, la hermana de Phoebe, en Pitt Street. El 6 de octubre el Sun de Nueva York informaba, bajo el titular \u00abUn suceso misterioso\u00bb, de que Phoebe Rogers hab\u00eda descubierto una carta en la mesilla de su hija en la que le dedicaba \u00abuna afectuosa y definitiva despedida\u00bb. Horrorizada, Phoebe \u00abenvi\u00f3 mensajeros en todas direcciones\u00bb en busca de su hija, pero no encontraron ni rastro de ella. El neoyorquino Journal of Commerce prosigui\u00f3 la historia: la se\u00f1ora Hayes llev\u00f3 la carta a la oficina del juez de paz, y \u00e9ste coincidi\u00f3 con ella en que la nota de la joven revelaba una \u00abdeterminaci\u00f3n fija e inalterable de poner fin a su vida\u00bb. El Sun a\u00f1ad\u00eda: \u00abLos amigos de la joven suponen que la causa de este horrible desvar\u00edo podr\u00eda ser un amor despechado, pues \u00faltimamente hab\u00eda sido objeto de las atenciones de cierto viudo, que, seg\u00fan dicen, la ha abandonado, sumi\u00e9ndola en tal estado de \u00e1nimo que ahora temen que pueda querer acabar con su vida\u00bb. Se ped\u00eda a los lectores que hubiesen podido ver a la joven que informasen de ello con la esperanza de evitar \u00abque llevara a cabo su terrible designio\u00bb.\n\nMary volvi\u00f3 a casa sana y salva poco tiempo despu\u00e9s (a las pocas horas, seg\u00fan algunos informes). El ejemplar del d\u00eda siguiente del Times and Commercial Intelligencer aseguraba que todo hab\u00eda sido un bulo: \u00abUn corresponsal que dice conocer bien a los implicados en el asunto de \"amor y suicidio\" publicado ayer da una versi\u00f3n muy diferente y afirma que la historia carece totalmente de fundamento\u00bb. Seg\u00fan el an\u00f3nimo informante, la historia la hab\u00eda \u00abtramado alguna persona malintencionada que envi\u00f3 una carta a la madre cont\u00e1ndole lo publicado ayer\u00bb. De hecho, el art\u00edculo llegaba a decir que \u00aben realidad, la se\u00f1orita R. s\u00f3lo fue a visitar a una amiga en Brooklyn y ahora est\u00e1 en casa con su madre\u00bb.\n\nEsta explicaci\u00f3n tan inocente no puso fin al asunto. Seg\u00fan ciertos informes, lo que era falso era el art\u00edculo sobre el regreso de Mary \u2013como demostraba el hecho de que la muchacha no hubiese vuelto a trabajar\u2013, concebido para distraer la atenci\u00f3n mientras siguiera desaparecida. Cuando Mary regres\u00f3, en apariencia inc\u00f3lume, otro peri\u00f3dico insisti\u00f3 en que su desaparici\u00f3n hab\u00eda sido un truco publicitario urdido por John Anderson: \u00abCuando se disip\u00f3 el humo de los cigarros vendidos durante el emocionante episodio \u2013declaraba el reportero\u2013, la joven regres\u00f3 tan guapa como siempre\u00bb. Aun as\u00ed, otros insistieron en que la historia del suicidio hab\u00eda sido un invento para ocultar que Mary se hab\u00eda fugado con uno de sus j\u00f3venes pretendientes. \u00abAlg\u00fan gacetillero invent\u00f3 el bulo de que se hab\u00eda fugado\u00bb, insisti\u00f3 un peri\u00f3dico semanal llamado Brother Jonathan, aunque esta versi\u00f3n tampoco lleg\u00f3 a demostrarse.\n\nLa verdad de la breve desaparici\u00f3n de Mary sigui\u00f3 siendo confusa y contradictoria y a\u00fan llegar\u00eda a serlo m\u00e1s. A\u00f1os despu\u00e9s, un art\u00edculo en el Sunday News dir\u00eda que se hab\u00eda tratado de \u00abun bulo cruel e injustificable\u00bb tramado por uno o m\u00e1s de los periodistas que frecuentaban el almac\u00e9n de tabaco. Es perfectamente posible que lo fuese, pues en los peri\u00f3dicos de la \u00e9poca los bulos period\u00edsticos se hab\u00edan convertido en una tradici\u00f3n. Unos a\u00f1os antes, en 1835, el Sun hab\u00eda causado sensaci\u00f3n \u2013y vendido miles de ejemplares\u2013 con un emocionante art\u00edculo publicado en primera plana en el que informaba de que se hab\u00eda descubierto vida en la Luna. El \u00abinforme cient\u00edfico\u00bb hablaba de manadas de bisontes que recorr\u00edan la superficie lunar, y de unicornios azules que se api\u00f1aban en las cumbres, mientras una colonia de \u00abcriaturas-murci\u00e9lago\u00bb se entreten\u00eda en un misterioso templo dorado. Aquel \u00abimportante descubrimiento astron\u00f3mico\u00bb, atribuido por lo general a Richard Adams Locke, lleg\u00f3 a conocerse como el \u00abgran bulo lunar\u00bb e inspir\u00f3 numerosas imitaciones.\n\nSi la historia de la desaparici\u00f3n y el suicidio de Mary empez\u00f3 como un bulo period\u00edstico, es posible que tras \u00e9l hubiera un elemento de animadversi\u00f3n personal. Cuando empez\u00f3 a trabajar en el almac\u00e9n, Mary fue objeto de las atenciones de un joven periodista llamado Canter. En una ocasi\u00f3n, de acuerdo con el Herald, Canter \u00abrecibi\u00f3 una paliza [...] a manos de tres o cuatro rivales que quer\u00edan que dejara de visitarla\u00bb. Es posible que Canter recurriera a la letra impresa para vengarse, pues el art\u00edculo de su peri\u00f3dico, el Times and Commercial Intelligencer, abord\u00f3 el caso de un modo decididamente extra\u00f1o: \u00abAl parecer a la se\u00f1orita Rogers la contrataron para trabajar en el almac\u00e9n de cigarros de Anderson en Broadway \u2013observaba el peri\u00f3dico\u2013. All\u00ed conoci\u00f3 y se enamor\u00f3 de un alegre y galante Romeo, cuyo nombre no ha trascendido. Tras un mes de zalamer\u00edas y coqueteos detr\u00e1s del mostrador de Anderson, que terminaron disip\u00e1ndose en el aire como el humo de uno de los cigarros que fumaba dicho caballero (dicho sea sin \u00e1nimo de menospreciar su valor), un buen d\u00eda, el susodicho Romeo se march\u00f3 sin m\u00e1s y \u00e9sa es la raz\u00f3n de que haya desaparecido tambi\u00e9n la se\u00f1orita Rogers. Al marcharse se llev\u00f3 consigo un chel\u00edn, se cree que con intenci\u00f3n de comprar alg\u00fan veneno\u00bb.\n\nEs curioso que el Times and Commercial Intelligencer se tomara de manera tan fr\u00edvola la amenaza de suicidarse de una joven. Si el art\u00edculo fue obra de un amante despechado que quiso poner en circulaci\u00f3n un bulo mordaz, est\u00e1 claro que err\u00f3 el blanco.\n\nFuese cual fuese la verdad del episodio, todos los informes coinciden en que a la propia Mary le avergonz\u00f3 ser el centro de atenci\u00f3n. Un art\u00edculo cuenta que al volver a casa se desmay\u00f3 horrorizada por el agobio causado por la muchedumbre que se hab\u00eda reunido para verla. \u00abManos amigas la llevaron de vuelta a su casa \u2013inform\u00f3 el Sunday News\u2013, donde se qued\u00f3 por un tiempo.\u00bb Entre l\u00e1grimas, Mary le dijo a su madre que no volver\u00eda nunca al almac\u00e9n de tabaco, y s\u00f3lo los ruegos de John Anderson \u2013y un generoso aumento de sueldo\u2013 la animaron a regresar. Nada m\u00e1s se supo de la supuesta nota de suicidio ni del \u00abalegre y galante Romeo\u00bb del que se dec\u00eda que la hab\u00eda descarriado.\n\nLa conmoci\u00f3n producida por la desaparici\u00f3n de la chica no tard\u00f3 en olvidarse y Mary volvi\u00f3 a su trabajo como si nada hubiese ocurrido. Aun as\u00ed, el incidente moder\u00f3 su entusiasmo y no volvi\u00f3 a sentirse tan c\u00f3moda expuesta a los ojos del p\u00fablico. Poco tiempo despu\u00e9s, cuando se present\u00f3 la oportunidad de dejar a Anderson, Mary la aprovech\u00f3. Result\u00f3 que el hermanastro de Mary (el \u00fanico hijo del primer matrimonio de Phoebe Rogers que segu\u00eda con vida) se hab\u00eda metido a marino y se las hab\u00eda arreglado para hacer fortuna con lo que unos calificaban de \u00abempresa comercial extranjera\u00bb y otros de \u00abpillaje\u00bb. En cualquier caso, cuando volvi\u00f3 a Nueva York, en la primavera de 1839, lo hizo con el ri\u00f1\u00f3n bien forrado. Al enterarse de la reciente notoriedad de Mary, decidi\u00f3 de inmediato que un almac\u00e9n de tabaco no era lugar apropiado para que una joven se ganara el sustento, y proporcion\u00f3 a su madre los fondos necesarios para abrir y mantener una pensi\u00f3n en Nassau Street. Con la ayuda de su hijo, la se\u00f1ora Rogers alquil\u00f3 el inmueble a un hombre llamado Peter Aymar, que pose\u00eda varios edificios en el barrio, e inmediatamente empez\u00f3 a anunciarse en busca de hu\u00e9spedes. A pesar de las protestas de John Anderson, Mary abandon\u00f3 el mostrador del estanco, para no volver m\u00e1s.\n\nEl generoso hijo de Phoebe no vivi\u00f3 lo suficiente para ver los resultados de su nueva empresa. Al cabo de unos meses, una vela suelta lo golpe\u00f3 en la cubierta de su barco y lo ech\u00f3 por la borda: se ahog\u00f3 antes de que la tripulaci\u00f3n pudiera sacarlo del agua. La noticia de su muerte a\u00f1adi\u00f3 otro motivo de pesar a la ya de por s\u00ed pesada carga de Phoebe Rogers, que hab\u00eda sobrevivido a cuatro de sus cinco hijos mayores.\n\nDe momento, la generosidad de su hijo hab\u00eda supuesto un alivio y proporcionado a Phoebe y a Mary un sitio donde vivir y una fuente fiable de ingresos. El edificio de ladrillo rojo de tres pisos era una de las varias casas de hu\u00e9spedes de Nassau Street, que alojaban a viajantes de comercio y trabajadores de las oficinas cercanas. En la \u00e9poca, las casas de pensi\u00f3n eran un fen\u00f3meno relativamente nuevo en Nueva York, y un reflejo de la naturaleza fluctuante de su mano de obra. Las generaciones anteriores hab\u00edan dispuesto de alojamiento y comida en pago por sus servicios y los dependientes y los aprendices viv\u00edan con la familia de sus patronos. Cuando desapareci\u00f3 ese modo de vida, surgieron las casas de pensi\u00f3n para cubrir las necesidades de unos obreros mucho m\u00e1s transitorios. Ofrecer habitaci\u00f3n y comida a esos trabajadores era una rara oportunidad para una viuda como la se\u00f1ora Rogers, que de lo contrario no habr\u00eda tenido otro medio de ganarse la vida. \u00abLas amables matronas que abren sus puertas a los obreros de Nueva York dispensan una gran ayuda y calor \u2013escrib\u00eda la neoyorquina Gazette\u2013. Dan refugio al noble trabajador.\u00bb Tal vez fuese as\u00ed, aunque para Phoebe Rogers pelar patatas y lavar las s\u00e1banas de un grupo de comerciantes y oficinistas era un descenso considerable, comparado con la vida mucho m\u00e1s acomodada que hab\u00eda llevado en Connecticut. Como para subrayar el declive de su fortuna, su nueva pensi\u00f3n se encontraba a pocos metros del solar de Pearl Street que anta\u00f1o hab\u00eda pose\u00eddo Ezra Mather, su primer marido.\n\nEl censo federal de 1840 enumera siete personas que viv\u00edan en el 126 de Nassau Street, incluyendo a Phoebe y a Mary Rogers, lo que indica que el n\u00famero habitual de hu\u00e9spedes deb\u00eda de ser de cuatro o cinco, aunque sus nombres no han quedado registrados. A pesar de que Phoebe pudo permitirse contratar a una criada para algunas tareas dom\u00e9sticas, el grueso de las ocupaciones diarias recay\u00f3 sobre Mary, pues la desmejorada salud de su madre le imped\u00eda ocuparse del fatigoso trabajo de regentar una pensi\u00f3n.\n\nEl c\u00edrculo de admiradores se hab\u00eda reducido considerablemente desde los agitados d\u00edas del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson, pero la joven segu\u00eda ejerciendo una enorme fascinaci\u00f3n. Al parecer ninguno de los hu\u00e9spedes masculinos que se alojaron en Nassau Street pudo sustraerse al influjo de sus encantos. Un marinero llamado William Kiekuck, uno de los primeros hu\u00e9spedes, afirmar\u00eda que su relaci\u00f3n con Mary se hab\u00eda reducido a \u00abuna tierna amistad\u00bb, pero lo cierto es que sigui\u00f3 yendo a visitarla varios meses despu\u00e9s de abandonar la pensi\u00f3n.\n\nAlfred Crommelin, a quien unos califican de \u00abcort\u00e9s\u00bb y otros de \u00abentrometido\u00bb, apareci\u00f3 en escena en diciembre de 1840. Alto y de rostro enjuto, impresion\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers con sus afectados modales en la mesa y su educada forma de hablar. No est\u00e1 del todo claro a qu\u00e9 se dedicaba exactamente, aunque al parecer era una especie de oficinista, probablemente de un bufete de abogados, y las cosas le iban razonablemente bien. Sus esfuerzos como pretendiente tambi\u00e9n fueron prometedores. A su llegada a Nassau Street se qued\u00f3 prendado de la muchacha y empez\u00f3 a cortejarla casi desde el momento en que dej\u00f3 la maleta en el suelo. Mary lo encontr\u00f3 agradable, y por un tiempo foment\u00f3 sus atenciones.\n\nArchibald Padley, amigo \u00edntimo de Crommelin, opinaba que Mary era una \u00abjoven de val\u00eda\u00bb, aunque no hay pruebas de que la cortejase, probablemente por respeto a su amigo. No obstante, e independientemente de cu\u00e1les fuesen sus intenciones, tanto \u00e9l como Crommelin se vieron desplazados por el alegre Daniel Payne, que pas\u00f3 a ocupar el lugar central en los afectos de Mary.\n\nDaniel Payne trabajaba como cortador de corcho, un floreciente negocio que atend\u00eda las necesidades no s\u00f3lo de vinateros y cerveceros, sino tambi\u00e9n de m\u00e9dicos y farmac\u00e9uticos, que necesitaban tapones herm\u00e9ticos y duraderos para sus botellas de vidrio y sus tarros de cer\u00e1mica. Aparte de su habilidad para cortar corcho, Payne ten\u00eda poco que ofrecer. Ten\u00eda fama de bebedor empedernido incluso para los impresionantes est\u00e1ndares del momento, cuando mucha gente consideraba que el alcohol era una alternativa saludable al agua, que se ten\u00eda por algo infecto. En una \u00e9poca en que no era raro dar cuenta de dos o tres botellas de burdeos de una sentada, las costumbres de Payne se consideraban excesivas, y se le describ\u00eda a menudo como \u00abbeodo\u00bb y \u00abborracho\u00bb. Es probable que fuese un cambio agradable para Mary, en comparaci\u00f3n con el m\u00e1s estirado Crommelin. El caso es que poco tiempo despu\u00e9s Payne hab\u00eda llegado a considerarse el futuro marido de Mary, aunque no hay pruebas de que le propusiera formalmente matrimonio.\n\nAlfred Crommelin tard\u00f3 en aceptar que hab\u00eda sido reemplazado por Payne \u2013un hombre a quien calificaba de \u00abdisipado\u00bb\u2013 en el coraz\u00f3n de Mary. La enemistad que profesaba a su rival causaba considerable tensi\u00f3n en la mesa, y Padley llegar\u00eda a afirmar que las relaciones entre los dos hombres eran \u00abg\u00e9lidas\u00bb. Buscando una aliada, Crommelin le expres\u00f3 su parecer a Phoebe Rogers con la esperanza de que juntos pudieran obligar a Mary a darse cuenta del error que estaba cometiendo. No obstante, el plan tuvo el efecto opuesto. Mary sigui\u00f3 unida a Payne y a menudo se los ve\u00eda paseando por Broadway cogidos del brazo. Crommelin, para su desgracia, se vio relegado a la posici\u00f3n de un t\u00edo bondadoso.\n\nEn junio de 1841 el resentimiento acumulado estall\u00f3. Al regresar del trabajo una noche, encontr\u00f3 a Payne y a Mary enfrascados en \u00abintimidades inapropiadas\u00bb en el sal\u00f3n principal. Indignado, Crommelin mont\u00f3 en c\u00f3lera y empez\u00f3 a sermonear a su rival sobre los deberes y obligaciones de un caballero. Payne respondi\u00f3 primero con una sonrisa y luego con un desprecio que no sirvi\u00f3 sino para aumentar el volumen de la perorata. Por fin lleg\u00f3 a decirle, mientras pon\u00eda una mano en la rodilla de Mary, que har\u00eda mejor en ocuparse de sus propios asuntos, pues \u00e9l ten\u00eda mejores cosas que hacer.\n\nCrommelin no lo soport\u00f3 m\u00e1s. Profundamente ofendido, subi\u00f3 a toda prisa a su habitaci\u00f3n e hizo las maletas. Momentos despu\u00e9s volvi\u00f3 a aparecer con sus pertenencias en la mano y pronunci\u00f3 otra serie de advertencias sobre los peligros del pecado mientras Payne lo miraba sonriendo. Por fin, agotada su indignaci\u00f3n, dio media vuelta y sali\u00f3 teatralmente de la pensi\u00f3n. De alg\u00fan modo, Archibald Padley, el amigo de Crommelin, se vio envuelto en la disputa y se crey\u00f3 obligado a seguir sus pasos. En la escalera de la entrada, Crommelin se detuvo y se volvi\u00f3 hacia la casa, donde Mary segu\u00eda observ\u00e1ndole. Declar\u00f3 \u00ablamentar mucho el paso\u00bb que ella hab\u00eda dado y a\u00f1adi\u00f3 que segu\u00eda apreci\u00e1ndola. Le dijo que si alguna vez ten\u00eda \u00abdificultades\u00bb no dudase en acudir a \u00e9l. Sin duda fue una declaraci\u00f3n sincera, pero en las semanas venideras, cuando Mary fue a pedirle ayuda, Crommelin le fall\u00f3 totalmente.\n\nCon la partida de Crommelin, Daniel Payne se meti\u00f3 en su nuevo papel de \u00fanico pretendiente, aunque no pudo disfrutarlo mucho tiempo. A Phoebe Rogers le desagradaba el joven cortador de corcho. Aunque Payne era siempre cordial y se desviv\u00eda por complacerla, Phoebe lo ten\u00eda por un gandul. Seg\u00fan cre\u00eda, su hija estar\u00eda mejor sin \u00e9l. De momento, no obstante, Payne no advert\u00eda la tormenta que se avecinaba.\n\nAunque Mary ya no atendiera a los j\u00f3venes que iban a \u00abjactarse y pavonearse\u00bb en el almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson, la disputa entre Payne y Crommelin indica que la vida en Nassau Street no era mucho m\u00e1s reposada que en la tienda de cigarros. Y, por si hiciese falta recordarlo, el empleo de Mary como \u00abbella cigarrera\u00bb hab\u00eda dejado un considerable legado de prosa rimbombante y mala poes\u00eda en los peri\u00f3dicos de la \u00e9poca. Un t\u00edpico ejemplo puede encontrarse en el Sunday Morning Atlas en septiembre de 1838, que inclu\u00eda en primera p\u00e1gina un grabado de la \u00abbella cigarrera\u00bb como parte de una serie de retratos de personajes neoyorquinos titulada \u00abRetratos populares\u00bb. La ilustraci\u00f3n mostraba a Mary de perfil y prestaba especial atenci\u00f3n a su \u00abmirada cautivadora\u00bb y a los \u00abrasgos perfectamente sim\u00e9tricos\u00bb descritos en otras publicaciones, as\u00ed como a la esbelta figura que tanto hab\u00eda complacido a los clientes del almac\u00e9n. El Atlas acompa\u00f1aba el grabado de una breve e irrelevante historia de los cigarros antes de abordar su verdadero prop\u00f3sito: una apenas velada f\u00e1bula moralista basada en la fama de una atractiva cigarrera. La historia relataba las desdichas de una encantadora joven llamada Ellen Somers, que, obligada por los apuros econ\u00f3micos, aceptaba un empleo en un almac\u00e9n de tabaco a pesar de las graves objeciones de su madre. \u00abEstar\u00edas expuesta a las miradas de todos los que, con gastar una minucia, dar\u00e1n por sentado que la contemplaci\u00f3n de una chica guapa va incluida en el precio y que han pagado por el privilegio de mirarte a la cara.\u00bb\n\nBajo la amenaza de la pobreza, Ellen acepta a rega\u00f1adientes el empleo en el estanco del almac\u00e9n, s\u00f3lo para ver su virtud asaltada por un par de j\u00f3venes y libidinosos clientes \u00abque pasan por caballeros\u00bb, mientras un pretendiente \u00abamable y modesto\u00bb llamado Henry Wilkinson lo observa todo con creciente preocupaci\u00f3n. Los dos j\u00f3venes lechuguinos llegan incluso a \u00abapostar cu\u00e1l de los dos tendr\u00e1 la felicidad de convertir a la divina criatura en su propia diosa del placer\u00bb, pero la virtuosa Ellen rechaza sus avances. Una vez demostrado que es \u00abun ser superior\u00bb, Ellen sigue dedicada a sus obligaciones con decoro femenino, hasta que la rapta Henry Wilkinson, que resulta ser un lobo con piel de cordero. Tras esperarla a la puerta de la tienda, la mete en un carruaje y huye en mitad de una noche oscura y tormentosa. Ellen, temiendo la muerte y \u00abtal vez algo peor\u00bb, le implora que la deje marchar. \u00abHe ido demasiado lejos para volverme atr\u00e1s \u2013se burla Wilkinson\u2013. Es in\u00fatil que trates de resistirte. \u00bfQu\u00e9 puedes hacer?\u00bb\n\nLa respuesta de la cigarrera es estremecedoramente prof\u00e9tica: \u00abPuedo morir\u00bb.\n2 Tiemblo de pensar en las consecuencias\n\nEn el 169 de Broadway, apenas doce manzanas al sur del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson, se alzaba una siniestra e imponente librer\u00eda conocida como Long Room. El propietario, un exc\u00e9ntrico emigrante escoc\u00e9s llamado William Gowans, prefer\u00eda tratar con \u00ablectores serios\u00bb antes que con vulgares ociosos, y en el barrio sab\u00edan que \u00abno todo el mundo era bien recibido\u00bb en su tienda. Los pocos a quienes permit\u00eda la entrada encontraban un inmenso aunque ca\u00f3tico inventario que inclu\u00eda desde textos raros sobre relojer\u00eda griega y pr\u00e1cticas funerarias romanas hasta las m\u00e1s recientes novelas europeas. Gowans abri\u00f3 la tienda en enero de 1837 en cuanto llen\u00f3 de libros hasta el techo los estantes de madera de roble. A medida que se iban acumulando, los vol\u00famenes se guardaban primero en cajas de madera amontonadas sobre un par de mesitas, luego sobre unas sillas que hab\u00eda dejado el anterior inquilino y por fin en vacilantes montones sobre el suelo. La impresi\u00f3n, recordaba uno de los primeros clientes en visitar la tienda, era la de internarse en \u00abun gigantesco laberinto de libros\u00bb.\n\nCon el tiempo, Gowans se convertir\u00eda en uno de los libreros m\u00e1s respetados de la ciudad, con fama de ser \u00abrecto y sincero a carta cabal\u00bb. No obstante, en los primeros tiempos ten\u00eda pocos amigos y era muy reservado. Una de esas escasas amistades era el yerno de su patrona, Edgar Allan Poe, tambi\u00e9n conocido por algunos miembros de la familia como \u00abEddy\u00bb.\n\n\u00abEn esa \u00e9poca lo frecuent\u00e9 mucho y tuve ocasi\u00f3n de conversar a menudo con \u00e9l \u2013escribir\u00eda Gowans a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s\u2013, y debo decir que jam\u00e1s lo vi bajo los efectos del alcohol, ni supe que tuviera vicios conocidos, y siempre fue uno de los compa\u00f1eros m\u00e1s corteses, caballerosos e inteligentes que he conocido en mis vagabundeos por diversos lugares del globo. Adem\u00e1s, ten\u00eda la virtud a\u00f1adida de ser una buena persona y un buen marido, pues ten\u00eda una mujer de encanto y belleza incomparables, con ojos de hur\u00ed y unas facciones que ni el genio de Canova habr\u00eda sabido imitar.\u00bb\n\nGowans parec\u00eda esforzarse en defender a su amigo, y lo cierto es que no le faltaban motivos. A pesar de no haber cumplido todav\u00eda los treinta, Poe se hab\u00eda granjeado enemigos poderosos en Nueva York, muchos de los cuales lo ten\u00edan por un borracho poco de fiar. Y, aunque hab\u00eda empezado a publicar ya sus cuentos y su poes\u00eda, su reputaci\u00f3n en aquella \u00e9poca se fundamentaba sobre todo en sus cr\u00edticas literarias, publicadas en el Southern Literary Messenger de Richmond y en otros peri\u00f3dicos.\n\nPoe era un cr\u00edtico de talento, pero tambi\u00e9n muy pol\u00e9mico. Aunque su habilidad y su intuici\u00f3n fuesen innegables, a muchos lectores les desagradaba el veneno que vert\u00eda cuando atacaba a alguien. Se hizo tan famoso por su bilis que una caricatura contempor\u00e1nea lo mostr\u00f3 blandiendo un tomahawk. \u00abLe he arrancado la cabellera \u2013dec\u00eda tras completar una rese\u00f1a particularmente cruel y antes de a\u00f1adir\u2013: lo m\u00edo no son las palmaditas en la espalda. Les sentar\u00e1 bien o\u00edr un par de verdades, as\u00ed se esforzar\u00e1n m\u00e1s la pr\u00f3xima vez.\u00bb En opini\u00f3n de Poe, la cr\u00edtica de la \u00e9poca adolec\u00eda de un exceso de educada blandura. Cre\u00eda que sus andanadas servir\u00edan para sacar a los dem\u00e1s cr\u00edticos de su estupor y atraer\u00edan la atenci\u00f3n de las altas esferas del mundillo literario de Nueva York y Boston.\n\nSu estrategia tuvo \u00e9xito hasta cierto punto. Las diatribas de Poe no tardaron en ganarle el favor del director de un nuevo peri\u00f3dico llamado New York Review, que lo invit\u00f3 a \u00abcaer con su hacha de guerra sobre la m\u00edsera basura literaria que nos rodea\u00bb. Poe se mud\u00f3, con su mujer y su suegra, de Richmond a Nueva York en febrero de 1837. Seg\u00fan ciertos testigos, los tres despertaron la curiosidad de la gente mientras paseaban por las calles con su \u00abatuendo sure\u00f1o\u00bb en busca de un lugar donde alojarse. Los reci\u00e9n llegados alquilaron habitaciones en un edificio ruinoso en la esquina de la Sexta Avenida con Waverly Place.\n\nNo obstante, las esperanzas de Poe de encontrar empleo se volatilizaron en el cataclismo del p\u00e1nico bancario de ese a\u00f1o, motivado por las mismas condiciones econ\u00f3micas que hab\u00edan llevado a Mary Rogers y a su madre a la ciudad y a consecuencia del cual varios peri\u00f3dicos y revistas, entre ellos el New York Review, dejaron de publicarse. En los primeros quince meses que pas\u00f3 en Nueva York, Poe s\u00f3lo consigui\u00f3 publicar dos relatos. Cuando las perspectivas empeoraron, lleg\u00f3 a abrigar la idea de abandonar la literatura y aprender a hacer litograf\u00edas. En ocasiones, la familia se vio obligada a subsistir a base de pan y melaza durante varios d\u00edas.\n\nLas circunstancias mejoraron un poco cuando se mudaron de Waverly Place a una casita en el 113 \u00bd de Carmine Street, cerca de Washington Square. All\u00ed la suegra de Poe, Maria Clemm, tuvo una idea que ayudar\u00eda a la familia a salir a flote. \u00abLas penurias de 1837 llevaban un tiempo llamando con insistencia a la puerta de Poe \u2013escribi\u00f3 un cronista\u2013 cuando la se\u00f1ora Clemm tuvo la idea de alojar a unos cuantos hu\u00e9spedes para cubrir los gastos diarios.\u00bb Como Phoebe Rogers, la se\u00f1ora Clemm consider\u00f3 que regentar una pensi\u00f3n les proporcionar\u00eda cierta estabilidad en aquellos a\u00f1os tan dif\u00edciles.\n\nEntre los hu\u00e9spedes de la se\u00f1ora Clemm se contaba el afable William Gowans, que parece haberse interesado mucho por el bienestar de la familia. \u00abDurante m\u00e1s de ocho meses vivimos en la misma casa \u2013recordar\u00eda Gowans\u2013 y compartimos la misma mesa.\u00bb Gowans, que lleg\u00f3 a considerar a Poe un \u00abgenio dotado pero desafortunado\u00bb, no tard\u00f3 en ofrecerle sus contactos para introducirlo en el mundillo literario neoyorquino. El 30 de marzo de 1837 Gowan invit\u00f3 a Poe a la cena formal de los libreros en el City Hotel, al sur de Broadway. El acontecimiento atrajo a muchos famosos literatos, entre ellos Washington Irving y el poeta Fitz-Greene Halleck. Gowans recordar\u00eda despu\u00e9s que la velada \u00abfue brillante y se\u00f1al\u00f3 la primera aparici\u00f3n del joven cr\u00edtico y poeta sure\u00f1o entre los Knickerbockers.\u00bb* Consciente de que necesitaba causar buena impresi\u00f3n, Poe se puso en pie y propuso uno de los brindis de la noche, alzando su copa en honor de las revistas mensuales de Gotham,* sus distinguidos directores y sus vigorosos colaboradores.\n\nEs razonable suponer que Poe hiciera otros intentos de congraciarse con sus distinguidos y vigorosos colegas. En tal caso, hab\u00eda varios sitios a los que acudir. Adem\u00e1s de la famosa Shakespeare Tavern, el recientemente inaugurado Tobacco Emporium de Anderson empezaba a establecerse como sal\u00f3n literario. Poe pudo muy bien asistir con la intenci\u00f3n de relacionarse con otros hombres de letras y tal vez le comprara tabaco a Mary Rogers, la cautivadora joven que atend\u00eda el mostrador. Un joven oficial llamado George Walling, que con el tiempo llegar\u00eda a ser jefe de polic\u00eda de la ciudad de Nueva York, recordar\u00eda que Poe hab\u00eda sido uno m\u00e1s de la hueste de literatos \u00abfamiliarizados con la delicada figura y la cara bonita donde compraban los cigarros\u00bb, aunque es preciso se\u00f1alar que, en la \u00e9poca, Walling todav\u00eda no formaba parte del cuerpo de polic\u00eda. Aun as\u00ed, es agradable imaginar a Poe code\u00e1ndose con Irving y Cooper y tal vez disfrutando del \u00abatisbo del cielo\u00bb que proporcionaban Mary Rogers y su sonrisa misteriosa. De ser as\u00ed, poco habr\u00eda imaginado, como escribir\u00eda m\u00e1s tarde, la \u00abemoci\u00f3n intensa y duradera\u00bb que pronto envolver\u00eda el destino de la bella cigarrera, ni lo \u00edntimamente que estar\u00eda ligada su propia suerte a la de ella.\n\n\u00abCreo \u2013escribi\u00f3 una vez Poe mucho antes de su llegada a Nueva York\u2013 que para ser tan joven ya he sufrido lo m\u00edo.\u00bb Es una de las pocas veces en las que podr\u00eda acus\u00e1rsele de quedarse corto. Se dice a menudo que Poe tuvo una vida tan extra\u00f1a y tortuosa como uno de sus cuentos, aunque es posible que su historia encajase mejor en un melodrama g\u00f3tico. David Poe, el padre de Edgar, estaba destinado a estudiar Derecho cuando vio a una joven actriz llamada Eliza Arnold entre las candilejas de un teatro de Norfolk, Virginia. Cautivado al instante por la \u00abatractiva e infantil\u00bb actriz, abandon\u00f3 los estudios y se dedic\u00f3, con gran disgusto de su padre, a la vida de la far\u00e1ndula. Con el tiempo, se las arreglar\u00eda para unirse a la compa\u00f1\u00eda de Eliza Arnold, donde cortej\u00f3 y acab\u00f3 por conquistar el coraz\u00f3n de la actriz, recientemente viuda.\n\nEliza Arnold Hopkins s\u00f3lo ten\u00eda diecinueve a\u00f1os, pero ya llevaba diez en los escenarios. Famosa por su belleza, en su \u00fanico retrato conocido vemos un rostro redondo pero fr\u00e1gil, con unos grandes ojos l\u00edquidos enmarcados por hermosos rizos. Las rese\u00f1as aluden a menudo a su \u00abinteresante figura\u00bb y su \u00abvoz dulce y melodiosa\u00bb. La apariencia de David Poe tambi\u00e9n era del gusto de los cr\u00edticos, aunque al parecer su habilidad como actor dejaba mucho que desear. En 1806, el a\u00f1o en que se casaron los Poe, un cr\u00edtico observ\u00f3: \u00abLa dama es joven y hermosa, y ha demostrado tener talento tanto como actriz como cantante; el caballero era literalmente un cero a la izquierda\u00bb.\n\nEn enero de 1807, nueve meses despu\u00e9s de la boda, la joven se\u00f1ora Poe dio a luz a un hijo, Henry. Dos a\u00f1os m\u00e1s tarde, el 19 de enero de 1809, naci\u00f3 Edgar en una pensi\u00f3n cerca del parque de Boston Common, a poca distancia del lugar donde actuaba la compa\u00f1\u00eda. En esa \u00e9poca hab\u00edan surgido ya evidentes tensiones en el matrimonio. A David Poe, resentido por el \u00e9xito de su mujer, se le agri\u00f3 el car\u00e1cter y y empez\u00f3 a abusar de la bebida, sobre todo cuando recib\u00eda una mala cr\u00edtica. En cierta ocasi\u00f3n interpel\u00f3 al p\u00fablico desde el escenario, y en otra se present\u00f3 en casa de un cr\u00edtico para echarle en cara uno de sus art\u00edculos. A medida que su comportamiento se fue volviendo m\u00e1s y m\u00e1s imprevisible, la carga de mantener a la familia recay\u00f3 sobre Eliza, que se vio obligada a seguir actuando hasta una semana antes de nacer Edgar y a volver al escenario dos semanas despu\u00e9s.\n\nUn a\u00f1o m\u00e1s tarde lleg\u00f3 una tercera hija, Rosalie. Poco antes hab\u00edan enviado a Henry a vivir con los abuelos paternos, mientras Edgar y su hermana reci\u00e9n nacida eran atendidos por ni\u00f1eras, una de las cuales, seg\u00fan un amigo de la familia, \u00ablos alimentaba generosamente con pan empapado en ginebra\u00bb y les \u00abadministraba [...] otros licores, en ocasiones mezclados con l\u00e1udano\u00bb. La ni\u00f1era cre\u00eda que eso les har\u00eda crecer \u00abfuertes y sanos\u00bb.\n\nDavid Poe abandon\u00f3 a su mujer y a sus tres hijos en julio de 1811 y se dice que muri\u00f3 solo y en la indigencia cinco meses despu\u00e9s. En esa \u00e9poca las desdichadas circunstancias tambi\u00e9n hab\u00edan afectado a Eliza. Por un breve per\u00edodo luch\u00f3 sola contra una salud cada vez m\u00e1s deteriorada hasta que muri\u00f3 de tuberculosis en Richmond, Virginia, el 8 de diciembre de 1811, rodeada por sus hijos. Edgar no hab\u00eda cumplido a\u00fan los tres a\u00f1os.\n\nMientras dur\u00f3 la enfermedad de su madre, Edgar y su hermana Rosalie hab\u00edan estado al cuidado de unos amables amigos actores llamados Usher, pero la pareja no pod\u00eda atenderlos de forma permanente. Los abuelos maternos de los ni\u00f1os hab\u00edan muerto a\u00f1os antes y los abuelos paternos, que ya se hab\u00edan hecho cargo de Henry, hab\u00edan sufrido un rev\u00e9s financiero que les imped\u00eda aceptar la responsabilidad de ocuparse de los dos peque\u00f1os. Encontraron un hogar para Rosalie con una familia de Richmond llamada Mackenzie y a Edgar lo pusieron bajo la protecci\u00f3n de un emprendedor comerciante llamado John Allan.\n\nJohn Allan ser\u00eda lo m\u00e1s parecido a un padre que conocer\u00eda el joven Poe. Su mujer, Frances, nerviosa y enfermiza, no hab\u00eda podido tener hijos. Allan era un emigrante escoc\u00e9s de gustos cultivados que ten\u00eda fama de caritativo, aunque tambi\u00e9n era temperamental y autoritario. \u00abEl se\u00f1or Allan era buena persona a su manera \u2013escribi\u00f3 de \u00e9l un amigo de la familia\u2013. Era tajante y exigente, y, con su nariz larga y ganchuda y sus ojillos mirando por debajo de las cejas pobladas, siempre me record\u00f3 a un halc\u00f3n.\u00bb En la \u00e9poca Allan tambi\u00e9n era extremadamente rico, hab\u00eda creado una red de oficinas y almacenes en el barrio de negocios de Richmond desde donde negociaba con tabaco, servicios y otras mercanc\u00edas en un entramado comercial que se extend\u00eda a trav\u00e9s de Europa y Am\u00e9rica.\n\nDe un plumazo, el joven Edgar pas\u00f3 de una vida de vagabundeos y penurias econ\u00f3micas a un mundo de lujo y riqueza. Los Allan colmaron de atenciones al reci\u00e9n llegado, y garantizaron a la familia de David Poe que le proporcionar\u00edan una educaci\u00f3n apropiada para un joven caballero. No obstante, desde el primer momento, la benevolencia de John Allan estuvo sujeta a ciertas condiciones. Aunque a\u00f1adi\u00f3 su apellido al de Edgar como una especie de concesi\u00f3n, nunca adopt\u00f3 formalmente al ni\u00f1o.\n\nEl reci\u00e9n bautizado Edgar Allan Poe demostr\u00f3 ser un ni\u00f1o precoz y encantador, con las tendencias teatrales de su difunta madre. Los invitados a cenar disfrutaban ocasionalmente del espect\u00e1culo de ver al ni\u00f1o sobre la mesa del comedor con sus calzas y su traje de terciopelo, declamando pasajes de poes\u00eda.\n\nA la edad de cinco a\u00f1os, pas\u00f3 casi un lustro con sus padres adoptivos en Gran Breta\u00f1a. Mientras John Allan atend\u00eda sus asuntos, matricularon al ni\u00f1o en una serie de excelentes internados y se lo presentaron a los parientes en Escocia. Allan estaba visiblemente orgulloso de las conquistas acad\u00e9micas de su pupilo, lo cubr\u00eda de obsequios y le daba desorbitadas sumas de dinero de bolsillo. Poe era un \u00abmuchacho inteligente y despierto \u2013seg\u00fan uno de sus profesores\u2013 y habr\u00eda sido un buen chico si sus padres no lo hubieran echado a perder\u00bb.\n\nA su regreso a Richmond en 1820, Edgar, con once a\u00f1os cumplidos, prosigui\u00f3 con sus estudios y pronto pudo leer a Horacio en lat\u00edn y a Homero en griego. Las semillas de su futura carrera empezaban a cobrar forma: llenaba sus cuadernos de poemas; Allan, que ya chocheaba, pensar\u00eda en publicar algunos de ellos. \u00abSus dotes imaginativas parec\u00edan imponerse sobre todas sus dem\u00e1s facultades\u00bb, recordar\u00eda otro de sus profesores; un primo de su padrastro observar\u00eda que \u00aben su juventud estaba totalmente convencido de que un d\u00eda llegar\u00eda a ser un gran escritor\u00bb.\n\nTodos coinciden en que el aspirante a escritor era tambi\u00e9n un atleta consumado y dado a proezas rayanas en la imprudencia. A los quince a\u00f1os nad\u00f3 nueve kil\u00f3metros en el r\u00edo James contra \u00abla corriente m\u00e1s fuerte jam\u00e1s conocida en estos pagos\u00bb, seguido por un bote lleno de amigos suyos que no cesaban de animarle. Poe compar\u00f3 su haza\u00f1a con la de Byron cuando cruz\u00f3 a nado el Helesponto. \u00abHabr\u00eda sido mucho m\u00e1s f\u00e1cil nadar treinta kil\u00f3metros en aguas tranquilas \u2013se jact\u00f3\u2013. No me parece gran cosa atravesar a nado el canal de la Mancha de Dover a Calais.\u00bb\n\nA pesar de tanta petulancia, la gente lo ten\u00eda por un joven reservado, distante con sus compa\u00f1eros. Un profesor lo recordaba hosco y sensible, aunque a\u00f1ad\u00eda que \u00abhac\u00eda todo cuanto estaba en su mano por complacer a un amigo\u00bb. Cuando Poe entr\u00f3 en la adolescencia y empez\u00f3 a ser consciente de c\u00f3mo funcionaba la sociedad de Richmond, comprendi\u00f3 lo delicado de su posici\u00f3n social. \u00abDe Edgar Poe se sab\u00eda que sus padres eran actores \u2013dir\u00eda un compa\u00f1ero de clase\u2013, y que depend\u00eda de la generosidad\u00bb de su padre adoptivo. Y, lo que es peor, dicha generosidad se fue volviendo cada vez m\u00e1s incierta. El joven hab\u00eda crecido y se hab\u00eda vuelto m\u00e1s terco, por lo que la devoci\u00f3n de Allan empez\u00f3 a declinar. \u00abMe consta que cuando se enfadaba con Edgar a menudo amenazaba con echarlo a la calle \u2013dijo de Allan uno de sus amigos\u2013, y nunca permiti\u00f3 que olvidara que depend\u00eda de su caridad.\u00bb\n\nLos impulsos caritativos de Allan sin duda se vieron ensombrecidos por una serie de reveses en los negocios que lo acuciaron a su regreso a Richmond. A medida que sus finanzas se iban volviendo m\u00e1s precarias, el comportamiento cada vez m\u00e1s obstinado de su hijo adoptivo le parec\u00eda m\u00e1s ingrato. \u00abEl chico no siente ni una chispa de agradecimiento \u2013se quejaba\u2013, ni un \u00e1tomo de gratitud por todos mis cuidados y la bondad que le he mostrado siempre.\u00bb Inseguro de su posici\u00f3n en la familia, Poe empez\u00f3 a buscar afecto en otros sitios. Profesar\u00eda una intensa devoci\u00f3n a Jane Stanard, la madre de un compa\u00f1ero de clase de Richmond, de quien tiempo despu\u00e9s dir\u00eda que hab\u00eda sido \u00abel primer amor, puramente ideal, de mi alma\u00bb. Se cuenta que le le\u00eda sus versos en voz alta y se regocijaba con sus c\u00e1lidos \u00e1nimos y elogios. Fue, recordar\u00eda, \u00abun \u00e1ngel para mi naturaleza triste y oscura\u00bb. Seg\u00fan todos los informes, la se\u00f1ora Stanard era una figura tr\u00e1gica y hermosa, proclive a sufrir ataques de melancol\u00eda, y Poe tuvo que ver con desesperaci\u00f3n creciente c\u00f3mo sucumb\u00eda a una agotadora enfermedad. No hab\u00eda cumplido los treinta a\u00f1os cuando muri\u00f3 en abril de 1824, pocos meses despu\u00e9s del decimoquinto cumplea\u00f1os de su admirador. El recuerdo de la prematura muerte de Eliza Poe contribuy\u00f3 a que la p\u00e9rdida de Jane Stanard fuese a\u00fan m\u00e1s dolorosa. El apenado Edgar vel\u00f3 a menudo su tumba con su hijo Robert.\n\nEl pesar evidente y en ocasiones histri\u00f3nico de Poe por la muerte de Jane Stanard le alej\u00f3 a\u00fan m\u00e1s de John Allan, que interpret\u00f3 su comportamiento como una nueva muestra de ingratitud con \u00e9l y su mujer. El joven, entretanto, hab\u00eda encontrado un nuevo desahogo a sus agitadas emociones. Al cabo de un a\u00f1o de morir Jane Stanard, se hab\u00eda enamorado de Sarah Elmira Royster, la hija quincea\u00f1era de uno de los vecinos de los Allan. Poe era consciente de que el padre de la muchacha lo consideraba un pretendiente poco id\u00f3neo, debido sobre todo a lo inseguro de su posici\u00f3n en la familia Allan, pero se las arregl\u00f3 para convencerla de que se comprometieran en secreto.\n\nEn marzo de 1825, la menguada fortuna de John Allan se recuper\u00f3 \u2013e incluso se vio considerablemente aumentada\u2013 al cobrar la abultada herencia de un t\u00edo acaudalado. Aprovechando que, por primera vez en varios a\u00f1os, disfrutaba de seguridad financiera, compr\u00f3 una lujosa mansi\u00f3n en la calle principal de Richmond, con vistas al edificio del Capitolio y al r\u00edo James. Coincidiendo con este golpe de suerte, la \u00abaldea acad\u00e9mica\u00bb de Thomas Jefferson, la Universidad de Virginia, abri\u00f3 sus puertas en Charlottesville, a ochenta kil\u00f3metros de Richmond. Y poco antes de que Poe cumpliera los diecisiete a\u00f1os, Allan quiso matricularlo, tanto para hacer alarde de su fortuna y posici\u00f3n social como para cumplir con su promesa de procurarle una educaci\u00f3n. En el fondo, Allan se sent\u00eda aliviado de no tener a su pendenciero hijo adoptivo en casa y albergaba esperanzas de que la vida universitaria le ayudara a sentar la cabeza.\n\nPoe lleg\u00f3 a Charlottesville en febrero de 1826 y tuvo que sobreponerse a las penalidades de una universidad todav\u00eda en construcci\u00f3n, con los edificios abarrotados y sin calefacci\u00f3n y unas condiciones higi\u00e9nicas un tanto deficientes. Hab\u00eda, no obstante, numerosas compensaciones. Thomas Jefferson, que por entonces ten\u00eda ochenta y tres a\u00f1os, fue el primer rector de la universidad. Poe debi\u00f3 de comer con \u00e9l en varias ocasiones y de contarse entre quienes lloraron su muerte el 4 de julio de ese mismo a\u00f1o.\n\nLa leyenda afirma que Poe fue un alumno rebelde y disoluto entre sobrios y j\u00f3venes compa\u00f1eros. De hecho, parece que fue todo lo contrario, al menos al principio. Jefferson hab\u00eda dise\u00f1ado un sistema educativo pensando en los hijos de los acaudalados plantadores de Virginia. Convencido de que a unos \u00abj\u00f3venes tan ardorosos\u00bb les irritar\u00eda una disciplina similar a la de Harvard o Yale, estableci\u00f3 un c\u00f3digo de comportamiento que dejaba de lado las normas restrictivas en favor del dominio de uno mismo. El experimento no triunf\u00f3 y culmin\u00f3, ya en el primer a\u00f1o, con un mot\u00edn estudiantil en el que se arrojaron libros, ladrillos y botellas llenas de orina a los profesores. En su primera carta a casa, Poe le contar\u00eda a John Allan que las peleas entre estudiantes eran \u00abun hecho tan habitual\u00bb que nadie les prestaba la menor atenci\u00f3n. Segu\u00eda describiendo una disputa m\u00e1s notable en la que un alumno al que hab\u00edan golpeado en la cabeza con una piedra \u00absac\u00f3 una pistola (que es costumbre llevar aqu\u00ed) y, de no haber fallado el tiro, habr\u00eda puesto fin definitivamente a la discusi\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEn ese ambiente, el no tan combativo Poe demostr\u00f3 ser un alumno modelo y escrib\u00eda a su casa hablando de sus esperanzas de triunfar, \u00absi no me asusto\u00bb. Al menos al principio, destac\u00f3, aunque se sab\u00eda que confiaba sobre todo en su aguda inteligencia y su excelente memoria, y a menudo dedicaba s\u00f3lo unos momentos a la preparaci\u00f3n de las clases, en lugar de estudiarlas minuciosamente. Incluso as\u00ed, prosper\u00f3. Un profesor recordar\u00eda cierta ocasi\u00f3n en que fue el \u00fanico de la clase que hizo un trabajo voluntario, consistente en traducir al ingl\u00e9s un fragmento del poeta renacentista italiano Tasso. En diciembre de su primer a\u00f1o se examin\u00f3 ante dos ex presidentes de Estados Unidos, James Madison y James Monroe, y obtuvo las mejores calificaciones en lenguas antiguas y modernas.\n\nLos informes de sus compa\u00f1eros son contradictorios. Unos dicen que ten\u00eda tendencia a dejarse arrastrar por la lasitud y la tristeza, mientras que otros hacen hincapi\u00e9 en sus ataques de \u00abexcitabilidad nerviosa\u00bb. Poe sab\u00eda destacar cuando quer\u00eda, obsequiando a sus compa\u00f1eros con fragmentos de poes\u00eda y cubriendo las paredes de su habitaci\u00f3n con dibujos al carboncillo de \u00abfiguras caprichosas, fantasiosas y grotescas\u00bb. En una ocasi\u00f3n invit\u00f3 a un grupo de alumnos a escuchar uno de sus relatos, mientras iba y ven\u00eda delante de la chimenea leyendo en voz alta. Cuando uno de sus compa\u00f1eros aventur\u00f3 unas palabras de cr\u00edtica, se volvi\u00f3 y arroj\u00f3 las p\u00e1ginas al fuego.\n\nDesde sus primeros d\u00edas en Charlottesville, Poe habr\u00eda de pasar apuros econ\u00f3micos cr\u00f3nicos, y sus cartas a Richmond est\u00e1n llenas de peticiones de libros, jab\u00f3n, ropa y otras cosas esenciales. Por c\u00e1lculo o error, John Allan lo hab\u00eda enviado a la universidad con fondos insuficientes, lo cual supon\u00eda una dr\u00e1stica diferencia con los primeros tiempos en que no hab\u00eda reparado en gastos para proporcionarle una educaci\u00f3n europea. Ahora que Allan era uno de los hombres m\u00e1s ricos de Virginia, se negaba a aflojar el bolsillo y dej\u00f3 a su hijo adoptivo en una situaci\u00f3n que pronto se revelar\u00eda catastr\u00f3fica.\n\nAl cabo de unas semanas, Poe se vio incapaz de pagar su sustento y su alojamiento. En una amarga carta que escribir\u00eda a Allan cuatro a\u00f1os m\u00e1s tarde, los detalles segu\u00edan v\u00edvidos en su memoria: \u00abDir\u00e9 sin m\u00e1s que la \u00fanica causa de los apuros que pas\u00e9 mientras estuve en Charlottesville fue vuestra mal entendida frugalidad. Los gastos anuales en dicha instituci\u00f3n se calculaban en unos 350 d\u00f3lares por lo bajo. Vos me enviasteis all\u00ed con 110... Por supuesto, sufr\u00ed la humillaci\u00f3n de tener que incurrir en deudas... y pronto se me tuvo poco menos que por un mendigo. Recordar\u00e9is que, una semana despu\u00e9s de mi llegada, os escrib\u00ed pidi\u00e9ndoos dinero y libros. Respondisteis de un modo ofensivo, si yo hubiese sido el peor canalla de la tierra no os habr\u00edais mostrado m\u00e1s insultante\u00bb.\n\nTal vez Allan tuviese la esperanza de que con un presupuesto limitado el joven aprender\u00eda a administrarse, como hab\u00eda hecho \u00e9l. En cambio, la \u00abhumillaci\u00f3n\u00bb despert\u00f3 los peores instintos de Poe. Se dedic\u00f3 a jugar para conseguir dinero y s\u00f3lo consigui\u00f3 aumentar sus deudas. Cuando las p\u00e9rdidas se incrementaron, busc\u00f3 consuelo en el alcohol. \u00abSu pasi\u00f3n por los licores fuertes era tan acusada y peculiar como su pasi\u00f3n por los naipes \u2013recordar\u00eda un amigo\u2013. No le impulsaba el gusto por la bebida: sin dar siquiera un sorbo, sin agua ni az\u00facar, apuraba el vaso de un trago.\u00bb\n\nNada tiene de sorprendente que la mezcla de naipes y alcohol resultara desastrosa. Pronto acumul\u00f3 p\u00e9rdidas enormes, que, seg\u00fan algunos informes, superaban los 2.000 d\u00f3lares, m\u00e1s de cinco veces sus gastos anuales. En diciembre, tras apenas diez meses de vida universitaria, John Allan fue a verlo a Charlottesville, sald\u00f3 las pocas deudas que consider\u00f3 leg\u00edtimas y lo sac\u00f3 de la universidad, y poco le falt\u00f3 para llev\u00e1rselo de la oreja de vuelta a Richmond.\n\nLas deudas que le quedaban por pagar siguieron a Poe hasta Richmond y cada d\u00eda recib\u00eda nuevas peticiones de pago y amenazas de acciones legales. Allan le impuso un nuevo castigo poni\u00e9ndolo a trabajar sin sueldo en la contadur\u00eda de su empresa. Y, por si fuese poco, tuvo que arrostrar el fracaso de su amor\u00edo con Elmira Royster, la hermosa joven con quien se hab\u00eda comprometido en secreto. Poe le hab\u00eda escrito con frecuencia desde Charlottesville, pero ella no le hab\u00eda respondido. Habr\u00edan de pasar muchos a\u00f1os para que descubriera el motivo: el padre de la muchacha hab\u00eda interceptado sus cartas. Tiempo despu\u00e9s, Elmira alegar\u00eda que, a pesar de su promesa de casarse, nunca lleg\u00f3 a comprender la profundidad de sus sentimientos por ella. Sin indicios en contra, dio por sentado que la hab\u00eda olvidado al ir a la universidad. Se cuenta que Poe, a su regreso de Richmond, asisti\u00f3 a una fiesta en casa de ella con la esperanza de volver a verla, para descubrir que la recepci\u00f3n se hab\u00eda convocado para celebrar su compromiso con otro hombre. Aunque es posible que el incidente sea ap\u00f3crifo, el hecho es que Elmira se cas\u00f3 a los dos a\u00f1os, ocasi\u00f3n que inspir\u00f3 a Poe su poema Canci\u00f3n (m\u00e1s conocido por Te vi el d\u00eda de tu boda) en el que habla de un \u00abardiente rubor\u00bb de \u00abvirginal verg\u00fcenza\u00bb; dando a entender que los sentimientos de la novia por \u00e9l no hab\u00edan desaparecido.\n\nAl cabo de dos meses en la contadur\u00eda de John Allan, el creciente resentimiento condujo a un enfrentamiento directo. Tras una amarga discusi\u00f3n, Allan ech\u00f3 a su hijo adoptivo de casa. Refugiado en una taberna, \u00e9ste escribir\u00eda una carta muy poco prudente: \u00abHace tiempo que he tomado la determinaci\u00f3n de abandonar vuestro hogar y buscar un sitio en el ancho mundo donde se me trate de forma distinta a como vos me hab\u00e9is tratado\u00bb. Tras acusarlo de frustrar sus esperanzas de adquirir una educaci\u00f3n universitaria y de alegrarse de su fracaso, le ped\u00eda, \u00absi os queda un \u00e1pice de afecto por m\u00ed\u00bb, que le enviase cuanto antes su ropa y sus libros, adem\u00e1s de un poco de dinero para poder marcharse de la ciudad. \u00abTiemblo de pensar en las consecuencias \u2013escribi\u00f3 ominosamente Poe\u2013, si no acced\u00e9is a cumplir mi petici\u00f3n.\u00bb\n\nAllan respondi\u00f3 con una irritada enumeraci\u00f3n de los pecados de su hijo adoptivo y ridiculizando el modo en que sus elevadas pretensiones de independencia terminaban con una s\u00faplica de dinero: \u00abDespu\u00e9s de semejante lista de agravios \u2013le dec\u00eda\u2013, \u00bftiemblas de pensar en las consecuencias si no te env\u00edo dinero?\u00bb.\n\nCuando se hizo evidente que la puerta de la casa de Allan se le hab\u00eda cerrado definitivamente, Poe estuvo deambulando por las calles de Richmond en un estado de creciente desesperaci\u00f3n, hambriento y sin un centavo. Una versi\u00f3n dice que estuvo tomando unas copas con un amigo de la infancia y acab\u00f3 en un barco rumbo a Inglaterra. Otra, que parti\u00f3 a luchar por la independencia de Grecia al estilo de lord Byron. Y una tercera le atribuye una serie de cartas en las que informa de sus progresos en San Petersburgo. El propio Allan confiesa su incertidumbre, e indiferencia, en una carta a su hermana: \u00abCreo que Edgar se ha embarcado en busca de fortuna\u00bb.\n\nLa verdad era mucho m\u00e1s prosaica. Incapaz de pagarse la comida y el alojamiento, Poe se las arregl\u00f3 para embarcarse en un barco de carb\u00f3n rumbo a Boston, posiblemente trabajando para pagarse el pasaje. Es probable que acabara recalando en Boston, por ser el centro del mundillo literario de Am\u00e9rica. De camino hacia el norte, llevaba en la mano un delgado fajo de poemas, al que se aferraba a\u00fan m\u00e1s despu\u00e9s de que su padre adoptivo hubiera ridiculizado sus aspiraciones literarias. Sin duda, hab\u00eda otra raz\u00f3n m\u00e1s personal para embarcarse: uno de los escasos recuerdos que conservaba de su madre era un dibujo del puerto de Boston, en cuyo reverso hab\u00eda escrito: \u00abPara mi hijito Edgar, que siempre amar\u00e1 Boston, el lugar donde naci\u00f3, y donde su madre ten\u00eda a sus mejores y m\u00e1s comprensivos amigos\u00bb.\n\nPoe encontr\u00f3 pocos amigos comprensivos en Boston. Lleg\u00f3 en abril de 1827 y trabaj\u00f3 brevemente como oficinista y reportero. Un conocido recordaba a la patrona de una pensi\u00f3n que \u00abse exasperaba con un hu\u00e9sped que pasaba la noche en vela escribiendo art\u00edculos que luego no pod\u00eda vender. No tard\u00f3 en echarlo a la calle\u00bb. Otro nos habla de un Poe mal vestido que le abord\u00f3 en un callej\u00f3n y le pidi\u00f3 que no pronunciara su nombre en voz alta, explic\u00e1ndole \u00abque hasta que triunfase o al menos empezaran a irle bien las cosas\u00bb prefer\u00eda seguir de inc\u00f3gnito.\n\nAl cabo de unas semanas, todav\u00eda no se las hab\u00eda arreglado para triunfar. Por fin, vi\u00e9ndose en un callej\u00f3n sin salida, se alist\u00f3 por cinco a\u00f1os en el ej\u00e9rcito de Estados Unidos bajo el nombre de \u00abEdgar A. Perry\u00bb y afirmando que ten\u00eda veintid\u00f3s a\u00f1os. En realidad, ten\u00eda dieciocho.\n\nEs dif\u00edcil saber qu\u00e9 impuls\u00f3 a Poe a alistarse, aunque es probable que lo hiciese empujado por la desesperaci\u00f3n. Al menos el ej\u00e9rcito le proporcionar\u00eda tres comidas diarias. Tal vez tambi\u00e9n quisiera demostrarle a Allan hasta d\u00f3nde estaba dispuesto a llegar para ser un hombre de provecho. En cualquier caso, supuso un cambio radical en su fortuna. En la Universidad de Virginia hab\u00eda perdido cientos o miles de d\u00f3lares en la mesa de juego. En el ej\u00e9rcito, su salario era de cinco d\u00f3lares al mes.\n\nEl \u00absoldado Perry\u00bb pasar\u00eda seis meses con la bater\u00eda H del Primero de Artiller\u00eda, en el cuartel de Fort Independence, en el puerto de Boston. Enseguida se adapt\u00f3 al severo r\u00e9gimen de la disciplina militar y desempe\u00f1\u00f3 diversas funciones como contador de la compa\u00f1\u00eda, empleado del economato y recadero. Es improbable que hubiese otros muchos reclutas en la bater\u00eda H capaces de traducir a Cicer\u00f3n y Homero, y a\u00fan menos que hubiesen publicado un libro de poes\u00eda. En verano de 1827, justo dos meses despu\u00e9s de alistarse, apareci\u00f3 en Boston un panfleto de cuarenta p\u00e1ginas titulado Tamerl\u00e1n y otros poemas. Poe hab\u00eda apalabrado la publicaci\u00f3n antes de entrar en el ej\u00e9rcito y hab\u00eda pagado la impresi\u00f3n con el dinero que hab\u00eda reunido en sus diversos trabajos. Todav\u00eda de inc\u00f3gnito, present\u00f3 el volumen como la obra an\u00f3nima de \u00abun bostoniano\u00bb. En gran parte se hab\u00eda inspirado en sus frustrados amores con Elmira Royster y muchos de los poemas trataban de los arrebatos de la juventud y el amor perdido. En un breve prefacio, el joven poeta proclamaba que una buena parte de los versos se hab\u00edan escrito \u00abcuando el autor no ten\u00eda a\u00fan catorce a\u00f1os\u00bb, y luego a\u00f1ad\u00eda que \u00abel motivo de su publicaci\u00f3n s\u00f3lo le concierne a \u00e9l\u00bb. Y, si por un azar el volumen no llegaba a tener \u00e9xito, aseguraba a sus lectores que \u00abel fracaso no influir\u00eda en su resoluci\u00f3n\u00bb de triunfar como poeta. No obstante, sus limitados recursos redujeron la tirada a cincuenta ejemplares escasos, muy pocos para atraer la atenci\u00f3n de los cr\u00edticos o los lectores. Tras su publicaci\u00f3n, el volumen pas\u00f3 casi inadvertido.\n\nEntretanto el \u00absoldado Perry\u00bb prosperaba bajo la disciplina militar. Transcurridos los seis meses pasados en Fort Independence, la bater\u00eda de Poe parti\u00f3 hacia Carolina del Sur en noviembre de 1827. Poe pasar\u00eda m\u00e1s de un a\u00f1o acuartelado en Fort Moultrie en la isla de Sullivan, en el puerto de Charleston; despu\u00e9s, en diciembre de 1828, lo trasladaron a la fortaleza Monroe, cerca de Hampton, Virginia. Para entonces lo hab\u00edan ascendido a artificiero, encargado de la preparaci\u00f3n de los obuses, con un aumento de sueldo de diez d\u00f3lares al mes y una raci\u00f3n de licor al d\u00eda. Un oficial alab\u00f3 su comportamiento ejemplar y observ\u00f3 que el joven soldado \u00abno probaba el alcohol\u00bb. El d\u00eda de a\u00f1o nuevo de 1829 lo ascendieron a brigada, el mayor rango antes de oficial.\n\nSin embargo, en esa \u00e9poca ya se hab\u00eda hartado de la vida militar, sobre todo tras el tedioso per\u00edodo pasado en la isla de Sullivan (\u00abno tiene m\u00e1s que arena\u00bb). Cuando s\u00f3lo hab\u00edan transcurrido tres a\u00f1os de los cinco por los que se hab\u00eda alistado, Poe comprendi\u00f3 que se encontraba en un callej\u00f3n sin salida. Se lo confes\u00f3 a su comprensivo oficial al mando, el teniente Howard, a quien revel\u00f3 no s\u00f3lo las desdichadas circunstancias de su alistamiento, sino su verdadera edad. El teniente se ofreci\u00f3 a licenciarlo, pero puso una condici\u00f3n que debi\u00f3 de horrorizar al joven brigada: que se reconciliara antes con John Allan, cuyo permiso era necesario.\n\nObviamente, la idea no fue de su agrado, por mucho que quisiera escapar de la rutina de otros tres a\u00f1os en el ej\u00e9rcito. Tuvo que ser el teniente Howard quien escribiera y planteara la cuesti\u00f3n a Allan. Al parecer la larga ausencia no hab\u00eda ablandado su coraz\u00f3n. Respondi\u00f3 con frialdad al teniente Howard que el joven \u00abhar\u00eda mejor en seguir donde est\u00e1 hasta que termine su per\u00edodo de alistamiento\u00bb.\n\nNo fue la reconciliaci\u00f3n a la que aspiraba el muchacho, quien escribir\u00eda personalmente a su padre adoptivo tratando de convencerle en una serie de cartas de que le permitiera dejar el ej\u00e9rcito y regresar a casa. \u00abNo soy el mismo que conocisteis \u2013insist\u00eda, intentando distanciarse de los pecados cometidos en Charlottesville\u2013, ya no soy un ni\u00f1o que vaga por el mundo sin objeto ni prop\u00f3sito.\u00bb Sin embargo, como el ni\u00f1o que hab\u00eda sido, no se resist\u00eda a amenazarle veladamente insinuando que se ver\u00eda \u00abobligado a tomar medidas m\u00e1s dr\u00e1sticas si os neg\u00e1is a ayudarme\u00bb.\n\nAl ver que sus cartas quedaban sin respuesta, cambi\u00f3 de estrategia. En lugar de abandonar el ej\u00e9rcito, quiso que Allan lo ayudase a aumentar de rango. Aconsejado por el teniente Howard y otros, le pidi\u00f3 que le consiguiera un puesto en la Academia Militar de Estados Unidos, en West Point. Tras terminar la instrucci\u00f3n como artillero y habiendo demostrado ser un buen soldado, esperaba completar su formaci\u00f3n como cadete en s\u00f3lo seis meses. Por desdicha, sus nuevos proyectos iban lastrados por una conocida cantinela: \u00abLas expectativas de recibir buenas noticias de casa me han obligado a incurrir en gastos de los que no puedo responder con mis presentes ingresos\u00bb, escribi\u00f3 y a\u00f1ad\u00eda que se encontraba en \u00abuna situaci\u00f3n ciertamente inc\u00f3moda\u00bb. Y, lo que era a\u00fan peor, terminaba con una de sus siniestras amenazas. Afirm\u00f3 que esperar\u00eda con impaciencia la respuesta de Allan, pues supondr\u00eda una elecci\u00f3n entre \u00abla garant\u00eda de una carrera honrosa y fruct\u00edfera en mi propio pa\u00eds o la perspectiva, o incluso la certeza, de un exilio definitivo en alg\u00fan otro\u00bb.\n\nTal vez la \u00fanica nota cort\u00e9s de las cartas que envi\u00f3 Poe a Richmond fuera su constante y sincera preocupaci\u00f3n por el bienestar de Frances Allan, su madre adoptiva: \u00abTodo mi cari\u00f1o para Ma: s\u00f3lo cuando no estoy con ella, comprendo el aut\u00e9ntico valor de contar con una amiga as\u00ed. Espero que mi car\u00e1cter rebelde no le haya hecho olvidar el amor que sent\u00eda por m\u00ed\u00bb. La salud de la se\u00f1ora Allan, siempre delicada, hab\u00eda iniciado un lento y doloroso declive en esa \u00e9poca. En marzo de 1829 Poe recibi\u00f3 la triste noticia de su fallecimiento a la edad de cuarenta y cuatro a\u00f1os. Al final de su enfermedad hab\u00eda insistido expresamente en su deseo de volver a ver a su hijo adoptivo.\n\nPoe consigui\u00f3 un permiso y viaj\u00f3 a Richmond, donde el apenado John Allan le recibi\u00f3 con esp\u00edritu conciliador, e incluso le compr\u00f3 un traje de luto. Cuando el joven volvi\u00f3 a incorporarse a su puesto, Allan hab\u00eda dado su consentimiento a su proyecto de abandonar el ej\u00e9rcito e ingresar en West Point. En los impresos de licencia, Poe declar\u00f3 ser \u00abhijo y heredero\u00bb de John Allan.\n\nAhora ya s\u00f3lo faltaba proceder a la licencia y en eso Poe se equivoc\u00f3. Las normas requer\u00edan que buscara a un sustituto que sirviera en su lugar los a\u00f1os que le quedaban. Aunque la paga normal era s\u00f3lo de doce d\u00f3lares, habr\u00eda tenido que esperar a que sus superiores volvieran de permiso y consiguiesen a alguien a ese precio. Harto de esperar, ofreci\u00f3 setenta y cinco d\u00f3lares a un ex soldado para que ocupase su puesto en el acto. El sustituto recibi\u00f3 veinticinco d\u00f3lares en mano y un pagar\u00e9 por el resto. Igual que cuando dej\u00f3 la Universidad de Virginia dos a\u00f1os antes, Poe abandon\u00f3 el ejercito con una deuda que no pod\u00eda pagar. Cuando John Allan se enter\u00f3, la tregua con su pr\u00f3digo hijo adoptivo empez\u00f3 a romperse.\n\nFaltaban catorce meses para que salieran las plazas de West Point. John Allan le dej\u00f3 claro que no ser\u00eda bienvenido en Richmond. \u00abNo tengo demasiadas ganas de verte\u00bb, le escribi\u00f3, por lo que el joven pas\u00f3 varios meses en Baltimore, viviendo en casa de un primo suyo. Dedic\u00f3 la mayor parte del tiempo a reunir los documentos y cartas de recomendaci\u00f3n para ingresar en West Point, y lleg\u00f3 a recorrer a pie sesenta kil\u00f3metros hasta Washington para pedir al ministro de la Guerra, John H. Eaton, que intercediera por \u00e9l.\n\nTambi\u00e9n se dedic\u00f3 a escribir un segundo volumen de poes\u00eda e incluso public\u00f3 algunos de sus versos en peri\u00f3dicos literarios, donde recibieron halagos un tanto ambiguos: \u00abSon tonter\u00edas, pero tonter\u00edas muy exquisitas\u00bb. En mayo de 1829, escribi\u00f3 a Allan \u00abcon una petici\u00f3n distinta de cualquiera que os haya hecho hasta ahora\u00bb: cien d\u00f3lares para indemnizar a un editor por sus p\u00e9rdidas si acced\u00eda a publicar su nuevo volumen de poemas. De este modo, confiaba en \u00abadquirir reputaci\u00f3n\u00bb sin desviarse de su proyecto de ingresar en West Point.\n\nLa petici\u00f3n no era del todo descabellada \u2013las garant\u00edas de ese tipo eran muy comunes en la \u00e9poca\u2013, pero John Allan, que hab\u00eda rega\u00f1ado a su hijo adoptivo por estudiar Literatura en la Universidad de Virginia, no era el mecenas m\u00e1s indicado. No s\u00f3lo se neg\u00f3 a enviarle el dinero, sino que le escribi\u00f3 y le reproch\u00f3 su conducta. Lejos de desanimarse, Poe llev\u00f3 el manuscrito a una peque\u00f1a empresa de Baltimore cuyos due\u00f1os no requer\u00edan garant\u00edas. Las setenta y dos p\u00e1ginas de Al Aaraaff, Tamerl\u00e1n y otros poemas menores vieron la luz a finales de 1829, en una edici\u00f3n de s\u00f3lo 250 ejemplares. El joven poeta de veintid\u00f3s a\u00f1os renunci\u00f3 al seud\u00f3nimo \u00abun bostoniano\u00bb y public\u00f3 la obra como Edgar A. Poe. \u00c9se es el nombre que emplear\u00eda en adelante, sin renunciar a su incierto derecho, ni reconocerlo del todo, a ostentar el nombre de Allan.\n\nEl nuevo volumen cosech\u00f3 un poco m\u00e1s de \u00e9xito que su primer intento e incluso obtuvo algunas rese\u00f1as favorables, y el autor empez\u00f3 a verse como \u00abinevitablemente, un poeta\u00bb. No obstante, por aquel entonces su solicitud de admisi\u00f3n en West Point hab\u00eda avanzado a trav\u00e9s de la burocracia. Tal como le hab\u00eda prometido a Allan, no permiti\u00f3 que las exigencias de la poes\u00eda lo distrajesen. En junio de 1830, viaj\u00f3 a Nueva York dispuesto a ingresar en la Academia Militar de Estados Unidos.\n\nEs un lugar com\u00fan afirmar que su esp\u00edritu fr\u00e1gil, po\u00e9tico y taciturno se adaptaba mal a los rigores y la severa disciplina de West Point. En la \u00e9poca, las ordenanzas prohib\u00edan espec\u00edficamente a los cadetes \u00ableer novelas, relatos sentimentales u obras de teatro\u00bb, dando a entender que la Academia reprobaba el temperamento art\u00edstico. No obstante, Poe ten\u00eda pocas opciones si quer\u00eda recuperar el favor de su padre adoptivo. Es natural que tratara de rentabilizar su honrosa carrera de soldado, y West Point parec\u00eda ofrecer, tal como le hab\u00eda dicho a Allan, la oportunidad de distinguirse.\n\nA su llegada, Poe hubo de pasar por el dif\u00edcil trago del campamento de verano: dormir en toscas tiendas de lona y superar un per\u00edodo de instrucci\u00f3n aparentemente interminable y pr\u00e1cticas de tiro que empezaban a diario a las 5:30 de la ma\u00f1ana. Al empezar el curso acad\u00e9mico en septiembre, los cadetes se instalaron en unos austeros barracones y repart\u00edan su tiempo entre las clases y los ejercicios militares hasta las diez de la noche. No es sorprendente que Poe destacara en las tareas acad\u00e9micas, pero, comparada con sus obligaciones relativamente c\u00f3modas durante el servicio militar, la instrucci\u00f3n debi\u00f3 de parecerle intolerablemente dif\u00edcil. No era el \u00fanico en pensar as\u00ed: la clase se redujo de 130 a 87 cadetes en s\u00f3lo seis meses.\n\nUno de sus camaradas, Timothy Jones, recordar\u00eda que Poe le pareci\u00f3 \u00abextremadamente disipado\u00bb a su llegada. \u00abAl principio estudiaba mucho y parec\u00eda tener la ambici\u00f3n de ser el primero de la clase en todas las disciplinas\u00bb, observar\u00eda; sin embargo, al cabo de unas cuantas semanas \u00abfue como si perdiera el inter\u00e9s por los estudios y se dejara vencer por el des\u00e1nimo\u00bb. Poe busc\u00f3 refugio en una taberna cercana, cuyo propietario era \u00abla \u00fanica alma amiga en este lugar dejado de la mano de Dios\u00bb.\n\nTal como le hab\u00eda dicho a su padre adoptivo, esperaba \u00abcompletar su formaci\u00f3n\u00bb en s\u00f3lo seis meses. Ahora, igual que los dem\u00e1s cadetes, tuvo que enfrentarse a la cruda realidad: tendr\u00edan que pasar cuatro a\u00f1os antes de que recibiese su primer destino. Si tres a\u00f1os m\u00e1s en el ej\u00e9rcito le hab\u00edan parecido intolerables, la perspectiva de cuatro a\u00f1os en West Point debi\u00f3 ser simplemente una pesadilla.\n\nPeor a\u00fan, la fr\u00e1gil tregua con Allan empezaba a deteriorarse. Aunque \u00e9ste le hab\u00eda permitido hacer un breve viaje a Richmond cuando se confirm\u00f3 su ingreso en West Point, la visita hab\u00eda sido un fracaso y hab\u00edan aflorado las antiguas rencillas. Allan, entretanto, ten\u00eda otras cosas de las que preocuparse. Apenas un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s de la muerte de Frances Allan, estaba haciendo planes para contraer matrimonio con Louisa Patterson, una mujer veinte a\u00f1os menor, con quien tendr\u00eda tres hijos. Casi al mismo tiempo, otro de los amores de Allan, su amante desde hac\u00eda tiempo, dio a luz a dos gemelos. Para Poe, que estaba dej\u00e1ndose la piel en West Point, las implicaciones debieron de ser evidentes. A pesar de haber firmado como \u00abhijo y heredero\u00bb de Allan los documentos de licencia del ej\u00e9rcito, le estaban saliendo muchos competidores.\n\nAl parecer, Allan estaba deseando emprender una nueva vida despu\u00e9s de la boda y estaba m\u00e1s que dispuesto a incluir a su hijo adoptivo entre los efectos descartados de su difunta mujer. A finales de a\u00f1o hab\u00eda planeado una ruptura definitiva, precipitada por la furiosa reacci\u00f3n al enterarse de la gran suma de dinero que Poe hab\u00eda pagado a su sustituto cuando se fue del ej\u00e9rcito. El sustituto, un hombre llamado \u00abBully\u00bb Graves, hab\u00eda enviado varias cartas a Poe tratando de cobrar el dinero que le deb\u00eda. Pero \u00e9ste, al intentar explicarle que no pod\u00eda pagarle, hizo varios comentarios desafortunados, afirmando que Allan siempre \u00abrechazaba\u00bb sus peticiones de ayuda, \u00abporque casi nunca estaba sobrio\u00bb. De alg\u00fan modo esas observaciones llegaron a o\u00eddos de su padre adoptivo, quien le envi\u00f3 una carta furiosa en la que le ped\u00eda que no volviera a escribirle.\n\nPoe, el artificiero entrenado, carg\u00f3 la artiller\u00eda pesada. Hasta entonces siempre hab\u00eda hecho esfuerzos, por muy torpes que fueran, por preservar las vacilantes ascuas de la buena voluntad de su benefactor. Ahora, al ver que le daba definitivamente la espalda, descarg\u00f3 una andanada de cuatro p\u00e1ginas, enumerando quejas y acusaciones que se remontaban a la infancia: \u00ab\u00bfAcaso solicit\u00e9 de ni\u00f1o vuestra caridad y protecci\u00f3n o fuisteis vos quien se ofreci\u00f3 voluntariamente a cuidar de m\u00ed?\u00bb. Conclu\u00eda con un alarde t\u00edpicamente teatral y autodestructivo: \u00abMe enviasteis a West Point como un mendigo. Ahora me acosan las mismas penurias que sufr\u00ed antes en Charlottesville y no me queda m\u00e1s remedio que presentar la renuncia\u00bb.\n\nA pesar de que la idea de pasar cuatro a\u00f1os en West Point lo ten\u00eda amargado, es probable que considerase su renuncia un modo de castigar a su padre adoptivo. Por desgracia, necesitaba su firma y le advirti\u00f3 de que, si no le conced\u00eda \u00abesa \u00faltima petici\u00f3n\u00bb, conseguir\u00eda que lo licenciaran deshonrosamente desatendiendo sus obligaciones. Ya acumulaba un considerable n\u00famero de sanciones por mala conducta, y es posible que lanzase aquella amenaza para justificar algo que hubiera hecho. Sea como fuere, como Allan no respondi\u00f3 a su carta, inici\u00f3 una campa\u00f1a activa de incumplimiento del deber y no se present\u00f3 al pasar lista y falt\u00f3 a clase en varias ocasiones. El 28 de enero de 1831 tuvo que enfrentarse a los cargos de negligencia y desobediencia. No se defendi\u00f3 y de ese modo se asegur\u00f3 de que lo licenciaran. \u00abMe han expulsado \u2013escribi\u00f3 a Allan\u2013, cuando una simple firma vuestra habr\u00eda bastado para impedirlo.\u00bb\n\nSorprendentemente, sus camaradas de West Point le brindaron la ayuda que le hab\u00eda negado su padre adoptivo. En sus primeros d\u00edas en la Academia, Poe se hab\u00eda creado una reputaci\u00f3n como poeta sat\u00edrico ridiculizando en verso a los oficiales y la tradiciones de West Point. Uno de sus camaradas cadetes recordar\u00eda que \u00aba menudo escrib\u00eda las coplas peor intencionadas, me ped\u00eda que las copiase con la mano izquierda para que no reconocieran la letra y las colgaba por todo el edificio\u00bb. Al parecer estos esfuerzos causaron muy buena impresi\u00f3n. Despu\u00e9s de la expulsi\u00f3n, m\u00e1s de cien compa\u00f1eros suyos contribuyeron a un fondo para sufragar la publicaci\u00f3n de su tercera colecci\u00f3n de poemas, y reunieron m\u00e1s de 150 d\u00f3lares. El volumen, titulado simplemente Poemas, apareci\u00f3 en mayo de 1831 en una edici\u00f3n de quinientos ejemplares. Aunque inclu\u00eda una agradecida dedicatoria al Cuerpo de Cadetes de Estados Unidos, tuvo mala acogida en los barracones, pues no figuraba en \u00e9l ninguna s\u00e1tira militar. \u00abEste libro es una pu\u00f1etera estafa\u00bb, escribir\u00eda uno de los cadetes.\n\nCon el tiempo, el descontento de los cadetes acabar\u00eda convirti\u00e9ndose en una opini\u00f3n minoritaria. El volumen reflejaba la creciente madurez de su autor, forjada en el crisol de unas circunstancias desesperadas. Con estremecedora claridad, el poeta de veintid\u00f3s a\u00f1os anunciaba los temas que dominar\u00edan su vida y su carrera:\n\n> Y as\u00ed, siendo joven y alocado,\n> \n> me ech\u00e9 en brazos de la melancol\u00eda,\n> \n> renunci\u00e9 a la paz terrena\n> \n> y en la diversi\u00f3n busqu\u00e9 sosiego.\n> \n> No pude amar sino all\u00ed donde la Muerte\n> \n> su aliento con el de la Bella entremezclaba\n> \n> o donde Himeneo, el Tiempo y el Destino\n> \n> entre ella y yo se interpon\u00edan.\n\nA pesar de que acababa de salir de la adolescencia, Poe consigui\u00f3 dar voz a una sensaci\u00f3n de fracaso y desdicha que resonar\u00eda en casi todos los poemas y relatos que escribir\u00eda despu\u00e9s. Sus tempranas aflicciones \u2013el abandono de su padre y la muerte de su madre\u2013 le hab\u00edan infligido una herida que no pudieron sanar los indecisos afectos de John Allan. \u00abPor el amor de Dios, compadeceos de m\u00ed \u2013le hab\u00eda escrito una vez Poe\u2013 y salvadme de la destrucci\u00f3n.\u00bb Es imposible saber si alguien habr\u00eda podido salvarlo de sus impulsos autodestructivos \u2013lo que \u00e9l mismo denominar\u00eda despu\u00e9s \u00abla sed de los hombres por torturarse a s\u00ed mismos\u00bb\u2013, pero es indudable que los pesares de sus primeros a\u00f1os hab\u00edan creado una visi\u00f3n del mundo en la que la belleza y la muerte se ensombrec\u00edan mutuamente. Era un tema que encontrar\u00eda en cada rinc\u00f3n de su vida, y pronto le conducir\u00eda, tal vez inevitablemente, a Mary Rogers, la m\u00e1s famosa y tr\u00e1gica joven belleza de su tiempo.\n3 Sali\u00f3 de casa el domingo\n\nLa ma\u00f1ana del domingo 25 de julio de 1841, con una temperatura que rozaba ya los 33 grados, Mary Rogers se levant\u00f3 antes del amanecer y ayud\u00f3 a preparar el desayuno de los hu\u00e9spedes de la pensi\u00f3n de Nassau Street: huevos cocidos, gachas de avena y tostadas con leche. Luego hizo la colada matutina, ech\u00f3 carb\u00f3n en los fogones y barri\u00f3 el vest\u00edbulo. Al cabo de tres horas, una vez terminadas sus obligaciones matutinas se prepar\u00f3 para salir. Se puso el vestido de los domingos: uno blanco de algod\u00f3n con una preciosa bufanda azul atada al cuello. Previendo que ser\u00eda un d\u00eda caluroso cogi\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n un sombrero de paja y una sombrilla.\n\n\u00abEl sosiego de la ciudad una ma\u00f1ana de domingo ofrece un notable contraste con la confusi\u00f3n y el bullicio de los d\u00edas laborables \u2013escrib\u00eda un diarista de la \u00e9poca\u2013. Los domingos est\u00e1 silenciosa como una catedral. Broadway, donde montan guardia Old Trinity en un extremo y Grace en el otro, est\u00e1 vac\u00eda y desierta. Un carruaje ocasional que lleva a su hotel a un viajero dominical o un carromato cargado de equipaje hasta los topes es lo \u00fanico que interrumpe la soledad. Las anchas y limpias aceras de Broadway relucen al sol silenciosas como el mism\u00edsimo desierto. Los trasnochadores, los jugadores, los hijos y las hijas del placer, que ejercen su oficio hasta altas horas de la madrugada, duermen hasta tarde, y los barrios donde viven est\u00e1n tan callados como una tumba.\u00bb\n\nPoco despu\u00e9s de las diez, Mary llam\u00f3 a la puerta de su prometido Daniel Payne. Payne, a medio afeitar, le habl\u00f3 a trav\u00e9s de la puerta entreabierta. La muchacha le dijo que hab\u00eda hecho planes de visitar a su t\u00eda, la se\u00f1ora Downing, e ir con su familia a la iglesia. La se\u00f1ora Downing viv\u00eda en Jane Street, a quince minutos en \u00f3mnibus (el carruaje de caballos que llevaba a los que iban a diario de su casa al trabajo a lo largo de Broadway). Mary le comunic\u00f3 a Payne que pensaba regresar a primera hora de la tarde, y quedaron en encontrarse en la esquina de Broadway y Ann, enfrente del museo de Barnum, para que la acompa\u00f1ara sana y salva de vuelta a Nassau Street.\n\nPayne no apreci\u00f3 nada en el comportamiento de Mary que se apartara de lo normal. Le pareci\u00f3, insistir\u00eda despu\u00e9s, \u00abtan alegre y vivaracha, como de costumbre\u00bb y con ganas de pasar el d\u00eda fuera. \u00abDe acuerdo, Mary \u2013respondi\u00f3\u2013. Ir\u00e9 a buscarte.\u00bb Despu\u00e9s de o\u00edr estas palabras, Mary baj\u00f3 las escaleras y sali\u00f3 a Nassau Street.\n\nAunque Payne no ten\u00eda motivos para sospechar, la historia que le hab\u00eda contado Mary no se ten\u00eda en pie. Luego se sabr\u00eda que no hab\u00eda advertido a la se\u00f1ora Downing de que tuviera intenci\u00f3n de visitarla, y, de hecho, su t\u00eda no estaba en casa esa ma\u00f1ana. Tal vez Mary pensara pasarse por all\u00ed sin avisar, pero vale la pena se\u00f1alar que el pretexto de ir a visitar a la se\u00f1ora Downing era el mismo que hab\u00eda utilizado para justificar su desaparici\u00f3n tres a\u00f1os antes, cuando su inexplicable ausencia del almac\u00e9n de tabaco caus\u00f3 tanto revuelo.\n\nIndependientemente de lo que tuviese pensado hacer esa ma\u00f1ana, es evidente que no fue sincera con Daniel Payne. A Phoebe Rogers le desagradaba el cortador de corcho, y, dos d\u00edas antes, hab\u00edan o\u00eddo a Mary \u00abprometerle firmemente\u00bb a su madre que pondr\u00eda fin a su relaci\u00f3n con \u00e9l. Se mencion\u00f3 el nombre de Alfred Crommelin, cuya tempestuosa partida de la pensi\u00f3n se hab\u00eda producido el mes anterior, como un partido m\u00e1s conveniente.\n\nEl mismo d\u00eda que Mary prometi\u00f3 dejar de ver a Payne, Crommelin hab\u00eda recibido una nota pidi\u00e9ndole que pasara por la pensi\u00f3n. El mensaje le pareci\u00f3 extra\u00f1o: estaba escrito por Mary, pero la firma era de Phoebe. Sin saber qu\u00e9 hacer, le mostr\u00f3 la nota a su amigo Archibald Padley mientras iban de camino a la oficina donde trabajaba Crommelin. No sab\u00edan lo que quer\u00eda Mary, pero deb\u00eda de tratarse de algo urgente. Cuando Crommelin lleg\u00f3 a su despacho, encontr\u00f3 otro mensaje escrito en una pizarra colgada junto a la puerta. En este caso estaba firmado por Mary, y repet\u00eda su petici\u00f3n de que pasara a verla lo antes posible. Como prueba de su visita, y tal vez como muestra de sus sentimientos, Mary coloc\u00f3 una rosa roja en el agujero de la cerradura.\n\nSi su gesto ten\u00eda alg\u00fan significado amoroso, Crommelin no lo comprendi\u00f3. Apenas unas semanas antes, en el porche de la pensi\u00f3n, le hab\u00eda declarado su indestructible devoci\u00f3n y la hab\u00eda animado a llamarle, si alguna vez lo necesitaba. Ahora, ante una convocatoria clara, urgente, y tal vez amorosa, se echaba atr\u00e1s. Despu\u00e9s explicar\u00eda que \u00abla \u00faltima vez que hab\u00eda ido a verla lo hab\u00edan recibido con frialdad\u00bb, por lo que no hab\u00eda querido que volviesen a humillarlo. Tambi\u00e9n sugiri\u00f3, de pasada, que no ten\u00eda mayor inter\u00e9s en ver el rostro sonriente de Daniel Payne, a quien segu\u00eda considerando el pretendiente que hab\u00eda salido vencedor. Crommelin afirm\u00f3 que, por un momento, consider\u00f3 la posibilidad de hacerle una visita el domingo \u2013sin saber que Mary pensaba pasar el d\u00eda fuera\u2013, pero que, pens\u00e1ndolo mejor, decidi\u00f3 no hacerlo. Se qued\u00f3 en casa, en su nueva pensi\u00f3n de John Street, y pas\u00f3 el d\u00eda en compa\u00f1\u00eda de Padley.\n\nDaniel Payne tambi\u00e9n disfrut\u00f3 de su d\u00eda libre ese domingo. Despu\u00e9s de enterarse a las diez en punto de los planes de Mary, parti\u00f3 una hora m\u00e1s tarde y fue andando a casa de su hermano John en Warren Street, a pocos metros del parque del Ayuntamiento. Juntos visitaron un mercado llamado Scott's Bazaar en Dey Street y rebuscaron entre las mercanc\u00edas; luego se despidieron enfrente de la iglesia de St. Paul, en Broadway. Payne sigui\u00f3 hasta la taberna Bickford de James Street, donde, seg\u00fan la tradici\u00f3n dominical, el propietario, \u00abteniendo en cuenta la solemnidad del d\u00eda\u00bb, obligaba a sus empleados a vestir camisas limpias y dejaba siempre las persianas entreabiertas. Payne testificar\u00eda despu\u00e9s que estuvo \u00ableyendo los peri\u00f3dicos hasta las dos en punto\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s, fue a una casa de comidas de Fulton Street y comi\u00f3 solo. Acto seguido regres\u00f3 a la pensi\u00f3n y, tal vez fatigado por la lectura de los peri\u00f3dicos, se ech\u00f3 una siesta de tres horas.\n\nA \u00faltima hora de la tarde, se levant\u00f3, se refresc\u00f3 con agua del lavabo y parti\u00f3 a su cita con Mary. Al pasar por Broadway se encontr\u00f3 con su hermano, que iba en direcci\u00f3n opuesta acompa\u00f1ado de su mujer y sus hijos. Intercambi\u00f3 con ellos algunas cortes\u00edas antes de seguir hasta la parada de \u00f3mnibus que hab\u00eda junto al museo de Barnum. Entonces record\u00f3 que el \u00f3mnibus no circulaba los domingos. Payne se detuvo a considerar c\u00f3mo habr\u00eda ido Mary a casa de su t\u00eda sin su habitual medio de transporte, pero enseguida se le quit\u00f3 de la cabeza al ver que se acercaba una violenta tormenta de verano. Por lo ocurrido en otras ocasiones, dedujo que la joven no se aventurar\u00eda a salir bajo la lluvia y se quedar\u00eda a pasar la noche en casa de su t\u00eda y regresar\u00eda al d\u00eda siguiente. Cuando la tormenta arreci\u00f3, volvi\u00f3 a refugiarse en la taberna Bickford, donde se qued\u00f3 hasta las nueve en punto. En cuanto despej\u00f3, regres\u00f3 a Nassau Street. En el sal\u00f3n de abajo encontr\u00f3 a la se\u00f1ora Hayes, otra de las t\u00edas de Mary, que cre\u00eda igualmente que lo m\u00e1s probable era que su sobrina no volviera hasta por la ma\u00f1ana. Payne subi\u00f3 a su habitaci\u00f3n y se retir\u00f3 a pasar la noche.\n\nA la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, al bajar a desayunar, encontr\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers muy angustiada. Mary todav\u00eda no hab\u00eda vuelto y ella estaba convencida de que hab\u00eda ocurrido alguna desgracia. La se\u00f1ora Hayes, que se hab\u00eda quedado a dormir en la pensi\u00f3n, la tranquilizaba dici\u00e9ndole que Mary deb\u00eda de haber perdido la noci\u00f3n del tiempo y no tardar\u00eda en llegar. Payne coincidi\u00f3 con la se\u00f1ora Hayes. Aunque tambi\u00e9n \u00e9l estaba preocupado, segu\u00eda pensando que la ausencia de Mary entraba dentro de lo normal y que probablemente llegar\u00eda en cualquier momento. Tras dec\u00edrselo a la se\u00f1ora Rogers, se fue al trabajo como de costumbre.\n\nCuando regres\u00f3 a comer a la pensi\u00f3n, vio que Mary segu\u00eda sin aparecer. La se\u00f1ora Rogers estaba cada vez m\u00e1s asustada, as\u00ed que se ofreci\u00f3 a organizar la b\u00fasqueda. Es probable que Payne le tomara el pelo a la se\u00f1ora Rogers, pues se limit\u00f3 a buscar en tabernas y bodegas. \u00abEsperaba \u2013dec\u00eda una versi\u00f3n\u2013 que alg\u00fan alegre camarada le ofreciera alguna pista sobre el paradero de la dama.\u00bb\n\nViendo que las investigaciones no daban resultado, Payne fue por Broadway hasta Jane Street, donde llam\u00f3 a la puerta de la se\u00f1ora Downing. All\u00ed se enter\u00f3 de que Mary no hab\u00eda ido a verla el d\u00eda anterior y de que ni siquiera la esperaban, pues la familia hab\u00eda pasado fuera todo el d\u00eda.\n\nPayne comprendi\u00f3 entonces que algo iba mal. Movido por un funesto presentimiento, inici\u00f3 una b\u00fasqueda a mayor escala preguntando en casa de varios amigos y parientes, en un paseo que le llev\u00f3 hasta Harlem y Staten Island. Nadie hab\u00eda visto a Mary, ni ten\u00eda noticia de ella.\n\nA media tarde del lunes, pens\u00f3 que era necesario hacer algo m\u00e1s. Pas\u00f3 por la redacci\u00f3n del Sun y public\u00f3 un anuncio en la secci\u00f3n de personas desaparecidas. Temeroso de que se repitiera el esc\u00e1ndalo ocasionado por la previa desaparici\u00f3n de Mary, Payne decidi\u00f3 callarse el nombre. Dio, en cambio, una descripci\u00f3n completa de la ropa que vest\u00eda la joven:\n\nCuando sali\u00f3 de su casa el domingo 25 de julio por la ma\u00f1ana, la joven vest\u00eda un vestido blanco, un chal negro, un pa\u00f1uelo azul, un sombrero de paja, zapatos de color claro y una sombrilla de colores; se teme que haya podido sufrir alg\u00fan accidente. Se recompensar\u00e1 por las molestias sufridas a quien proporcione cualquier informaci\u00f3n en el 126 de Nassau Street.\n\nA continuaci\u00f3n, volvi\u00f3 a la pensi\u00f3n e inform\u00f3 de sus esfuerzos a la se\u00f1ora Rogers, que ahora se hab\u00eda sumido en un estado de abatimiento let\u00e1rgico. Payne se retir\u00f3 a su cuarto y pas\u00f3 la noche muy intranquilo, decidido a proseguir la b\u00fasqueda por la ma\u00f1ana.\n\nEl martes, en respuesta al anuncio del peri\u00f3dico, Payne recibi\u00f3 aviso del due\u00f1o de una taberna de Duane Street de que una joven y su acompa\u00f1ante hab\u00edan pasado varias horas en su establecimiento el domingo por la tarde. Payne sali\u00f3 corriendo de la pensi\u00f3n, pero cuando lleg\u00f3 a la taberna descubri\u00f3 que la descripci\u00f3n de la joven no coincid\u00eda con la de Mary. Sin desanimarse, reanud\u00f3 sus esfuerzos por una zona a\u00fan mayor que el d\u00eda anterior. Fue a pie hasta el embarcadero del ferry de Barclay Street y cruz\u00f3 el Hudson hasta Hoboken, donde se dedic\u00f3 a preguntar a los desconocidos que encontr\u00f3 en el embarcadero y en tres casas cercanas si hab\u00edan visto pasar a una joven morena. Luego sigui\u00f3 por un sinuoso sendero hasta un terreno boscoso conocido como Elysian Fields y par\u00f3 a la gente que encontr\u00f3 por el camino, pero no consigui\u00f3 averiguar nada. Frustrado, volvi\u00f3 a cruzar el Hudson, pas\u00f3 por el taller donde trabajaba y reanud\u00f3 la b\u00fasqueda por la tarde.\n\nAlfred Crommelin se enter\u00f3 de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary el lunes, pero no hizo nada y continu\u00f3 con su rutina hasta que el mi\u00e9rcoles le ense\u00f1aron el anuncio de la secci\u00f3n de personas desaparecidas del Sun. El breve anuncio le caus\u00f3 una conmoci\u00f3n. Aunque, a pesar de su petici\u00f3n, se hab\u00eda negado a ir a verla, ahora corri\u00f3 a Nassau Street, donde encontr\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers sentada en el sal\u00f3n con los ojos vidriosos y a Payne de pie a su lado. Al verlo, Payne dio media vuelta y sali\u00f3 del sal\u00f3n sin decir palabra, dejando que Phoebe Rogers lo excusara como mejor pudiese. Payne, murmur\u00f3 la anciana, hab\u00eda \u00abido a Bellevue\u00bb. De hecho, es posible que Payne pasara por el hospital de Bellevue, que en la \u00e9poca atend\u00eda sobre todo a enfermos infecciosos, pero dedic\u00f3 la mayor parte de la ma\u00f1ana a investigar varias notas que hab\u00edan llegado en respuesta a su anuncio; no obstante, todos sus esfuerzos resultaron infructuosas.\n\nEntretanto, Crommelin quiso saber de la se\u00f1ora Rogers los detalles de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary, y no tard\u00f3 en poner en pr\u00e1ctica un decidido plan de acci\u00f3n. Fue directamente a la comisar\u00eda de polic\u00eda, tal y como informar\u00eda despu\u00e9s el Herald, \u00abcon la intenci\u00f3n de entrevistarse con Hays\u00bb. Conocido por todos como el \u00abviejo Hays\u00bb, Jacob Hays era un famoso jefe de polic\u00eda de Nueva York, admirado no s\u00f3lo por su habilidad como detective, sino por su ingenioso m\u00e9todo de controlar a las bandas de revoltosos. Robusto y bajo de estatura, se met\u00eda en medio de cualquier reyerta callejera y utilizaba su bast\u00f3n con contera de oro para tirar al suelo los sombreros de los alborotadores. Cuando los miembros de las bandas se agachaban a recogerlos, los empujaba y les obligaba a volver a casa. \u00abTen\u00eda el monopolio de atrapar ladrones \u2013dijo de \u00e9l un admirador\u2013. Era el \u00fanico polic\u00eda del estado que cumpl\u00eda con su deber.\u00bb Por desgracia, el oficial no estaba en la comisar\u00eda la ma\u00f1ana que Crommelin fue a buscarlo, y \u00e9ste no quiso esperar, pues estaba convencido de que cada minuto era esencial. Despu\u00e9s de dejarle un recado, emprendi\u00f3 la b\u00fasqueda por su cuenta, repitiendo sin saberlo muchos de los pasos dados por Payne el d\u00eda anterior, como la visita a la taberna de Duane Street y la casa de los amigos de Harlem.\n\nEn vista de que sus investigaciones no prosperaban, Crommelin reclut\u00f3 a su amigo Archibald Padley con la intenci\u00f3n de extender la b\u00fasqueda hasta Hoboken, en Nueva Jersey, igual que hab\u00eda hecho Payne unas horas antes. Seg\u00fan se cuenta, los dos pretendientes no coincidieron por apenas unos minutos, aunque Crommelin no sab\u00eda nada de los movimientos de Payne cuando se dirigi\u00f3 al embarcadero de Barclay Street.\n\nA pesar de que en la \u00e9poca era conocida por sus arboledas y sus \u00abbrisas saludables\u00bb, la ciudad de Hoboken tambi\u00e9n ofrec\u00eda diversiones menos recomendables. Crommelin declarar\u00eda posteriormente que, si Mary Rogers hab\u00eda ido a Hoboken el domingo en cuesti\u00f3n, forzosamente alguien la hab\u00eda \u00abllevado enga\u00f1ada y con malas intenciones\u00bb. Jacob Hays y sus contempor\u00e1neos habr\u00edan entendido lo que insinuaba. Lo que la se\u00f1ora Rogers le hab\u00eda contado sobre la ausencia de su hija le hizo pensar que Mary estaba \u00abretenida contra su voluntad en una casa de citas o en un lugar parecido\u00bb. Aunque nunca lo dijo expl\u00edcitamente, es probable que Crommelin fuese a Hoboken a visitar varias casas de mala nota.\n\nCrommelin sab\u00eda que en Nueva York y sus alrededores la prostituci\u00f3n era un pr\u00f3spero y variado negocio. Adem\u00e1s de los s\u00f3rdidos \u00absalones concierto de mala reputaci\u00f3n\u00bb que hab\u00eda en Five Points y por todas partes, la ciudad ofrec\u00eda tambi\u00e9n burdeles mucho m\u00e1s refinados para los m\u00e1s pudientes. \u00abNo hay hotel amueblado con m\u00e1s elegancia \u2013escrib\u00eda un diarista de la \u00e9poca\u2013. Imperan el silencio, el orden y el buen gusto. Las puertas se abren sobre bisagras bien engrasadas. Un complaciente criado responde al timbre. Las damas que se alojan en dichas casas no hacen la calle ni buscan compa\u00f1\u00eda. Se las escoge por su belleza, su prestancia y sus dotes. Visten con gran elegancia y casi con tanto decoro como las se\u00f1oras en los bailes, fiestas y conciertos.\u00bb\n\nOtro comentarista abordaba la espinosa cuesti\u00f3n de c\u00f3mo llegaban dichas se\u00f1oras a tener ese empleo: \u00ab\u00bfDe d\u00f3nde proviene este incesante suministro de j\u00f3venes hermosas, atractivas, dotadas, brillantes y bien educadas? Muchas proceden de las mejores casas de la naci\u00f3n... Se recluta a hombres y mujeres para tan nefando trabajo igual que hay quien recorre el pa\u00eds en busca de buenos caballos; y, cuando la v\u00edctima es particularmente atractiva, el precio es muy alto. No hay sistema mejor organizado con banqueros, intermediarios, corredores y agentes... Merodean por los hoteles, con la excusa de ser forasteros en Nueva York, conocen a las j\u00f3venes viajeras, les proponen ir a la iglesia, a pasear, a la \u00f3pera; y, despu\u00e9s de ganarse su confianza, las invitan a ir de visita a casa de alg\u00fan conocido; tras una tarde agradable, despiertan por la ma\u00f1ana para comprobar que las han drogado y ultrajado y que sus padres est\u00e1n sumidos en la desesperaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nCon la idea en mente de una Mary drogada y ultrajada, Crommelin subi\u00f3 la pasarela del ferry de Hoboken y se encamin\u00f3 al norte a lo largo de la orilla del r\u00edo. Padley, que iba unos pasos por detr\u00e1s, tuvo que correr para no perder de vista a su amigo. Luego recordar\u00eda que Crommelin parec\u00eda obsesionado con actuar con la m\u00e1xima urgencia, como si Mary no s\u00f3lo hubiese desaparecido, sino que corriera un peligro inminente. Padley tuvo la sensaci\u00f3n de que a su amigo le torturaba la conciencia, aunque no supiese muy bien por qu\u00e9.\n\nPayne, entretanto, hab\u00eda vuelto a Nassau Street, donde encontr\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers en el sal\u00f3n tan l\u00edvida como la pared y retorciendo un pa\u00f1uelo entre las manos. La inform\u00f3 de sus esfuerzos e insisti\u00f3 en que probablemente Mary regresar\u00eda a casa en cualquier momento. Tal vez, sugiri\u00f3, hubiese ido a visitar a alg\u00fan amigo en el campo. Tal vez hubiese intentado enviarles alg\u00fan recado. La ciudad s\u00f3lo ten\u00eda dos oficinas de correos y no era raro que las cartas se extraviaran.\n\nLa se\u00f1ora Hayes, que a\u00fan recordaba la primera desaparici\u00f3n de Mary, hizo lo que pudo por convencer a la se\u00f1ora Rogers de que Payne estaba en lo cierto. Se qued\u00f3 al lado de su hermana, d\u00e1ndole palmaditas en las manos y ofreci\u00e9ndole palabras de consuelo. Mary deb\u00eda de estar divirti\u00e9ndose, dec\u00eda. Como la otra vez. No tardar\u00eda en volver.\n\nPhoebe Rogers estaba inconsolable. Miraba fijamente por la ventana y retorc\u00eda el cuadrado de tela entre las manos. Su vida hab\u00eda sido un cat\u00e1logo de fracasos: cuatro hijos, dos maridos y cualquier comodidad a la que hubiese aspirado en su vejez. Con un profundo suspiro, se levant\u00f3 y extendi\u00f3 el brazo para coger a su hermana de la mano.\n\n\u00abMe temo \u2013dijo\u2013 que no volveremos a ver a Mary.\u00bb\n4 Muy h\u00e1bil con la pluma\n\nEn diciembre de 1835, se present\u00f3 en un sal\u00f3n de exposiciones de Richmond una extra\u00f1a maravilla mec\u00e1nica, \u00abel mayor y m\u00e1s desconcertante portento de esta o cualquier otra \u00e9poca\u00bb. Conocida como \u00abel Turco\u00bb o \u00abel Aut\u00f3mata Ajedrecista\u00bb el propietario del artilugio aseguraba que pod\u00eda \u00abretar y vencer a cientos de ajedrecistas humanos\u00bb y que \u00abdesafiar\u00eda cualquier intento de explicaci\u00f3n\u00bb de sus misteriosos engranajes interiores. Para Edgar Allan Poe, la aparici\u00f3n del Turco supuso un aut\u00e9ntico punto de inflexi\u00f3n. Al estudiar el problema de la m\u00e1quina ajedrecista, ofreci\u00f3 los primeros ejemplos de lo que llamar\u00eda despu\u00e9s \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb, o ciencia de la deducci\u00f3n. Se enfrent\u00f3 a ella como si fuese un detective interrogando a un sospechoso.\n\nEn la \u00e9poca de su presentaci\u00f3n en Richmond, el Aut\u00f3mata Ajedrecista ten\u00eda ya una larga y alambicada historia. Dise\u00f1ada en 1769 por un noble h\u00fangaro, la m\u00e1quina parec\u00eda ser s\u00f3lo un maniqu\u00ed con ropa de turco y un turbante sentado delante de un escritorio de madera barnizada. Las puertas del escritorio se abr\u00edan y ah\u00ed aparec\u00eda un complicado mecanismo de muelles y cilindros. Encima hab\u00eda un tablero de ajedrez. Al accionar la palanca, el Turco mov\u00eda las piezas por el tablero, cambiaba de postura y mov\u00eda la cabeza como si estuviera considerando las jugadas de sus oponentes. En ocasiones, si su contrincante humano comet\u00eda alg\u00fan error especialmente sangrante, incluso pon\u00eda los ojos en blanco. El aparato caus\u00f3 sensaci\u00f3n en Europa; en Par\u00eds, un hombre de la talla de Benjamin Franklin perdi\u00f3 una disputada partida con la famosa m\u00e1quina.\n\nCuando Poe vio al ajedrecista, hab\u00eda pasado a manos de un inteligente empresario teatral llamado Johann Maelzel, que acrecent\u00f3 la fama del artilugio con una supuesta y cacareada partida librada contra Napole\u00f3n Bonaparte. Mientras Maelzel viajaba por Europa y Am\u00e9rica, se publicaron todo tipo de tratados y denuncias, consagrados a dilucidar la cuesti\u00f3n de si se trataba de una aut\u00e9ntica maravilla mec\u00e1nica o de un elaborado enga\u00f1o, en el que una persona se ocultaba en el interior del escritorio y controlaba los movimientos de las piezas. Poe, que hac\u00eda poco que hab\u00eda conseguido empleo como redactor adjunto del Southern Literary Messenger de Richmond, decidi\u00f3 zanjar la discusi\u00f3n de una vez por todas, con la esperanza de despertar el inter\u00e9s nacional tanto por la revista como por \u00e9l mismo.\n\n\u00abEs probable que ninguna otra atracci\u00f3n similar haya suscitado tanta expectaci\u00f3n como el ajedrecista de Maelzel \u2013declar\u00f3 Poe\u2013. En todos los lugares donde se ha expuesto ha sido objeto de la curiosidad de cualquiera que tenga dos dedos de frente. Sin embargo, la cuesti\u00f3n de su modus operandi sigue sin determinarse.\u00bb Luego ofrec\u00eda una breve introducci\u00f3n a otras maravillas mec\u00e1nicas famosas, entre ellas la \u00abm\u00e1quina calculadora del se\u00f1or Babbage\u00bb, la precursora de los ordenadores modernos. Seg\u00fan el autor, la \u00abm\u00e1quina anal\u00edtica\u00bb de Charles Babbage, por muy impresionante que fuese, no dejaba de ser una m\u00e1quina matem\u00e1tica, mientras que el Turco era capaz de comprender y responder a los movimientos de su contrincante, un proceso mucho m\u00e1s complicado y sutil. Si el aparato es \u00abde verdad una m\u00e1quina \u2013razonaba\u2013, tendremos que estar dispuestos a reconocer que es, m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de cualquier comparaci\u00f3n, el invento m\u00e1s maravilloso hecho por el ser humano\u00bb.\n\nPero Poe no estaba dispuesto a admitirlo sin m\u00e1s, y calific\u00f3 la descripci\u00f3n del artilugio que hac\u00eda su due\u00f1o como \u00abuna bagatelle cuyos efectos parec\u00edan tan maravillosos s\u00f3lo por lo arriesgado de la idea y la afortunada elecci\u00f3n de los m\u00e9todos para favorecer la ilusi\u00f3n\u00bb. Por eso \u2013afirmaba\u2013 era \u00abcasi seguro que las operaciones del aut\u00f3mata est\u00e9n reguladas por la inteligencia, y por ninguna otra cosa... La \u00fanica dificultad radica en determinar el modo en que interviene dicha inteligencia\u00bb.\n\nAl discutir la teor\u00eda de un observador anterior, Poe hizo una observaci\u00f3n que nunca faltar\u00eda en su obra futura: \u00abNos oponemos a ella por ser una teor\u00eda aceptada de antemano, y a la que se obliga a adaptarse a las circunstancias\u00bb. En otras palabras, y como observar\u00eda un escritor posterior, \u00abes un error garrafal ponerse a teorizar antes de tener todos los datos. Insensiblemente, uno empieza a retorcer los hechos para adaptarlos a las teor\u00edas, en lugar de hacer que las teor\u00edas se ajusten a los hechos\u00bb. Para no caer en semejante trampa en el caso del ajedrecista, Poe decidi\u00f3 descartar de su imaginaci\u00f3n cualquier idea preconcebida a prop\u00f3sito del funcionamiento del aparato, y sacar sus conclusiones a partir \u00fanicamente de lo que viera con sus propios ojos. Dupin, su detective de ficci\u00f3n, utilizar\u00eda el mismo m\u00e9todo para resolver el misterio de Mary Rogers.\n\nPoe empezaba con un pormenorizado relato de las demostraciones de las que hab\u00eda sido testigo, extendi\u00e9ndose en c\u00f3mo Maelzel abr\u00eda las puertas delanteras y traseras del escritorio para mostrar \u00abruedas dentadas, pi\u00f1ones, palancas y otros engranajes\u00bb y luego acercaba una vela encendida a la puerta trasera para iluminar el interior, \u00abque est\u00e1 clara y totalmente repleto de maquinaria\u00bb. A continuaci\u00f3n, describ\u00eda los movimientos del Turco durante las partidas de ajedrez insistiendo en el modo en que el brazo izquierdo y la mano enguantada cog\u00edan las piezas de ajedrez desde lo alto y las mov\u00edan a la posici\u00f3n indicada. \u00abCada vez que la figura se pone en movimiento se oye el ruido de los engranajes \u2013anot\u00f3 Poe\u2013. A lo largo de la partida, la figura mueve los ojos en varias ocasiones como si observara el tablero, inclina la cabeza y pronuncia la palabra \u00e9chec (jaque) cuando es necesario... Cuando gana la partida, asiente con aire triunfal y se vuelve complacido hacia los espectadores.\u00bb\n\nEn ocasiones, observaba Poe, la mano mec\u00e1nica del Turco fallaba al coger una de las piezas de ajedrez. En tales casos, la mano vac\u00eda se desplazaba hasta la posici\u00f3n deseada \u00abcomo si tuviese la pieza entre los dedos\u00bb y dejaba que Maelzel completara la jugada sugerida por el aut\u00f3mata. Para Poe \u00e9sta era s\u00f3lo otra de las varias irregularidades practicadas \u00abcon la mera intenci\u00f3n de causar la impresi\u00f3n en el espectador de la naturaleza puramente mec\u00e1nica del aut\u00f3mata\u00bb.\n\nDespu\u00e9s de ese trabajo preliminar, nuestro autor pasaba a enumerar algunos de los \u00abestramb\u00f3ticos intentos de explicaci\u00f3n\u00bb hechos por comentaristas anteriores, por ejemplo la teor\u00eda bastante admitida de que el escritorio del Turco estaba concebido para esconder a un enano o a un ni\u00f1o peque\u00f1o, que el descartaba por \u00abdemasiado absurda para requerir mayor comentario\u00bb. Sin embargo, su propia explicaci\u00f3n no se apartaba mucho de esta idea. \u00abUna persona se oculta en el caj\u00f3n cuando se muestra su interior\u00bb, reconocer\u00eda, aunque se opusiera a la idea de que se tratara de alguien de talla menor de lo normal. Las dimensiones del escritorio eran mayores de lo que parec\u00edan y \u00abm\u00e1s que suficientes para acomodar a un hombre de un tama\u00f1o por encima de la media\u00bb. Prosegu\u00eda describiendo el modo en que Maelzel podr\u00eda abrir y cerrar las puertas del escritorio de manera que, en apariencia, mostrara un complejo mecanismo, mientras una persona cambiaba de postura y manipulaba una serie de ingeniosos mecanismos de relojer\u00eda para crear la ilusi\u00f3n de un escritorio repleto de complicados engranajes.\n\nPoe reforzaba su argumentaci\u00f3n identificando a un hombre llamado Schlumberger, un miembro del entorno de Maelzel que \u00able acompa\u00f1a dondequiera que vaya\u00bb, pero que siempre estaba misteriosamente ausente durante las actuaciones del Turco. En una ocasi\u00f3n, \u00abSchlumberger cay\u00f3 repentinamente enfermo y mientras dur\u00f3 su enfermedad se cancelaron las actuaciones del ajedrecista [...]. Dejamos, sin mayor comentario, que el lector saque sus propias conclusiones\u00bb.\n\nEl Ajedrecista de Maelzel ofrece un claro modelo del pensamiento deductivo que Poe aplicar\u00eda pronto con gran \u00e9xito: un cuidadoso estudio de los antecedentes del caso, una enumeraci\u00f3n exhaustiva de los hechos conocidos, y una ingeniosa conclusi\u00f3n basada en un alarde de imaginaci\u00f3n. Lo m\u00e1s importante para el joven escritor ser\u00eda que el art\u00edculo fue acogido con gran inter\u00e9s, volvi\u00f3 a imprimirse en numerosas ocasiones y contribuy\u00f3 a establecer la reputaci\u00f3n de su autor como figura en alza en el mundillo literario.\n\nEl \u00e9xito del art\u00edculo fue un raro rayo de luz en una \u00e9poca de luchas casi constantes. La aparici\u00f3n de un tercer volumen de poemas en 1831 no hab\u00eda logrado \u00abservir de atajo hacia la reputaci\u00f3n\u00bb tal como hab\u00eda esperado. Tras la ruptura con su padre adoptivo, Poe hab\u00eda recalado en Baltimore adonde hab\u00eda ido en busca de su t\u00eda, Maria Clemm, uno de los pocos v\u00ednculos que le quedaban con la familia de su padre, David Poe. Aunque el marido de Maria, William Clemm, hab\u00eda destacado en la sociedad de Baltimore, su fallecimiento cinco a\u00f1os antes hab\u00eda dejado a la familia en la penuria. Maria se hab\u00eda visto obligada a ponerse a bordar y a alojar hu\u00e9spedes a fin de aumentar la modesta pensi\u00f3n que cobraba su anciana madre, Elizabeth Poe, la abuela de Edgar.\n\nLa t\u00eda Maria, conocida en la familia como \u00abMuddy\u00bb, era una mujer amable y fuerte que soportaba las penalidades con \u00abla entereza de una m\u00e1rtir\u00bb, seg\u00fan Poe. Adem\u00e1s de su madre inv\u00e1lida ten\u00eda que cuidar de sus dos hijos: Henry, de trece a\u00f1os, y Virginia, de nueve, y de una larga serie de desafortunados parientes lejanos. Aun as\u00ed, la t\u00eda Maria acogi\u00f3 a Edgar con los brazos abiertos. Al llegar a aquella casa despu\u00e9s de la infelicidad de Richmond, Poe desarroll\u00f3 un inmenso afecto por su t\u00eda; como dir\u00eda m\u00e1s tarde: \u00abla quise m\u00e1s que a la madre que conoc\u00ed\u00bb.\n\nDeseoso de mantener a su nueva familia, Poe prob\u00f3 suerte con los relatos cortos. Un amigo lo ver\u00eda \u00abconstantemente ocupado por su labor literaria\u00bb, una ocupaci\u00f3n inspirada \u2013al menos en parte\u2013 por los cien d\u00f3lares de premio de un concurso convocado por un peri\u00f3dico de Filadelfia. Aunque no consigui\u00f3 ganar, el trabajo de Poe impresion\u00f3 mucho a los directores. Cinco de sus cuentos aparecer\u00edan en el peri\u00f3dico en 1832, entre ellos \u00abMetzengerstein\u00bb, que cuenta la historia de un noble hu\u00e9rfano que se cobra una venganza sobrenatural contra quienes le han ofendido.\n\nA pesar de haber recurrido a los relatos cortos por necesidad, en este g\u00e9nero demostrar\u00eda una habilidad fuera de lo com\u00fan. Un art\u00edculo posterior, una rese\u00f1a sobre los Cuentos contados dos veces de Nathaniel Hawthorne demostrar\u00eda que hab\u00eda dedicado mucha atenci\u00f3n a la \u00abnarrativa corta en prosa\u00bb. Poe estaba convencido de que el \u00e9xito de aquellos cuentos cortos depend\u00eda de su brevedad \u2013\u00abpara leerlos se requiere entre media hora y una o dos horas\u00bb\u2013, lo que permit\u00eda conseguir la necesaria \u00abunidad de efecto o impresi\u00f3n\u00bb, y eso le llevar\u00eda a pronunciar el famoso dictamen que tanto inspirar\u00eda a las generaciones venideras: \u00abEn toda la composici\u00f3n no deber\u00eda haber una sola palabra cuyo fin, directo o indirecto, no corresponda al designio previamente establecido\u00bb.\n\nMientras Poe se ocupaba en su labor literaria, Maria Clemm actuaba como intermediaria entre su sobrino y los editores. \u00abMe ocup\u00e9 de sus negocios literarios \u2013recordar\u00eda m\u00e1s tarde\u2013 porque el pobre no sab\u00eda nada de transacciones pecuniarias. \u00bfC\u00f3mo iba a saberlo despu\u00e9s de haberse criado en el lujo y la extravagancia?\u00bb Poe, literalmente, no pod\u00eda permitirse que nadie lo desanimara. Al a\u00f1o siguiente, cuando el Sunday Visiter de Baltimore convoc\u00f3 un premio de cuentos dotado con cincuenta d\u00f3lares, envi\u00f3 cinco relatos y se llev\u00f3 el premio con el hoy famoso Manuscrito hallado en una botella, la obsesiva historia de un barco fantasma y su tripulaci\u00f3n infernal, al borde de un abismo terrible. La perspectiva de caer a un lugar desconocido horroriza y a la vez emociona al narrador: \u00abEs evidente que nos dirigimos r\u00e1pidamente a alg\u00fan descubrimiento desconocido \u2013declara\u2013, alg\u00fan secreto jam\u00e1s confesado, cuyo objetivo es la destrucci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nPoe, que viv\u00eda bajo el temor constante a la c\u00e1rcel de deudores, necesitaba desesperadamente el premio del Visiter. \u00abTuvimos la impresi\u00f3n \u2013afirmar\u00eda un miembro del jurado\u2013 de que la concesi\u00f3n del premio al se\u00f1or Poe no fue del todo inoportuna.\u00bb No obstante, a pesar de su gratitud y alivio, se sinti\u00f3 profundamente agraviado, pues estaba convencido de que tambi\u00e9n tendr\u00eda que haber ganado los veinticinco d\u00f3lares del premio de poes\u00eda. Se indign\u00f3 tanto al descubrir que el premio se lo hab\u00eda llevado uno de los editores del peri\u00f3dico, el cual hab\u00eda enviado unos poemas bajo seud\u00f3nimo, que los dos hombres acabaron a golpes en la calle. A pesar de que s\u00f3lo ten\u00eda veintitr\u00e9s a\u00f1os, Poe hab\u00eda desarrollado ya la duradera costumbre de pelearse con los editores.\n\nMuy pronto se ver\u00eda obligado a tragarse su orgullo y pedir ayuda a John Allan. Envi\u00f3 varias cartas en un intento de reparar la ruptura, en las que se declaraba \u00abdispuesto a maldecir el d\u00eda en que nac\u00ed\u00bb y describ\u00eda unas condiciones de la m\u00e1s absoluta pobreza. \u00abS\u00e9 que no me quedan esperanzas de recuperar vuestro favor \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013, pero, por el amor de Dios, no me dej\u00e9is morir por una suma de dinero que ni siquiera echar\u00edais de menos.\u00bb Consciente de que su padre adoptivo se hab\u00eda vuelto inmune a sus peticiones, pidi\u00f3 a la t\u00eda Maria que escribiera en su favor y lo presentara como un alma valiosa temporalmente en apuros. Con el tiempo, Allan cedi\u00f3 y pidi\u00f3 a un amigo que averiguase las deudas que hab\u00eda contra\u00eddo su protegido; le entreg\u00f3 veinte d\u00f3lares para que no pasara \u00abm\u00e1s apuros\u00bb.\n\nEn febrero de 1834 Poe supo que Allan hab\u00eda ca\u00eddo gravemente enfermo. Temi\u00e9ndose lo peor, viaj\u00f3 a Richmond con la esperanza de una reconciliaci\u00f3n final. Se cuenta que Louisa, la segunda mujer de Allan, le abri\u00f3 la puerta pero no reconoci\u00f3 a la figura andrajosa y demacrada que ten\u00eda delante. Cuando le dijeron que Allan estaba demasiado enfermo para recibir visitas, se abri\u00f3 paso a la fuerza hasta su habitaci\u00f3n. Al verlo, Allan blandi\u00f3 el bast\u00f3n y amenaz\u00f3 con golpearle si se acercaba. Por un largu\u00edsimo momento, el anciano se limit\u00f3 a contemplar furibundo a su hijo adoptivo, luego le orden\u00f3 que se fuese de la casa.\n\nSeis semanas despu\u00e9s John Allan hab\u00eda muerto. Cualquier esperanza de reconciliaci\u00f3n, o siquiera de un legado simb\u00f3lico por deferencia a los deseos de Frances Allan, se vieron frustradas. Poe no recibi\u00f3 nada: Allan hab\u00eda cumplido su amenaza de echarlo a la calle \u00absin un centavo\u00bb. En una de sus \u00faltimas cartas, Poe hab\u00eda escrito: \u00abCuando recuerdo los largos veinti\u00fan a\u00f1os que os he llamado padre, y vos me hab\u00e9is llamado hijo, lloro como un ni\u00f1o al pensar que vayamos a terminar as\u00ed\u00bb.\n\nDe regreso a Baltimore, Poe se sumi\u00f3 a\u00fan m\u00e1s en la pobreza. Se cuenta que incluso tuvo que trabajar de alba\u00f1il. Una vez que un amigo, John Pendleton Kennedy, lo invit\u00f3 a cenar un domingo, Poe no tuvo m\u00e1s remedio que rehusar \u00abpor los motivos m\u00e1s humillantes que quepa imaginar\u00bb. Sencillamente su ropa estaba demasiado ra\u00edda. El compasivo Kennedy decidi\u00f3 prestarle ayuda y lo recomend\u00f3, afirmando que era \u00abmuy h\u00e1bil con la pluma\u00bb, a Thomas Willis White, el director del Southern Literary Messenger de Richmond. Tiempo despu\u00e9s White le ofreci\u00f3 empleo como redactor con un salario de quince d\u00f3lares por semana y ciertas perspectivas de conseguir un ascenso.\n\nPese a lo desesperado de su situaci\u00f3n, Poe ten\u00eda sentimientos encontrados y no sab\u00eda si cambiar el afecto de la familia de la t\u00eda Maria en Baltimore por los dolorosos recuerdos que ten\u00eda en Richmond. Sab\u00eda que la vida como redactor en el Messenger supondr\u00eda un notable retroceso con respecto a la que hab\u00eda conocido en casa de su padre adoptivo. Ya no podr\u00eda frecuentar la sociedad de Richmond, o relacionarse con sus amigos de juventud. Peor a\u00fan, sab\u00eda que todav\u00eda circulaban rumores, tanto reales como imaginados, sobre \u00e9l y su comportamiento en otro tiempo. Se dec\u00eda incluso que se hab\u00eda llevado la plata y las s\u00e1banas despu\u00e9s del funeral de Frances Allan.\n\nSin embargo, en el verano de 1835, hab\u00eda vuelto a instalarse en Richmond con la intenci\u00f3n de ayudar al Southern Literary Messenger a cumplir su prop\u00f3sito de \u00abestimular el genio y el orgullo sure\u00f1os\u00bb. Poe no tard\u00f3 en destacar e impresionar a Thomas White con su talento y habilidad editorial. Estaba encargado de supervisar todos los aspectos de la producci\u00f3n: negociar con los impresores, corregir textos, solicitar colaboraciones, escribir rese\u00f1as, poes\u00edas y art\u00edculos editoriales. Desde el primer momento, demostr\u00f3 comprender muy bien los principios que inspirar\u00edan su propia obra de ficci\u00f3n. En una ocasi\u00f3n en que White puso objeciones a un cuento macabro que le hab\u00eda presentado, el joven redactor defendi\u00f3 el valor de \u00ablo rid\u00edculo elevado a lo grotesco; lo temible te\u00f1ido de lo horroroso; lo ingenioso exagerado hasta lo burlesco; lo peculiar elaborado hasta volverse m\u00edstico y extra\u00f1o\u00bb. Conced\u00eda que White \u00abpudiera opinar que es de mal gusto\u00bb, pero insist\u00eda: \u00abPara que nos aprecien es imprescindible que nos lean, y la gente busca estas cosas con avidez\u00bb.\n\nNo obstante, casi inmediatamente despu\u00e9s, le embarg\u00f3 una irresistible sensaci\u00f3n de soledad al verse separado de su t\u00eda Maria y su prima Virginia, de quienes esperaba que lo acompa\u00f1aran a Richmond. Cuando se enter\u00f3 de que otro primo, Neilson Poe, se hab\u00eda ofrecido a ejercer de tutor de Virginia y tal vez a acoger tambi\u00e9n a Maria en su casa, se desesper\u00f3. La oferta de Neilson amenazaba con separarlo de la \u00fanica familia verdadera que hab\u00eda conocido y aislarlo no s\u00f3lo de la t\u00eda Maria, sino tambi\u00e9n de Virginia, a quien ahora pretend\u00eda convertir en su \u00abadorable mujercita\u00bb.\n\nEs dif\u00edcil reconstruir por etapas el despertar de los sentimientos amorosos de Poe por su joven prima, que apenas ten\u00eda nueve a\u00f1os cuando el poeta se traslad\u00f3 a casa de la t\u00eda Maria. Se cree que cuando lleg\u00f3 a Baltimore debi\u00f3 de dedicar sus atenciones a otra muchacha \u2013y una versi\u00f3n sugiere que la joven Virginia hizo de correo\u2013, pero el pretendiente arruinado y sin trabajo no lograba ganarse el favor de las familias de las j\u00f3venes a las que cortejaba. Aunque era frecuente que los primos cercanos se casaran, Virginia acababa de cumplir trece a\u00f1os cuando Poe empez\u00f3 a trabajar en el Messenger, y su juventud apartaba cualquier proyecto de las convenciones de la \u00e9poca. Es muy posible que la oferta de tutela por parte de Neilson Poe no fuese sino una expresi\u00f3n de su desagrado ante la perspectiva de aquella uni\u00f3n.\n\nAunque Maria Clemm no hab\u00eda tomado ninguna decisi\u00f3n sobre la oferta de Neilson, Poe respondi\u00f3 a la posibilidad con un sentimiento de p\u00e9rdida y traici\u00f3n devastador. Escribi\u00f3 una angustiada (y probablemente ebria) carta a su t\u00eda, rog\u00e1ndole que rehusara. \u00abOh, t\u00eda, t\u00fa me quisiste una vez \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013, \u00bfc\u00f3mo puedes ser tan cruel ahora?\u00bb Igual que hab\u00eda hecho antes con John Allan, insinuaba la posibilidad del suicidio: \u00abNo tengo ganas de vivir y no lo har\u00e9\u00bb, y conclu\u00eda la carta con una apelaci\u00f3n directa a Virgina: \u00abMi amor, mi dulce Sissy... Pi\u00e9nsalo bien antes de partirle el coraz\u00f3n a tu primo\u00bb.\n\nCon semejante angustia, Poe se dio a la bebida, para gran desaz\u00f3n de Thomas White, que hab\u00eda fundado su revista sobre los principios de la rectitud moral y la abstinencia del alcohol. White le hab\u00eda cogido afecto y trat\u00f3 de ser compasivo con \u00e9l. Por un tiempo le asign\u00f3 tareas m\u00e1s f\u00e1ciles con la esperanza de que recobrase su naturaleza m\u00e1s \u00abamable\u00bb. Cuando eso fracas\u00f3, lo despidi\u00f3 entre graves dudas sobre su estado mental. \u00abNo me sorprender\u00eda \u2013admiti\u00f3\u2013 que se suicidara.\u00bb\n\nDesesperado, Poe volvi\u00f3 a Baltimore en septiembre de 1835 y consigui\u00f3 convencer a las Clemm de que renunciaran a la comodidad y la estabilidad de la oferta de Neilson Poe por un futuro mucho m\u00e1s incierto en su compa\u00f1\u00eda. Seg\u00fan algunas versiones, Poe rubric\u00f3 su compromiso sacando una licencia matrimonial en los juzgados del condado de Baltimore.\n\nEl mes siguiente Poe llev\u00f3 a Virginia y a Maria a Richmond, orgulloso de tener a la familia \u00abviviendo bajo mi protecci\u00f3n\u00bb. La marcha de Poe hab\u00eda dejado al Messenger escaso de personal, por lo que Thomas White accedi\u00f3 enseguida a darle una segunda oportunidad, aunque con la condici\u00f3n de que Poe dejara la bebida. \u00ab\u00a1Nadie que beba antes del desayuno est\u00e1 a salvo!\u00bb El trabajo editorial era agotador, y aunque Poe volvi\u00f3 a publicar alguno de sus primeros cuentos, apenas le quedaba tiempo para escribir otros nuevos. Significativamente, uno de los pocos que escribi\u00f3 en esta \u00e9poca estaba basado en un crimen real, anticipando su inter\u00e9s por el caso de Mary Rogers.\n\nEl caso Beauchamp-Sharp, m\u00e1s conocido por \u00abla tragedia de Kentucky\u00bb, tiene su origen en 1825 cuando el coronel Solomon P. Sharp, fiscal general de Kentucky, sedujo y abandon\u00f3 a una joven llamada Ann Cooke. Despu\u00e9s de dar a luz al hijo de Sharp, la ultrajada Cooke se fij\u00f3 en otro pretendiente, un abogado llamado Jeroboam O. Beauchamp, y prometi\u00f3 casarse con \u00e9l si antes vengaba su honor. En vista de que el fiscal se negaba a batirse en duelo, el abogado se puso una m\u00e1scara y apu\u00f1al\u00f3 a su rival hasta la muerte. Tras un juicio largo y sensacionalista, lo condenaron a muerte. La v\u00edspera de su ejecuci\u00f3n, Cooke fue a verlo a su celda y los malhadados amantes trataron de suicidarse apu\u00f1al\u00e1ndose e ingiriendo l\u00e1udano. Cooke muri\u00f3 esa misma noche, pero Beauchamp sobrevivi\u00f3 y lo colgaron al d\u00eda siguiente.\n\nLa tragedia inspirar\u00eda obras de varios contempor\u00e1neos de Poe \u2013entre ellos, Charles Fenno Hoffman, William Gilmore Simms y Thomas Holley Chivers\u2013 y un siglo m\u00e1s tarde inspirar\u00eda el World Enough and Time de Robert Penn Warren. Dada su ambientaci\u00f3n sure\u00f1a y su tr\u00e1gica y joven hero\u00edna, el caso habr\u00eda sido ideal para Poe y el Messenger, pero, misteriosamente, Poe escogi\u00f3 presentarlo como Politan, una tragedia italiana en verso ambientada en la Roma del siglo XVI y escrita en verso blanco. Incluso sus admiradores se quedaron desconcertados. Cuando se publicaron fragmentos de la obra en el Messenger, John Pendleton Kennedy, el antiguo benefactor de Poe, sugiri\u00f3 que tal vez pudiera encontrar una forma m\u00e1s id\u00f3nea en la farsa francesa. Ofendido, Poe dej\u00f3 sin terminar la tragedia.\n\nNuestro autor tuvo m\u00e1s suerte con los art\u00edculos de cr\u00edtica literaria que escribi\u00f3 para el Messenger. Aparte de sus otras obligaciones, escribi\u00f3 casi cien en unos diez meses. Una de las rese\u00f1as m\u00e1s notables se centraba en una novela de Theodore Fay titulada Norman Leslie, inspirada en un famoso caso de asesinato ocurrido en Nueva York. Poe desestim\u00f3 la obra tild\u00e1ndola de ser \u00abla mayor majader\u00eda con que jam\u00e1s se ha insultado el sentido com\u00fan del noble pueblo americano\u00bb. La verdad era que al noble pueblo norteamericano le hab\u00eda gustado el libro, que hab\u00eda sido todo un \u00e9xito de ventas y recibido elogios en The New York Mirror. Daba la casualidad de que Theodore Fay, aparte de ser el autor, era uno de los directores del Mirror, circunstancia que Poe no olvid\u00f3 subrayar. Fuesen cuales fuesen sus motivos para denunciar tal autobombo, la ferocidad de la rese\u00f1a lo \u00fanico que consigui\u00f3 fue que el mundillo literario cerrara filas en torno a Fay. Poe acabar\u00eda sufriendo las consecuencias de su insolencia.\n\nEn mayo de 1836, despu\u00e9s de pasar varios meses en Richmond, Poe y Virgina Clemm se casaron en una peque\u00f1a ceremonia celebrada en la pensi\u00f3n. Un testigo confirm\u00f3 que la novia ten\u00eda veinti\u00fan a\u00f1os, aunque de hecho no hab\u00eda cumplido a\u00fan los catorce. Todas las versiones coinciden en que Virginia ten\u00eda un rostro quer\u00fabico, el cabello casta\u00f1o oscuro y unos fascinantes ojos violetas. Los amigos alud\u00edan con frecuencia a sus modales encantadores y su extra\u00f1a habilidad para sacar la cara m\u00e1s amable de su taciturno marido. En su presencia, declar\u00f3 un admirador, \u00abel car\u00e1cter de Edgar Allan Poe brillaba bajo una hermosa luz\u00bb.\n\nConsciente de la promesa de seguridad y de una educaci\u00f3n hecha por su primo, Poe hizo todo lo que estuvo en su mano por compensarla. Un amigo recordar\u00eda que \u00abdedicaba la mayor parte de su sueldo a la educaci\u00f3n de Virginia, la cual recibi\u00f3 una instrucci\u00f3n esmerada a sus expensas. M\u00e1s tarde, cuando sus ingresos se volvieron insuficientes para sufragar una instrucci\u00f3n m\u00e1s regular, \u00e9l mismo se encarg\u00f3 de impartirle clase. Recuerdo que un domingo lo encontr\u00e9 d\u00e1ndole clase de \u00e1lgebra\u00bb. En las raras ocasiones en que se lo permitieron sus finanzas, Poe le compr\u00f3 un piano y un arpa.\n\nNo conocemos cu\u00e1les eran las dotes de Virginia como estudiante y como m\u00fasico, pero se dice que su juventud incomodaba mucho a Poe. Un visitante habitual en esa \u00e9poca dir\u00eda que \u00abpese a que la amaba con todo su coraz\u00f3n, [al principio] no pod\u00eda imaginarla como su mujer, sino como una hermana, y hasta al cabo de dos a\u00f1os continu\u00f3 durmiendo en su propia habitaci\u00f3n y no asumi\u00f3 su papel de marido\u00bb.\n\nNo es de extra\u00f1ar que pronto apareciesen en la obra de Poe elementos de su nada ortodoxo matrimonio. En Eleonora, su relato m\u00e1s inequ\u00edvocamente rom\u00e1ntico, el narrador cuenta su obsesi\u00f3n por la belleza de \u00abla \u00fanica hija de la hermana de mi madre, fallecida hace mucho tiempo\u00bb, con quien vive inocentemente varios a\u00f1os, hasta que una fat\u00eddica tarde \u00abal final del tercer lustro de su vida\u00bb caen el uno en brazos del otro. El despertar del amor en el relato de Poe es tanto una liberaci\u00f3n como una c\u00e1rcel: \u00abTodo cambi\u00f3\u00bb, escrib\u00eda, como si \u00abel dios Eros\u00bb en persona hubiese conspirado para \u00abencerrarnos de por vida en una prisi\u00f3n m\u00e1gica, tan grandiosa como majestuosa\u00bb.\n\nSignificativamente, hab\u00eda sitio para tres en esa prisi\u00f3n m\u00e1gica: \u00abMi prima, su madre y yo\u00bb. Adem\u00e1s de cuanto pudiera ligarlo a su prima, el matrimonio con Virginia estrech\u00f3 a\u00fan m\u00e1s los lazos con la t\u00eda Maria. Despu\u00e9s de trasladar con \u00e9xito a la familia de Baltimore a Richmond, Poe se mostraba confiado en el futuro: \u00abMi salud es mejor que hace unos a\u00f1os, mi imaginaci\u00f3n est\u00e1 ocupada, mis dificultades pecuniarias han desaparecido, tengo buenas perspectivas de triunfo... en una palabra, todo va bien\u00bb.\n\nNo seguir\u00eda as\u00ed mucho tiempo. A pesar de la felicidad de que disfrutaba en casa, empezaba a sentirse agraviado por el Messenger y su director, Thomas White. Gracias a sus esfuerzos el n\u00famero de lectores de la revista se hab\u00eda multiplicado y los beneficios hab\u00edan aumentado en 10.000 d\u00f3lares; pero nuestro autor segu\u00eda cobrando un sueldo \u00abmiserable\u00bb. Tiempo despu\u00e9s, se quejar\u00eda de \u00abhaber dilapidado mis energ\u00edas al servicio de un hombre analfabeto y vulgar, aunque bienintencionado, que carec\u00eda tanto de capacidad de apreciar mi labor como de voluntad de recompensarla\u00bb. Abatido, volvi\u00f3 a buscar consuelo en el alcohol. \u00abEl se\u00f1or Poe era un caballero muy amable cuando estaba sobrio \u2013observar\u00eda un empleado del Messenger\u2013. Pero cuando beb\u00eda era uno de los hombres m\u00e1s desagradables que he conocido en mi vida.\u00bb En enero de 1837, Poe y el Southern Literary Messenger se separaron, y White declar\u00f3: \u00abEstoy tan harto de \u00e9l como de sus escritos\u00bb.\n\nIndependientemente de que las quejas de Poe fuesen o no justas, su fracaso en el Messenger fue sobre todo obra suya y estableci\u00f3 unas pautas que repetir\u00eda una y otra vez a lo largo de su carrera. A la vez que maduraba su talento literario lo hac\u00eda tambi\u00e9n su habilidad para la autodestrucci\u00f3n, y as\u00ed la mayor\u00eda de sus \u00e9xitos se ve\u00edan contrarrestados con una borrachera o cualquier otro comportamiento desordenado. Despu\u00e9s de tantos esfuerzos para situarse en Richmond y triunfar en su trabajo, le impacientaban las restricciones creativas. Su resentimiento aument\u00f3 cuando se vio \u00abhumillado y degradado\u00bb hasta tal punto de tuvo que pedirle en varias ocasiones m\u00e1s dinero a White, igual que hab\u00eda hecho tantas veces con su padre adoptivo. \u00abUn hombre de genio no tendr\u00eda que pedirme ayuda\u00bb, le hab\u00eda dicho una vez Allan. Su observaci\u00f3n pretend\u00eda ser una pulla, pero Poe estaba realmente convencido de que un talento como el suyo deb\u00eda estar por encima de esas cosas. Sab\u00eda que Thomas White hab\u00eda obtenido grandes beneficios a su costa y le amargaba pensar que \u00e9l apenas pod\u00eda alimentar a su familia.\n\nSin nada que lo retuviera en Richmond, Poe se traslad\u00f3 con su familia a Nueva York en febrero de 1837, empujado por las mismas fuerzas econ\u00f3micas que tambi\u00e9n hab\u00edan llevado a esa ciudad a Mary Rogers y a su madre ese mismo a\u00f1o. Tanto para Poe como para la cigarrera y los muchos miles de reci\u00e9n llegados, Nueva York promet\u00eda un nuevo comienzo.\nSegunda parte\n\nLos horrores de la Cueva de la Sibila\n\n\u00ab... y cuando logr\u00e9 dominarme, descubr\u00ed que estaba muerta.\u00bb  \nGrabado en madera de La confesi\u00f3n de los terribles y sangrientos manejos de la vida de Charles Wallace, un relato ficticio basado en el caso de Mary Rogers y publicado en 1851.\n\nCortes\u00eda de la American Antiquarian Society\nLo cierto es que la prensa se est\u00e1 convirtiendo en la \u00fanica polic\u00eda y en el \u00fanico juez eficaz que tenemos.\n\nJAMES GORDON BENNETT, The New York Herald,\n\n9 de agosto de 1841\n\nEl olfato de una turba es su imaginaci\u00f3n. Gracias a ella es posible conducirla tranquilamente en cualquier momento.\n\nEDGAR ALLAN POE, Marginalia\n5 Una persona decorosa\n\nEn el verano de 1841, seg\u00fan un editorial del Daily Graphic neoyorquino, \u00abel infernal hacinamiento y construcci\u00f3n\u00bb del sur de Manhattan hab\u00eda llegado a un punto cr\u00edtico. Debe impedirse, advert\u00eda el peri\u00f3dico, que se siga construyendo, pues es posible que Wall Street y sus alrededores \u00abse hundan literalmente bajo el peso aplastante de los reci\u00e9n llegados\u00bb. Lo cierto es que, apenas unos a\u00f1os antes, un par de emprendedores vendedores ambulantes hab\u00edan causado sensaci\u00f3n con su plan para cercenar la \u00abparte corrupta de la ciudad\u00bb con una sierra gigante. De ese modo, se supon\u00eda, la secci\u00f3n infectada se transformar\u00eda en una balsa flotante y densamente poblada que podr\u00eda impulsarse bogando entre las islas Governor y Ellis, previa instalaci\u00f3n de unos enormes remos de madera en las bordas este y oeste. Una vez en el r\u00edo, la ciudad flotante se unir\u00eda al continente a fin de redistribuir eficazmente su peso.\n\nA pesar de que tan ambicioso plan nunca lleg\u00f3 a ponerse en pr\u00e1ctica, reflejaba el creciente temor a que las costuras de Nueva York terminaran por reventar. En 1841 la poblaci\u00f3n de la ciudad superaba los 300.000 habitantes, cuando s\u00f3lo veinte a\u00f1os antes era de 123.000. En verano, se quejaban los residentes, la situaci\u00f3n era insoportable. \u00abEl calor de la muchedumbre neoyorquina es sencillamente demoledor \u2013escribi\u00f3 un periodista en 1841\u2013. Unido al hedor de la turba innumerable y de los animales, forma una manta h\u00fameda y sofocante.\u00bb\n\n\u00ab\u00a1Calor! \u2013escribir\u00eda Charles Dickens al a\u00f1o siguiente en su primera visita\u2013. El sol azota nuestras cabezas por la ventana abierta, como si sus rayos se concentraran a trav\u00e9s de una lupa... \u00a1Jam\u00e1s se vio calle tan soleada como Broadway! Las losas de la acera est\u00e1n pulimentadas por las pisadas y brillan como si estuviesen nuevas; los ladrillos rojos de las casas parecen reci\u00e9n salidos de los hornos secos y ardientes, y los techos de los \u00f3mnibus dan la impresi\u00f3n de que si se vertiera agua sobre ellos silbar\u00edan, humear\u00edan y oler\u00edan como un fuego a medio apagar.\u00bb El escaso \u00abconsuelo contra el calor\u00bb radicaba, seg\u00fan Dickens, \u00aben la contemplaci\u00f3n de los grandes bloques de hielo que llevan a las tiendas y los bares, y en las pi\u00f1as y las sand\u00edas que se exponen a la venta en todas partes\u00bb.\n\nPara mucha gente, el consuelo contra el calor se encontraba al otro lado del r\u00edo Hudson, en Nueva Jersey, despu\u00e9s de un breve viaje en vapor desde el embarcadero de Barclay Street. All\u00ed, en una franja rodeada de \u00e1lamos de la orilla de la ciudad de Hoboken, conocida como Elysian Fields, las parejas de enamorados paseaban del brazo por intrincados senderos, mientras los ni\u00f1os correteaban entre los \u00e1rboles y lanzaban piedras contra dianas de paja. Despu\u00e9s de mediod\u00eda, las mujeres abr\u00edan sus sombrillas para protegerse del sol, y los hombres iban a buscar agua fresca al pabell\u00f3n al aire libre de la Cueva de la Sibila, en un afloramiento rocoso conocido como Castle Point, de donde brotaba un manantial en un agujero tallado en la piedra. Era un \u00abhermoso promontorio\u00bb, seg\u00fan un visitante, y un sitio perfecto para \u00abrefrescar los labios resecos de la juventud\u00bb. Los funcionarios locales atribu\u00edan \u00abpropiedades saludables y curativas\u00bb a las aguas extra\u00eddas de la Cueva de la Sibila y acostumbraban a compararlas con la fuente de la eterna juventud. Quienes gustaban de bebidas m\u00e1s fuertes pod\u00edan encontrar whisky y cerveza de barril en la cercana Mansion House, una posada cercana, o en otras tascas un poco m\u00e1s alejadas como la Nick Moore Tavern en el paseo de Weehawken.\n\nTan id\u00edlico lugar era tambi\u00e9n escenario id\u00f3neo para varios espect\u00e1culos de diverso jaez. P. T. Barnum organiz\u00f3, en junio de 1843, una ambiciosa \u00abGran caza del b\u00fafalo\u00bb con un jinete embadurnado con pinturas de guerra indias. El evento era gratuito y una impresionante multitud de 24.000 personas se traslad\u00f3 de Nueva York para asistir a \u00e9l (la mitad de los ingresos del vapor fueron a pasar al astuto Barnum). \u00abPor desgracia para los que iban en busca de emociones fuertes \u2013dir\u00eda un espectador\u2013, las cualidades sedantes de la atm\u00f3sfera de Hoboken causaron tal efecto en los \"ind\u00f3mitos y salvajes\" animales que se negaron obstinadamente a abandonar su estado meditativo, y la \u00fanica caza que se vio all\u00ed fue la de los refrescos con que trataba de aliviarse la fam\u00e9lica muchedumbre.\u00bb\n\nLa atm\u00f3sfera tranquila demostr\u00f3 ser m\u00e1s apropiada para un popular juego nuevo llamado town ball o b\u00e9isbol. En 1846 Elysian Fields acoger\u00eda el primer partido \u00aboficial\u00bb de b\u00e9isbol, que debi\u00f3 de ser muy emocionante aunque tambi\u00e9n un poco desigual, pues los New York Nine vapulearon a sus rivales los Knickerbockers por 23 a 1.\n\nAparte del b\u00e9isbol y la caza del b\u00fafalo, Elysian Fields procuraba a los \u00abcansados y acalorados habitantes de la metr\u00f3polis\u00bb un lugar donde \u00abdisfrutar de los placeres y la saludable brisa del campo\u00bb, observaba el New York Tribune, \u00absin necesidad de pagar el precio de sudar por las carreteras rurales\u00bb. Para muchos, su exuberante verdor ofrec\u00eda un refugio de car\u00e1cter muy diferente. \u00abTodos esos seres infortunados que se hacinan en la gran ciudad parecen ir a Hoboken a olvidar las penas \u2013afirmaba el Herald\u2013. La belleza de sus arboledas, lo pintoresco de sus acantilados y arroyuelos, el profundo misterio de sus bosques dan la impresi\u00f3n de encandilar a los desdichados, que encuentran all\u00ed su solaz.\u00bb\n\nTal fue el caso el mi\u00e9rcoles 28 de julio de 1841: los neoyorquinos despertaron una ma\u00f1ana m\u00e1s con un calor abrasador con temperaturas que amenazaban con sobrepasar los 33 grados por d\u00e9cimo d\u00eda consecutivo. A media tarde, Elysian Fields bull\u00eda de expatriados de la ciudad. Un joven empleado de bolsa, que hab\u00eda salido de la oficina agobiado por el calor sofocante, recordar\u00eda un ambiente de \u00abirritante lasitud\u00bb, como si el calor hubiese adoptado la forma de \u00abun hu\u00e9sped no deseado\u00bb.\n\nHenry Mallin, un joven cantante y profesor de m\u00fasica, desembarc\u00f3 del ferry en el muelle de Hoboken poco despu\u00e9s de las tres de la tarde. Con \u00e9l iban dos amigos, James Boulard y H. G. Luther, y tal vez uno o dos m\u00e1s. Juntos pasearon hacia el norte por la orilla del r\u00edo en direcci\u00f3n al pabell\u00f3n de la Cueva de la Sibila. \u00abEl paseo es precioso \u2013observaba un visitante\u2013. A la izquierda hay unos escarpados acantilados de m\u00e1rmol, desprovistos de vegetaci\u00f3n en su mayor parte, aunque a la sombra de los verdes \u00e1rboles del bosque que tiene en lo alto. A la derecha, las olas del Hudson rompen contra la orilla con un suave murmullo.\u00bb\n\nCerca de la Cueva de la Sibila, Mallin y Boulard repararon en un extra\u00f1o objeto que flotaba en el r\u00edo. Parec\u00eda, seg\u00fan declararon despu\u00e9s, \u00abun cad\u00e1ver que flotara entre dos aguas a unos dos o trescientos metros de la orilla\u00bb. Corrieron a un embarcadero cercano, subieron a bordo de un esquife de madera y se alejaron remando de la orilla. Al acercarse, se llevaron un \u00abimpresi\u00f3n terrible\u00bb: el cad\u00e1ver result\u00f3 ser el de una joven horriblemente amoratada y empapada, que flotaba de espaldas con los brazos r\u00edgidamente cruzados sobre el pecho entre una nube de cabello oscuro que ondeaba en el agua como si fuesen algas marinas.\n\nReacios a tocar el cad\u00e1ver, Mallin y Boulard, arrancaron un tabl\u00f3n del fondo del bote y trataron de utilizarlo como bichero para arrastrarlo a la orilla. Tras varios intentos, s\u00f3lo consiguieron propinarle varios golpes que desgarraron el tejido blanco del vestido de la muerta. Desistieron de intentarlo con el tabl\u00f3n y por fin se las arreglaron para atar un trozo de cuerda por debajo de la barbilla del cad\u00e1ver. Luego los dos hombres remaron hacia la orilla arrastr\u00e1ndolo detr\u00e1s del bote. Por miedo a tocar la carne putrefacta, no lo sacaron del agua. Ataron el cabo a una piedra y anclaron el cuerpo a la orilla para que el r\u00edo no volviese a arrastrarlo. Acto seguido, los dos se quedaron contemplando un instante c\u00f3mo flotaba al otro extremo del cabo. Despu\u00e9s de una media hora, decidieron que poco m\u00e1s pod\u00edan hacer: dejaron el cad\u00e1ver anclado a la piedra, volvieron con sus amigos y continuaron andando a lo largo del r\u00edo.\n\nEn ese tiempo se hab\u00eda congregado una nutrida multitud en la orilla. Cuando Mallin y Boulard se marcharon, un par de espectadores m\u00e1s decididos hicieron acopio de valor y se metieron en el agua para sacar el cad\u00e1ver a tierra. Dio la casualidad de que un reportero del Herald se hallaba presente cuando sacaron a la joven. \u00abLa primera impresi\u00f3n fue realmente espantosa \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. Era como si le hubiesen golpeado la frente y el rostro hasta dejarlo tan magullado como el de una momia. Tanto se hab\u00edan ensa\u00f1ado con ella que sus rasgos apenas eran reconocibles. Llevaba un gorro en la cabeza y un par de guantes de color claro de los que asomaban unos largos dedos, el vestido estaba desgarrado en varios sitios, llevaba puestos los zapatos y en conjunto ofrec\u00eda la estampa m\u00e1s atroz que pueda imaginarse.\u00bb\n\nUna vez en la orilla, el cad\u00e1ver se vio sometido a nuevas indignidades mientras una larga fila de curiosos desfilaba para verlo. Algunos lo golpeaban con el pie y otros hurgaban en \u00e9l con un palo. Un \u00abjoven grosero\u00bb lleg\u00f3 a levantarle una pierna e hizo \u00abcomentarios indecorosos\u00bb a sus acompa\u00f1antes.\n\nEn ese momento, Alfred Crommelin y Archibald Padley, los dos antiguos hu\u00e9spedes de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, se hallaban en el paseo que discurr\u00eda al borde del r\u00edo. Mientras se dirig\u00edan al norte, un ni\u00f1o que pas\u00f3 corriendo les inform\u00f3 a gritos de que hab\u00edan encontrado el cad\u00e1ver de una joven en Castle Point. Crommelin y Padley se pusieron en marcha. Al acercarse al afloramiento y ver el grupo de curiosos que se hab\u00eda juntado en torno al cad\u00e1ver, Crommelin debi\u00f3 notar una opresi\u00f3n en la garganta. Cuando se abri\u00f3 paso hasta la orilla, la multitud se apart\u00f3 al reparar en lo apremiante de su actitud. Recorri\u00f3 el cuerpo con la mirada y lo embarg\u00f3 una combinaci\u00f3n de repulsi\u00f3n y temor. Se arrodill\u00f3 junto al cad\u00e1ver y dio el extra\u00f1o paso de rasgarle la manga al vestido. Frot\u00f3 un instante la piel descolorida del brazo desnudo; luego, aparentemente satisfecho respecto a alg\u00fan detalle inequ\u00edvoco, volvi\u00f3 a depositarlo con cuidado en el suelo. \u00ab\u00a1Dios m\u00edo \u2013grit\u00f3\u2013, es Mary Rogers! \u00a1Oh, Dios, esto matar\u00e1 a su madre!\u00bb L\u00edvido, se acurruc\u00f3 con un gesto protector al lado del cad\u00e1ver hasta que se dispers\u00f3 la multitud.\n\nEl doctor Richard H. Cook, el forense de Nueva Jersey, fue el primer funcionario en aparecer, una hora despu\u00e9s del hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver. Lleg\u00f3 acompa\u00f1ado de dos jurados, para iniciar la instrucci\u00f3n. No obstante, seg\u00fan la ley de Nueva Jersey, era necesario que un juez de paz se hiciese cargo de la investigaci\u00f3n. Pronto se supo que el candidato m\u00e1s cercano, el honorable Gilbert Merritt, se encontraba a varios kil\u00f3metros, en Secaucus. Mientras enviaban a buscar al juez Merritt, el doctor Cook se apresur\u00f3 a examinar el cad\u00e1ver. El excesivo calor de julio estaba \u00abconsumiendo\u00bb los restos a gran velocidad. Si no se practicaba pronto la autopsia, no quedar\u00eda nada que examinar.\n\nDe hecho, seg\u00fan uno de los curiosos que vieron sacar el cad\u00e1ver a la orilla, era dif\u00edcil imaginar que aquella \u00abmaltrecha figura\u00bb tuviese algo que ver con la hermosa joven del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson. Despu\u00e9s de tres d\u00edas en el agua y varias horas de exposici\u00f3n al sol abrasador, las lesiones parec\u00edan \u00absacadas de una pesadilla\u00bb, seg\u00fan el propio doctor Cook, que observaba desesperado c\u00f3mo los rasgos de la muerta se desfiguraban ante sus propios ojos. Tan horribles eran los estragos de la putrefacci\u00f3n que Alfred Crommelin la hab\u00eda identificado no tanto por su rostro magullado como por la ropa y la delicada forma de los pies. Aquel gesto aparentemente extravagante de rasgar la manga del vestido le hab\u00eda permitido reconocer una peculiar caracter\u00edstica del vello de la difunta que le hab\u00eda confirmado que se hallaba en lo cierto.\n\nPor fin, poco despu\u00e9s de las siete de la tarde, se present\u00f3 Gilbert Merritt. Tras escuchar el lac\u00f3nico informe del doctor Cook, el juez de paz orden\u00f3 que se trasladase el cad\u00e1ver a un edificio cercano. All\u00ed, mientras Merritt llamaba a los testigos para la investigaci\u00f3n, el doctor Cook procedi\u00f3 a realizar la autopsia.\n\nLa prioridad de Cook fue establecer la causa de la muerte. El juez Gilbert hab\u00eda dado por supuesto que la joven se hab\u00eda ca\u00eddo de un bote y se hab\u00eda ahogado, pero Cook ten\u00eda razones para dudar de tales conclusiones. El m\u00e9dico hab\u00eda examinado antes a diecis\u00e9is o diecisiete v\u00edctimas de ahogamiento y en este caso observ\u00f3 notables diferencias. \u00abCuando lo examin\u00e9, el rostro estaba congestionado por la sangre amoratada \u2013testificar\u00eda despu\u00e9s\u2013. Le sal\u00eda un hilo de sangre de la boca, pero nada de espuma, como ocurre en las personas fallecidas por ahogamiento. La cara estaba hinchada, las venas distendidas. De haber muerto ahogada, no se hubiese apreciado esa peculiar apariencia de las venas.\u00bb A fin de confirmar sus hallazgos, Cook utiliz\u00f3 un escalpelo para practicar una incisi\u00f3n en una de las venas del brazo. \u00abLa sangre estaba tan coagulada \u2013observ\u00f3\u2013 que me cost\u00f3 trabajo seguirla con la lanceta. Si hubiera muerto ahogada, habr\u00eda habido decoloraci\u00f3n en el tejido celular y no en las venas.\u00bb Adem\u00e1s, la posici\u00f3n de los brazos era incongruente con la muerte por ahogamiento. Ambos estaban doblados sobre el pecho cuando se encontr\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver \u2013y as\u00ed segu\u00edan en el momento de la autopsia\u2013, tan r\u00edgidos que se requiri\u00f3 mucha fuerza para estir\u00e1rselos. En los ahogados, se\u00f1al\u00f3 Cook, los brazos aparec\u00edan invariablemente extendidos.\n\nEra dif\u00edcil sacar m\u00e1s conclusiones por las terribles condiciones en que se hallaba el rostro \u2013la piel se hab\u00eda vuelto entre negruzca y purp\u00farea\u2013, pero el forense pudo apreciar indicios de magulladuras en el cuello. Descubri\u00f3 un moret\u00f3n del tama\u00f1o y la forma del pulgar de un hombre en el lado derecho del cuello, cerca de la vena yugular, y varias moraduras m\u00e1s peque\u00f1as en la parte izquierda que recordaban la forma de los dedos de un hombre. Dichas marcas, afirm\u00f3 Cook, \u00abme convencieron de que hab\u00eda sido estrangulada y parcialmente asfixiada por la mano de un hombre\u00bb.\n\nAl ir a examinar las marcas m\u00e1s de cerca, los dedos de Cook rozaron un peque\u00f1o bulto detr\u00e1s de la oreja izquierda. \u00abAl principio me hab\u00eda pasado desapercibido \u2013admitir\u00eda despu\u00e9s\u2013. Not\u00e9 una arruga en la piel y, al pasar la mano por detr\u00e1s de la oreja, toqu\u00e9 accidentalmente un nudo peque\u00f1o y descubr\u00ed una tira de encaje [...] atada con tanta fuerza al cuello que hab\u00eda quedado oculta dentro de la carne y ten\u00eda un nudo muy resistente debajo de la oreja izquierda.\u00bb Ya s\u00f3lo era posible una conclusi\u00f3n: a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan estrangulado.\n\nAl desvestir al cad\u00e1ver, Cook hizo otro descubrimiento: la tira de encaje utilizada para estrangular a Mary Rogers se hab\u00eda desgarrado del dobladillo de sus enaguas. Aquel hallazgo, unido a las marcas del pulgar y los dedos en torno al cuello, llevaron al forense a la conclusi\u00f3n de que, en esencia, la hab\u00edan estrangulado dos veces. Primero, argument\u00f3, el atacante la hab\u00eda cogido del cuello con una mano dej\u00e1ndola sin aire hasta que perdi\u00f3 la conciencia. Luego, cuando la v\u00edctima yac\u00eda inconsciente, hab\u00eda desgarrado un trozo del tejido de las enaguas y se lo hab\u00eda atado \u00abcon fuerza alrededor del cuello\u00bb \u2013tanta que la fina tira se hab\u00eda hundido en la carne\u2013 para asegurarse de que no volviera a recuperar la conciencia.\n\nTras reparar en que la ropa interior de la v\u00edctima estaba desarreglada, el examen de Cook abord\u00f3 una cuesti\u00f3n \u00abtan delicada\u00bb, como dir\u00eda el Herald, que no pod\u00eda reproducirse con detalle en las columnas de un peri\u00f3dico respetable. Los temores del forense no tardaron en confirmarse: una serie de moraduras y abrasiones en la \u00abregi\u00f3n femenina\u00bb le llevaron a concluir que a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan \u00abraptado y violado brutalmente no menos de tres asaltantes, que finalmente la hab\u00edan asesinado\u00bb.\n\nSe revel\u00f3 as\u00ed una siniestra serie de acontecimientos. Los brazos de la muerta estaban colocados \u00abcomo si los hubiesen atado por las mu\u00f1ecas y la v\u00edctima hubiese intentado alzar las manos para quitarse algo de la boca y el cuello que estuviera asfixi\u00e1ndola y estrangul\u00e1ndola\u00bb. Las abrasiones de la mu\u00f1eca izquierda y las correspondientes marcas en la parte superior de la mu\u00f1eca derecha confirmaron que le hab\u00edan atado las manos con una cuerda resistente. \u00abProbablemente la ataran mientras la violaban \u2013concluy\u00f3 Cook\u2013 y la desatasen antes de echarla al agua.\u00bb Aunque se deshicieron de la cuerda, un lazo de muselina fina \u2013cuidadosamente arrancado de otra de las enaguas\u2013 apareci\u00f3 colgando de la garganta de la joven. Cook dedujo que lo hab\u00edan utilizado como mordaza. \u00abCreo que se utiliz\u00f3 para ahogar sus gritos \u2013dijo\u2013 y es probable que se lo colocara en la boca uno de sus brutales asaltantes.\u00bb\n\nCook tambi\u00e9n encontr\u00f3 grandes abrasiones en la piel de la espalda y los omoplatos, producto de \u00ablos esfuerzos de la joven por liberarse, mientras la sujetaban brutalmente contra el suelo para perpetrar la violaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Cook estaba convencido de que estas marcas se hab\u00edan producido antes de la muerte, porque \u00abhab\u00eda indicios de coagulaci\u00f3n en los tejidos celulares\u00bb. Concluy\u00f3 que \u00abeste ultraje se llev\u00f3 a cabo mientras ella estaba tumbada sobre una superficie dura, un suelo de tablones como el fondo de un bote, o algo por el estilo. Estoy seguro de que no ocurri\u00f3 en una cama\u00bb.\n\nEl forense no pudo establecer con seguridad si el asesinato se hab\u00eda cometido durante o despu\u00e9s del citado ultraje, ni tampoco si la joven estaba consciente cuando le ataron la tira de encaje al cuello. No obstante, estaba claro que, una vez cometido el asesinato, hab\u00edan arrastrado el cad\u00e1ver por el suelo. Hab\u00edan arrancado una tira de treinta cent\u00edmetros del vestido blanco, desde el dobladillo a la cintura, le hab\u00edan dado varias vueltas en torno al talle y la hab\u00edan atado con una especie de \u00abvuelta de cabo\u00bb a modo de asa con la que arrastrar el cad\u00e1ver hasta la orilla. Aunque faltaban varias prendas, era evidente que despu\u00e9s de matarla la hab\u00edan vestido cuidadosamente: \u00abCreo que el sombrero debi\u00f3 de ca\u00e9rsele de la cabeza mientras la ultrajaban \u2013apunt\u00f3 Cook\u2013 y que, una vez cometidos la violaci\u00f3n y el asesinato, volvieron a pon\u00e9rselo\u00bb. Cook se esforz\u00f3 en subrayar que la cinta del sombrero estaba atada debajo de la barbilla con \u00abun nudo corredizo, no como los que hacen las se\u00f1oras... un nudo marinero\u00bb. La frase tendr\u00eda mucho peso en las \u00faltimas fases de la investigaci\u00f3n.\n\nEl forense llev\u00f3 a cabo su examen con una rapidez considerable, pero aun as\u00ed eran m\u00e1s de las ocho de la tarde cuando termin\u00f3. En vista de lo avanzado de la hora, no cabe ninguna duda de que habr\u00eda sido mejor posponer la investigaci\u00f3n oficial. No obstante, dadas las circunstancias, el juez Merritt no estaba seguro de poder reunir a los testigos al d\u00eda siguiente, as\u00ed que procedi\u00f3 a continuar la instrucci\u00f3n en cuanto el doctor Cook sali\u00f3 de la sala donde hab\u00eda practicado la autopsia. Adem\u00e1s de al propio Cook, tom\u00f3 declaraci\u00f3n a s\u00f3lo cuatro testigos: Alfred Crommelin y Archibald Padley, que hab\u00edan identificado los restos, y John Bertram y William Walker, que hab\u00edan visto desarrollarse los acontecimientos desde que llevaron el cad\u00e1ver a la orilla. Extra\u00f1amente, los dos hombres que lo sacaron del r\u00edo no tuvieron que prestar declaraci\u00f3n. Henry Mallin se ofreci\u00f3 a hacerlo, pero le dijeron que no ser\u00eda necesario.\n\nEl testimonio de Bertram y Walker dej\u00f3 s\u00f3lo una leve huella en la investigaci\u00f3n, aunque Walker afirm\u00f3 con aparente orgullo que \u00abhab\u00eda echado una mano\u00bb para atar el cad\u00e1ver a la piedra. Alfred Crommelin, por contraste, ten\u00eda mucho que decir y detall\u00f3 c\u00f3mo hab\u00eda reconocido de inmediato el cad\u00e1ver de la \u00abmujer ahogada\u00bb y hab\u00eda \u00abhecho todo lo posible\u00bb por identificarla, como rasgarle la manga y frotarle el brazo. Es evidente que hab\u00eda decidido erigirse no s\u00f3lo en portavoz de la familia Rogers, sino en guardi\u00e1n del recuerdo de la difunta. Habl\u00f3 con entusiasmo de su car\u00e1cter, dijo que era \u00abel sost\u00e9n de su familia\u00bb y \u00abla principal ayuda de una madre enferma y anciana en el cuidado y mantenimiento de la pensi\u00f3n\u00bb. Adem\u00e1s subray\u00f3 que \u00abnunca hab\u00eda o\u00eddo cuestionar su virtud lo m\u00e1s m\u00ednimo\u00bb.\n\nEl testimonio de Archibald Padley confirm\u00f3 todas las afirmaciones de Crommelin, pero el grueso de los procedimientos correspondi\u00f3 al doctor Cook, que ofreci\u00f3 un pormenorizado resumen de lo que hab\u00eda descubierto en la autopsia. En un momento dado, un arrebato de sentimentalismo pareci\u00f3 imponerse a sus impulsos cient\u00edficos. Declar\u00f3 que la joven asesinada \u00abhab\u00eda sido evidentemente una persona decorosa y de costumbres correctas\u00bb. Como mucha gente observar\u00eda despu\u00e9s, tal conclusi\u00f3n parec\u00eda dif\u00edcil de verificar teniendo en cuenta la afirmaci\u00f3n anterior del m\u00e9dico de que hab\u00eda sido \u00abviolada por no menos de tres asaltantes\u00bb. Es probable que las caballerosas pero nada cient\u00edficas conclusiones de Cook se debiesen en parte a la preocupaci\u00f3n de Crommelin por proteger la reputaci\u00f3n de la muerta. Cook tendr\u00eda ocasi\u00f3n de lamentarlo, pues, aunque no habr\u00eda podido imaginarlo en aquel momento, sus declaraciones estaban llamadas a levantar ampollas y las semanas siguientes tendr\u00eda que enfrentarse a acusaciones tanto de incompetencia m\u00e9dica como de cruel insensibilidad.\n\nLo cierto es que, comparada con los est\u00e1ndares de la \u00e9poca y considerando el deterioro extraordinariamente r\u00e1pido del cad\u00e1ver, la autopsia de Cook fue muy completa. Como \u00e9ste explicar\u00eda al juez Merritt y a los otros dos jurados, la conclusi\u00f3n era ineludible: a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan golpeado salvajemente, atado y \u00abviolado horriblemente m\u00e1s de dos o tres personas\u00bb. Fuese durante o despu\u00e9s del atentado, uno de sus asaltantes la hab\u00eda asfixiado parcialmente, y por fin la hab\u00edan rematado improvisadamente estrangul\u00e1ndola con una tira de su propio vestido. Acto seguido, hab\u00edan arrastrado el cad\u00e1ver por el suelo y la hab\u00edan arrojado al r\u00edo Hudson, al parecer con la esperanza de que nadie lo encontrara. Sin ninguna duda, aqu\u00e9l era el crimen m\u00e1s \u00abbrutal\u00bb que el forense hab\u00eda visto en toda su vida.\n\nLos jurados deliberaron brevemente antes de pronunciar el veredicto: la muerte la hab\u00eda causado \u00abla violencia infligida por persona o personas desconocidas\u00bb. La instrucci\u00f3n concluy\u00f3 poco antes de las nueve en punto. Dado lo avanzado de la hora y \u00abpor culpa del calor\u00bb, el juez Merritt y el doctor Cook decidieron proceder a un r\u00e1pido enterramiento del cad\u00e1ver en un tosco ata\u00fad doble a apenas medio metro de profundidad. De este modo, como explicar\u00edan despu\u00e9s, tendr\u00edan posibilidad de volver a examinarlo m\u00e1s tarde.\n\nYa entonces manifest\u00f3 el forense ciertas reservas acerca de la identidad del cad\u00e1ver, a pesar de la convicci\u00f3n de Alfred Crommelin al respecto, por lo que proporcion\u00f3 a \u00e9ste varios efectos personales para que se los llevara a Phoebe Rogers. Aunque Crommelin los tom\u00f3 por simples recuerdos pensados para consolar a una madre afligida, la variedad de \u00e9stos \u2013varias prendas, las flores del sombrero de paja, una liga, un zapato y un mech\u00f3n de cabello\u2013 indica que Cook buscaba una segunda confirmaci\u00f3n de la identidad de la v\u00edctima.\n\nCon estos objetos envueltos en papel de estraza debajo del brazo, Crommelin se encamin\u00f3 al embarcadero de Hoboken. Lleg\u00f3 al muelle poco antes de las once y vio que el \u00faltimo ferry hab\u00eda partido ya. Se dirigi\u00f3 entonces a otro embarcadero en Jersey City, pero tambi\u00e9n all\u00ed hab\u00edan dejado de circular los barcos. Sin medios para regresar a su pensi\u00f3n en Nueva York, pas\u00f3 la noche en un hotel de Nueva Jersey.\n\nCrommelin hab\u00eda enviado antes a Archibald Padley a la ciudad para comunicarle la triste noticia a la se\u00f1ora Rogers. No obstante, cuando Padley lleg\u00f3 a la pensi\u00f3n, descubri\u00f3 que la se\u00f1ora Rogers ya se hab\u00eda enterado. Henry Mallin y sus amigos \u2013el grupo que hab\u00eda sacado el cad\u00e1ver del r\u00edo\u2013 hab\u00edan vuelto a Nueva York varias horas antes, al enterarse de que no tendr\u00edan que declarar durante la instrucci\u00f3n. Uno de ellos, H. G. Luther, se present\u00f3 en Nassau Street a comunicar la infortunada noticia.\n\nLuther lleg\u00f3 a las siete de la tarde y encontr\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers en el sal\u00f3n muy abatida; Daniel Payne pululaba, protector, a su lado. Quit\u00e1ndose el sombrero, Luther hizo acopio de valor para decir lo que ten\u00eda que decir. Ni la se\u00f1ora Rogers ni Payne lo conoc\u00edan. Mary llevaba desaparecida ya tres d\u00edas, y tal vez fuese natural que su madre y su prometido se hubiesen preparado para lo peor. Incluso as\u00ed, Luther consider\u00f3 inexplicable su reacci\u00f3n. Luego declarar\u00eda que ambos hab\u00edan recibido la noticia con una curiosa falta de emoci\u00f3n, que apenas pas\u00f3 de una educada indiferencia. A\u00fan m\u00e1s extra\u00f1o es que Payne no hiciera nada esa noche. Todav\u00eda era temprano y habr\u00eda podido ir a Hoboken de haberlo querido. Dadas las circunstancias, lo m\u00e1s natural habr\u00eda sido que hubiese ido con la esperanza de que se tratara de un error y de que, despu\u00e9s de todo, el cad\u00e1ver sacado del r\u00edo no fuese el de Mary. Incluso aunque hubiese sabido de la presencia de Crommelin en la escena, y dado por buena la identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver hecha por su rival, pareci\u00f3 raro que no corriera junto a su prometida, aunque fuese s\u00f3lo para velar por el entierro de sus restos. En cambio, se qued\u00f3 en Nassau Street y dej\u00f3 que otros enterraran a la mujer que amaba.\n\nLuther, por su parte, nunca olvidar\u00eda su extra\u00f1a y fr\u00eda reacci\u00f3n al enterarse de aquella noticia tan desoladora. \u00abNinguno de los dos pareci\u00f3 alterarse lo m\u00e1s m\u00ednimo \u2013recordar\u00eda despu\u00e9s\u2013. Tuve la clara sensaci\u00f3n de que no les cog\u00eda de sorpresa.\u00bb\n6 La casa de los muertos\n\nVestida de negro y con la cabeza envuelta en un chal de lana oscura, Phoebe Rogers sali\u00f3 al porche de su pensi\u00f3n apoyada en el brazo de Daniel Payne, el prometido de su difunta hija. Aparentaba m\u00e1s de los sesenta y tres a\u00f1os que ten\u00eda en realidad. \u00abEra imposible reconocer la vivacidad y la belleza de la hija en los rasgos de su apenada madre\u00bb, declarar\u00eda un testigo. El rostro surcado de arrugas, los hombros encorvados y su paso vacilante contribu\u00edan a dar la impresi\u00f3n de que la se\u00f1ora Rogers \u00absosten\u00eda una carga inexpresable\u00bb, como si su reciente tragedia hubiese \u00abdestruido en ella todo deseo de vivir\u00bb.\n\nAcompa\u00f1ada por Payne, la se\u00f1ora Rogers recorri\u00f3 lentamente Nassau Street en direcci\u00f3n al Ayuntamiento. Por detr\u00e1s del edificio, se dirigi\u00f3 a la llamada Casa de los Muertos, un peque\u00f1o edificio de madera que hac\u00eda las veces de sala de interrogatorios. Cuando lleg\u00f3 la desdichada mujer, un escalofr\u00edo de emoci\u00f3n se apoder\u00f3 del peque\u00f1o grupo de periodistas y curiosos que se hab\u00edan congregado en la puerta. La se\u00f1ora Rogers subi\u00f3 las escaleras y todos se descubrieron.\n\nRobert Morris, reci\u00e9n elegido alcalde de Nueva York, estuvo ausente de la ciudad los d\u00edas siguientes al asesinato de Mary Rogers. Morris, convencido defensor de la necesidad de reformar la polic\u00eda, estaba supervisando la respuesta de las brigadas de bomberos ante un incendio, cuando los miembros de una banda se hicieron con una de las bombas y volvieron las mangueras contra \u00e9l. Aunque no result\u00f3 herido, juzg\u00f3 conveniente pasar quince d\u00edas en un sitio alejado y presumiblemente m\u00e1s seco. En su ausencia, correspondi\u00f3 a su lugarteniente, Elijah Purdy, ocuparse de la creciente inquietud despertada por la muerte de la bella cigarrera.\n\nLas medidas de Purdy fueron particularmente decididas y calculadas para dar la impresi\u00f3n de que el Ayuntamiento se hab\u00eda decidido a actuar. El 11 de agosto, por petici\u00f3n suya, tres sepultureros exhumaron el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers de su tumba de Hoboken. Los restos se entregaron a los funcionarios de la Oficina del Forense de Nueva York y se transportaron al otro lado del r\u00edo para proceder a un examen m\u00e1s riguroso. Como prueba a\u00f1adida de la resoluci\u00f3n del Ayuntamiento, se convoc\u00f3 a Phoebe Rogers para que confirmase la identificaci\u00f3n.\n\nLa petici\u00f3n de Purdy puso fin a casi dos semanas de aparente indiferencia por el destino de Mary Rogers. \u00abHan pasado ya quince d\u00edas desde que se perpetr\u00f3 uno de los m\u00e1s osados y terribles ultrajes jam\u00e1s cometidos en una sociedad que se tiene a s\u00ed misma por civilizada \u2013hab\u00eda dicho el Herald\u2013. Sin embargo, que sepamos, no se dispone a\u00fan de ninguna pista y se han hecho muy pocos esfuerzos para descubrir y castigar a los brutales asesinos y violadores.\u00bb En gran parte, esa inercia emanaba de una simple disputa jurisdiccional entre Nueva York y Nueva Jersey. Para los funcionarios neoyorquinos, el asesinato de Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sucedido en Hoboken y por tanto era responsabilidad de Nueva Jersey. En Hoboken, en cambio, la polic\u00eda de Nueva Jersey se lavaba las manos con la excusa de que Mary Rogers estaba empadronada en Nueva York. A fin de reforzar su argumentaci\u00f3n, las autoridades de Nueva Jersey se basaban en la teor\u00eda de que a la joven la hab\u00edan asesinado en Nueva York y despu\u00e9s la hab\u00edan arrojado al Hudson, por lo que los restos hab\u00edan flotado hasta entrar en los l\u00edmites jurisdiccionales de Nueva Jersey. La disputa fue subiendo de tono y al cabo de pocos d\u00edas ambas ciudades empezaron a discutir sobre las corrientes del r\u00edo. \u00abEs un hecho probado que, en la \u00e9poca en que se descubri\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver, hab\u00edan estado soplando vientos del norte y el noreste durante casi toda la semana anterior \u2013declar\u00f3 un partidario de Nueva Jersey\u2013. En tales casos se produce siempre una corriente muy fuerte. Pues bien, si, como se ha dicho, el asesinato se hubiese cometido en Hoboken, el cad\u00e1ver no se habr\u00eda apartado tanto de la orilla con una corriente en contra. No hay mejor prueba que las sustancias en descomposici\u00f3n arrojadas en los muelles en la parte alta de la ciudad que tantas veces aparecen en la orilla de enfrente.\u00bb\n\nEn el fondo, el enfrentamiento obedec\u00eda m\u00e1s a una cuesti\u00f3n de dinero que a los caprichosos cambios de las corrientes del r\u00edo. Ambas jurisdicciones eran conscientes, aunque no quisieran admitirlo, de que hab\u00eda pocas esperanzas de conseguir alg\u00fan avance en el caso de Mary Rogers si no se ofrec\u00eda una generosa recompensa. \u00abTodo el mundo sabe \u2013lamentaba el Sun\u2013 que, dado el deficiente estado de organizaci\u00f3n de nuestro Departamento de Polic\u00eda, poco puede hacerse para descubrir a los autores de este horrible crimen si no se ofrece una recompensa en met\u00e1lico.\u00bb Gilbert Merritt, el juez de paz de Nueva Jersey, era consciente de esta dificultad. Al d\u00eda siguiente de concluir la instrucci\u00f3n, escribi\u00f3 al gobernador de Nueva Jersey para solicitar que se ofreciese una cuantiosa suma de dinero por la captura de los asesinos. Su petici\u00f3n fue rechazada sin m\u00e1s. En Nueva York, Elijah Purdy tambi\u00e9n declin\u00f3 invertir fondos municipales, alegando que no \u00ablo consideraba necesario\u00bb. Ambas partes se aferraron a la idea de que la responsabilidad, financiera y de cualquier otra \u00edndole, radicaba en la otra orilla del Hudson.\n\nEse punto muerto subraya el p\u00e9simo estado de las fuerzas del orden de Nueva York, que no hab\u00eda progresado mucho desde los serenos que patrullaban uniformados las calles en el siglo XVII e informaban a gritos de la hora y el estado del tiempo. En la \u00e9poca del asesinato de Mary Rogers, Nueva York no ten\u00eda un cuerpo de polic\u00eda profesional y centralizado. Se asignaban un par de agentes a cada barrio, aparte de los serenos y alguaciles, que se ganaban la vida con las tasas judiciales y las recompensas particulares. Su trabajo lo complementaba un cuerpo muy variopinto de trabajadores pluriempleados y militares retirados, que patrullaban las calles y montaban guardia a la puerta de sus garitas. \u00abSe les conoc\u00eda por \"cabezas de cuero\" porque llevaban cascos de cuero, una especie de anticuados cascos de bombero con un ala m\u00e1s ancha en la nuca \u2013recordar\u00eda George Walling, que se uni\u00f3 al cuerpo en 1847\u2013. Dos veces al a\u00f1o se les daba una gruesa capa de barniz, y al cabo de un tiempo eran tan duros y macizos como si fuesen de hierro. La \u00fanica identificaci\u00f3n que llevaban, aparte del casco de cuero, era una gruesa capa y una porra; de noche, tambi\u00e9n llevaban una linterna.\u00bb\n\nPara los miembros de las bandas de la ciudad, los cabezas de cuero eran poco m\u00e1s que un motivo de diversi\u00f3n. \u00abLos exaltados j\u00f3venes neoyorquinos pensaban que una noche de juerga no estaba completa si no gastaban antes alguna broma pesada a los pobres, viejos e inofensivos cabezas de cuero \u2013recordaba Walling\u2013. Incluso de un joven tan respetable como Washington Irving se cuenta que ten\u00eda la costumbre de molestar a los ocupantes de las garitas si sorprend\u00eda a alguno dormido a un cabeza de cuero; y tambi\u00e9n se dice que en cierta ocasi\u00f3n le ech\u00f3 el lazo a una garita con una soga y, con la ayuda de unos amigos, la arrastr\u00f3 por todo Broadway, mientras el vigilante de dentro gritaba pidiendo ayuda.\u00bb\n\nA semejantes ignominias hab\u00eda que a\u00f1adir la escasa remuneraci\u00f3n para los jurados y los agentes judiciales, que obligaba a muchos a buscar formas de ingresos alternativas. No era raro que se ofreciesen grandes recompensas a los agentes por la recuperaci\u00f3n de propiedades robadas, lo que a su vez conduc\u00eda a acusaciones de complicidad entre los criminales y la polic\u00eda. El Herald denunci\u00f3 que los polic\u00edas de Nueva York eran \u00abmeros gandules que viv\u00edan a costa del erario p\u00fablico y vend\u00edan sus servicios al mejor postor, y que s\u00f3lo combat\u00edan el crimen o atrapaban a los criminales cuando alg\u00fan particular les ofrec\u00eda dinero para cumplir con su obligaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nCon este trasfondo de disputas pol\u00edticas e ineficacia policial, la investigaci\u00f3n de la muerte de Mary Rogers se estanc\u00f3 hasta que la presi\u00f3n ejercida por la prensa neoyorquina oblig\u00f3 al Ayuntamiento a tomar cartas en el asunto. Sin embargo, para entonces los restos de Mary Rogers llevaban once d\u00edas en un tosco ata\u00fad de madera de pino, por lo que el examen del segundo forense apenas sirvi\u00f3 de nada. De todos modos, la investigaci\u00f3n sigui\u00f3 adelante como se hab\u00eda planeado, aunque s\u00f3lo fuese por cubrir el expediente.\n\n\u00abIncluso para los m\u00e1s imaginativos, ser\u00eda dif\u00edcil concebir un espect\u00e1culo m\u00e1s horrible o humillante para la humanidad \u2013observar\u00eda el neoyorquino Journal of Commerce\u2013. Ah\u00ed yac\u00eda lo que apenas unos d\u00edas antes era la imagen de su creador, la m\u00e1s deliciosa de sus obras, y la morada de un alma inmortal, transformada en una masa ennegrecida, putrefacta y descompuesta, dolorosamente repugnante a la vista y el olfato. Su piel, que hab\u00eda sido muy blanca, ahora era tan oscura como la de un negro. Sus ojos estaban tan hundidos en la cara hinchada que parec\u00eda que los hubiesen apretado violentamente contra las \u00f3rbitas y la boca que \"no hab\u00eda cerrado ninguna mano amiga\" se hallaba tan distendida como lo permit\u00edan los ligamentos de la mand\u00edbula y llevaba la marca de quien ha muerto ahogado o estrangulado. El resto era una masa de putrefacci\u00f3n y corrupci\u00f3n en la que los gusanos pululaban a su antojo.\u00bb\n\nPor suerte, Phoebe Rogers no tuvo que ver semejante espect\u00e1culo, pues el avanzado estado de descomposici\u00f3n se consider\u00f3 demasiado atroz para que pudiera resistirlo una anciana. No obstante, debieron de pensar que Daniel Payne estaba hecho de otra pasta. Mientras la se\u00f1ora Rogers aguardaba en una antec\u00e1mara, llevaron al joven a la sala de la autopsia. El Times and Commercial Intelligencer reprodujo la escena con un estilo normalmente reservado a las novelas populares de la \u00e9poca: \u00abY, como si no faltara nada para que la moraleja calase en lo m\u00e1s hondo del coraz\u00f3n y todo fuese a\u00fan m\u00e1s doloroso y emocionante, el joven con quien iba a casarse al cabo de unos d\u00edas se encontraba ahora al lado del tosco caj\u00f3n donde yac\u00eda lo que quedaba de ella. La hab\u00eda visto \"exultante de juventud\", llena de vida, \u00e1nimo y esperanza, hab\u00eda deseado ardientemente convertirla en su mujer, que se acurrucara en su regazo y se apretara contra su \"coraz\u00f3n de corazones\" y ahora ten\u00eda ante \u00e9l una masa inanimada tan fea, horrible y desagradable que la mera idea de tocarla era suficiente para que se le revolviera a uno el est\u00f3mago\u00bb.\n\nPayne, seg\u00fan ciertas versiones, apenas pudo confirmar con un gesto que aquellos restos podridos eran los de su prometida. Entretanto, un ayudante del forense consigui\u00f3 que Phoebe Rogers identificara el largo vestido blanco que llevaba su hija el d\u00eda en que desapareci\u00f3. Incluso eso, seg\u00fan el Journal of Commerce, no era para melindrosos, pues \u00abestaba tan descolorido y putrefacto que se hac\u00eda casi imposible reconocerlo, y tan impregnado de los efluvios del cad\u00e1ver que nadie se habr\u00eda aventurado a tocarlo o examinarlo\u00bb. Al parecer, la se\u00f1ora Rogers cape\u00f3 el temporal con elegancia e identific\u00f3 el vestido \u00absin la menor duda\u00bb gracias a un desgarr\u00f3n en la tela, que ella y su hija hab\u00edan remendado con un zurcido especial.\n\nAunque la identificaci\u00f3n hubiera concluido, los apuros de Daniel Payne a\u00fan ten\u00edan que seguir. Ese mismo d\u00eda, m\u00e1s temprano, hab\u00eda prestado declaraci\u00f3n varias horas ante los magistrados de la ciudad y se hab\u00eda defendido honorablemente seg\u00fan la polic\u00eda, pero la prensa hab\u00eda husmeado el olor de la sangre. Al d\u00eda siguiente, mientras volv\u00edan a enterrar los restos de Mary detr\u00e1s de una iglesia de Varick Street, los periodistas reprodujeron fragmentos de su declaraci\u00f3n en un tono que oscilaba entre la ofensa y la burla. Payne hab\u00eda testificado que Mary ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de ir a visitar a su t\u00eda, la se\u00f1ora Downing, la ma\u00f1ana del domingo de su desaparici\u00f3n, pero no se lo hab\u00eda comunicado a su madre ni a nadie m\u00e1s. \u00bfObedec\u00eda eso \u2013se preguntaba la prensa\u2013 a un enga\u00f1o por parte de Mary, a quien, seg\u00fan algunas versiones, hab\u00edan visto despu\u00e9s en compa\u00f1\u00eda de otro hombre, o estaba mintiendo Payne para ocultar su propia culpabilidad? Su coartada para esa tarde, una siesta de tres horas, no parec\u00eda muy convincente. Su historia de que hab\u00eda quedado en recoger a Mary en la parada del \u00f3mnibus tambi\u00e9n era sospechosa, igual que su afirmaci\u00f3n de que no acudi\u00f3 a la cita por culpa de una tormenta de verano. \u00abNada m\u00e1s lejos de mi intenci\u00f3n que arrojar sospechas sobre nadie \u2013dec\u00eda un corresponsal en el Tribune\u2013, pero el testimonio de Payne tiene muchos puntos discutibles y poco convincentes: olvid\u00f3 que el \u00f3mnibus no circula los domingos y no acudi\u00f3 a la cita con su prometida porque estaba lloviendo.\u00bb\n\nLas especulaciones aumentaron cuando salieron a la luz nuevos detalles. Unos d\u00edas antes de su desaparici\u00f3n, Mary y su madre tuvieron una acalorada conversaci\u00f3n que no termin\u00f3 hasta que Phoebe le hizo prometer a su hija que no se casar\u00eda con Payne. La criada hab\u00eda o\u00eddo la discusi\u00f3n y la prensa no tard\u00f3 en enterarse, lo que aviv\u00f3 los rumores de que Mary hab\u00eda roto su compromiso. Algunos pensaron que Payne pod\u00eda haberla matado en un ataque de celos.\n\nIncluso los defensores de Payne se vieron obligados a reconocer que no se hab\u00eda portado de modo muy caballeroso. \u00abHay quienes opinan que Payne deber\u00eda ser detenido \u2013dec\u00eda un columnista del Atlas\u2013. Si las autoridades se han dado por satisfechas con la veracidad de su testimonio, cosa que tendr\u00edan que haber hecho, no acertamos a comprender qu\u00e9 sospechas puede tener nadie contra \u00e9l. La \u00fanica circunstancia curiosa es que, al enterarse del asesinato, el enamorado no fuese a ver a su prometida. Eso podr\u00eda explicarse por el testimonio subsiguiente de Alfred Crommelin, que afirma que Payne es un hombre disipado.\u00bb\n\nAl verse bajo sospecha, Payne respondi\u00f3 con indignaci\u00f3n. El 13 de agosto escribi\u00f3 una carta al Times and Evening Star protestando contra el peri\u00f3dico por haber contribuido \u00aba sembrar de dudas la imaginaci\u00f3n de la gente\u00bb respecto a su paradero el domingo fat\u00eddico. Prometi\u00f3 aportar declaraciones juradas que lo \u00abexculpar\u00edan totalmente de tan horrible asunto\u00bb. Tres d\u00edas despu\u00e9s, se present\u00f3 en las redacciones de los peri\u00f3dicos con declaraciones juradas de su hermano y tres taberneros y due\u00f1os de restaurantes que le hab\u00edan atendido el domingo en cuesti\u00f3n. Aport\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n cartas de Phoebe Rogers y sus primas, la se\u00f1ora Hayes y la se\u00f1ora Downing, certificando la \u00abseriedad\u00bb de sus esfuerzos para localizar a Mary tras su desaparici\u00f3n. Las siete declaraciones juradas confirmaron hasta la \u00faltima palabra de la declaraci\u00f3n de Payne a las autoridades. El Times se retract\u00f3 de inmediato. \u00abNadie que lea las declaraciones \u2013afirmaba el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 tendr\u00e1 la menor duda de que el se\u00f1or Payne queda exonerado de cualquier sombra de sospecha.\u00bb Los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos siguieron r\u00e1pidamente su ejemplo.\n\nEs significativo que Payne se sintiera obligado a defender su caso en los peri\u00f3dicos y que \u00e9stos le exigiesen m\u00e1s pruebas que la polic\u00eda. \u00abEs evidente que ahora el p\u00fablico conf\u00eda m\u00e1s en este peri\u00f3dico \u2013se jactaba The Tattler\u2013 que en la polic\u00eda para la elucidaci\u00f3n del misterio.\u00bb Aunque el tono resultaba un poco presuntuoso, los directores ten\u00edan motivos para sentirse satisfechos: sus esfuerzos hab\u00edan obligado a intervenir al Ayuntamiento. Muchos hab\u00edan sido clientes del almac\u00e9n de Anderson cuando Mary trabajaba en \u00e9l y se consideraban personalmente comprometidos en la captura de los asesinos. \u00ab\u00bfQui\u00e9n puso en marcha las medidas para encontrar a los asesinos de Mary C. Rogers? \u2013rugi\u00f3 el Atlas\u2013. \u00a1Pues la prensa!\u00bb\n\nPese a todo, tambi\u00e9n la prensa hab\u00eda sido lenta en reaccionar. En los d\u00edas que siguieron al descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver no se public\u00f3 una sola l\u00ednea referente a \u00e9l en ning\u00fan peri\u00f3dico, aunque tampoco era de esperar que el asesinato destacara entre las docenas de casos de apu\u00f1alamientos, ahogamientos y violencia dom\u00e9stica sin resolver que hab\u00edan ocurrido ese verano. Casi hab\u00eda transcurrido una semana cuando aparecieron los primeros informes dispersos del crimen, e incluso entonces las noticias quedaron enterradas entre las gacetillas de las \u00faltimas p\u00e1ginas bajo ep\u00edgrafes anodinos como \u00abInformaci\u00f3n policial\u00bb o \u00abAsuntos ciudadanos\u00bb. Hasta la primera semana de agosto, el caso de Mary Rogers no empez\u00f3 a ocupar las primeras planas. \u00abSe trata de un asesinato tan atroz \u2013declaraba el Daily Express\u2013 que exige que no se lo relegue a las columnas de informes policiales y se le preste especial atenci\u00f3n para, de ser posible, averiguar qui\u00e9nes fueron los asesinos.\u00bb\n\nLas razones para esa \u00abespecial atenci\u00f3n\u00bb ten\u00edan m\u00e1s que ver con los motivos personales que con el crimen en s\u00ed mismo. Todos los directores de peri\u00f3dicos de la ciudad ten\u00edan alguna queja contra el Ayuntamiento sobre asuntos que iban desde la jurisdicci\u00f3n policial y la reforma judicial hasta la abstinencia del alcohol y la rectitud moral. En cada caso la tragedia de Mary Rogers parec\u00eda servir de poderoso s\u00edmbolo. Para unos, Mary era un cordero inocente llevado al matadero por culpa de los fallos en la aplicaci\u00f3n de la ley. \u00abLa ciudad est\u00e1 indefensa \u2013dec\u00eda The Commercial Advertiser\u2013. \u00bfCu\u00e1l de nuestras hijas o hermanas ser\u00e1 la siguiente?\u00bb Para otros, la joven era una \u00abmujer ca\u00edda\u00bb, descarriada por la debilidad de la carne y un s\u00edmbolo de la depravaci\u00f3n imperante en la ciudad de Nueva York. \u00abUnas palabras para las j\u00f3venes que puedan leer este peri\u00f3dico \u2013advert\u00eda The Advocate of Moral Reform\u2013, una voz desde la tumba, desde una tumba deshonrada y prematura, os habla en tono de advertencia y s\u00faplica. Si Cecilia Rogers hubiese apreciado la casa de Dios, si hubiese santificado el domingo... \u00a1qu\u00e9 distinto habr\u00eda sido su destino!\u00bb\n\nA medida que los redobles de la prensa iban en aumento, se levant\u00f3 en Elysian Fields una atm\u00f3sfera pr\u00f3spera y carnavalesca. \u00abLa curiosidad y las multitudes contin\u00faan en Hoboken \u2013observaba el Herald\u2013, el nombre de la pobre Mary Rogers est\u00e1 en boca de todos.\u00bb Las familias y las parejas de enamorados iban de picnic al lugar donde hab\u00edan sacado el cad\u00e1ver a la orilla. La directora de un colegio neoyorquino de se\u00f1oritas llev\u00f3 a una delegaci\u00f3n de sus pupilas a Castle Point, donde las sermone\u00f3 sobre el precio del pecado.\n\nPoco a poco la tragedia se fue instalando en la imaginaci\u00f3n popular y la aparente indiferencia de la polic\u00eda y los funcionarios atrajo nuevas protestas. \u00abLa polic\u00eda todav\u00eda no ha hecho nada por resolver el misterio que pende sobre la muerte de la pobre Mary\u00bb, denunciaba el Herald. Sin embargo, el apetito p\u00fablico de noticias se alimentaba a base de \u00abhistorias adaptadas a la credulidad de las turbas boquiabiertas... historias que, si se investigan, no son m\u00e1s que una trama sin sentido\u00bb. Cada nuevo rumor, por infundado que fuese, proporcionaba una excusa para publicar nuevas columnas. Una historia aseguraba que el domingo fat\u00eddico alguien hab\u00eda visto a Mary cerca de Theater Alley del brazo de un joven con quien parec\u00eda tener una relaci\u00f3n muy estrecha. Otra que \u00abuna persona muy conocida hab\u00eda huido de la ciudad para no ser detenida\u00bb. Se divulgaron informes sobre cr\u00edmenes parecidos cometidos en ciudades lejanas con la esperanza de que arrojaran alguna luz sobre el caso.\n\nLos peri\u00f3dicos se indignaron m\u00e1s que nunca cuando Alfred Crommelin, el pretendiente a quien hab\u00eda rechazado Mary, expuso su teor\u00eda de que la hab\u00edan llevado a alguna casa de mala nota y asesinado. \u00ab\u00bfAcaso no se perpetr\u00f3 el crimen en una de los cientos de casas de citas cuya existencia tolera nuestra solemne administraci\u00f3n de justicia criminal? \u2013se preguntaba el Herald\u2013. \u00bfNo habr\u00eda que registrar cuanto antes todos esos tugurios en busca de huellas de violencia, sangre y asesinato? Hay varias personas implicadas en este horrible crimen y no podr\u00e1n ocultarse eternamente.\u00bb\n\n\u00abEl asesinato acabar\u00e1 desvel\u00e1ndose\u00bb, insist\u00eda el Sunday Mercury, y la prensa ser\u00eda el instrumento \u00abutilizado para hacerlo\u00bb. El Mercury se jactaba de haber sido el primer peri\u00f3dico en sacar a la luz el crimen. \u00abDebemos recordar \u2013observaba un editorial\u2013 que fue en estas p\u00e1ginas donde se public\u00f3 por primera vez la horrible noticia.\u00bb Aunque es cierto que el Mercury hab\u00eda sido de los primeros \u2013en un art\u00edculo donde daba el nombre de la v\u00edctima y su direcci\u00f3n, adem\u00e1s de la fecha del crimen\u2013, la verdadera fuerza que manejaba las informaciones sobre el asesinato de Mary Rogers era James Gordon Bennett, el director del Herald, un hombre de quien uno de sus competidores dijo que \u00abten\u00eda menos decencia que un cerdo en celo\u00bb.\n\nIncluso una figura de la talla de Walt Whitman describir\u00eda a Bennett como un \u00abreptil que deja un rastro de baba donde quiera que pase y marchita con su aliento cualquier cosa fresca y fragante que encuentra a su paso\u00bb. Pero hasta sus peores cr\u00edticos se ve\u00edan obligados a admitir que Bennett hab\u00eda convertido el Herald en \u00abaudaz e innovador\u00bb en una \u00e9poca en que la prensa seria hab\u00eda ca\u00eddo en una blanda uniformidad. Considerado a menudo el padre del periodismo amarillo, Bennett afirmaba con una jactancia muy caracter\u00edstica que su peri\u00f3dico \u00abcambiar\u00eda la concepci\u00f3n del ser humano\u00bb: \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 va a impedir que la prensa se convierta en el \u00f3rgano m\u00e1s importante de la vida social? Los libros tuvieron su momento, igual que los teatros y los templos religiosos. La prensa puede ocupar el lugar de todos ellos en el gran movimiento del pensamiento... Un peri\u00f3dico puede enviar m\u00e1s almas al cielo, y salvar a m\u00e1s del infierno, que todas las iglesias y capillas de Nueva York, y ganar dinero al mismo tiempo\u00bb. A Bennett no le cab\u00eda la menor duda respecto al papel que \u00e9l personalmente desempe\u00f1ar\u00eda en dicha revoluci\u00f3n: \u00abShakespeare es el gran genio de la tragedia, Scott lo es de la novela, Milton y Byron de la poes\u00eda... y yo pretendo ser el genio de la prensa\u00bb.\n\nNacido en Escocia en 1795, Bennett emigr\u00f3 a Estados Unidos a los veinticuatro a\u00f1os. Luego afirmar\u00eda que le embarg\u00f3 el impulso s\u00fabito de ver el lugar de nacimiento de Benjamin Franklin, pero parece que tambi\u00e9n trataba de huir de la presi\u00f3n de su familia, que quer\u00eda que fuese sacerdote. Alto y desgarbado, Bennett ten\u00eda el cabello largo, una peque\u00f1a perilla y un marcado estrabismo que siempre le cohibi\u00f3. A\u00f1os despu\u00e9s le gustar\u00eda recordar que una vez lo hab\u00edan echado de un burdel cuando las se\u00f1oritas le comunicaron que era \u00abdemasiado feo para venir con nosotras\u00bb.\n\nA su llegada a Am\u00e9rica, durante varios a\u00f1os se gan\u00f3 la vida a duras penas como corrector de pruebas, traductor y periodista independiente. En 1827, a los treinta y un a\u00f1os, se uni\u00f3 al equipo de The New York Enquirer, donde cubri\u00f3 las \u00absimplezas y marruller\u00edas\u00bb de la vida pol\u00edtica en los primeros d\u00edas de Tammany Hall. Su estilo desenfadado le vali\u00f3 una temporada como corresponsal del peri\u00f3dico en Washington, desde donde enviar\u00eda entretenidos y francos comentarios sobre el paisaje pol\u00edtico de la ciudad y sus pretensiones sociales. \u00ab\u00bfVen a esa dama en el rinc\u00f3n noroeste del segundo cotill\u00f3n? \u2013dec\u00eda una de sus gacetillas\u2013. La cartograf\u00eda de su cabeza dejar\u00eda perplejo a un batall\u00f3n de ingenieros.\u00bb\n\nEn 1835 el combativo Bennett hab\u00eda dejado el Enquirer y quemado sus naves con casi todos los directores de peri\u00f3dico de la ciudad. Con un capital de quinientos d\u00f3lares, decidi\u00f3 establecerse por su cuenta. Encontr\u00f3 unas oficinas baratas en una planta baja de Wall Street, instal\u00f3 unos tablones de pino sobre unos barriles de harina y se sent\u00f3 a componer el primer n\u00famero de The New York Herald. El nuevo peri\u00f3dico ofrecer\u00eda \u00absensatez y sentido com\u00fan, aplicables a los asuntos y al coraz\u00f3n de los hombres en su vida cotidiana. Trataremos de registrar la verdad de cualquier cuesti\u00f3n p\u00fablica que nos parezca apropiada, sin verbosidad ni aderezos, y, cuando sea necesario, con comentarios justos, independientes, valientes y moderados. El Herald aspira a tener la misma influencia que ejercen otros muchos peri\u00f3dicos, y trataremos de conseguirlo a fuerza de trabajo, buen gusto, brevedad, variedad, chispa y precios baratos\u00bb.\n\nEl Herald de Bennett se uni\u00f3 a la moda de la \u00abprensa de un centavo\u00bb inaugurada por el Sun de Benjamin Day, dirigido a las clases trabajadoras y distribuido a trav\u00e9s de la venta callejera, en lugar de la suscripci\u00f3n anual que ofrec\u00edan los peri\u00f3dicos m\u00e1s grandes \u00abtipo s\u00e1bana\u00bb que le\u00edan las clases altas, como el Commercial Advertiser y el Evening Post. \u00abTodo el mundo se pregunta c\u00f3mo puede la gente comprar ese nido de esc\u00e1ndalos que son los peri\u00f3dicos de un centavo \u2013escrib\u00eda el diarista Philip Hone\u2013; sin embargo, todos lo fomentan; y los mismos que critican a sus vecinos por dar tan mal ejemplo se echan de vez en cuando al bolsillo un ejemplar y se lo llevan a casa para mayor edificaci\u00f3n de su familia.\u00bb\n\nDesde el primer momento, Bennett trat\u00f3 de dirigirse al mayor p\u00fablico posible, \u00abel jornalero y su patr\u00f3n, el empleado y su jefe\u00bb, con la convicci\u00f3n de que era capaz de atraer tanto a los lectores acomodados como al hombre de la calle. Hab\u00eda decidido \u00abdar un susto a alguno de esos grandes peri\u00f3dicos que ahora fingen mirarnos con desprecio\u00bb y siempre busc\u00f3 la pol\u00e9mica. \u00abS\u00f3lo era feliz cuando se met\u00eda con otros mejores que \u00e9l \u2013apunt\u00f3 un periodista rival\u2013. Era un polemista nato.\u00bb A veces las provocaciones de Bennett conduc\u00edan a enfrentamientos reales, con el resultado de que, en cierta ocasi\u00f3n, un paquete dirigido \u00abAl se\u00f1or Bennett\u00bb result\u00f3 contener una bomba casera preparada para detonar al abrirlo. El periodista se puso a salvo cuando repar\u00f3 en unos granos de p\u00f3lvora que ca\u00edan de la caja.\n\nDe vez en cuando alg\u00fan lector ofendido lo abordaba en la calle y expresaba su disgusto fustig\u00e1ndole con un l\u00e1tigo de caballer\u00edas. Una vez que el l\u00e1tigo se rompi\u00f3 en dos contra su hombro, Bennett recogi\u00f3 educadamente los pedazos y se los devolvi\u00f3 a su agresor. Incluso su antiguo jefe, James Watson Webb del Enquirer, recurri\u00f3 a la violencia en varias ocasiones. Webb, que ten\u00eda la costumbre de proporcionar informaci\u00f3n burs\u00e1til privilegiada a cambio de ciertos \u00abfavores\u00bb confidenciales, se indign\u00f3 al ver cuestionada su integridad en las p\u00e1ginas del Herald. No contento con golpearle con su bast\u00f3n, oblig\u00f3 a Bennett a abrir la boca y le escupi\u00f3 en la garganta. Bennett respondi\u00f3 con un incombustible sentido del humor: queriendo abrirle la cabeza, sugiri\u00f3, \u00abWebb sin duda pretend\u00eda sacar la inagotable provisi\u00f3n de ingenio y buen humor que ha fundamentado la reputaci\u00f3n del Herald y apropiarse de sus contenidos para llenar con ellos su cabeza hueca\u00bb.\n\nWebb se vengar\u00eda despu\u00e9s boicoteando al Herald y la \u00abpestilencia moral\u00bb de su director y uni\u00e9ndose a los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos de la ciudad en una campa\u00f1a concebida para expulsar a Bennett de la profesi\u00f3n. Animaron a los anunciantes a retirar la publicidad y aconsejaron a los directores de hotel que se negaran a alojar a nadie que llevase el Herald. \u00abNuestro credo \u2013escribi\u00f3 Webb\u2013 deber\u00eda ser: no comprar, no leer y no tocar.\u00bb\n\nPara Bennett, el verdadero motivo de aquella \u00abguerra moral\u00bb, como lleg\u00f3 a denomin\u00e1rsela, era su denuncia de la \u00abhip\u00f3crita gazmo\u00f1er\u00eda de la sociedad\u00bb. Consideraba \u00abfalso y rid\u00edculo\u00bb que los periodistas como \u00e9l tuviesen que amoldarse a las insulsas convenciones de la \u00e9poca y utilizar eufemismos tan retorcidos como \u00ablas ramas del cuerpo\u00bb para referirse a los brazos y las piernas, y \u00ablos inexpresables\u00bb para designar determinadas prendas de vestir. Con alegre inspiraci\u00f3n, Bennett se dispuso a ofrecer batalla: \u00ab\u00a1Enaguas, enaguas, enaguas, enaguas, desahogad con eso vuestra sensibler\u00eda, mojigatos!\u00bb.\n\nLo cierto es que los insultos de Bennett no eran tan triviales como le gustaba aparentar. El enfado de Webb no se deb\u00eda tanto a las prendas \u00edntimas como a las provocaciones religiosas. En mayo de 1840 Bennett hab\u00eda aprovechado la celebraci\u00f3n de un evento caritativo religioso para caracterizar al papa de Roma como un \u00abzoquete italiano est\u00fapido, decr\u00e9pito y licencioso\u00bb y ridiculizar la doctrina de la transubstanciaci\u00f3n, \u00abel delicioso privilegio de crear y devorar a nuestra divinidad\u00bb. No resulta sorprendente que el clero de la ciudad tomara cartas en el asunto. Bennett vio con satisfacci\u00f3n c\u00f3mo la \u00abSanta Alianza\u00bb de la iglesia y la prensa se alzaba contra \u00e9l, pues recordaba que una campa\u00f1a de insultos parecida hab\u00eda ayudado a llegar a Martin Van Buren a la Casa Blanca. \u00abEsos idiotas est\u00e1n decididos a convertirme en el hombre m\u00e1s importante del siglo \u2013dir\u00eda\u2013. Los insultos de la prensa convirtieron al se\u00f1or Van Buren en el primer magistrado de esta rep\u00fablica, y esos mismos insultos me convertir\u00e1n en el director de peri\u00f3dico m\u00e1s importante del pa\u00eds. Que as\u00ed sea, yo nada puedo hacer por impedirlo.\u00bb\n\nNo menos controvertida fue su pretensi\u00f3n de haber promovido la causa del periodismo al \u00abdescubrir y fomentar el gusto popular por el vicio y el crimen\u00bb. La sociedad educada se escandaliz\u00f3 cuando el Herald ofreci\u00f3 una versi\u00f3n sensacionalista del asesinato de Helen Jewett, una \u00abhermosa pero descarriada\u00bb prostituta de veintitr\u00e9s a\u00f1os. La joven hab\u00eda vendido sus servicios en un lujoso burdel conocido como el Palacio de las Pasiones en Thomas Street, casi pared por medio de una comisar\u00eda. En abril de 1836, un domingo por la ma\u00f1ana, un asaltante desconocido la mat\u00f3 a hachazos y luego trat\u00f3 de quemar el cad\u00e1ver. Cuatro polic\u00edas acudieron al o\u00edr los gritos y apagaron el fuego con el agua de la cisterna del patio trasero, mientras varios clientes \u2013en deshabill\u00e9, seg\u00fan las palabras de Bennett\u2013 trataban de huir del local.\n\nComo era de esperar en una prensa que evitaba llamar por su nombre a las distintas partes del cuerpo, los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos no consideraron apropiado ocuparse del asesinato de Jewett. Bennett opinaba de otro modo. Apenas hac\u00eda un a\u00f1o que el Herald hab\u00eda salido a la calle, pero \u00e9l ya se hab\u00eda abierto camino en el reino apenas explorado del periodismo criminal. Seis a\u00f1os antes, como reportero del Enquirer, hab\u00eda cubierto un famoso juicio en Salem, Massachusetts, en el que se vieron implicados dos j\u00f3venes acusados del asesinato de un capit\u00e1n de barco jubilado. El caso atrajo el inter\u00e9s nacional y nada menos que una figura de la talla de Daniel Webster se ofreci\u00f3 a colaborar con el fiscal, pero, cuando la prensa se present\u00f3 en el tribunal, el fiscal general del estado dict\u00f3 una serie de normas restrictivas para garantizar la \u00absolemne dignidad\u00bb del proceso. Bennett se retir\u00f3 furioso y expres\u00f3 su indignaci\u00f3n en unas palabras que acabar\u00edan moldeando su futuro: \u00abCreer que la publicidad dada por la prensa a un suceso es destructiva para los intereses de la ley y la justicia no es m\u00e1s que un viejo dogma apolillado y medieval... La prensa es el jurado viviente de la naci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEsta idea seguir\u00eda anclada en el coraz\u00f3n de Bennett toda su carrera. No tardar\u00eda en comprender que para vender peri\u00f3dicos no hay nada mejor que un asesinato \u00abhorrible y espeluznante\u00bb. Desde el momento en que tuvo noticia del caso de Helen Jewett, Bennett percibi\u00f3 su potencial explosivo. Deseoso de aprovecharlo, dio un paso sin precedentes al visitar personalmente el lugar de los hechos para informar del asesinato. Su relato de primera mano, escrito con una cercan\u00eda que cortaba el aliento, le proporcion\u00f3 una excusa para recrearse en los detalles m\u00e1s morbosos, como el momento en que un oficial de polic\u00eda alzaba la s\u00e1bana para echarle un vistazo al cad\u00e1ver: \u00ab\u00a1Menuda impresi\u00f3n! Apenas pude mirarlo m\u00e1s de uno o dos segundos. Poco a poco empec\u00e9 a reconocer los rasgos de la difunta como quien descubre la belleza de una estatua de m\u00e1rmol. Fue el espect\u00e1culo m\u00e1s notable que he contemplado. Nunca hab\u00eda visto nada semejante y espero no tener que volver a verlo. \"\u00a1Dios m\u00edo \u2013exclam\u00e9\u2013, pero si parece una estatua! No puedo creer que sea un cad\u00e1ver\". No se ve\u00eda una sola vena. El cuerpo estaba tan l\u00edvido, pleno y reluciente como el m\u00e1s puro m\u00e1rmol parisino. La perfecci\u00f3n de su figura, la exquisitez de las piernas, aquel rostro tan bello, los brazos bien torneados, su hermoso busto, todo superaba con mucho a la Venus de Medici.\u00bb\n\nLa muerta, descubrir\u00eda pronto Bennett, no hab\u00eda sido una \u00abmujer de la calle\u00bb cualquiera. Nacida en Maine en el seno de una familia pobre, a Helen Jewett la hab\u00eda adoptado un magistrado local que le hab\u00eda proporcionado una educaci\u00f3n, aunque luego perdiera \u00absu honor y sus adornos\u00bb y cayera en el camino del pecado. Lleg\u00f3 a Nueva York a los diecinueve a\u00f1os y empez\u00f3 a trabajar para Rosina Townsend, cuya casa de Thomas Street se consideraba uno de los burdeles m\u00e1s limpios y agradables de la ciudad. Jewett no tard\u00f3 en tener un devoto c\u00edrculo de clientes, a los que ofrec\u00eda unos servicios que iban m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de los habituales del establecimiento. Acompa\u00f1aba a dichos caballeros al teatro, zurc\u00eda sus calcetines y les escrib\u00eda cartas repletas \u2013como dir\u00eda Bennett\u2013 de \u00abinspiradas citas de poetas italianos, ingleses y franceses\u00bb. Bennett confiaba en que el asesino de aquella \u00abnotable pero descarriada\u00bb joven no tardase en ser puesto a disposici\u00f3n de la justicia.\n\nA la ma\u00f1ana siguiente del descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver, la polic\u00eda hab\u00eda encontrado un hacha ensangrentada envuelta en un abrigo azul en la parte trasera de la casa de la Townsend. A las pocas horas detuvieron en una pensi\u00f3n de Dey Street a un empleado de diecinueve a\u00f1os llamado Richard Robinson. Hijo de una prominente familia de Connecticut, Robinson hab\u00eda ido a Nueva York para adquirir experiencia comercial y pronto se gan\u00f3 fama de joven libertino. Al principio las pruebas contra \u00e9l parec\u00edan inapelables. Rosina Townsend y varias personas m\u00e1s testificaron que hab\u00eda estado con Helen Jewett en su habitaci\u00f3n la noche del crimen. El hacha utilizada en el asesinato era id\u00e9ntica a otra que hab\u00eda desaparecido en la tienda donde trabajaba Robinson. El abrigo azul encontrado en el lugar de los hechos parec\u00eda igual al que vest\u00eda la noche en cuesti\u00f3n, aunque neg\u00f3 poseer esa prenda hasta que lo contradijeron los testigos.\n\nAl informar del caso en el Herald, Bennett dio por sentado que Robinson era culpable, y el hallazgo de un diario \u00edntimo, bajo el nombre de \u00abFrank Rivers\u00bb, en el que se hab\u00eda propuesto contar sus conquistas sexuales parec\u00eda una prueba de su culpabilidad. Pero, a medida que se acumulaban las pruebas, Bennett decidi\u00f3 nadar a contracorriente. Robinson, proclam\u00f3, era en realidad un \u00abjoven amable e inocente\u00bb a quien hab\u00eda acusado err\u00f3neamente una fuerza policial corrupta, \u00abpodrida hasta la m\u00e9dula\u00bb. Quiso quitarle importancia a lo del hacha y el abrigo y plante\u00f3 la dudosa teor\u00eda de que el crimen lo hab\u00eda cometido una mujer despechada. \u00ab\u00bfC\u00f3mo iba a cometer un joven como \u00e9l un acto tan atroz? \u2013se preguntaba\u2013. \u00bfNo es m\u00e1s probable que haya sido una mujer? \u00bfNo se aprecian en toda esta serie de circunstancias los manejos de una mujer abandonada y desesperada?\u00bb Bennett verti\u00f3 todas sus sospechas sobre Rosina Townsend, seg\u00fan \u00e9l, una \u00abvieja bruja miserable que se ha pasado la vida seduciendo y enga\u00f1ando a j\u00f3venes y viejos para arrastrarlos a la perdici\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEs imposible decir si Bennett cre\u00eda de verdad en lo que dec\u00eda su propia ret\u00f3rica o simplemente comprendi\u00f3 que adoptar una postura contraria disparar\u00eda las ventas del Herald. En cualquier caso, sus competidores se apresuraron a condenarlo no s\u00f3lo por defender a Robinson, sino tambi\u00e9n por regodearse en los detalles m\u00e1s morbosos del crimen. William Cullen Bryant declin\u00f3 discutir ese \u00abdesagradable asunto\u00bb en el Post, mientras James Watson Webb se mesaba los cabellos por la \u00ablepra moral\u00bb del Herald. A fin de proteger la delicada sensibilidad de los lectores femeninos, se fund\u00f3 un nuevo peri\u00f3dico llamado The Ladies Morning Star que promet\u00eda ofrecer una versi\u00f3n dulcificada de los acontecimientos.\n\nNo obstante, el enorme aumento de la circulaci\u00f3n del Herald oblig\u00f3 a los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos a seguir el ejemplo de Bennett. Como no aparecieron nuevos datos, la prensa empez\u00f3 a llenar sus p\u00e1ginas de teor\u00edas casuales, acusaciones falsas y conclusiones dudosas. Un cl\u00e9rigo, para el que la v\u00edctima estaba m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de cualquier redenci\u00f3n posible, lleg\u00f3 incluso a dar su bendici\u00f3n al asesinato. Otros periodistas documentaron la degradaci\u00f3n moral de Helen Jewett con tintes folletinescos. El propio Bennett observ\u00f3 con preocupaci\u00f3n que en la pared del dormitorio de la joven colgaba un retrato de lord Byron y que entre sus efectos personales se hab\u00eda encontrado un ejemplar del Don Juan, un libro que \u00absin duda ha sido causa de m\u00e1s perversi\u00f3n en este mundo de la que alcanzaran a imaginar todos los moralistas de la \u00e9poca\u00bb. Otros peri\u00f3dicos se unieron a sus protestas. \u00abNo lean novelas \u2013aconsejaba The Journal of Public Morals\u2013, pues es imposible leerlas sin perjuicio.\u00bb\n\nEntretanto, los ataques contra Bennett se redoblaban. Circul\u00f3 el rumor de que hab\u00eda aceptado 30.000 d\u00f3lares, a cambio de su silencio, de un hombre al que hab\u00edan sorprendido literalmente con los pantalones bajados en el escenario del crimen. \u00abLa historia es demasiado absurda para dedicarle siquiera un instante\u00bb, se defender\u00eda Bennett. Si sus rivales pensaron que cuestionar su integridad recortar\u00eda las ventas del Herald, estaban muy equivocados. A ra\u00edz del caso de Helen Jewett la circulaci\u00f3n del peri\u00f3dico de Bennett roz\u00f3 los 15.000 ejemplares, super\u00f3 a casi todos sus competidores y, como \u00e9l mismo predijo acertadamente, no tardar\u00eda en duplicar esa cifra.\n\nCuando el caso lleg\u00f3 a juicio en junio de 1836, Nueva York estaba amargamente dividido. Quienes cre\u00edan en la culpabilidad de Robinson lo denigraban como un s\u00edmbolo de la decadencia de la sociedad, mientras que los que lo consideraban inocente alegaban que lo hab\u00edan utilizado como chivo expiatorio por su forma de vida \u00abrelajada\u00bb. Los defensores de Robinson abarrotaron la sala tocados con sombreros como el que llev\u00f3 el acusado, que lleg\u00f3 a conocerse como \u00absombrero Frank Rivers\u00bb. Animaron a los testigos de la defensa y abuchearon al fiscal mientras hac\u00eda sus alegaciones. El abogado de Robinson lo present\u00f3 como un joven inocente pero descarriado y descart\u00f3 las numerosas pruebas que hab\u00eda contra \u00e9l \u2013la mayor parte basadas en el testimonio de Rosina Townsend\u2013 por totalmente viciadas. \u00abNo dir\u00e9 que el juramento de una prostituta carezca de legalidad ante un tribunal \u2013afirm\u00f3\u2013, pero s\u00ed que muchos jueces eminentes han considerado dudoso el cr\u00e9dito que debe conced\u00e9rsele.\u00bb Tras un juicio de tres horas, Robinson fue declarado inocente despu\u00e9s de apenas quince minutos de deliberaci\u00f3n del jurado.\n\nUn Bennett exultante ofreci\u00f3 su propio resumen del caso: \u00abLas pruebas expuestas en este juicio y los notables descubrimientos respecto a la moral y las costumbres neoyorquinas constituyen uno de esos acontecimientos que obligan a la filosof\u00eda a reflexionar, espantan a la religi\u00f3n, hacen que la moral llore en el polvo y que la virtud femenina humille la cabeza [...] la publicaci\u00f3n y el examen de dichas pruebas encender\u00e1n fuegos que ya nada podr\u00e1 apagar\u00bb. No se mostrar\u00eda menos grandilocuente al referirse a su propio papel en el caso: \u00abEn lugar de relatar la terrible tragedia [...] como un aburrido asunto policial, la hemos convertido en excusa para examinar la moral de la sociedad y la hemos utilizado como puntal para sustentar una acci\u00f3n intelectual concebida en beneficio de nuestra \u00e9poca: la primera escena de una gran tragedia dom\u00e9stica que, si se pone en pr\u00e1ctica como es debido, traer\u00e1 consigo una reforma, m\u00e1s a\u00fan, una aut\u00e9ntica revoluci\u00f3n en el enfermizo estado actual de la moral y la sociedad\u00bb.\n\nLa preocupaci\u00f3n de Bennett por el bienestar social suena un poco a hueco si pensamos que, con toda probabilidad, ayud\u00f3 a liberar a un hombre culpable. Robinson, a quien posteriormente alguien llamar\u00eda \u00abel gran impune\u00bb, se pasar\u00eda la vida dando a entender ladinamente que se hab\u00eda librado de una condena por asesinato. No obstante, aunque Bennett cambi\u00f3 despu\u00e9s de opini\u00f3n sobre el caso, sus reportajes hab\u00edan abierto la puerta a una revoluci\u00f3n period\u00edstica. El crimen hab\u00eda salido de las fr\u00edas y anodinas columnas de los informes policiales para convertirse en una tragedia p\u00fablica. Los peri\u00f3dicos de la vieja guardia seguir\u00edan protestando muchos a\u00f1os contra semejante falta de decoro, pero las cifras de ventas de Bennett demostraban que sus lectores quer\u00edan sangre. Ser\u00eda una exageraci\u00f3n afirmar que fue el creador de la prensa sensacionalista \u2013el Sun de Benjamin Day y otros peri\u00f3dicos parecidos le hab\u00edan precedido\u2013, pero lo cierto es que Bennett convirti\u00f3 la prensa de un centavo en una fuerza que ya nadie pod\u00eda seguir pasando por alto. Para bien o para mal, se hab\u00eda abierto la caja de Pandora.\n\nBennett pasar\u00eda los cinco a\u00f1os siguientes queriendo repetir la agitaci\u00f3n causada por el asesinato de Helen Jewett, llenando las p\u00e1ginas del Herald de asesinatos, suicidios, horrorosos accidentes e incendios catastr\u00f3ficos. A veces, cuando Nueva York no suministraba buen material, buscaba la sangre en el extranjero: una ejecuci\u00f3n en la guillotina en Francia, un acuchillamiento en Rusia, escenas de tortura en Sud\u00e1frica. Bennett no imaginaba que el siguiente gran esc\u00e1ndalo period\u00edstico le esperaba literalmente a la vuelta de la esquina.\n7 La negra divinidad de la noche\n\nA su llegada a Nueva York, al principio del p\u00e1nico bancario de 1837, Edgar Allan Poe se hundi\u00f3 en nuevas simas de desesperaci\u00f3n. La ciudad y todo el pa\u00eds hab\u00edan entrado en un per\u00edodo de depresi\u00f3n y Poe comprob\u00f3 que las oportunidades de encontrar trabajo, literario o de otra \u00edndole, escaseaban. Quienes le visitaron en su alojamiento recordar\u00edan un ambiente de ra\u00edda elegancia. \u00abLas habitaciones parec\u00edan limpias y ordenadas \u2013apunt\u00f3 un amigo\u2013, pero todo [...] delataba su falta de recursos.\u00bb Lo mismo podr\u00eda haberse dicho del pobre Poe. Deambulaba por las calles con un rozado traje negro que Virginia y la t\u00eda Maria conservaban cuidadosamente cepillado \u2013\u00absu ropa destacaba por su pulcritud\u00bb\u2013, pero pocas puertas se le abr\u00edan. Un amigo observ\u00f3 que \u00abandaba siempre muy erguido, como alguien a quien han educado para ir as\u00ed [...]. Era evidente que su abrigo, el sombrero, las botas y los guantes hab\u00edan conocido d\u00edas mejores, pero estaban limpios y remendados para tener un aspecto presentable. En cualquier otra persona, su vestimenta habr\u00eda parecido andrajosa y desastrada, pero hab\u00eda algo en \u00e9l que te imped\u00eda criticarla\u00bb.\n\nWilliam Gowans, el amable librero que se alojaba con la familia, afirmar\u00eda que Poe pas\u00f3 gran parte de su estancia en Nueva York trabajando en su escritorio. Se esforz\u00f3 varios meses en encontrar un editor para una colecci\u00f3n de relatos que quer\u00eda titular Cuentos del Folio Club. La editorial Harper & Brothers estuvo a punto de publicar el volumen pero termin\u00f3 rechaz\u00e1ndolo con un consejo: \u00abSer\u00eda interesante que, si sus otros compromisos se lo permiten, escriba una narraci\u00f3n en dos vol\u00famenes, \u00e9sa es la extensi\u00f3n conveniente\u00bb.\n\nPoe pareci\u00f3 tom\u00e1rselo muy en serio e inmediatamente dej\u00f3 los relatos breves para trabajar en una novela, La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym, que esperaba publicar en dos vol\u00famenes, el formato m\u00e1s popular en la \u00e9poca. Inspir\u00e1ndose en Defoe, Swift y su propio Manuscrito hallado en una botella, concibi\u00f3 la obra como una narraci\u00f3n en primera persona de un peligroso viaje al Polo Sur. Algunos fragmentos preliminares los hab\u00eda publicado ya en el Southern Literary Messenger, pero hab\u00eda abandonado cuando sus relaciones con White empezaron a deteriorarse. Ahora, en Nueva York, decidi\u00f3 terminar el manuscrito y Harper & Brothers accedi\u00f3 a publicarlo en unas condiciones que calificaron de \u00abmagn\u00e1nimas y ventajosas\u00bb.\n\nPoe escribi\u00f3 la obra en tonos \u00e9picos, como demuestra el largo subt\u00edtulo: Que comprende los detalles del mot\u00edn y atroz carnicer\u00eda ocurridos a bordo del bergant\u00edn americano Grampus, en su traves\u00eda a los Mares del Sur en el mes de junio de 1827. Con una narraci\u00f3n del rescate del barco por obra de los supervivientes; su naufragio y consecuentes padecimientos a causa del hambre; su liberaci\u00f3n por parte de la goleta brit\u00e1nica Jane Guy; el breve crucero de dicha nave por el oc\u00e9ano Atl\u00e1ntico; su captura y la masacre de su tripulaci\u00f3n cerca de unas islas en el paralelo 84 de latitud sur, adem\u00e1s de las incre\u00edbles aventuras y descubrimientos m\u00e1s al sur que ocasion\u00f3 tan terrible calamidad.\n\nComo Richard Adams Locke y otros habilidosos embaucadores, Poe puso especial cuidado en difuminar la l\u00ednea que separaba la realidad de la ficci\u00f3n, retirando incluso su nombre de la portada. El libro se present\u00f3 como una obra de \u00abA. G. Pym\u00bb, cuyo prefacio identificaba \u00abal se\u00f1or Poe\u00bb como uno m\u00e1s entre varios caballeros de Virginia que se hab\u00edan interesado por su historia. Pym llegaba a explicar que los primeros fragmentos de la aventura publicados por Poe en el Messenger se hab\u00edan adaptado \u00abdisfraz\u00e1ndolos de ficci\u00f3n\u00bb a partir de una primera versi\u00f3n del relato. El autor reforz\u00f3 el enga\u00f1o con falsos extractos de diarios, entradas del cuaderno de bit\u00e1cora e incluso inscripciones jerogl\u00edficas. En una \u00e9poca en que la Ant\u00e1rtida apenas se conoc\u00eda, muchos editores y lectores pensaron que la imaginativa narraci\u00f3n era cierta. En algunos sitios se publicaron extractos de la novela como si fuesen noticias y Pym un aut\u00e9ntico pionero que enviara sus art\u00edculos desde un reino lejano.\n\nCuando se public\u00f3 la novela, en julio de 1837, obtuvo rese\u00f1as un tanto variopintas, en parte porque la elite literaria bostoniana y neoyorquina no hab\u00eda olvidado las violentas cr\u00edticas de Poe en Richmond. Pese a que su carrera acababa de empezar, se las hab\u00eda arreglado para indisponerse con algunas figuras literarias bastante poderosas, entre ellas Theodore Fay, cuya novela Norman Leslie hab\u00eda vapuleado unos meses antes. Lewis Gaylord Clark, un amigo de Fay, atac\u00f3 Pym por su \u00abestilo deslavazado, raras veces contrarrestado por las m\u00e1s elementales normas de la composici\u00f3n\u00bb. Poe debi\u00f3 de o\u00edr ecos de su propio ataque a Fay: \u00abNo hay una sola p\u00e1gina de Norman Leslie en la que un escolar no pueda detectar al menos dos o tres graves errores gramaticales, y dos o tres atentados atroces contra el sentido com\u00fan\u00bb.\n\nA pesar de la ambivalencia de las cr\u00edticas, Poe ten\u00eda esperanzas fundadas de que Harper considerase publicar una recopilaci\u00f3n de sus relatos. Al a\u00f1o siguiente, no obstante, se las arregl\u00f3 para desperdiciar cualquier posible muestra de buena voluntad que pudiera ofrecerle la editorial. Harper acababa de publicar un libro muy caro y profusamente ilustrado sobre animales marinos titulado The Manual of Conchology, que se vend\u00eda al prohibitivo precio de ocho d\u00f3lares. Su autor, Thomas Wyatt, ten\u00eda el proyecto de sacar una versi\u00f3n abreviada de la obra a un precio menor, para que pudiera venderse en los colegios. Cuando Harper se neg\u00f3, por miedo a perjudicar las ventas de la edici\u00f3n m\u00e1s cara, Wyatt decidi\u00f3 publicar la versi\u00f3n abreviada bajo el nombre de \u00abalguna persona irresponsable a quien no valiese la pena demandar por da\u00f1os y perjuicios\u00bb.\n\nAh\u00ed aparece Edgar Allan Poe, que ayud\u00f3 a abreviar el libro y contribuy\u00f3 con un prefacio e introducci\u00f3n. Pese a que no hab\u00eda publicado La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym con su nombre, acept\u00f3 figurar como autor de The Conchologist's First Book: Or a System of Testaceous Malacology. El libro se vendi\u00f3 bien, pero Poe no cobr\u00f3 ni un c\u00e9ntimo de los derechos. \u00danicamente le pagaron una tarifa \u00fanica de 50 d\u00f3lares y se gan\u00f3 la eterna enemistad de Harper. El incidente se\u00f1al\u00f3 uno de los momentos m\u00e1s bajos de su carrera y las acusaciones de plagio y violaci\u00f3n de los derechos de autor le perseguir\u00edan a partir de entonces.\n\nPoe se hundi\u00f3 a\u00fan m\u00e1s en lo que invariablemente denominaba \u00abun estado pecuniario embarazoso\u00bb. No tardar\u00eda en declararse dispuesto a aceptar cualquier trabajo, por servil que fuese \u2013\u00ablo que sea en tierra o mar\u00bb\u2013, con tal de salir de la miseria literaria en la que se ve\u00eda atrapado. Era muy consciente de no poseer \u00abotro capital\u00bb que \u00abla reputaci\u00f3n que haya podido labrarme como hombre de letras\u00bb, pero incluso esta modesta fuente de recursos la hab\u00eda dilapidado. Despu\u00e9s de unos cuantos meses en Nueva York, era incapaz de encontrar trabajo en ninguna parte. De momento, concluy\u00f3, ser\u00eda mejor probar suerte en otra ciudad. Los primeros meses de 1839 dej\u00f3 Nueva York para trasladarse a Filadelfia y se instal\u00f3 con su mujer y su suegra en una casita de la Calle Diecis\u00e9is.\n\nHab\u00edan pasado m\u00e1s de dos a\u00f1os desde que dejara el Southern Literary Messenger. Pero, aunque su suerte hab\u00eda empeorado mucho desde entonces, ten\u00eda reparos de volver a someterse a los gustos y caprichos del director de una revista. Aun as\u00ed, en mayo de 1839, al ver que no surg\u00edan oportunidades, tante\u00f3 a William Burton, el director de la Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, respecto a la posibilidad de que lo contratara como ayudante de direcci\u00f3n.\n\nQue Poe abordara a Burton de ese modo nos da un indicio de hasta d\u00f3nde hab\u00eda llegado su desesperaci\u00f3n. En esa \u00e9poca se hab\u00eda convertido en lector asiduo de las rese\u00f1as de sus propios libros (\u00abning\u00fan otro hombre viviente apreciaba los halagos ajenos m\u00e1s que \u00e9l\u00bb, observ\u00f3 un colega), y nunca perdon\u00f3 una mala cr\u00edtica. Tal vez la rese\u00f1a m\u00e1s desde\u00f1osa de La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym fuera la que sali\u00f3 de la pluma de Burton. \u00abJam\u00e1s se vio intento m\u00e1s descarado de embaucar al lector \u2013declar\u00f3\u2013. Es lamentable ver el nombre del se\u00f1or Poe relacionado con semejante muestra de ignorancia e insolencia.\u00bb\n\nNo obstante, despu\u00e9s de dos a\u00f1os escribiendo en vano, hab\u00eda comprendido que no ten\u00eda otro remedio que tragarse el orgullo y pedirle trabajo a Burton. Con gran alivio, comprob\u00f3 que el director de la revista lo acog\u00eda con cordialidad. Burton, un ingl\u00e9s que se hab\u00eda labrado cierta fama en Filadelfia como actor c\u00f3mico, guardaba cierto parecido con dos de sus personajes m\u00e1s populares, Falstaff y sir Toby Belch. Hombre de extraordinaria energ\u00eda e intereses variados, ten\u00eda la intenci\u00f3n de crear una publicaci\u00f3n que mereciera \u00abocupar un lugar en la mesa del despacho de cualquier caballero de Estados Unidos\u00bb. Cuando apareci\u00f3 Poe, s\u00f3lo unos cientos de caballeros hab\u00edan considerado buena idea hacer un hueco en las mesas de sus despachos para la revista de Burton, y el editor, que divid\u00eda su tiempo entre su oficina en la revista y los escenarios, andaba necesitado de ayuda en el mantenimiento diario de su empresa.\n\nEn junio el nombre de Poe apareci\u00f3 junto al de Burton como ayudante de direcci\u00f3n. Aunque el cargo era muy impresionante, el salario no lo era tanto. Con la excusa de que ten\u00eda gastos \u00abterriblemente cuantiosos\u00bb, Burton le ofreci\u00f3 diez d\u00f3lares por semana y le prometi\u00f3 un aumento si el acuerdo daba buenos frutos. Confiaba en que su ayudante no tuviese que trabajar demasiado y no necesitara dedicar m\u00e1s de dos horas diarias a la revista, y as\u00ed dispusiera de tiempo para dedicarse a cualquier \u00abotra vocaci\u00f3n\u00bb en su tiempo libre. Poe no estaba en situaci\u00f3n de regatear; el salario de Burton, por muy escaso que fuese, supon\u00eda una mejora muy sustancial, pues sus ganancias los \u00faltimos dos a\u00f1os y medio no hab\u00edan pasado de los cinco d\u00f3lares por semana.\n\nAl principio sus obligaciones fueron muy parecidas a las que hab\u00eda tenido en el Messenger. Contribuy\u00f3 con textos de relleno adem\u00e1s de corregir pruebas y ocuparse de otras tareas t\u00e9cnicas. Tambi\u00e9n reanud\u00f3 las despiadadas cr\u00edticas de sus d\u00edas en el Messenger, y las complement\u00f3 con consejos mundanos sobre c\u00f3mo administrar una casa y resolver contratiempos amorosos.\n\nCuando no estaba dando consejos a los que sufr\u00edan de desamor, dedicaba atenci\u00f3n a su propia obra y empez\u00f3 a escribir una nueva serie de relatos cortos. En El hombre que se gast\u00f3, un oficial cuya magn\u00edfica e imponente figura sufre varias amputaciones por heridas de guerra y va siendo sistem\u00e1ticamente reparado con miembros falsos, piezas para el hombro y el pecho y otras pr\u00f3tesis. En El diario de Julius Rodman, una novela corta inacabada, compuso otro libro de viajes imaginario al estilo de La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym, trasladando la acci\u00f3n a las Monta\u00f1as Rocosas. Una vez m\u00e1s, hubo quien tom\u00f3 la ficci\u00f3n, muy inspirada en los informes de Lewis y Clark,* por un relato real: inesperadamente, algunos fragmentos acabaron incorpor\u00e1ndose a un informe gubernamental sobre el territorio de Oreg\u00f3n.\n\nEn La ca\u00edda de la casa Usher, publicado en el n\u00famero de septiembre de 1839 de Burton's, Poe utiliz\u00f3 las convenciones del horror g\u00f3tico y las convirti\u00f3 en expresi\u00f3n de tormento psicol\u00f3gico. En el proceso dio con las notas que formar\u00edan uno de los principales acordes de su carrera: el relato de la decadencia y destrucci\u00f3n final de una solitaria mansi\u00f3n refleja, y al mismo tiempo oscurece, la angustia de su extra\u00f1o habitante, Roderick Usher, que sufre una \u00abenfermiza agudizaci\u00f3n de los sentidos\u00bb. El cuento cosech\u00f3 muchos elogios tras su publicaci\u00f3n y le mereci\u00f3 a Poe varias rese\u00f1as que lo saludaban como un escritor digno de consideraci\u00f3n. A resultas de ello, en diciembre de 1839, la editorial de Filadelfia Lea & Blanchard public\u00f3 los Cuentos de lo grotesco y arabesco, una recopilaci\u00f3n en dos vol\u00famenes de todos los relatos escritos por Poe hasta la fecha y revisados en su mayor parte para la ocasi\u00f3n. No obstante, a pesar del \u00e9xito de La ca\u00edda de la casa Usher, el editor ten\u00eda poca confianza en el libro y no le ofreci\u00f3 ning\u00fan adelanto sobre los derechos de autor. Poe tuvo que contentarse con recibir veinte ejemplares gratuitos. Las rese\u00f1as fueron variadas y algunas alabaron la \u00abopulencia de la imaginaci\u00f3n\u00bb de los relatos y otras lamentaron la falta de \u00abfantas\u00eda elevada y humor refinado\u00bb. El libro se vendi\u00f3 mal y, cuando Poe sugiri\u00f3 publicar una edici\u00f3n revisada, el editor declin\u00f3 alegando que el original \u00abtodav\u00eda no hab\u00eda compensado los gastos de su publicaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEn esa \u00e9poca a nuestro autor William Burton ya le hab\u00eda decepcionado. As\u00ed como Thomas White hab\u00eda delegado en \u00e9l todas las cuestiones de car\u00e1cter editorial, Burton ten\u00eda gran confianza en su propio talento literario y parec\u00eda considerar a Poe poco m\u00e1s que un chico de los recados. Aunque la revista hab\u00eda recibido mucha atenci\u00f3n por La ca\u00edda de la casa Usher y otras colaboraciones del ayudante de direcci\u00f3n, a Burton le disgustaban su \u00abtono enfermizo\u00bb y su estado de \u00e1nimo \u00abict\u00e9rico\u00bb, que no casaban bien con el tono m\u00e1s bien alegre de la revista. A Poe, por su parte, le molestaba que Burton no fuera m\u00e1s generoso y se resistiese a admitir que sus obligaciones eran m\u00e1s fatigosas de lo esperado. Una vez m\u00e1s, se vio en la embarazosa situaci\u00f3n de tener que pedirle un pr\u00e9stamo a su patr\u00f3n.\n\nEn mayo de 1840 las aspiraciones teatrales de Burton hab\u00edan progresado hasta el punto de que planeaba construir un teatro nacional en Filadelfia. Absorbido por su nueva preocupaci\u00f3n, comprendi\u00f3 que no podr\u00eda seguir compaginando literatura y escenarios, por lo que resolvi\u00f3 poner la revista en venta. Por lo visto, no inform\u00f3 a su ayudante, que se enter\u00f3 de la venta inminente al leer un anuncio en un peri\u00f3dico donde se ofrec\u00eda una revista no especificada \u00abde gran popularidad y ping\u00fces beneficios\u00bb. Comprendiendo que su trabajo estaba en peligro, se apresur\u00f3 a sacar provecho de su puesto antes de perderlo. Esboz\u00f3 un proyecto para una nueva revista literaria mensual que se llamar\u00eda The Penn Magazine, con la esperanza de cumplir su sue\u00f1o largamente deseado de convertirse en director de su propio peri\u00f3dico. Prometi\u00f3 una revista que no \u00abse centrar\u00eda en ning\u00fan aspecto concreto\u00bb y carecer\u00eda de las \u00abpayasadas, calumnias y profanidades\u00bb que caracterizaban a las dem\u00e1s publicaciones.\n\nBurton estall\u00f3 al enterarse de los planes de su ayudante. Viendo que la marcha de \u00e9ste supondr\u00eda un recorte en las ganancias por la venta de Burton's, le cubri\u00f3 de reproches y lo despidi\u00f3. Al parecer, Poe se enfad\u00f3 tanto que le insult\u00f3 a gritos y sali\u00f3 furioso de su despacho. No contento con eso, le envi\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n una airada misiva: \u00abVuestros esfuerzos por intimidarme me mueven a risa [...]. Si por un azar se os ha pasado por la cabeza que voy a permitir que me insulten impunemente, s\u00f3lo puedo concluir que sois un asno\u00bb.\n\nPoe trat\u00f3 de convencer a amigos y conocidos de que dejaba la revista por una cuesti\u00f3n de principios, pues no soportaba las intromisiones editoriales de Burton. \u00c9ste ofreci\u00f3 otra versi\u00f3n de la ruptura, criticando las \u00abdebilidades\u00bb de su empleado \u2013una alusi\u00f3n a la afici\u00f3n de Poe a la bebida\u2013, que le hab\u00edan causado muchos contratiempos... una acusaci\u00f3n que Poe neg\u00f3 acaloradamente. \u00abPodr\u00eda demandarlo \u2013le explic\u00f3 a un colega\u2013. Os juro ante Dios, y empe\u00f1o en ello mi palabra de caballero, que soy totalmente abstemio [...]. Lo \u00fanico que bebo es agua.\u00bb El desmentido parece como m\u00ednimo poco fiable, pues varios testimonios lo recuerdan bebiendo m\u00e1s de la cuenta en Filadelfia. Una vez un amigo cont\u00f3 que lo hab\u00eda visto tirado en el arroyo.\n\nAcicateado por su disputa con Burton, Poe redobl\u00f3 sus esfuerzos por fundar su propio peri\u00f3dico. \u00abEmpujado por el solemne y natural deseo de ser independiente, he llegado a la conclusi\u00f3n de que vale la pena intentarlo \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. Y no me refiero tanto a lo econ\u00f3mico como a mi conducta y a mis opiniones literarias.\u00bb En todas partes insisti\u00f3 en que \u00absi hay alguna imposibilidad, es la de fracasar\u00bb. Al final, no obstante, el fracaso result\u00f3 no s\u00f3lo posible, sino inevitable. Un nuevo p\u00e1nico bancario anul\u00f3 todos los recursos con que esperaba contar, justo en el momento, dir\u00eda despu\u00e9s, en que su revista estaba a punto de ir a la imprenta.\n\nMientras estos planes se ven\u00edan abajo, William Burton segu\u00eda con sus proyectos. En octubre de 1840 vendi\u00f3 su revista a un abogado de Filadelfia llamado George Graham por 3.500 d\u00f3lares. Graham pose\u00eda ya una revista llamada Casket, que ahora pretend\u00eda combinar con Burton's, creando as\u00ed la nueva Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine con una saneada cartera de cinco mil suscriptores.\n\nA menudo se ha dicho que Burton demostr\u00f3 un inter\u00e9s paternal por el bienestar de Poe al formalizar la venta y dio instrucciones al nuevo propietario de que \u00abcuidara a mi joven editor\u00bb. En vista de sus tirantes relaciones, parece m\u00e1s probable que le advirtiera de sus defectos. En todo caso, Graham no se dej\u00f3 convencer; nada m\u00e1s hacerse con el control de la revista, ofreci\u00f3 empleo a Poe, quien, a pesar de sus anhelos de independencia, supo reconocer una oportunidad prometedora. En febrero de 1841, firm\u00f3 su contrato como director con un salario de ochocientos d\u00f3lares anuales, un notable aumento respecto a sus ganancias en Burton's. Graham le ofreci\u00f3 una calurosa bienvenida en las p\u00e1ginas de la nueva revista: \u00abEl se\u00f1or Poe es demasiado conocido en el mundillo literario para necesitar cartas de recomendaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Y lo que es a\u00fan mejor: Poe ya no tendr\u00eda que ocuparse de la correcci\u00f3n de pruebas y dem\u00e1s tareas rutinarias. El propio Graham se ocupar\u00eda de ello y tambi\u00e9n se encargar\u00eda de elegir gran parte del material para publicar, guiado por una astuta apreciaci\u00f3n de los gustos del p\u00fablico y dejando a su nuevo director las colaboraciones m\u00e1s \u00abelevadas\u00bb. Acordaron que cada n\u00famero incluir\u00eda un relato original de \u00e9ste, por el que cobrar\u00eda una cantidad como colaborador, aparte de lo que estableciese su salario.\n\nAnimado, Poe se volc\u00f3 en su trabajo y parece haber desarrollado aut\u00e9ntico afecto por su jovial y desenfadado patr\u00f3n. Con sus veintisiete a\u00f1os, Graham era cuatro a\u00f1os m\u00e1s joven que \u00e9l, lo que tal vez contribuyera a mejorar su relaci\u00f3n. Poe admiraba la disposici\u00f3n del joven abogado a invertir en el \u00e9xito de la revista, as\u00ed como en ilustraciones originales y en material nuevo. Bajo la ben\u00e9vola supervisi\u00f3n de Graham, la experiencia y la innovaci\u00f3n de Poe florecieron, lo que contribuir\u00eda a convertir la revista en un \u00e9xito inmediato. El primer a\u00f1o, el n\u00famero de suscriptores aument\u00f3 de cinco a cuarenta mil.\n\nAl principio, Poe parec\u00eda compartir el objetivo de Graham de ganarse a un p\u00fablico m\u00e1s amplio, aunque tal vez menos refinado, que el que \u00e9l mismo ten\u00eda pensado para su Penn Magazine. Inici\u00f3 una popular serie de art\u00edculos sobre criptograf\u00eda, rescatados de un trabajo anterior cuando trabajaba como independiente: los lectores empezaron a enviarle montones de mensajes cifrados para que los resolviera. Tambi\u00e9n reanud\u00f3 sus cr\u00edticas literarias. Aunque afirmaba haber dejado de lado la \u00abcausticidad\u00bb de sus d\u00edas m\u00e1s j\u00f3venes, su trabajo en Graham's no demostr\u00f3 que se hubiera suavizado mucho. Estaba convencido de que los dem\u00e1s cr\u00edticos eran demasiado dados a los elogios y recib\u00edan como genios a cada nuevo poeta o escritor. \u00abEl aire huele a genialidad \u2013se lamentaba\u2013. Todos nuestros poetas son Miltons.\u00bb\n\nTanta vehemencia deb\u00eda mucho a la idea de que su propio genio se hab\u00eda visto relegado en favor de aquellos talentos menores. Las andanadas cr\u00edticas de Poe le ganaron mucha notoriedad \u2013y ataques a su evidente arrogancia\u2013, pero su labor para Graham's lo alz\u00f3 a cotas innegablemente altas y le permiti\u00f3 escribir varios de sus relatos breves m\u00e1s excepcionales. En El hombre de la multitud trat\u00f3 la cuesti\u00f3n del funcionamiento de la mentalidad criminal, como hab\u00eda hecho en Politan y en otros cuentos. La nueva historia arranca cuando un narrador an\u00f3nimo toma asiento en un caf\u00e9 londinense y medita sobre el \u00abtumultuoso mar de cabezas humanas\u00bb que lo rodea, maravill\u00e1ndose de la sensaci\u00f3n de \u00absoledad producida por la propia densidad de la multitud\u00bb. De pronto ve a un anciano decr\u00e9pito que oculta una daga y un diamante en su abrigo harapiento, presumiblemente el instrumento y el bot\u00edn de alg\u00fan crimen terrible. Con creciente emoci\u00f3n, el narrador sigue al desconocido hasta las \u00abm\u00e1s deplorables\u00bb profundidades de la ciudad, pero, cuando finalmente se enfrenta a su presa, el anciano ni siquiera repara en su presencia. El narrador concluye que posee \u00abel genio del criminal. Se niega a estar solo. Es el hombre de la multitud. Es in\u00fatil seguirle, pues nada averiguar\u00e9 sobre \u00e9l ni sobre sus actos\u00bb.\n\nLa renovada fascinaci\u00f3n de Poe por el pensamiento deductivo, expresada por primera vez en su estudio del ajedrecista de Maelzel, se manifestaba con extraordinaria eficacia en esta nueva historia. En las primeras p\u00e1ginas, mientras el narrador se encuentra tras la ventana del caf\u00e9, concentra sus energ\u00edas en inspeccionar a la multitud a la \u00abluz vulgar y discontinua\u00bb del d\u00eda agonizante: \u00abLos absurdos efectos de la luz me impulsaron a examinar los rostros individuales; y, aunque la rapidez con que la luz brillaba en la ventana me impidi\u00f3 echar m\u00e1s que un simple vistazo a cada cara, tuve la impresi\u00f3n de que, en aquel peculiar estado mental, a menudo pod\u00eda leer, incluso con un mero vislumbre, la historia de largos a\u00f1os\u00bb. De este modo, el narrador es capaz de reconocer a un oficinista por un bulto en la oreja derecha \u2013largo tiempo acostumbrada a sostener la pluma\u2013 y a un carterista por la \u00abenorme bocamanga de su camisa\u00bb. Este truco casi m\u00e1gico de adivinar historias a partir de detalles triviales lo desarrollar\u00edan y refinar\u00edan despu\u00e9s otros escritores (\u00ab\u00a1Es incre\u00edble, Holmes!\u00bb), pero en manos de Poe, la t\u00e9cnica estaba enfocada al interior, en un intento de sondear secretos del alma humana \u00abque no pueden contarse\u00bb.\n\nA El hombre de la multitud le sigui\u00f3 el innovador Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, un cuento que Poe describi\u00f3 casi con displicencia diciendo que era \u00abuna cosa nueva\u00bb. El relato empieza con una breve homil\u00eda del narrador, otro joven an\u00f3nimo en busca de conocimiento, sobre los placeres de la habilidad deductiva: \u00abLos rasgos mentales denominados anal\u00edticos son, en s\u00ed mismos, apenas susceptibles al an\u00e1lisis. S\u00f3lo apreciamos sus efectos. De ellos sabemos, entre otras cosas, que procuran siempre a quien los posee, si es que los posee en abundancia, una fuente de agudo placer. Igual que el forzudo disfruta con sus habilidades f\u00edsicas, y disfruta con los ejercicios que ponen en funcionamiento sus m\u00fasculos, el analista se regocija en la actividad moral que desenmara\u00f1a. Obtiene placer incluso de las ocupaciones m\u00e1s triviales siempre que le obliguen a ejercitar su talento. Es amigo de enigmas, acertijos y jerogl\u00edficos y exhibe en sus soluciones de cada uno de ellos una agudeza que a una inteligencia normal le parece casi sobrenatural\u00bb. Poe contin\u00faa en el mismo tono antes de concluir: \u00abSe comprobar\u00e1 que los ingeniosos siempre son fantasiosos, y que los verdaderamente imaginativos no son en realidad sino anal\u00edticos\u00bb.\n\nUna vez establecida esta mezcla ideal entre temperamento art\u00edstico y mentalidad cient\u00edfica, Poe pasa a presentar a su encarnaci\u00f3n humana, monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. El narrador conoce a Dupin mientras estudia en Par\u00eds, tras un encuentro casual en una oscura librer\u00eda, \u00abdonde el azar \u2013ambos est\u00e1bamos buscando un mismo libro raro y muy notable\u2013 hizo que intim\u00e1semos\u00bb. Dupin resulta ser un personaje muy misterioso. Nacido en una familia ilustre, \u00abuna serie de infortunios\u00bb lo hab\u00eda sumido en una pobreza tal que \u00abla energ\u00eda de su car\u00e1cter termin\u00f3 sucumbiendo y dej\u00f3 de alternar en sociedad\u00bb. Obligado a vivir con unos ingresos muy escasos, se contenta con cubrir las necesidades elementales de la vida, aparte del placer que le proporcionan los libros. Convencido de que \u00abla compa\u00f1\u00eda de un hombre as\u00ed\u00bb ser\u00eda para \u00e9l \u00abun tesoro inapreciable\u00bb, el narrador decide compartir habitaci\u00f3n con Dupin en \u00abuna mansi\u00f3n grotesca y decadente\u00bb no muy diferente de la casa Usher. Apartados del mundo, se consagran a la lectura y la escritura, y s\u00f3lo salen para disfrutar de la \u00abnegra divinidad\u00bb de la noche.\n\nUna tarde, en el curso de un largo paseo, Dupin revela un talento sorprendente. Aunque llevan unos quince minutos andando en silencio, el franc\u00e9s interrumpe las meditaciones de su compa\u00f1ero con una observaci\u00f3n trivial, como si respondiera a una pregunta, dando a entender que le ha le\u00eddo el pensamiento igual que si lo hubiera pronunciado en voz alta. At\u00f3nito, el narrador le pide una explicaci\u00f3n, y Dupin reconstruye entonces cada paso en la concatenaci\u00f3n de los pensamientos de su amigo, partiendo de la nebulosa de Ori\u00f3n hasta llegar a un zapatero remend\u00f3n aficionado al teatro. El narrador se queda totalmente confundido: \u00abDebo decir que me deja usted perplejo y que apenas doy cr\u00e9dito a mis sentidos\u00bb.\n\nPoco despu\u00e9s, llama la atenci\u00f3n de Dupin sobre una peculiar noticia en el peri\u00f3dico. Se ha descubierto un terrible delito en una casa del \u00abm\u00edsero bulevar\u00bb conocido como rue Morgue. En mitad de la noche, dice la noticia, el barrio despert\u00f3 con unos \u00abgritos espantosos\u00bb provenientes de una habitaci\u00f3n en el cuarto piso. Tras llamar a los gendarmes, un grupo de hombres fuerza la puerta y se encuentra con una escena \u00abde un terrible desorden\u00bb: muebles rotos, objetos de valor esparcidos por el suelo y, encima de una silla, una navaja de afeitar ensangrentada con mechones de cabello aparentemente arrancados de ra\u00edz.\n\nDescubren que las dos propietarias de la casa, una tal madame L'Espanaye y su hija, han sido \u00abatrozmente mutiladas\u00bb. A madame L'Espanaye la han golpeado salvajemente y le han cortado el cuello de un tajo tan violento que \u00abcasi le han arrancado la cabeza del cuerpo\u00bb. La hija no aparece por ninguna parte, hasta que uno de los investigadores repara en que en la chimenea hay m\u00e1s holl\u00edn de la cuenta. S\u00f3lo entonces se dan cuenta de que alguien ha metido el cad\u00e1ver de la joven, cubierto de ara\u00f1azos y moretones y con los pies por delante, por la chimenea.\n\nLa polic\u00eda est\u00e1 desconcertada, y ninguno de los investigadores es capaz de hallar un m\u00f3vil para el crimen ni de explicar el modo en que se cometi\u00f3. Adem\u00e1s, no hay ninguna pista respecto a c\u00f3mo ha podido salir del cuarto el asesino, pues las puertas y las ventanas est\u00e1n cerradas por dentro, y la angosta chimenea es demasiado estrecha para permitir el paso de \u00abun gato grande\u00bb y mucho menos de una persona. Las dos mujeres llevaban una vida tranquila y apartada, y, aunque viv\u00edan desahogadamente, el asesino no pretend\u00eda robarles, pues ha dejado sin tocar cuatro mil francos en oro.\n\nLa situaci\u00f3n se vuelve m\u00e1s confusa con el testimonio de los vecinos. Aunque ocho o diez hombres han o\u00eddo los ruidos violentos, sus versiones ofrecen sorprendentes contradicciones. Todos coinciden en que han o\u00eddo \u00abdos voces que discut\u00edan enfadadas\u00bb en el lugar del crimen: la primera, de un franc\u00e9s de voz ronca, pero la otra, \u00abmucho m\u00e1s chillona\u00bb, de un extranjero, aunque no logran ponerse de acuerdo sobre su pa\u00eds de origen.\n\nLos art\u00edculos del peri\u00f3dico coinciden en que jam\u00e1s se hab\u00eda cometido en Par\u00eds un crimen de \u00abcaracter\u00edsticas tan terribles\u00bb y en que no parece haber \u00abni una sola pista\u00bb. A falta de otro sospechoso, la polic\u00eda detiene a un empleado de banco llamado Adolphe Le Bon, que hab\u00eda llevado a las dos mujeres una cuantiosa suma de dinero apenas tres d\u00edas antes.\n\nTras hojear cuidadosamente los peri\u00f3dicos, Dupin revela que el empleado de banco detenido le prest\u00f3 en cierta ocasi\u00f3n un servicio por el que \u00able est\u00e1 agradecido\u00bb. Decide interesarse por el asunto y asegura a su compa\u00f1ero: unas \u00abpesquisas nos servir\u00e1n de diversi\u00f3n\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s de obtener permiso de la polic\u00eda para examinar el lugar de los hechos, Dupin realiza una investigaci\u00f3n completa, haciendo gala de una \u00abatenci\u00f3n minuciosa\u00bb que deja perplejo a su amigo. Aparentemente satisfecho con lo que ha visto, Dupin vuelve a casa sin decir palabra y de camino se pasa por la redacci\u00f3n de un peri\u00f3dico.\n\nNo rompe su silencio hasta el d\u00eda siguiente: entonces hace el sorprendente anuncio de que ha resuelto el caso. De hecho, llega a afirmar que uno de los culpables no tardar\u00e1 en llamar a su puerta. Por ello entrega una pistola a su compa\u00f1ero y le pide que la dispare si es necesario.\n\nMientras esperan la visita, Dupin inicia un so\u00f1oliento soliloquio, en el que da su explicaci\u00f3n de los acontecimientos y aclara c\u00f3mo ha encontrado una soluci\u00f3n. El problema, insiste, no era ni la mitad de complicado de lo que hab\u00edan supuesto los peri\u00f3dicos. Los investigadores oficiales hab\u00edan \u00abca\u00eddo en el error grosero pero frecuente de confundir lo raro con lo abstruso\u00bb. Seg\u00fan Dupin, los aspectos aparentemente m\u00e1s extra\u00f1os e inexplicables del caso ofrec\u00edan la clave para resolverlo, pues \u00abes mediante esas desviaciones del plano de lo ordinario como se abre paso la raz\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nAl visitar el lugar de los hechos, explica Dupin, pudo reparar en muchas cosas que la polic\u00eda hab\u00eda pasado por alto. Aunque las ventanas del cuarto donde se cometi\u00f3 el crimen parec\u00edan cerradas e incluso clavadas por dentro, observ\u00f3 que uno de los clavos estaba partido en dos. Razon\u00f3 que el asesino pod\u00eda haber escapado por esa ventana y haberla cerrado a sus espaldas mediante un resorte oculto. Como la ventana estaba cerrada \u2013y no hab\u00edan reparado en el clavo roto\u2013 dieron por sentado que nadie la hab\u00eda tocado.\n\n\u00abLa siguiente cuesti\u00f3n era de qu\u00e9 modo baj\u00f3\u00bb, prosigue Dupin. Eso le hab\u00eda planteado una dificultad considerable, pues se trataba de la ventana de un cuarto piso. Dupin revela que en su examen del callej\u00f3n de detr\u00e1s de la casa repar\u00f3 en un delgado pararrayos que hab\u00eda junto a la ventana. Describe c\u00f3mo ser\u00eda posible salvar la distancia entre la ventana y dicho pararrayos apoy\u00e1ndose en las contraventanas. Admite, no obstante, que s\u00f3lo una persona notablemente h\u00e1bil y valerosa ser\u00eda capaz de hacerlo.\n\nSurge as\u00ed un peculiar y en apariencia contradictorio retrato del asesino, un individuo de una fuerza incre\u00edble y una agilidad insuperable, y capaz de y una violencia brutal. Por lo visto, la causa del asesinato no ha sido la codicia, como demuestra el hecho de que no tocase los francos en oro. La indiscutible barbarie del crimen, con una v\u00edctima decapitada y el cad\u00e1ver de la otra metida por la chimenea, sorprende a Dupin por \u00abexcesivamente outr\u00e9\u00bb y tal vez literalmente inhumana. Despu\u00e9s de encontrar un cabello \u00abmuy extra\u00f1o\u00bb en la mano de una de las v\u00edctimas, aventura la teor\u00eda de que el asesino, de hecho, tal vez no sea humano. Conclusi\u00f3n a la que llega por los testimonios contradictorios acerca de la voz \u00abaguda\u00bb y bestial que se oy\u00f3 en el cuarto cerrado. Adem\u00e1s, Dupin ha reparado en unas extra\u00f1as moraduras en el cuello de mademoiselle L'Espanaye \u00abque no son obra de una mano humana\u00bb, y que le llevan a sospechar de un animal enorme e inmensamente feroz, \u00abel gigantesco orangut\u00e1n rojizo de las islas de las Indias Orientales\u00bb.\n\nMientras su compa\u00f1ero se esfuerza por asimilar esta informaci\u00f3n, Dupin esboza los pasos que ha dado para probar su teor\u00eda. El d\u00eda anterior \u2013explica\u2013 se pas\u00f3 por la redacci\u00f3n de un peri\u00f3dico para publicar un aviso que anunciara que hab\u00eda capturado \u00abun enorme orangut\u00e1n rojizo de la especie de Borneo\u00bb. El anuncio conclu\u00eda diciendo que el propietario pod\u00eda reclamar el animal en la direcci\u00f3n de Dupin.\n\nApenas Dupin ha terminado de dar sus explicaciones, aparece en la puerta un marinero \u00abrobusto y musculoso\u00bb. Cuando le acusan del crimen en la rue Morgue, el marinero se viene abajo y lo confiesa todo, confirmando la sorprendente hip\u00f3tesis de Dupin. El marinero explica que trajo el orangut\u00e1n de uno de sus viajes con la esperanza de poder venderlo, pero se le escap\u00f3 por las calles de Par\u00eds blandiendo su navaja de afeitar. Sigui\u00f3 al animal hasta la rue Morgue y \u2013mientras sus gritos de alarma se mezclaban con los chillidos del animal\u2013 vio impotente c\u00f3mo trepaba hasta la ventana y atacaba a las dos mujeres que hab\u00eda dentro. Acobardado, el marinero se march\u00f3 y abandon\u00f3 al orangut\u00e1n a su suerte. Aunque el anuncio de Dupin en el peri\u00f3dico le hab\u00eda hecho recobrar la esperanza de sacar alg\u00fan provecho del animal, decide ahora poner el asunto en manos de la polic\u00eda: \u00abDesahogar\u00e9 mi conciencia, aunque sea lo \u00faltimo que haga en la vida\u00bb.\n\nGracias a las pruebas aportadas por Dupin el empleado de banco injustamente acusado es puesto en libertad de inmediato, pero al prefecto de polic\u00eda le irrita que lo hayan dejado en evidencia y profiere \u00abalgunos sarcasmos sobre la conveniencia de que cada cual se ocupe de sus propios asuntos\u00bb. Dupin le oye como si tal cosa. \u00abQue diga lo que quiera \u2013declara\u2013, me basta con haberle vencido en su propio terreno.\u00bb\n\nLos asesinatos de la rue Morgue se public\u00f3 en el n\u00famero de Graham's de abril de 1841. El relato recibi\u00f3 muchas rese\u00f1as favorables, y m\u00e1s de un cr\u00edtico calific\u00f3 al autor de \u00abhombre de genio\u00bb. Significativamente, Poe parece que sac\u00f3 el nombre de su detective de una vaga referencia en un libro de memorias titulado Unpublished Passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police [Pasajes in\u00e9ditos de la vida de Vidocq, ministro de Polic\u00eda franc\u00e9s], del cual se hab\u00edan publicado algunos fragmentos en Burton's. Figura legendaria, Vidocq era un antiguo criminal que hab\u00eda consagrado su talento a la defensa de la ley y ayudado a crear la Suret\u00e9, el departamento de detectives de la polic\u00eda francesa. Tiene fama de haber aportado rigor cient\u00edfico a la investigaci\u00f3n criminal y de haber introducido innovaciones tales como una bal\u00edstica rudimentaria, los modelos de escayola de las huellas y una base centralizada de datos de criminales. En la \u00e9poca en que Poe escribi\u00f3 su relato, Vidocq segu\u00eda en activo en Par\u00eds, y servir\u00eda de inspiraci\u00f3n para el personaje de Jean Valjean en Los miserables de V\u00edctor Hugo. Las memorias de Vidocq, aunque muy fantasiosas, hab\u00edan sido un fen\u00f3meno editorial y una fuente de inspiraci\u00f3n para Poe. En Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, Dupin reconocer\u00eda su deuda, hablando de Vidocq como de un \u00abhombre intuitivo y perseverante\u00bb. No obstante, con caracter\u00edstica arrogancia, Dupin se consideraba superior, y argumentaba que Vidocq \u00abse equivocaba constantemente por la vehemencia con la que abordaba sus investigaciones. Entorpec\u00eda su visi\u00f3n al acercarse demasiado al objeto\u00bb.\n\nPese a la jactancia de Dupin, Poe era muy consciente de las limitaciones de su personaje. Unos pocos cr\u00edticos se\u00f1alaron que no hac\u00eda falta una gran habilidad para ofrecer una soluci\u00f3n a un misterio ideado por el propio autor. El mismo Poe sab\u00eda que la eficacia del relato, por muy ingenioso que fuese, ten\u00eda mucho que ver con que lo hubiese escrito \u00abhacia atr\u00e1s\u00bb, con la soluci\u00f3n pensada de antemano. Los verdaderos detectives como Vidocq no contaban con una soluci\u00f3n prevista para guiar sus investigaciones. \u00ab\u00bfD\u00f3nde radica el ingenio \u2013escribir\u00eda Poe\u2013 de desenmara\u00f1ar un enredo que uno mismo ha creado con el expreso deseo de desenmara\u00f1arlo? Se induce al lector a confundir el ingenio del ficticio Dupin con el del escritor del relato.\u00bb\n\nLa duda incomodaba a Poe. Por muy abstrusos que fueran, llevaba varios a\u00f1os cultivando su inter\u00e9s por misterios y enigmas reales, desde el desaf\u00edo planteado en sus art\u00edculos sobre criptograf\u00eda a su elucidaci\u00f3n paso a paso del misterio del turco ajedrecista. Ahora, empezaba a preguntarse si su reci\u00e9n definida ciencia de la \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb, personificada por Dupin, era aplicable a alg\u00fan secreto o inc\u00f3gnita m\u00e1s concretos, tal vez incluso a una investigaci\u00f3n criminal de verdad.\n\nFue en ese momento cuando encontraron el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers en Elysian Fields.\n8 El comit\u00e9 de ciudadanos preocupados\n\nEl caso de Mary Rogers estuvo ligado desde el primer momento a la suerte del Herald de James Gordon Bennett. Apenas un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s de publicar el primer n\u00famero en Wall Street, Bennett se mud\u00f3 a un nuevo edificio en Nassau Street, a unos pocos metros de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers. Todos los d\u00edas al salir de casa, Mary pod\u00eda o\u00edr el tronar de las rotativas de doble cilindro mientras imprim\u00edan la \u00faltima edici\u00f3n y ver el nombre del editor pintado en grandes letras may\u00fasculas sobre la fachada de ladrillo del edificio.\n\nQuiso el azar que uno de los periodistas de Bennett se hallara en Elysian Fields cuando apareci\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers, lo que permiti\u00f3 al peri\u00f3dico ofrecer una estremecedora descripci\u00f3n de primera mano de los rasgos \u00abgolpeados y machacados\u00bb de la difunta. \u00abSe nos encogi\u00f3 el coraz\u00f3n\u00bb, dec\u00eda el reportero. Los d\u00edas siguientes, mientras los funcionarios de las dos orillas del Hudson parec\u00edan sumidos en la desidia, el crimen sin resolver proporcion\u00f3 a Bennett una maza que blandir en nombre de la polic\u00eda y la reforma judicial. En el caso de Helen Jewett, Bennett se hab\u00eda visto obligado a guardar un extra\u00f1o equilibrio entre la compasi\u00f3n paternalista y la condena moral: la joven \u00abmerec\u00eda nuestro afecto y consideraci\u00f3n\u00bb, pero tambi\u00e9n hab\u00eda \u00abca\u00eddo en la abyecci\u00f3n\u00bb. Ninguna ambig\u00fcedad de ese tipo oscurec\u00eda el caso de Mary Rogers. Esta vez la v\u00edctima era un \u00abmodelo de virtud femenina\u00bb cuya muerte se alzaba como un \u00abamargo reproche\u00bb a todos los neoyorquinos bienpensantes.\n\nEl 3 de agosto de 1841, bajo el titular \u00abAsesinada una joven en Hoboken\u00bb, Bennett dispar\u00f3 su primera andanada. \u00abSe ha demostrado de manera fehaciente que la desdichada joven conocida como Mary Rogers (que hace tres a\u00f1os viv\u00eda con Anderson, el empresario de tabaco) ha sido cruelmente asesinada en Hoboken. No hab\u00eda sucedido nada tan horrible y brutal desde el asesinato de la se\u00f1orita Sands, que sirvi\u00f3 de inspiraci\u00f3n para la novela Norman Leslie.\u00bb Dicha referencia a la popular novela de Theodore Fay \u2013que hab\u00eda merecido aquel varapalo de Poe\u2013 debi\u00f3 de se\u00f1alar a los lectores un punto de referencia. Fay se hab\u00eda inspirado en el caso de Levi Weeks, a quien hab\u00edan defendido Alexander Hamilton y Aaron Burr en un sonado juicio celebrado en 1800 por el asesinato de Gulielma Sands. El caso de Mary Rogers, suger\u00eda Bennett, iba a ser igual de emocionante. Conclu\u00eda con una llamada a la acci\u00f3n: \u00abAhora corresponde a los alcaldes de Nueva York y Jersey cumplir con su deber\u00bb.\n\nAl d\u00eda siguiente Bennett volc\u00f3 su impaciencia contra Gilbert Merritt, el juez de paz de Hoboken, a quien confundi\u00f3 al principio con Richard Cook, el forense. \u00abLa preocupaci\u00f3n que reina en esta ciudad y en Hoboken a ra\u00edz del sanguinario y misterioso asesinato de Mary Rogers, y las multitudes que acuden a diario a la Cueva de la Sibila para contemplar el lugar del crimen y la orilla donde se descubri\u00f3 su cad\u00e1ver empiezan a atraer la atenci\u00f3n de las autoridades p\u00fablicas sobre este horrible ultraje contra una comunidad civilizada. El forense de Hoboken incluso ha salido de su letargo y ha publicado la siguiente nota:\n\nA ra\u00edz de la enorme, aunque justificada, preocupaci\u00f3n reinante en esta comunidad a prop\u00f3sito del misterioso y grave asesinato de Mary C. Rogers en Hoboken, y para responder de una vez por todas a las muchas preguntas que se me han formulado acerca de tan terrible tragedia, debo decir que no figura en mis deberes como magistrado suministrar informaci\u00f3n o responder a las preguntas de los curiosos. Por otro lado, considero el deber de cualquier individuo que tenga la menor consideraci\u00f3n por el bienestar de la sociedad y que se halle en posesi\u00f3n de alg\u00fan dato sobre el asunto informarme de cualquier hecho (por peregrino que pueda parecer) relativo a la desaparici\u00f3n y posterior asesinato de la v\u00edctima.\n\nEntretanto, puedo garantizar a quien proporcione dicha informaci\u00f3n que todo lo que diga ser\u00e1 considerado sagrado y confidencial hasta despu\u00e9s de un interrogatorio o de que se levante el secreto del sumario.\n\nRespetuosamente,\n\nGILBERT MERRITT, de Hoboken\u00bb.\n\nLa llamada a la sensatez de Merritt debi\u00f3 de parecer muy razonable a la mayor\u00eda de los lectores, pero Bennett andaba buscando pelea. \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 estupidez es \u00e9sta? \u2013dijo\u2013. Ha pasado ya casi una semana desde que se encontr\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver de esa hermosa y desdichada joven, y las autoridades judiciales no han tomado otra medida que una breve e ineficaz investigaci\u00f3n por parte de Gilbert Merritt. Se est\u00e1 permitiendo que uno de los asesinatos m\u00e1s atroces y despiadados jam\u00e1s perpetrados en Nueva York duerma el sue\u00f1o de los justos, para acabar enterrado en el profundo seno del Hudson.\u00bb\n\nBennett arremeti\u00f3 varios d\u00edas seguidos contra Merritt y Cook, acusando al primero de ser un bur\u00f3crata insensible y al segundo de ser un torpe idiota. Cuando llevaron el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers a Nueva York para proceder a una segunda autopsia, Bennett hab\u00eda desprestigiado hasta tal punto la labor de Cook que las autoridades de Nueva York se vieron obligadas a distanciarse de los anteriores hallazgos. No cab\u00eda duda de que el veredicto original de Cook de muerte por estrangulamiento era correcto, pero el doctor Archer, el forense de Nueva York, emiti\u00f3 un veredicto de muerte por ahogamiento, con la esperanza de escapar al desd\u00e9n de la prensa. \u00abEl doctor Archer establece el hecho de que todos los cad\u00e1veres encontrados en los r\u00edos que rodean la ciudad parecen, a primera vista, tener signos de violencia \u2013informaba el Atlas\u2013. Considera que la autopsia realizada en Hoboken no fue lo bastante cr\u00edtica y minuciosa para establecer ese hecho.\u00bb Es inevitable preguntarse qu\u00e9 dir\u00eda Cook de las observaciones de su colega, m\u00e1xime cuando \u00e9l mismo hab\u00eda basado en gran parte sus conclusiones en la tira de encaje que hab\u00eda encontrado anudada en torno al cuello de Mary Rogers. Es dudoso que todos los cad\u00e1veres encontrados en el Hudson tuviesen ese peculiar signo de violencia.\n\nEste detalle y muchos otros se pasaron por alto en un repentino aunque tard\u00edo alud de reportajes period\u00edsticos. Los editores neoyorquinos hab\u00edan aprendido la lecci\u00f3n del caso de Helen Jewett y tuvieron mucho cuidado de no dejar la historia de Mary Rogers exclusivamente en manos de Bennett y el Herald. A principios de agosto, despu\u00e9s de casi una semana de silencio por parte de la prensa, Mary Rogers se hab\u00eda convertido en una sensaci\u00f3n period\u00edstica, y la ciudad bull\u00eda de especulaciones disparatadas y a menudo contradictorias. The New Era, defensor de la rectitud moral, aventur\u00f3 la peculiar hip\u00f3tesis de que Mary Rogers fuera una suicida que se hubiera visto empujada a tal extremo por las \u00abinquietantes consecuencias\u00bb de haber ca\u00eddo en la senda del pecado. Igual que el Atlas, las columnas de los peri\u00f3dicos pasaron por alto que la hubiesen encontrado con una tira de encaje anudada en torno al cuello, un detalle que no suele darse en los suicidas.\n\nNada tiene de sorprendente que el Herald se dedicara a ridiculizar cualquier opini\u00f3n que no coincidiese con la de su director. La teor\u00eda del suicidio atrajo especialmente su desprecio por tratarse de \u00abuna absurda majader\u00eda\u00bb. Bennett supon\u00eda que a Mary la hab\u00edan asaltado unos \u00abtah\u00fares y rufianes\u00bb en clara alusi\u00f3n a las bandas de la ciudad que, seg\u00fan dijo, \u00abten\u00edan libertad para robar, violar y saquear con total impunidad, y convencidos de que las autoridades eran incapaces de inped\u00edrselo\u00bb. Bennett no fue el \u00fanico en culpar a las famosas bandas de Nueva York. \u00abHemos sometido nuestra libertad a esos animales demasiado tiempo \u2013declar\u00f3 el Sun\u2013. Es hora de que los ciudadanos bienpensantes pasen a la acci\u00f3n.\u00bb\n\nEl asesinato se hab\u00eda cometido en un momento cr\u00edtico en la evoluci\u00f3n de las bandas neoyorquinas. La crisis econ\u00f3mica y la creciente llegada de emigrantes irlandeses hab\u00edan creado una situaci\u00f3n muy inestable, se hab\u00edan forjado alianzas y librado batallas seg\u00fan los barrios, la nacionalidad y la ocupaci\u00f3n. Bandas con nombres tan llamativos y caracter\u00edsticos como los Hudson Dusters y los Chichesters empezaron a formar alianzas pol\u00edticas y a menudo intimidaban a los votantes y daban pucherazos en las elecciones, adem\u00e1s de servir de fuerza bruta en el cuerpo de bomberos voluntarios, que se disputaban unos a otros la recompensa y el bot\u00edn de su trabajo. \u00abLa ciudad est\u00e1 infestada de brutales malhechores \u2013escribi\u00f3 Philip Hone, el diarista y antiguo alcalde de Nueva York\u2013. Patrullan las calles, que por su culpa son muy peligrosas de noche, y asaltan a cualquiera que no pueda defenderse.\u00bb\n\nPara Hone, no cab\u00eda duda de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido \u00abv\u00edctima de la brutal lujuria de alguna de esas bandas de maleantes que campan a sus anchas y violan la ley con impunidad en esta ciudad tan moral y religiosa\u00bb. El Herald coincid\u00eda con \u00e9l e insist\u00eda en que a la joven la hab\u00eda \u00abraptado una banda de tah\u00fares y petimetres de pelo aceitoso\u00bb. Al tildar a los agresores de Mary de \u00abpetimetres de pelo aceitoso\u00bb, una alusi\u00f3n al cabello largo y engominado que luc\u00edan algunos de los malhechores m\u00e1s elegantes, Bennett estaba se\u00f1alando con el dedo a bandas de hombres al estilo de Frank Rivers, tambi\u00e9n conocidos como \u00abj\u00f3venes petimetres\u00bb, que trabajaban como empleados y oficiales de d\u00eda y merodeaban de noche por las calles, y frecuentaban una famosa taberna de Broadway. Esos hombres, cre\u00eda el Herald, \u00abtal vez llevaran semanas o meses planeando el crimen. Dada su relaci\u00f3n con el almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson y la proximidad de dicho establecimiento a ese nido de tah\u00fares, timadores, vagos y petimetres de pelo aceitoso donde tienen su cuartel general, parece m\u00e1s que probable que el crimen lo perpetraran varios miembros de esa cofrad\u00eda de malhechores\u00bb.\n\nEsta postura se\u00f1alaba un notable contraste con la que hab\u00eda tenido el Herald durante la investigaci\u00f3n del caso de Helen Jewett, y su defensa del sospechoso Richard Robinson como modelo de probidad juvenil. Como siempre, detr\u00e1s de los pronunciamientos p\u00fablicos de Bennett hab\u00eda una intenci\u00f3n oculta. Bennett llevaba a\u00f1os presionando en favor de una reforma judicial y condenando la falta de ley y orden tanto en Nueva York como en Nueva Jersey. El caso de Mary Rogers le procuraba una plataforma ideal desde la que reanudar su campa\u00f1a. Tambi\u00e9n le ofrec\u00eda la oportunidad de saldar cuentas con dos de sus enemigos pol\u00edticos m\u00e1s acerbos, los jueces Henry Lynch y, sobre todo, Mordecai Noah.\n\nFamoso patriota, el comandante Mordecai Manuel Noah hab\u00eda disfrutado de una vistosa carrera p\u00fablica como diplom\u00e1tico, autor teatral y jefe de alguaciles de Nueva York. A lo largo de su vida hab\u00eda dirigido seis peri\u00f3dicos, y estaba al tim\u00f3n de The New York Enquirer cuando Bennett empez\u00f3 a destacar como corresponsal en Washington. Las cordiales relaciones entre los dos hombres empezaron a enturbiarse cuando Bennett dej\u00f3 el peri\u00f3dico y se volvieron a\u00fan m\u00e1s tensas cuando fund\u00f3 el Herald para competir con \u00e9l. Noah se hab\u00eda unido a la \u00abguerra moral\u00bb contra Bennett y se dec\u00eda que hab\u00eda investigado las acusaciones de chantaje contra \u00e9l en el caso de Helen Jewett.\n\nEn mayo de 1840 las marruller\u00edas pol\u00edticas municipales condujeron a la creaci\u00f3n de dos nuevos juzgados en el Tribunal Especial de Nueva York. Los nombramientos eran pol\u00edticos y Lynch y Noah, como fieles apoyos del partido whig, se vieron de pronto encumbrados a la magistratura. Furioso, Bennett ridiculiz\u00f3 la cualificaci\u00f3n de ambos hombres y llen\u00f3 su peri\u00f3dico de art\u00edculos sobre la ineptitud de Noah. El nuevo juez, afirmaba Bennett, se ocupaba s\u00f3lo de delitos menores, como el robo de unos cerdos, a fin de cobrar m\u00e1s f\u00e1cilmente las tasas judiciales, y hac\u00eda la vista gorda con los delitos m\u00e1s graves. \u00abCuando se comete un delito menor \u2013dec\u00eda\u2013 se desata la indignaci\u00f3n del tribunal, y, si un pobre desdichado muerto de hambre roba una gallina o un poco de ropa, se le lleva al Tribunal Especial y se le manda a picar piedra; pero, cuando a alguien se le priva brusca y despiadadamente de la existencia, vemos a los jueces cruzarse de brazos, esperando a que alguien ofrezca una recompensa, antes de ponerse tras la pista de los asesinos. Este sistema ofrece impunidad a todo tipo de rufianes, extiende un paraguas protector sobre quienes atentan contra la virtud femenina y en muchos casos funciona como est\u00edmulo de unos ultrajes que har\u00edan estremecer a cualquiera.\u00bb\n\nNoah, por su parte, se veng\u00f3 desde el estrado, escudri\u00f1ando los art\u00edculos de Bennett sobre los procedimientos judiciales en busca de errores o discrepancias para poder acusarlo mediante tretas de difamaci\u00f3n e imponerle multas de hasta quinientos d\u00f3lares. En cierta ocasi\u00f3n, Bennett tuvo que pagar una multa por escribir mal el nombre de una persona: se hab\u00eda equivocado s\u00f3lo en una letra.\n\nLa muerte de Mary Rogers parec\u00eda ofrecer a Bennett la oportunidad de saldar cuentas. Cuando se destap\u00f3 el caso, la polic\u00eda y los jueces daban la impresi\u00f3n de vivir empantanados en la burocracia. El Herald inici\u00f3 un ataque furibundo:\n\nLa terrible y reciente violaci\u00f3n y asesinato de una joven, el impenetrable misterio que envuelve el crimen, la apat\u00eda de los jueces sentados con sus orondos traseros en el tribunal y la total ineficacia de la polic\u00eda est\u00e1n devolviendo a esta gran ciudad al primitivo estado de barbarie, sin ley, sin orden y sin la menor garant\u00eda. Apenas han pasado unos d\u00edas desde que vimos a M. M. Noah arrellanarse en su sill\u00f3n y enumerar con mucha seriedad ante los miembros del jurado las graves obligaciones que ten\u00eda que cumplir al procesar a criminales menores por robar ropa vieja, gallinas o cualquier otra cosa, mientras la sangre de Mary Rogers clama venganza desde las profundidades del Hudson sin que ese \u00abjuez tan recto y venerable\u00bb haya dicho nada, ni inclinado su peluca ni se\u00f1alado a nadie con el dedo. Este y otros jueces parecidos agotan sus fuerzas y facultades \u2013toda su ley y su evangelio\u2013 en procesar a un peri\u00f3dico por el terrible delito de equivocarse al informar de un juicio contra un ladr\u00f3n de un kilo de carne de cerdo y unas bolsas de caf\u00e9, pero el juez Noah no puede perder el tiempo si le han arrebatado el honor y la vida a una mujer virtuosa, joven respetable y encantadora, hija \u00fanica de una madre anciana... y el juez Lynch est\u00e1 tan ocupado redactando procedimientos de habeas corpus (para cobrar las tasas de diez y quince d\u00f3lares) que tampoco puede molestar a la polic\u00eda o al jurado por la simple violaci\u00f3n y asesinato de una joven normal y corriente.\n\nComo ejemplo de la decadencia de la ciudad, Bennett se remontaba al asesinato de Helen Jewett y acusaba a las autoridades de haber permitido que Richard Robinson, a quien ahora llamaba secamente \u00abel asesino\u00bb, se les hubiera escapado entre los dedos. \u00abLa administraci\u00f3n de justicia en esta ciudad \u2013declaraba\u2013 se ha ganado a pulso, d\u00eda a d\u00eda y semana a semana, nuestro desprecio.\u00bb Llevado por la indignaci\u00f3n, olvidaba que \u00e9l hab\u00eda sido decisivo en la liberaci\u00f3n de Robinson.\n\nAunque es posible que sus argumentos no fuesen del todo sinceros, la c\u00f3lera de Bennett inflam\u00f3 el coraz\u00f3n de sus lectores, y lo que hab\u00eda empezado como una venganza personal enseguida se extendi\u00f3 a los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos. Aunque cada diario ten\u00eda su propia teor\u00eda sobre lo que le hab\u00eda ocurrido a Mary Rogers, todos coincid\u00edan en reprochar a la polic\u00eda y los jueces el incumplimiento de sus obligaciones. \u00abNadie dar\u00e1 un paso hasta que no se ofrezca una recompensa \u2013tronaba el Herald\u2013, y, aunque tuviesen alguna pista que condujese a la resoluci\u00f3n del misterio, guardar\u00e1n el secreto, como un capital, hasta que la indignaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica haya reunido una suma lo suficientemente alta para que les compense sacar los hechos a la luz del d\u00eda.\u00bb\n\nLa segunda semana de agosto, sin el menor indicio de que Nueva York o Nueva Jersey fuesen a ofrecer una recompensa, Bennett decidi\u00f3 forzar las cosas. Bajo el titular \u00abUna reuni\u00f3n p\u00fablica\u00bb, pidi\u00f3 que se reuniese un \u00abcomit\u00e9 de seguridad\u00bb para recaudar fondos: \u00abEs in\u00fatil clamar que los jueces pongan coto a la plaga que ha llegado a nuestras puertas: la comunidad \u2013o al menos su facci\u00f3n m\u00e1s virtuosa\u2013 debe actuar por s\u00ed misma. Que se celebre una reuni\u00f3n p\u00fablica y se abra una suscripci\u00f3n para ofrecer una recompensa por la captura de los asesinos de Mary Rogers. Nosotros contribuiremos con CINCUENTA D\u00d3LARES y no nos cabe la menor duda de que en menos de veinticuatro horas se habr\u00e1n recaudado mil, que se entregar\u00e1n al alcalde de Nueva York como est\u00edmulo para su en\u00e9rgica e infatigable pol\u00edtica de favorecer el emporio comercial e intelectual de Estados Unidos. De lo contrario, ninguna mujer estar\u00e1 a salvo\u00bb.\n\nBennett hab\u00eda dado un paso muy arriesgado. La \u00abguerra moral\u00bb lo hab\u00eda convertido en un paria y hab\u00eda unido a sus competidores en un intento de expulsarlo de la profesi\u00f3n. Todos los directores de peri\u00f3dico de la ciudad ten\u00edan motivos para despreciarlo, aunque no todos le hab\u00edan escupido en la garganta como James Watson Webb. Bennett hab\u00eda tachado de \u00abdescre\u00eddo\u00bb a Benjamin Day \u2013el anterior director de The Sun, que ahora dirig\u00eda The Tattler\u2013, y hab\u00eda dicho de su cu\u00f1ado Moses Beach, que hab\u00eda accedido a la direcci\u00f3n del Sun en 1838, que \u00abten\u00eda menos cerebro que una ostra\u00bb. De Park Benjamin, del Evening Signal, que padec\u00eda una discapacidad f\u00edsica que le afectaba a las piernas, hab\u00eda llegado a afirmar que hab\u00eda sufrido \u00abel azote del monstruo\u00bb. Horace Greeley, del Tribune, que en una ocasi\u00f3n hab\u00eda llamado a Bennett \u00abtonto de remate\u00bb, hab\u00eda sido objeto de un desprecio mayor: \u00abIns\u00faflese vida a una calabaza de Nueva Inglaterra y ser\u00e1 un director de peri\u00f3dico tan capaz como Greeley\u00bb. Ahora, no s\u00f3lo sus rivales sino los ciudadanos m\u00e1s prominentes de Nueva York tendr\u00edan que alinearse con \u00e9l y el Herald. De lo contrario, parecer\u00eda que se opon\u00edan a una causa que en toda apariencia era noble y desinteresada.\n\nBajo la bandera del deber c\u00edvico, las partes enfrentadas firmaron una inc\u00f3moda tregua. La tarde del 11 de agosto, Horace Greeley, Moses Beach y Park Benjamin se presentaron muy sumisos en casa de James Stoneall en Ann Street, a la vuelta de la esquina de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers. No se sabe si asisti\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n Benjamin Day, pues entre los treinta y cinco invitados hab\u00eda varios \u00abamigos an\u00f3nimos\u00bb, pero la lista oficial inclu\u00eda a Richard Adams Locke, que hab\u00eda disparado el n\u00famero de lectores de Day con su \u00abgran bulo lunar\u00bb. Adem\u00e1s de editores y periodistas, a la reuni\u00f3n asistieron varios pol\u00edticos en alza como Caleb Woodhull, que pronto ser\u00eda elegido alcalde, y el concejal Elijah Purdy, que hab\u00eda autorizado la segunda autopsia en nombre del alcalde Morris que estaba ausente.\n\nBennett era demasiado listo para presidir la reuni\u00f3n: se qued\u00f3 en segundo plano y dej\u00f3 las formalidades a William Attree, un experimentado periodista que hab\u00eda cubierto el caso de Helen Jewett para el Transcript y ahora estaba investigando el caso del asesinato de Mary Rogers para Bennett. Attree llam\u00f3 a los presentes al orden y supervis\u00f3 el nombramiento de un interventor y un secretario. Luego hubo un turno abierto de palabra en el que varios de los presentes se pusieron en pie y expresaron su inquietud por el destino de Mary Rogers. Estos \u00aberuditos y elocuentes\u00bb discursos duraron casi tres horas. Entretanto, Bennett estaba pl\u00e1cidamente sentado al fondo de la sala, asintiendo cada vez que los oradores ocupaban su lugar en el estrado.\n\nPocos minutos antes de las diez, cuando el \u00faltimo de los discursos parec\u00eda a punto de concluir, Bennett se puso en pie y le hizo un gesto a Attree. El joven periodista se adelant\u00f3 para proseguir con el principal asunto de la tarde: la recaudaci\u00f3n de fondos con el fin de ofrecer una recompensa \u00abpor la detenci\u00f3n de cualquier persona o personas implicadas en el asesinato\u00bb. Antes de pasar a esta cuesti\u00f3n tan vital, Attree hizo una pausa y contempl\u00f3 los rostros de los asistentes, muchos de ellos a\u00fan acalorados por la oratoria de la tarde. \u00bfNo ser\u00eda m\u00e1s prudente, se pregunt\u00f3, redactar un comunicado de los nobles sentimientos expresados por la asamblea, para dejar constancia de su preocupaci\u00f3n? \u00bfUna lista de resoluciones tal vez? De hecho, explic\u00f3 Attree, se hab\u00eda tomado la libertad de tomar algunas notas en el curso de la tarde. Desplegando una hoja de papel, se aclar\u00f3 la garganta y empez\u00f3 a leer.\n\nHuelga decir que las propuestas de Attree, aunque se presentaran como un resumen de los discursos de la tarde, de hecho eran una repetici\u00f3n punto por punto de los editoriales de la semana anterior del Herald, escritos por el propio Bennett. Tampoco parece sorprendente que sirvieran para expresar su \u00abhorror y preocupaci\u00f3n\u00bb por el asesinato y para deplorar \u00abla aparente apat\u00eda que ha caracterizado a los principales magistrados de los estados de Nueva York y Nueva Jersey\u00bb. Llevados por la emocionante ret\u00f3rica de la noche, el autodenominado Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad vot\u00f3 de forma un\u00e1nime adoptar dichas resoluciones.\n\nFue una jugada maestra de Bennett. De hecho, se las hab\u00eda arreglado para que un buen n\u00famero de los hombres m\u00e1s poderosos de Nueva York apoyaran su venganza personal contra Mordecai Noah. Aunque no se hubiesen pronunciado los nombres de Noah y Lynch, la referencia al \u00abpatronazgo pol\u00edtico entre nuestros jueces\u00bb ten\u00eda exactamente ese prop\u00f3sito. A finales de esa semana, muchos de los rivales de Bennett publicar\u00edan las resoluciones completas y contribuir\u00edan a extender la influencia del Herald m\u00e1s all\u00e1 del abismo hasta entonces insalvable que separaba la prensa de un centavo y los peri\u00f3dicos de tama\u00f1o s\u00e1bana.\n\nUna vez cumplida su misi\u00f3n, Attree pas\u00f3 r\u00e1pidamente a recaudar el dinero de la recompensa. Tal como hab\u00eda prometido, Bennett contribuy\u00f3 con cincuenta d\u00f3lares, frente a los cinco de Greeley y los dos que aportaron respectivamente Beach y Benjamin. Uno de los \u00abamigos\u00bb an\u00f3nimos contribuy\u00f3 con otros cincuenta d\u00f3lares, lo que indica que al menos uno de los ricos y poderosos que asistieron aquella noche tem\u00eda criticar en p\u00fablico al Ayuntamiento.\n\nJohn Anderson, el joven propietario del almac\u00e9n de tabaco donde hab\u00eda trabajado Mary Rogers, tambi\u00e9n estaba presente en casa de Stoneall esa noche. Se sab\u00eda que le hab\u00eda afectado mucho el asesinato de su antigua empleada. Seg\u00fan algunas versiones hab\u00eda mandado colocar un retrato de Mary Rogers con una franja de luto en el escaparate y se llevaba la mano al coraz\u00f3n cada vez que alguien pronunciaba su nombre. Esa tarde no habl\u00f3 mucho, declin\u00f3 dirigirse al grupo cuando se lo ofrecieron y dio la impresi\u00f3n de estar pensativo y abstra\u00eddo durante los discursos. Cuando empezaron a recoger los donativos, no obstante, se incorpor\u00f3 en su silla y ech\u00f3 mano a la cartera. Al o\u00edr su nombre, respondi\u00f3 con una contribuci\u00f3n de cincuenta d\u00f3lares. Su generosidad despert\u00f3 gritos de admiraci\u00f3n, pero Anderson se limit\u00f3 a indicar con un gesto que no hac\u00eda m\u00e1s que cumplir con su obligaci\u00f3n.\n\nEl grupo se despidi\u00f3 en una atm\u00f3sfera de \u00abp\u00fablica resoluci\u00f3n\u00bb, seg\u00fan el Transcript, despu\u00e9s de recaudar m\u00e1s de quinientos d\u00f3lares para la recompensa. No obstante, a pesar de semejante demostraci\u00f3n de unidad p\u00fablica, los peri\u00f3dicos reanudaron sus escaramuzas casi de inmediato. Moses Beach atac\u00f3 a Bennett por utilizar la muerte de Mary Rogers como plataforma publicitaria. En su opini\u00f3n, la reuni\u00f3n hab\u00eda cometido un sacrilegio al sugerir que los funcionarios municipales no estaban cumpliendo con su deber. Bennett no tard\u00f3 en reprocharle su \u00abbrutal ataque\u00bb a los nobles motivos de sus conciudadanos, y le pregunt\u00f3 por qu\u00e9, si encontraba tan desagradables las intenciones del comit\u00e9, hab\u00eda contribuido con \u00e9l. No olvid\u00f3 se\u00f1alar hasta d\u00f3nde hab\u00eda llegado la generosidad de Beach \u2013dos d\u00f3lares\u2013 antes de preguntar: \u00ab\u00bfA qui\u00e9n se los habr\u00e1 robado?\u00bb.\n\nAunque se concert\u00f3 una reuni\u00f3n del Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad para la tarde del d\u00eda siguiente, no hay pruebas de que se llegase a ninguna decisi\u00f3n, aparte de discutir el asunto entre oporto y cigarros. Al cabo de pocos d\u00edas, no obstante, la publicidad que rode\u00f3 el ofrecimiento de la recompensa oblig\u00f3 a William Seward, el gobernador de Nueva York, a tomar cartas en el asunto. El 31 de agosto Seward, que despu\u00e9s ser\u00eda secretario de Estado de Abraham Lincoln, emiti\u00f3 un comunicado oficial sobre la joven \u00abrecientemente ultrajada y asesinada\u00bb y agradeci\u00f3 los esfuerzos de la polic\u00eda por llevar a los criminales ante la justicia. El documento continuaba: \u00abExijo a todos los magistrados y dem\u00e1s funcionarios de la administraci\u00f3n de justicia que sean diligentes a la hora de condenar y castigar a dichos criminales\u00bb. Admitiendo t\u00e1citamente el probable fracaso de tal diligencia, Seward a\u00f1adi\u00f3 750 d\u00f3lares de dinero estatal a la recompensa particular, y elev\u00f3 as\u00ed el total a 1.350 d\u00f3lares.\n\nFue una aut\u00e9ntica reprimenda a los funcionarios del Ayuntamiento de Nueva York y reflejaba el temor de Seward de que los asuntos policiales y judiciales pesaran mucho en las pr\u00f3ximas elecciones. A pesar de este gesto conciliador, el Herald no se dej\u00f3 impresionar. \u00abEl gobernador Seward despierta\u00bb, dec\u00eda el titular de la noticia. Pese a admitir que \u00abning\u00fan otro gobernador hab\u00eda hecho m\u00e1s que \u00e9l\u00bb, Bennett no pudo resistirse a destacar que hab\u00eda sido su administraci\u00f3n la que hab\u00eda \u00abnombrado a dos viejos politicastros como Noah y Lynch\u00bb. Se mostraba, en cambio, m\u00e1s conciliador con el dinero de la recompensa: \u00abSi la presente recompensa, unida a la ofrecida por el pueblo, sirve para descubrir a los asesinos, diremos: \"Bienvenida sea\"\u00bb.\n\nNo es muy probable que el editorial de Bennett arrancara muchos v\u00edtores en la mansi\u00f3n del gobernador. Al referirse a la promesa de Seward de actuar para restaurar \u00abla paz y el orden en la sociedad\u00bb, Bennett ofrec\u00eda una brusca respuesta: \u00abM\u00e1s vale tarde que nunca\u00bb.\n9 Un notorio canalla\n\nJusto despu\u00e9s de las diez de la noche del 5 de agosto de 1841, un alguacil neoyorquino al frente de un grupo de polic\u00edas subi\u00f3 por la pasarela a bordo del North Carolina, un barco anclado en el muelle de la marina de Brooklyn. Los hombres se dirigieron a la cubierta inferior y sacaron de su litera a William Kiekuck, de veintid\u00f3s a\u00f1os. Esposaron al joven marinero y lo metieron a empujones en un carruaje que esperaba en el puerto. Al cabo de una hora estaba en la comisar\u00eda de Bowery, sometido a lo que el Sun denominar\u00eda \u00abun largo y minucioso interrogatorio por parte del juez\u00bb.\n\nLa detenci\u00f3n de Kiekuck, una de las muchas que se efectuaron una semana antes de que se reuniera el Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad de James Gordon Bennett, indicaba que la polic\u00eda no hab\u00eda estado mano sobre mano como insinuaban los peri\u00f3dicos. Al mismo tiempo, probaba que los hallazgos del doctor Richard Cook no hab\u00edan ca\u00eddo en saco roto. Pese a que se hab\u00eda calificado su labor de inexperta y poco profesional, las conclusiones del forense hab\u00edan llevado a la polic\u00eda directamente hasta Kiekuck de un modo que habr\u00eda encajado a la perfecci\u00f3n en uno de los cuentos de \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb de Poe.\n\nEn Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, publicado apenas tres meses antes, C. Auguste Dupin, el detective de Poe, hab\u00eda concedido mucha importancia al hallazgo de un trozo de tela anudado de un modo \u00abque pocas personas que no sean marineros conocen\u00bb. La investigaci\u00f3n neoyorquina hab\u00eda discurrido por cauces similares. El doctor Cook hab\u00eda insistido en que Mary Rogers llevaba el sombrero atado a la cabeza con un nudo muy particular. Insisti\u00f3 en que no era un nudo como los que hac\u00edan las se\u00f1oras, sino m\u00e1s bien \u00abun nudo corredizo... un nudo marinero\u00bb. Adem\u00e1s afirm\u00f3 que la tira de tela arrancada del vestido de Mary se hab\u00eda anudado con \u00abuna especie de vuelta de cabo\u00bb, presumiblemente para utilizarla como asa al arrastrar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el r\u00edo. En opini\u00f3n de Cook, tales detalles indicaban que, con toda probabilidad, el asesino de Mary Rogers era un marinero. Cuando los polic\u00edas neoyorquinos se enteraron de que entre los hu\u00e9spedes de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers hab\u00eda habido un joven marinero, creyeron haber dado con su hombre.\n\nKiekuck admiti\u00f3 haber conocido a Mary Rogers. Se hab\u00eda alojado en la pensi\u00f3n de Nassau Street unas dos semanas el a\u00f1o anterior, mientras estaba de permiso. Cuando le preguntaron por la naturaleza exacta de su relaci\u00f3n con Mary, neg\u00f3 haberla cortejado: \u00abLejos de haber intimado con ella \u2013informar\u00eda el Courier and Enquirer\u2013, no hab\u00eda salido nunca con ella\u00bb. No obstante, su relaci\u00f3n era lo bastante estrecha para que tres semanas antes del asesinato, el 3 de julio, pasara por la pensi\u00f3n a visitarla.\n\nPese a las declaraciones de Kiekuck, la polic\u00eda ten\u00eda buenos motivos para abrigar sospechas. Se supo que el mi\u00e9rcoles 28 de julio, el d\u00eda en que se hall\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver de Mary, Kiekuck hab\u00eda subido a bordo del North Carolina en un estado de gran agitaci\u00f3n. \u00abA diferencia de los dem\u00e1s marineros \u2013observaba el Courier\u2013, parec\u00eda tener muchas ganas de subir a bordo\u00bb, y dio a sus superiores la impresi\u00f3n de estar huyendo de algo. \u00abSu comportamiento \u2013afirm\u00f3 uno de los alguaciles\u2013 fue decididamente curioso.\u00bb\n\nAunque los investigadores carec\u00edan de pruebas para acusar a Kiekuck, consideraron que hab\u00eda motivos para retenerlo una temporada en el Centro Masculino de Detenci\u00f3n de Manhattan en Centre Street. Conocido como \u00ablas Tumbas\u00bb por su arquitectura de estilo egipcio en granito blanco, la principal prisi\u00f3n de Nueva York s\u00f3lo ten\u00eda seis a\u00f1os, pero ya se hab\u00eda ganado una temible reputaci\u00f3n. Abarrotada y dotada de poco personal, albergaba \u00abtanto a justos como a pecadores \u2013seg\u00fan una fuente\u2013, pues era bien conocido que la mera perspectiva de tener que pasar all\u00ed una temporada pod\u00eda arrancar una confesi\u00f3n de un hombre inocente\u00bb.\n\nAl parecer, Kiekuck lo soport\u00f3 con estoicismo y resisti\u00f3 todas las presiones para obligarle a confesar. Cuando se supo que estaba detenido sin que se hubiesen presentado cargos formales, se emiti\u00f3 un comunicado diciendo que lo hab\u00edan trasladado a las Tumbas a petici\u00f3n propia \u00abhasta que las autoridades se convencieran de su inocencia\u00bb. Aunque las palabras elegidas eran cautas, la polic\u00eda estaba convencida de haber atrapado a su hombre. Todas sus energ\u00edas se concentraban ahora en establecer la culpabilidad del marinero.\n\nNo obstante, al cabo de veinticuatro horas, cualquier esperanza de una r\u00e1pida resoluci\u00f3n del misterio se hab\u00eda desvanecido. En los d\u00edas previos a la detenci\u00f3n de Kiekuck, varios testigos hab\u00edan afirmado haber visto a Mary en Broadway en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un joven \u00aba quien parec\u00eda conocer bien\u00bb, seg\u00fan el Courier. Cuando los llevaron a las Tumbas, estos testigos no reconocieron a Kiekuck. \u00abSe llev\u00f3 all\u00ed a varias personas con ese prop\u00f3sito \u2013inform\u00f3 el Herald\u2013, pero ninguna de ellas lo reconoci\u00f3.\u00bb Tras nuevos interrogatorios, la mayor\u00eda de los testigos admitieron no estar seguros de que la joven a la que hab\u00edan visto fuese Mary Rogers.\n\nLa acusaci\u00f3n contra Kiekuck se debilit\u00f3 a\u00fan m\u00e1s cuando el marinero ofreci\u00f3 un relato detallado de sus movimientos los d\u00edas de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary. Hab\u00eda llegado a Nueva York la noche anterior y hab\u00eda pasado la mayor parte del tiempo en casa de su hermana, con quien estuvo desayunando la ma\u00f1ana del domingo en que se vio por \u00faltima vez a Mary en la pensi\u00f3n. Despu\u00e9s Kiekuck hab\u00eda estado con amigos, nadando en el r\u00edo Hudson, bebiendo en una taberna y disfrutando de la compa\u00f1\u00eda \u00abde una joven a quien conoc\u00eda\u00bb en Five Points. M\u00e1s de una docena de testigos, incluida a la chica, confirmaron la veracidad de su declaraci\u00f3n. Despu\u00e9s de tenerlo tres d\u00edas detenido, lo pusieron en libertad.\n\nNo se dio ninguna explicaci\u00f3n al aparente nerviosismo de Kiekuck tras el descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver de Mary ni a sus prisas por volver a bordo. La polic\u00eda volver\u00eda a interrogarlo varias veces, pero de momento no vieron motivos para retenerlo. \u00abSi ocurriera algo que hiciese necesaria su presencia, es f\u00e1cil encontrarlo a bordo del barco \u2013observ\u00f3 el Courier\u2013, pero fuentes bien informadas del tribunal y especializadas en la captura de criminales consideran que esta persona es totalmente inocente.\u00bb\n\nA medida que se evaporaba la acusaci\u00f3n contra Kiekuck, la polic\u00eda se vio obligada a extender sus redes en busca de otros sospechosos. Las cosas se complicaron a\u00fan m\u00e1s cuando las noticias sobre el asesinato llegaron a primera plana de los peri\u00f3dicos, los cuales empezaron a recibir docenas de avisos an\u00f3nimos y cartas de personas que afirmaban estar en posesi\u00f3n de informaci\u00f3n relevante. Muchas de dichas acusaciones demostraron ser falsas o claramente malintencionadas. \u00abA veces las cartas an\u00f3nimas dicen la verdad \u2013declaraba un informante an\u00f3nimo\u2013: E. Keyser, domiciliado en el 43 de Washington Street, sabe algo sobre el asesinato de M. C. Rogers... Har\u00edan ustedes bien en investigarlo.\u00bb El se\u00f1or Keyser result\u00f3 ser un hombre envuelto en una desagradable disputa con un vecino por una deuda impagada.\n\nMuchos periodistas de la ciudad tambi\u00e9n se creyeron obligados a proporcionar pistas a la polic\u00eda. \u00abPREG\u00daNTENLE A \u00c9L\u00bb, rezaba un titular del Transcript, seguido por esta informaci\u00f3n: \u00abUn joven llamado Canter del Journal of Commerce fue uno de los pretendientes de Mary C. Rogers y acostumbraba a salir con ella. Hace un a\u00f1o le dieron una paliza tres o cuatro de sus rivales para que dejase de ir a verla. Todav\u00eda no se le ha preguntado qui\u00e9n m\u00e1s ten\u00eda el h\u00e1bito de ir a visitarla\u00bb. No era mal consejo, pues Canter hab\u00eda desempe\u00f1ado cierto papel en la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary del almac\u00e9n de tabaco tres a\u00f1os antes, y cab\u00eda la posibilidad de que fuese el autor del extra\u00f1o y chistoso art\u00edculo sobre la desesperaci\u00f3n suicida de la chica por culpa de un \u00abalegre y galante Romeo\u00bb. No obstante, cuando se le llev\u00f3 a comisar\u00eda, el periodista no pudo a\u00f1adir ning\u00fan dato a la investigaci\u00f3n. Afirm\u00f3 no haberla visto desde hac\u00eda m\u00e1s de dos a\u00f1os.\n\nOtra carta an\u00f3nima, dirigida al Tattler, pero publicada por muchos otros peri\u00f3dicos, parec\u00eda mucho m\u00e1s prometedora. El autor, que se identificaba s\u00f3lo con las siglas T.D.W., explicaba: \u00abHe declinado acudir a la polic\u00eda por prudencia, e incluso ahora no me atrevo a revelar mi nombre, porque temo que, en caso de hacerlo, podr\u00eda acabar siendo v\u00edctima de una banda, que son muy poderosas y siempre procuran vengarse de cualquier da\u00f1o que se haga a cualquiera de sus miembros\u00bb. A pesar de sus reservas, T.D.W. se sent\u00eda obligado a hacer acopio de valor e informar de un incidente que hab\u00eda presenciado el d\u00eda de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary. Mientras paseaba esa noche por las orillas de Hoboken, hab\u00eda visto un bote de remo que cruzaba el Hudson procedente de Nueva York. Cuando la embarcaci\u00f3n se aproxim\u00f3 a la orilla, repar\u00f3 en que \u00aba bordo iban seis hombres y una joven bien vestida, que, a juzgar por la descripci\u00f3n y por el recuerdo que yo mismo guardo de ella, no me cabe duda de que era la cigarrera. Nada m\u00e1s llegar a la playa, los seis hombres y la mujer desembarcaron y se dirigieron al bosque\u00bb. Eso despert\u00f3 casi en el acto sus sospechas. Los hombres, observ\u00f3, ten\u00edan \u00abaspecto pendenciero, como los que merodean a las puertas de las tabernas, llevan sombrero de ala estrecha y se comportan con vulgar indiferencia\u00bb. Con creciente aprensi\u00f3n vio c\u00f3mo el grupo desaparec\u00eda de la vista. \u00abNo puede decirse que la joven se resistiera \u2013admit\u00eda\u2013. M\u00e1s bien creo lo contrario, o lo habr\u00eda notado... pero lo cierto es que la vi.\u00bb\n\nSin saber muy bien qu\u00e9 hacer, T.D.W. vio llegar a un segundo bote a toda velocidad. \u00abEn \u00e9ste iban tres hombres \u2013observ\u00f3\u2013 y cuando llegaron a la orilla saltaron a tierra con gran precipitaci\u00f3n.\u00bb Los reci\u00e9n llegados vieron a dos personas que paseaban cerca de all\u00ed y corrieron a preguntarles por el paradero del otro grupo que iba con la joven. \u00ab\u00bfSe han fijado en si la llevaban por la fuerza?\u00bb, preguntaron. A pesar de que les aseguraron que la chica parec\u00eda encontrarse bien, los reci\u00e9n llegados parec\u00edan muy nerviosos y se dirigieron al bosque \u00abcasi a la carrera\u00bb.\n\n\u00abEs lo \u00fanico que s\u00e9 sobre este asunto \u2013insist\u00eda T.D.W.\u2013, aunque estoy firmemente convencido de que la joven que lleg\u00f3 en el primer bote era la cigarrera, a quien asesinaron brutalmente pocas horas despu\u00e9s.\u00bb Los editores del Tattler coincidieron con \u00e9l, expresaron su esperanza de que se decidiera a colaborar con la polic\u00eda y declararon que tratar\u00edan de obligarle a hacerlo con \u00abtodos los medios a nuestro alcance\u00bb. Al parecer, dichos medios fueron m\u00e1s que suficientes, pues al d\u00eda siguiente se supo que T.D.W. era un tal William Fanshaw, un hombre que viv\u00eda en la zona y ese d\u00eda hab\u00eda salido a pasear con su cu\u00f1ado. Aunque Fanshaw afirm\u00f3 estar \u00abpreocupado y molesto\u00bb por la revelaci\u00f3n de su identidad, sigui\u00f3 manteniendo que todos los detalles de su historia eran ciertos.\n\nLos peri\u00f3dicos de la ciudad se unieron para solicitar informaci\u00f3n sobre los ocupantes del bote, con la notable excepci\u00f3n del Herald. \u00abDebe de haber alg\u00fan error en su declaraci\u00f3n \u2013observar\u00eda el peri\u00f3dico de Bennett, tal vez molesto porque el Tattler le hubiese pisado la exclusiva\u2013. El domingo de la tarde en cuesti\u00f3n se produjo una violenta tormenta que empez\u00f3 antes del atardecer y no despej\u00f3 hasta las diez en punto de la noche.\u00bb El Herald conclu\u00eda que era imposible que la joven del bote fuese la cigarrera. \u00abEl rostro de Mary Rogers era bien conocido para todos los \"j\u00f3venes de la ciudad\" que la hubieran visto en el almac\u00e9n de Anderson. Si ese d\u00eda hubiese estado en Hoboken, la habr\u00edan visto docenas de personas que sin duda la habr\u00edan reconocido.\u00bb\n\nLas objeciones de Bennett no desacreditaban totalmente la declaraci\u00f3n de Fanshaw. Si a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan llevado directamente del bote al interior del bosque, dif\u00edcilmente podr\u00edan haberla reconocido docenas de personas. En cuanto a la tormenta, los informes de la hora a la que empez\u00f3 y despej\u00f3 variaban mucho de un sitio a otro, como se\u00f1alaron enseguida varios lectores. Antes de que la discusi\u00f3n pudiera ir mucho m\u00e1s all\u00e1, se present\u00f3 a declarar una chica de quince a\u00f1os que se identific\u00f3 como la joven que viajaba en el primer bote. Insisti\u00f3 en que la historia de su \u00absecuestro\u00bb se hab\u00eda exagerado mucho. Hab\u00eda salido de excursi\u00f3n con sus padres y un \u00abjoven conocido suyo\u00bb que la llev\u00f3 de paseo junto al r\u00edo. Cerca de la orilla les asaltaron unos sinverg\u00fcenzas que iban en un bote, golpearon a su amigo y se la llevaron a ella. Mientras el joven corr\u00eda en busca de refuerzos, \u00abel grupo de facinerosos\u00bb la llev\u00f3 a los bosques de Elysian Fields, donde la hab\u00edan maltratado y asustado mucho, pero no violado. Al cabo de un rato, afirm\u00f3, los j\u00f3venes la acompa\u00f1aron a Nueva York en el bote.\n\nEsta declaraci\u00f3n tendr\u00eda que haber puesto punto final a la historia, pero la idea de que a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan asesinado los miembros de alguna banda que iba en un bote perdurar\u00eda bajo diversas formas las semanas venideras. A juzgar por el n\u00famero de testimonios que se acumularon a lo largo del mes de agosto, las bandas de Nueva York empleaban una nutrida flotilla de botes en su incesante acoso a la virtud femenina. Esos informes abundantes, y a veces contradictorios, desembocar\u00edan pocas semanas despu\u00e9s en una \u00abexclusiva\u00bb en las p\u00e1ginas del Post, donde se anunci\u00f3 la detenci\u00f3n de \u00abun notorio canalla\u00bb llamado James Finnegan, gracias a una informaci\u00f3n que \u00abequival\u00eda casi a la certeza de que se trataba de uno de los malhechores que hab\u00edan ultrajado y asesinado a Mary C. Rogers\u00bb. Seg\u00fan el Post, Finnegan era el jefe de una banda \u00abcuyas diversas atrocidades constan desde hace tiempo en los archivos de la polic\u00eda\u00bb. Al parecer, dos miembros de la banda conoc\u00edan a Mary Rogers. Se dec\u00eda que la ma\u00f1ana de su desaparici\u00f3n se la encontraron en la calle por casualidad y la convencieron para que los acompa\u00f1ara a dar un paseo en bote hasta Hoboken. Una vez all\u00ed, prosegu\u00eda el Post, la \u00abhab\u00edan llevado enga\u00f1ada a un lugar apartado cerca de la orilla y, tras cumplir con sus diab\u00f3licas intenciones, la hab\u00edan asesinado brutalmente\u00bb.\n\nEn aquel momento, la prensa consideraba ya con el debido escepticismo cualquier noticia relativa a un posible avance en la investigaci\u00f3n. Sin embargo, esta historia ten\u00eda un detalle que la distingu\u00eda de las dem\u00e1s. Por lo visto, cuando lo detuvieron, Finnegan llevaba un anillo \u00abexactamente igual\u00bb al que llevaba Mary Rogers el d\u00eda en que desapareci\u00f3. Ni siquiera a William Kiekuck hab\u00eda podido vincul\u00e1rsele tan claramente con el crimen, y la prensa mostr\u00f3 un cauto optimismo. \u00abTal vez \u2013afirmaba el Post\u2013 el velo que cubre este hecho siniestro pueda levantarse de una vez por todas.\u00bb\n\nUna vez m\u00e1s, no obstante, las informaciones se hab\u00edan adelantado a los hechos. Aunque Finnegan ten\u00eda una s\u00f3rdida reputaci\u00f3n y antecedentes policiales, tambi\u00e9n contaba con una coartada indestructible: hab\u00eda estado en la iglesia, o m\u00e1s bien hab\u00eda llevado a su jefe a la iglesia en un coche de caballos. Cuando el Post se desdijo, nadie volvi\u00f3 a hablar del anillo de Mary Rogers y Finnegan pas\u00f3 a integrar con Kiekuck la lista de sospechosos descartados. \u00abTenemos facinerosos de sobra \u2013apuntar\u00eda, hastiado, un observador\u2013, pero poqu\u00edsimas pruebas.\u00bb\n\nTal vez eso explique el buen juicio y la cautela manifestados por la polic\u00eda y la prensa a mediados de agosto, cuando se produjo una serie de acontecimientos que dieron la impresi\u00f3n de conducir por fin a la resoluci\u00f3n del caso. Despu\u00e9s de dos semanas de esperanzas frustradas, el Courier and Enquirer adoptar\u00eda un tono casi suplicante:\n\nNos alegra poder informar de que por fin se ha descubierto una pista fuera de toda duda o sospecha que conducir\u00e1 a la detenci\u00f3n de quienes perpetraron este terrible ultraje. Todas las declaraciones e interrogatorios que se han hecho hasta ahora nada tienen que ver con el caso, y la propia madre de la desdichada ha admitido que dicho descubrimiento reciente es el \u00fanico que puede arrojar alguna luz sobre el destino de su hija. Este periodista no puede reproducir aqu\u00ed todo lo que se le ha comunicado, pero s\u00ed est\u00e1 autorizado a afirmar que la polic\u00eda busca ahora a un hombre a quien se vio en Hoboken en compa\u00f1\u00eda de la se\u00f1orita R. la tarde del 25 de julio (el d\u00eda de su asesinato) y a quien oyeron discutir con ella. La investigaci\u00f3n la ha llevado a cabo con la m\u00e1s escrupulosa minuciosidad, y sin dejar lugar a dudas respecto a su culpabilidad, el mismo caballero a quien la comunidad debe la detenci\u00f3n del m\u00e1s notorio canalla que escapara jam\u00e1s al pat\u00edbulo, y est\u00e1 convencido de que la persona a quien busca es culpable. Cuenta con el apoyo de toda la comunidad para salir airoso de tan abominable asunto.\n\nEl escrupuloso caballero result\u00f3 ser un agente de polic\u00eda llamado Hilliker, que hab\u00eda llegado a tales conclusiones mediante una combinaci\u00f3n de suerte y obstinada pertinacia. El jueves 22 de julio, tres d\u00edas antes de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers, Hilliker estaba de guardia en la comisar\u00eda del Bowery cuando una mujer llamada Martha Morse se present\u00f3 en estado de gran agitaci\u00f3n. Su rostro y brazos estaban cubiertos de \u00abterribles moraduras\u00bb e inform\u00f3 a Hilliker de que quer\u00eda poner una denuncia contra su marido Joseph.\n\nJoseph Morse era una figura bien conocida en Nassau Street, donde regentaba una pr\u00f3spera tienda de grabados. Aunque no hab\u00eda cumplido los treinta a\u00f1os, vest\u00eda al estilo de un dandi londinense, con gruesas patillas de boca de hacha, mon\u00f3culo, una levita cruzada y, en verano, un sombrero de paja. Estaba orgulloso de su \u00e9xito, hab\u00eda empezado vendiendo peri\u00f3dicos en la calle y se dec\u00eda que gozaba de muy buena reputaci\u00f3n entre los asiduos del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson. A pesar de que llevaba varios a\u00f1os casado, se dec\u00eda que no hab\u00eda \u00abinterrumpido del todo sus avances con el bello sexo\u00bb, lo que le ocasionaba constantes ri\u00f1as con su mujer. En m\u00e1s de una ocasi\u00f3n la polic\u00eda se hab\u00eda visto obligada a atender denuncias por violencia dom\u00e9stica en casa de los Morse, en Greene Street, y el grabador hab\u00eda tenido que dormir m\u00e1s de una vez en la trastienda cuando su mujer lo echaba de casa.\n\nLa denuncia formal que interpuso la se\u00f1ora Morse en la comisar\u00eda de polic\u00eda del Bowery fue un paso m\u00e1s en las hostilidades del matrimonio. Impresionado por las moraduras, el agente Hilliker traslad\u00f3 la denuncia a un juez de paz llamado Taylor, que emiti\u00f3 una orden de detenci\u00f3n. Hilliker fue directamente a la tienda de Morse en Nassau Street, donde un aprendiz llamado Edward Bookout le inform\u00f3 de que el grabador hab\u00eda salido a pasar el d\u00eda fuera. En realidad, Morse estaba durmiendo en la trastienda, pero el aprendiz estaba acostumbrado a cubrirle las espaldas a su patr\u00f3n, que con frecuencia se escond\u00eda ah\u00ed para evitar enfrentamientos con compa\u00f1eros de juego y novias despechadas.\n\nDando por buenas las palabras del aprendiz, Hilliker dej\u00f3 una nota en la que rogaba a Morse que a su regreso pasara por comisar\u00eda. A Morse le sorprendi\u00f3 mucho descubrir que su mujer hubiera ido a la polic\u00eda. Escarmentado, volvi\u00f3 a casa e intent\u00f3 la reconciliaci\u00f3n. Al parecer sus esfuerzos fueron infructuosos, pues se qued\u00f3 en casa tres d\u00edas y volvi\u00f3 a marcharse la ma\u00f1ana del 25 de julio (la fecha de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers) con la excusa de que ten\u00eda asuntos que resolver en Hoboken.\n\nMorse no volvi\u00f3 a su casa de Greene Street hasta el lunes por la tarde. Parec\u00eda cansado y de peor humor que de costumbre. Su mujer lo recibi\u00f3 en la puerta muy enfadada y le pregunt\u00f3 d\u00f3nde hab\u00eda estado. \u00c9l respondi\u00f3 que una tormenta le hab\u00eda obligado a pasar la noche del domingo en Hoboken. Apart\u00e1ndola de un empuj\u00f3n, anunci\u00f3 su intenci\u00f3n de ir a acostarse y subi\u00f3 a su habitaci\u00f3n sin decir palabra. Cuando la se\u00f1ora Morse le sigui\u00f3 poco despu\u00e9s, vio que se hab\u00eda cambiado de ropa y se dispon\u00eda a salir de nuevo. Sin darle explicaciones. Cuando ella le presion\u00f3, la insult\u00f3 \u00abdando tantas voces que lo oyeron todos los vecinos\u00bb, afirmar\u00eda ella despu\u00e9s. Poni\u00e9ndose el abrigo y el sombrero, Morse sali\u00f3 a toda prisa de la casa seguido por su mujer que insist\u00eda en saber d\u00f3nde hab\u00eda estado. Apenas hab\u00eda recorrido una manzana cuando le dio alcance, lo cogi\u00f3 del brazo y trat\u00f3 de llevarlo de nuevo a la casa. Entonces, y seg\u00fan el testimonio de un vecino, Morse empez\u00f3 a \u00abgritar enfurecido, le arranc\u00f3 un pendiente, la golpe\u00f3 y se march\u00f3 enseguida\u00bb.\n\nA la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, la se\u00f1ora Morse regres\u00f3 a la comisar\u00eda de Bowery a presentar otra denuncia. El oficial Hilliker, molesto porque Morse no hab\u00eda respondido a su nota, le dio curso por segunda vez y volvi\u00f3 a traslad\u00e1rsela al juez Taylor, quien a\u00f1adi\u00f3 una acusaci\u00f3n de abandono del hogar a los de asalto y agresi\u00f3n. Cuando el agente volvi\u00f3 a la tienda con una nueva orden de detenci\u00f3n, Edward Bookout le comunic\u00f3 que su patr\u00f3n se hab\u00eda ido de la ciudad.\n\nPoco m\u00e1s pod\u00eda hacer Hilliker. Perseguir a Morse fuera de la ciudad por una simple acusaci\u00f3n de asalto y agresi\u00f3n no ten\u00eda sentido: habr\u00eda tenido que pagar los gastos de su bolsillo y no habr\u00eda ganado nada, aparte de una peque\u00f1a tasa, por ejecutar la orden de captura. Lo consult\u00f3 con el juez Taylor, que estuvo de acuerdo en que lo mejor era esperar. Morse no tardar\u00eda en volver a la tienda con su mujer.\n\nNo obstante, al d\u00eda siguiente, Hilliker empez\u00f3 a sospechar que los delitos de Morse pudieran ser m\u00e1s graves de lo que hab\u00eda imaginado. Mientras asist\u00eda a otra sesi\u00f3n del tribunal de Taylor, oy\u00f3 con creciente nerviosismo a un par de testigos que cre\u00edan disponer de informaci\u00f3n sobre el caso de Mary Rogers. Eran dos hombres que estaban paseando por el r\u00edo en Elysian Fields cuando vieron a una joven pareja sentada en un banco cerca de la orilla. Se fijaron en ellos porque parec\u00edan discutir y la joven daba la impresi\u00f3n de estar muy enfadada. La mujer, dijeron, era morena y muy atractiva, y vest\u00eda un vestido de color claro y un sombrero con flores. El hombre luc\u00eda unas llamativas patillas de boca de hacha y vest\u00eda levita y sombrero de paja. Aunque, en aquel momento, los dos testigos no le dieron mayor importancia \u2013\u00abparec\u00eda una pelea de enamorados\u00bb, dir\u00eda uno de ellos\u2013, luego llegaron a la conclusi\u00f3n de que la joven era Mary Rogers. \u00abLa descripci\u00f3n concordaba en todos los detalles\u00bb, insistieron.\n\nHilliker tuvo la seguridad, por sus patillas de boca de hacha y su dandismo en el vestir, de que el hombre a quien hab\u00edan visto con Mary Rogers era Joseph Morse. No obstante, despu\u00e9s de los errores cometidos en la persecuci\u00f3n de William Kiekuck, decidi\u00f3 proceder con cautela. Con la esperanza de reunir m\u00e1s pruebas se dispuso a interrogar a todo aquel que pudiera confirmar sus sospechas. Gracias a la se\u00f1ora Morse supo que el grabador se encontraba en Hoboken cuando se produjo el asesinato. Un vecino aport\u00f3 numerosos ejemplos de su comportamiento violento. Un tendero local le cont\u00f3 que alguien hab\u00eda enviado el equipaje de Morse fuera de la ciudad, de lo que pod\u00eda deducirse que no ten\u00eda pensado volver pronto. Despu\u00e9s de mucho preguntar, Hilliker averigu\u00f3 que le hab\u00edan enviado las maletas a Boston y especul\u00f3 con la posibilidad de que desde all\u00ed las hubiesen enviado a casa de su madre en Nantucket.\n\nEn la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, la se\u00f1ora Hayes, la t\u00eda de la joven asesinada, le dio una descripci\u00f3n completa que encajaba en todo detalle con la de la chica a quien hab\u00edan visto en Hoboken. Cada vez m\u00e1s convencido, Hilliker se dirigi\u00f3 a la Casa de los Muertos en busca de una muestra del vestido que Mary Rogers llevaba puesto en el momento de su muerte, que ense\u00f1\u00f3 a uno de los testigos que hab\u00edan comparecido ante el juez Taylor ese mismo d\u00eda. El testigo reconoci\u00f3 el tejido en el acto: la joven que hab\u00eda visto en Elysian Fields, afirm\u00f3, llevaba un vestido hecho del mismo material.\n\nPara Hilliker este detalle completaba la cadena de pruebas. Al volver a la comisar\u00eda, revel\u00f3 sus hallazgos al juez Taylor y le expuso algunas de sus conclusiones. Nacido en Nantucket, una conocida poblaci\u00f3n ballenera, Morse hab\u00eda sido marino de joven y estar\u00eda familiarizado con los nudos marineros. Adem\u00e1s, habr\u00eda tenido infinidad de ocasiones de trabar conocimiento con la muchacha asesinada. Su tienda en Nassau Street estaba a pocas puertas de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, y su casa en Greene Street quedaba unos pasos m\u00e1s all\u00e1. Tambi\u00e9n se sab\u00eda que hab\u00eda sido cliente del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson. Aunque los vecinos le hab\u00edan o\u00eddo decir que ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de ir a Hoboken aquel infausto domingo, nadie sab\u00eda nada de su paradero esa tarde. En opini\u00f3n de Hilliker no hab\u00eda lugar a dudas: Joseph Morse era el principal sospechoso del asesinato de Mary Rogers.\n\nEl juez Taylor emiti\u00f3 enseguida una orden de detenci\u00f3n. A la luz de la nueva informaci\u00f3n, el magistrado ya no se contentaba con esperar a que Morse regresara a Nueva York por su propia voluntad. De ser posible, afirm\u00f3, Hilliker deb\u00eda ir a Boston y traer esposado al sospechoso. El agente se encogi\u00f3 de hombros. Literalmente, no pod\u00eda permitirse perseguir a Morse hasta Boston, y la polic\u00eda carec\u00eda de presupuesto para tales contingencias. El juez consider\u00f3 la cuesti\u00f3n. Confiaba en Hilliker y estaba picado por las cr\u00edticas del \u00abestancamiento judicial\u00bb hechas por Bennett en el Herald. Decidi\u00f3 intervenir directamente en el asunto. Entreg\u00f3 al agente ochenta d\u00f3lares de su propio bolsillo y le dijo: \u00abTr\u00e1igame al asesino de Mary Rogers\u00bb. Hilliker asinti\u00f3 y acept\u00f3 el dinero.\n\nAl salir de las dependencias judiciales, el agente fue directo a Nassau Street. La confianza que le hab\u00eda demostrado el juez lo hab\u00eda llenado de l\u00fagubre resoluci\u00f3n. Su instinto le dec\u00eda que probablemente Morse se ocultara en Nantucket. Decidido a no malgastar el dinero, resolvi\u00f3 confirmar sus sospechas interrogando a Edward Bookout, el aprendiz de Morse, antes de emprender el largo viaje. Llev\u00f3 a Bookout a comisar\u00eda y lo someti\u00f3 a un severo interrogatorio, tras informarle de que Morse era sospechoso del asesinato de Mary Rogers. El aprendiz pareci\u00f3 sorprenderse y le cont\u00f3 todo lo que sab\u00eda. Al principio, su patr\u00f3n hab\u00eda planeado ir a Nantucket, pero luego se lo hab\u00eda pensado mejor, y se hab\u00eda dirigido a Worcester tras dejarle instrucciones de que le avisara cuando fuese seguro volver a Nueva York.\n\nHilliker escuch\u00f3 con atenci\u00f3n. \u00bfC\u00f3mo \u2013pregunt\u00f3\u2013 iba a ponerse Bookout en contacto con Morse? Ten\u00eda alquilado un apartado de correos. \u00bfLe hab\u00eda enviado ya alg\u00fan mensaje? Bookout torci\u00f3 el gesto. S\u00ed, admiti\u00f3, le hab\u00eda mandado una carta a su patr\u00f3n advirti\u00e9ndole de que la polic\u00eda segu\u00eda el rastro de su equipaje. Adem\u00e1s, le hab\u00eda dado a entender que, si quer\u00eda pasar inadvertido, tendr\u00eda que cambiar de aspecto, tal vez vistiendo de forma m\u00e1s discreta y afeit\u00e1ndose las patillas.\n\nHilliker sali\u00f3 de comisar\u00eda con la sensaci\u00f3n de que el tiempo apremiaba. Aunque la carta de Bookout no dec\u00eda nada de la investigaci\u00f3n del asesinato, no pod\u00eda permitir que el aprendiz pusiera a su jefe sobre aviso. Mientras Morse creyera que s\u00f3lo se enfrentaba a una acusaci\u00f3n por violencia dom\u00e9stica, probablemente se quedar\u00eda donde estuviera con la esperanza de que el asunto acabara olvid\u00e1ndose. Si intu\u00eda que la polic\u00eda le buscaba \u2013y segu\u00eda la pista de su equipaje\u2013 probablemente llegar\u00eda a la conclusi\u00f3n de que era sospechoso del otro crimen. En ese caso, pod\u00eda escapar antes de que Hilliker llegase a Worcester. Si se las arreglaba para salir del pa\u00eds, ser\u00eda dif\u00edcil llevarlo ante la justicia.\n\nHilliker subi\u00f3 al primer barco para Boston, decidido a interceptar la carta de Bookout antes de que su patr\u00f3n pudiera recogerla. Su mayor prioridad era que alguien identificara a Morse sin ning\u00fan g\u00e9nero de dudas. Con ese prop\u00f3sito llev\u00f3 consigo al testigo que no s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda visto a Mary Rogers discutiendo con un hombre bien vestido en Elysian Fields, sino que hab\u00eda reconocido tambi\u00e9n el trozo del vestido. Si el testigo pod\u00eda reconocer a Joseph Morse, habr\u00eda resuelto el caso.\n\nTomaron un coche de caballos desde Boston y llegaron a Worcester a las tres de la tarde del s\u00e1bado 14 de agosto. Hilliker fue directo a la oficina de correos y comprob\u00f3 con alivio que no hab\u00eda llegado ninguna carta para Joseph Morse. El polic\u00eda y su testigo se dedicaron luego a recorrer las tabernas locales, y por fin localizaron a Morse en una peque\u00f1a casa de hu\u00e9spedes en el el pueblo de Holden, a unos diez kil\u00f3metros.\n\nAll\u00ed, Hilliker dej\u00f3 al testigo esperando en una tasca cercana y se dispuso a montar guardia frente a la casa de hu\u00e9spedes. A las nueve y media de la noche, un hombre con patillas de boca de hacha y vestido con una levita sali\u00f3 de la casa. Pensando que deb\u00eda de tratarse de Morse, el agente sali\u00f3 a su encuentro y le pregunt\u00f3 si le permit\u00eda invitarle a un trago, explic\u00e1ndole que era forastero en el pueblo. El hombre acept\u00f3 sin extra\u00f1arse ni mostrar la menor suspicacia. Una vez en la tasca, Hilliker ocup\u00f3 una mesa cerca de donde se encontraba el testigo. Despu\u00e9s de pagar una ronda, dej\u00f3 que \u00e9ste estudiara el rostro del sospechoso y oyera su voz. Pasados unos minutos, el testigo asinti\u00f3 con la cabeza.\n\nCon eso Hilliker tuvo suficiente. Se aclar\u00f3 la garganta y dijo:\n\n\u2013Caballero, tengo entendido que os llam\u00e1is Joseph Morse, sabed que est\u00e1is detenido.\n\nMorse se puso en pie y quiso saber cu\u00e1les eran los cargos contra \u00e9l. \u00abLas denuncias interpuestas por vuestra mujer\u00bb, respondi\u00f3 Hilliker. Al o\u00edrlo, Morse se mostr\u00f3 \u00abextra\u00f1amente complacido\u00bb y volvi\u00f3 a sentarse.\n\n\u2013\u00a1Oh! \u2013dijo\u2013. \u00bfS\u00f3lo eso?\n\nHilliker volvi\u00f3 a mirar al testigo en la mesa contigua.\n\n\u2013S\u00ed \u2013respondi\u00f3\u2013, y el asesinato de Mary Rogers.\n10 La hora robada\n\nPor un instante la acusaci\u00f3n de Hilliker qued\u00f3 en el aire mientras Morse se mostraba entre incr\u00e9dulo y ofendido. Hilliker repiti\u00f3 muy despacio la acusaci\u00f3n y le entreg\u00f3 formalmente la orden de detenci\u00f3n expedida por el juez Taylor. Cada vez m\u00e1s indignado, Morse trat\u00f3 de salir del paso y afirm\u00f3 que deb\u00eda tratarse de un error. Por fin, cuando el agente amenaz\u00f3 con ponerlo a disposici\u00f3n de la justicia de Boston, acept\u00f3 lo inevitable y se puso en sus manos.\n\nAl d\u00eda siguiente, un barco de vapor que transportaba a Hilliker y a su prisionero lleg\u00f3 a Nueva York, en compa\u00f1\u00eda del complaciente testigo. Llevaron a Morse a las Tumbas, donde el segundo de los testigos \u2013que no hab\u00eda acompa\u00f1ado a Hilliker a Massachusetts\u2013 lo identific\u00f3 r\u00e1pidamente entre un grupo de doce personas. El agente ya ve\u00eda la soga apretando el cuello del sospechoso.\n\nSe llam\u00f3 al juez Taylor para que se hiciera cargo de la situaci\u00f3n y empez\u00f3 una larga serie de interrogatorios. A medida que fue comprendiendo la gravedad de su situaci\u00f3n, Morse empez\u00f3 a alegar su inocencia de un modo que s\u00f3lo reforzar\u00eda las acusaciones contra \u00e9l. Insisti\u00f3 en que ese d\u00eda no hab\u00eda ido a Hoboken, sino que hab\u00eda estado en Staten Island. Cuando el juez Taylor le mostr\u00f3 las declaraciones de varios amigos y vecinos que recordaban haberle o\u00eddo decir que ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de ir a Hoboken, el sospechoso admiti\u00f3 que hab\u00eda pasado el d\u00eda sumido en una \u00abintrospecci\u00f3n solitaria\u00bb y hab\u00eda perdido la noci\u00f3n del lugar donde se encontraba. En respuesta a lo cual, el juez le mostr\u00f3 las declaraciones de los testigos que lo hab\u00edan visto en compa\u00f1\u00eda de una joven. Morse admiti\u00f3 que tal vez le hubiese dicho un par de galanter\u00edas, pero afirm\u00f3 no recordar los detalles.\n\nA medida que se acumulaban las evasivas y las declaraciones contradictorias, el juez Taylor se iba convenciendo a\u00fan m\u00e1s de su culpabilidad y los peri\u00f3dicos no tardaron en abandonar su cautela inicial y declararon que por fin se hab\u00eda capturado al asesino de Mary Rogers. Entretanto, el Herald afirmaba: \u00abLos interrogatorios del prisionero son estrictamente confidenciales y el alcalde ha prohibido la publicaci\u00f3n de todo cuanto pudiera averiguarse al respecto\u00bb; sin embargo, tampoco ten\u00eda recato en asegurar que las pruebas reunidas por la polic\u00eda parec\u00edan \u00abdemostrar la culpabilidad de Morse\u00bb. Los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos fueron menos circunspectos. \u00abPor fin el culpable ha sido detenido\u00bb, anunciaba el Courier and Enquirer, mientras el Sun avanzaba que \u00absin duda Morse pagar\u00e1 por su crimen\u00bb.\n\nAl parecer hab\u00eda gente en Nueva York poco dispuesta a aguardar que el sistema de justicia criminal pronunciara su veredicto. Seg\u00fan un informe, la noche del 17 de agosto se congreg\u00f3 una turba ante las Tumbas con intenci\u00f3n de linchar al sospechoso. Aunque la historia no aparece contada de primera mano en ning\u00fan peri\u00f3dico, de ser cierta, podr\u00eda explicar por qu\u00e9 al d\u00eda siguiente Morse se mostrar\u00eda dispuesto a contarle al juez Taylor \u00abtoda la verdad\u00bb sobre el asunto.\n\nEn su declaraci\u00f3n, que imprimir\u00edan despu\u00e9s muchos peri\u00f3dicos, admit\u00eda haber disfrutado de la compa\u00f1\u00eda de una joven el domingo en cuesti\u00f3n. \u00abQued\u00e9 con una joven a mediod\u00eda \u2013testific\u00f3\u2013. Nos hab\u00edamos visto antes, y la convenc\u00ed de que me acompa\u00f1ara a Staten Island. Fuimos al Pabell\u00f3n, tomamos unos refrescos y la distraje hasta que parti\u00f3 el \u00faltimo barco.\u00bb El m\u00e9todo que emple\u00f3 para entretener a su amiga requerir\u00eda m\u00e1s explicaciones. Luego se supo que se las hab\u00eda arreglado para perder el ferry mediante el \u00abartero procedimiento\u00bb de retrasar una hora las manecillas de su reloj de bolsillo, a fin de que la joven no reparase en que corr\u00edan el peligro de perder el barco. Sin otra forma de regresar a Nueva York, \u00e9l y la joven tuvieron que alojarse en una casa de hu\u00e9spedes. All\u00ed, admiti\u00f3 Morse, \u00abtrat\u00e9 de intimar con ella, pero sin conseguirlo\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s de que la muchacha rechazara sus avances toda la noche, afirm\u00f3 Morse, la acompa\u00f1\u00f3 a Nueva York y \u00abla dej\u00f3 amistosamente\u00bb en la esquina de las calles Greenwich y Barclay.\n\nAl parecer Morse estaba tan habituado a aquellos devaneos que ni siquiera recordaba el nombre de la chica. S\u00f3lo despu\u00e9s, cuando oy\u00f3 hablar del asesinato de Mary Rogers, se le ocurri\u00f3 que su compa\u00f1era pudiera ser la cigarrera. \u00abSi lo era \u2013afirm\u00f3\u2013, yo no tuve nada que ver con el asesinato, pues cuando me desped\u00ed de ella estaba sana y salva.\u00bb Su huida de Nueva York, explic\u00f3, nada ten\u00eda que ver con lo sucedido en Staten Island: simplemente hab\u00eda querido alejarse de su mujer hasta que se le pasara el enfado despu\u00e9s de la discusi\u00f3n que tuvieron el lunes por la ma\u00f1ana. Tem\u00eda que, si se quedaba en la ciudad, lo detuvieran.\n\nSi la joven con quien hab\u00eda pasado la noche en Staten Island hab\u00eda sido Mary Rogers, insist\u00eda, nada pod\u00eda decir sobre su infausto destino. En Massachusetts, al leer los art\u00edculos sobre su muerte, se pregunt\u00f3 si no se habr\u00eda suicidado asustada por el da\u00f1o que sus escarceos hubiesen podido causar en su reputaci\u00f3n. Luego, asegur\u00f3, cuando se hizo evidente que la hab\u00edan asesinado, se reproch\u00f3 \u00abmuy seriamente\u00bb haber permitido que fuese v\u00edctima de una banda. De todas formas, ahora le daba la impresi\u00f3n de que su acompa\u00f1ante no pod\u00eda haber sido Mary Rogers, pues la chica que hab\u00eda llevado a Staten Island llevaba un vestido negro, y todo el mundo sab\u00eda que el de la cigarrera era de color blanco.\n\nSi el juez esperaba aclarar algo con la declaraci\u00f3n de Morse, se qued\u00f3 m\u00e1s confuso que nunca. Incluso antes de que el sospechoso terminara de hablar, Taylor empez\u00f3 a apuntar varios detalles que no parec\u00edan ciertos. Si, como aseguraba el sospechoso, hab\u00eda llevado a la joven a Staten Island, \u00bfc\u00f3mo era que lo hab\u00edan visto discutir con ella en Hoboken? \u00bfAcaso era cre\u00edble que un hombre pasara una noche tratando de seducir a una joven y no llegase a saber su nombre? \u00bfPor qu\u00e9, si era inocente del asesinato, no hab\u00eda declarado lo que sab\u00eda a la polic\u00eda, incluso despu\u00e9s de dos d\u00edas en el calabozo?\n\nMorse se mantuvo en sus trece en que su acompa\u00f1ante, quienquiera que fuese, estaba sana y salva cuando la dej\u00f3. Sin embargo, despu\u00e9s de tantos subterfugios, el juez se mostraba poco inclinado a creer los detalles de su declaraci\u00f3n. Cuando la historia lleg\u00f3 a la prensa, la ciudad entera pareci\u00f3 convencerse de su culpabilidad. Daba la impresi\u00f3n de que un hombre capaz de retrasar el reloj con la esperanza de seducir a una joven bien pod\u00eda haberla asesinado si ella hab\u00eda rechazado sus avances. Ni siquiera su propia esposa sali\u00f3 en su defensa.\n\nDesde su celda en el cuadr\u00e1ngulo interior de las Tumbas, Morse pod\u00eda ver los toscos tablones del pat\u00edbulo del patio central. La amenazadora presencia del entarimado y la horca estaban pensados para inspirar miedo y \u00e9l ten\u00eda m\u00e1s razones que nadie para estremecerse al verlos. Con toda probabilidad, ser\u00eda el siguiente en la lista. La ejecuci\u00f3n de Morse, afirmaban los peri\u00f3dicos, ser\u00eda un momento de orgullo para la ciudad de Nueva York.\n\nLuego, sorprendentemente, la salvaci\u00f3n lleg\u00f3 del modo m\u00e1s inesperado. El 20 de agosto, cuando el juez Taylor se dispon\u00eda a emitir una acusaci\u00f3n formal de asesinato, un grupo de cuatro hombres se present\u00f3 a testificar que hab\u00edan visto a Morse el domingo 25 de julio en compa\u00f1\u00eda de una joven vestida de negro. Los cuatro, que eran conocidos del grabador, hab\u00edan le\u00eddo su declaraci\u00f3n en los peri\u00f3dicos y hab\u00edan recordado haberlo visto en la calle esa ma\u00f1ana. Si esta revelaci\u00f3n tan repentina parec\u00eda sospechosa y oportuna, pronto dejar\u00eda de serlo. Al contrario que Morse, los nuevos testigos s\u00ed recordaban el nombre de la joven de negro. Era Mary Haviland, la hija de una \u00abviuda respetable\u00bb que viv\u00eda en Morton Street. Incr\u00e9dulo, el juez Taylor pidi\u00f3 a Hilliker que llevase a la se\u00f1orita Haviland a comisar\u00eda. Regres\u00f3 al cabo de una hora acompa\u00f1ado de la joven, de quien se dijo que era \u00abuna joven muy guapa, que no hab\u00eda cumplido los diecisiete a\u00f1os, y parec\u00eda terriblemente afectada por tener que prestar declaraci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nEl testimonio de la se\u00f1orita Haviland, prestado entre \u00abfrecuentes sollozos y muestras de desesperaci\u00f3n\u00bb, confirm\u00f3 hasta el \u00faltimo detalle de la historia de Morse. La tarde del domingo en cuesti\u00f3n, hab\u00eda ido con \u00e9l a Staten Island, declar\u00f3, donde \u00abdicho caballero distrajo mi atenci\u00f3n del paso del tiempo hasta que parti\u00f3 el \u00faltimo barco a Nueva York\u00bb. Tras tratar infructuosamente de encontrar un bote de remos, la joven se resign\u00f3 y acept\u00f3 pasar la noche en un hotel, pero s\u00f3lo con la \u00absolemne promesa\u00bb de que ocupar\u00edan habitaciones separadas y de que una \u00abmujer de la casa\u00bb se alojar\u00eda con ella para garantizar el decoro del acuerdo. Al llegar al hotel, la se\u00f1orita Haviland descubri\u00f3 que no pod\u00eda contar con compa\u00f1\u00eda femenina e intent\u00f3 dejar a Morse fuera de la habitaci\u00f3n apoyando una butaca y la sombrilla contra la puerta. Tales medidas se revelar\u00edan in\u00fatiles: nada m\u00e1s retirarse a pasar la noche, el seductor se las arregl\u00f3 para entrar en su cuarto.\n\nEl juez Taylor escuch\u00f3 su testimonio con inquietud y compasi\u00f3n y pregunt\u00f3 si Morse se hab\u00eda tomado alguna libertad. La se\u00f1orita Haviland respondi\u00f3: \u00abMe bes\u00f3 y abraz\u00f3, y trat\u00f3 de persuadirme para que accediera a sus deseos, pero me resist\u00ed toda la noche\u00bb. Luego quiso saber si hab\u00eda recurrido a la fuerza o la violencia. \u00abNo puedo decir que tratase de utilizar la fuerza\u00bb, respondi\u00f3 ella. Poco convencido, Taylor insisti\u00f3. La se\u00f1orita Haviland admiti\u00f3 que las amenazas de Morse la asustaron tanto que accedi\u00f3 a tumbarse en la cama y desvestirse en parte, tras lo cual \u00e9l \u00abquiso convencerme de que consintiera a sus deseos, pero yo me negu\u00e9\u00bb. Una versi\u00f3n posterior dir\u00eda que hab\u00eda intentado salirse con la suya \u00abamenazando con exponer su nombre al oprobio y mediante otras artima\u00f1as propias de un hombre como \u00e9l\u00bb.\n\nPor fin, la se\u00f1orita Haviland logr\u00f3 enfriar los ardores de su compa\u00f1ero amenaz\u00e1ndolo con gritar \u00abasesino\u00bb por la ventana. Luego pas\u00f3 la noche envuelta en una manta y sentada en una silla. Por la ma\u00f1ana, Morse la llev\u00f3 a la ciudad. Aunque no se hubieran despedido tan \u00abamistosamente\u00bb como hab\u00eda dicho Morse, al menos la hab\u00eda dejado all\u00ed sana y salva.\n\nIncluso entonces, el juez Taylor no acab\u00f3 de creerse la historia. Orden\u00f3 que devolvieran a Morse a su celda y tom\u00f3 la medida nada habitual de viajar personalmente a Staten Island, donde interrog\u00f3 a varios empleados del hotel donde la pareja hab\u00eda pasado aquella noche tan agitada. El personal del hotel lo confirm\u00f3 todo hasta el \u00faltimo detalle. Incr\u00e9dulo, el juez subi\u00f3 al ferry de vuelta a Nueva York y convoc\u00f3 una reuni\u00f3n de sus colegas. No hab\u00eda ninguna duda, les dijo: Morse era inocente.\n\nLa noticia fue un aut\u00e9ntico jarro de agua fr\u00eda para el agente Hilliker. Llevaba varios d\u00edas convencido de haber resuelto el caso por su cuenta y de obtener un probable ascenso. Ahora ve\u00eda que lo \u00fanico que hab\u00eda hecho era perseguir a un tipo que hab\u00eda maltratado a su mujer... un delito, en la \u00e9poca, tan frecuente como el robo de cerdos.\n\nMientras la noticia de la inminente liberaci\u00f3n de Morse se extend\u00eda por la ciudad, el Herald se hac\u00eda eco del escepticismo de la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica. \u00ab\u00c9ste es uno de los casos m\u00e1s extraordinarios que se han planteado ante un tribunal en ning\u00fan pa\u00eds. En el mismo instante en que unos malhechores violaban y asesinaban a Mary Rogers en Hoboken o Nueva York, Morse intentaba seducir a una joven en el Pabell\u00f3n de Staten Island. Nuestros lectores recordar\u00e1n la declaraci\u00f3n que publicamos ayer de labios del propio Morse, sobre su paradero el domingo fat\u00eddico. Todo lo que dijo y publicamos era cierto. Puesto que hay pruebas de sobra de que estaba con esa muchacha el domingo 25 de julio, es evidente que la acusaci\u00f3n de haber participado en el asesinato de la se\u00f1orita Rogers se ha venido abajo. No obstante, tambi\u00e9n es evidente que tendr\u00e1 que responder ante un tribunal por el intento de violaci\u00f3n de la otra joven.\u00bb\n\nEsta predicci\u00f3n tampoco llegar\u00eda a cumplirse. Aunque al principio la prensa la ocultara, la identidad de la se\u00f1orita Haviland sali\u00f3 a la luz dado el n\u00famero de detalles publicados \u2013incluyendo su direcci\u00f3n\u2013 y la notoriedad que cobr\u00f3 la tuvo muchas semanas \u00absumida en un mar de l\u00e1grimas\u00bb. Temerosa de prolongar tan terrible experiencia, declin\u00f3 presentar cargos y tanto la afligi\u00f3 la humillaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica que incluso intent\u00f3 suicidarse.\n\nAunque el testimonio de la se\u00f1orita Haviland hubiera despejado el misterio de la culpabilidad de Morse, varias preguntas segu\u00edan sin responder. \u00abNos gustar\u00eda saber \u2013escribi\u00f3 el Herald\u2013 qui\u00e9nes son los dos hombres que juraron en comisar\u00eda haber visto a Morse en compa\u00f1\u00eda de Mary Rogers en Hoboken la tarde fat\u00eddica. \u00bfQui\u00e9nes son? \u00bfNo habr\u00eda que interrogarlos de inmediato antes de que puedan arruinar la vida de otros?\u00bb La pregunta estaba justificada: el testimonio de los dos hombres y su subsiguiente identificaci\u00f3n hab\u00edan estado a punto de llevar al grabador a los tribunales bajo la acusaci\u00f3n de haber asesinado a Mary Rogers. La curiosa precisi\u00f3n y decidida convicci\u00f3n de su testimonio \u2013hasta el punto de identificar un trozo de tela del vestido de la joven\u2013 sugiere un entusiasmo malintencionado por parte de los dos hombres, o tal vez un interrogatorio capcioso por parte del impaciente agente Hilliker. Sea como fuere, los nombres de los dos testigos no llegaron a aparecer en los peri\u00f3dicos ni en los registros judiciales, y su desconcertante testimonio no tuvo mayor influencia en la investigaci\u00f3n.\n\nMorse pas\u00f3 un d\u00eda m\u00e1s en la c\u00e1rcel, con cargos de asalto y abandono del domicilio familiar, hasta que su abogado pudo pagar la fianza. Su mujer, entretanto, hab\u00eda buscado su propio abogado e iniciado los tr\u00e1mites para obtener el divorcio. No obstante, en cuanto lo pusieron en libertad, Morse fue a su casa de Greene Street donde se las arregl\u00f3 para que le perdonara sus infidelidades. En los d\u00edas siguientes en los peri\u00f3dicos proliferaron cartas de amigos que daban fe de su car\u00e1cter intachable y de la excelencia de su trabajo como grabador. Incluso se neg\u00f3 acaloradamente el m\u00e1s inocuo de los cargos alegados contra \u00e9l \u2013que era fumador y frecuentaba el almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson\u2013. \u00abMorse tiene fama de trabajador y es un gran artista \u2013declar\u00f3 el Sun\u2013, por lo que lo dejaremos con las amables palabras que dedic\u00f3 nuestro Salvador al hombre ca\u00eddo: \"Ve y no peques m\u00e1s\".\u00bb\n\nEl Herald ser\u00eda m\u00e1s incisivo: \u00abLamentamos tener que afirmar que el ultraje cometido contra esa desdichada joven sigue siendo un misterio. Las pruebas presentadas ayer demuestran de manera indudable que Morse nada tuvo que ver en el asesinato de la se\u00f1orita Rogers, aunque prueben de forma no menos clara que es un aut\u00e9ntico r\u00e9probo. Ser\u00eda conveniente que a partir de ahora Morse no volviera a acercarse por Staten Island, ni a las j\u00f3venes vestidas de negro. As\u00ed concluye este misterio que ha durado nueve d\u00edas\u00bb.\n11 Exc\u00e9ntricos y chismosos\n\nCuarenta y ocho horas despu\u00e9s de la salida de Joseph Morse de las Tumbas, los neoyorquinos recibieron la sorprendente noticia de que Mary Rogers segu\u00eda con vida, gozaba de buena salud y estaba viviendo en Pittsburgh. Seg\u00fan una carta publicada en el Planet neoyorquino, el cad\u00e1ver extra\u00eddo del agua en Elysian Fields era el de otra desdichada. La \u00abconocid\u00edsima cigarrera\u00bb, continuaba la carta, hab\u00eda huido a Nueva York tras una terrible disputa con su madre. Al parecer, la se\u00f1ora Rogers hab\u00eda insistido en que su hija cumpliera la promesa de casarse con Daniel Payne, el cortador de corcho, pero Mary se hab\u00eda negado porque \u00absu coraz\u00f3n pertenec\u00eda a otro\u00bb. Incapaz de ceder, se dec\u00eda que la afligida joven hab\u00eda escrito una nota plagada de \u00abamargos reproches\u00bb y hab\u00eda abandonado su casa para dirigirse a Pittsburgh, donde la esperaba su amado.\n\nNo hay pruebas de que nadie se tomara en serio esa carta, pues el Planet pertenec\u00eda al sector m\u00e1s rastrero de la prensa de un centavo; sin embargo, la historia era un ejemplo t\u00edpico de los rumores y conjeturas descabellados que circularon a ra\u00edz de la detenci\u00f3n de Joseph Morse. Tras llegar al err\u00f3neo consenso sobre la culpabilidad de Morse, la prensa retom\u00f3 su antigua postura intentando llenar el hueco creado por la puesta en libertad del \u00abtaimado grabador\u00bb. Los nombres de los primeros sospechosos volvieron a salir a la luz, entre ellos los de Daniel Payne, el prometido de Mary, y Alfred Crommelin, su pretendiente. Corri\u00f3 el rumor de que Crommelin hab\u00eda abandonado la ciudad y de que Payne estaba preso en las Tumbas. A ambos se les acusaba tambi\u00e9n de haber escrito la carta de advertencia a Joseph Morse cuando \u00e9ste se encontraba en Worcester, avis\u00e1ndole de la conveniencia de cambiar de apariencia y huir. Ninguna de estas historias era cierta. \u00abEste asunto parece haber servido de excusa para inventar muchas tonter\u00edas a la prensa de un centavo\u00bb, dir\u00eda James Gordon Bennett, que \u00faltimamente hab\u00eda aumentado el precio del Herald a dos centavos y cre\u00eda haber ascendido a un plano m\u00e1s puro.\n\nEntre el torbellino de rumores y chismes, los funcionarios del Ayuntamiento y el Estado reemprendieron sus esfuerzos. Los concejales neoyorquinos consideraron la posibilidad de a\u00f1adir otros quinientos d\u00f3lares a la recompensa, mientras el gobernador Seward anunciaba que indultar\u00eda a cualquier c\u00f3mplice del crimen que proporcionara informaci\u00f3n a la polic\u00eda. Entretanto, la polic\u00eda de Nueva York hab\u00eda aprendido de lo ocurrido con Joseph Morse y jugaba sus cartas con m\u00e1s cautela. Por eso la detenci\u00f3n de Archibald Padley, el 27 de agosto, tres d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de la puesta en libertad del grabador, se practicar\u00eda en condiciones de secretismo casi total.\n\nPadley, el fiel amigo de Crommelin, parece haber sido un sospechoso de \u00faltima hora. Como antiguo hu\u00e9sped de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers hab\u00eda conocido razonablemente bien a Mary Rogers y, en la investigaci\u00f3n de Gilbert Merritt en Hoboken, hab\u00eda dicho de ella que era una \u00abjoven muy digna y de car\u00e1cter muy elevado\u00bb. A ra\u00edz de la ruptura entre Crommelin y Payne, el fiel Padley hab\u00eda dejado la pensi\u00f3n con su amigo, y estaba con Crommelin en Hoboken cuando encontraron el cad\u00e1ver de Mary. Se desconoce qu\u00e9 prueba, si es que hubo alguna, sirvi\u00f3 para relacionar a Padley con el crimen. Lo que est\u00e1 claro es que lo llevaron en plena noche a las Tumbas, donde un tal juez Milne Parker lo someti\u00f3 a un interrogatorio de tres d\u00edas. En ese tiempo Padley no cont\u00f3 con los servicios de un abogado y no se le inform\u00f3 de cu\u00e1les eran los cargos ni de la identidad del denunciante. Por lo visto, dicha t\u00e1ctica era habitual en el juez Parker, que ya hab\u00eda sido acusado en otras ocasiones de quebrantar la \u00e9tica de este modo.\n\nAl cabo de tres d\u00edas, los hechos llegaron a o\u00eddos del juez Taylor, que hab\u00eda sido mucho m\u00e1s ecu\u00e1nime durante el interrogatorio de Joseph Morse. Ante la falta de pruebas contra Padley, Taylor emiti\u00f3 una orden de puesta en libertad la ma\u00f1ana del 31 de agosto, aunque luego supo que lo hab\u00edan soltado unas horas antes sin ponerlo en conocimiento de George Hyde, el carcelero jefe. Tanto Hyde como Taylor montaron en c\u00f3lera e hicieron indignadas declaraciones a la prensa. A Padley, afirmaron, lo hab\u00edan detenido e interrogado \u00absin respetar el procedimiento legal\u00bb y \u00absin la menor prueba\u00bb que lo relacionara con el crimen. \u00abLa libertad de los ciudadanos no puede violarse de forma tan ultrajante\u00bb, insisti\u00f3 Taylor. No es de extra\u00f1ar que el Herald de Bennett se apresurase a aprovechar aquel \u00faltimo ejemplo de ineptitud judicial. \u00abDa la impresi\u00f3n de que las autoridades est\u00e1n llevando este lamentable asunto con mucho m\u00e1s secretismo, y por tanto injusticia, que cualquier otra investigaci\u00f3n judicial \u2013escribi\u00f3 Bennett\u2013. Ser\u00e1 legal, pero no es justo.\u00bb\n\nSi el interrogatorio de Padley hab\u00eda estado rodeado de secretismo, la polic\u00eda a\u00fan actu\u00f3 con m\u00e1s prudencia a la hora de interrogar a John Anderson, el propietario del almac\u00e9n de tabaco. Era natural que la polic\u00eda se interesase por Anderson, que como m\u00ednimo pod\u00eda proporcionarles informaci\u00f3n sobre la vida de su antigua empleada. No obstante, siendo ciudadano prominente y acaudalado, la polic\u00eda tuvo que ser, como era costumbre en estos casos, muy discreta por temor a posibles represalias legales. Lo cual a\u00fan era m\u00e1s cierto en el caso de Anderson, que ten\u00eda amigos poderosos en el Ayuntamiento. Por eso es tan raro que, poco despu\u00e9s del asunto de Morse, las autoridades pusiesen a Anderson bajo custodia policial, aunque tal vez no oficialmente bajo arresto, y lo sometieran a un exhaustivo interrogatorio. La informaci\u00f3n no apareci\u00f3 en ning\u00fan peri\u00f3dico, lo que parece indicar que Anderson pudo utilizar sus influencias para evitarlo; se desconoce, por otra parte, si hab\u00eda verdaderos motivos para sospechar de \u00e9l. En cualquier caso, el episodio coloc\u00f3 al joven hombre de negocios en una situaci\u00f3n delicad\u00edsima. Anderson sab\u00eda que el mero hecho de ser interrogado despertar\u00eda sospechas de su posible complicidad, tanto si estaban justificadas como si no. Para un hombre con ambiciones pol\u00edticas eso pod\u00eda ser catastr\u00f3fico, y sus temores estaban justificados. A pesar de sus esfuerzos por ocultarlo, luego se sabr\u00eda que su visita a la comisar\u00eda hab\u00eda circulado entre los ciudadanos m\u00e1s prominentes de la ciudad, creando la impresi\u00f3n de que el tabaquero escond\u00eda un cad\u00e1ver en el armario. Aunque hab\u00eda desempe\u00f1ado un papel activo en fomentar la investigaci\u00f3n e incluso hab\u00eda contribuido con cincuenta d\u00f3lares en la reuni\u00f3n del Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad, en los a\u00f1os venideros Anderson ver\u00eda c\u00f3mo la sombra de su posible relaci\u00f3n con el crimen se cern\u00eda sobre \u00e9l.\n\nEntretanto, Alfred Crommelin fue objeto de los ataques del Tattler de Benjamin Day. A pesar de que \u00e9ste se hab\u00eda deshecho en halagos por la \u00abgenerosa perseverancia\u00bb demostrada por Crommelin los d\u00edas siguientes a la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers, insisti\u00f3 en que su identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver de la joven carec\u00eda de credibilidad alguna. Desde el principio, Day hab\u00eda defendido la teor\u00eda de que Mary Rogers segu\u00eda con vida. Aunque quer\u00eda distanciarse del Planet y otros \u00abexc\u00e9ntricos y chismosos\u00bb, afirmaba tener \u00abmiles de motivos\u00bb para creer que el cad\u00e1ver que hab\u00edan sacado del Hudson no era el de la cigarrera. A lo largo de varios d\u00edas, su peri\u00f3dico insisti\u00f3 en dichos motivos, a menudo con una minuciosidad capaz de revolverle a uno el estomago. Day afirmaba que era un hecho bien conocido que un cad\u00e1ver sumergido en el agua segu\u00eda un tiempo bajo la superficie. Tras un per\u00edodo de seis a diez d\u00edas, cuando la carne se descompon\u00eda y se produc\u00edan gases de forma natural, acababa saliendo a flote. Puesto que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda estado desaparecida s\u00f3lo tres d\u00edas, insist\u00eda el Tattler, su cad\u00e1ver no habr\u00eda tenido tiempo de salir del fondo del r\u00edo.\n\nM\u00e1s a\u00fan, seg\u00fan el Tattler, como la inmersi\u00f3n en el agua ralentizaba el proceso de descomposici\u00f3n, no parec\u00eda probable que los rasgos de la v\u00edctima fuesen irreconocibles. Sin embargo, Crommelin hab\u00eda declarado que el rostro estaba \u00abtotalmente desfigurado\u00bb, lo que no habr\u00eda sucedido si hubiese pasado s\u00f3lo tres d\u00edas en el r\u00edo. Para acabar de arreglarlo, el estado de los rasgos de la v\u00edctima hab\u00eda obligado a Crommelin a recurrir a otros medios para identificarla. Este otro modo de reconocerla, afirmaba el Tattler, carec\u00eda totalmente de fundamento. Crommelin hab\u00eda desgarrado la manga del vestido de la joven y hab\u00eda dicho reconocer una \u00abmarca caracter\u00edstica\u00bb en el brazo desnudo. No obstante, cuando le presionaron admiti\u00f3 que dicha marca era s\u00f3lo la forma del vello, lo que apenas pod\u00eda considerarse un m\u00e9todo concluyente de identificaci\u00f3n. Del mismo modo, Crommelin hab\u00eda insistido en la \u00abforma delicada\u00bb de los pies de la v\u00edctima, una caracter\u00edstica que, vista fr\u00edamente, no pod\u00eda considerarse \u00fanica o siquiera significativa.\n\nEn opini\u00f3n del Tattler, el error en el testimonio de Crommelin radicaba en su idea fija de lo que iba a encontrarse en Hoboken. Hab\u00eda ido all\u00ed en busca de Mary Rogers, por lo que, cuando vio que hab\u00edan encontrado un cad\u00e1ver sin identificar, lo examin\u00f3 \u00abno para averiguar qui\u00e9n era la ahogada, sino en busca de hechos que reforzaran su opini\u00f3n preconcebida de que hab\u00eda encontrado el cad\u00e1ver asesinado de Mary C. Rogers\u00bb. Por esta raz\u00f3n, su identificaci\u00f3n carec\u00eda de \u00abla menor validez\u00bb.\n\nAl menos consideraban que sus esfuerzos hab\u00edan sido bienintencionados. En cambio, del doctor Cook, el forense de Nueva Jersey, llegaron a decir que se hab\u00eda ganado \u00abel desprecio y el desd\u00e9n de la mayor\u00eda de los m\u00e9dicos de la ciudad\u00bb. El m\u00e1s grave de sus errores hab\u00eda sido dar por buena la identificaci\u00f3n de Crommelin en lugar de esperar la llegada de un miembro de la familia. Adem\u00e1s, hab\u00eda practicado la autopsia con una precipitaci\u00f3n imperdonable, cometiendo tantos errores que, si se publicasen sus resultados, \u00abde puro absurdos se convertir\u00edan en proverbiales\u00bb.\n\nOtros asuntos preocupaban tambi\u00e9n al Tattler. Seg\u00fan \u00e9l, dada la fama de Mary Rogers de \u00abbella cigarrera\u00bb, dif\u00edcilmente habr\u00eda podido ir a Hoboken, o incluso \u00abrecorrido m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de tres manzanas\u00bb sin que la reconociera una multitud de testigos. Adem\u00e1s estaba el extra\u00f1o hecho de que tanto Phoebe Rogers como Daniel Payne se hubiesen mostrado tan ap\u00e1ticos al enterarse del hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver en Elysian Fields. Los dos se hab\u00edan alterado tan poco que H. G. Luther, cuando les comunic\u00f3 la triste noticia, tuvo la sensaci\u00f3n de que \u00abno les cogi\u00f3 de sorpresa\u00bb. Tal vez dicha reacci\u00f3n pudiera entenderse mejor si, como afirmaba el Tattler, Payne y la se\u00f1ora Rogers estuvieran seguros de que Mary segu\u00eda con vida. Lo que Luther hab\u00eda tomado por apat\u00eda podr\u00eda haber sido confusi\u00f3n al no dar con una buena respuesta.\n\nTodos estos hechos, am\u00e9n de otros muchos, llevaron al Tattler a la \u00abcerteza ineludible\u00bb de que Mary Rogers no era la infortunada que hab\u00edan encontrado muerta en Hoboken. \u00bfC\u00f3mo si no explicar el hecho de que Payne y la se\u00f1ora Rogers hubiesen permitido que el Ayuntamiento se ocupara de organizar el entierro, al que no asisti\u00f3 ninguno de los dos, en la iglesia de Varick Street, en lugar de en la tumba familiar de la familia Rogers?\n\nLas teor\u00edas del Tattler, aunque provocadoras, pasaban por alto muchas informaciones que las contradec\u00edan. Los rivales de Benjamin Day se apresuraron a subrayar tales omisiones. \u00abMucha gente empieza a dudar ahora de que Mary haya sido asesinada \u2013observ\u00f3 el Herald\u2013. Sin embargo, no parece muy cre\u00edble que el cad\u00e1ver de una desconocida llevara puesto el vestido de Mary.\u00bb\n\nPronto se pusieron de relieve otros errores. Dejando aparte los discutibles m\u00e9ritos de las conclusiones del Tattler a prop\u00f3sito de los \u00abgases naturales\u00bb, hab\u00eda otro defecto evidente. Day hab\u00eda repetido muchas veces que una inmersi\u00f3n de tres d\u00edas en el r\u00edo habr\u00eda ralentizado la descomposici\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver y que, por tanto, Crommelin habr\u00eda podido reconocer los rasgos de la difunta. Puesto que no hab\u00eda sido as\u00ed, se deduc\u00eda que el cad\u00e1ver probablemente llevara m\u00e1s tiempo sumergido, por lo que no pod\u00eda ser el de Mary Rogers. Con toda probabilidad, no obstante, el rostro estaba desfigurado cuando echaron el cad\u00e1ver al agua. Uno de los testigos presenciales en Hoboken hab\u00eda dicho que el rostro estaba \u00abmagullado como el de una momia\u00bb cuando sacaron el cuerpo del r\u00edo, y el doctor Cook dio fe de la presencia de moraduras e inflamaci\u00f3n de los tejidos. A\u00f1\u00e1dase a eso la incertidumbre cuando lleg\u00f3 Crommelin. Es posible que el cad\u00e1ver llevara un tiempo en la orilla antes de que \u00e9ste lo viese, y hubiese sufrido a\u00fan m\u00e1s los estragos de una temperatura de m\u00e1s de treinta grados. En tales circunstancias es improbable que pudiera reconocer su rostro.\n\nDel mismo modo, el Tattler hab\u00eda asegurado que a Mary Rogers la habr\u00edan reconocido si hubiese salido a la calle el d\u00eda en cuesti\u00f3n, pero el hecho es que hab\u00eda mucha gente que afirmaba haberla visto en Broadway y en Hoboken a distintas horas aquel domingo. Aunque muchas de dichas informaciones, como la que condujo a la detenci\u00f3n de Joseph Morse, fuesen de naturaleza ciertamente dudosa, no era exacto decir que pasara desapercibida entre la multitud.\n\nEn cuanto a la supuesta indiferencia mostrada por Phoebe Rogers y Daniel Payne, la propia familia Rogers se esforz\u00f3 por desmentirla. El 25 de agosto un primo de Mary que respond\u00eda al nombre de Edward B. Hayes (el hijo de la se\u00f1ora Hayes, la hermana de Phoebe) se present\u00f3 en la redacci\u00f3n del Tattler para quejarse del retrato que hac\u00eda el peri\u00f3dico de sus parientes. Nada m\u00e1s enterarse de la tragedia, afirm\u00f3 Hayes, hab\u00eda ido personalmente a Hoboken con la intenci\u00f3n de identificar el cad\u00e1ver, aunque su fragilidad nerviosa le hab\u00eda impedido hacerlo. Respecto a los actos de Payne y Phoebe Rogers, ambos se hab\u00edan dejado guiar \u2013\u00abtal vez malintencionadamente\u00bb\u2013 por los consejos de Alfred Crommelin. Crommelin hab\u00eda ido a ver a Hayes al concluir la investigaci\u00f3n de Nueva Jersey y le hab\u00eda dicho muy tajantemente que hab\u00eda que impedir a toda costa que Payne fuese a Hoboken. Payne era \u00abun loco\u00bb cuya intromisi\u00f3n s\u00f3lo servir\u00eda para echar a perder la investigaci\u00f3n. A ra\u00edz de lo cual, afirm\u00f3 Hayes, hab\u00eda ido a ver a John, el hermano de Payne, y le hab\u00eda convencido de que se lo llevase fuera de la ciudad por unos d\u00edas, con la excusa de que deb\u00eda recobrarse de la impresi\u00f3n causada por la muerte de su prometida. Al mismo tiempo, Crommelin hab\u00eda aconsejado a la se\u00f1ora Rogers y a los dem\u00e1s miembros de la familia que se quedaran en casa y fuesen discretos con todo lo relacionado con el crimen, para no interferir en \u00abla detenci\u00f3n de quienes hubiesen perpetrado el asesinato\u00bb. Seg\u00fan Hayes, Crommelin lleg\u00f3 incluso a aconsejarles que no hablaran con la polic\u00eda e insisti\u00f3 en que \u00e9l mismo ser\u00eda el portavoz de la familia.\n\nEl se\u00f1or Hayes dijo estar particularmente molesto por la insinuaci\u00f3n de que ning\u00fan miembro de la familia se hubiese ocupado de arreglar lo del entierro. Insisti\u00f3 en que el se\u00f1or Downing, uno de los primos a quien Mary supuestamente hab\u00eda ido a visitar el domingo fat\u00eddico, no s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda dispuesto el funeral sino corrido con los gastos. Es m\u00e1s, Downing hab\u00eda estado presente junto con Payne, cuando hab\u00edan enterrado a Mary en la tumba familiar, y no en la iglesia de Varick Street, como hab\u00edan informado algunos peri\u00f3dicos.\n\nUna vez expresadas sus protestas, Hayes abandon\u00f3 la redacci\u00f3n del Tattler exigiendo que publicaran una disculpa formal. No llegaron a hacer tal cosa, aunque s\u00ed informaron largo y tendido de sus aclaraciones, incluyendo el detalle del entierro de Mary en la tumba familiar, que se contradec\u00eda ligeramente con la feroz insistencia del peri\u00f3dico en que la joven segu\u00eda con vida. El Tattler tambi\u00e9n public\u00f3 una carta de Payne que se recibi\u00f3 poco despu\u00e9s y en la que declaraba que lo contado por Hayes era \u00abla pura verdad en todos sus detalles\u00bb.\n\nPara entonces Alfred Crommelin se hab\u00eda acostumbrado a ver cuestionados en la prensa tanto sus actos como su testimonio. Un peri\u00f3dico lo tach\u00f3 de \u00abentrometido\u00bb y otro de \u00abmetomentodo correveidile\u00bb, lo que le impuls\u00f3 a presentar una queja ante el juez Gilbert Merritt por el modo en que \u00abel sector m\u00e1s rastrero de la prensa\u00bb se dedicaba a \u00abacumular oprobio\u00bb contra \u00e9l. Merritt, a quien esos mismos peri\u00f3dicos acababan de acusar de ser \u00abun modelo de incompetencia judicial\u00bb, recomend\u00f3 a Crommelin que no hiciera caso de lo que publicara la prensa. \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 m\u00e1s da lo que digan?\u00bb, le pregunt\u00f3 y le anim\u00f3 a \u00abdisfrutar de la orgullosa satisfacci\u00f3n de haber cumplido con su deber, como ha hecho usted fiel y diligentemente hasta el momento, d\u00eda y noche, con sus esfuerzos por descubrir y llevar ante la justicia al perverso asesino de la se\u00f1orita Rogers\u00bb.\n\nNo obstante, despu\u00e9s del \u00faltimo ataque del Tattler, Crommelin no pudo seguir guardando silencio. Aunque podr\u00eda haberse callado por respeto a Edward Hayes, la carta de confirmaci\u00f3n de Daniel Payne, su antiguo rival, le dio donde m\u00e1s dol\u00eda. Indignado y con ganas de pelea, se present\u00f3 en la redacci\u00f3n del Courier and Enquirer para contar su versi\u00f3n de la historia. Cogi\u00f3 a un reportero por las solapas y estuvo casi una hora justificando entre fanfarronadas todos y cada uno de sus actos. Afirm\u00f3 estar \u00abparticularmente dolido\u00bb por la insinuaci\u00f3n de que se hab\u00eda equivocado al identificar el cad\u00e1ver de Mary. Para confirmarlo, s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda que recordar que la propia Phoebe Rogers hab\u00eda corroborado la declaraci\u00f3n de Crommelin a partir del vestido que llevaba el cad\u00e1ver, e incluso de reconocer \u00abciertos remiendos concretos hechos el s\u00e1bado por la noche antes de que saliera de casa\u00bb. \u00bfAcaso \u2013insisti\u00f3 Crommelin\u2013 el detalle del vestido no era lo bastante claro?\n\nAl d\u00eda siguiente, las declaraciones de Crommelin estaban sobre la mesa de Benjamin Day en su despacho del Tattler. Aun as\u00ed, el director se neg\u00f3 a retractarse; public\u00f3, en cambio, una tajante ratificaci\u00f3n de su teor\u00eda de que Mary Rogers estaba viva, pasando convenientemente por alto la afirmaci\u00f3n de su familia de que la hab\u00edan enterrado. Incluso lleg\u00f3 a sugerir que Crommelin llevaba un tiempo sin ver a Mary y no hab\u00eda respondido a las peticiones que \u00e9sta le hab\u00eda hecho antes de su desaparici\u00f3n, por lo que su identificaci\u00f3n del vestido de la joven no pod\u00eda considerarse fiable. No obstante, olvidaba citar que Phoebe Rogers y al menos otros dos familiares tambi\u00e9n lo hab\u00edan reconocido.\n\nFue una astuta estrategia por parte de Day. Aunque el Tattler volv\u00eda a ofrecer unos ambiguos elogios de los \u00abdesinteresados esfuerzos\u00bb de Crommelin por resolver el misterio, el art\u00edculo recordaba que se hab\u00eda negado a ayudar a Mary Rogers en un momento de m\u00e1xima necesidad, subrayando as\u00ed la idea de que intentaba aliviar una conciencia culpable. El testimonio de un hombre semejante, daba a entender Day, no pod\u00eda aceptarse sin m\u00e1s.\n\nFurioso, Crommelin pas\u00f3 por encima del Courier and Enquirer y envi\u00f3 una carta indignada directamente al Tattler de Day. Aunque varios amigos y funcionarios municipales le hab\u00edan aconsejado ser discreto, decidi\u00f3 que no pod\u00eda permitir que \u00abciertos peri\u00f3dicos de un centavo se dediquen a calumniarme d\u00eda tras d\u00eda\u00bb. Afirm\u00f3 que era de dominio p\u00fablico que a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan enterrado a cargo del Ayuntamiento, con un coste de 29,50 d\u00f3lares, y que tanto el se\u00f1or Callender, el oficial de polic\u00eda, como el se\u00f1or McCadden, el enterrador, estaban dispuestos a afirmarlo bajo juramento. Respecto a las dem\u00e1s insinuaciones sobre su falta de sinceridad, exigi\u00f3 \u00abuna investigaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica de todos y cada uno de mis actos en relaci\u00f3n con la investigaci\u00f3n del asesinato de la se\u00f1orita Rogers\u00bb, en contraposici\u00f3n a los \u00abprocedimientos secretos e inquisitoriales\u00bb a los que hab\u00edan sometido a su amigo Archibald Padley. Insisti\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n en que se investigase con el mismo celo a las dem\u00e1s personas implicadas, incluyendo a Phoebe Rogers, Daniel Payne, Edward Hayes y a varios periodistas y oficiales de polic\u00eda que hab\u00edan ensuciado su buen nombre. \u00abNo temo responder a ninguna pregunta \u2013declar\u00f3\u2013, ni me oculto detr\u00e1s de ninguna m\u00e1scara.\u00bb\n\nEn ese momento Crommelin se hab\u00eda convertido en objeto de burla de la mayor\u00eda de los peri\u00f3dicos de la ciudad. Nadie tom\u00f3 en serio sus peticiones, aunque una investigaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica como la que suger\u00eda, por muy poco ortodoxa o controvertida que fuese, habr\u00eda contribuido a descartar algunas de las medias verdades y mixtificaciones que rodeaban el crimen. Hab\u00edan pasado ya cinco semanas desde que se cometi\u00f3, y en ese tiempo se hab\u00edan dicho y escrito muchas cosas, algunas verdaderas, otras falsas y muchas que no eran ni lo uno ni lo otro. Todos los d\u00edas aparec\u00eda alguna nueva y espectacular afirmaci\u00f3n sin demostrar, que corr\u00eda como la p\u00f3lvora por los bares y salones de la ciudad, s\u00f3lo para ser reemplazada al d\u00eda siguiente por otra todav\u00eda m\u00e1s sensacionalista. Un rumor afirmaba que hab\u00edan visto a Mary a bordo de un barco rumbo a Francia del brazo de un misterioso y anciano caballero. Otra historia, publicada en el Herald, explicaba a los lectores que \u00abla anciana se\u00f1ora Rogers quem\u00f3 un mazo de cartas pertenecientes a Mary el d\u00eda de la investigaci\u00f3n. Alguien deber\u00eda dar explicaciones\u00bb. A Crommelin le habr\u00eda gustado poder aclarar una de las teor\u00edas que pretend\u00edan explicar la visita que hizo Mary a su despacho unos d\u00edas antes del suceso. Se dec\u00eda que Phoebe Rogers la hab\u00eda enviado a venderle un pagar\u00e9 por valor de cincuenta y dos d\u00f3lares de un antiguo hu\u00e9sped de la pensi\u00f3n; as\u00ed, mientras \u00e9l se encargaba de cobrar la deuda, Mary podr\u00eda disponer del dinero. De ser cierto, eso habr\u00eda confirmado que Mary ten\u00eda pensado hacer algo m\u00e1s que una visita familiar cuando sali\u00f3 de Nassau Street esa ma\u00f1ana. No obstante, en el clima de agitaci\u00f3n period\u00edstica que se vivi\u00f3 las semanas siguientes a la muerte, es dif\u00edcil separar los rumores de la verdad. \u00abSigue habiendo un misterio en todo este asunto \u2013escribir\u00eda Bennett a finales de agosto\u2013 que s\u00f3lo el tiempo podr\u00e1 revelar.\u00bb\n\nDos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s, empez\u00f3 a revelarlo.\n12 El bosquecillo del crimen\n\nLa tarde del 25 de agosto de 1841, una viuda llamada Frederica Loss mand\u00f3 a sus dos hijos peque\u00f1os \u2013Charles, de diecis\u00e9is a\u00f1os, y Ossian, de doce\u2013 a recoger corteza de sasafr\u00e1s a un bosquecillo cercano. La se\u00f1ora Loss era propietaria de un establecimiento llamado Nick Moore's Tavern, una taberna de carretera cerca de la orilla del r\u00edo en Weehawken, Nueva Jersey, pocos kil\u00f3metros al norte de Elysian Fields. Aparte de unas cuantas habitaciones para hu\u00e9spedes, la tasca ofrec\u00eda aperitivos, pasteles y licores a los parroquianos cuyos vagabundeos llevaran m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de Castle Point y la Cueva de la Sibila.\n\nLos dos ni\u00f1os, apellidados Kellenbarack, aunque su padre ya no viv\u00eda con la familia, tomaron, a unos cuatrocientos metros de la casa, un camino de carruajes abandonado que conduc\u00eda a un embarcadero conocido como Bull's Ferry, serpenteando por un espeso bosque donde jugaban a menudo al escondite. Era una mara\u00f1a de hayas, arbustos y zarzas que crec\u00eda a lo largo de un muro de piedra formando un dosel sobre un estrecho espacio interior. Dentro hab\u00eda cuatro grandes piedras que serv\u00edan de toscos asientos.\n\nCuando los hijos de la se\u00f1ora Loss llegaron al bosque, Ossian, el peque\u00f1o, crey\u00f3 entrever algo de color blanco. Se asom\u00f3 por un hueco y vio un trozo de tela sobre una de las rocas. Se abri\u00f3 paso entre la mara\u00f1a de ramas, seguido de cerca por su hermano Charles, y cogi\u00f3 una prenda extra\u00f1a. \u00abVaya \u2013dijo\u2013, alguien se ha dejado olvidada la camisa.\u00bb Cuando el mayor examin\u00f3 el tejido, repar\u00f3 en que eran unas enaguas. Luego encontr\u00f3 otras prendas femeninas. Sobre una de las piedras hab\u00eda una bufanda de seda y, colgando de las ramas, jirones de tela que daban la impresi\u00f3n de haber sido arrancados de un vestido blanco. Mientras recog\u00eda las prendas y se las iba dando a su hermano, Charles hizo otro descubrimiento: un parasol de se\u00f1ora y un pa\u00f1uelo metidos en un hueco entre una de las piedras y el tronco de un \u00e1rbol. Sac\u00f3 las dos cosas y las examin\u00f3 a la luz del sol. La delicada seda de la sombrilla estaba en parte podrida por la humedad y el pa\u00f1uelo muy sucio. Aun as\u00ed, Charles acert\u00f3 a leer un par de iniciales cuidadosamente bordadas en el dobladillo: \u00abM. R.\u00bb.\n\nLos dos ni\u00f1os cogieron lo que hab\u00edan encontrado y se lo llevaron a su madre. La se\u00f1ora Loss lo examin\u00f3 todo con mucho cuidado, luego dobl\u00f3 las prendas rasgadas y descoloridas y las meti\u00f3 en un caj\u00f3n. Habr\u00edan de pasar siete d\u00edas antes de que se decidiera a volver a sacarlas. Nunca dio una explicaci\u00f3n convincente por aquella demora. Tal vez al principio no cayera en la posible relaci\u00f3n de aquellas prendas con la cigarrera desaparecida. Es posible que tuviese la esperanza de que aumentase la recompensa ofrecida por las autoridades. Cuando le preguntaron, se limit\u00f3 a decir, seg\u00fan publicar\u00edan despu\u00e9s algunos peri\u00f3dicos, que hab\u00eda dudado en entregarlas convencida de que \u00abantes o despu\u00e9s suceder\u00eda algo que las har\u00eda m\u00e1s \u00fatiles que si las entregaba de inmediato\u00bb.\n\nIndependientemente de cu\u00e1les fuesen sus motivos, lo que est\u00e1 claro es que la se\u00f1ora Loss estaba al tanto de la historia de Mary Rogers a principio de septiembre cuando pidi\u00f3 una cita para ver al juez Gilbert Merritt en la comisar\u00eda de polic\u00eda de Hoboken. Merritt escuch\u00f3 atentamente mientras la se\u00f1ora Loss le contaba su historia, pero es de suponer que, despu\u00e9s del episodio de Joseph Morse, la recibiera con suma cautela. Despu\u00e9s dir\u00eda que la actitud de la se\u00f1ora Loss le hab\u00eda puesto sobre aviso y que le pareci\u00f3 extra\u00f1o que no hubiese llevado consigo ninguna de las prendas a la entrevista. No obstante, al conocer los detalles, comprendi\u00f3 que este nuevo hallazgo, de ser cierto, supondr\u00eda un avance considerable en el caso.\n\nEl juez envi\u00f3 al doctor Cook, el forense, a la taberna de la se\u00f1ora Loss para examinar las pruebas. Cook tambi\u00e9n ten\u00eda motivos para no sacar conclusiones precipitadas, pero en su fuero interno no le cupo ninguna duda. Aquellas prendas pertenec\u00edan a Mary Rogers y los jirones de tela los hab\u00edan arrancado del vestido que vest\u00eda en el momento de su muerte. Con toda probabilidad, el bosquecillo de la Nick Moore's Tavern era el lugar donde hab\u00edan asesinado a Mary Rogers.\n\nMientras funcionarios de ambas orillas del Hudson acud\u00edan al lugar de los hechos, la polic\u00eda de Nueva York emiti\u00f3 un comunicado oficial a la prensa rogando que omitiera cualquier menci\u00f3n del asunto hasta que pudiese investigarse debidamente aquel nuevo giro en las pesquisas. La mayor parte de los peri\u00f3dicos cumplieron lo que se les ped\u00eda, pero no sin sugerir que pronto se producir\u00edan nuevas revelaciones. \u00abCuando se nos permita \u2013prometi\u00f3 el Herald\u2013 levantaremos el velo y mostraremos escenas de sangre y brutalidad que ponen los pelos de punta.\u00bb\n\nPara Gilbert Merritt, el hallazgo fue como la promesa de una reparaci\u00f3n. Despu\u00e9s de cuatro semanas sometido a los ataques de la prensa, no tard\u00f3 en presentarse en Nick Moore's Tavern para inspeccionar personalmente el lugar. Estas labores preliminares normalmente las hac\u00edan los alguaciles, pero Merritt no quer\u00eda correr riesgos. Tras visitar el bosquecillo donde los ni\u00f1os hab\u00edan encontrado la ropa, se instal\u00f3 en el sal\u00f3n principal de la taberna y procedi\u00f3 a interrogar a todos los miembros de la familia. Aunque sus modales eran abiertos y cordiales, el magistrado abrigaba decididas sospechas sobre la se\u00f1ora Loss y sus hijos.\n\nLa se\u00f1ora Loss empez\u00f3 a reunir los retazos dispersos de una historia que luego sufrir\u00eda un sinf\u00edn de cambios y retoques. La versi\u00f3n inicial era muy directa: el domingo 25 de julio hab\u00eda entrado en la taberna una muchacha acompa\u00f1ada de un joven de tez \u00abmorena\u00bb. La chica deb\u00eda de rondar los veinte a\u00f1os, era de cabello oscuro y muy atractiva. Llevaba un vestido de lino blanco y una sombrilla. La se\u00f1ora Loss recordaba muy bien el vestido porque se parec\u00eda a uno que ten\u00eda su hermana, coincidencia que le hab\u00eda llamado la atenci\u00f3n en aquel momento. Los modales de la muchacha, record\u00f3 la se\u00f1ora Loss, fueron \u00abmodestos y muy amables\u00bb. Ahora comprend\u00eda que la joven era Mary Rogers.\n\nEsa tarde entraron en el bar cinco o seis parejas y la se\u00f1ora Loss no recordaba si Mary Rogers y su acompa\u00f1ante hab\u00edan llegado solos o con un grupo mayor. Cuando circul\u00f3 una bandeja con licor, el hombre atezado ofreci\u00f3 una copa a Mary. Ella declin\u00f3 y pidi\u00f3 una limonada. Al cabo de un rato la pareja se levant\u00f3 para marcharse. Mary cogi\u00f3 a su acompa\u00f1ante por el brazo y le dio las gracias a la se\u00f1ora Loss con una inclinaci\u00f3n de cabeza mientras ambos se alejaban por el sendero que conduc\u00eda hasta el r\u00edo.\n\nAl atardecer, la se\u00f1ora Loss envi\u00f3 a su hijo mayor, Oscar, a espantar a un toro que se hab\u00eda escapado del campo de un vecino y estaba en el camino. Poco despu\u00e9s, oy\u00f3 un grito en el bosque que hab\u00eda cerca de la taberna. Lo recordaba como el \u00abgrito terrible y estrangulado de una joven muy asustada que pidiera ayuda y dijera: \"\u00a1Oh, oh, Dios!\" de forma ag\u00f3nica\u00bb. Pese a la extraordinaria precisi\u00f3n de su descripci\u00f3n \u2013insisti\u00f3 varias veces en que parec\u00eda el grito de una mujer o una joven\u2013, la se\u00f1ora Loss concluy\u00f3 que era Oscar quien gritaba. Temiendo que el toro hubiese embestido a su hijo, sali\u00f3 corriendo de la casa llamando al chico. \u00abNada m\u00e1s salir \u2013informar\u00eda despu\u00e9s el Herald\u2013 oy\u00f3 ruidos de lucha y un grito ahogado, luego todo qued\u00f3 en silencio.\u00bb\n\nLa se\u00f1ora Loss no tard\u00f3 en comprobar que su hijo estaba sano y salvo y hab\u00eda conseguido espantar al toro del vecino, por lo que decidi\u00f3 no pensar m\u00e1s en los gritos ag\u00f3nicos y estrangulados de mujer que hab\u00eda o\u00eddo. Ese d\u00eda hab\u00eda \u00abtoda suerte de malhechores\u00bb merodeando por los alrededores, afirm\u00f3, y supuso que el ruido ser\u00eda fruto de alguna gamberrada. De hecho, se sab\u00eda que varias bandas hab\u00edan llegado en botes de remo desde Nueva York y se hab\u00edan reunido en un \u00abrinc\u00f3n a la orilla del r\u00edo\u00bb, cerca de la taberna de los Loss, donde varias peleas hab\u00edan perturbado la paz de la tarde. Despu\u00e9s se especular\u00eda mucho sobre la posibilidad de que una de esas bandas hubiera atacado a Mary Rogers y su acompa\u00f1ante. De momento, no obstante, s\u00f3lo se sab\u00eda que hubieran cometido un delito: los miembros de una de las bandas \u00abse hab\u00edan apoderado de todos los pasteles\u00bb que hab\u00eda en una de las mesas y se hab\u00edan negado a pagarlos.\n\nUna vez examinado minuciosamente por la polic\u00eda, el \u00abbosquecillo del crimen\u00bb, como pronto ser\u00eda conocido, depar\u00f3 varias pistas de importancia. \u00abEst\u00e1 emplazado entre dos caminos \u2013dec\u00eda una descripci\u00f3n del Sun\u2013, s\u00f3lo puede entrarse en \u00e9l a gatas, o apoy\u00e1ndose en el suelo con las manos. S\u00f3lo un hombre joven podr\u00eda internarse en \u00e9l. Es inconcebible que, en ninguna circunstancia, pueda convencerse a una chica para que entre voluntariamente en semejante lugar lleno de piedras, rocas afiladas y porquer\u00eda, sobre todo despu\u00e9s de haber llovido, cuando las hojas y la tierra est\u00e9n mojadas y sucias. Una vez en el interior, no hay una sola superficie plana, ni una plataforma o superficie lisa de m\u00e1s de treinta cent\u00edmetros de di\u00e1metro. Apenas hay sitio donde sentarse, y tumbarse ser\u00eda tan f\u00e1cil como hacerlo en un barril lleno de clavos.\u00bb\n\nEn el interior del bosquecillo hab\u00eda signos evidentes de violencia adem\u00e1s de las huellas de una bota de hombre de tac\u00f3n alto. Uno de los jirones de tejido que colgaban de las ramas hab\u00eda sido agujereado tres veces por una espina, lo que en apariencia indicaba un sufrimiento prolongado. \u00abTodo el suelo estaba pisoteado, las ramas quebradas y las ra\u00edces golpeadas y aplastadas, lo cual suger\u00eda que hab\u00eda sido escenario de una disputa muy violenta \u2013afirmaba una versi\u00f3n\u2013. Y, por la posici\u00f3n de los objetos, daba la impresi\u00f3n de que hubieran colocado a la desdichada joven sobre la piedra m\u00e1s grande, con la cabeza hacia atr\u00e1s, y la hubieran violado varios malhechores antes de estrangularla.\u00bb\n\nTambi\u00e9n se apreciaban varias huellas que se alejaban del bosquecillo hacia el r\u00edo y un surco largo y superficial en el barro, como si alguien hubiese arrastrado una pesada carga en esa direcci\u00f3n. Entre el bosquecillo y el r\u00edo hab\u00eda dos cercas. En los sitios donde las cercas se cruzaban con las huellas, alguien hab\u00eda quitado las estacas para facilitar el paso. Las estacas se encontraron tiradas en la hierba. Tanto las huellas como las estacas parec\u00edan confirmar una de las conclusiones del doctor Cook: durante la investigaci\u00f3n inicial el forense hab\u00eda reparado en una larga tira de tela que daba varias vueltas en torno al cuerpo y estaba atada con \u00abuna especie de vuelta de cabo\u00bb, y hab\u00eda especulado con la posibilidad de que la tela le hubiera servido como asa al asesino para arrastrar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el r\u00edo.\n\nPara algunos las pruebas encontradas en el bosquecillo suscitaban perturbadoras sospechas. \u00bfC\u00f3mo hab\u00edan pasado inadvertidas tantas semanas? \u00bfDe verdad era cre\u00edble que las prendas y las huellas en el barro siguieran casi intactas al cabo de un mes? Surgi\u00f3 la sospecha de que la se\u00f1ora Loss o sus hijos hubiesen dispuesto la escena con la esperanza de cobrar la recompensa. O, si llegaba a demostrarse que los objetos encontrados eran verdaderos, de que el asesino de Mary Rogers hubiese dejado all\u00ed las pruebas con la intenci\u00f3n de desviar la atenci\u00f3n del aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos.\n\nCuando los rumores y cotilleos empezaron a cobrar fuerza, el alcalde Morris volvi\u00f3 a pedir a los peri\u00f3dicos que se abstuvieran de hacer comentarios e insisti\u00f3 en que las especulaciones s\u00f3lo servir\u00edan para entorpecer la investigaci\u00f3n. No obstante, despu\u00e9s de m\u00e1s de una semana de silencio, la prensa no pudo contenerse. El 17 de septiembre James Gordon Bennett desobedeci\u00f3 la petici\u00f3n del Ayuntamiento y public\u00f3 un comentario sobre los descubrimientos de Weehawken que inclu\u00eda un grabado de la Nick Moore's Tavern con un pie que la identificaba como \u00abLa casa donde se vio por \u00faltima vez con vida a Mary Rogers\u00bb.\n\nFiel a s\u00ed mismo, el Herald present\u00f3 las nuevas pruebas como la confirmaci\u00f3n irrebatible de la teor\u00eda que hab\u00eda defendido desde el principio: Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una banda de \u00abtah\u00fares y petimetres de pelo aceitoso\u00bb. El peri\u00f3dico pint\u00f3 un v\u00edvido retrato del crimen y sus consecuencias, con el villano agazapado \u00abjunto al cuerpo inerte y desfigurado de la muerta en aquel bosquecillo oscuro, sin que ninguna mirada se posara sobre el asesino y la joven asesinada, hasta que todo estuvo en calma, puede que a medianoche. Luego, anud\u00f3 la tela a modo de asa, la arrastr\u00f3 hasta la orilla, la ech\u00f3 al r\u00edo y huy\u00f3 aterrorizado sin atreverse a volver al lugar de los hechos a recoger las prendas que encontraron los chicos\u00bb.\n\nBennett y William Atree, su reportero criminal, descartaron enseguida la idea de la falsedad en la disposici\u00f3n de dichas prendas: \u00abPara que nadie piense que la ropa se dej\u00f3 all\u00ed hace poco, conviene se\u00f1alar que es sencillamente imposible. Esas cosas llevaban all\u00ed al menos tres o cuatro semanas. Estaban h\u00famedas por la lluvia y pegadas entre s\u00ed a causa del moho. La hierba hab\u00eda cubierto algunas de ellas\u00bb. Por si eso no fuese suficiente, el Herald inform\u00f3 de que las enaguas y el chal estaban infestados de unos bichos llamados \u00abescarabajos bodegueros, un insecto que se mete entre la ropa que se deja en lugares h\u00famedos.\u00bb A fin de reforzar su argumento, el Herald public\u00f3 un esbozo del bosquecillo con un pie que dec\u00eda: \u00abEl aut\u00e9ntico lugar donde tuvo lugar el terrible asesinato y violaci\u00f3n de Mary Rogers\u00bb. Debido a las toscas t\u00e9cnicas de impresi\u00f3n de la \u00e9poca, el grabado dejaba mucho a la imaginaci\u00f3n. Como se\u00f1alar\u00eda despu\u00e9s un comentarista, \u00abel esbozo lo mismo podr\u00eda haber descrito un sim\u00fan en el desierto de Arabia o la negrura del est\u00f3mago de un borracho\u00bb.\n\nEn cuanto se hicieron p\u00fablicos los descubrimientos de Weehawken, se present\u00f3 a declarar un nuevo testigo cuyo testimonio pareci\u00f3 reforzar la idea de que a Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan asesinado en el bosquecillo. Adam Wall, un cochero de Hoboken, inform\u00f3 de que el domingo en cuesti\u00f3n hab\u00eda estado esperando junto al muelle cuando un amigo llam\u00f3 su atenci\u00f3n sobre una joven muy atractiva a quien acompa\u00f1aba un \u00abhombre de tez morena\u00bb. Dicha mujer deb\u00eda haber sido Mary Rogers. La pareja no quiso aceptar sus servicios, declar\u00f3 Wall, y se alej\u00f3 por el sendero que lleva a Weehawken. Wall tambi\u00e9n afirm\u00f3 haber visto el cad\u00e1ver que sali\u00f3 a flote despu\u00e9s en Castle Point. Pens\u00e1ndolo bien, estaba seguro de que se trataba de la misma persona.\n\nWall, al igual que la se\u00f1ora Loss, no pudo dar una explicaci\u00f3n convincente de su retraso en presentarse a declarar. Interrogado, asegur\u00f3 no haber reparado en la conexi\u00f3n entre aquella muchacha y la cigarrera desaparecida hasta que un amigo le refresc\u00f3 la memoria. \u00abDe modo \u2013le dijo a Wall\u2013 que a la bella cigarrera la asesinaron el mismo d\u00eda en que te la se\u00f1al\u00e9.\u00bb El testimonio de Wall, tal como subrayaron muchos peri\u00f3dicos, no parec\u00eda de fiar. Pronto se sospech\u00f3 que, como la se\u00f1ora Loss, se hab\u00eda inventado la historia para cobrar el dinero de la recompensa.\n\nA medida que crec\u00eda la pol\u00e9mica, los curiosos volvieron a ir en masa a Nueva Jersey, y la se\u00f1ora Loss empez\u00f3 a ganar un buen dinero con la venta de licor y limonada. Barcos llenos de visitantes llegaban a diario para recorrer el siniestro bosquecillo y la mayor\u00eda se pasaba despu\u00e9s por Nick Moore's Tavern a disfrutar de la emoci\u00f3n de sentarse en el sitio donde se hab\u00eda visto por \u00faltima vez con vida a Mary Rogers.\n\nNo todos los visitantes iban en busca de tales emociones. A las tres de la tarde del 7 de octubre, Daniel Payne, el atormentado prometido de Mary Rogers, cruz\u00f3 el Hudson y fue hasta Weehawken. Vest\u00eda un abrigo marr\u00f3n encima de un traje negro y su sombrero de copa de seda iba envuelto en una cinta de luto de crepe negro.\n\nDemacrado y ojeroso, Payne se dirigi\u00f3 a la taberna de Loss, donde Ossian Kellenbarack, de doce a\u00f1os de edad, estaba atendiendo la barra. Pidi\u00f3 brandy con agua, lo despach\u00f3 de un trago y rog\u00f3 que le indicaran c\u00f3mo se llegaba al lugar donde se dec\u00eda que hab\u00eda muerto Mary Rogers. Ossian obten\u00eda ping\u00fces beneficios haciendo de gu\u00eda por el bosquecillo, pero Payne no quer\u00eda acompa\u00f1antes. Despu\u00e9s de reunir fuerzas con ayuda de otro brandy con agua, parti\u00f3 solo por el camino de carruajes.\n\nA las diez en punto de la noche, entr\u00f3 dando tumbos en una taberna de Hoboken y pidi\u00f3 un brandy con agua. Iba sucio y parec\u00eda muy nervioso por haber perdido el sombrero. \u00abSupongo que me conocen ustedes \u2013dijo\u2013. Soy el prometido de Mary Rogers.\u00bb Hizo una pausa mientras apuraba su copa y a\u00f1adi\u00f3 con voz l\u00fagubre: \u00abEstoy metido en un buen l\u00edo\u00bb.\n\nA la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, un granjero de la zona llamado James McShane encontr\u00f3 a Payne tumbado boca abajo en el suelo, sollozando en la hierba mojada. Ol\u00eda a alcohol. Para el granjero eso s\u00f3lo pod\u00eda significar una cosa. \u00abOiga, buen hombre \u2013pregunt\u00f3\u2013, \u00bfes usted franc\u00e9s?\u00bb Cuando Payne le dijo que no, lo ayud\u00f3 a levantarse. Payne trat\u00f3 de sacudirse el polvo de la ropa y luego se march\u00f3 dando tumbos en direcci\u00f3n a Castle Point, todav\u00eda murmurando acerca de su sombrero.\n\nPoco tiempo despu\u00e9s, encontraron el sombrero de Payne en el bosquecillo del crimen. Cerca hab\u00eda fragmentos de un frasco de l\u00e1udano, una tintura alcoh\u00f3lica de opio endulzado con az\u00facar. En la \u00e9poca, el l\u00e1udano se empleaba mucho como analg\u00e9sico y \u00abtonificante nervioso\u00bb, aunque los defensores de la abstinencia del alcohol lo criticaban por sus cualidades adictivas y potencialmente t\u00f3xicas. Payne hab\u00eda adquirido aquella dosis en una farmacia de Ann Street, a pocos pasos de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers. Al parecer hab\u00eda destapado el frasco al llegar al bosquecillo del crimen e ingerido su contenido mientras contemplaba el lugar donde se debati\u00f3 su prometida. Dando media vuelta estrell\u00f3 el frasco vac\u00edo contra una roca y se dirigi\u00f3 hacia el r\u00edo.\n\nNo lleg\u00f3 muy lejos. Al cabo de unas horas encontraron a Payne tumbado en un banco cerca de la Cueva de la Sibila, con la cabeza colgando a pocos cent\u00edmetros del suelo. Quiso la casualidad que el hombre que lo encontr\u00f3 fuese un m\u00e9dico que lo incorpor\u00f3 y le afloj\u00f3 el cuello de la camisa. Payne ten\u00eda los ojos vidriosos y un leve gemido sal\u00eda de sus labios. El m\u00e9dico corri\u00f3 a buscar ayuda, pero, cuando regres\u00f3, ya hab\u00eda muerto.\n\nEn su bolsillo hab\u00eda una nota escrita a l\u00e1piz: \u00abAl mundo entero: heme aqu\u00ed donde sucedi\u00f3; que Dios me perdone mi desdicha en este tiempo desperdiciado\u00bb.\nTercera parte\n\nEl domingo fat\u00eddico\n\n\u00abCuando se nos permita levantaremos el velo y mostraremos escenas  \nde sangre y brutalidad que ponen los pelos de punta.\u00bb  \nHerald (Nueva York), 17 de septiembre de 1841\n\nCortes\u00eda de la Sociedad Anticuaria Americana\nLas circunstancias, y cierta tendenciosidad de mi imaginaci\u00f3n, me han llevado a interesarme por tales acertijos, y es dudoso que el ingenio humano pueda elaborar un enigma que el ingenio humano no pueda resolver si se lo propone.\n\nEDGAR ALLAN POE, El escarabajo de oro\n\nHay series ideales de acontecimientos que discurren paralelos a los reales. Raramente coinciden. Por lo general, los hombres y las circunstancias modifican el curso ideal de los acontecimientos, por lo que parecen imperfectos y sus consecuencias son asimismo imperfectas. As\u00ed ocurri\u00f3 con la Reforma: en lugar del protestantismo lleg\u00f3 el luteranismo.\n\nFRIEDRICH VON HARDENBURG, Moralische Ansichten\n\n(Cita introductoria a El misterio de Marie R\u00f4get)\n13 Un coraz\u00f3n consumido\n\nGilbert Merritt lleg\u00f3 a Castle Point antes de que el cad\u00e1ver de Daniel Payne tuviera tiempo de enfriarse. Agachado junto al cuerpo sin vida, decidi\u00f3 que la instrucci\u00f3n fuese lo m\u00e1s minuciosa e irreprochable posible. Esta vez nadie podr\u00eda acusarle de incompetencia.\n\nMientras un par de m\u00e9dicos se dirig\u00edan a examinar el cad\u00e1ver, Merritt procedi\u00f3 a reunir a los testigos. Luego notific\u00f3 lo sucedido a Robert Morris, el alcalde de Nueva York, as\u00ed como al doctor Archer, el forense de Nueva York, y al juez Taylor, que se hab\u00eda encargado de la investigaci\u00f3n del sospechoso Joseph Morse. Finalmente, le pidi\u00f3 al hermano de Payne que lo identificara.\n\nEn circunstancias muy distintas a las del caso de Mary Rogers, el hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver de Daniel Payne se produjo una tarde de octubre relativamente fresca. La precipitaci\u00f3n del juez por cerrar la inspecci\u00f3n antes de que los restos \u00abse consumieran\u00bb hab\u00eda sido en aquella ocasi\u00f3n causa de muchos quebraderos de cabeza. El cad\u00e1ver de Payne, en comparaci\u00f3n, mostraba pocos s\u00edntomas de descomposici\u00f3n. Merritt decidi\u00f3 llevar a cabo la investigaci\u00f3n oficial a la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, a fin de disponer de tiempo suficiente para preparar todas las pruebas y avisar a la familia. El cad\u00e1ver pasar\u00eda la noche sobre bloques de hielo.\n\nAl caer la tarde, cuando la prensa se enter\u00f3 de la muerte de Payne, circularon todo tipo de especulaciones. Cuando se supo que hab\u00eda muerto con un mazo de papeles en el bolsillo, corri\u00f3 el rumor de que hab\u00eda dejado una confesi\u00f3n escrita del asesinato de Mary Rogers. Algunos llegaron a decir que no s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda admitido haber asesinado a su prometida, sino tambi\u00e9n a otras tres mujeres.\n\nLa instrucci\u00f3n se llev\u00f3 a cabo a las once de la ma\u00f1ana del 9 de octubre en una sala privada de uno de los hoteles que hab\u00eda enfrente del desembarcadero del ferry de Hoboken. El lugar probablemente se escogiera por cortes\u00eda al alcalde Morris y el juez Taylor, que hab\u00edan contratado un bote privado y desafiado una terrible tormenta para poder asistir. Mientras iban a buscar unas sillas en las que acomodar a los distinguidos visitantes neoyorquinos, el cad\u00e1ver de Daniel Payne fue depositado encima de una mesa al fondo de la sala. El sombrero del fallecido, cuyo paradero tanto le hab\u00eda angustiado en sus \u00faltimas horas, descansaba sobre su pecho.\n\nEl primer testigo en ser interrogado fue el doctor Samuel Griswold de Nueva York, que estaba paseando con un amigo, el doctor Clements, cuando encontraron a Daniel Payne agonizando en un \u00abestado de estupefacci\u00f3n\u00bb en un banco a la orilla del r\u00edo. La \u00abpeculiar posici\u00f3n\u00bb en la que yac\u00eda, con la cabeza colgando al borde del banco, pudo haber acelerado su muerte, testific\u00f3 Griswold. Probablemente se golpeara la cabeza al caer. En cualquier caso, Griswold comprendi\u00f3 enseguida que Payne se estaba muriendo. No se pod\u00eda hacer otra cosa que pedir ayuda y tratar de que su muerte fuese lo m\u00e1s pl\u00e1cida posible.\n\nAl dejar el doctor Griswold el estrado de los testigos, el doctor Clements ocup\u00f3 su lugar y confirm\u00f3 el testimonio de su amigo. Cuando encontraron al pobre desdichado, no pod\u00eda hacerse ya nada por salvarlo, afirm\u00f3, y el infortunado no pareci\u00f3 reparar en su presencia. Clements a\u00f1adi\u00f3 que al acercar la nariz a la boca del moribundo hab\u00eda notado que su aliento era amargo.\n\nTras el irrelevante testimonio de un par de cortadores de corcho que se hab\u00edan enterado de su muerte por los peri\u00f3dicos matutinos, el hermano de Payne, John, subi\u00f3 al estrado. Interrogado por el juez, confirm\u00f3 oficialmente que el cad\u00e1ver que yac\u00eda al fondo de la sala era el de Daniel Payne. \u00abEra bebedor habitual\u00bb, afirm\u00f3 antes de a\u00f1adir que su hermano llevaba fuera de s\u00ed desde la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers.\n\nAl testimonio de John Payne sigui\u00f3 el de Alfred Crommelin. No hab\u00eda visto ni hablado con el fallecido desde su breve y g\u00e9lido encuentro en el sal\u00f3n de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, cuando ambos iniciaron la b\u00fasqueda de la mujer desaparecida. El valor de Crommelin como testigo es m\u00e1s que dudoso: no dio ning\u00fan detalle sobre los h\u00e1bitos del difunto ni ninguna informaci\u00f3n que no se supiera ya, y no pudo ofrecer ninguna luz sobre los actos de Payne en sus \u00faltimos d\u00edas. No obstante, Crommelin se hab\u00eda convertido en el rostro p\u00fablico del caso de Mary Rogers y era bien conocido que deseaba que se emprendiese una investigaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica del asesinato. Aunque la instrucci\u00f3n del suicidio de Payne dif\u00edcilmente pod\u00eda cumplir esa funci\u00f3n, la presencia de Crommelin demuestra el deseo de Gilbert Merritt de ser exhaustivo. Sin embargo, si el testigo ten\u00eda la esperanza de dar su opini\u00f3n sobre la investigaci\u00f3n del caso de Mary Rogers, no tardar\u00eda en desenga\u00f1arse. Merritt limit\u00f3 sus declaraciones a los hechos directamente relacionados con la muerte de Payne. Crommelin apenas pudo hacer otra cosa que confirmar la identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver y declarar que \u00e9l y el difunto se hab\u00edan reconciliado: \u00abNo hab\u00eda frialdad entre nosotros\u00bb.\n\nVarios taberneros y otros testigos ofrecieron una relaci\u00f3n fragmentaria de los vagabundeos alcoh\u00f3licos de Payne los dos \u00faltimos d\u00edas de su existencia. El juez Merritt hab\u00eda puesto mucho cuidado en dirigir la investigaci\u00f3n seg\u00fan el protocolo establecido. De este modo, la mujer cuyo testimonio era potencialmente m\u00e1s explosivo se vio incluida entre varios testigos mucho m\u00e1s irrelevantes. Frederica Loss, la propietaria de Nick Moore's Tavern, subi\u00f3 al estrado para declarar en nombre de su hijo de doce a\u00f1os que le hab\u00eda servido a Daniel Payne una de sus \u00faltimas copas.\n\nTodo depend\u00eda de la declaraci\u00f3n de la se\u00f1ora Loss. Pese a que hab\u00edan interrogado repetidamente a Daniel Payne y lo hab\u00edan exonerado de toda sospecha del asesinato de Mary Rogers, todav\u00eda hab\u00eda mucha gente a ambos lados del Hudson que dudaba de su inocencia. Aunque su coartada parec\u00eda indiscutible, su conducta y su aparente falta de inter\u00e9s cuando le informaron del asesinato segu\u00eda creando dudas. Ahora, a ra\u00edz de su tr\u00e1gica muerte, esas dudas volvieron a cobrar relevancia. Detr\u00e1s del met\u00f3dico proceder de Merritt hab\u00eda un prop\u00f3sito oculto: \u00bfestuvo Payne con Mary Rogers el d\u00eda de su fallecimiento? \u00bfEra \u00e9l el misterioso \u00abhombre de tez morena\u00bb?\n\nLa se\u00f1ora Loss subi\u00f3 al estrado. Vestida con su traje de los domingos, parec\u00eda consciente de la gravedad de la situaci\u00f3n, y no del todo descontenta de ser el centro de atenci\u00f3n. Cuando el juez Merritt se adelant\u00f3 para interrogarla, lo salud\u00f3 con un gesto como si le estuviese ofreciendo una taza de t\u00e9. Merritt, por su parte, adopt\u00f3 una expresi\u00f3n p\u00e9trea y le hizo la primera pregunta en un tono brusco y formal: \u00bfreconoc\u00eda la se\u00f1ora Loss al hombre cuyo cad\u00e1ver yac\u00eda al fondo de la sala como el difunto Daniel Payne? La se\u00f1ora Loss dud\u00f3, como si estuviera midiendo la sala. S\u00ed, respondi\u00f3 al cabo de un rato. Reconoc\u00eda el rostro del difunto.\n\n\u00bfDe qu\u00e9 lo conoc\u00eda? No estaba presente cuando su hijo Ossian le sirvi\u00f3 el brandy con agua un d\u00eda antes de su muerte (antes hab\u00edan interrogado a Ossian en privado). \u00bfEra Daniel Payne el hombre que hab\u00eda acompa\u00f1ado a Mary Rogers a la taberna de Loss el d\u00eda en que desapareci\u00f3? Nuevamente, la se\u00f1ora Loss dud\u00f3. Mir\u00f3 al juez con aire fr\u00edo y decidido. No, respondi\u00f3. El otro hombre era \u00abm\u00e1s joven, m\u00e1s delgado y no tan alto\u00bb. Daniel Payne no se le parec\u00eda lo m\u00e1s m\u00ednimo.\n\nMerritt se apart\u00f3 con un gesto de desd\u00e9n. Era evidente que la opini\u00f3n que le merec\u00eda la se\u00f1ora Loss no hab\u00eda mejorado desde su primer encuentro en comisar\u00eda: entonces ya sac\u00f3 la conclusi\u00f3n de que sab\u00eda m\u00e1s de lo que dec\u00eda. Volvi\u00f3 a repetir la pregunta con un tono de enfado en la voz: \u00bfc\u00f3mo hab\u00eda reconocido entonces la se\u00f1ora Loss al muerto? \u00bfHab\u00eda visitado Payne la taberna antes? S\u00ed, respondi\u00f3 despreocupadamente la se\u00f1ora Loss: en una ocasi\u00f3n Payne hab\u00eda ido a cazar cerca de all\u00ed, o eso ten\u00eda entendido. Tal vez se detuviera a tomar una copa. La respuesta no satisfizo al juez. Prosigui\u00f3 el interrogatorio, y pregunt\u00f3 varias veces a la testigo si no pod\u00eda estar equivocada. \u00bfEstaba segura de que Payne no era el desconocido que hab\u00eda acompa\u00f1ado a Mary Rogers? La se\u00f1ora Loss no se dej\u00f3 influenciar: insisti\u00f3 en que Daniel Payne no era el hombre de tez morena. Aunque reconociera su cara y no estuviese segura de d\u00f3nde lo hab\u00eda visto antes, estaba totalmente convencida de que no hab\u00eda acompa\u00f1ado a Mary Rogers a la taberna. Frustrado, Merritt dio el interrogatorio por concluido.\n\nEl juez parec\u00eda abatido cuando la se\u00f1ora Loss volvi\u00f3 a su asiento. Cualquier esperanza de que se produjese alg\u00fan avance decisivo en el caso de la muerte de Mary Rogers acababa de irse a pique. El doctor Cook, el forense de Hoboken, prest\u00f3 juramento para informar de lo que hab\u00eda descubierto en la autopsia practicada a Payne, y la instrucci\u00f3n prosigui\u00f3 con su rutina.\n\nEl doctor Cook inform\u00f3 de que hab\u00eda abierto el est\u00f3mago del cad\u00e1ver, pero su contenido no hab\u00eda revelado nada raro, aparte de los restos de su \u00faltima cena, que parec\u00eda haber sido a base de patatas. El cerebro estaba congestionado de sangre, probablemente por la posici\u00f3n de la cabeza en el momento de producirse la muerte. Cook tambi\u00e9n crey\u00f3 haber detectado olor a l\u00e1udano en el cerebro, aunque \u00abpod\u00edan ser s\u00f3lo imaginaciones\u00bb, causadas por el hallazgo del frasco vac\u00edo en el bosquecillo del crimen. Los dem\u00e1s \u00f3rganos parec\u00edan normales, aunque su coraz\u00f3n estaba \u00abconsumido, lo que podr\u00eda explicar su melancol\u00eda\u00bb.\n\nCook no estableci\u00f3 la causa exacta de la muerte y por la vaguedad de sus conclusiones da la impresi\u00f3n de que trataba de considerar todas las posibilidades. En todas partes se dar\u00eda la noticia del fallecimiento de Payne atribuy\u00e9ndolo a un suicidio fruto de la desesperaci\u00f3n \u2013o tal vez de una conciencia culpable\u2013 por la muerte de Mary Rogers. Los actos del difunto en sus \u00faltimos d\u00edas, aparte de la nota encontrada en su bolsillo, apoyaban la idea de que hab\u00eda ido a Weehawken con la intenci\u00f3n de quitarse la vida. No obstante, para la instrucci\u00f3n del caso, las pruebas no eran ni mucho menos decisivas. Muchas de las versiones que circularon \u2013tanto en la \u00e9poca como posteriormente\u2013 insistir\u00edan en el l\u00e1udano como un \u00abveneno infame\u00bb, pero se trataba de un mero exceso ret\u00f3rico porque en ese momento la droga era legal y se recetaba con frecuencia. Es cierto que pod\u00eda ser t\u00f3xica, sobre todo en dosis grandes o prolongadas, pero por lo general no se la consideraba venenosa. No obstante, si se abusaba de \u00e9l, pod\u00eda causar una sobredosis fatal \u2013el sue\u00f1o eterno de la melancol\u00eda, como dijo un escritor de la \u00e9poca\u2013. Indoloro y f\u00e1cil de conseguir, el l\u00e1udano era popular entre quienes quer\u00edan poner fin a su vida, y las sobredosis accidentales no eran raras entre quienes ten\u00edan debilidad por la droga.\n\nEn el caso de Payne, el forense no pudo llegar a una conclusi\u00f3n categ\u00f3rica sobre la posible intencionalidad. Se desconoc\u00eda la cantidad de l\u00e1udano que hab\u00eda consumido: hab\u00eda roto el frasco contra una roca en el bosquecillo del crimen, y al parecer nadie se molest\u00f3 en hacer averiguaciones en la farmacia de Ann Street donde lo hab\u00eda comprado. Ante la falta de pruebas, Cook concluy\u00f3 vagamente que \u00abel modo en que Payne pas\u00f3 las veinticuatro horas anteriores a su muerte pudieron ser la causa de su fallecimiento\u00bb y a\u00f1adi\u00f3 que la \u00abpeculiar posici\u00f3n\u00bb de la cabeza en su estado de estupor final en el banco \u00abprobablemente hubiese precipitado\u00bb la muerte. El jurado deliber\u00f3 brevemente y emiti\u00f3 el veredicto de que la muerte se hab\u00eda producido debido a una \u00abcongesti\u00f3n del cerebro, supuestamente causada por una vida irregular unida a una aberraci\u00f3n del \u00e1nimo\u00bb.\n\nEran unas conclusiones muy poco concluyentes a pesar de los decididos esfuerzos de Merritt. Una vez m\u00e1s, la prensa husme\u00f3 el olor de la sangre. Se acus\u00f3 al juez Merritt de \u00abpasar totalmente por alto la importancia de las pruebas\u00bb y se insinu\u00f3 que no hab\u00eda una sola persona en Nueva Jersey capaz de pensar con la cabeza. La mayor parte de los comentarios se concentraron en los documentos que Payne llevaba consigo en el momento de su muerte. A pesar de que se hab\u00eda hecho p\u00fablico el contenido de la supuesta nota de suicidio, los dem\u00e1s papeles se ocultaron a la prensa dando as\u00ed p\u00e1bulo a todo tipo de especulaciones acerca de posibles cartas incriminatorias y una confesi\u00f3n angustiada. Con la esperanza de acallar los rumores, Merritt declar\u00f3 que los papeles del difunto no vert\u00edan ninguna luz sobre su propia muerte ni sobre la de Mary Rogers. No logr\u00f3 satisfacer a nadie. \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 oculta el erudito juez?\u00bb, preguntaba el Sun; en cambio, el Tattler de Benjamin Day adoptaba una actitud m\u00e1s diplom\u00e1tica: \u00abExcepto en los melodramas, los criminales no acostumbran a dejar documentos comprometedores ni a poner nada negro sobre blanco\u00bb.\n\nPor otra parte, el Tattler daba muy mala imagen de Merritt y los descubrimientos de Weehawken. Por incre\u00edble que parezca, Benjamin Day segu\u00eda aferr\u00e1ndose valientemente a su teor\u00eda de que Mary Rogers segu\u00eda con vida y parec\u00eda dispuesto a echar por tierra cualquier suposici\u00f3n o informaci\u00f3n publicada en el Herald que la contradijera. Unos d\u00edas antes de la muerte de Payne, Day hab\u00eda enviado a uno de sus mejores periodistas a inspeccionar el bosquecillo del crimen y a entrevistar a la se\u00f1ora Loss, con la esperanza de que encontrara alg\u00fan aspecto dudoso en las nuevas pruebas. Despu\u00e9s de pasar un d\u00eda en Weehawken, el reportero de Day regres\u00f3 y escribi\u00f3 un largo art\u00edculo en las p\u00e1ginas de Brother Jonathan, la publicaci\u00f3n hermana del Tattler. Los nuevos hallazgos, como se apresur\u00f3 a se\u00f1alar Day, arrojaban considerables dudas sobre el testimonio de la se\u00f1ora Loss sobre las \u00faltimas horas de Mary Rogers: \u00abNo es culpa nuestra si su narraci\u00f3n desmiente la cadena de pruebas circunstanciales que tanto han cacareado los peri\u00f3dicos\u00bb.\n\nSeg\u00fan dec\u00eda Brother Jonathan, la se\u00f1ora Loss hab\u00eda hecho nuevas declaraciones que \u00abdestru\u00edan en gran parte la unidad de la narraci\u00f3n del asesinato de Weehawken\u00bb e incluso contradec\u00edan muchas de las conclusiones de la polic\u00eda. Todas las informaciones previas hab\u00edan insistido en que Mary y el supuesto hombre de tez morena hab\u00edan llegado y se hab\u00edan marchado separadamente de las dem\u00e1s parejas que se encontraban en la taberna de la se\u00f1ora Loss esa tarde. No obstante, en sus declaraciones a Brother Jonathan, la se\u00f1ora Loss ya no parec\u00eda tan segura. Era posible, admit\u00eda ahora, que Mary y su compa\u00f1ero se hubiesen ido en compa\u00f1\u00eda del otro grupo. De ser as\u00ed, habr\u00eda al menos doce testigos de la presencia de Mary en Weehawken ese d\u00eda. Parec\u00eda incre\u00edble que ninguno de ellos se hubiese presentado a declarar \u2013tanto si estaban implicados en el asesinato como si no\u2013, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta la promesa del gobernador Seward de indultar a cualquier c\u00f3mplice dispuesto a denunciar a sus secuaces.\n\nLa se\u00f1ora Loss tambi\u00e9n parec\u00eda dudar de su primera versi\u00f3n sobre los gritos que hab\u00eda o\u00eddo fuera de su casa esa noche. Hasta entonces sus declaraciones hab\u00edan sido extraordinariamente precisas y hab\u00eda utilizado t\u00e9rminos como \u00abestrangulado\u00bb y \u00abahogado\u00bb. Ahora, interrogada por el reportero de Brother Jonathan, se desdijo. Hab\u00eda o\u00eddo un grito, pero tal vez s\u00f3lo uno y hab\u00eda sido muy poco claro. Para acabar de arreglarlo, afirmaba que, cuando oy\u00f3 el chillido, sali\u00f3 corriendo de la casa y pas\u00f3 a escasos metros del bosquecillo, pero no hab\u00eda visto ni o\u00eddo nada extra\u00f1o.\n\nBrother Jonathan tambi\u00e9n puso en cuesti\u00f3n la tesis del Herald sobre la posibilidad de que las pruebas hubieran pasado inadvertidas tantas semanas. Desconfiando de la se\u00f1ora Loss y sus hijos, el reportero de Day busc\u00f3 a otro vecino, que result\u00f3 ser el arrendatario del terreno donde se encontraba el bosquecillo. Cuando le pregunt\u00f3, dicho caballero se limit\u00f3 a \u00abmover la cabeza con incredulidad ante la noticia de que las prendas hubiesen estado tanto tiempo en el bosquecillo sin que nadie las tocara\u00bb. \u00c9l particularmente no hab\u00eda reparado en nada extra\u00f1o y no supo de la presencia de las supuestas pruebas \u2013como las estacas desclavadas de la cerca\u2013 hasta que lo ley\u00f3 en la prensa. \u00abEn todo caso, ya he arreglado la cerca\u00bb, insisti\u00f3.\n\nDel mismo modo, Brother Jonathan dio con Adam Wall, el cochero que afirmaba haber visto a Mary dirigirse a Weehawken. El testimonio de Wall, opinaba el peri\u00f3dico, carec\u00eda del menor valor. \u00abNo record\u00f3 haber visto a la chica ese domingo hasta un mes despu\u00e9s \u2013objetaba el periodista\u2013, y sigue sin tenerlo muy claro.\u00bb Es m\u00e1s, al amigo de Wall que supuestamente le hab\u00eda refrescado la memoria sobre el asunto no le hab\u00eda interrogado la polic\u00eda. \u00ab\u00bfPor qu\u00e9 \u2013preguntaba el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 no se le ha tomado declaraci\u00f3n con todo el revuelo que se ha organizado?\u00bb\n\nLas dudas planteadas en las p\u00e1ginas de Brother Jonathan pusieron en tela de juicio las teor\u00edas relativas al bosquecillo del crimen. Los motivos de Benjamin Day no eran ni mucho menos puros \u2013incluso al cuestionar el informe del forense, sus reporteros insistieron en la fantas\u00eda de que la cigarrera segu\u00eda con vida e hicieron tortuosas referencias al \u00absupuesto cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers\u00bb\u2013, pero el resultado fue que se reaviv\u00f3 la pol\u00e9mica sobre lo que se hab\u00eda descubierto en Weehawken. Incluso en su caracterizaci\u00f3n de la se\u00f1ora Loss como \u00abuna mujer muy inteligente de unos cuarenta a\u00f1os\u00bb el peri\u00f3dico se las arregl\u00f3 para insinuar enga\u00f1o y mentira. \u00abNos marchamos poco convencidos de que \"el bosquecillo\" hubiese sido poco m\u00e1s que el sitio donde manos interesadas depositaron las prendas y dem\u00e1s objetos \u2013afirmaba el periodista\u2013, mucho despu\u00e9s de producirse la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary C. Rogers.\u00bb\n\nInevitablemente, la se\u00f1ora Loss y la teor\u00eda del asesinato en Weehawken encontraron su adalid en James Gordon Bennett. El Herald no escatim\u00f3 esfuerzos con tal de cubrir de desprecio a Benjamin Day y las especulaciones de su peri\u00f3dico: \u00abEs una grave incompetencia por parte de personas que deber\u00edan ser m\u00e1s responsables y no arrojar dudas sobre el lugar donde muri\u00f3 asesinada esa pobre chica. Es indudable que ocurri\u00f3 en Weehawken\u00bb. Bennett tambi\u00e9n hizo una valiente defensa de la se\u00f1ora Loss, a quien describi\u00f3 como \u00abuna se\u00f1ora guapa, agradable e inteligente\u00bb, probablemente de ascendencia alemana. Adem\u00e1s recort\u00f3 en diez a\u00f1os el c\u00e1lculo que hab\u00eda hecho el Sun de su edad y afirm\u00f3 que \u00abrondaba los treinta a\u00f1os\u00bb.\n\nEl Herald incluso emple\u00f3 su artiller\u00eda pesada para defender el propio bosquecillo. A finales de septiembre public\u00f3 una ilustraci\u00f3n detallada de la orilla del r\u00edo en Weehawken con etiquetas que mostraban la ubicaci\u00f3n del bosquecillo, el camino abandonado que discurr\u00eda paralelo a \u00e9l y otros puntos de inter\u00e9s. Para Bennett, el dibujo era una prueba indiscutible de que el bosquecillo estaba tan aislado y alejado de todo que \u00abmil personas podr\u00edan pasar delante de \u00e9l sin reparar en su existencia\u00bb. Por estas mismas razones, insisti\u00f3, era totalmente probable que el crimen se hubiese cometido sin llamar la atenci\u00f3n y que las pruebas hubieran seguido all\u00ed sin que nadie las tocara durante varias semanas. \u00abAdi\u00f3s \u2013se burlaba el Herald\u2013 a las tontas afirmaciones de que los objetos se colocaron all\u00ed hace poco porque de lo contrario alguien los habr\u00eda encontrado.\u00bb\n\nNo obstante, las dudas no desaparec\u00edan. En las p\u00e1ginas del Herald y en todas partes las especulaciones iban de un \u00fanico asesino a una banda de malhechores. El misterio que rodeaba al acompa\u00f1ante de Mary, el \u00abhombre de tez morena\u00bb, tambi\u00e9n fue motivo de numerosos comentarios. Tal vez a \u00e9l tambi\u00e9n lo hubiese asesinado la misma banda que asalt\u00f3 a Mary. En ese caso, su cad\u00e1ver todav\u00eda no hab\u00eda sido descubierto y pod\u00eda yacer en el fondo del Hudson. O quiz\u00e1 fuese \u00e9l el asesino y la hubiese matado en un arrebato cuando ella rechaz\u00f3 sus avances. En todo caso, observaba el Journal of Commerce, era sorprendente que Mary hubiese tolerado la compa\u00f1\u00eda de un hombre grosero y maleducado. \u00abAlguien arranc\u00f3 un trozo de las enaguas de la infortunada y se lo at\u00f3 por debajo de la barbilla y detr\u00e1s de la nuca, probablemente para ahogar sus gritos \u2013observ\u00f3 el peri\u00f3dico\u2013. Quienquiera que fuese no ten\u00eda pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo.\u00bb En otras palabras, ning\u00fan caballero pod\u00eda estar involucrado en el caso, porque un hombre educado habr\u00eda utilizado su propio pa\u00f1uelo.\n\nA medida que se acumulaban las contradicciones y las incoherencias, se fue haciendo evidente que los descubrimientos de Weehawken y los poco concluyentes resultados de la investigaci\u00f3n sobre la muerte de Daniel Payne planteaban m\u00e1s inc\u00f3gnitas de las que respond\u00edan. Algunas listas de los objetos encontrados en el bosquecillo enumeraban un par de guantes de se\u00f1ora entre las prendas recuperadas, y el Herald lleg\u00f3 a afirmar que estaban vueltos del rev\u00e9s, como si \u00abse los hubieran quitado apresuradamente de las manos\u00bb. Eso ofrec\u00eda una perturbadora discrepancia con los informes relativos al cad\u00e1ver de Mary, el d\u00eda en que lo sacaron del agua en Castle Point. Varias versiones dec\u00edan que Mary llevaba puestos los guantes, y el Herald no hab\u00eda dejado de reparar en sus \u00abguantes de color claro de los que asomaban unos largos dedos\u00bb. Aunque dicho detalle pas\u00f3 bastante desapercibido en aquel momento, era una considerable incongruencia. Tal vez una u otra de las versiones estuviera equivocada, y el detalle err\u00f3neo se hubiera repetido de un peri\u00f3dico a otro, pero era una contradicci\u00f3n dif\u00edcil de explicar. Entretanto las multitudes segu\u00edan acudiendo al bosquecillo del crimen, que ya no parec\u00eda tan remoto y aislado como hab\u00eda afirmado Bennett. Si, como hab\u00eda insinuado Day, la se\u00f1ora Loss hab\u00eda buscado aquella notoriedad para favorecer su negocio, su plan no hab\u00eda podido tener m\u00e1s \u00e9xito.\n\nEnterraron a Daniel Payne en Nueva York el lunes 11 de octubre, dos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de concluir la instrucci\u00f3n en Weehawken. Cuando se hizo evidente que su tr\u00e1gica muerte no ayudar\u00eda a resolver el misterio de Mary Rogers, el inter\u00e9s empez\u00f3 a declinar. Muy pronto, los peri\u00f3dicos encontraron otro asunto sensacionalista: el horripilante asesinato a hachazos de un impresor local llamado Samuel Adams, cuyo cad\u00e1ver mutilado apareci\u00f3 muy bien escondido en un caj\u00f3n de embalaje, dispuesto para su env\u00edo a Nueva Orleans. El juicio y posterior suicidio del asesino, John C. Colt \u2013hermano del famoso fabricante de armas\u2013, tendr\u00eda fascinado a Nueva York los meses siguientes.\n\nDe momento, Mary Rogers hab\u00eda pasado a segundo plano.\n14 Una oleada escarlata\n\nDesde Filadelfia, donde los art\u00edculos period\u00edsticos neoyorquinos se reimprim\u00edan continuamente, Edgar Allan Poe sigui\u00f3 los sucesos de Weehawken con sumo inter\u00e9s. Segu\u00eda intrig\u00e1ndole el mundillo period\u00edstico neoyorquino, aunque las penurias de su vida parecieran haber quedado atr\u00e1s. En contraste con la pobreza y la desesperaci\u00f3n que hab\u00eda conocido en Carmine Street, ahora ten\u00eda motivos para sentirse satisfecho. Su salario de ochocientos d\u00f3lares en Graham's Magazine, aunque no fuese precisamente espl\u00e9ndido, le proporcionaba una seguridad de la que no hab\u00eda disfrutado en toda su vida adulta. A finales de 1841 se hab\u00eda mudado con su mujer y su suegra a una casita en Coates Street, en la parte norte de la ciudad. Tal como le hab\u00eda prometido en Richmond, procur\u00f3 dar a Virginia las comodidades de los privilegiados. La nueva casa ten\u00eda un peque\u00f1o piano, un arpa y dos canarios en una jaula dorada.\n\nEl 20 de enero de 1842, un d\u00eda despu\u00e9s de su trig\u00e9simo tercer cumplea\u00f1os, un reducido grupo de amigos se reuni\u00f3 en el sal\u00f3n de la casa de Coates Street para o\u00edr a Virginia cantar y tocar el arpa. \u00abHab\u00eda algo tan peculiarmente angelical y et\u00e9reo en la imagen de Virginia tocando el arpa en el sal\u00f3n, al lado de la chimenea, que casi extasiaba a Poe \u2013recordar\u00eda uno de los primeros admiradores del escritor\u2013. Vestida de blanco, cantando a la luz de la l\u00e1mpara, era la personificaci\u00f3n de la hero\u00edna victoriana. Las notas sonaron cada vez m\u00e1s agudas, sinceras y cristalinas... De pronto se detuvo, se llev\u00f3 la mano a la garganta y una oleada escarlata corri\u00f3 sobre su pecho.\u00bb\n\nL\u00edvido, Poe llev\u00f3 a su mujer arriba, la acost\u00f3 en la cama y corri\u00f3 a buscar ayuda. Debi\u00f3 de sospechar, incluso antes de que se lo confirmara el m\u00e9dico, que la hemorragia de su mujer se\u00f1alaba el inicio de lo que con frecuencia se denominaba \u00abmuerte en vida\u00bb o tuberculosis. Tambi\u00e9n debi\u00f3 de comprender que sus posibilidades de supervivencia eran escasas. La tuberculosis causaba casi la cuarta parte de las muertes en la Norteam\u00e9rica decimon\u00f3nica, y los escasos tratamientos disponibles \u2013como las largas estancias en sanatorios y climas saludables\u2013 estaban fuera del alcance del director adjunto de una revista que ganaba ochocientos d\u00f3lares al a\u00f1o.\n\nVirginia pasar\u00eda dos semanas con una salud muy precaria: s\u00f3lo era capaz de respirar cuando le abanicaban con aire fresco. A veces tos\u00eda tanto que daba la impresi\u00f3n de que iba a morir asfixiada y volver\u00eda a sangrar en m\u00e1s de una ocasi\u00f3n. Descorazonado, Poe se qued\u00f3 a su lado, lament\u00e1ndose por la vida miserable que hab\u00edan llevado y que hab\u00eda dejado a su mujer tan d\u00e9bil y vulnerable. M\u00e1s de un visitante apunt\u00f3 que la casa inc\u00f3moda y h\u00fameda en la que viv\u00edan \u2013lujosa para lo que estaban acostumbrados\u2013 s\u00f3lo pod\u00eda empeorar su estado. La habitaci\u00f3n en la que yac\u00eda la paciente era tan min\u00fascula que el techo abuhardillado casi le rozaba la cabeza.\n\nGeorge Graham, el jefe de Poe, observ\u00f3 que \u00abel amor que sent\u00eda por su mujer era una especie de extasiada adoraci\u00f3n del esp\u00edritu de la belleza que iba apag\u00e1ndose ante sus ojos. Lo he visto pululando en torno a ella con el temor y la ansiedad de una madre por su hijo reci\u00e9n nacido: el menor tosido le daba escalofr\u00edos y se notaba que le helaba el coraz\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nLa sombra de la enfermedad de Virginia no tard\u00f3 en hacerse visible en la obra de Poe. La m\u00e1scara de la Muerte Roja, publicado pocos meses despu\u00e9s de que su mujer sufriera el primer ataque, giraba en torno a la pestilencia y el contagio, adem\u00e1s del \u00abhorror de la sangre\u00bb, y conclu\u00eda con la horrible constataci\u00f3n del \u00abdominio ilimitado sobre todas las cosas\u00bb que ejerce la muerte. En Eleonora, tambi\u00e9n escrito durante las primeras etapas de la enfermedad, Poe volvi\u00f3 sobre el asunto y medit\u00f3 sobre las nuevas y tristes circunstancias de su vida. El cuento trata de un muchacho que vive una vida id\u00edlica con su joven prima Eleonora y su madre en un para\u00edso llamado \u00abel valle de la hierba multicolor\u00bb. Muy pronto, no obstante, Eleonora exclama entre l\u00e1grimas que \u00abhab\u00eda visto el dedo de la Muerte sobre su pecho... que, como la ef\u00edmera, hab\u00eda sido creada muy hermosa, para morir\u00bb.\n\nEn los meses siguientes, el escritor oscilar\u00eda entre un cauto optimismo y la desesperaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s absoluta. \u00abMi querida mujercita ha estado peligrosamente enferma \u2013le cont\u00f3 a un amigo en febrero\u2013, pero hoy las perspectivas mejoran, y conf\u00edo en no tener que apurar esta amarga copa de tristeza.\u00bb En verano, sin embargo, hablando de la \u00abrenovada y desesperante enfermedad\u00bb de Virginia, declaraba que \u00abapenas tengo una vaga esperanza de que se recupere\u00bb.\n\nPor un tiempo, Poe se refugi\u00f3 en el trabajo y se dedic\u00f3 a publicar poemas y cuentos en Graham's Magazine mientras crec\u00eda su reputaci\u00f3n. Cuando se enter\u00f3 de que Charles Dickens visitar\u00eda Filadelfia en marzo de 1842, le escribi\u00f3 para solicitarle una entrevista y le envi\u00f3 un ejemplar de Cuentos de lo grotesco y arabesco. Tambi\u00e9n incluy\u00f3 copias de las rese\u00f1as que hab\u00eda escrito de las obras de Dickens, dando fe de su sincera admiraci\u00f3n por el escritor a quien hab\u00eda llamado \u00abel mayor novelista ingl\u00e9s\u00bb. Entre ellas hab\u00eda un art\u00edculo en el que comentaba la intriga del asesinato en Barnaby Rudge, escrita poco despu\u00e9s de que los primeros cap\u00edtulos empezaran a aparecer por entregas. Aunque la conclusi\u00f3n del libro no se publicar\u00eda hasta varios meses despu\u00e9s, Poe hab\u00eda sido capaz de predecir, correctamente, que \u00abBarnaby, el idiota, es el hijo del asesino\u00bb.\n\nPoe caus\u00f3 muy buena impresi\u00f3n a Dickens. El autor ingl\u00e9s le concedi\u00f3 dos largas entrevistas en el Hotel United States de Filadelfia el 7 de marzo de 1842. Dickens repar\u00f3 particularmente en las rese\u00f1as de Poe y dir\u00eda despu\u00e9s del joven cr\u00edtico \u00abque abarca a todos los hombres de letras ingleses de forma categ\u00f3rica e inflexible\u00bb. Aunque el encuentro se celebr\u00f3 bajo los auspicios de Graham's Magazine, Poe no tuvo el menor reparo en utilizarlo en su propio provecho: al final de la entrevista, Dickens hab\u00eda aceptado ayudarle a buscar un editor en Gran Breta\u00f1a. La obra de Dickens seguir\u00eda presente en la de Poe, empezando por el cuervo locuaz que aparece en las p\u00e1ginas de Barnaby Rudge. En su rese\u00f1a de la novela, Poe se recre\u00f3 largamente en c\u00f3mo ese detalle podr\u00eda haberse utilizado para conseguir un efecto m\u00e1s eficaz: \u00abSus graznidos podr\u00edan haberse o\u00eddo prof\u00e9ticamente a lo largo de todo el drama\u00bb.\n\nA pesar de las ventajas de su puesto en Graham's Magazine, Poe no tardar\u00eda en alimentar el mismo resentimiento que tantos quebraderos de cabeza le hab\u00eda causado en Burton's y el Southern Literary Messenger. Poco despu\u00e9s de entrar a trabajar en la revista, confes\u00f3 que \u00aba pesar de la amabilidad y bondad de Graham, cada vez estoy m\u00e1s disgustado con mi empleo\u00bb. El autor ten\u00eda motivos para indignarse. El extraordinario \u00e9xito de la revista estaba haciendo ganar una fortuna a Graham, pero el salario de Poe segu\u00eda igual de menguado, cosa que a \u00e9l le parec\u00eda insultante. A medida que le iba dominando la tristeza por la enfermedad de Virginia, creci\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n su amargura. La ma\u00f1ana siguiente a la primera hemorragia, le pidi\u00f3 a Graham que le adelantara el sueldo de dos meses para ayudarle a sobrellevar la inesperada carga. Graham no se lo concedi\u00f3, y la familia pronto volvi\u00f3 a sumirse en un estado de penuria econ\u00f3mica.\n\nAl mismo tiempo, el \u00e9xito de Graham's reaviv\u00f3 las esperanzas de Poe de fundar una revista propia. Su amigo Thomas Holley Chivers, un poeta de Georgia muy inquieto por su bienestar, se esforz\u00f3 cuanto pudo en fomentar dichas ambiciones. \u00abEn mi opini\u00f3n, nunca te han pagado, ni te pagar\u00e1n, tus esfuerzos intelectuales \u2013le dijo\u2013. Y no esperes que lo hagan hasta que fundes tu propia revista.\u00bb Tambi\u00e9n en eso Poe ten\u00eda quejas contra su patr\u00f3n. Al incluirlo en la plantilla de la revista, Graham le hab\u00eda prometido que le ayudar\u00eda a fundar su propia Penn Magazine al cabo de un a\u00f1o. Cuando la circulaci\u00f3n y los beneficios de Graham's aumentaron, la promesa cay\u00f3 en el olvido. Poe comprendi\u00f3 que hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de su propio \u00e9xito. \u00abTodos mis esfuerzos \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013 han servido para aumentar los beneficios de Graham's y para que a su propietario se le quitaran las ganas de cumplir su palabra.\u00bb\n\nLa cuesti\u00f3n alcanz\u00f3 un momento cr\u00edtico en abril de 1842. Despu\u00e9s de una breve indisposici\u00f3n, Poe regres\u00f3 a su trabajo y descubri\u00f3 que su puesto lo hab\u00eda cubierto Charles Peterson, un editor asociado. Es posible que Peterson s\u00f3lo estuviera sustituy\u00e9ndolo en su ausencia, pero \u00e9l vio motivos para ofenderse. Siempre quisquilloso respecto a su puesto, crey\u00f3 que lo hab\u00edan ninguneado y tal vez dejado de lado en un ascenso. No tard\u00f3 en dejar la revista. Igual que en sus empleos anteriores en el mundo de la prensa literaria, nadie se puso de acuerdo en si se hab\u00eda ido voluntariamente o lo hab\u00edan despedido. \u00abO Peterson o Poe ten\u00eda que marcharse \u2013afirm\u00f3 Graham en un momento dado\u2013: eran incompatibles.\u00bb Poe insisti\u00f3 en que hab\u00eda dimitido para dedicarse a sus propios intereses y en lo mucho que le repugnaba el car\u00e1cter ins\u00edpido de la revista y el insultante salario que le pagaban. No obstante, a diferencia de su hostilidad por Thomas Willis White y William Burton, Poe no sinti\u00f3 demasiada animosidad por el \u00abcaballeroso\u00bb Graham, con quien dec\u00eda no haber tenido \u00abning\u00fan malentendido\u00bb.\n\nIndependientemente de cu\u00e1les fueran sus razones, la partida de Poe de Graham's se\u00f1al\u00f3 su regreso a la m\u00e1s terrible pobreza. Teniendo en cuenta la carga a\u00f1adida que supon\u00eda la enfermedad de Virginia, se hace dif\u00edcil comprender por qu\u00e9 dio un paso tan imprudente. \u00abEs probable que la verdad sobre la dimisi\u00f3n de Poe en la revista nunca llegue a saberse \u2013escribi\u00f3 uno de sus primeros admiradores\u2013. Sin duda se debi\u00f3 a una combinaci\u00f3n de motivos. En primer lugar, su propia inquietud, la \"intranquilidad nerviosa que \u2013como \u00e9l mismo dice\u2013 me ha acompa\u00f1ado desde ni\u00f1o\", y que en ocasiones le dominaba por completo, empuj\u00e1ndolo de un sitio a otro en una vana b\u00fasqueda de El Dorado de sus esperanzas. Luego estaba su eterno deseo de fundar su propia revista, y, hay que confesarlo, el principio de aquellas \"irregularidades\" que, en determinados per\u00edodos de su vida, destruir\u00edan sus esperanzas y pondr\u00edan su reputaci\u00f3n en manos de sus peores enemigos.\u00bb\n\nDichas \u00abirregularidades\u00bb lo dominaron casi de inmediato. La mayor parte del tiempo que pas\u00f3 en Graham's Poe se hab\u00eda abstenido de probar el alcohol, pero ahora volvi\u00f3 a darle a la botella y sufri\u00f3 sus destructivas consecuencias. Todas las versiones coinciden en que ten\u00eda una tolerancia muy baja al alcohol. En una \u00e9poca en que las calles estaban plagadas de tabernas y tascas y la frase \u00abVamos a remojar el gaznate\u00bb era un saludo habitual, su constituci\u00f3n le hac\u00eda particularmente vulnerable. Era incapaz de contentarse con un solo trago, y la primera copa bastaba para transformarlo de un caballero razonable en un \u00abin\u00fatil\u00bb grosero y tambaleante. Su amigo Frederick Thomas observ\u00f3 que \u00absi beb\u00eda una copa de vino, sidra o cerveza, cruzaba el Rubic\u00f3n del alcohol y siempre acababa en el exceso y lo enfermizo\u00bb. El poeta franc\u00e9s Charles Baudelaire, que no era ajeno al consumo de estimulantes, observar\u00eda que Poe \u00abno beb\u00eda como un borrach\u00edn normal y corriente, sino como un salvaje, con una energ\u00eda t\u00edpicamente americana, con miedo a desperdiciar un minuto, como si estuviese cometiendo un asesinato, como si hubiese algo en su interior que tuviese que matar\u00bb.\n\nLas razones de Poe para beber eran evidentes \u2013la enfermedad de Virginia, su regreso a la pobreza, sus decepciones literarias\u2013, pero el recurso a la bebida s\u00f3lo serv\u00eda para empeorarlas. En los catorce meses pasados en Graham's, hab\u00eda ganado cerca de mil d\u00f3lares en concepto de salario y honorarios por sus publicaciones. Sus ingresos literarios en los tres a\u00f1os siguientes ascender\u00edan apenas a 121 d\u00f3lares. Una vez m\u00e1s, consider\u00f3 la posibilidad de dejar de escribir, o al menos de complementar su vocaci\u00f3n con alg\u00fan empleo menos exigente. Aunque sigui\u00f3 abrigando esperanzas de fundar su propia revista, reconvertida ahora en The Stylus, opt\u00f3 a una sinecura gubernamental en el Servicio de Aduanas de Filadelfia. Tras fracasar en el intento, viaj\u00f3 a Washington con la esperanza de apelar directamente al presidente Tyler, cuyo hijo Robert hab\u00eda expresado admiraci\u00f3n por sus cr\u00edticas. Nervioso por la perspectiva de tan importante entrevista, trat\u00f3 de calmarse los nervios con una copa de oporto. Poco despu\u00e9s lo vieron tambale\u00e1ndose por la capital con el semblante verdoso y el abrigo puesto del rev\u00e9s. Nunca llegar\u00eda a ver al presidente y nunca podr\u00eda, aunque lo intentara, causar buena impresi\u00f3n en una persona en condiciones de darle un empleo.\n\nCuando las circunstancias lo empujaron a volver a su escritorio, Poe busc\u00f3 nuevos editores para sus cuentos. Antes, desde las oficinas de Graham's, hab\u00eda escrito a Lea & Blanchard, los editores de Cuentos de lo grotesco y arabesco, para ofrecerles una antolog\u00eda revisada de su obra que incluir\u00eda piezas nuevas como Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue. El editor declin\u00f3, argumentando que todav\u00eda no hab\u00eda vendido la edici\u00f3n anterior. A pesar del rechazo, Poe sigui\u00f3 acariciando la idea de hacer tratos en el futuro con Lea & Blanchard. \u00abQuisiera que ustedes siguieran siendo mis editores\u00bb, les escribi\u00f3. Es probable, pues, que Poe estuviera atento a los libros que iba sacando la editorial. Por eso tal vez quepa recordar que, a principios de 1842, m\u00e1s o menos cuando abandon\u00f3 Graham's, Lea & Blanchard public\u00f3 un libro de William Gilmore Simms titulado Beauchampe. Simms era un famoso editor y novelista de la \u00e9poca, autor de numerosos vol\u00famenes de poes\u00eda. Aunque Poe tendr\u00eda ocasi\u00f3n de denigrar su \u00abingl\u00e9s inexacto\u00bb y su \u00abtendencia a las im\u00e1genes repugnantes\u00bb, al mismo tiempo lo consideraba \u00absin duda el mejor escritor de ficci\u00f3n de Norteam\u00e9rica\u00bb. Beauchampe debi\u00f3 de llamarle especialmente la atenci\u00f3n. Al igual que Norman Leslie, el libro se inspiraba en un caso real de asesinato, y la fuente de Beauchampe era particularmente pr\u00f3xima al coraz\u00f3n de Poe. Simms hab\u00eda basado su historia en un asesinato cometido en 1825, el caso Beauchamp-Sharp, conocido como \u00abla tragedia de Kentucky\u00bb, que tambi\u00e9n hab\u00eda servido de inspiraci\u00f3n para la tragedia de Poe en verso blanco Politan. Poe ley\u00f3 el libro e incluso escribi\u00f3 un breve comentario para Graham's que se publicar\u00eda poco despu\u00e9s de su partida: \u00abLos acontecimientos en que se basa esta novela son demasiado reales. Jam\u00e1s poeta alguno imagin\u00f3 una tragedia m\u00e1s emocionante y novelesca que la de Sharpe y Beauchamp\u00bb.\n\nSin duda Poe tom\u00f3 nota del modo, tan distinto de su propia intriga barroca e italiana, en que Simms hab\u00eda dado forma a aquel material para escribir una novela popular. Al mismo tiempo, debi\u00f3 de parecerle humillante que Lea & Blanchard aceptara publicar el libro de Simms \u2013y lo convirtiera en un \u00e9xito\u2013 y al mismo tiempo se negase a sacar su antolog\u00eda de cuentos. Parece m\u00e1s que posible que, en los inciertos d\u00edas que siguieron a la p\u00e9rdida de su empleo en la revista, la popularidad del libro de Simms le empujara a escribir un cuento basado en un crimen famoso.\n\nPoe ten\u00eda todos los motivos del mundo para pensar que sus m\u00e9ritos en ese campo eran tan buenos o mejores que los de Simms. Como sabemos, desde que escribiera El ajedrecista de Maelzel se hab\u00eda convertido en todo un especialista en resolver misterios y en plantear enigmas a los lectores, que iban desde los mensajes cifrados de su serie de criptograf\u00eda popular hasta el \u00abmisterio insoluble\u00bb de su \u00e9xito m\u00e1s reciente Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue. No obstante, era consciente de que, aunque sin duda el cuento era muy ingenioso, tambi\u00e9n adolec\u00eda de cierta artificiosidad en su resoluci\u00f3n: se trataba de un enigma creado, como \u00e9l mismo escribir\u00eda despu\u00e9s, \u00abcon el expreso prop\u00f3sito de ser resuelto\u00bb. En cierto sentido, Beauchampe tambi\u00e9n ten\u00eda una soluci\u00f3n pensada de antemano, pues el horripilante final de la tragedia de Kentucky era bien conocido y no ser\u00eda ninguna sorpresa para el lector. Es posible que dicho defecto le sugiriese una nueva posibilidad, un medio de combinar la artificiosidad de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue con el rigor anal\u00edtico de El ajedrecista de Maelzel. Si centraba su atenci\u00f3n en un crimen que todav\u00eda no hubiera sido resuelto, no se le podr\u00eda objetar nada. Nadie podr\u00eda acusarle de construir su propio enigma y el lector no conocer\u00eda la soluci\u00f3n al misterio hasta que se la desvelara el propio narrador. Eso no s\u00f3lo servir\u00eda para que la historia fuese convincentemente dram\u00e1tica, sino que constituir\u00eda tambi\u00e9n un ejemplo \u00fanico y sorprendente de \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb, o el poder del razonamiento anal\u00edtico.\n\nNinguna versi\u00f3n recoge c\u00f3mo Poe recurri\u00f3 al caso del asesinato de Mary Rogers como fuente de inspiraci\u00f3n. Aunque deb\u00eda de recordar a la famosa cigarrera de sus d\u00edas en Nueva York, se hab\u00eda visto obligado a seguir a distancia los detalles de la investigaci\u00f3n. Sin embargo, la historia hab\u00eda despertado gran inter\u00e9s en Filadelfia, y el Saturday Evening Post hab\u00eda reimpreso casi todos los art\u00edculos de James Gordon Bennett en el Herald. El director del Post era Charles Peterson, que tambi\u00e9n trabajaba en Graham's y era quien hab\u00eda propiciado su salida al asumir sus funciones. En agosto de 1841, cuando la prensa neoyorquina se volc\u00f3 por primera vez en el caso, Peterson hab\u00eda pedido un \u00aban\u00e1lisis\u00bb del crimen desde las p\u00e1ginas del Post. No fue precisamente una propuesta muy novedosa en esos fren\u00e9ticos d\u00edas, pero el hecho de que Poe conociera personalmente a Peterson pudo sugerirle la idea. La muerte de Daniel Payne a finales de ese a\u00f1o debi\u00f3 de volver a llamar su atenci\u00f3n, en un momento en que estaba estudiando Barnaby Rudge, y prestando especial inter\u00e9s al funcionamiento del misterio. En las p\u00e1ginas de Graham's, hab\u00eda ofrecido a sus lectores un peque\u00f1o curso sobre \u00abel dise\u00f1o de un enigma\u00bb y les invitaba a hojear la novela de Dickens \u00abcon una comprensi\u00f3n previa del asunto\u00bb para que \u00ablas cuestiones de las que hablamos estallen en todas direcciones como las estrellas y arrojen su luz cuadruplicada sobre la narraci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nPosiblemente el suicidio de Payne se cruzara en un momento en que al autor le sedujera especialmente la idea de escribir otra historia de cr\u00edmenes despu\u00e9s de haber estudiado de un modo tan minucioso las obras de Dickens y Simms. O tal vez, como se ha sugerido muchas veces, las \u00abdificultades pecuniarias\u00bb lo obligaran a tratar de repetir el \u00e9xito de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue. Sea como fuere, lo que est\u00e1 claro es que el caso de Mary Rogers ocupaba toda su atenci\u00f3n a los pocos d\u00edas de su partida de Graham's en abril de 1842.\n\nDos meses despu\u00e9s, el 4 de junio, Poe envi\u00f3 una carta a Joseph Evans Snodgrass, el editor de Baltimore con quien manten\u00eda correspondencia amistosa. Hac\u00eda poco que Snodgrass se hab\u00eda convertido en director del Sunday Visiter, el peri\u00f3dico que hab\u00eda concedido cincuenta d\u00f3lares de premio al Manuscrito hallado en una botella casi diez a\u00f1os antes. Poe ten\u00eda esperanza de revivir aquella relaci\u00f3n. Escribi\u00f3:\n\nTengo una propuesta que hacerte. No s\u00e9 si recordar\u00e1s un cuento que publiqu\u00e9 har\u00e1 cosa de un a\u00f1o en Graham's, titulado Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, que era todo un ejercicio de ingenio encaminado a descubrir a un asesino. Estoy a punto de concluir otro similar, que titular\u00e9 El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Continuaci\u00f3n de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, y que est\u00e1 basado en el asesinato real de Mary Cecilia Rogers, que tanto revuelo caus\u00f3 en Nueva York hace unos meses. He dado forma a mis prop\u00f3sitos de un modo totalmente novedoso. He imaginado una serie de coincidences casi exactas sucedidas en Par\u00eds. Una joven grisette llamada Marie Rog\u00eat muere asesinada en circunstancias muy similares a las de Mary Rogers. As\u00ed, con la excusa de mostrar c\u00f3mo esclarece Dupin el misterio del asesinato de Marie, hago un largo y riguroso an\u00e1lisis de la tragedia neoyorquina. No omito nada. Examino, una por una, las opiniones y argumentos de la prensa sobre el asunto, y demuestro que, hasta la fecha, nadie ha abordado verdaderamente la cuesti\u00f3n. La prensa ha seguido la pista err\u00f3nea. De hecho, no s\u00f3lo creo haber demostrado lo falaz de la idea m\u00e1s generalizada \u2013que la joven fue v\u00edctima de una banda de rufianes\u2013, sino que he sugerido qui\u00e9n pudo ser el asesino. No obstante, mi principal objetivo, como sin duda comprender\u00e1s, es el an\u00e1lisis de los principios que deben regir una investigaci\u00f3n en casos parecidos. Dupin razona todo el asunto.\n\nPese al entusiasmo de Poe, la decisi\u00f3n de resucitar a Auguste Dupin para aquel nuevo cuento probablemente obedeciera m\u00e1s a motivos comerciales que al inter\u00e9s por los principios de la investigaci\u00f3n. Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue hab\u00eda cosechado tantos elogios el a\u00f1o anterior que sin duda quer\u00eda presentar el nuevo cuento m\u00e1s como una continuaci\u00f3n que como una composici\u00f3n original para incrementar su valor y favorecer tal vez la publicaci\u00f3n de una futura antolog\u00eda de cuentos. Por otro lado, trasladar la acci\u00f3n al Par\u00eds de Dupin le permitir\u00eda apartarse de los r\u00edgidos hechos del caso, por mucho que insistiera en las \u00abcoincidences casi exactas\u00bb de su historia. Si alguno de los detalles no coincid\u00eda exactamente con los de la tragedia neoyorquina, pod\u00eda achacarlo al cambio de escenario.\n\nSin embargo, esa propuesta no era la de un hombre que oculta sus cartas: Poe daba a entender claramente que no s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda estudiado el caso, sino que lo hab\u00eda resuelto y suger\u00eda en el relato, seg\u00fan sus propias palabras, \u00abqui\u00e9n pudo ser el asesino de un modo que sin duda dar\u00e1 nuevos br\u00edos a la investigaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s de este tentador resumen, se centraba en el asunto de las finanzas, trat\u00e1ndolo con suma delicadeza para no revelar su aut\u00e9ntica desesperaci\u00f3n. \u00abEstoy convencido de que el cuento despertar\u00e1 el inter\u00e9s general por la naturaleza del asunto de que trata. Por razones que te expondr\u00e9 en otro momento, estoy interesado en publicarlo en Baltimore y no se me ocurre mejor medio de hacerlo que el peri\u00f3dico que diriges. Es un cuento largo \u2013ocupar\u00eda veinticinco p\u00e1ginas en Graham's Magazine\u2013 y, a mi entender, vale unos 100 d\u00f3lares a la tarifa normal. Por supuesto, no puedo permitirme d\u00e1rtelo totalmente gratis, pero, si te interesa, me contentar\u00e9 con 40 d\u00f3lares. \u00bfMe enviar\u00e1s tu respuesta? Hazlo a vuelta de correo, si te es posible.\u00bb\n\nLa alusi\u00f3n a Graham's Magazine insinuaba que pod\u00eda vender el cuento sin dificultad en cualquier otro sitio a un precio mayor y que ser\u00eda una estupidez por parte de Snodgrass no aprovechar la oportunidad de que el autor tuviese el capricho de querer publicarlo en Baltimore. Sin embargo, los motivos no expuestos de Poe para publicar en el Visiter no deb\u00edan de ser muy inflexibles. Ese mismo d\u00eda, envi\u00f3 una carta casi id\u00e9ntica a George Roberts, el director del Notion de Boston, explic\u00e1ndole que le apetec\u00eda publicar el cuento en Boston y elevando el precio a cincuenta d\u00f3lares.\n\nNi Roberts ni Snodgrass picaron, probablemente porque el precio, por modesto que fuera, debi\u00f3 de parecerles excesivo comparado con las alternativas de que dispon\u00edan. En la \u00e9poca, los directores de revistas se aprovechaban de la falta total de restricciones en materia de derechos de autor al publicar a autores extranjeros \u2013como Dickens\u2013, que les permit\u00eda no pagar nada. Aunque muchos de ellos, como George Graham, hac\u00edan un esfuerzo por dar preferencia a los autores norteamericanos, siempre hab\u00eda opciones m\u00e1s baratas. El precio que ped\u00eda Poe por El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, por muy razonable que fuera, no pod\u00eda competir con la proliferaci\u00f3n de material gratis procedente del extranjero.\n\nDesesperado, Poe recurri\u00f3 a William Snowden, de la Ladies' Companion de Nueva York. No hac\u00edan muy buena pareja. A principios de ese mismo a\u00f1o, Poe hab\u00eda criticado las \u00abdespreciables ilustraciones, estampas a la moda, cuentos amorosos y m\u00fasica\u00bb que llenaban las p\u00e1ginas de Graham's. La Ladies' Companion ofrec\u00eda en abundancia ese mismo material, pero, como indicaba claramente el t\u00edtulo, anteponiendo la sensibilidad de los lectores femeninos. Snowden buscaba atraer a mujeres de \u00abgusto y refinamiento exquisitos\u00bb, aunque Poe ridiculizar\u00eda despu\u00e9s la revista calific\u00e1ndola de \u00abel non plus ultra del mal gusto y la charlataner\u00eda\u00bb. Un t\u00edpico n\u00famero de 1842 inclu\u00eda poemas y cuentos con t\u00edtulos como \u00abLa sonrisa del amor\u00bb y \u00abEnso\u00f1aciones de las aves nocturnas\u00bb, adem\u00e1s de comentarios sobre los \u00faltimos vestidos de paseo y la partitura de una \u00abcancioncilla original\u00bb titulada \u00abCuando el tiempo se te lleve\u00bb. En ese contexto, el cuento de Poe, con sus detalladas descripciones de los gases producidos por un cad\u00e1ver en descomposici\u00f3n, sin duda parecer\u00eda fuera de lugar.\n\nSin embargo, William Snowden ten\u00eda buenos motivos para publicarlo. Hab\u00eda sido uno de los miembros del Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad, el grupo de neoyorquinos preocupados que se reunieron en casa de James Stoneall en los d\u00edas siguientes al asesinato. Hab\u00eda contribuido con cinco d\u00f3lares al dinero de la recompensa, y sido, por tanto, uno de los suscriptores m\u00e1s generosos, por delante de Horace Greeley y Park Benjamin. Como a muchos otros asistentes a la reuni\u00f3n, a Snowden le hab\u00eda decepcionado que los esfuerzos del Comit\u00e9 no hubiesen surtido efecto. Hab\u00eda transcurrido casi un a\u00f1o, y, a pesar del revuelo causado por el descubrimiento del bosquecillo del crimen y la muerte de Daniel Payne, el asesino de Mary Rogers segu\u00eda en libertad. Su decisi\u00f3n de publicar el cuento de Poe tal vez obedeciera a una esperanza por reavivar el inter\u00e9s por el caso e infundir, como hab\u00eda sugerido el propio autor, \u00abnuevos br\u00edos a la investigaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nUna vez cerrada la venta a la Ladies' Companion, Poe se sumi\u00f3 en una letargia creativa, favorecida por el deterioro de las condiciones familiares. \u00abDe hecho, mi estado mental me ha obligado a abandonar cualquier esfuerzo intelectual \u2013le confes\u00f3 a un amigo\u2013: la desesperante y renovada enfermedad de mi mujer, mi propia mala salud y mi embarazosa situaci\u00f3n pecuniaria han estado a punto de volverme loco.\u00bb\n\nTodav\u00eda ten\u00edan que producirse situaciones m\u00e1s embarazosas.\n15 Una serie de coincidencias\n\nEl n\u00famero de la Ladies' Companion de Snowden correspondiente a noviembre de 1842, que inclu\u00eda El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, sali\u00f3 de la imprenta un poco antes de lo previsto y se puso a la venta la tercera semana de octubre. Con una extensi\u00f3n de casi 20.000 palabras, el cuento de Poe era demasiado largo para publicarlo en un solo n\u00famero y el director de la revista lo dividi\u00f3 en tres entregas que se publicar\u00edan en n\u00fameros sucesivos. Con el subt\u00edtulo \u00abContinuaci\u00f3n de los cr\u00edmenes de la rue Morgue\u00bb, la primera entrega iba entre un art\u00edculo titulado \u00abLa Biblia y su descripci\u00f3n del car\u00e1cter y los atributos de Dios\u00bb y un cuento titulado \u00abEl viejo cofre de roble\u00bb de Caroline Orne.\n\nLos lectores de Snowden estaban acostumbrados al tono serio y moralizante de las p\u00e1ginas de la revista \u2013\u00absano y edificante\u00bb, como se dec\u00eda en la \u00e9poca\u2013 y es probable que el director dudara antes de publicar el cuento gr\u00e1fico y sangriento de Poe. Aun as\u00ed, pese a que hab\u00eda transcurrido m\u00e1s de un a\u00f1o desde la muerte de Mary Rogers, Snowden sab\u00eda que la cigarrera segu\u00eda ejerciendo un poderoso hechizo. La mayor\u00eda de los lectores de la Ladies' Companion, incluidos los de \u00abgusto y refinamiento exquisitos\u00bb, sabr\u00edan del caso, y tal vez incluso hubieran paseado por Elysian Fields. Muchos estar\u00edan familiarizados con las diferentes teor\u00edas sobre el crimen, sobre todo las de James Gordon Bennett y Benjamin Day. El cuento de Poe, por indecorosos que pareciesen sus detalles, y por mucho que la acci\u00f3n se trasladara de Nueva York a Par\u00eds, era como volver a pisar un terreno conocido.\n\nPor si quedara alguna duda respecto a la inspiraci\u00f3n de la historia, el narrador an\u00f3nimo de Poe, el compa\u00f1ero de C. Auguste Dupin, ofrec\u00eda toda una declaraci\u00f3n de intenciones en las primeras p\u00e1ginas del cuento, que recuerda a las palabras utilizadas por el autor en sus cartas a los posibles directores de revistas: \u00abLos extraordinarios detalles que me propongo hacer p\u00fablicos constituyen, en cuanto a su secuencia temporal, la rama primaria de una serie de coincidences apenas inteligibles, cuya rama secundaria reconocer\u00e1n todos los lectores en el reciente asesinato de MARY CECILIA ROGERS en Nueva York\u00bb.\n\nAl leer la historia, dichas coincidencias (un t\u00e9rmino que Poe utiliza para indicar un designio calculado, m\u00e1s que una casualidad) no tardan en ser evidentes. Poe presenta a una hermosa grisette, o joven de clase obrera, llamada Marie Rog\u00eat, hija de madame Estelle Rog\u00eat, que regenta una pensi\u00f3n en la rue Pav\u00e9e St. Andr\u00e9e. A continuaci\u00f3n cuenta que Marie hab\u00eda trabajado en el establecimiento de un perfumista llamado monsieur Le Blanc, cuya tienda no tard\u00f3 en hacerse \u00abfamosa gracias a los encantos\u00bb de la preciosa joven. Los lectores no tardan en descubrir que el cort\u00e9s monsieur Beauvais hab\u00eda querido casarse con ella, pero Marie prefiri\u00f3 comprometerse con el disipado monsieur St. Eustache.\n\nMarie lleva m\u00e1s o menos un a\u00f1o detr\u00e1s del mostrador de la perfumer\u00eda cuando a sus admiradores les sorprende \u00absu desaparici\u00f3n de la tienda\u00bb. Monsieur Le Blanc es incapaz de explicar su ausencia y madame Rog\u00eat parece \u00abloca de terror y preocupaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Cuando los peri\u00f3dicos empiezan a pedir que se pase a la acci\u00f3n y la polic\u00eda se dispone a iniciar una investigaci\u00f3n, Marie reaparece \u00abcon buena salud, aunque tal vez un poco m\u00e1s triste que de costumbre\u00bb. No se dan m\u00e1s explicaciones de su desaparici\u00f3n y todas las investigaciones, \u00abexcepto, claro, las de car\u00e1cter privado, cesan de inmediato\u00bb.\n\nCinco meses m\u00e1s tarde, una soleada ma\u00f1ana de junio, Marie sale de casa para visitar a una t\u00eda en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes, pero no llega a su destino. Cuatro d\u00edas despu\u00e9s, su cuerpo maltrecho aparece flotando en el Sena. \u00abLa atrocidad de aquel asesinato \u2013escribe Poe\u2013, la juventud y la belleza de la v\u00edctima, y, sobre todo, su previa notoriedad contribuyeron a causar una gran conmoci\u00f3n en el esp\u00edritu de los sensibles parisinos.\u00bb Poe tiene mucho cuidado de insertar numerosos detalles extra\u00eddos de los informes oficiales de la investigaci\u00f3n de Mary Rogers, sobre todo de las declaraciones de Daniel Payne y Alfred Crommelin, que aparecen convertidos en St. Eustache y Beauvais. Relata una conversaci\u00f3n entre Marie y St. Eustache, su \u00abnovio oficial\u00bb, en la que ella declara su intenci\u00f3n de ir a visitar a su t\u00eda, pero nuestro autor subraya que le informa \u00abs\u00f3lo a \u00e9l\u00bb, dando a entender que el dato puede no ser fiable. Del mismo modo, dice que St. Eustache \u00ab al caer el sol ten\u00eda que verse con su prometida\u00bb, y que incumple su promesa al desatarse una tormenta. Algunas sospechas recaen tambi\u00e9n sobre monsieur Beauvais, a pesar de sus heroicos esfuerzos por localizar a la joven desaparecida: \u00abUna persona que fue a visitarlo a su despacho unos d\u00edas antes de la desaparici\u00f3n de la joven, en un momento en que \u00e9l se encontraba fuera, hab\u00eda visto una rosa en la cerradura de la puerta y el nombre \"Marie\" escrito en una pizarra peque\u00f1a que colgaba al lado\u00bb.\n\nEl comportamiento de la madre de Marie tambi\u00e9n es sometido a un minucioso escrutinio. A las pocas horas de producirse la desaparici\u00f3n de Marie, madame Rog\u00eat expresa su temor de \u00abno volver a ver a Marie\u00bb, y, cuando la triste noticia llega a la pensi\u00f3n, se habla de \u00abcierta impresi\u00f3n de apat\u00eda\u00bb por su parte. Aunque el comportamiento de madame Rog\u00eat se considera extra\u00f1o, se la disculpa por su \u00abedad y aflicci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nAl describir el estado del cad\u00e1ver de Marie Rog\u00eat, Poe recurre a un lenguaje y unos detalles que no deb\u00edan ser habituales en las p\u00e1ginas de la Ladies' Companion:\n\nEl rostro estaba manchado de sangre, parte de la cual hab\u00eda salido de la boca. No hab\u00eda rastro de espuma, como ocurre con los ahogados. No hab\u00eda decoloraci\u00f3n del tejido celular. En torno a la garganta hab\u00eda moratones e impresiones de dedos. Los brazos estaban r\u00edgidos y cruzados sobre el pecho. El pu\u00f1o derecho estaba cerrado, el izquierdo parcialmente abierto. En la mu\u00f1eca izquierda se observaban dos erosiones circulares, producidas en apariencia por una cuerda a la que hab\u00edan dado varias vueltas. Parte de la mu\u00f1eca derecha estaba excoriada, igual que toda la espalda y sobre todo los omoplatos. Los pescadores hab\u00edan atado el cad\u00e1ver a una cuerda para arrastrarlo hasta la orilla, pero ninguna de las excoriaciones eran producto del arrastre. La carne del cuello estaba muy hinchada. En apariencia no hab\u00eda cortes, ni moratones que pareciesen producidos por golpes. Se encontr\u00f3 un trozo de encaje atado con tanta fuerza alrededor del cuello que apenas se ve\u00eda: se hab\u00eda enterrado totalmente en la carne, apretado por un nudo que quedaba justo detr\u00e1s de la oreja izquierda. S\u00f3lo eso habr\u00eda bastado para producir la muerte. El testimonio de los m\u00e9dicos confirm\u00f3 confidencialmente el car\u00e1cter virtuoso de la fallecida. La hab\u00edan sometido a una brutal violencia.\n\nEs evidente que Poe utiliz\u00f3 el testimonio del doctor Cook, el forense de Hoboken, lo que indica hasta qu\u00e9 punto deseaba que su historia reprodujese el asesinato real. Siguen otros detalles de gran importancia, como el de la tira de tejido envuelta en torno a la cintura y atada con una \u00abespecie de vuelta de cabo\u00bb en la espalda y la tira de \u00abmuselina fina\u00bb encontrada alrededor del cuello. Tambi\u00e9n se informa a los lectores de que las cintas del sombrero de Marie estaban atadas con un nudo que \u00abno era propio de una dama, sino un nudo marinero\u00bb.\n\nA medida que la historia progresa, los detalles contin\u00faan trazando un evidente paralelismo con los sucesos de la investigaci\u00f3n neoyorquina. Aunque se espera una r\u00e1pida soluci\u00f3n del caso, la polic\u00eda no tarda en fracasar. Se practican detenciones equivocadas y empiezan a circular rumores. Un comit\u00e9 de ciudadanos se re\u00fane para ofrecer una recompensa por la captura de los asesinos. Se ofrece el indulto a los c\u00f3mplices que declaren contra el asesino o asesinos. Se desentierra el cad\u00e1ver para someterlo a una segunda autopsia. Se descubre el lugar de los hechos en los bosques de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule, cerca de la taberna de una tal madame Deluc, que afirma haber visto a la v\u00edctima en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un \u00abjoven de tez morena\u00bb. Finalmente, monsieur St. Eustache aparece muerto con un frasco de l\u00e1udano a su lado. A pesar de todo, la polic\u00eda francesa no hace ning\u00fan progreso que conduzca a la soluci\u00f3n del caso. Al cabo de varias semanas, se apodera de la ciudad una sensaci\u00f3n de l\u00fagubre fracaso.\n\nDesesperado, y con todas las miradas \u00abpendientes de \u00e9l\u00bb, el prefecto G. decide consultar con Auguste Dupin, cuya actuaci\u00f3n en la tragedia de la rue Morgue hab\u00eda \u00abdejado impronta en la polic\u00eda parisina\u00bb. Lo cierto es que ni Dupin ni su an\u00f3nimo compa\u00f1ero han o\u00eddo hablar de la joven grisette. Despu\u00e9s del revuelo de la rue Morgue, han recuperado sus h\u00e1bitos casi mon\u00e1sticos. \u00abDedicados a investigaciones que hab\u00edan absorbido toda nuestra atenci\u00f3n, hac\u00eda casi un mes que ni \u00e9l ni yo sal\u00edamos a la calle ni recib\u00edamos visitas u hoje\u00e1bamos los editoriales pol\u00edticos en los peri\u00f3dicos \u2013escribe el narrador\u2013. El primero en hablarnos del asesinato fue G. en persona.\u00bb\n\nEl prefecto llega a los apartamentos de Dupin en un estado de gran nerviosismo, convencido de que tanto su honor como su reputaci\u00f3n\u2013\u00abeso dijo con un caracter\u00edstico aire parisino\u00bb\u2013 est\u00e1n en peligro. El prefecto le ruega a Dupin que se interese por el misterio y le hace una oferta \u00abgenerosa\u00bb si consigue resolver el crimen. \u00abDupin, sentado muy erguido en su sill\u00f3n, parec\u00eda la personificaci\u00f3n de la atenci\u00f3n m\u00e1s respetuosa \u2013explica el narrador\u2013. No se quit\u00f3 las antiparras hasta terminada la conversaci\u00f3n y un r\u00e1pido vistazo por debajo de sus cristales verdes me bast\u00f3 para convencerme de que se hab\u00eda pasado durmiendo, aunque fuera en silencio, las siete u ocho pesadas horas que precedieron a la partida del prefecto.\u00bb\n\nA la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, ya bien descansado, Dupin inicia seriamente la investigaci\u00f3n. Gui\u00e1ndose \u00fanicamente por los informes policiales y los art\u00edculos de prensa, se compromete a resolver el misterio desde la solitaria comodidad de su sill\u00f3n. Dupin observa, al empezar su estudio de los art\u00edculos que hay que \u00abtener siempre presente, que, en general, el objetivo de nuestros peri\u00f3dicos es m\u00e1s causar sensaci\u00f3n que promover la causa de la verdad\u00bb. Por eso mismo ser\u00eda un error dar cr\u00e9dito a lo que dice la prensa. Acto seguido, empieza a buscar la verdad detr\u00e1s de la ret\u00f3rica.\n\nLa principal dificultad de la investigaci\u00f3n del caso de Marie Rog\u00eat, afirma Dupin, ser\u00e1 la naturaleza \u00abvulgar\u00bb del crimen, a diferencia de las extraordinarias circunstancias del asesinato de la rue Morgue. En el primer caso, los detalles aparentemente inexplicables \u2013la habitaci\u00f3n cerrada, la fuerza y agilidad inhumanas del asesino\u2013 facilitaron su resoluci\u00f3n. En cambio, los aspectos comparativamente rutinarios de la muerte de Marie Rog\u00eat lo har\u00e1n m\u00e1s dif\u00edcil de solucionar. \u00abTenemos aqu\u00ed un ejemplo de un crimen atroz, pero ordinario \u2013insiste Dupin\u2013. No hay en \u00e9l nada particularmente outr\u00e9. Observar\u00e1 que, precisamente por ese motivo, se ha considerado tan dif\u00edcil de resolver.\u00bb La polic\u00eda no ha tenido dificultad en imaginar diversos modos y motivos para el asesinato. El resultado es que han ca\u00eddo en la trampa de dar por sentado que una de dichas teor\u00edas debe ser correcta. \u00abSin embargo, la rapidez con que se concibieron esas fantas\u00edas \u2013explica\u2013 y la credibilidad que se les concedi\u00f3 deber\u00edan haberse tomado por un indicio m\u00e1s de las dificultades que de las facilidades a las que habr\u00eda que enfrentarse para resolver el caso.\u00bb\n\nPara Dupin la verdadera soluci\u00f3n se encontrar\u00e1 en los detalles que no parecen encajar: \u00abYa he dicho alguna vez que la raz\u00f3n se abre paso en busca de la verdad por encima del plano de lo ordinario\u00bb. La pregunta esencial que hay que hacerse no es: \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 ha sucedido?\u00bb, sino m\u00e1s bien: \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 ha sucedido que no haya sucedido nunca antes?\u00bb.\n\nDupin centra as\u00ed su atenci\u00f3n en las teor\u00edas de los peri\u00f3dicos franceses y la polic\u00eda, y las va refutando una por una al estudiarlas con detalle. Por extensi\u00f3n, Poe se dedica a refutar los esfuerzos de los investigadores neoyorquinos y las teor\u00edas de los principales directores de peri\u00f3dico. Nuestro autor parece regodearse especialmente en diseccionar las opiniones de James Gordon Bennett y la teor\u00eda de la \u00abbanda de malhechores\u00bb. Es imposible, afirma Dupin, que el crimen pueda haberlo cometido una banda. Prueba de ello son los indicios de que se produjo una lucha violenta en el bosquecillo del crimen y de que alguien arrastr\u00f3 el cuerpo por el suelo despu\u00e9s de la muerte. Dichas huellas, afirma, se interpretaron como la demostraci\u00f3n evidente de que los culpables hab\u00edan sido un grupo. \u00abY \u00bfno demostrar\u00e1n m\u00e1s bien su ausencia? \u00bfQu\u00e9 lucha pudo producirse? \u00bfQu\u00e9 lucha tan violenta como para dejar huellas por todas partes pudo producirse entre una joven d\u00e9bil e indefensa y la supuesta banda de malhechores? Un silencioso apret\u00f3n de unos cuantos brazos robustos y todo habr\u00eda terminado.\u00bb\n\nPor si fuera poco, prosigue Dupin, una vez cometido el crimen, una banda habr\u00eda tenido \u00fanicamente que cargar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el r\u00edo, en lugar de perder el tiempo buscando una cinta con la que arrastrar el cuerpo. Por la misma raz\u00f3n, una banda no habr\u00eda dejado tras de s\u00ed las prendas de ropa, sino que no habr\u00edan faltado manos para recoger cualquier prueba incriminatoria. El aspecto del escenario del crimen s\u00f3lo puede entenderse, observa Dupin, si el crimen lo cometi\u00f3 una sola persona. Un hombre solo habr\u00eda tenido que pelear para dominar a su v\u00edctima, se habr\u00eda visto obligado a utilizar un asa para deshacerse del cad\u00e1ver y no habr\u00eda podido recoger las prendas que quedaron tiradas por el suelo. Y, si hiciera falta alguna prueba m\u00e1s, afirma Dupin, podr\u00eda encontrarse en la tentaci\u00f3n \u00abcasi irresistible\u00bb de la enorme recompensa ofrecida a cambio de informaci\u00f3n sobre el crimen. \u00abEs inconcebible \u2013declara\u2013 que alg\u00fan miembro de ese grupo de malhechores no haya traicionado ya a sus c\u00f3mplices. Los miembros de una banda no ambicionan tanto la recompensa o el indulto, como temen que alguien los traicione. Si traicionan es para que no los traicionen a ellos. Que el secreto no se haya divulgado es la mejor prueba de que es ciertamente un secreto. Los horrores de tan terrible crimen s\u00f3lo los conoce una persona, o dos, y Dios.\u00bb\n\nAntes de cambiar de asunto, Dupin tiene tiempo incluso para comentar la famosa falta de \u00abpa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo\u00bb atribuida a los presuntos malhechores. Dicha observaci\u00f3n, explica, pretend\u00eda dar a entender que los autores del crimen eran \u00abdelincuentes de la peor estofa\u00bb; sin embargo, en opini\u00f3n del detective, indica exactamente lo contrario. \u00abNo obstante, da la casualidad \u2013observa Dupin\u2013 de que precisamente esa clase de malhechores siempre tienen pa\u00f1uelos aunque carezcan hasta de camisa. Habr\u00e1 reparado usted en lo indispensable que se ha vuelto el pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo para cualquier granuja.\u00bb\n\nDupin est\u00e1 igualmente inspirado al refutar el \u00abpersistente rumor\u00bb de que Marie Rog\u00eat sigue con vida, lo que permite a Poe atacar a Benjamin Day y sus peri\u00f3dicos. Con el pretexto de las cavilaciones del detective sobre un largo art\u00edculo publicado en un peri\u00f3dico franc\u00e9s llamado L'\u00c9toile, Poe cita y parafrasea las teor\u00edas encontradas originalmente en las p\u00e1ginas del Tattler y Brother Jonathan. En el relato de los acontecimientos que hace Dupin, el director de L'\u00c9toile se muestra indignado por c\u00f3mo la polic\u00eda ha aceptado la identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver hecha por monsieur Beauvais: \u00ab\u00bfCu\u00e1les son entonces los hechos en que se basa monsieur Beauvais para decir que no le cabe duda de que el cad\u00e1ver era el de Marie Rog\u00eat? Desgarr\u00f3 la manga del vestido, y afirma que descubri\u00f3 marcas que le convencieron de su identidad. Todo el mundo dio por sentado que estas marcas deb\u00edan de ser cicatrices. Frot\u00f3 el brazo y comprob\u00f3 que ten\u00eda vello, detalle tan poco concluyente como quepa imaginar, y tan poco probatorio como encontrar un brazo dentro de la manga\u00bb.\n\nPoe hace gala de su oficio al incluir la opini\u00f3n del director del peri\u00f3dico que, al principio, no parece tener respuesta. Sin embargo Dupin no es menos elocuente al refutarla: \u00abA menos que monsieur Beauvais sea un idiota, jam\u00e1s habr\u00eda basado su identificaci\u00f3n s\u00f3lo en el vello del brazo. Ning\u00fan brazo carece de vello\u00bb. El peri\u00f3dico, afirma, ha recurrido a una mera \u00abperversi\u00f3n\u00bb del testimonio. \u00abPuede que citase alguna peculiaridad del vello, referida tal vez al color, la cantidad, la longitud o su situaci\u00f3n.\u00bb Adem\u00e1s, dicha peculiaridad es tan s\u00f3lo uno de los diversos indicios en los que se basa la identificaci\u00f3n. Unido al reconocimiento del vestido, el sombrero y los zapatos del cad\u00e1ver, el testimonio de Beauvais cobra una fuerza innegable. Su declaraci\u00f3n, arguye Dupin, no se basa en un indicio concreto, sino en una sucesi\u00f3n de indicios muy significativos: \u00abCada prueba a\u00f1adida no se suma a las dem\u00e1s, sino que se multiplica por cientos o miles\u00bb.\n\nEn cuanto al propio Beauvais, Dupin lo descarta como \u00abun entrometido con mucha noveler\u00eda y muy pocas luces\u00bb. Rechaza de un plumazo los distintos factores que parecer\u00edan indicar culpa o una conciencia culpable: la rosa en el ojo de la cerradura, su esfuerzo \u00abpara apartar a todos los parientes masculinos\u00bb al producirse el hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver y su aparente determinaci\u00f3n de que \u00abnadie m\u00e1s que \u00e9l tuviese acceso a la investigaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Puede hacerse una \u00abinterpretaci\u00f3n caritativa\u00bb de sus actos: \u00abEn mi opini\u00f3n, es incuestionable que Beauvais era pretendiente de Marie, que la joven coqueteaba con \u00e9l y que nuestro hombre deseaba dar la impresi\u00f3n de disfrutar de su intimidad y confianza. No insistir\u00e9 m\u00e1s sobre este punto\u00bb. Dupin, al contrario que la prensa neoyorquina, concede cierta dignidad al pretendiente frustrado.\n\nDejando de lado la identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver, arremete tambi\u00e9n contra los pronunciamientos forenses de L'\u00c9toile. Seg\u00fan el peri\u00f3dico, el cad\u00e1ver encontrado en el Sena no podr\u00eda ser el de Marie porque no llevaba en el agua el tiempo suficiente para salir a la superficie: \u00abLa experiencia demuestra que los cuerpos de los ahogados, o de aquellos a quienes se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta, no salen a flote hasta que, pasados de seis a diez d\u00edas, la descomposici\u00f3n es suficiente para devolverlos a la superficie\u00bb. La afirmaci\u00f3n est\u00e1 tomada casi al pie de la letra de las p\u00e1ginas del Tattler y permite a Dupin embarcarse en una prolija y sorprendentemente gr\u00e1fica discusi\u00f3n sobre la capacidad de los cad\u00e1veres de flotar en el agua. Uno se pregunta cu\u00e1ntos lectores de la Ladies' Companion se sintieron edificados por las reflexiones del detective sobre los gases del est\u00f3mago producidos por \u00abla fermentaci\u00f3n acetosa de la materia vegetal\u00bb, o el tiempo en que una persona con \u00abuna excesiva cantidad de materia grasa\u00bb puede seguir a flote despu\u00e9s de ahogarse.\n\nDupin cita incluso una de las afirmaciones m\u00e1s abstrusas de L'\u00c9toile, que nuevamente se hace eco de las teor\u00edas de los peri\u00f3dicos de Benjamin Day: \u00abIncluso si se dispara un ca\u00f1onazo para sacar a flote el cad\u00e1ver, vuelve a hundirse si no han transcurrido al menos cinco o seis d\u00edas desde el momento en que se produjo la inmersi\u00f3n\u00bb. La respuesta de Dupin a esta afirmaci\u00f3n parece la de un experto, aunque es dudoso que \u00e9l o su autor tuviesen la menor experiencia pr\u00e1ctica al respecto: \u00abEl efecto causado por el disparo de un ca\u00f1\u00f3n es s\u00f3lo el de una vibraci\u00f3n \u2013afirma Dupin\u2013 que puede liberar el cad\u00e1ver del fango o limo en que est\u00e9 enterrado, permitiendo as\u00ed que emerja cuando otros factores lo hayan preparado para ello, o ayudar a vencer la resistencia de algunas partes putrescentes de los tejidos celulares permitiendo que las cavidades se distiendan bajo la influencia del gas\u00bb. En cualquier caso, asegura, el cad\u00e1ver no volver\u00e1 a hundirse, como ha sugerido L'\u00c9toile, o al menos no \u00abhasta que la descomposici\u00f3n haya progresado lo suficiente para permitir la salida del gas generado en su interior\u00bb.\n\nSeg\u00fan Dupin, lo \u00fanico que demuestra la premisa publicada en las p\u00e1ginas de L'\u00c9toile de que el cad\u00e1ver hallado flotando en el Sena no era el de Marie Rog\u00eat es \u00abel celo de quien la ha redactado\u00bb. Es una locura, concluye, sugerir que Marie Rog\u00eat pueda seguir con vida.\n\nDespu\u00e9s de despachar dos de las teor\u00edas m\u00e1s destacadas sobre el caso, el detective adopta un enfoque nada ortodoxo para solucionar el crimen. Explica su intenci\u00f3n de apartarse del \u00absuceso\u00bb en s\u00ed mismo y concentrar sus energ\u00edas en \u00ablas circunstancias que lo rodean\u00bb. En otras palabras, de ampliar enormemente su atenci\u00f3n aun a riesgo de enredarse en detalles en apariencia poco relevantes. \u00abLo que me propongo hacer ahora \u2013afirma Dupin\u2013 es dejar a un lado el n\u00facleo de la tragedia y centrar nuestra atenci\u00f3n en sus aleda\u00f1os. Uno de los errores m\u00e1s frecuentes en investigaciones como \u00e9sta consiste en limitar las pesquisas a lo inmediato y despreciar los hechos colindantes o circunstanciales. Los tribunales siguen la mala pr\u00e1ctica de reducir las pruebas y los testimonios a lo aparentemente relevante. Sin embargo, la experiencia demuestra, al igual que la l\u00f3gica, que una parte muy grande, tal vez la m\u00e1s grande, de la verdad surge de lo que parece ser irrelevante.\u00bb En otras palabras, como dir\u00eda un escritor posterior de manera m\u00e1s sucinta, Dupin estaba proponiendo un m\u00e9todo \u00abfundado en la observaci\u00f3n de nimiedades\u00bb.\n\nCon ese prop\u00f3sito, Dupin se dispone a pasar una semana estudiando las distintas versiones del caso. \u00abExaminar\u00e9 los peri\u00f3dicos de forma m\u00e1s general de lo que lo ha hecho usted\u00bb, le dice a su compa\u00f1ero. \u00abMe extra\u00f1ar\u00eda que una indagaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s extensa como la que le propongo no nos deparase algunos datos insignificantes que establezcan una direcci\u00f3n para nuestras investigaciones.\u00bb\n\nPor fin Dupin se presenta con seis \u00abpasajes\u00bb o recortes de diversos peri\u00f3dicos que combinar\u00e1 para ofrecer una soluci\u00f3n. A primera vista, los seis recortes parecen tener muy poco que ver con el asesinato. El primero recuerda la breve desaparici\u00f3n de Marie de la perfumer\u00eda tres a\u00f1os antes. El segundo pasaje ampl\u00eda el primero: \u00abUn diario vespertino \u2013dice\u2013 alud\u00eda ayer a la misteriosa desaparici\u00f3n previa de mademoiselle Rog\u00eat. Es bien conocido que la semana en que se ausent\u00f3 de la parfumerie de Le Blanc estuvo en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un joven oficial de la marina notorio por su libertinaje. Se cree que una disputa providencial la impuls\u00f3 a regresar a casa\u00bb.\n\nEl tercer pasaje informa de un \u00abatroz atentado\u00bb, el secuestro y maltrato de una joven por parte de los tripulantes de un bote. Basado, al parecer, en la apresurada denuncia de William Fanshaw de los facinerosos con sombrero de ala estrecha, el recorte describe el modo en que \u00abultrajaron\u00bb a la joven y la devolvieron despu\u00e9s a sus padres. Aunque el peri\u00f3dico no establece ninguna conexi\u00f3n con el caso de Marie Rog\u00eat, a Dupin le parece oportuno sacarlo a colaci\u00f3n.\n\nEl cuarto pasaje alude de forma tangencial al caso de Joseph Morse, el desventurado grabador que estuvo a punto de ser acusado del crimen: \u00abHemos recibido una o dos comunicaciones, que pretenden culpar a Mennais de esta \u00faltima atrocidad, pero, puesto que dicho caballero ha sido exonerado por la investigaci\u00f3n y dado que los argumentos de quienes nos escriben parecen m\u00e1s entusiastas que fundados, no nos parece oportuno darlas a conocer\u00bb.\n\nEl quinto pasaje se refiere a la opini\u00f3n m\u00e1s generalizada y expresada a trav\u00e9s de \u00abvarias comunicaciones muy convincentes\u00bb de que \u00abla desdichada Marie Rog\u00eat fue v\u00edctima de una de las muchas bandas de maleantes que infestan los domingos las afueras de la ciudad\u00bb.\n\nEl sexto y \u00faltimo pasaje seleccionado por Dupin habla de un bote vac\u00edo hallado flotando a la deriva en el Sena: \u00abLa vela estaba en el fondo del bote. El marinero lo arrastr\u00f3 hasta el muelle de gabarras. A la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, lo retiraron del muelle sin el conocimiento de ninguno de los agentes de aduanas\u00bb.\n\nEl compa\u00f1ero de Dupin est\u00e1 perplejo. \u00abAl leer los pasajes, no s\u00f3lo me parecieron irrelevantes, sino que no acert\u00e9 a comprender de qu\u00e9 modo ninguno de ellos pod\u00eda relacionarse con el caso \u2013admite\u2013. Esper\u00e9 alguna explicaci\u00f3n de Dupin.\u00bb\n\nEl amigo de Dupin, como el lector, tendr\u00eda que esperar un poco hasta recibir alguna explicaci\u00f3n. Como el manuscrito original de Poe ten\u00eda m\u00e1s de 20.000 palabras, William Snowden se hab\u00eda visto obligado a dividir el cuento en tres entregas para su publicaci\u00f3n en tres n\u00fameros sucesivos de la Ladies' Companion. Igual que en las novelas por entregas de Dickens, es posible que Poe pensara que posponer as\u00ed la historia ayudar\u00eda a crear tensi\u00f3n y le dar\u00eda publicidad. Debe decirse, no obstante, que Snowden cort\u00f3 el manuscrito como si estuviera picando carne para salchichas, sin entrar en consideraciones sobre el ritmo del cuento. La primera parte se interrumpi\u00f3 casi a mitad de frase en plena discusi\u00f3n sobre la flotabilidad de los cad\u00e1veres y la segunda conclu\u00eda bruscamente en medio de las consideraciones de Dupin sobre el bosquecillo del crimen. Ambas interrupciones eran torpes y desalentadoras, y no hac\u00edan nada por fomentar el inter\u00e9s del lector.\n\nAun en tales condiciones, Poe se animar\u00eda mucho gracias a la c\u00e1lida reacci\u00f3n de sus amigos y colegas cuando apareci\u00f3 la primera entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, y a\u00fan m\u00e1s cuando la situaci\u00f3n familiar empez\u00f3 a mejorar. \u00abMe alegra decir que la salud de Virginia ha mejorado ligeramente \u2013escribi\u00f3 en septiembre de 1842\u2013. Quiz\u00e1 todo vaya bien.\u00bb\n\nAunque segu\u00eda teniendo graves dificultades financieras, contaba con que El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat le devolviera en parte la posici\u00f3n que hab\u00eda perdido al marcharse de Graham's, y le ayudara a hacer realidad su sue\u00f1o de fundar su propia revista literaria. La segunda entrega deb\u00eda aparecer la tercera semana de noviembre. La tercera y \u00faltima entrega, que conten\u00eda lo que Poe esperaba que fuese una efectista y provocadora soluci\u00f3n del asesinato, se publicar\u00eda en plenas vacaciones de diciembre.\n\nEn su manuscrito, mientras se dispon\u00eda a \u00abse\u00f1alar al asesino\u00bb de Marie Rog\u00eat, Poe aludi\u00f3 al modo de pensar que llam\u00f3 \u00abc\u00e1lculo de probabilidades\u00bb, un medio de aplicar el aspecto m\u00e1s \u00abr\u00edgido y exacto\u00bb de las ciencias a la intangible \u00absombra y la espiritualidad\u00bb de la especulaci\u00f3n. En su forma m\u00e1s pura, el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades permitir\u00eda que sus conclusiones del caso de la Marie Rog\u00eat ficticia se aplicaran al misterio que rodeaba a la Mary Rogers de la vida real. De ser as\u00ed El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat promet\u00eda convertirse en la comidilla de todo Nueva York.\n\nNo obstante, en ese preciso momento, se produjo un sorprendente acontecimiento, como si el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades se hubiese alzado para asestar un golpe mortal. Durante todo el a\u00f1o anterior, la investigaci\u00f3n oficial sobre la muerte de Marie Rogers hab\u00eda estado durmiendo el sue\u00f1o de los justos, dejando el campo libre a Poe y a su detective literario. De pronto, el 18 de noviembre, justo despu\u00e9s de enviar a la imprenta la segunda entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, el nombre de Mary Rogers volvi\u00f3 a ocupar la primera plana de los peri\u00f3dicos. El escueto titular del New York Tribune no dejaba lugar a dudas. Dec\u00eda s\u00f3lo:\n\nRESUELTO EL MISTERIO DE MARY ROGERS\n16 Una mansi\u00f3n construida sobre cr\u00e1neos de beb\u00e9s\n\nEl 1 de noviembre de 1842 volvieron a o\u00edrse los gritos de una mujer en la Nick Moore's Tavern de Weehawken. Al llegar la polic\u00eda descubri\u00f3 que Frederica Loss, la propietaria de la taberna, hab\u00eda sufrido un tr\u00e1gico accidente. Uno de sus hijos estaba limpiando una escopeta cuando el arma se le cay\u00f3 de las manos y se dispar\u00f3 accidentalmente. El disparo acert\u00f3 a la se\u00f1ora Loss en la rodilla y la derrib\u00f3 al suelo, donde cay\u00f3 aullando de dolor mientras se sujetaba la pierna herida.\n\nLos ni\u00f1os llevaron a su madre a la cama y llamaron a un m\u00e9dico, pero la herida no tard\u00f3 en infectarse. La se\u00f1ora Loss estuvo diez d\u00edas delirando, balbuciendo incoherencias tanto en ingl\u00e9s como en alem\u00e1n. Cuando su estado empeor\u00f3, tuvo alucinaciones causadas por la fiebre, y empez\u00f3 a ver el fantasma de una joven junto a su cama. \u00ab\u00a1Llev\u00e1osla! \u2013gritaba, haciendo gestos temblorosos y se\u00f1alando a la visi\u00f3n\u2013. \u00a1Echadla de aqu\u00ed!\u00bb\n\nEl m\u00e9dico de la familia, el doctor Gautier, trat\u00f3 la herida con ung\u00fcentos y potingues, pero la paciente sigui\u00f3 empeorando. Viendo que el \u00faltimo de sus remedios no produc\u00eda ninguna mejor\u00eda, el m\u00e9dico inform\u00f3 a los ni\u00f1os de que probablemente su madre no se recuperase. Mientras asimilaban la noticia, se les oy\u00f3 decir que la muerte de su madre tendr\u00eda una terrible consecuencia: \u00abAhora saldr\u00e1 a relucir el gran secreto\u00bb.\n\nEl juez Gilbert Merritt corri\u00f3 a la taberna en cuanto se enter\u00f3 del accidente. Hab\u00eda pasado m\u00e1s de un a\u00f1o desde el hallazgo del bosquecillo del crimen y la muerte de Daniel Payne, y en todo ese tiempo no hab\u00eda descartado por completo sus sospechas acerca de la se\u00f1ora Loss, cuya versi\u00f3n de c\u00f3mo se hab\u00edan descubierto los efectos de Mary Rogers siempre le hab\u00eda parecido improbable e incompleta, igual que sus confusas e incoherentes explicaciones sobre los gritos que hab\u00eda o\u00eddo la tarde fat\u00eddica. Las sospechas de Merritt se hab\u00edan intensificado a ra\u00edz del poco convincente testimonio prestado por la se\u00f1ora Loss en la instrucci\u00f3n de la muerte de Payne. Ahora, en el lecho de muerte, el juez ten\u00eda la esperanza de que se sintiera tentada de descargar su conciencia.\n\nEl doctor Gautier hab\u00eda tratado ya de preguntar a la se\u00f1ora Loss por el misterio de Mary Rogers, aunque sus m\u00e9todos dejaban mucho que desear. Un d\u00eda, en pleno delirio, se le acerc\u00f3 y le grit\u00f3 \u00abde pronto y en voz alta\u00bb al o\u00eddo el nombre de la mujer asesinada. Cuando vio que no \u00abobten\u00eda ning\u00fan resultado\u00bb, decidi\u00f3 que la se\u00f1ora Loss no sab\u00eda m\u00e1s del desdichado suceso de lo que hab\u00eda contado en los tribunales.\n\nEl juez Merritt no se content\u00f3 s\u00f3lo con eso. Pas\u00f3 varias horas a la cabecera de la moribunda, con la esperanza de que cesaran los efectos de la fiebre, e interrog\u00f3 varias veces a sus hijos. Cuando sali\u00f3 de la habitaci\u00f3n, apenas dijo nada de lo que hab\u00eda averiguado, pero circul\u00f3 el rumor de que la resoluci\u00f3n del misterio de Mary Rogers estaba por fin a la vista.\n\nEl 10 de noviembre la se\u00f1ora Loss muri\u00f3 a consecuencia de sus heridas. Al d\u00eda siguiente, el juez Merritt llev\u00f3 a cabo una investigaci\u00f3n que concluy\u00f3 en un veredicto de muerte accidental. La brevedad del procedimiento y el sucinto lenguaje jur\u00eddico no indicaban la menor sospecha. Entre bambalinas, no obstante, el magistrado estaba en estrecho contacto con los alcaldes de Nueva York y Nueva Jersey y se dispon\u00eda a hacer p\u00fablicas sus conclusiones.\n\nBajo el titular \u00abAsesinato de Mary C. Rogers\u00bb, el Morning Courier dio una pista de cu\u00e1les iban a ser esas revelaciones: \u00abEn los \u00faltimos d\u00edas se ha informado de que se han hecho nuevos descubrimientos sobre el modo en que hall\u00f3 la muerte esta desdichada mujer\u00bb. El peri\u00f3dico segu\u00eda diciendo que, antes de morir, la se\u00f1ora Loss \u00abpidi\u00f3 a sus hijos que dieran a conocer las circunstancias sobre la muerte de Mary Rogers que ella hab\u00eda ocultado\u00bb.\n\nTres d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de la muerte de la se\u00f1ora Loss, Gilbert Merritt hizo una declaraci\u00f3n jurada acus\u00e1ndola a ella y a sus hijos de complicidad en la muerte de Mary Rogers. Por primera vez, Merritt declaraba abiertamente lo que hab\u00eda sospechado tanto tiempo:\n\nEn el mes de julio de 1841 el deponente se encarg\u00f3, en funciones de magistrado, de la investigaci\u00f3n concerniente al hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver de Mary C. Rogers en Hoboken, en el citado condado de Hudson, que el deponente cree que muri\u00f3 asesinada; este deponente afirma adem\u00e1s que, a ra\u00edz de los hechos y la informaci\u00f3n por \u00e9l obtenida, est\u00e1 firmemente convencido de que el asesinato de la citada Mary C. Rogers se perpetr\u00f3 en una casa de Weehawken llamada Nick Moore House regentada entonces por una tal Frederica Loss, nombre de casada Kellenbarack (hoy fallecida), y sus tres hijos: Oscar Kellenbarack, Charles Kellenbarack y Ossian Kellenbarack, de quienes el deponente tiene razones para sospechar que son personas deshonrosas y libertinas; y, lo que es m\u00e1s, el deponente afirma que los hijos y la madre regentaban una de las casas m\u00e1s depravadas y disolutas de Nueva Jersey, y que todos ellos tuvieron conocimiento, colaboraron y participaron en la muerte de la citada Mary C. Rogers as\u00ed como en el posterior ocultamiento de su cad\u00e1ver.\n\nEl estilo de Merritt era extraordinariamente directo para tratarse de un documento legal de la \u00e9poca, pero no llegaba a decir cu\u00e1l era la causa exacta de la muerte de Mary Rogers. Esa informaci\u00f3n, cre\u00eda, era demasiado expl\u00edcita para un informe p\u00fablico. Frederica Loss, en opini\u00f3n de Merritt, era una conocida abortista. Mary Rogers, cre\u00eda, hab\u00eda muerto mientras le practicaban un aborto en su casa.\n\nEn cierto sentido, era una idea que hab\u00eda estado a la vista de todos mientras se prolongaba la tragedia. Pr\u00e1cticamente todos los n\u00fameros del Herald y otros peri\u00f3dicos de la \u00e9poca llevaban un enorme anuncio en la \u00faltima p\u00e1gina de los servicios de una tal madame Restell, \u00abm\u00e9dico y comadrona profesional\u00bb, cuya larga carrera como abortista le hab\u00eda ganado la reputaci\u00f3n de ser \u00abla mujer m\u00e1s perversa de Nueva York\u00bb. Madame Restell, cuyo verdadero nombre era Ann Trow Lohman, hab\u00eda llegado a Nueva York desde Inglaterra en 1831 y hab\u00eda iniciado una carrera profesional con la que, seg\u00fan los c\u00e1lculos, hab\u00eda ganado un mill\u00f3n de d\u00f3lares y se hab\u00eda construido un lujoso edificio de ladrillo rojo en la Quinta Avenida, conocido como \u00abla mansi\u00f3n construida sobre cr\u00e1neos de beb\u00e9s\u00bb.\n\nEn la \u00e9poca en que se produjo la muerte de Mary Rogers, madame Restell estaba en el centro de la atenci\u00f3n p\u00fablica. En julio de 1841 \u2013apenas unos d\u00edas antes de que se descubriese el cad\u00e1ver\u2013 se juzg\u00f3 a madame Restell en el Tribunal Especial de Nueva York por administrar \u00abcierta medicina nociva\u00bb y facilitar un aborto, innecesario para salvar la vida de la madre, \u00abmediante uso de instrumental\u00bb. Aunque el aborto se consideraba un delito menor en la \u00e9poca, una reciente disposici\u00f3n establec\u00eda que, si el procedimiento se llevaba a cabo despu\u00e9s de que el feto diese se\u00f1ales de vida \u2013cuando empezase a detectarse movimiento\u2013, se considerar\u00eda homicidio. Puesto que el caso por el que estaban juzgando a madame Restell hab\u00eda producido la muerte de la paciente, la acusaci\u00f3n fue de asesinato. A pesar de la gravedad de los cargos, el juicio le pareci\u00f3 a mucha gente un mero espect\u00e1culo: una concesi\u00f3n a los cl\u00e9rigos y los moralistas de la ciudad, escandalizados por la costumbre de la polic\u00eda de hacer la vista gorda con las pr\u00e1cticas de madame Restell. Aunque se conden\u00f3 a \u00abmadame la asesina\u00bb a pasar un a\u00f1o en prisi\u00f3n, nunca llegar\u00eda a cumplir condena.\n\nEn aquella \u00e9poca madame Restell dirig\u00eda su negocio desde una casa en Chambers Street, no muy lejos de la pensi\u00f3n de Phoebe Rogers y a corta distancia del Ayuntamiento. Un emplazamiento tan elegante le permit\u00eda acceder a clientes de todas las clases sociales y sus servicios se ajustaban a los requisitos de cada cual. \u00abDirige su sangriento imperio desde el coraz\u00f3n de esta metr\u00f3polis \u2013observaba la Police Gazette\u2013; sus pacientes son de tres tipos y sus tratamientos tambi\u00e9n.\u00bb En un folleto anterior que detallaba la \u00abvida y horribles pr\u00e1cticas\u00bb de Restell, se describ\u00edan con todo detalle las tres categor\u00edas: \u00abEn primer lugar estaban las medidas preventivas; si \u00e9stas fallaban, como ocurr\u00eda si no se ten\u00eda mucho cuidado, estaban las p\u00edldoras mensuales para impedir embarazos, y en caso de que tambi\u00e9n fallaran \u00e9stas, como \u00faltimo recurso, se pod\u00eda pedir asilo en casa de madame Restell\u00bb. All\u00ed se somet\u00eda a la paciente a \u00abpoderosas drogas a fin de inducir un aborto, o al uso de medios mec\u00e1nicos para causar un parto prematuro\u00bb.\n\nAdem\u00e1s de su establecimiento en Chambers Street, madame Restell ten\u00eda tambi\u00e9n una red de casas que se extend\u00eda al otro lado del r\u00edo en Hoboken y donde tambi\u00e9n se practicaban abortos. \u00abEs bien sabido que madame Restell tiene muchos apartamentos [...] en los que acomodar a las parturientas\u00bb, continuaba la Police Gazette,\n\ny la cantidad de mujeres que utilizan tales instalaciones en una ciudad donde la lujuria campa por sus respetos en pleno d\u00eda se puede aventurar, pero no especificar. Es bien sabido que las mujeres a veces mueren al dar a luz. \u00bfCu\u00e1ntas de las que encuentran as\u00ed la muerte expiran por culpa de esta execrable carnicer\u00eda? Cada d\u00eda, e incluso cada hora, desaparecen mujeres. \u00bfAd\u00f3nde van? \u00bfQu\u00e9 se hace de ellas? \u00bfTa\u00f1e la campana para lamentar su deceso? \u00bfSale de su casa el cortejo f\u00fanebre? \u00bfSe re\u00fanen sus amigos en torno a su sepultura? \u00a1No! Un oscuro agujero en el suelo, la brutal habilidad del cuchillo de disecci\u00f3n, o un chapoteo en el agua fr\u00eda, y los gritos de la noche como r\u00e9quiem es el \u00fanico servicio funerario concedido a sus v\u00edctimas. \u00a1Contemplad esto, orillas del Hudson! \u00a1Cont\u00e9mplalo, playa de Hoboken!\n\nCon esta referencia al alarmante n\u00famero de cad\u00e1veres que aparec\u00edan en las orillas de los r\u00edos neoyorquinos \u2013y la alusi\u00f3n concreta al lugar donde se encontr\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers\u2013, la Police Gazette trataba de establecer un v\u00ednculo entre la abortista y la cigarrera. Dado que el juicio de madame Restell se celebr\u00f3 justo cuando ocurri\u00f3 la muerte de Mary Rogers, no es sorprendente que tratase de relacionarlos, incluso antes de que salieran a la luz los hallazgos de Weehawken. Una gran parte de las figuras esenciales en el juicio de Restell participar\u00edan tambi\u00e9n en la tragedia de Mary Rogers, por ejemplo el juez Mordecai Noah, que presidi\u00f3 los procedimientos, y el juez Gilbert Merritt, que tom\u00f3 las primeras declaraciones. James Gordon Bennett, a quien el juez Noah hab\u00eda procesado tres veces por difamaci\u00f3n durante el juicio de Restell, sugiri\u00f3 la posibilidad de una \u00abperversa ignominia\u00bb al conjeturar que Mary Rogers pudiese haber estado encerrada en una de aquellas casas. \u00abEsos tugurios inicuos forman una sociedad en s\u00ed mismos, se gobiernan por sus propias leyes y est\u00e1n re\u00f1idos con la m\u00e1s m\u00ednima decencia y respetabilidad \u2013atac\u00f3 el Herald\u2013. Cuentan con protecci\u00f3n policial, y \u00bfcu\u00e1ndo se ha visto que sus se\u00f1or\u00edas emprendan acciones legales contra ellos?\u00bb\n\nLa Police Gazette se mostr\u00f3 mucho menos comedida: \u00abHablamos de la desdichada Mary Rogers \u2013declar\u00f3 el peri\u00f3dico\u2013. La experiencia y muchos esfuerzos in\u00fatiles han demostrado que hasta ahora hemos seguido una pista equivocada\u00bb.\n\nA ra\u00edz de las acusaciones de Merritt a la se\u00f1ora Loss, los rumores y las suposiciones pronto adquirieron carta de naturaleza. Aunque no pudo establecerse la menor conexi\u00f3n entre madame Restell y Frederica Loss, se dio por sentado que Nick Moore's Tavern era uno de los tugurios de Restell, o que la se\u00f1ora Loss era una de las docenas de \u00abviudas\u00bb emprendedoras que hab\u00edan seguido sus pasos. Algunos acusaron a la se\u00f1ora Loss de haber practicado el aborto personalmente, mientras otros supon\u00edan que se hab\u00eda limitado a ofrecer su local a una lista de m\u00e9dicos an\u00f3nimos. A pesar de que ninguna prueba relacionaba a madame Restell con la Nick Moore House, sigui\u00f3 denigr\u00e1ndosela como la personificaci\u00f3n del aborto, destructora de j\u00f3venes que, de no haber sido por ella, presumiblemente habr\u00edan seguido un camino m\u00e1s virtuoso. Una revista la retrataba como una arp\u00eda de rostro siniestro que acunaba a un monstruo con alas de murci\u00e9lago y sosten\u00eda un ni\u00f1o muerto entre las mand\u00edbulas.\n\nEl Tribune de Horace Greeley fue el primero en afirmar que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda muerto a consecuencia de un aborto. El 18 de noviembre, una semana despu\u00e9s de la muerte de la se\u00f1ora Loss, el peri\u00f3dico public\u00f3 un art\u00edculo que aseguraba que la moribunda hab\u00eda mandado llamar al juez Merritt para confesar sus pecados y revelado que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda llegado a su establecimiento \u00abacompa\u00f1ada de un joven m\u00e9dico que iba a ocuparse de su parto prematuro\u00bb. Dicho procedimiento, arriesgado en el mejor de los casos, fue desastrosamente mal. \u00abMientras mor\u00eda en manos de su m\u00e9dico \u2013prosegu\u00eda el Tribune\u2013 discutieron qu\u00e9 hacer con el cad\u00e1ver. Por fin, lo sacaron de noche los hijos de la se\u00f1ora Loss y lo hundieron en el r\u00edo cerca de donde finalmente ser\u00eda encontrado.\u00bb\n\nEl Tribune tambi\u00e9n intentaba explicar por qu\u00e9 los efectos personales hab\u00edan aparecido despu\u00e9s en el bosquecillo del crimen: \u00abAl principio hicieron un hato con su ropa y la hundieron en un estanque, pero luego les pareci\u00f3 que all\u00ed no estaba segura y la sacaron y esparcieron por el bosque tal como se encontr\u00f3 despu\u00e9s\u00bb. No explicaba por qu\u00e9 eso les hab\u00eda parecido m\u00e1s seguro que dejar la ropa en el estanque.\n\nA ra\u00edz de los nuevos acontecimientos, se detuvo a los dos hijos mayores de la se\u00f1ora Loss. Mientras esperaban una audiencia formal, Merritt se esforz\u00f3 en reunir pruebas contra ellos. Seg\u00fan el Tribune, la confesi\u00f3n de la se\u00f1ora Loss no dejaba lugar a dudas respecto a la participaci\u00f3n de sus hijos en el crimen, y Merritt pretend\u00eda procesarlos por c\u00f3mplices de homicidio: \u00abNo vemos qu\u00e9 dudas pueden quedar de la sinceridad de su confesi\u00f3n \u2013insist\u00eda el peri\u00f3dico\u2013. As\u00ed, gracias a unas circunstancias en las que es evidente la intervenci\u00f3n de la Providencia, queda explicado finalmente este terrible misterio que tanto miedo y pavor ha causado en la gente, gracias a unas circunstancias en las que es evidente la intervenci\u00f3n de la Providencia\u00bb. A pesar de que la identidad del hombre de la tez morena \u2013que ahora se cre\u00eda que era el m\u00e9dico de Mary Rogers y no su acompa\u00f1ante\u2013 sigui\u00f3 sin conocerse, Merritt expres\u00f3 su confianza en que no tardar\u00edan en identificarlo y detenerlo.\n\nAquellas sorprendentes revelaciones promet\u00edan causar un nuevo revuelo en los peri\u00f3dicos. No obstante, antes de que los rivales de Greeley pudieran poner en marcha las imprentas, Gilbert Merritt se apresur\u00f3 a desmentir las nuevas revelaciones. El Tribune, insist\u00eda, hab\u00eda ido demasiado lejos. En un intento por contener las crecientes especulaciones sobre el caso, envi\u00f3 un desmentido muy mesurado a James Watson Webb, el director de su rival, el Courier: \u00abEsta ma\u00f1ana he reparado en un art\u00edculo en el Tribune, relativo a una confesi\u00f3n supuestamente hecha ante m\u00ed por la difunta se\u00f1ora Loss, que es totalmente incorrecto, pues nunca se celebr\u00f3 dicho interrogatorio, ni tampoco podr\u00eda haberse celebrado debido al estado mental en que se encontraba la mencionada se\u00f1ora\u00bb.\n\nEl Tribune se neg\u00f3 a retractarse. Aunque Greeley admiti\u00f3 que se hab\u00eda equivocado al afirmar que la mujer hab\u00eda confesado directamente ante el juez, sigui\u00f3 insistiendo en que hab\u00eda confesado. \u00abHemos reproducido los hechos tal como nos los contaron dos magistrados de esta ciudad \u2013proclamar\u00eda\u2013 y tal como los entendimos por las declaraciones del propio se\u00f1or Merritt al alcalde Morris.\u00bb En privado se dio por sentado que Merritt hab\u00eda publicado el desmentido para que no pudieran acusarlo de tendenciosidad en su instrucci\u00f3n contra los Kellenbarack.\n\nJames Gordon Bennett y el personal del Herald no cab\u00edan en s\u00ed de gozo al pensar que el Tribune de Horace Greeley hab\u00eda cometido aquella pifia. A fin de subrayar el traspi\u00e9 de su competidor, Bennett reimprimi\u00f3 la historia original del Tribune con el desmentido de Merritt. Greeley, a quien Bennett hab\u00eda comparado con \u00abuna calabaza a la que le hubiesen insuflado vida\u00bb, no tardar\u00eda en contraatacar: \u00abNuestros envidiosos vecinos, que no soportan que fu\u00e9semos nosotros quienes public\u00e1semos las primeras revelaciones sobre el misterio de Mary Rogers, pueden ahorrarse sus burlas. Tan s\u00f3lo despiertan la hilaridad del p\u00fablico ante sus rid\u00edculas miserias\u00bb. Cuando Greeley repiti\u00f3 su afirmaci\u00f3n de que dos magistrados hab\u00edan corroborado su historia, Bennett pidi\u00f3 sus nombres. El Tribune declin\u00f3 responder.\n\nEntretanto el juez Merritt hizo cuanto pudo por mantenerse al margen de la disputa. A pesar del desmentido publicado en el Courier, estaba firmemente convencido de que los hechos eran exactamente como los hab\u00eda contado el Tribune, y de que los Kellenbarack eran culpables de complicidad. Seg\u00fan algunas versiones, lleg\u00f3 incluso a estudiar los planos de la taberna, en busca de una c\u00e1mara secreta en la que seg\u00fan cre\u00eda pod\u00eda haberse practicado el aborto.\n\nSi la teor\u00eda de Merritt era correcta, muchos detalles sin explicar del caso de Mary Rogers empezar\u00edan a encajar. Uno de los aspectos m\u00e1s inquietantes de la investigaci\u00f3n hab\u00eda sido la tantas veces citada \u00abapat\u00eda\u00bb de Phoebe Rogers y Daniel Payne cuando se les inform\u00f3 de la muerte de Mary. La se\u00f1ora Rogers, en particular, hab\u00eda estado visiblemente nerviosa el domingo de su desaparici\u00f3n, pero el mi\u00e9rcoles hizo gala de un estoicismo que rozaba la indiferencia. Se dec\u00eda que H. G. Luther, el hombre que les llev\u00f3 la mala noticia de Hoboken, hab\u00eda dicho: \u00abTuve la clara sensaci\u00f3n de que no les cogi\u00f3 de sorpresa\u00bb. Si, de hecho, Payne y la se\u00f1ora Rogers sab\u00edan que Mary ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de someterse a un peligroso aborto, su reacci\u00f3n ser\u00eda m\u00e1s f\u00e1cil de entender. Si la noticia, en vez de un golpe, hubiera sido la confirmaci\u00f3n de sus peores temores, despu\u00e9s de varios d\u00edas de preocupaci\u00f3n, pod\u00edan haber experimentado una sensaci\u00f3n de l\u00fagubre resignaci\u00f3n en lugar de la conmoci\u00f3n que esperaba Luther. Tambi\u00e9n es posible que Payne y la se\u00f1ora Rogers se hubieran enterado de la muerte por otros medios, y que la noticia del hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver no fuese m\u00e1s que una triste ratificaci\u00f3n de algo que ya sab\u00edan. En ambos casos, el visitante pod\u00eda haber confundido su reacci\u00f3n con una inadecuada falta de emoci\u00f3n.\n\nPor la misma raz\u00f3n, se comprende mejor la inquietud de la se\u00f1ora Rogers en las primeras horas de la desaparici\u00f3n de su hija. Varios peri\u00f3dicos informaron de que Phoebe Rogers hab\u00eda dicho, poco despu\u00e9s de que su hija saliera de casa el domingo fat\u00eddico, que probablemente no volvieran a ver a Mary con vida. En ese momento, la afirmaci\u00f3n parec\u00eda muy exagerada, pues se supon\u00eda que Mary hab\u00eda ido s\u00f3lo a Jane Street a visitar a su t\u00eda, un trayecto no especialmente peligroso. Aunque la muchacha no hubiese vuelto por la noche como esperaban, pod\u00eda explicarse por la fuerte tormenta que descarg\u00f3 ese d\u00eda. Si Phoebe Rogers hubiese cre\u00eddo de verdad que su hija estaba pasando la noche en casa de un pariente, no habr\u00eda tenido motivos para alarmarse. Si, por el contrario, sab\u00eda que hab\u00eda ido a casa de una abortista, ten\u00eda buenos motivos para temer por su vida.\n\nLos actos de Alfred Crommelin tambi\u00e9n pueden interpretarse de otro modo desde este nuevo \u00e1ngulo. Las dos visitas de Mary al despacho de Crommelin justo antes de producirse su desaparici\u00f3n y la rosa que hab\u00eda introducido por el agujero de la cerradura constitu\u00edan un detalle particularmente desconcertante de la tragedia. Cuando Crommelin discuti\u00f3 con Daniel Payne e hizo su teatral salida de la pensi\u00f3n de Nassau Street, le prometi\u00f3 a Mary que en caso de necesidad siempre estar\u00eda de su lado. Es muy probable que las visitas de la joven a su despacho indicaran que deseaba aceptar su oferta. Se hab\u00eda dicho que hab\u00eda ido a verle con la intenci\u00f3n de venderle un pagar\u00e9 por valor de cincuenta y dos d\u00f3lares para poder disponer del dinero mientras Crommelin se encargaba de cobrar la deuda. Si pensaba someterse a un aborto, es explicable que necesitara dinero: el precio en la \u00e9poca oscilaba entre veinte y cien d\u00f3lares. Al mismo tiempo, la sensaci\u00f3n de culpabilidad de Crommelin por no haberla ayudado cobra un nuevo significado, igual que su vehemente insistencia en convertirse en el palad\u00edn de la reputaci\u00f3n de la muchacha. Durante la instrucci\u00f3n en Hoboken, hab\u00eda declarado que \u00abnunca hab\u00eda o\u00eddo cuestionar su virtud lo m\u00e1s m\u00ednimo\u00bb y que \u00absu sinceridad y castidad eran irreprochables\u00bb. Que se creyese obligado a ofrecer tales explicaciones parece un poco exagerado. Si sab\u00eda, en cambio, que se hab\u00eda sometido a un aborto, es posible que tratara de salvaguardar su reputaci\u00f3n dando fe de su car\u00e1cter intachable. En tal caso, su caballerosidad, por muy bienintencionada que fuese, tuvo graves consecuencias. En determinado momento Crommelin quiso convencer a la familia Rogers de que no hablase directamente con la prensa o la polic\u00eda y se propuso como portavoz de la familia. Eso podr\u00eda haber contribuido a proteger el buen nombre de Mary, pero s\u00f3lo habr\u00eda servido para entorpecer la investigaci\u00f3n. Tambi\u00e9n es posible que la insistencia de Crommelin en ese punto influyera en el doctor Cook, el forense, cuando asegur\u00f3 que la difunta \u00abhab\u00eda sido evidentemente una persona decorosa y de costumbres correctas\u00bb. Esta declaraci\u00f3n no dice mucho en favor de la reputaci\u00f3n de Cook, y pudo desviar a los investigadores de la verdadera pista.\n\nEn los d\u00edas siguientes a la muerte, varios peri\u00f3dicos informaron de una discusi\u00f3n que hab\u00eda o\u00eddo la doncella de Phoebe Rogers. Se dec\u00eda que, pocos d\u00edas antes de la desaparici\u00f3n, Mary y su madre hab\u00edan intercambiado unas acaloradas palabras que terminaron con la promesa de la hija de que no se casar\u00eda con Daniel Payne. Phoebe Rogers no confirm\u00f3 el rumor, pero la posibilidad de que hubiese por medio un embarazo no deseado ofrece otra interpretaci\u00f3n de la historia. Si Mary estaba embarazada de Payne, podr\u00eda haber aceptado casarse con \u00e9l para tener el ni\u00f1o. Pero, si se hab\u00eda echado atr\u00e1s \u2013tal vez debido a las objeciones de la madre\u2013 y hab\u00eda decidido poner fin al embarazo, su comportamiento posterior encaja mucho mejor. La ma\u00f1ana de su desaparici\u00f3n, minti\u00f3 deliberadamente a Payne sobre sus planes para ese d\u00eda. Posiblemente no quisiera que supiese que hab\u00eda planeado abortar, un acto que la habr\u00eda liberado de la obligaci\u00f3n de casarse con \u00e9l. O tal vez Payne hubiese expresado sus reservas sobre el compromiso y la hubiera empujado a tomar aquella medida tan extrema. Sea como fuere, la muchacha dej\u00f3 a Payne con la conciencia torturada, como demuestran sus borracheras, su ag\u00f3nica muerte y su mensaje te\u00f1ido de culpabilidad.\n\nEl 19 de noviembre, una semana despu\u00e9s de la muerte de Frederica Loss, se celebr\u00f3 una pol\u00e9mica audiencia en el tribunal del juez Stephen Lutkins en Nueva Jersey. Lutkins, Merritt y varios magistrados m\u00e1s sometieron a los dos hermanos Kellenbarack a un agotador interrogatorio con la intenci\u00f3n de exponer la \u00abnefaria naturaleza\u00bb de las actividades clandestinas de su difunta madre en la Nick Moore's House, as\u00ed como el papel que hab\u00eda desempe\u00f1ado en la muerte de Mary Rogers. Seg\u00fan todas las versiones, la vista fue confusa y decepcionante. Un equipo de cuatro abogados represent\u00f3 los intereses de la familia Loss y consiguieron que hasta las preguntas m\u00e1s incisivas de los magistrados se perdieran en una mara\u00f1a de complicaciones legales. Los hermanos Kellenbarack negaron todas las acusaciones y calificaron el peor de los cargos de chisme sin fundamento. Incluso explicaron el \u00abgran secreto\u00bb al que hab\u00edan aludido en una declaraci\u00f3n anterior en una clave m\u00e1s mundana: era, dijeron, una mera referencia a un modo de curar el reumatismo.\n\nLa audiencia concluy\u00f3 en decepci\u00f3n sin que se formulasen cargos. Merritt y Lutkins se reunieron a puerta cerrada con el alcalde Morris, lo que indujo a pensar que se dispon\u00edan a emprender alguna acci\u00f3n. \u00abSe da por sentado que sigue habiendo algo de gran inter\u00e9s en el ambiente \u2013escribi\u00f3 Bennett en el Herald\u2013. Los magistrados han encontrado un rastro y estas investigaciones no concluir\u00e1n aqu\u00ed.\u00bb El Courier, despu\u00e9s de desdecirse respecto a la confesi\u00f3n de la se\u00f1ora Loss ante el juez, sigui\u00f3 insistiendo en que \u00e9sta hab\u00eda admitido su culpa: \u00abNo nos cabe ninguna duda de que confes\u00f3 ante alguien, y estamos firmemente convencidos de que la informaci\u00f3n publicada es la verdadera explicaci\u00f3n del modo en que muri\u00f3 esta desdichada joven\u00bb.\n\nAunque la audiencia del juez Lutkins fuera poco concluyente, la prensa pareci\u00f3 aceptar la idea de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda muerto durante la pr\u00e1ctica de un aborto. \u00abEl caso de Mary Rogers sigue, al parecer, sin ser explicado legalmente \u2013dijo el Daily Advertiser, de Newark\u2013. Pero entendemos que la investigaci\u00f3n seguir\u00e1 su curso, puesto que estamos convencidos de que es cierta la reciente explicaci\u00f3n del modo en que se produjo su muerte.\u00bb\n\nNinguno de los dos forenses que examinaron el cad\u00e1ver de Mary Rogers, el doctor Cook de Hoboken y el doctor Archer de Nueva York, hicieron comentarios. Para el doctor Cook, en concreto, esta explicaci\u00f3n de lo ocurrido en Weehawken equival\u00eda a un nuevo escarnio p\u00fablico. En la investigaci\u00f3n inicial, el testimonio de Cook sobre la violaci\u00f3n de Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido extra\u00f1amente ambigua. Aunque hab\u00eda afirmado con total seguridad que a la v\u00edctima la hab\u00edan \u00abviolado brutalmente no menos de tres asaltantes\u00bb, tambi\u00e9n asegur\u00f3 que antes de eso Mary Rogers era una joven virginal. Ahora, a la luz de la teor\u00eda del juez Merritt, parec\u00eda probable que el doctor Cook hubiera confundido las pruebas de un aborto horriblemente mal practicado con los indicios de una violaci\u00f3n.\n\nNo obstante, aun siendo \u00e9ste el caso, quedaban sin responder varias preguntas determinantes. A Mary Rogers la hab\u00edan encontrado con una tira de encaje anudada \u00abcon fuerza alrededor del cuello\u00bb y varias moraduras en forma de dedos en la garganta. Por muchas ambig\u00fcedades que hubiesen nublado las conclusiones del doctor Cook sobre la \u00abregi\u00f3n femenina\u00bb, hab\u00eda sido totalmente claro con respecto a las pruebas de estrangulamiento. Hab\u00eda hecho descripciones concisas e inequ\u00edvocas de huellas \u00abequimosas\u00bb en forma de dedos y de una \u00abarruga en la piel\u00bb producida por la cinta de encaje. Un procedimiento de aborto, por horrible que fuera, no pod\u00eda explicar esos indicios evidentes de estrangulamiento.\n\nPor la misma raz\u00f3n, la teor\u00eda de Merritt dejaba sin explicar gran parte del comportamiento de la se\u00f1ora Loss y sus hijos. La ropa de Mary Rogers esparcida por el bosquecillo del crimen la hab\u00edan descubierto los hermanos Kellenbarack y la propia se\u00f1ora Loss se la hab\u00eda llevado al juez Merritt. De hecho, si la se\u00f1ora Loss se hubiese dedicado a practicar abortos en un cuarto secreto de la taberna, es dif\u00edcil comprender por qu\u00e9 iba a querer llamar la atenci\u00f3n de ese modo. Hasta que se present\u00f3 a declarar con los efectos de Mary Rogers, no hab\u00eda la menor conexi\u00f3n entre la Nick Moore House y el asesinato. Aunque la taberna hizo un buen negocio por ser \u00abel \u00faltimo sitio donde se hab\u00eda visto con vida a Mary Rogers\u00bb, dif\u00edcilmente le habr\u00eda valido la pena correr el riesgo de despertar sospechas all\u00ed donde no las hab\u00eda.\n\nEn cualquier caso, a pesar de todas las dudas y contradicciones, la idea de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda fallecido durante un aborto cada vez iba ganando m\u00e1s adeptos. El Courier se uni\u00f3 a buena parte de la prensa al declarar: \u00abPor fin se ha resuelto el misterio\u00bb. Este apresuramiento a la hora de dar por bueno un veredicto no demostrado ten\u00eda m\u00e1s que ver con la irritaci\u00f3n de la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica que con las propias pruebas. Una vez m\u00e1s, del mismo modo que con la primera teor\u00eda de que hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una banda, la muerte de la joven y hermosa cigarrera se hab\u00eda mezclado con un asunto de inter\u00e9s p\u00fablico. Los curas denigraban a madame Restell desde el p\u00falpito y peri\u00f3dicos como el Advocate of Moral Reform publicaban encendidos editoriales, con lo que el caso de Mary Rogers adquiri\u00f3 tintes cada vez m\u00e1s siniestros. Al mismo tiempo, empez\u00f3 a verse a la propia v\u00edctima bajo una luz diferente y no precisamente muy halagadora. Si las acusaciones contra la se\u00f1ora Loss eran ciertas, ya nadie pod\u00eda seguir viendo a la cigarrera como un inocente \u00abmodelo de virtud femenina\u00bb, como la hab\u00eda definido un peri\u00f3dico. Ahora ser\u00eda una v\u00edctima desdichada, aunque no del todo exenta de culpa, de una pr\u00e1ctica b\u00e1rbara, un sacrificio a los horrores de madame Restell. \u00ab\u00a1Oh, madres! Salvad a vuestras hijas inocentes de un destino as\u00ed \u2013escribi\u00f3 un popular novelista de la \u00e9poca\u2013, y, \u00a1oh, hijas!, si veis a una de vuestras hermanas recorriendo el negro camino hasta la tumba, \u00a1compadecedla! \u00a1Salvadla!\u00bb\n\nEn medio de esa creciente avalancha de indignaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica, era f\u00e1cil pasar por alto que nadie hab\u00eda demostrado claramente que se hubiese practicado un aborto. A finales de noviembre, el furor de la prensa cedi\u00f3, aunque se esperaban novedades sobre el caso en cualquier momento. Gilbert Merritt sigui\u00f3 tratando de reunir pruebas contra la familia Loss, aunque hac\u00eda tiempo que se hab\u00eda puesto en libertad a los hermanos Kellenbarack por falta de pruebas. El Courier expres\u00f3 su esperanza de que la resoluci\u00f3n del caso no tardara en llegar. De momento, admiti\u00f3 el peri\u00f3dico, nada m\u00e1s pod\u00eda saberse: \u00abPor ahora, este misterioso asunto est\u00e1 inconcluso\u00bb.\n\nPara Edgar Allan Poe, la tragedia de Weehawken no pudo llegar en peor momento. Faltaban d\u00edas para que se publicara la tercera y \u00faltima entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, que inclu\u00eda la soluci\u00f3n para el caso de ficci\u00f3n. Hasta ese momento, Poe estaba convencido de haber elaborado una hip\u00f3tesis elegante y totalmente plausible. Ahora, no obstante, a medida que se impon\u00eda la idea de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda muerto a manos de un abortista, sus conclusiones parecer\u00edan falsas y lo expondr\u00edan a una humillaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica potencialmente destructiva justo cuando estaba intentando cambiar de suerte. En La ca\u00edda de la casa Usher, hab\u00eda imaginado una pavorosa escena en la que la figura \u00abamortajada y orgullosa\u00bb de Madeline Usher sale del ata\u00fad y arrastra a su hermano a la muerte, mientras su mansi\u00f3n g\u00f3tica se desploma. Poe debi\u00f3 de ver algo semejante en el espectro de Mary Rogers, que sal\u00eda de la tumba para arrastrarlo en su ca\u00edda.\n\nSab\u00eda que los cr\u00edticos ser\u00edan implacables. Muchos en Nueva York no hab\u00edan olvidado la ferocidad de sus rese\u00f1as en el Southern Literary Messenger y, sobre todo, c\u00f3mo hab\u00eda destripado el Norman Leslie de Theodore Fay. Esta novela, como El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, estaba basada en un famoso caso de asesinato cometido en Nueva York, y Poe se hab\u00eda tomado la molestia de despreciar sus \u00ablicencias po\u00e9ticas\u00bb. Ahora que \u00e9l hab\u00eda incurrido en las mismas licencias, ya los ve\u00eda afilando el cuchillo.\n\nSi los cr\u00edticos despreciaban El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, las esperanzas de fundar su propia revista literaria pod\u00edan irse a pique. \u00abThe Stylus es el principal prop\u00f3sito de mi carrera literaria \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. Tengo ganas de fundar un peri\u00f3dico en el que los hombres de genio libren sus batallas, en t\u00e9rminos de igualdad, con esos in\u00fatiles de los hombres de talento.\u00bb En los \u00faltimos meses de 1842, cuando apareci\u00f3 la primera entrega en la Ladies' Companion, hab\u00eda empezado a negociar con Thomas C. Clarke, un influyente editor de Filadelfia, la financiaci\u00f3n de su revista. Cuando Clarke accedi\u00f3 a asociarse con \u00e9l, Poe empez\u00f3 a tener motivos para creer que su sue\u00f1o pronto se har\u00eda realidad. A un amigo le escribi\u00f3 que George Graham le hab\u00eda hecho \u00abuna buena oferta\u00bb para regresar como director a Graham's, pero que ten\u00eda suficiente confianza en el proyecto de fundar su revista como para declinar el ofrecimiento. \u00abTengo la firme determinaci\u00f3n de empezar [...] el pr\u00f3ximo 1 de enero \u2013escribi\u00f3 a principios de octubre de 1842\u2013. Las dificultades que me lo impidieron el a\u00f1o pasado han desaparecido y ahora no hay nada que impida el \u00e9xito de la empresa.\u00bb\n\nPoe necesitaba desesperadamente este \u00e9xito. Sus dificultades financieras, seg\u00fan su amigo Frederick Thomas, lo hab\u00edan llevado a nuevas cotas de pobreza. Peor a\u00fan, hab\u00eda vuelto a beber en exceso, lo que causaba gran preocupaci\u00f3n e inquietud a su familia y a su mujer enferma. Un conocido que lo vio en esa \u00e9poca contar\u00eda que Poe le mendig\u00f3 cincuenta centavos para comer: \u00abAunque parec\u00eda un hombre acabado en todos los sentidos... todav\u00eda se notaba que era un caballero. Le di el dinero y no volv\u00ed a verlo nunca\u00bb.\n\nEn noviembre, los planes que ten\u00eda Poe para The Stylus recibieron un grave golpe. La financiaci\u00f3n de la revista depend\u00eda de su habilidad para conseguir una c\u00f3moda sinecura en las Aduanas de Filadelfia, una posibilidad que ech\u00f3 a perder al volver a caer en la bebida. \u00abEscribir\u00eda m\u00e1s \u2013se lamentaba en una carta a un amigo\u2013, pero tengo un peso en el coraz\u00f3n. T\u00fa sabes lo que es ver c\u00f3mo se derrumban todas tus esperanzas, as\u00ed que me comprender\u00e1s.\u00bb\n\nEscribi\u00f3 estas palabras el 19 de noviembre. Al d\u00eda siguiente, las noticias de lo ocurrido en Weehawken se publicaron en un peri\u00f3dico de Filadelfia bajo el titular: \u00abResuelto el misterio de Nueva York\u00bb. Poe comprendi\u00f3 enseguida que tendr\u00eda que pasar a la acci\u00f3n. Las dos primeras entregas de su historia hab\u00edan aparecido ya. La tercera y \u00faltima parte, que inclu\u00eda la soluci\u00f3n, deb\u00eda publicarse el mes siguiente y tal vez ya estuviesen compuestas las planchas. Si esa \u00faltima entrega se publicaba tal como se hab\u00eda escrito, todas las teor\u00edas y conclusiones de Dupin parecer\u00edan equivocadas e incluso ingenuas a la luz de lo sucedido en Weehawken. Y, lo que a\u00fan resultaba m\u00e1s embarazoso, todos los pronunciamientos de Poe sobre las \u00abcoincidences apenas inteligibles\u00bb y el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades, publicados en la primera entrega, se considerar\u00edan vac\u00edos y jactanciosos.\n\nCon la fecha de publicaci\u00f3n en el calendario, Poe hizo lo mismo que Dupin en la primera entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Se encerr\u00f3 en casa con la prensa, estudi\u00f3 el problema de un modo \u00abm\u00e1s general\u00bb de lo que hab\u00eda hecho antes y plane\u00f3 una escapatoria.\n17 El bote desaparecido\n\nMientras se esforzaba por salvar su relato, Poe examin\u00f3 con cuidado lo que ya llevaba escrito. Su primera soluci\u00f3n a El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat hab\u00eda sido un prodigio de ingenio. Aunque los \u00faltimos acontecimientos de Weehawken le obligasen ahora a reexaminarla, la versi\u00f3n original ofrec\u00eda un enfoque fascinante y \u00fanico del caso. Al volver sobre la narraci\u00f3n a la luz de las nuevas informaciones, comprendi\u00f3 lo dif\u00edcil que ser\u00eda su tarea.\n\nDupin hab\u00eda echado los cimientos de su soluci\u00f3n en las primeras etapas de la historia, mediante la meticulosa lectura de los seis pasajes period\u00edsticos. Le hab\u00eda intrigado, en especial, el extracto referido al \u00abatroz\u00bb asalto de una joven por parte de una banda de rufianes. Seg\u00fan la versi\u00f3n del peri\u00f3dico, la v\u00edctima estaba de excursi\u00f3n en un bote de remo con su familia cuando una banda los atac\u00f3 y someti\u00f3 a la joven a un trato \u00abbrutal\u00bb para liberarla relativamente indemne unos momentos despu\u00e9s.\n\nDupin es de la opini\u00f3n de que es una coincidencia muy notable. Le parece enormemente improbable que aquel ultraje haya ocurrido de un modo tan similar al supuestamente perpetrado contra Marie Rog\u00eat y casi en el mismo momento y lugar. Los dos sucesos tienen tanto en com\u00fan, cree el detective, que la coincidencia se ha utilizado para influir en la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica y convencerla de que las dos agresiones han sido obra de los miembros de una banda. En realidad, insiste Dupin, la extra\u00f1a coincidencia de ambos asaltos deber\u00eda haber tenido el efecto contrario. En todo caso, que una banda haya agredido a una chica y su familia no es sino un poderoso argumento en contra de que Marie haya sufrido un ataque casi id\u00e9ntico. \u00abSer\u00eda ciertamente asombroso \u2013afirma Dupin\u2013 que, mientras una banda de malhechores perpetraba una infamia casi sin precedentes en un sitio, otra banda similar perpetrase otra infamia de id\u00e9ntica naturaleza en un lugar similar, en la misma ciudad, en las mismas circunstancias, con los mismos medios y en el mismo per\u00edodo de tiempo.\u00bb\n\nDupin aplica un razonamiento similar a su estudio del bosquecillo del crimen. \u00abA pesar del entusiasmo con que la prensa recibi\u00f3 el descubrimiento de este bosquecillo y la unanimidad con que se dio por sentado que se trataba del lugar de los hechos, es preciso admitir que hab\u00eda muchas razones para dudarlo. Puedo creer o no que lo fuera, pero existen sobradas razones para dudarlo.\u00bb Con el pretexto de tomar en consideraci\u00f3n esas dudas, Poe emprende un riguroso examen del enfrentamiento entre Benjamin Day y James Gordon Bennett sobre las dudas que planteaba el bosquecillo. Dupin empieza sugiriendo la posibilidad de que el asesinato se haya cometido en otra parte, posiblemente incluso cerca de casa de Marie. En tal caso, razona, puede suponerse que el asesino o asesinos tendr\u00edan motivos para temer que se descubriera el aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos. \u00abAlgunos debieron comprender enseguida la necesidad de hacer algo para desviar la atenci\u00f3n.\u00bb \u00bfQu\u00e9 mejor modo de poner a los investigadores sobre una falsa pista, sugiere Dupin, que esparcir la ropa en aquel oscuro bosquecillo?\n\nNo obstante, para que su historia sea cre\u00edble, Dupin debe rebatir los argumentos adelantados por un peri\u00f3dico llamado Le Soleil \u2013muy similares a los del Herald de Bennett\u2013 sobre el estado mohoso de las prendas de ropa y el crecimiento de hierba sobre alguno de los objetos. Dupin empieza su argumentaci\u00f3n observando que la hierba crece muy deprisa cuando hace buen tiempo, \u00abhasta cinco y siete cent\u00edmetros al d\u00eda\u00bb. (No puede decirse que sea una de las observaciones m\u00e1s brillantes de Dupin: a ese ritmo, la hierba del bosquecillo tendr\u00eda que haber alcanzado una altura de dos metros cuando encontraron las prendas.)\n\nLa argumentaci\u00f3n de Dupin acerca del moho hallado en algunas de las pertenencias de la difunta tambi\u00e9n debe tratarse con precauci\u00f3n. \u00ab\u00bfDe verdad ignora su naturaleza? \u00bfHabr\u00e1 que explicarle que se trata de una de las muchas clases de hongos, cuyo rasgo m\u00e1s com\u00fan consiste en nacer y morir en menos de veinticuatro horas?\u00bb\n\nPor err\u00f3neos que puedan ser los datos cient\u00edficos de Dupin, la convicci\u00f3n con que los esgrime hace que parezcan m\u00e1s convincentes. De hecho, afirma, \u00abes muy dif\u00edcil creer que esos objetos llevaran en el bosquecillo m\u00e1s de una semana\u00bb. Ofrece varias razones adicionales para justificar sus conclusiones. En primer lugar la experiencia demuestra que es muy dif\u00edcil para un \u00abenamorado de la naturaleza [...] saciar su sed de soledad\u00bb entre las regiones boscosas de las afueras de una gran ciudad. Y m\u00e1s a\u00fan en domingo, cuando todo g\u00e9nero de \u00abrufianes de la ciudad\u00bb se libera del yugo del trabajo y se siente libre para \u00abescapar de las restricciones y los convencionalismos de la sociedad\u00bb. En tales circunstancias, la idea de que el bosquecillo del crimen estuviera tan solitario en el momento en que se cometi\u00f3 el asesinato y sobre todo el hecho de que nadie entrase en \u00e9l en varias semanas debe considerarse \u00abpoco menos que milagroso\u00bb.\n\nEn opini\u00f3n de Dupin, el bosquecillo no s\u00f3lo debi\u00f3 de actuar como un im\u00e1n para los rufianes de la ciudad, sino para los hijos de madame Deluc, que viv\u00edan en la taberna cercana. Su denso follaje, y la imponente disposici\u00f3n de las rocas, lo convert\u00edan en un escondrijo natural y un sitio donde jugar. Su cercan\u00eda a la casa (\u00abapenas a unos metros\u00bb) deb\u00eda de hacerlo diariamente accesible, y eso sin contar que los ni\u00f1os iban a menudo a buscar corteza de sasafr\u00e1s por los alrededores. \u00ab\u00bfSer\u00eda descabellado apostar \u2013pregunta Dupin\u2013, incluso mil contra uno, que no pasaba ni un solo d\u00eda sin que alguno de esos ni\u00f1os se colara en el umbr\u00edo recinto del bosque y se sentara en el trono natural que forman las piedras? Quien titubee al hacer semejante apuesta o bien es que no ha sido nunca ni\u00f1o o ha olvidado la naturaleza del car\u00e1cter infantil. Repito: es extremadamente dif\u00edcil comprender c\u00f3mo esos objetos pudieron pasar m\u00e1s de uno o dos d\u00edas en el bosque sin que nadie los descubriera.\u00bb\n\nA Dupin le parece m\u00e1s que probable que los objetos encontrados en el bosquecillo los hayan dejado all\u00ed uno o dos d\u00edas antes de que los descubrieran. Se\u00f1ala, adem\u00e1s, la disposici\u00f3n extra\u00f1amente artificial de la ropa, como si la hubiera \u00abdejado en un estante\u00bb una mano cuidadosa: \u00abEn la piedra superior aparecieron unas enaguas blancas; en la segunda, una bufanda de seda; tirados por el suelo una sombrilla, unos guantes y un pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo\u00bb. Todo eso recuerda m\u00e1s a una cuidadosa puesta en escena que a los indicios de una aut\u00e9ntica pelea. \u00abHe aqu\u00ed la distribuci\u00f3n que har\u00eda naturalmente una persona no muy astuta que quisiera dar impresi\u00f3n de naturalidad. Pero no tiene nada de natural. Lo l\u00f3gico habr\u00eda sido encontrar todos los objetos pisoteados en el suelo. En los estrechos l\u00edmites de la arboleda no parece posible que las enaguas y la bufanda quedaran sobre las rocas en medio de una reyerta entre varias personas.\u00bb\n\nSospecha tambi\u00e9n de los jirones de ropa encontrados en las ramas del bosquecillo, esas \u00abtiras arrancadas\u00bb de tela. Ser\u00eda casi imposible que las espinas del bosquecillo desgarraran el tejido de ese modo. \u00abNi usted ni yo lo hemos visto nunca.\u00bb Si el vestido se hubiese desgarrado con las espinas, contin\u00faa, la tela tendr\u00eda desgarrones irregulares y no en forma de tiras. Una vez m\u00e1s, Dupin ve aqu\u00ed pruebas de una cuidadosa puesta de escena y no de los efectos naturales de una pelea.\n\nEl detective va directamente al grano cuando declara que los verdaderos detalles de la escena s\u00f3lo pudieron conocerse \u00abpor la declaraci\u00f3n, y por tanto por los recuerdos, de dos ni\u00f1os peque\u00f1os, pues ambos cogieron aquellos art\u00edculos y se los llevaron a casa antes de que los viera una tercera persona\u00bb. Es una observaci\u00f3n de vital importancia: mucho antes de notificarlo a la polic\u00eda, los dos ni\u00f1os del cuento de Poe, del mismo modo que Charles y Ossian Kellenbarack, hab\u00edan recogido todos los objetos del bosquecillo y se los hab\u00edan llevado a su madre. Nadie, aparte de ellos, vio la disposici\u00f3n original de estos objetos. Cualquier discusi\u00f3n sobre el bosquecillo como lugar de los hechos tendr\u00eda que basarse en la exactitud de su descripci\u00f3n. Es preciso recordar que el m\u00e1s peque\u00f1o, Ossian, ten\u00eda doce a\u00f1os, y su hermano Charles, diecis\u00e9is.\n\nDupin no se demora m\u00e1s en el asunto. De momento, est\u00e1 m\u00e1s interesado en explorar las implicaciones de su teor\u00eda sobre la disposici\u00f3n de la escena del asesinato. Tras llegar a la conclusi\u00f3n de que es imposible que las prendas y los dem\u00e1s objetos hayan pasado desapercibidos un mes entero, especula sobre los motivos para que alguien dejara las pruebas en el bosquecillo tanto tiempo despu\u00e9s de cometido el asesinato. La respuesta, cree, se encuentra en el quinto pasaje que ha recortado de los peri\u00f3dicos y que dice as\u00ed: \u00abHemos recibido varias comunicaciones muy convincentes, y que, al parecer, proceden de distintas fuentes, que dan por seguro que la desdichada Marie Rog\u00eat fue v\u00edctima de una de las muchas bandas de maleantes que infestan los domingos las afueras de la ciudad. Nuestra propia opini\u00f3n se inclina decididamente a favor de dicha hip\u00f3tesis. En pr\u00f3ximas ediciones expondremos dichos argumentos\u00bb.\n\nEl momento en que se enviaron estas \u00abcomunicaciones muy convincentes\u00bb, o cartas al director, le parece muy sospechoso a Dupin, pues su publicaci\u00f3n coincide casi exactamente con el hallazgo de las prendas en el bosquecillo del crimen. Sugiere que los \u00abculpables autores\u00bb de las cartas son ni m\u00e1s ni menos que los propios criminales, que tem\u00edan que las autoridades estuviesen a punto de descubrir el lugar donde se cometi\u00f3 el asesinato. Al disponer otra alternativa en el bosquecillo y luego llamar la atenci\u00f3n de la prensa, el asesino o asesinos actuaron con \u00abel prop\u00f3sito de desviar la atenci\u00f3n del aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos\u00bb.\n\nDicho esto, Dupin prosigue dando a entender que descubrir el lugar donde se cometi\u00f3 realmente el crimen carece de importancia. \u00abNo obstante, no habr\u00e1 comprendido usted del todo lo que le digo si ha llegado a la conclusi\u00f3n de que pretendo negar que el bosque fuese el lugar donde se produjo el atentado.\u00bb A pesar de todo cuanto lleva dicho, considera que \u00abno tiene mayor importancia\u00bb, si se compara con los otros aspectos del caso. \u00abNo estamos tratando de descubrir el lugar de los hechos \u2013a\u00f1ade\u2013, sino a quienes perpetraron el asesinato.\u00bb Y en ese sentido, insiste, la cuesti\u00f3n decisiva sigue siendo determinar si Marie fue v\u00edctima de una banda o de un solo asesino. Visto as\u00ed, el hallazgo del bosquecillo adquiere nueva y distinta importancia. La disposici\u00f3n de las prendas est\u00e1 claramente pensada para dar a entender que se trat\u00f3 de una banda, pero Dupin ve m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de aquel artificio y se enfrenta a un misterio a\u00fan mayor. No entiende, afirma, \u00abla sorprendente circunstancia de que los objetos\u00bb los dejaran en el bosquecillo unos asesinos que tuvieron \u00abla suficiente presencia de \u00e1nimo para retirar el cad\u00e1ver\u00bb. Es imposible que semejantes pruebas incriminatorias quedaran all\u00ed por accidente, sobre todo el pa\u00f1uelo bordado que indicaba con tanta claridad la identidad de la v\u00edctima. \u00abSi fue un accidente \u2013concluye Dupin\u2013, no lo cometi\u00f3 una banda. S\u00f3lo cabe imaginarlo cometido por una sola persona.\u00bb\n\nAunque los investigadores oficiales han considerado las pruebas del bosquecillo un indicio de que hubo m\u00e1s de un agresor, el escenario s\u00f3lo tiene sentido, afirma Dupin, si se piensa en un \u00ab\u00fanico individuo\u00bb. Con un estilo que recuerda claramente a la ret\u00f3rica de Bennett en el Herald, Poe pinta una v\u00edvida escena del asesino solitario acurrucado junto al cad\u00e1ver de su v\u00edctima: \u00abEst\u00e1 solo con el fantasma de la muerta, aterrorizado por lo que yace inanimado delante de \u00e9l. El arrebato de su pasi\u00f3n ha pasado ya, y el miedo por la enormidad de lo que ha hecho empieza a abrirse paso en su pecho. Carece de esa confianza que inspira la presencia de otros. Est\u00e1 solo con la muerta. Tiembla y est\u00e1 confundido\u00bb. S\u00f3lo entonces repara el asustado asesino en que debe encontrar un medio de deshacerse del cad\u00e1ver. Con mucho esfuerzo, carga con \u00e9l hasta el r\u00edo que pasa por all\u00ed cerca, pero mientras suda bajo el peso del cad\u00e1ver se ve obligado a dejar atr\u00e1s las prendas y las otras pruebas, dici\u00e9ndose que despu\u00e9s volver\u00e1 a por ellas. \u00abPero en el trabajoso recorrido hasta el agua su temor se duplica \u2013contin\u00faa Dupin\u2013. La vida resuena por doquier. Cien veces oye o cree o\u00edr los pasos de alguien que le observa. Incluso las luces de la ciudad lo perturban. Sin embargo, al cabo de un tiempo, despu\u00e9s de largas y frecuentes pausas de profundo temor, alcanza el borde del agua y se deshace de su pavorosa carga, tal vez con la ayuda de un bote. Pero ahora \u00bfqu\u00e9 tesoros tiene el mundo? \u00bfQu\u00e9 amenazas de venganza puede entra\u00f1ar capaces de obligar al solitario asesino a regresar por el arduo y peligroso sendero al bosquecillo que guarda tan escalofriantes recuerdos? No ha de volver, sean cuales sean las consecuencias. No podr\u00eda regresar ni aunque quisiera. Su \u00fanica obsesi\u00f3n es huir de all\u00ed cuanto antes. Da la espalda para siempre a los terribles arbustos y huye de la furia que habr\u00e1 de perseguirle.\u00bb\n\nUna banda no habr\u00eda sufrido los mismos temores, insiste Dupin: \u00abEl no estar solos les habr\u00eda inspirado confianza, suponiendo que \u00e9sta falte alguna vez en el pecho de un criminal endurecido\u00bb. Y si a un hombre solo le habr\u00eda acobardado pensar en volver al bosquecillo, la dificultad ni siquiera se habr\u00eda planteado de haberse tratado de un grupo de cuatro o m\u00e1s. \u00abNo habr\u00edan dejado nada tras ellos; pues siendo muchos habr\u00edan podido llev\u00e1rselo todo consigo sin necesidad de volver\u00bb. La misma l\u00f3gica sirve para el asa de tela utilizada para arrastrar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el agua. \u00abEl medio utilizado es propio de un \u00fanico individuo \u2013razona Dupin\u2013. Los miembros del cad\u00e1ver habr\u00edan sido no s\u00f3lo suficiente asidero, sino tambi\u00e9n el mejor posible, para tres o cuatro personas.\u00bb Del mismo modo Dupin no ve motivo para que quitaran las estacas de la cerca camino del r\u00edo. \u00ab\u00bfSe habr\u00eda molestado un grupo de individuos en derribar unas vallas para arrastrar un cuerpo que podr\u00edan haber alzado por encima en un instante? \u00bfHabr\u00edan arrastrado un cad\u00e1ver dejando huellas evidentes en la tierra?\u00bb\n\nEn ese momento, Dupin parece haber cambiado de opini\u00f3n respecto a si el bosquecillo fue o no el aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos. Pero, en lo que respecta a la banda, sigue siendo muy coherente. Marie Rog\u00eat, afirma, encontr\u00f3 la muerte a manos de un \u00fanico asesino.\n\nA fin de averiguar la identidad de ese hombre, Dupin recurre al primero y segundo de los pasajes que ha espigado de los peri\u00f3dicos y que se refieren a la breve desaparici\u00f3n de Marie de la perfumer\u00eda m\u00e1s de tres a\u00f1os antes:\n\nHar\u00e1 ahora tres a\u00f1os y medio, la desaparici\u00f3n de esta misma Marie Rog\u00eat de la parfumerie de monsieur Le Blanc, en el Palais Royal, caus\u00f3 un revuelo muy semejante. No obstante, al cabo de una semana, volvi\u00f3 a encontr\u00e1rsela detr\u00e1s del mostrador tan bien como siempre, aunque con una leve palidez nada habitual en ella. Monsieur Le Blanc y la madre de la chica declararon que Marie hab\u00eda ido a visitar a una amiga en el campo, y el asunto se silenci\u00f3 a toda prisa. Presumimos que esta otra ausencia obedece a un capricho de la misma naturaleza, y que, transcurrida una semana, o tal vez un mes, volveremos a tenerla entre nosotros.\n\nUn diario vespertino alud\u00eda ayer a la misteriosa desaparici\u00f3n previa de mademoiselle Rog\u00eat. Es bien conocido que la semana en que se ausent\u00f3 de la parfumerie de Le Blanc estuvo en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un joven oficial de la marina notorio por su libertinaje. Se cree que una disputa providencial la impuls\u00f3 a regresar a casa. Conocemos el nombre del Romeo en cuesti\u00f3n (que, actualmente, se encuentra acuartelado en Par\u00eds), pero por razones evidentes no lo haremos p\u00fablico.\n\nDupin expresa su desprecio por la \u00abextraordinaria negligencia\u00bb de la polic\u00eda, que no ha investigado todas las ramificaciones de esta primera desaparici\u00f3n. Insiste en que \u00abser\u00eda una locura afirmar que no hay por qu\u00e9 suponer que la primera y la segunda desaparici\u00f3n de Marie est\u00e9n relacionadas\u00bb. Sugiere la posibilidad de que detr\u00e1s de la primera desaparici\u00f3n hubiese un intento de fuga y una boda a la que se opusiera madame Rog\u00eat. Antes de que se celebrase la boda, especula Dupin, los dos enamorados habr\u00edan discutido y el asunto habr\u00eda terminado con el \u00abel regreso de la seducida\u00bb.\n\nPoe traza un claro paralelismo entre la desaparici\u00f3n de Marie de la perfumer\u00eda y el episodio equivalente de la vida de Mary Rogers: su breve y cacareada ausencia del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson en 1838. Seg\u00fan la teor\u00eda de Dupin, el asesinato y la primera desaparici\u00f3n deben considerarse dos partes del mismo acontecimiento. Est\u00e1 convencido de que las circunstancias que rodean la partida de Marie el domingo fat\u00eddico indican que \u00abel seductor ha reanudado sus avances\u00bb. De ser as\u00ed, el hombre que sedujo a Marie en 1838 es el mismo a quien fue a ver el aciago domingo de 1841.\n\nAl relacionar las dos desapariciones de este modo, Poe abr\u00eda una interesante y original l\u00ednea deductiva. Aunque la investigaci\u00f3n neoyorquina no se hab\u00eda olvidado del todo de la primera desaparici\u00f3n, el episodio no dio pie a mayores comentarios en los d\u00edas siguientes a la muerte. El hecho de que Poe lo conociera puede deberse al tiempo que pas\u00f3 en Nueva York en 1838, justo antes de la desaparici\u00f3n, y a la gran atenci\u00f3n con que ley\u00f3 despu\u00e9s la prensa neoyorquina. El inter\u00e9s de Poe por relacionar los dos sucesos est\u00e1 muy clara: la polic\u00eda hab\u00eda echado a perder una oportunidad. Hab\u00edan centrado exclusivamente sus energ\u00edas en el crimen de 1841. Las sospechas de Poe otorgaban igual importancia a la desaparici\u00f3n en 1838 y suger\u00edan un modo totalmente nuevo de descubrir al asesino. Si lograba identificar al hombre que hab\u00eda seducido a la joven en 1838, en lugar de dedicarse exclusivamente a los sucesos de 1841, el asesinato estar\u00eda resuelto.\n\nDupin ofrece varias razones para creer que Marie pretend\u00eda fugarse cuando la asesinaron. Recuerda que Marie le hab\u00eda dicho a St. Eustache, \u00absu prometido\u00bb, que aquel d\u00eda iba a visitar a su t\u00eda, y que hab\u00eda quedado en encontrarse con \u00e9l al caer la noche para que la acompa\u00f1ara a casa. A simple vista, admite Dupin, eso parece contradecir la idea de que Marie estaba planeando fugarse con otro hombre. Y aun as\u00ed, se\u00f1ala, est\u00e1 claro que Marie estaba enga\u00f1ando intencionadamente a St. Eustache. No fue a casa de su t\u00eda, donde nadie la esperaba. En cambio, seg\u00fan el testimonio de varios testigos, se encontr\u00f3 con un hombre, cruz\u00f3 el r\u00edo en su compa\u00f1\u00eda y lleg\u00f3 a la Barri\u00e8re du Roule a las tres de la tarde. Marie deb\u00eda de ser consciente de \u00abla sorpresa y las sospechas que despertar\u00eda en su prometido, St. Eustache\u00bb, cuando no se presentara a la cita. Lo probable, seg\u00fan Dupin, es que no tuviese intenci\u00f3n de enfrentarse a las consecuencias. \u00abEs imposible que pensara en volver para enfrentarse a semejantes sospechas, pero \u00e9stas dejaban de tener importancia si suponemos que no ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de regresar.\u00bb\n\nVisto as\u00ed, el asunto no puede estar m\u00e1s claro. Marie sali\u00f3 de casa la ma\u00f1ana de su desaparici\u00f3n con la intenci\u00f3n de fugarse con su enamorado secreto y no regresar jam\u00e1s, igual que hab\u00eda hecho tres a\u00f1os antes cuando desapareci\u00f3 casi una semana. Dupin insiste en que el segundo episodio debe verse como una continuaci\u00f3n del primero y no como un suceso independiente y desligado de \u00e9l. \u00abSe tratar\u00eda, pues, de una reconciliaci\u00f3n con su enamorado m\u00e1s que del inicio de un nuevo amor\u00edo. Hay diez probabilidades contra una de que el hombre que se fug\u00f3 una vez con Marie volviera a proponerle una nueva fuga, y no de que a la primera propuesta siguiera otra sugerida por otra persona distinta.\u00bb\n\n\u00bfQui\u00e9n es el pretendiente misterioso?\n\nAparte de St. Eustache, y tal vez de Beauvais, no conocemos otro pretendiente honorable de Marie. Nada se dice de ning\u00fan otro. \u00bfQui\u00e9n, entonces, es el enamorado secreto del que los parientes (al menos la mayor\u00eda) lo ignoran todo pero con quien Marie se ve la ma\u00f1ana del domingo, y que goza tanto de su confianza que no duda en quedarse con \u00e9l hasta que las sombras de la tarde caen sobre las solitarias arboledas de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule? \u00bfQui\u00e9n es ese enamorado secreto de quien nada sabe la mayor\u00eda de los parientes? Y \u00bfqu\u00e9 significa la singular profec\u00eda de madame Rog\u00eat la ma\u00f1ana de la partida de su hija: \u00abTemo que no volver\u00e9 a ver a Marie\u00bb?\n\nDupin recurre una vez m\u00e1s, en busca de respuesta, al segundo pasaje que ha sacado de la prensa, relativo al misterioso Romeo, \u00abun joven oficial de la marina notorio por su libertinaje\u00bb, que se cree que estuvo con Marie en su primera desaparici\u00f3n. El estilo de este pasaje ficticio, sobre todo en el uso de la palabra \u00abRomeo\u00bb, recuerda al extra\u00f1o y chistoso art\u00edculo sobre un \u00abgalante y alegre Romeo\u00bb publicado por el Times and Commercial Intelligencer en 1838. No obstante, el n\u00facleo de la informaci\u00f3n estaba sacado de un art\u00edculo del Herald del 3 de agosto de 1841:\n\nLa citada joven, Mary Rogers, desapareci\u00f3 dos semanas del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson hace ahora tres a\u00f1os. Se dice que la sedujo un oficial de la Marina de Estados Unidos, que la retuvo dos semanas en Hoboken. Su nombre es bien conocido a bordo de su barco.\n\nEstas tres l\u00edneas del Herald son de vital importancia, pues incluyen la \u00fanica referencia conocida a que pudiese haber un \u00aboficial de la marina\u00bb implicado en el caso y no un simple marinero como William Kiekuck. Poe, mediante el personaje de Dupin, se aferra a esa alusi\u00f3n tan vaga con f\u00e9rrea determinaci\u00f3n: \u00abPerm\u00edtame observar que el tiempo transcurrido entre la primera fuga (que parece haber quedado demostrada) y la segunda (s\u00f3lo presumible) es de unos pocos meses m\u00e1s que la duraci\u00f3n media de los cruceros de nuestros barcos de guerra. \u00bfNo ver\u00eda interrumpida el seductor su primera bajeza por la necesidad de embarcarse y aprovechar\u00eda la primera oportunidad a su regreso para reanudar sus bajos prop\u00f3sitos todav\u00eda no consumados... o al menos no consumados por \u00e9l? Nada sabemos al respecto\u00bb.\n\nAntes de que el lector tenga tiempo de reflexionar sobre los posibles errores del razonamiento del detective, pasa a otros detalles del caso. Cuando m\u00e1s tarde vuelve sobre el asunto, se ha producido un cambio de tono. La hip\u00f3tesis de que Marie encontrara la muerte a manos de un oficial de la marina se presenta como un hecho probado: \u00abRecapitulemos los escasos pero evidentes frutos de nuestro largo an\u00e1lisis. Hemos llegado a la idea de un accidente fatal acaecido en la taberna de madame Deluc o de un asesinato perpetrado en el bosquecillo de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule, por un amante o una persona \u00edntima y secretamente vinculada a la fallecida. Dicha persona es morena. Su tez, la vuelta de cabo en la tira que rodeaba la cintura del cad\u00e1ver y el \"nudo marinero\" con que estaban atadas las cintas del sombrero apuntan a un marino. Su relaci\u00f3n con la difunta, una joven un poco casquivana pero no depravada, indica que no debe tratarse de un simple marinero\u00bb. Dupin a\u00f1ade que la \u00abcircunstancia de la primera fuga\u00bb que se describe en el primero de los pasajes period\u00edsticos ha servido para \u00abrelacionar la idea del marino con la del \"oficial de marina\"\u00bb citado en el segundo pasaje. Ese oscuro personaje fue, por lo que se sabe, \u00abel primero en descarriar a la infortunada\u00bb.\n\nAl hacer esa afirmaci\u00f3n el detective exige a su compa\u00f1ero (y, por extensi\u00f3n, al lector) que haga un gran acto de fe. Al igual que en sus anteriores aseveraciones sobre el moho y el crecimiento de la hierba, su convincente ret\u00f3rica enmascara hechos francamente muy dudosos. Al admitir su ignorancia de las intenciones del misterioso marinero, desarma al lector e inspira confianza en sus displicentes conclusiones posteriores. El nudo marinero y el asa se hab\u00edan discutido en muchas instancias, y tanto la polic\u00eda neoyorquina como el forense de Nueva Jersey hab\u00edan sugerido que eran un indicio de la posibilidad de que hubiese un marinero implicado en el caso. Sin embargo, la insistencia de Poe en que el marinero deb\u00eda ser un oficial de marina es el eslab\u00f3n que une el asesinato y la desaparici\u00f3n anterior, y sus argumentos son mucho menos convincentes. Dupin dice de Marie que era \u00abcasquivana pero no depravada\u00bb para dar a entender que disfrutaba de una posici\u00f3n social elevada que la situaba fuera del alcance de los simples marineros y en el reino m\u00e1s puro de la mesa de oficiales. Ciertamente es posible que la dependienta de una perfumer\u00eda \u2013o un almac\u00e9n de tabaco\u2013 disfrutara de las atenciones de un oficial, pero afirmar que estaba fuera de la esfera de las clases inferiores es ir demasiado lejos. Al ser hija de la due\u00f1a de una pensi\u00f3n, Mary Rogers ten\u00eda a su cargo una serie de tareas dom\u00e9sticas que iban desde fregar suelos hasta quitar el polvo a las alfombras. Desde luego no era de clase alta, y de hecho hab\u00eda descendido en la escala social desde sus d\u00edas en Connecticut.\n\nPoe aplica una t\u00e1ctica similar para discutir \u00abla duraci\u00f3n media\u00bb de las traves\u00edas navales. Aunque sus palabras resuenan con el eco de la autoridad, muchos historiadores han se\u00f1alado que no hab\u00eda una duraci\u00f3n fija para las misiones de los barcos de guerra. La propia vida de Mary Rogers ofrece varios casos de marinos cuyo tiempo de servicio contradice la afirmaci\u00f3n de Poe, y que van desde los marineros que frecuentaban el almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson hasta el joven William Kiekuck, que hab\u00eda visitado la pensi\u00f3n con una periodicidad mucho menor que cada tres a\u00f1os y medio. Una vez m\u00e1s, el autor le est\u00e1 pidiendo al lector que haga un gran acto de fe, creando una impresi\u00f3n de f\u00e9rrea certeza para plantear lo que hasta ahora hab\u00edan sido simples conjeturas.\n\nEl estilo astuto y el tono persuasivo del autor oscurecen la parte m\u00e1s endeble de su argumentaci\u00f3n. A su juicio, el pretendiente que se hab\u00eda ganado el afecto de Marie en 1838 fue el mismo que se la llev\u00f3 en 1841 con tr\u00e1gicas consecuencias. Pero Marie Rog\u00eat \u2013como Mary Rogers\u2013 era una joven que hab\u00eda adquirido cierta fama por su \u00abirresistible belleza\u00bb. De hecho, como Dupin hab\u00eda observado anteriormente, monsieur Le Blanc, el patr\u00f3n de Marie, comprob\u00f3 que su tienda no tardaba en \u00abhacerse famosa gracias a los encantos de la vivaracha grisette\u00bb. \u00bfAcaso es imposible que a una mujer tan atractiva le hicieran dos propuestas de fuga en el espacio de m\u00e1s de tres a\u00f1os? Dupin nos pide que lo creamos. Al mismo tiempo, da por sentado que la idea de fugarse en lugar de recurrir a un cortejo tradicional debi\u00f3 de venir del pretendiente de Marie y no de ella. No obstante, es cre\u00edble que una joven, al recibir una propuesta de matrimonio, pudiera proponer una fuga para evitar las objeciones de su madre, o librarse de un matrimonio no deseado.\n\nLa teor\u00eda de Poe tambi\u00e9n se basa en el quinto pasaje de los peri\u00f3dicos y su alusi\u00f3n a unas \u00abcomunicaciones muy convincentes\u00bb que tratan de culpar de la muerte de Marie Rog\u00eat a una \u00abbanda de maleantes\u00bb. Seg\u00fan \u00e9l, el hecho de que dichas comunicaciones est\u00e9n \u00abbien escritas\u00bb, presta credibilidad a la idea de que las haya escrito un oficial, pues los marineros vulgares no sol\u00edan ser muy cultivados. Una vez m\u00e1s, Poe recurre a una conjetura vaga y no demostrada hecha en otra parte del cuento \u2013que el asesino de Marie podr\u00eda haber escrito cartas enga\u00f1osas a los peri\u00f3dicos\u2013 y la introduce m\u00e1s tarde como un hecho probado. De todas las especulaciones y conjeturas de Dupin, tal vez sea \u00e9sta la m\u00e1s sospechosa. Al discutir el hallazgo del bosquecillo del crimen, el detective hab\u00eda adelantado la idea de que el asesino de Marie pod\u00eda haber enviado aquellas cartas \u00abcon el prop\u00f3sito de desviar la atenci\u00f3n del aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos\u00bb. No obstante, la idea no se tiene en pie, ni siquiera en el marco de la teor\u00eda del propio Dupin. Al final de su largo discurso, \u00e9ste ha descartado sus objeciones previas y aceptado el bosquecillo como el lugar probable de los hechos. Si la agresi\u00f3n se produjo realmente en aquel \u00abumbr\u00edo lugar\u00bb, como dice Dupin, sin duda el asesino no habr\u00eda enviado cartas, bien o mal escritas, dirigiendo a las autoridades a sus alrededores.\n\nEn ese momento, el detective ha repetido ya varias veces que un oficial de marina, acuartelado en Par\u00eds, \u00abfue el primero en descarriar a la infortunada\u00bb. En ese caso, no obstante, el paralelismo con la investigaci\u00f3n neoyorquina es extremadamente endeble \u2013se limita a la \u00fanica referencia del Herald de que a Mary Rogers \u00abla sedujo un oficial de la Marina de Estados Unidos que la retuvo dos semanas en Hoboken\u00bb. Vale la pena destacar que la afirmaci\u00f3n del Herald apareci\u00f3 en los dos p\u00e1rrafos de un anuncio de la muerte de Mary Rogers, concebido para obligar a los alcaldes de Nueva York y Nueva Jersey a cumplir con su deber. El art\u00edculo fue la primera menci\u00f3n que hizo el peri\u00f3dico del asesinato y se public\u00f3 en medio de la avalancha de teor\u00edas aparecidas los d\u00edas siguientes a la comisi\u00f3n del crimen, en una \u00e9poca en que los dem\u00e1s peri\u00f3dicos estaban reuniendo apresuradamente los principales detalles del caso, incluidos el nombre y la direcci\u00f3n de Mary Rogers. En tales circunstancias, la exactitud de la historia del Herald es dif\u00edcil de calibrar. La primera semana de agosto de 1841 se publicaron muchas informaciones contradictorias en la prensa neoyorquina, hecho que se refleja claramente en las p\u00e1ginas de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Al principio del relato, Dupin afirma que el per\u00edodo transcurrido entre la primera y la segunda desaparici\u00f3n de Marie fue de \u00abunos cinco meses\u00bb. En las \u00faltimas p\u00e1ginas, el per\u00edodo se ha alargado a tres a\u00f1os y medio.\n\nLa determinante aseveraci\u00f3n del Herald de que a Mary \u00abla sedujo un oficial de la Marina de Estados Unidos\u00bb no lleg\u00f3 a confirmarse nunca y no apareci\u00f3 en ninguno de los art\u00edculos publicados en el momento de su desaparici\u00f3n en 1838, ni siquiera en los del Herald. Por si fuera poco, la versi\u00f3n del Herald afirmaba que Mary hab\u00eda sido retenida \u00abdos semanas en Hoboken\u00bb. Eso es dif\u00edcil de reconciliar con las versiones de la historia que aparecieron tras el regreso de Mary al almac\u00e9n de tabaco, algunas de las cuales aseguraban que su ausencia se prolong\u00f3 s\u00f3lo unas horas.\n\nGran parte del peso del razonamiento de Poe se apoya en esa vaga, aislada y m\u00e1s que dudosa referencia aparecida en el Herald. dio por sentado que el peri\u00f3dico estaba en lo cierto al afirmar que el principal sospechoso era un oficial, m\u00e1s que un simple marinero como William Kiekuck, a quien detuvieron de hecho dos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de la publicaci\u00f3n del art\u00edculo del Herald. No obstante, una vez decidido que el malvado de la historia ten\u00eda que ser un oficial, Poe deja que su detective llegue a una apasionante conclusi\u00f3n. Dupin empieza por subrayar \u00abla desaparici\u00f3n del hombre de la tez morena\u00bb. Si el acompa\u00f1ante de Marie el domingo fat\u00eddico no hab\u00eda cometido ning\u00fan crimen, razona, sin duda se habr\u00eda presentado a declarar si, como creen las autoridades, el asalto lo hubiese cometido una banda. \u00abPero \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 desapareci\u00f3? \u2013pregunta Dupin\u2013. \u00bfLo asesinaron los otros miembros de la banda? Y en tal caso, \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 s\u00f3lo hay huellas de la chica asesinada?\u00bb\n\nDupin considera la posibilidad de que el oficial no se haya presentado a declarar por miedo a que lo acusen del crimen. Pero eso, concluye, es algo que debi\u00f3 de ocurr\u00edrsele mucho despu\u00e9s, no inmediatamente despu\u00e9s. \u00abEl primer impulso de un inocente habr\u00eda sido denunciarlo y colaborar en la identificaci\u00f3n de los malhechores.\u00bb De hecho, Dupin defiende que eso habr\u00eda sido m\u00e1s seguro que guardar silencio por miedo a que lo acusaran. \u00abLo hab\u00edan visto con la chica. Hab\u00eda cruzado el r\u00edo con ella en un ferry. Hasta un idiota habr\u00eda reparado en que denunciar a los asesinos era el \u00fanico medio seguro de apartar de s\u00ed las sospechas. Es dif\u00edcil imaginarlo, la noche de ese domingo fat\u00eddico, inocente e ignorante del atentado que acababa de producirse. Pero s\u00f3lo as\u00ed es posible concebir que, si segu\u00eda con vida, no corriera a denunciar a los asesinos.\u00bb\n\nA medida que Dupin explica los hechos, la conclusi\u00f3n le va pareciendo cada vez m\u00e1s evidente. El acompa\u00f1ante de Marie no est\u00e1 muerto, o habr\u00edan encontrado su cad\u00e1ver. Por la misma raz\u00f3n, no puede ser inocente, o se habr\u00eda puesto en contacto con las autoridades. Por tanto, tiene que ser el asesino. Lo \u00fanico que queda es descubrir su identidad, un proceso que ser\u00e1 mucho m\u00e1s f\u00e1cil si se relaciona el asesinato con la primera fuga de Marie. \u00ab\u00bfDe qu\u00e9 medios disponemos para conocer la verdad? \u2013pregunta Dupin\u2013. Veremos c\u00f3mo se multiplican y se vuelven cada vez m\u00e1s claros a medida que prosigamos. Cribemos hasta el fondo el asunto de la primera fuga. Averig\u00fcemos toda la historia del \"oficial\", sus presentes circunstancias y su paradero en el preciso momento del asesinato.\u00bb Aqu\u00ed el detective vuelve a su teor\u00eda de que el mismo asesino envi\u00f3 \u00abvarias comunicaciones muy convincentes\u00bb a un peri\u00f3dico vespertino para desviar a la polic\u00eda de la aut\u00e9ntica pista. \u00abComparemos cuidadosamente las diversas comunicaciones enviadas al peri\u00f3dico vespertino cuyo objeto era incriminar a una banda de criminales [...]. Y, una vez hecho eso, volvamos a compararlas con la caligraf\u00eda del oficial.\u00bb Si la caligraf\u00eda coincide, razona Dupin, se habr\u00e1 dado un gran paso para establecer la culpabilidad del oficial.\n\nSi esto falla, queda a\u00fan un \u00faltimo m\u00e9todo para localizar al culpable Romeo, sugerido por el sexto y \u00faltimo de los pasajes de peri\u00f3dico, referido al bote que se hall\u00f3 flotando vac\u00edo en el Sena. \u00abSigamos despu\u00e9s la pista del bote\u00bb, dice Dupin. Seg\u00fan la noticia, un marinero encontr\u00f3 el bote vac\u00edo el lunes siguiente al asesinato. Lo remolc\u00f3 hasta el puerto, le quit\u00f3 el tim\u00f3n y lo arrastr\u00f3 a la orilla. A la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, el bote hab\u00eda desaparecido: alguien se lo hab\u00eda llevado con tanta precipitaci\u00f3n que olvid\u00f3 coger el tim\u00f3n. La noticia que llam\u00f3 la atenci\u00f3n de Dupin no apareci\u00f3 hasta el jueves siguiente al hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver de Marie. En vista de que previamente no se publicaron m\u00e1s noticias sobre la desaparici\u00f3n del bote, Dupin cree que s\u00f3lo \u00abalguien relacionado con la Marina\u00bb, y con una \u00abvinculaci\u00f3n personal y permanente\u00bb con el personal del muelle, pudo enterarse tan pronto de que hab\u00edan recuperado el bote. Al caer en la cuenta de que podr\u00eda incriminarle, el marinero aprovech\u00f3 su posici\u00f3n privilegiada para llev\u00e1rselo del muelle de gabarras.\n\n\u00abAl hablar del asesino solitario que arrastr\u00f3 su carga a la orilla, ya suger\u00ed la probabilidad de que se hubiese servido de un bote \u2013a\u00f1ade Dupin\u2013. Ahora podemos dar por sentado que a Marie Rog\u00eat la echaron al agua desde un bote. Nada m\u00e1s l\u00f3gico. El cad\u00e1ver no pod\u00eda dejarse en las aguas poco profundas de la orilla. Las peculiares marcas de la espalda y los hombros de la v\u00edctima recuerdan a las cuadernas de un bote.\u00bb El detective aventura que cuando el oficial se alej\u00f3 de la orilla olvid\u00f3 llevar consigo un peso para hundir el cad\u00e1ver. Poco o nada deseoso de regresar a \u00abaquella orilla maldita\u00bb, arroj\u00f3 el cuerpo por la borda en medio del r\u00edo, con la esperanza de que quedara sumergido el tiempo suficiente para ocultar su huida. \u00abTras librarse de su terrible carga, el asesino probablemente volvi\u00f3 a la ciudad a toda prisa. Una vez all\u00ed, desembarc\u00f3 en alg\u00fan oscuro embarcadero. Pero \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 no amarr\u00f3 el bote? Ten\u00eda demasiada prisa. Adem\u00e1s, amarrarlo al embarcadero debi\u00f3 de parecerle igual que dejar una prueba contra \u00e9l. Su reacci\u00f3n natural fue alejar de s\u00ed todo lo que tuviera que ver con el crimen.\u00bb En tal caso, argumenta Dupin, debi\u00f3 de dejar el bote a la deriva, pensando que nadie lo encontrar\u00eda. Tras pasar la noche inquieto e imaginando las consecuencias de que alguien lo encontrara, despierta para comprobar que se han cumplido sus peores temores. \u00abPor la ma\u00f1ana \u2013dice Dupin\u2013, el muy canalla descubre con indecible horror que han recogido el bote y lo han amarrado en un lugar que \u00e9l frecuenta a diario, tal vez un sitio que el deber le obliga a frecuentar. La noche siguiente, sin atreverse a pedir el tim\u00f3n, se lo lleva.\u00bb Aqu\u00ed la Providencia le ha dado una oportunidad. \u00abPues bien, \u00bfd\u00f3nde est\u00e1 ahora ese bote sin tim\u00f3n? \u2013pregunta a continuaci\u00f3n\u2013. Es lo primero que debemos averiguar. En cuanto lo descubramos, nuestro \u00e9xito estar\u00e1 garantizado. Ese bote nos guiar\u00e1, con una rapidez que nos sorprender\u00e1 incluso a nosotros mismos, hasta la persona que lo utiliz\u00f3 la medianoche de ese funesto domingo. Una confirmaci\u00f3n seguir\u00e1 a otra y daremos con el asesino.\u00bb\n\nEn su llamada a la acci\u00f3n, el detective da por supuesto que todos los eslabones de su cadena de razonamientos son s\u00f3lidos. Acepta de antemano que detr\u00e1s de las dos desapariciones de Marie est\u00e1 el mismo Romeo, el cual escribi\u00f3 cartas a la prensa que podr\u00edan servir para incriminarlo. Tambi\u00e9n acepta que la identidad del hombre es bien conocida, o incluso del dominio p\u00fablico. Por \u00faltimo, presupone que el criminal huy\u00f3 en un bote de remos, dejando tras \u00e9l una prueba incriminatoria que trat\u00f3 de eliminar, aun a riesgo de que lo sorprendieran robando el bote del muelle. Aunque algunas de las piezas individuales no acabaran de encajar, el puzle completo s\u00ed parec\u00eda hacerlo de una manera precisa y apasionante. Poe hab\u00eda hecho gala de una extraordinaria habilidad al relacionar el asesinato de Marie Rog\u00eat con su primera desaparici\u00f3n para culpar as\u00ed al depravado oficial de marina, y la t\u00e9cnica de Dupin de abordar el misterio desde sus aleda\u00f1os era una imponente demostraci\u00f3n del poder de la \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Cuando Dupin afirmaba que el asesino acabar\u00eda siendo capturado, el lector no pod\u00eda dejar de tener la sensaci\u00f3n de que la soluci\u00f3n del caso estaba pr\u00f3xima.\n\nPor desgracia, Poe se hab\u00eda arrinconado \u00e9l solito. En Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue la soluci\u00f3n no hab\u00eda podido ser m\u00e1s pulcra: el narrador apenas hab\u00eda terminado de exponer sus conclusiones cuando el asesino llamaba a la puerta. En cambio, en El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat hab\u00eda prometido un cl\u00edmax incluso m\u00e1s dram\u00e1tico. En los primeros p\u00e1rrafos del relato, y en las cartas enviadas a los futuros editores, Poe hab\u00eda asegurado que su riguroso estudio del caso ofrecer\u00eda un paralelismo casi exacto de los hechos y teor\u00edas sobre la tragedia de Mary Rogers, y que se\u00f1alar\u00eda \u00abqui\u00e9n pudo ser el asesino de un modo que sin duda dar\u00e1 nuevos br\u00edos a la investigaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Ahora, cuando le faltaba s\u00f3lo una p\u00e1gina para concluirlo, lleg\u00f3 a un punto muerto creativo. Dado que la verdadera investigaci\u00f3n del caso de Mary Rogers no hab\u00eda dado con el asesino, el cuento no pod\u00eda aventurar el nombre del malvado sin apartarse significativamente de los hechos. Aunque el autor hab\u00eda bosquejado una apasionante teor\u00eda, no la hab\u00eda hecho lo bastante d\u00factil para poder rematarla con un final m\u00ednimamente cre\u00edble. Al contrario que en Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, aqu\u00ed no pod\u00eda haber confrontaci\u00f3n final ni el consiguiente desenmascaramiento del asesino.\n\nLa soluci\u00f3n fue ingeniosa y audaz, pero tambi\u00e9n un tanto enga\u00f1osa. Igual que hab\u00eda hecho en La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym, el escritor recurri\u00f3 a una supuesta \u00abnota del editor\u00bb para cubrir un hueco narrativo y volver m\u00e1s borrosa la l\u00ednea que separaba la realidad de la ficci\u00f3n. As\u00ed a la afirmaci\u00f3n de Dupin \u00abdaremos con el asesino\u00bb segu\u00eda un p\u00e1rrafo explicativo atribuido al director de la Ladies' Companion, insertado entre corchetes: \u00ab[Por motivos que no detallaremos, pero que ser\u00e1n obvios para muchos lectores, nos hemos tomado la libertad de omitir aqu\u00ed, del manuscrito puesto en nuestras manos, la parte que detalla c\u00f3mo se sigui\u00f3 la pista indicada por Dupin. \u00danicamente nos parece oportuno indicar que, en suma, se consigui\u00f3 el resultado deseado; y que el prefecto cumpli\u00f3, aunque a rega\u00f1adientes, lo pactado con dicho caballero. El art\u00edculo del se\u00f1or Poe concluye con las siguientes palabras. Dir.]\u00bb. El p\u00e1rrafo citaba en una nota a pie su \u00abfuente\u00bb: \u00abDe la Ladies' Companion de Snowden\u00bb.\n\nLa finta narrativa de Poe deja que el lector presuponga que las conjeturas de Dupin eran enteramente acertadas \u2013am\u00e9n de brillantes\u2013 y que se detuvo al asesino despu\u00e9s de que la investigaci\u00f3n siguiera por los cauces por \u00e9l sugeridos. No obstante, conviene tomarse esta maravilla de habilidad deductiva con cierta precauci\u00f3n. En lugar de participar de los descubrimientos, se pide al lector que acepte que han ocurrido fuera de escena. Aunque se sugiere claramente que \u00abel se\u00f1or Poe\u00bb ofreci\u00f3 la explicaci\u00f3n completa en el manuscrito original, el editor act\u00faa como un censor aguafiestas y elimina los pasajes m\u00e1s emocionantes en nombre de la decencia. Es inevitable admirar la extra\u00f1a astucia de Poe, pero su t\u00e9cnica del palo y la zanahoria deja al lector con la sensaci\u00f3n de haberse perdido el final de una carrera de caballos.\n\n\u00abCreo que hay un error radical en el modo habitual de construir un relato \u2013escribi\u00f3 una vez Poe\u2013. O bien la historia adelanta una tesis, o se sugiere una por un incidente de la vida diaria, o, en el mejor de los casos, el autor se pone a trabajar a partir de una combinaci\u00f3n de acontecimientos para elaborar la base de su narraci\u00f3n, y rellenar con descripciones, di\u00e1logos, o comentarios las grietas en los hechos, o la acci\u00f3n, que aparezcan en sus p\u00e1ginas.\u00bb\n\nHab\u00eda muchas \u00abgrietas en los hechos\u00bb en el caso de Mary Rogers. La opci\u00f3n de Poe a la hora de rellenarlas demuestra una extraordinaria inspiraci\u00f3n y una dosis id\u00e9ntica de astucia. En muchos aspectos, Poe ten\u00eda motivos para sentirse orgulloso de su interpretaci\u00f3n del caso. Su forma de desmontar la teor\u00eda de James Gordon Bennett de la \u00abbanda de maleantes\u00bb no pod\u00eda ser m\u00e1s brillante, y al relacionar el asesinato con la primera desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers demostr\u00f3 una magistral comprensi\u00f3n de las complejidades del caso. No obstante, el valor de las conclusiones finales reside en la exactitud de los hechos y sobre todo en los seis cruciales \u00abpasajes\u00bb en los que basa su soluci\u00f3n. Durante muchos a\u00f1os se crey\u00f3 que estos pasajes eran transcripciones casi al pie de la letra tomadas de peri\u00f3dicos neoyorquinos. Estudios m\u00e1s recientes han descartado esta idea y han demostrado que en su mayor parte eran par\u00e1frasis y res\u00famenes m\u00e1s o menos fieles. En cinco de los seis pasajes, no obstante, las fuentes originales est\u00e1n bastante claras. Aunque Poe subraya ocasionalmente un hecho o suposici\u00f3n que no aparece en la fuente, apenas se aparta del esp\u00edritu del original.\n\nEl sexto pasaje, relativo a la desaparici\u00f3n del bote, es otro cantar. El falso comentario editorial con que concluye el relato insist\u00eda en se\u00f1alar que \u00abla pista indicada por Dupin\u00bb se hab\u00eda seguido con enorme \u00e9xito. Es de suponer que se refiere al bote desaparecido, que deb\u00eda conducir al asesino \u00abcon una rapidez que nos sorprender\u00e1 incluso a nosotros mismos\u00bb. Se cre\u00eda que Poe hab\u00eda sacado el pasaje de las p\u00e1ginas del Standard neoyorquino, pero jam\u00e1s se ha encontrado ni rastro del original. Aunque al principio el Herald pidi\u00f3 a la polic\u00eda que averiguase \u00abqu\u00e9 botes y qu\u00e9 tripulaciones estuvieron en Weehawken ese d\u00eda\u00bb, no parece que se encontrase ning\u00fan bote a la deriva en el Hudson, ni que nadie se llevara ninguno del muelle.\n\nEn los \u00faltimos p\u00e1rrafos del relato, Poe da la impresi\u00f3n de admitir que ha recurrido a una licencia po\u00e9tica. Trata de justificar una serie de faltas al aludir al procedimiento de crear \u00abcoincidencias exactas\u00bb entre acontecimientos reales e imaginarios. \u00abEnti\u00e9ndase que hablo de coincidencias y de nada m\u00e1s \u2013declara\u2013. Y, lo que es m\u00e1s, en lo que acabo de contar se ver\u00e1 que entre el destino de la desdichada Mary Cecilia Rogers, hasta donde se conoce dicho destino, y el de la tal Marie Rog\u00eat, hasta cierto momento de su vida, se ha dado un paralelismo tan exacto que la raz\u00f3n se siente confundida. Digo que se ver\u00e1. Pero que nadie piense ni por un instante que, al relatar la triste historia de Marie desde el momento citado y trazar hasta su desenlace el misterio que la rodeaba, ha sido mi intenci\u00f3n sugerir que el paralelismo contin\u00faa o insinuar que las medidas adoptadas en Par\u00eds para descubrir al asesino de una grisette, u otras fundadas en deducciones similares, dar\u00edan resultados parecidos.\u00bb Poe se refugia a continuaci\u00f3n en una enrevesada divagaci\u00f3n sobre el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades, un proceso que compara con una jugada a los dados: \u00abNada, por ejemplo, m\u00e1s dif\u00edcil que convencer a un lector normal de que el hecho de que el seis haya salido dos veces seguidas en una partida de dados es raz\u00f3n suficiente para apostar a que tal circunstancia no volver\u00e1 a producirse al tercer intento. [...] No parece que dos jugadas ya realizadas y pertenecientes al pasado puedan influir en una jugada que s\u00f3lo existe en el futuro\u00bb.\n\nEstas palabras acabar\u00edan obsesion\u00e1ndole. En efecto, El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat hab\u00eda sido una jugada de dados en la que Poe hab\u00eda apostado todas sus fichas a un misterioso y an\u00f3nimo oficial de marina. Si el verdadero asesino no hubiese aparecido nunca, sus vidriosas especulaciones habr\u00edan conseguido admirablemente su prop\u00f3sito. Su audaz y provocadora teor\u00eda habr\u00eda despertado nuevo inter\u00e9s por el caso, y tal vez incluso obligado a reabrir la investigaci\u00f3n. No obstante, las nuevas noticias de Weehawken lo hab\u00edan cambiado todo. Desde el momento en que vio el escalofriante titular \u00abRESUELTO EL MISTERIO DE MARY ROGERS\u00bb, Poe supo que hab\u00edan subido las apuestas. Su relato no alud\u00eda a la posibilidad de que la se\u00f1ora Loss estuviese implicada en el caso, ni de un \u00abparto prematuro\u00bb que hubiese ido mal. Dupin, el h\u00e9roe de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, se convertir\u00eda en el hazmerre\u00edr de todos, y su creador tendr\u00eda que sufrir las consecuencias.\n\nEra demasiado tarde para introducir cambios en las dos primeras entregas del relato, pero la tercera y \u00faltima parte segu\u00eda en manos de William Snowden en la Ladies' Companion. Haciendo acopio de valor, Poe sopes\u00f3 sus posibilidades y tom\u00f3 una decisi\u00f3n. Luego cogi\u00f3 la pluma y se puso manos a la obra.\n18 En discrepancia con la verdad\n\nPoe dispon\u00eda de muy poco tiempo. Cuando comprendi\u00f3 la gravedad de la situaci\u00f3n, recurri\u00f3 a su larga experiencia como redactor adjunto. Con Politan y otras obras anteriores, se hab\u00eda limitado a dejar sin terminar una obra sin \u00e9xito, en lugar de prolongar un esfuerzo in\u00fatil. Sin duda, debi\u00f3 de considerar la posibilidad de anular la tercera entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat para ahorrarse la verg\u00fcenza de defender una soluci\u00f3n que hab\u00eda resultado falsa. Pero, con sus aspiraciones de fundar The Stylus, su propia revista literaria, en el fiel de la balanza, debi\u00f3 de pensar que no pod\u00eda permitirse admitir p\u00fablicamente su error.\n\nUna posibilidad m\u00e1s l\u00f3gica habr\u00eda sido revisar r\u00e1pidamente la tercera entrega para incluir la nueva informaci\u00f3n de Weehawken. Por desgracia, como no pod\u00eda hacer cambios en las dos primeras secciones, el plan s\u00f3lo pod\u00eda tener un \u00e9xito limitado. Al concluir la segunda secci\u00f3n, Dupin hab\u00eda le\u00eddo ya los seis cruciales pasajes de peri\u00f3dico de los que deduc\u00eda sus conclusiones, y hab\u00eda ido lo suficientemente lejos como para reprocharle a la polic\u00eda francesa su \u00abextraordinaria negligencia\u00bb por no haber detenido e interrogado al misterioso oficial de marina al que se alude en el segundo pasaje. Un giro radical estaba descartado: Poe ya hab\u00eda establecido la direcci\u00f3n del relato y sembrado las semillas de la soluci\u00f3n. El desaf\u00edo que ten\u00eda delante era revisar la \u00faltima entrega sin echar a perder lo que hab\u00eda hecho antes, un proceso similar a tratar de reemplazar la base de un castillo de naipes.\n\nFaltaban s\u00f3lo unos pocos d\u00edas para que el n\u00famero de enero de la Ladies' Companion fuese a la imprenta. Si quer\u00edan hacer algo, Poe y su editor, William Snowden, tendr\u00edan que darse prisa. Tomaron la decisi\u00f3n de retrasar la publicaci\u00f3n de la tercera entrega hasta el n\u00famero de febrero. Eso conceder\u00eda al autor un mes de tiempo para tratar de resolver la situaci\u00f3n.\n\nNo est\u00e1 del todo claro lo que hizo. Una an\u00e9cdota muy divulgada habla de una et\u00edlica excursi\u00f3n a Nueva York en la que se dice que Poe fue a ver a una antigua novia llamada Mary Starr Jennings, a la que hab\u00eda conocido en Baltimore, que se hab\u00eda casado y viv\u00eda con su marido en Jersey City. La se\u00f1ora Jennings contar\u00eda que el autor estaba tan desorientado despu\u00e9s de \u00abcorrerse una juerga\u00bb que hab\u00eda cruzado varias veces el Hudson en el ferry, preguntando a los desconocidos al azar si sab\u00edan d\u00f3nde pod\u00eda encontrarla.\n\nParece que finalmente dio con ella por casualidad y le ech\u00f3 en cara su reciente matrimonio. \u00ab\u00bfDe verdad le amas? \u2013pregunt\u00f3\u2013. No le amas. Es a m\u00ed a quien quieres. Lo sabes muy bien.\u00bb La se\u00f1ora Jenning se neg\u00f3 a responderle y \u00e9l se sumi\u00f3 en un hosco silencio mientras cortaba unos r\u00e1banos con un cuchillo de cocina. Por fin se despidi\u00f3 y no se le volvi\u00f3 a ver hasta unos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s \u00abvagando como un demente por los bosques de las afueras de Jersey City\u00bb, en una escena que recuerda las \u00faltimas horas de Daniel Payne.\n\nEs tentador recurrir a esta an\u00e9cdota como prueba de la preocupaci\u00f3n de Poe por El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Lo sit\u00faa en las cercan\u00edas de la Nick Moore House, lo que podr\u00eda dar a entender que pudo tratar de investigar por su cuenta el supuesto lugar de la muerte de Mary Rogers. Tambi\u00e9n demuestra la extremada agitaci\u00f3n y el recurso a la bebida que eran de esperar en semejantes circunstancias. Pero es imposible asegurar que viajara a Nueva York para investigar el caso de Mary Rogers. Aunque se sabe que viaj\u00f3 a la ciudad en 1842, las fechas del viaje son dudosas. El recuerdo de la se\u00f1ora Jennings se publicar\u00eda en 1889, mucho despu\u00e9s de la muerte de Poe. Fechaba el incidente en la primavera de 1842, pero la muerte de la se\u00f1ora Loss y las subsecuentes revelaciones no vieron la luz hasta noviembre de ese mismo a\u00f1o. Aunque es posible que la se\u00f1ora Jennings, al recordar un hecho sucedido m\u00e1s de cuarenta y cinco a\u00f1os antes, confundiera el mes, o incluso el a\u00f1o, hay muchos detalles en su relato que invitan al escepticismo. Sin ir m\u00e1s lejos el supuesto apasionamiento de Poe por otra mujer en un momento en que todos coinciden en que estaba atendiendo con fervor a su mujer enferma.\n\nSi el autor se hubiera molestado en visitar Weehawken personalmente, es dif\u00edcil decir qu\u00e9 efecto habr\u00eda tenido eso en la \u00faltima entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Poe hab\u00eda insistido en que Dupin resolver\u00eda el crimen sin moverse de su sill\u00f3n, y con medios al alcance de cualquiera. A diferencia de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, el hecho de que Dupin no visitara el lugar de los hechos se aduc\u00eda como una parte relevante de su m\u00e9todo. Poe tambi\u00e9n insisti\u00f3 mucho en esa distancia, recalcando as\u00ed la idea de que estaba midiendo su propia astucia con la del lector, igual que hab\u00eda hecho con sus populares art\u00edculos de criptograf\u00eda, y nunca modificar\u00eda su postura. En a\u00f1os posteriores afirmar\u00eda que el relato se hab\u00eda \u00abescrito a distancia del escenario de la atrocidad\u00bb, gui\u00e1ndose s\u00f3lo por los peri\u00f3dicos. Cuando escribi\u00f3 sobre el Aut\u00f3mata Ajedrecista, hab\u00eda dejado inequ\u00edvocamente claro que sus conclusiones se basaban en \u00absus frecuentes visitas a la exhibici\u00f3n\u00bb. Aunque la credibilidad de su soluci\u00f3n al misterio de Mary Rogers podr\u00eda haber aumentado si hubiera dicho que hab\u00eda visitado personalmente el lugar de los hechos, nunca lo dijo. \u00abAs\u00ed \u2013escribir\u00eda despu\u00e9s\u2013 al escritor se le escaparon muchas cosas que podr\u00eda haber utilizado si hubiese visitado el lugar del crimen y sus alrededores.\u00bb\n\nSin el manuscrito de Poe, y sin su correspondencia con Snowden, es imposible decir con exactitud qu\u00e9 cambios hizo en el relato para incluir las revelaciones de Weehawken. No obstante, vistos a la luz de la nueva informaci\u00f3n, se comprenden mejor algunos de los pasajes m\u00e1s enrevesados del relato. En una o dos ocasiones Poe parece haber tratado de insertar apresuradas y tal vez desafortunadas revisiones que s\u00f3lo sirven para contradecir otras partes de la historia. Sus extra\u00f1as vacilaciones sobre el bosquecillo del crimen son las incoherencias m\u00e1s evidentes. En los dos primeros tercios del relato, el autor da la impresi\u00f3n de estar decidido a descartar que el crimen se hubiese cometido en el bosquecillo. El objeto de las \u00abcomunicaciones\u00bb enviadas por el oficial a la prensa era, afirma Dupin, desviar la atenci\u00f3n \u00abdel aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s de tanto insistir en el asunto, en la tercera parte de la historia expone sus dudas al respecto y por fin cambia por completo de opini\u00f3n: \u00abNo obstante, no habr\u00e1 comprendido usted del todo lo que le digo si ha llegado a la conclusi\u00f3n de que pretendo negar que el bosque fuese el lugar donde se produjo el atentado. Es posible que el delito sucediera all\u00ed...\u00bb. Este brusco cambio de rumbo puede entenderse mejor si uno tiene en cuenta que las revelaciones de Weehawken se produjeron en el intervalo entre la segunda y tercera entregas del relato.\n\nOtros aspectos de la historia no dan la impresi\u00f3n de haber sufrido cambio alguno, incluso aunque parezcan contradecir la nueva interpretaci\u00f3n del crimen. De madame Deluc (el trasunto de la se\u00f1ora Loss) se nos dice en la tercera entrega que es una \u00abhonrada y escrupulosa se\u00f1ora\u00bb cuyo \u00fanico crimen es haber confundido el momento del d\u00eda en que ocurrieron algunos acontecimientos. Dupin subraya el modo en que se qued\u00f3 \u00ablament\u00e1ndose\u00bb por la bebida y los pasteles que le robaron los integrantes de una banda y especula que \u00abdeb\u00eda de esperar recibir alguna compensaci\u00f3n\u00bb por ellos. Ni siquiera los m\u00e1s desconfiados lectores de la Ladies' Companion podr\u00edan interpretar de manera torcida aquel comportamiento.\n\nPor el contrario, la enrevesada divagaci\u00f3n que hace Poe al final del relato sobre el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades da la impresi\u00f3n de ser un a\u00f1adido tard\u00edo a la historia. Al principio, Poe se hab\u00eda referido a dicho c\u00e1lculo como un medio de aplicar los aspectos de la ciencia \u00abm\u00e1s r\u00edgidos y exactos\u00bb a la intangible \u00absombra y espiritualidad\u00bb de la especulaci\u00f3n. Al final, se retractar\u00e1 de tan tranquilizadora afirmaci\u00f3n y asegurar\u00e1 que \u00abhabr\u00eda que tener en cuenta que la m\u00e1s trivial diferencia entre los hechos de los dos casos podr\u00eda dar lugar a errores de la mayor importancia, al hacer que el curso de ambos acontecimientos divergiera por completo, igual que, en aritm\u00e9tica, un error, inapreciable en s\u00ed mismo, acaba produciendo, al multiplicarse en los distintos pasos de un proceso, un resultado totalmente alejado de la verdad\u00bb. En otras palabras, que dos gotas de agua no siguen el mismo camino por el cristal de una ventana, sino que la m\u00e1s \u00ednfima mota de suciedad puede llevarlas por sitios distintos. Este pasaje, innegablemente cierto, sugiere con claridad un intento de prever cualquier posible contingencia.\n\nA pesar de las limitaciones impuestas por la inminente fecha de entrega y la publicaci\u00f3n de las dos entregas anteriores, Poe se las arregl\u00f3 para salvar de la quema El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Se desdijo de su insistencia previa en que el bosquecillo del crimen y sus aleda\u00f1os no pod\u00edan ser el lugar de los hechos y se cubri\u00f3 las espaldas con sus observaciones finales sobre la naturaleza problem\u00e1tica de la especulaci\u00f3n cient\u00edfica. Es m\u00e1s: la enga\u00f1osa nota editorial daba la impresi\u00f3n de que Dupin hab\u00eda salido triunfante, aunque evitaba escrupulosamente dar detalles. El pasaje revelaba tan s\u00f3lo que \u00abse consigui\u00f3 el resultado deseado\u00bb, pero no daba ninguna informaci\u00f3n sobre la identidad del criminal ni sobre la naturaleza exacta de lo sucedido. Poe se las ingeni\u00f3 para tener una mano ganadora sin verse obligado a mostrar sus cartas.\n\nLa tercera y \u00faltima entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat apareci\u00f3 en febrero de 1843, sin que se diera ninguna explicaci\u00f3n por el retraso de un mes. El relato caus\u00f3 una gran impresi\u00f3n por su originalidad en sus primeros lectores, que segu\u00edan muy interesados por el caso de Mary Rogers. En una de las primeras rese\u00f1as, el cr\u00edtico Thomas Dunn English dijo:\n\nIndependientemente de otras cualidades, El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat tiene un inter\u00e9s local. Cualquiera que est\u00e9 familiarizado con la historia de Nueva York en los \u00faltimos a\u00f1os recordar\u00e1 el asesinato de la cigarrera Mary Rogers. La polic\u00eda vio frustrados todos sus esfuerzos por descubrir el modo y el momento en que se cometi\u00f3 el crimen, as\u00ed como la identidad de los culpables. Hasta hoy, y sin contar con la luz arrojada por el cuento del se\u00f1or Poe, en el que aplica a los hechos su facultad de an\u00e1lisis, todo el asunto sigue envuelto en un aura de misterio. Creemos que ha demostrado, y con mucha eficacia, lo que pretend\u00eda. En todo caso, ha borrado de nuestra imaginaci\u00f3n la idea de que el asesinato lo perpetraron varias personas.\n\nPese a que Poe no hab\u00eda hecho ninguna referencia concreta a la supuesta muerte de Mary Rogers a manos de un abortista, su habilidosa disecci\u00f3n de la teor\u00eda de que el asesinato lo hubiese cometido una banda hizo mucho por alinear su relato con el dr\u00e1stico cambio en la visi\u00f3n general del caso. Un a\u00f1o antes, cuando se cre\u00eda que la cigarrera hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una banda de rufianes, los peri\u00f3dicos se hab\u00edan unido para exigir una fuerza policial m\u00e1s eficiente. Ahora, a ra\u00edz de la muerte de la se\u00f1ora Loss y de la tragedia de Weehawken, los editoriales volcaron sus energ\u00edas en pedir la prohibici\u00f3n del aborto. Dado que la se\u00f1ora Loss estaba ya fuera del alcance de la ley, las iras recayeron en su mayor parte sobre la famosa madame Restell, que segu\u00eda ofreciendo sus medicinas y sus tratamientos con los que la paciente daba a luz en una \u00abcasa de partos\u00bb y luego entregaba al ni\u00f1o en adopci\u00f3n. \u00abEl reciente conocimiento de las pr\u00e1cticas llevadas a cabo por esta abyecta mujer ha causado una profunda preocupaci\u00f3n en la comunidad \u2013escribi\u00f3 la Police Gazette\u2013, y, movida por la urgente necesidad de dispensar un castigo a la altura de sus cr\u00edmenes horrendos y antinaturales, se est\u00e1 constituyendo ya una asociaci\u00f3n cuyo plan es pedir al poder legislativo que haga del aborto un delito estatal castigado con pena de c\u00e1rcel\u00bb.\n\nGeorge Dixon, director del semanario neoyorquino Polynathos, consideraba la suerte corrida por Mary Rogers una amenaza a la idea misma de virtud femenina. Si las mujeres pod\u00edan librarse tan f\u00e1cilmente de las pruebas de trato sexual, opinaba, \u00abel sello de la feminidad\u00bb se ver\u00eda corrompido para siempre. \u00abLos remedios preventivos de madame Restell han falsificado la mano de la naturaleza \u2013insist\u00eda\u2013. Ya no tenemos una moneda de valioso metal reci\u00e9n acu\u00f1ada, sino una vulgar falsificaci\u00f3n lacada contaminada por el sudor de cientos de manos.\u00bb\n\nEntretanto, la Police Gazette exig\u00eda saber \u00absi una comunidad que se precia de ser civilizada seguir\u00e1 tolerando que se cometan asesinatos al por mayor delante de sus propios ojos. \u00bfMirar\u00e1 hacia otra parte una ciudad que dispone de tribunales y polic\u00edas ante tan atroz violaci\u00f3n de las leyes, y, en caso de que lo haga, y de que esa demon\u00edaca asesina de Restell sea demasiado rica para estar al alcance de la ley, permitir\u00e1 la comunidad que escape sin que se abata antes sobre ella la venganza del pueblo?\u00bb. Al aludir al espectro de la \u00abvenganza del pueblo\u00bb, una referencia al linchamiento p\u00fablico, el peri\u00f3dico daba una muestra de la animadversi\u00f3n generalizada contra Restell. \u00abNo exigimos justicia contra una persona que ha perpetrado un \u00fanico crimen, sino contra una que podr\u00eda haberse ahogado en la sangre de sus v\u00edctimas, aunque s\u00f3lo se hubiese extra\u00eddo una gota de cada una de ellas, una persona cuyo epitafio ser\u00e1 una maldici\u00f3n y cuya tumba ser\u00e1 una pir\u00e1mide de cr\u00e1neos humanos\u00bb.\n\nPoe, siempre atento a la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica, aprovechar\u00eda con mucha eficacia ese furor en los meses siguientes. Por el momento, se vio obligado a dedicar su atenci\u00f3n a preocupaciones m\u00e1s acuciantes. En febrero de 1843, mientras la \u00faltima entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat contribu\u00eda a despertar la indignaci\u00f3n en Nueva York, nuestro autor publicaba un prospecto de The Stylus a modo de \u00faltimo intento de recaudar fondos para sacar adelante el proyecto. A diferencia del tono fr\u00edvolo de las dem\u00e1s revistas de la \u00e9poca, Poe declaraba que The Stylus ser\u00eda \u00abm\u00e1s vigorosa, mordaz, original, individual e independiente\u00bb. Thomas Clarke, su socio en la empresa, public\u00f3 el prospecto en su peri\u00f3dico, el Saturday Museum, junto con un detallado bosquejo biogr\u00e1fico que alababa al escritor como un h\u00e9roe byroniano y describ\u00eda sus heroicas (aunque ficticias) haza\u00f1as en Grecia y en San Petersburgo. Mayor m\u00e9rito ten\u00edan los largos pasajes de su obra, que demostraban que Poe, a sus treinta y cuatro a\u00f1os, se hab\u00eda convertido en una de las voces se\u00f1eras de las letras norteamericanas. No obstante, aunque el bosquejo era inmensamente halagador, el grabado de Poe que lo acompa\u00f1aba no lo era tanto. \u00abSabe Dios que soy bastante feo \u2013se quej\u00f3\u2013, pero no tanto.\u00bb\n\nDespu\u00e9s de evitar con El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat lo que habr\u00eda podido ser un ruinoso traspi\u00e9s, ahora daba la impresi\u00f3n de que el sue\u00f1o de dirigir su propia revista podr\u00eda realizarse por fin. No obstante, al cabo de tres meses, Thomas Clarke le hab\u00eda retirado su apoyo financiero desanimado, al parecer, por las continuas borracheras del autor. En una carta a James Russell Lowell, Poe escribi\u00f3 que \u00abel proyecto de fundar la revista se ha ido a pique, o al menos la imbecilidad o idiocia de mi socio me ha privado por el momento de cualquier medio de sacarlo adelante\u00bb.\n\nFrustradas sus esperanzas, Poe volvi\u00f3 a pensar en abandonar la literatura y consider\u00f3 brevemente la posibilidad de estudiar Derecho. Como era de prever, la inspiraci\u00f3n no dio frutos. Como ten\u00eda un mont\u00f3n de material in\u00e9dito pensado para The Stylus, centr\u00f3 su atenci\u00f3n en un nuevo foro. Aunque, a prop\u00f3sito de la visita de Dickens, se hab\u00eda burlado de \u00abla absurda man\u00eda actual de las conferencias\u00bb, inici\u00f3 su propia carrera como conferenciante en noviembre de 1843 con un discurso en el Instituto Literario William Wirt de Filadelfia sobre La poes\u00eda de Am\u00e9rica. El momento elegido no pod\u00eda ser m\u00e1s propicio. Unos meses antes, en junio, hab\u00eda publicado El escarabajo de oro, un cuento con la peculiar caracter\u00edstica de que un escarabajo pelotero era la clave para encontrar un tesoro pirata. Publicado apenas unos meses despu\u00e9s de la \u00faltima entrega de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, el relato se\u00f1al\u00f3 la continuaci\u00f3n de los cuentos de \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb del autor y en \u00e9l William Legrand, un personaje similar a Dupin, utiliza sus \u00abextraordinarios poderes intelectuales\u00bb para resolver un complicado criptograma. La historia apareci\u00f3 en el Dollar Newspaper de Filadelfia como ganadora de un concurso de relatos y se convertir\u00eda en el m\u00e1s popular y le\u00eddo de los cuentos de su autor. El \u00e9xito de El escarabajo de oro contribuy\u00f3 a despertar el inter\u00e9s por su primera conferencia en Filadelfia y cientos de personas tuvieron que quedarse en la calle. Poe se revelar\u00eda como un orador fascinante que alternaba sus apasionadas y mel\u00f3dicas lecturas de poes\u00eda con las agudas opiniones literarias que le hab\u00edan ganado su reputaci\u00f3n como cr\u00edtico. La prensa respondi\u00f3 con entusiasmo, calificaron la conferencia de \u00absimpar\u00bb y alabaron \u00abel dominio del lenguaje y la fuerza de la voz\u00bb del autor. Esa tarde gan\u00f3 casi cien d\u00f3lares y le pidieron que impartiese nuevas conferencias en Wilmington y Nueva York.\n\nPoe utiliz\u00f3 aquel nuevo foro para ajustar cuentas con Rufus Griswold, el hombre que le hab\u00eda sucedido como editor en Graham's. El a\u00f1o anterior, \u00e9ste hab\u00eda compilado una antolog\u00eda titulada The Poets and Poetry of America (que inclu\u00eda a Poe), en la que trataba de establecer una r\u00edgida clasificaci\u00f3n de los poetas del pa\u00eds. Aunque Poe hab\u00eda alabado una vez la obra (\u00abla mejor antolog\u00eda de poetas americanos que se ha hecho hasta el momento\u00bb), su prospecto de The Stylus dejar\u00eda claro que no le merec\u00eda mayor inter\u00e9s y que \u00e9l pensaba hacerlo mucho mejor. En sus conferencias, carg\u00f3 contra la \u00abmiserable falta de juicio\u00bb de Griswold y lo acus\u00f3 de dedicar \u00abun espacio extravagante\u00bb a sus amigos y de prestar menos atenci\u00f3n a poetas de \u00abm\u00e9rito superior\u00bb. Aunque no lo dijera claramente, es evidente que le hab\u00eda molestado que s\u00f3lo incluyera tres poemas suyos, en lugar de los cuarenta y cinco del hoy olvidado Charles Fenno Hoffman. George Graham recordar\u00eda que Poe \u00able dio al se\u00f1or Griswold varios pescozones dif\u00edciles de olvidar\u00bb. Griswold demostrar\u00eda tener mucha memoria.\n\nAl a\u00f1o siguiente, el \u00e9xito de sus conferencias y de El escarabajo de oro se hab\u00eda eclipsado. La familia volvi\u00f3 a sumirse en la pobreza y Poe decidi\u00f3 que Filadelfia ya no ten\u00eda nada que ofrecerle. En abril de 1844, con apenas cinco d\u00f3lares en el bolsillo, decidi\u00f3 regresar a Nueva York, \u00abdonde pretendo vivir en el futuro\u00bb, en un \u00faltimo intento de lograr el \u00e9xito literario.\n\nEl momento culminante de su fama estaba al llegar, pero antes tendr\u00eda que escribir un \u00faltimo cap\u00edtulo en la saga de la bella cigarrera.\nCuarta parte\n\nLa dama duerme\n\n\u00ab... unos pescadores acababan de sacar a la orilla un cad\u00e1ver  \nque hab\u00edan encontrado flotando en el r\u00edo.\u00bb  \nIlustraci\u00f3n de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat de una edici\u00f3n de los cuentos de Poe de 1852\n\nCortes\u00eda de la Biblioteca del Congreso\n> La dama duerme. \u00a1Ojal\u00e1 sea su sue\u00f1o\n> \n> tan largo como profundo!\n> \n> Que g\u00e9lidos gusanos no sean sus due\u00f1os.\n> \n> A Dios pido que yazga para el mundo\n> \n> con esa misma calma eterna en la mirada,\n> \n> que por otro m\u00e1s santo se troque su aposento,\n> \n> y por otro m\u00e1s triste el lecho en que reposa.\n> \n> EDGAR ALLAN POE, Irene\n19 Tal vez convenga se\u00f1alar\n\nEl 13 de abril de 1844, apenas una semana despu\u00e9s del regreso de Edgar Allan Poe a Nueva York, apareci\u00f3 una impresionante noticia en las p\u00e1ginas del Sun neoyorquino. \u00ab\u00a1Sorprendente informaci\u00f3n de Charleston, v\u00eda Norfolk! \u2013anunciaba un titular especial de \u00faltima hora\u2013. \u00a1Cruzan el oc\u00e9ano Atl\u00e1ntico en s\u00f3lo tres d\u00edas!\u00bb La \u00abapasionante exclusiva\u00bb informaba a los lectores de que un grupo de \u00abvalientes y osados cient\u00edficos\u00bb hab\u00eda logrado viajar desde Dover, Inglaterra, hasta la isla de Sullivan, en Carolina del Sur, en un globo de aire caliente. Dado que el r\u00e9cord anterior para un globo de aire caliente era de unos veinte kil\u00f3metros, la noticia de una traves\u00eda transatl\u00e1ntica con su \u00abemocionante dramatismo y sus constantes peligros sobre las g\u00e9lidas olas\u00bb caus\u00f3 gran sensaci\u00f3n. Una multitud se congreg\u00f3 a las puertas de la redacci\u00f3n del Sun deseosa de novedades. El peri\u00f3dico prometi\u00f3 dar nuevos detalles lo antes posible.\n\nPronto se supo que la historia no era m\u00e1s que un complicado bulo orquestado por Poe, en la tradici\u00f3n del \u00abgran bulo lunar\u00bb, publicado en el Sun nueve a\u00f1os antes. Al principio, a Poe le satisfizo la reacci\u00f3n a la historia. \u00abNunca vi tanta excitaci\u00f3n adue\u00f1arse de un peri\u00f3dico \u2013declar\u00f3\u2013. En cuanto salieron a la calle los primeros ejemplares, la gente los compr\u00f3 casi a cualquier precio de manos de los vendedores, que sin duda aprovecharon para hacer su agosto. En un caso vi pagar medio d\u00f3lar por un ejemplar, y no era raro que la gente pagase un chel\u00edn. Pas\u00e9 el d\u00eda tratando en vano de conseguir alguno.\u00bb\n\nAl cabo de dos d\u00edas, cuando las ventas de la edici\u00f3n especial superaban los cincuenta mil ejemplares, el Sun se vio obligado a publicar una retractaci\u00f3n. Los editores declararon que se sent\u00edan \u00abinclinados a creer que la informaci\u00f3n era err\u00f3nea\u00bb, pero a\u00f1ad\u00edan que \u00abno consideraban ni mucho menos imposible el proyecto\u00bb. Para Poe, el art\u00edculo fue un error. Ten\u00eda la esperanza de que el \u00e9xito del bulo le ayudara a establecerse en Nueva York, pero el episodio tuvo el efecto contrario y s\u00f3lo sirvi\u00f3 para confirmar la impresi\u00f3n de los editores de que no era de fiar.\n\nA pesar de este traspi\u00e9s, Poe estaba decidido a afrontar del mejor modo posible su regreso a la ciudad. Mientras la t\u00eda Maria terminaba de arreglar algunos asuntos en Filadelfia, alquil\u00f3 con Virginia unas c\u00f3modas habitaciones en una pensi\u00f3n del 130 de Greenwich Street. En una carta describir\u00eda extasiado la abundancia de la mesa: \u00abAnoche, para cenar, tomamos el mejor t\u00e9 que he probado en mi vida, fuerte y caliente; pan de trigo y de centeno; queso, pastas (muy elegantes); un gran plato (equivalente a dos platos) de delicioso jam\u00f3n y dos de ternera fr\u00eda, que formaban una monta\u00f1a de gruesas lonchas; tres platos de pasteles y todo en gran cantidad\u00bb. A\u00f1ad\u00eda: \u00abAqu\u00ed no hay miedo de pasar hambre\u00bb.\n\nPoe parec\u00eda igual de efusivo al considerar Nueva York un t\u00f3nico para la salud de Virginia y tambi\u00e9n para la suya. \u00abAmbos estamos muy animados \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. Apenas ha tosido y no tiene sudores nocturnos. Ahora est\u00e1 ocupada zurci\u00e9ndome unos pantalones que me desgarr\u00e9 con un clavo... Estoy de un humor excelente y no he probado una gota de alcohol... as\u00ed que espero no meterme en l\u00edos.\u00bb\n\nA pesar de este optimismo, al cabo de unas semanas volv\u00edan a caer en su habitual estado de pobreza itinerante. Cuando la se\u00f1ora Clemm se reuni\u00f3 con ellos en Nueva York, la familia pas\u00f3 por una serie de pensiones m\u00e1s humildes, que fueron desde una casa aislada en la calle 84 esquina con Broadway \u2013entonces en el centro de doscientos acres de terreno de labranza\u2013, hasta unas modestas habitaciones cerca de Washington Square. Aunque Poe sigui\u00f3 dando conferencias con cierto \u00e9xito, se ve\u00eda obligado a pedir dinero prestado a su cada vez m\u00e1s reducido c\u00edrculo de amigos.\n\nUn mes despu\u00e9s de su llegada acept\u00f3 un empleo en el Evening Mirror como ayudante de direcci\u00f3n y redactor adjunto, o escritor de material de relleno. El director, Nathaniel Willis, describir\u00eda despu\u00e9s su cargo con palabras m\u00e1s bien tristes: \u00abSu obligaci\u00f3n consist\u00eda en sentarse en su escritorio en un rinc\u00f3n de la oficina y estar disponible por si lo llamaban para cualquier trabajo miscel\u00e1neo que pudiera surgir \u2013redactar gacetillas, resumir informaciones, responder a los corresponsales, anunciar diversiones\u2013, menos escribir editoriales o redactar alg\u00fan art\u00edculo al que pudiera imprimir su peculiar idiosincrasia\u00bb. Era un trabajo mucho peor que el que ten\u00eda en Graham's y en Burton's y el sue\u00f1o de dirigir su propio peri\u00f3dico parec\u00eda cada vez m\u00e1s lejos. De todos modos, Poe se sinti\u00f3 agradecido a Willis por sus quince d\u00f3lares a la semana. Luego dir\u00eda de \u00e9l que hab\u00eda hecho \u00abmucho ruido en el mundo..., al menos trat\u00e1ndose de un americano\u00bb.\n\nQuiso la casualidad que la redacci\u00f3n del Mirror estuviera en la esquina de Nassau Street y Ann Street, a pocos pasos de donde se hallaba la pensi\u00f3n Rogers. Hac\u00eda mucho que Phoebe Rogers hab\u00eda cerrado sus puertas, incapaz de regentar la pensi\u00f3n sin la ayuda de su hija. Ahora viv\u00eda con una de sus hermanas y la casa de Nassau Street llevaba vac\u00eda varios meses. En el vecindario mucha gente cre\u00eda que estaba encantada y se contaba que una aparecida de ojos oscuros se asomaba a la ventana del piso de arriba.\n\nUna vez hecho a la rutina del barrio, el recuerdo de Mary Rogers empez\u00f3 a hacerse presente. En una serie de cartas publicadas en un peri\u00f3dico de Pensilvania llamado Columbia Spy, ofreci\u00f3 un desesperanzado comentario del caso. \u00abEs dif\u00edcil imaginar algo m\u00e1s absurdo que el modo en que se investig\u00f3 [...] el asunto de Mary Rogers \u2013dec\u00eda\u2013. La polic\u00eda dio la impresi\u00f3n de dejarse arrastrar por cualquier art\u00edculo aparecido en la prensa no demostrado. Fue como si perdiera totalmente de vista que su objetivo era averiguar la verdad. Los magistrados dejaron que el asesino escapara, mientras se entreten\u00edan jugando a los tribunales y enred\u00e1ndose en los tecnicismos de la jurisprudencia.\u00bb Aunque evitaba hacer la menor alusi\u00f3n a su propio intento de resolver el misterio, suger\u00eda una l\u00ednea de investigaci\u00f3n que recordaba claramente a El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. \u00abEn tales investigaciones, uno de los errores m\u00e1s habituales es limitar la investigaci\u00f3n a lo inmediato, despreciando por completo los acontecimientos colindantes o circunstanciales \u2013declaraba\u2013. Es una mala pr\u00e1ctica reducir excesivamente las pruebas y la discusi\u00f3n a lo aparentemente relevante. La experiencia ha demostrado, y la filosof\u00eda lo demostrar\u00e1 siempre, que una gran parte, tal vez la mayor parte, de la verdad surge de lo aparentemente irrelevante. En virtud de este principio, la ciencia moderna ha decidido basar sus c\u00e1lculos en lo imprevisible.\u00bb\n\nPoe pudo volver a interesarse por el caso a ra\u00edz del \u00e9xito de una novelucha titulada The Beautiful Cigar Girl: or the Misteries of Broadway [La bella cigarrera o los misterios de Broadway]. El autor, J. H. Ingraham, era un prol\u00edfico escritor cuyas obras aparec\u00edan a menudo en la Ladies' Companion de Snowden, donde pudo leer e inspirarse en El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. La novela de Ingraham narraba las desventuras de una joven \u00abmodesta, sensata y trabajadora\u00bb llamada Mary Cecilia, que encuentra empleo en un almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Nueva York: \u00abLa reputaci\u00f3n de sus encantos, de su modestia y de la elegancia de su conversaci\u00f3n, pues era afable con todo el mundo, se extendi\u00f3 por toda la ciudad, y la bella cigarrera se convirti\u00f3 en tema de conversaci\u00f3n de todos los j\u00f3venes de Nueva York. Cientos visitaban el local s\u00f3lo por verla, e incluso los no fumadores iban a comprar cigarros para tener la excusa de contemplar a la que ten\u00eda embelesados a la mitad de los j\u00f3venes de la ciudad. Su belleza impresionaba no s\u00f3lo a los caballeros, pues tambi\u00e9n las damas, cuando pasaban en promenade, se deten\u00edan a mirar a la bella cigarrera\u00bb.\n\nTal como la contaba Ingraham, la vida de la joven era como m\u00ednimo azarosa, ya que sufr\u00eda no uno sino tres secuestros que culminaban en el siguiente titular: \u00ab\u00a1HORRIBLE SOSPECHA DE ASESINATO!\u00bb. Por si alguno de los lectores no hab\u00eda reparado en qui\u00e9n hab\u00eda servido de inspiraci\u00f3n para la historia, Ingraham se entreten\u00eda en recordar la tragedia real y el \u00abresultado infructuoso de las investigaciones que siguieron a su desaparici\u00f3n, as\u00ed como el profundo misterio que hasta hoy envuelve, como el pa\u00f1o mortuorio en la tumba, este asunto tan doloroso y extraordinario\u00bb. A diferencia de Poe, Ingraham no se esforzaba en trazar paralelismos con el crimen real; ofrec\u00eda, en cambio, un complicado final feliz en el que a Mary Cecilia acababan encontr\u00e1ndola con vida en Inglaterra, donde hab\u00eda cautivado el coraz\u00f3n de un arist\u00f3crata.\n\nEl propio Poe hizo una referencia m\u00e1s al caso en La carta robada, que apareci\u00f3 en diciembre de ese a\u00f1o. El relato supon\u00eda la tercera aparici\u00f3n de C. Auguste Dupin y su an\u00f3nimo compa\u00f1ero, a los que, al principio del relato, encontramos sumidos en otro per\u00edodo de \u00abprofundo silencio\u00bb, meditando sus vivencias pasadas, \u00abel asunto de la rue Morgue \u2013dice el narrador\u2013, y el misterio que rodea el asesinato de Marie Rog\u00eat\u00bb. Pronto los sacar\u00e1 de su ensimismamiento la llegada de monsieur G., el prefecto de polic\u00eda de Par\u00eds, que solicita la ayuda de Dupin para recuperar una carta muy comprometedora que han robado en los apartamentos reales. Dupin acepta, despu\u00e9s de negociar una tarifa generosa.\n\nEl caso de la carta desaparecida es muy poco habitual porque la identidad del malvado se conoce desde el principio. Es el ministro D., un hombre de una astucia extraordinaria, que planea utilizar dicho documento para obtener ventajas pol\u00edticas. Con la esperanza de evitar el esc\u00e1ndalo, el autor de la carta, \u00abun hombre de posici\u00f3n muy encumbrada\u00bb, deposita toda su confianza en el ingenio y discreci\u00f3n del prefecto. (\u00abSupongo \u2013comenta altanero Dupin\u2013 que no podr\u00eda desear, o siquiera imaginar, un agente m\u00e1s sagaz.\u00bb) Cuando el detective se pone a considerar el dilema, comprende que el prefecto se ha equivocado en su \u00absuposici\u00f3n de que el ministro es un loco, porque ha adquirido fama como poeta. El prefecto tiene la intuici\u00f3n de que todos los locos son poetas, y ha incurrido en una non distributio medii* al deducir que por tanto todos los poetas est\u00e1n locos\u00bb. Dupin, que es tambien poeta, no cae en el mismo error. Vuelve a considerar el asunto desde la perspectiva del ministro tratando de reproducir la probable cadena de pensamientos de su adversario, y concluye que ha ocultado la carta desaparecida a la vista de todos. Tras sustituirla por una copia, Dupin se las arregla para recobrar la carta y salvar la reputaci\u00f3n de su encumbrado cliente.\n\nLa carta robada demuestra que el entusiasmo de Poe por Dupin no hab\u00eda remitido tras los esfuerzos de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. Llevaba a\u00f1os queriendo convencer a alg\u00fan editor de que publicase una edici\u00f3n revisada de sus relatos breves. Ahora, en una carta a James Russell Lowell, dec\u00eda que La carta robada era \u00abtal vez el mejor de mis cuentos de raciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Ten\u00eda motivos para confiar en que la aparici\u00f3n de la historia en The Gift, una popular publicaci\u00f3n anual navide\u00f1a, inspirase una nueva recopilaci\u00f3n que incluyera los tres cuentos de Dupin.\n\nNo tendr\u00eda que esperar mucho. En enero de 1845, se top\u00f3 por la calle con un amigo, el poeta William Ross Wallace. Poe acostumbraba a leerle sus \u00abobras po\u00e9ticas in\u00e9ditas\u00bb y ese d\u00eda concreto parec\u00eda m\u00e1s deseoso que nunca de mostrarle la \u00faltima.\n\n\u2013Wallace \u2013dijo\u2013, acabo de terminar el mejor poema que jam\u00e1s se ha escrito.\n\n\u2013\u00bfAh, s\u00ed? \u2013respondi\u00f3 Wallace\u2013. Eso est\u00e1 muy bien.\n\n\u2013\u00bfQuieres o\u00edrlo?\n\n\u2013Desde luego.\n\nPoe le ley\u00f3 los versos \u00abde manera cautivadora e impresionante\u00bb, y cuando termin\u00f3 se volvi\u00f3 para conocer su opini\u00f3n.\n\n\u2013Poe \u2013le dijo su amigo\u2013, son buenos, extraordinariamente buenos.\n\n\u2013\u00bfBuenos? \u2013le espet\u00f3 Poe\u2013. \u00bfEso es todo lo que se te ocurre? Acabo de decirte que es el mejor poema que se ha escrito jam\u00e1s.\n\nLa respuesta de Wallace no ha llegado hasta nosotros, pero otros cr\u00edticos del nuevo poema El cuervo responder\u00edan de un modo casi tan ditir\u00e1mbico como el propio Poe. El poema se public\u00f3 el 29 de enero de 1845 en el Evening Mirror, donde \u00e9l segu\u00eda con su discreto trabajo como redactor adjunto. El cuervo fue un \u00e9xito inmediato y no tard\u00f3 en convertirse en el poema norteamericano m\u00e1s famoso de todos los publicados. Se reimprimi\u00f3 docenas de veces a lo largo del a\u00f1o y acab\u00f3 apareciendo en El cuervo y otros poemas, una recopilaci\u00f3n de poes\u00edas de Poe publicada en noviembre de 1845 por Wiley & Putnam. En su ensayo Filosof\u00eda de la composici\u00f3n, el autor hac\u00eda un bosquejo enga\u00f1osamente sencillo del poema:\n\nUn cuervo, tras haber aprendido las palabras \u00abnunca m\u00e1s\u00bb a fuerza de repetirlas, y tras escapar de la custodia de su due\u00f1o, se ve obligado por la fuerza de una tormenta a colarse a medianoche por una ventana en la que brilla todav\u00eda una luz, la ventana de la habitaci\u00f3n de un estudiante que estudia un volumen y se halla sumido en una enso\u00f1aci\u00f3n sobre su amada fallecida. El cristal se abre por el batir de sus alas y el p\u00e1jaro se posa a una c\u00f3moda distancia del estudiante, el cual, divertido por el incidente y por lo extra\u00f1o del aspecto de su visitante, le pregunta en broma, y sin esperar una respuesta, por su nombre. El cuervo responde con las palabras acostumbradas \u00abNunca m\u00e1s\u00bb, que encuentran un eco inmediato en el entristecido coraz\u00f3n del estudiante.\n\nPoe ofrece despu\u00e9s una iluminadora explicaci\u00f3n de c\u00f3mo hall\u00f3 inspiraci\u00f3n para el poema. Decidido a componer una meditaci\u00f3n sobre la belleza, recuerda, \u00abla siguiente cuesti\u00f3n era el tono de su manifestaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s elevada, y la experiencia demuestra que dicho tono es el de la tristeza. Cualquier forma de belleza, en su desarrollo supremo, mueve invariablemente a las l\u00e1grimas a un alma sensible. La melancol\u00eda es as\u00ed el m\u00e1s leg\u00edtimo de los tonos po\u00e9ticos\u00bb. Con tal conclusi\u00f3n, Poe hab\u00eda echado los cimientos de uno de sus aforismos m\u00e1s famosos. \u00abLuego me pregunt\u00e9: \u00bfde todos los asuntos tristes, cu\u00e1l es seg\u00fan acuerdo universal el m\u00e1s triste de todos? La respuesta m\u00e1s evidente era la muerte. Y \u00bfcu\u00e1ndo \u2013me dije\u2013 es m\u00e1s po\u00e9tico este asunto tan triste? Por lo que llevo dicho, la respuesta tambi\u00e9n era evidente: cuando se asocia m\u00e1s \u00edntimamente a la belleza. La muerte, por tanto, de una mujer hermosa es, sin ning\u00fan lugar a dudas, el asunto m\u00e1s po\u00e9tico del mundo. Y tampoco cabe duda de que los labios mejores para expresarlo son los de un amante afligido.\u00bb\n\nTan elegante formulaci\u00f3n funcionaba muy bien en los salones donde impart\u00eda sus conferencias, pero en privado Poe admitir\u00eda que hab\u00eda escrito el poema pensando en su \u00e9xito comercial. \u00abEl cuervo ha tenido mucho \u00e9xito \u2013le dijo a su amigo Frederick Thomas\u2013, pero lo cierto es que lo escrib\u00ed con ese prop\u00f3sito... igual que El escarabajo de oro. El p\u00e1jaro, no obstante, gan\u00f3 al insecto.\u00bb\n\nA pesar de sus fanfarronadas, el \u00e9xito todav\u00eda ten\u00eda que hacerle ganar dinero de verdad. Pese a las infinitas reimpresiones de El cuervo, el poema s\u00f3lo le permiti\u00f3 ingresar nueve d\u00f3lares, mientras que El escarabajo de oro, del que vendi\u00f3 m\u00e1s de un cuarto de mill\u00f3n de ejemplares, le supuso unas ganancias de apenas cien d\u00f3lares. Aun as\u00ed, Poe estaba convencido de que la fortuna le esperaba a la vuelta de la esquina. Un mes antes, no era m\u00e1s que un paria literario obligado por gratitud a Nathaniel Willis por el trabajo rutinario que le ofrec\u00eda. Ahora, con el \u00e9xito de El cuervo, se convirti\u00f3 en un personaje solicitado en los salones literarios neoyorquinos, donde sus versos se escuchaban con respeto y veneraci\u00f3n. El talento que hab\u00eda desarrollado como conferenciante floreci\u00f3 plenamente. Para aumentar el efecto de sus lecturas \u00abapagaba las luces hasta que la sala quedaba casi a oscuras \u2013informaba uno de los presentes\u2013, luego se plantaba en mitad del sal\u00f3n y recitaba esos versos tan maravillosos con la voz m\u00e1s melodiosa que se pueda imaginar [...]. Tan maravilloso era su poder como lector que los oyentes tem\u00edan tomar aliento por miedo a romper el hechizo\u00bb.\n\nCon su traje negro y su porte angustiado, Poe deb\u00eda de tener estampa de rom\u00e1ntico. \u00abSu notable belleza personal \u2013escribi\u00f3 un conocido\u2013, aquellos modales y conversaci\u00f3n tan fascinantes, y su caballerosa deferencia y devoci\u00f3n por las mujeres le permit\u00edan ejercer un peligroso influjo sobre el sexo d\u00e9bil.\u00bb Poe empez\u00f3 a establecer intensos, aunque plat\u00f3nicos, v\u00ednculos con las mujeres de su nuevo c\u00edrculo literario, reproduciendo la pasi\u00f3n de su juventud en Richmond por la inalcanzable Jane Stanard (que hab\u00eda muerto en 1824). En marzo de 1845, se enamor\u00f3 de una poeta de Massachusetts llamada Frances Sargent Osgood, a quien sus amigos llamaban \u00abFanny\u00bb. Como la se\u00f1ora Stanard, Fanny Osgood era una mujer hermosa de salud muy fr\u00e1gil, una combinaci\u00f3n que se ajustaba muy bien a su ideal po\u00e9tico. Separada del marido, ten\u00eda libertad para responder a las atenciones de su admirador, quien lleg\u00f3 a tenerla por la \u00fanica amiga que lo entend\u00eda de verdad. Ella le ofreci\u00f3 numerosos tributos po\u00e9ticos: \u00abTodos tendr\u00edan que gritar \u00a1cuidado, cuidado! \/ \u00a1Su mirada ardiente, su cabello al viento!\u00bb, y \u00e9l le devolvi\u00f3 el favor con Una tarjeta de San Valent\u00edn, un poema en clave que inclu\u00eda su nombre codificado en la primera letra del primer verso, la segunda del segundo y as\u00ed sucesivamente. Virginia Poe no s\u00f3lo estaba al tanto de aquella amistad, sino que la consent\u00eda. La se\u00f1ora Osgood dir\u00eda despu\u00e9s que Virginia \u00abcre\u00eda que mi influencia sobre \u00e9l ejerc\u00eda un beneficioso efecto de contenci\u00f3n\u00bb. El destino querr\u00eda que la se\u00f1ora Osgood acabara dedicando sus atenciones a Rufus Griswold, el hombre a quien Poe hab\u00eda criticado abiertamente en sus conferencias, a\u00f1adiendo as\u00ed un matiz nuevo y marcadamente personal a la rivalidad entre los dos hombres.\n\nEl aumento de la popularidad de Poe puso a su disposici\u00f3n un nuevo foro. En enero de 1845, a punto de publicarse El cuervo, nuestro autor acept\u00f3 un empleo como redactor adjunto de una nueva revista llamada Broadway Journal. Al mes siguiente lo ascendieron a codirector, con la responsabilidad adicional de colaborar con una p\u00e1gina entera de material original en cada ejemplar. A cambio, recibir\u00eda un tercio de las ganancias de la revista. Despu\u00e9s de sus experiencias en el Southern Literary Messenger, en Burton's y en Graham's, Poe agradeci\u00f3 la oportunidad de participar de los beneficios de su trabajo. No obstante, su paso por el Broadway Journal no dej\u00f3 de ser pol\u00e9mico. En marzo de 1845, acus\u00f3 de plagio a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, que estaba convirti\u00e9ndose r\u00e1pidamente en el poeta m\u00e1s distinguido de Norteam\u00e9rica, comienzo de un prolongado episodio que llegar\u00eda a ser conocido como la \u00abguerra de Longfellow\u00bb. Aunque Poe hab\u00eda cultivado durante a\u00f1os una correspondencia amistosa con Longfellow, \u00absin duda el mejor poeta de Norteam\u00e9rica\u00bb, ahora se crey\u00f3 obligado a denunciarlo por el robo \u2013\u00abdemasiado palpable para tratarse de un error\u00bb\u2013 de un poema de Tennyson. La disputa no le gan\u00f3 ning\u00fan amigo y ser\u00eda atacado por turnos por los numerosos partidarios de Longfellow. El propio Longfellow no quiso dejarse arrastrar. A diferencia de otros escritores con quienes hab\u00eda discutido Poe, Longfellow ofrecer\u00eda despu\u00e9s una explicaci\u00f3n muy magn\u00e1nima: \u00abNunca he atribuido la aspereza de sus cr\u00edticas a otra cosa que a la irritaci\u00f3n de una naturaleza sensible y a una indefinida sensaci\u00f3n de injusticia\u00bb.\n\nEn junio de 1845, tratando de aprovechar el \u00e9xito de El cuervo, Wiley & Putman publicaron una recopilaci\u00f3n de doce relatos breves bajo el t\u00edtulo de Cuentos. Las piezas las escogi\u00f3 el editor de Poe, Evert Duyckinck, un hombre de \u00abfidelidad casi quijotesca a sus amigos\u00bb. La selecci\u00f3n que hizo tambi\u00e9n fue quijotesca. De los m\u00e1s de setenta relatos que Poe llevaba publicados hasta la fecha, Duyckinck omiti\u00f3 varios de los mejores \u2013incluyendo El coraz\u00f3n delator y La m\u00e1scara de la Muerte Roja\u2013 en favor de algunos notablemente inferiores como Los leones, una s\u00e1tira literaria menor. Al parecer Poe no intervino en la selecci\u00f3n.\n\nEs significativo que Duyckinck creyera conveniente incluir El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, una decisi\u00f3n f\u00e1cil de entender, puesto que el editor hab\u00eda elegido tambi\u00e9n Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue y La carta robada, dos relatos de indiscutible calidad que hab\u00edan tenido mucho \u00e9xito y que, junto con El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, conformaban las tres historias de Dupin. El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat deb\u00eda de conservar parte de su inter\u00e9s, gracias al \u00e9xito que hab\u00eda tenido un a\u00f1o antes la novela de J. H. Ingraham.\n\nEntre la aparici\u00f3n de El cuervo y la publicaci\u00f3n de Cuentos s\u00f3lo hab\u00edan pasado cinco meses, lo que parece indicar que Poe tuvo que darse prisa para preparar los relatos. En su carrera se hab\u00eda acostumbrado a revisar y corregir su trabajo y ya hab\u00eda introducido algunos cambios en algunas de sus obras con la esperanza de publicarlas en alguna otra parte. No obstante, el caso de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat era diferente. Su primera revisi\u00f3n del relato para la Ladies' Companion hab\u00eda sido muy apresurada y se hab\u00eda visto muy limitado por el hecho de que ya se hubiesen publicado las dos primeras entregas. En la nueva revisi\u00f3n podr\u00eda incluir cambios en todo el manuscrito. Por la misma raz\u00f3n, en sus esfuerzos anteriores se hab\u00eda contentado con suavizar algunas de sus conclusiones sobre el caso, como su insistencia en que el asesinato no se hab\u00eda cometido en el bosquecillo del crimen. Aunque no se hab\u00edan producido nuevas revelaciones que confirmaran o desmintieran las sospechas sobre la se\u00f1ora Loss y sus manejos en la taberna, la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica hab\u00eda llegado a la conclusi\u00f3n de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda muerto durante un aborto chapucero. Al revisar por segunda vez su relato, Poe se enfrentaba al reto de refinar sus anteriores esfuerzos para incluir lo que ahora era la recapitulaci\u00f3n general sobre el caso.\n\nNo obstante, para convertir la historia en una aut\u00e9ntica narraci\u00f3n del caso de Mary Rogers, Poe habr\u00eda tenido que volver a escribirla casi entera. Dados los apremios de tiempo para preparar la recopilaci\u00f3n, no pod\u00eda permitirse modificar todo el relato. Tambi\u00e9n tem\u00eda que hacer demasiados cambios fuera como admitir que su primera teor\u00eda era err\u00f3nea. Para seguir dando la impresi\u00f3n de que su relato hab\u00eda anticipado e incluso orientado la investigaci\u00f3n, los cambios deb\u00edan ser casi inapreciables.\n\nVista as\u00ed, la segunda revisi\u00f3n que hizo Poe de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat fue un audaz ejemplo de manipulaci\u00f3n editorial. Mediante una serie de peque\u00f1as pero astutas alteraciones del manuscrito, Poe se las arregl\u00f3 para reducir su inicial insistencia en que se investigase al oficial de marina de tez morena y para sugerir la posibilidad de que Marie hubiese muerto a manos de una abortista. Por desgracia, igual que en la primera revisi\u00f3n, muchos de estos cambios s\u00f3lo sirvieron para a\u00f1adir confusi\u00f3n al relato. La discusi\u00f3n sobre si el bosquecillo del crimen hab\u00eda sido o no el lugar donde se cometi\u00f3 el asesinato, por ejemplo, se nubl\u00f3 en una mara\u00f1a de evasivas. Cada vez que alud\u00eda al bosquecillo era para a\u00f1adir despu\u00e9s una rectificaci\u00f3n como \u00absi es que fue en el bosquecillo\u00bb o \u00abdesde el bosquecillo o desde otro sitio\u00bb, con el objeto de no pronunciarse ni en uno ni en otro sentido. Estas vacilaciones alcanzaron su m\u00e1xima expresi\u00f3n cuando una frase tan clara como: \u00abCreo que \u00e9se fue el lugar de los hechos\u00bb, se transform\u00f3 casi en la contraria: \u00abPuedo creer o no que lo fuera\u00bb... Al mismo tiempo, se omiti\u00f3 por completo la primera afirmaci\u00f3n de Dupin (\u00abadmito que el bosquecillo fue el lugar de los hechos\u00bb).\n\nPoe tambi\u00e9n recurri\u00f3 a sus ma\u00f1as editoriales en su retrato de madame Deluc, el trasunto de la se\u00f1ora Loss, a quien ya no presentaba como la \u00abhonrada y escrupulosa se\u00f1ora\u00bb que hab\u00eda sido en la primera versi\u00f3n. Su testimonio a la polic\u00eda, antes \u00abun poco tard\u00edo\u00bb, lo consider\u00f3 ahora \u00abun tanto tard\u00edo y sospechoso\u00bb. Tambi\u00e9n se dec\u00eda a los lectores que era \u00abprobable que ocurriera un accidente en casa de madame Deluc\u00bb. Aunque no pudiese ser m\u00e1s expl\u00edcito sin modificar los dem\u00e1s argumentos de su teor\u00eda, el resumen que hace Dupin de los \u00abescasos pero evidentes frutos\u00bb de su largo an\u00e1lisis se modific\u00f3 para incluir la posibilidad de \u00abun accidente fatal ocurrido en la taberna de madame Deluc\u00bb.\n\nIncluso se adaptaron los pensamientos de Marie, tal como los imaginaba Dupin. Anteriormente, Dupin hab\u00eda dicho: \u00abMe dispongo a encontrarme con cierta persona para fugarme con ella\u00bb. Ahora, se a\u00f1adi\u00f3 una alternativa: \u00abo con otro prop\u00f3sito que s\u00f3lo yo conozco\u00bb. Del mismo modo, all\u00ed donde Dupin hab\u00eda declarado que Marie hab\u00eda dejado la pensi\u00f3n sin tener \u00abintenci\u00f3n de regresar\u00bb, ahora a\u00f1adi\u00f3: \u00abo al menos hasta pasadas unas semanas, o al menos hasta haber ocultado ciertas cosas\u00bb...\n\nTal vez la mayor manipulaci\u00f3n tuviese que ver con la primera insistencia de Dupin en que un \u00fanico malhechor, el oficial de marina de tez oscura, hubiese sido responsable del crimen. Previamente, Dupin hab\u00eda alcanzado un crescendo dram\u00e1tico con estas palabras: \u00abLos horrores de tan terrible crimen s\u00f3lo los conocen una persona y Dios\u00bb. De un plumazo, aquellos horrores pasaron a conocerlos \u00abuna persona, o dos, y Dios\u00bb. Las modificaciones se extendieron incluso al torpe pasaje editorial originalmente atribuido al director de la Ladies' Companion. En \u00e9l, Poe hab\u00eda escrito que \u00abse conden\u00f3, por propia confesi\u00f3n, a un \u00fanico criminal por el asesinato de Marie Rog\u00eat\u00bb. En la edici\u00f3n de los Cuentos, se elimin\u00f3 esa l\u00ednea.\n\nDe manera a\u00fan m\u00e1s audaz, Poe a\u00f1adi\u00f3 unas cuantas notas al pie en las que se desprend\u00eda de la m\u00e1scara de Dupin y hac\u00eda comentarios sobre la verdadera investigaci\u00f3n, incluyendo los nombres de lugares y personas relacionados con el caso. Igual que en \u00abEl gran bulo del globo\u00bb y en La narraci\u00f3n de Arthur Gordon Pym, los detalles concretos y reconocibles parec\u00edan aumentar la credibilidad de la empresa y permit\u00edan al autor conservar la ilusi\u00f3n de que sus deducciones hab\u00edan sido correctas desde el primer momento.\n\nEn la primera nota al pie, el autor ofrec\u00eda un calculado resumen del caso en que se inspiraba la historia, pensado para convencer a los lectores de la verdad de lo que ven\u00eda a continuaci\u00f3n:\n\nCuando El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat se public\u00f3 por primera vez las notas al pie que se incluyen ahora no se consideraron necesarias; pero el lapso de varios a\u00f1os transcurrido desde que ocurri\u00f3 la tragedia en la que se basa este relato hace imprescindible incluirlas, y tambi\u00e9n decir unas palabras sobre el esquema general que seguiremos. Una joven, Mary Cecilia Rogers, fue asesinada en las cercan\u00edas de Nueva York; y, aunque su muerte caus\u00f3 un profundo y duradero revuelo, el misterio que rode\u00f3 el crimen segu\u00eda sin resolver en la \u00e9poca en que se public\u00f3 este relato (noviembre de 1842). Con la excusa de contar el destino de una grisette parisina, el autor ha seguido con minucioso detalle los hechos m\u00e1s esenciales y trazado un mero paralelismo con los hechos no esenciales del asesinato de Mary Rogers. As\u00ed, toda argumentaci\u00f3n fundada en la ficci\u00f3n es aplicable a la verdad, pues su objetivo era la investigaci\u00f3n de la verdad.\n\nEra una aut\u00e9ntica bravata. La inequ\u00edvoca afirmaci\u00f3n de que \u00abtoda argumentaci\u00f3n fundada en la ficci\u00f3n es aplicable a la verdad\u00bb invita claramente al lector a creer que todo lo que se dice en el relato est\u00e1 basado en los hechos. Lo que crea un extra\u00f1o contraste con su no menos en\u00e9rgica afirmaci\u00f3n, hecha en los \u00faltimos pasajes del relato, cuando asegura que \u00abestas cosas son puras coincidencias. [...] Pero que nadie piense ni por un instante que [...] ha sido mi intenci\u00f3n sugerir que el paralelismo contin\u00faa o insinuar que las medidas adoptadas en Par\u00eds [...], u otras fundadas en deducciones similares, dar\u00edan resultados parecidos\u00bb.\n\nPero Poe no hab\u00eda terminado. Su nota introductoria a pie de p\u00e1gina continuaba:\n\nEl misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat se escribi\u00f3 lejos del lugar de los hechos, y sin otro medio para investigarlo que el que proporcionaban los peri\u00f3dicos. Por ello al escritor se le escaparon muchos detalles que podr\u00eda haber conocido de haberse encontrado en la ciudad y haber visitado los lugares donde ocurri\u00f3 la tragedia. No obstante, tal vez convenga se\u00f1alar que las confesiones de dos personas (una de ellas la madame Deluc del relato), hechas en momentos distintos y mucho despu\u00e9s de la publicaci\u00f3n de la historia, confirmaron totalmente no s\u00f3lo las conclusiones generales, sino tambi\u00e9n todos los principales detalles hipot\u00e9ticos mediante los cuales \u00e9stas se alcanzaron.\n\nEsto, para la mayor\u00eda de los lectores, ser\u00eda un aut\u00e9ntico bombazo. Aunque el tono pareciese modesto, estaba afirmando sin dejar lugar a dudas que desde el primer momento hab\u00eda estado en lo cierto, y que dos confesiones apoyaban su teor\u00eda.\n\nPoe se estaba echando un farol con unas cartas muy malas. Al aludir concretamente a la confesi\u00f3n de la \u00abmadame Deluc del relato\u00bb, el autor estaba despertando en el recuerdo de sus contempor\u00e1neos la supuesta confesi\u00f3n de la se\u00f1ora Loss, una historia sobre la que hab\u00edan circulado muchos rumores, pero que nadie hab\u00eda confirmado oficialmente. La alusi\u00f3n a la se\u00f1ora Loss pretend\u00eda prestar cierta credibilidad a su afirmaci\u00f3n de que se hab\u00eda producido una segunda confesi\u00f3n confirmando los hechos. No obstante, si la hubo, se ha perdido para la posteridad. Poe presenta ambas confesiones como un fait accompli* creando la impresi\u00f3n de que los hechos de la investigaci\u00f3n neoyorquina coincid\u00edan, confirm\u00e1ndola, con la innovadora teor\u00eda adelantada por Dupin. La frase final de Poe acerca de que \u00abtodos los principales detalles hipot\u00e9ticos\u00bb se hab\u00edan confirmado est\u00e1 calculada para reforzar la idea y no dejar lugar a dudas en la imaginaci\u00f3n del lector.\n\nSin embargo, es evidente que no todas las especulaciones de Dupin pod\u00edan haberse verificado, pues no todas estaban basadas en hechos reales. En la \u00faltima parte del relato, Dupin dedica mucha atenci\u00f3n al problema del bote encontrado flotando a la deriva en el Sena, tal como informaba el sexto de sus pasajes period\u00edsticos, y afirma con seguridad que el \u00abbote nos guiar\u00e1, con una rapidez que nos sorprender\u00e1 incluso a nosotros mismos, hasta la persona que lo utiliz\u00f3 la medianoche de ese funesto domingo\u00bb. Teniendo en cuenta que este detalle lo hab\u00eda inventado para el relato, era improbable que aquel \u00abprincipal detalle hipot\u00e9tico\u00bb pudiera haberse confirmado en Nueva York.\n\nComo observar\u00eda despu\u00e9s un conocido especialista, la extraordinaria filigrana de revisiones y cambios con que logr\u00f3 el efecto que deseaba \u00abmerece cierta admiraci\u00f3n \u2013aunque sea a rega\u00f1adientes\u2013 por su audacia y frialdad\u00bb. De momento, nadie contradijo las afirmaciones de Poe sobre el caso y la antolog\u00eda Cuentos se vendi\u00f3 bastante bien cuando se public\u00f3 en 1845. El autor dir\u00eda que las ventas hab\u00edan ascendido a unos 1.500 ejemplares, a cincuenta centavos el ejemplar, lo que le supuso unos beneficios por derechos de autor de unos 120 d\u00f3lares. Las rese\u00f1as fueron bastante ben\u00e9volas. Incluso Rufus Griswold, que hab\u00eda sido blanco de las cr\u00edticas de Poe en su etapa de conferenciante, lo acogi\u00f3 con brillantez e incluy\u00f3 a su autor entre \u00abesos escritores de primera fila que han aparecido desde que aquella \u00e1rabe aficionada a lo maravilloso escribiera su historia fant\u00e1stica\u00bb. Muchos cr\u00edticos hicieron especial alusi\u00f3n a El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat y el Spectator de Londres alab\u00f3 la \u00abgran habilidad anal\u00edtica de Poe, al reunir todas la pruebas circunstanciales y relacionarlas entre s\u00ed\u00bb.\n\nEl escritor debi\u00f3 de sentirse muy satisfecho. Se las hab\u00eda arreglado para evitar el desastre e incluir las \u00faltimas noticias y teor\u00edas sobre el caso de Mary Rogers en su propio relato de ficci\u00f3n y transformar los descubrimientos potencialmente catastr\u00f3ficos de Weehawken en un \u00e9xito art\u00edstico. Al mismo tiempo, las ambig\u00fcedades y los enga\u00f1os de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat ilustraban hasta qu\u00e9 punto Poe se consideraba libre de incurrir, sin tener que disculparse por ello, en la licencia po\u00e9tica. Tal vez sea significativo que, en el per\u00edodo transcurrido entre las dos revisiones de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, Poe publicara un falso tratado cient\u00edfico titulado Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences [El embaucamiento como una de las ciencias exactas]. \u00abLos cuervos roban, los zorros enga\u00f1an, las comadrejas burlan, los hombres embaucan \u2013observaba en \u00e9l\u2013. Embaucar es su destino [...]. El embaucamiento, bien considerado, es una amalgama cuyos ingredientes son la minuciosidad, el inter\u00e9s, la perseverancia, el ingenio, la audacia, la frialdad, la originalidad, la impertinencia y la sonrisa.\u00bb\n\nOtros, como el poeta James Russell Lowell, ten\u00edan una opini\u00f3n distinta. Tras enemistarse con Poe, Lowell ofreci\u00f3 un agudo retrato suyo en A Fable for Critics [Una f\u00e1bula para los cr\u00edticos], un poema que satirizaba a muchos escritores de la \u00e9poca.\n\nAh\u00ed llega Poe, como Barnaby Rudge, con su cuervo  \ntres quintas partes genio, y dos protervo.\n20 El demonio de lo perverso\n\nA finales de 1845, el momento de gloria de Poe empez\u00f3 a declinar. El autor sabote\u00f3, con el peculiar instinto de autodestrucci\u00f3n que hab\u00eda plagado siempre su carrera, todas las oportunidades que le ofreci\u00f3 el \u00e9xito de El cuervo.\n\nEn un relato publicado ese a\u00f1o titulado El demonio de lo perverso, Poe se extend\u00eda sobre ese impulso aparentemente predestinado a la autoinmolaci\u00f3n: \u00abEn ciertas inteligencias y en determinadas condiciones, se vuelve totalmente irresistible. Estoy tan seguro como de que respiro de que el convencimiento de que algo est\u00e1 mal o es err\u00f3neo es a menudo la fuerza insuperable que nos impele a proseguir actuando de esa manera. Y esa tendencia irresistible a hacer el mal por el mal no admite an\u00e1lisis ni separaci\u00f3n en otros elementos. Es un impulso primitivo y radical puramente primario\u00bb.\n\nDesde su escritorio del Broadway Journal, hab\u00eda vuelto a sumirse en ese ciclo de alcohol y trifulcas que hab\u00eda echado a perder todas sus posibilidades de prosperar en el Southern Literary Messenger, en Burton's y en Graham's. Pronto empez\u00f3 a deteriorarse su salud y sus h\u00e1bitos de trabajo se volvieron err\u00e1ticos. Se obsesion\u00f3 con la cuesti\u00f3n del plagio y lanz\u00f3 acusaciones contra cr\u00edticos y escritores que de otro modo habr\u00edan podido ser sus aliados. \u00abEs dif\u00edcil de creer \u2013escribi\u00f3 Charles Briggs, que era codirector con \u00e9l\u2013, pero est\u00e1 convencido de que Longfellow debe la fama sobre todo a ideas tomadas de sus escritos para el Southern Literary Messenger.\u00bb Briggs a\u00f1adir\u00eda posteriormente una perspicaz afirmaci\u00f3n sobre el temperamento de su colega: \u00abUno de los rasgos m\u00e1s extra\u00f1os de su ya de por s\u00ed extra\u00f1a naturaleza era el de guardar resentimiento a todo aquel que le ayudara\u00bb.\n\nEn junio de 1845, s\u00f3lo seis meses despu\u00e9s de empezar a trabajar en el Broadway Journal, Poe sufri\u00f3 una crisis. Briggs escribi\u00f3 a James Russell Lowell: \u00abHa ca\u00eddo \u00faltimamente en sus viejos h\u00e1bitos y temo que se cause un da\u00f1o irreparable\u00bb. Consciente de que estaba a punto de que lo despidieran, Poe pidi\u00f3 ayuda a Evert Duyckinck, su editor en Wiley & Putnam. Alegando mala salud, le pidi\u00f3 que comprara su parte de la revista. \u00abSigo terriblemente mal y temo ponerme muy enfermo \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. He decidido dejar el B. Journal y retirarme seis meses, o tal vez todo un a\u00f1o, al campo, como \u00fanica forma de recobrar mi \u00e1nimo y mi salud.\u00bb\n\nEl asunto dio un giro inesperado cuando Briggs trat\u00f3 de echar a Poe comprando \u00e9l la revista. El precio fue demasiado alto y tuvo que retirarse en el \u00faltimo minuto. En aquel entonces, la revista apenas era solvente y dej\u00f3 de publicarse temporalmente. Temeroso de sufrir m\u00e1s perdidas, el editor, John Bisco, decidi\u00f3 vend\u00e9rsela a Poe por la suma de cincuenta d\u00f3lares. Era un precio casi regalado y una oportunidad extraordinaria, pero al escritor le costaba reunir el dinero. Desesperado, trat\u00f3 incluso de pedirle un pr\u00e9stamo a Rufus Griswold, a quien hab\u00eda ridiculizado en sus art\u00edculos y conferencias. \u00abPr\u00e9steme 50 d\u00f3lares y no lo lamentar\u00e1\u00bb, le escribi\u00f3, para a\u00f1adir a continuaci\u00f3n que la revista \u00abser\u00eda un tesoro para m\u00ed si pudiera comprarla, cosa que podr\u00eda hacer f\u00e1cilmente con una insignificante ayuda de mis amigos. \u00bfPuedo considerarle a usted uno de ellos?\u00bb. Griswold, igual que muchos otros, no se vio en condiciones de colaborar. Por fin, Poe consigui\u00f3 los fondos gracias a un pagar\u00e9 que le extendi\u00f3 a Horace Greeley. A finales de octubre, se encontr\u00f3 con que, inesperadamente, hab\u00eda logrado cumplir su ambici\u00f3n de toda una vida de ser due\u00f1o de su propia revista. Estaba decidido a convertirla en un \u00e9xito, pero no tard\u00f3 en darse cuenta de que necesitaba dinero adicional para financiar la operaci\u00f3n. Volvi\u00f3 a pedir prestado a sus amigos, asegur\u00e1ndoles que su propia existencia estaba ligada al destino de la revista. \u00abGanar\u00e9 una fortuna con ella \u2013escribi\u00f3\u2013. Si consigo sobrevivir hasta el mes que viene, dejar\u00e9 de necesitar ayuda.\u00bb\n\nEn mitad de semejantes esfuerzos, recibi\u00f3 una invitaci\u00f3n para viajar a Boston a leer un poema original en el famoso Lyceum. Era un gran honor que indicaba la aceptaci\u00f3n de Poe entre la elite literaria de Boston. No obstante, una vez m\u00e1s, su naturaleza contradictoria fue en contra de sus intereses. En lugar de leer un poema nuevo, desempolv\u00f3 un ejemplar de Al Aaraaf, un largo y dif\u00edcil poema de juventud, en lo que parece haber un intento deliberado de ofender a su p\u00fablico y enajenarse a sus anfitriones. Apenas hab\u00eda empezado su lectura cuando la mayor parte del p\u00fablico, fatigado ya por el previo discurso de dos horas de un pol\u00edtico local, se puso en pie y empez\u00f3 a abandonar la sala. Una vez concluida la prueba, Poe remat\u00f3 el insulto mof\u00e1ndose de sus anfitriones y jact\u00e1ndose de haberles colado un poema escrito cuando ten\u00eda diez a\u00f1os. \u00abNo hay nadie a quien, en alg\u00fan momento de su vida, no haya atormentado, por ejemplo, el deseo de torturar a su interlocutor mediante el uso de circunloquios \u2013hab\u00eda escrito en El demonio de lo perverso, publicado tres meses antes\u2013. El orador es consciente de que es desagradable, su intenci\u00f3n es agradar, es breve, claro y conciso, el lenguaje m\u00e1s lac\u00f3nico e iluminador pugna por salir de sus labios, s\u00f3lo con dificultad logra contenerse, teme y lamenta la c\u00f3lera de quien le escucha; pero aun as\u00ed se le ocurre que mediantes ciertas insinuaciones y par\u00e9ntesis podr\u00eda desatarla. Con esa sencilla idea basta.\u00bb\n\nDe regreso a Nueva York, se consagr\u00f3 al Broadway Journal, escribi\u00f3 cartas cada vez m\u00e1s desesperadas a sus amigos pidi\u00e9ndoles dinero para mantener la revista a flote. La tensi\u00f3n empez\u00f3 a pasarle factura y condujo a nuevas borracheras que lo dejaban incapacitado para atender sus deberes editoriales. Viendo que no lograba reunir el dinero necesario, empez\u00f3 a ver en ello la mano negra de enemigos que buscaban su ruina. \u00abHay dos personas que me guardan mucho rencor \u2013le cont\u00f3 al poeta Fitz-Greene Halleck\u2013 y que est\u00e1n intentando destruir el Broadway Journal para arruinarme.\u00bb\n\n\u00abVerdaderamente, creo haber perdido la cordura \u2013le dijo Poe a Duyckinck en otra petici\u00f3n de dinero\u2013, pero tengo motivos de sobra.\u00bb Al menos uno de estos motivos estaba asociado a su preocupaci\u00f3n por la salud de Virginia. En diciembre de 1845 public\u00f3 un relato titulado La verdad sobre el caso del se\u00f1or Valdemar, en el que pueden verse claramente sus temores por su mujer, que llevaba ya cuatro a\u00f1os enferma. El cuento trata de un hombre que muere de \u00abtisis diagnosticada\u00bb, un t\u00e9rmino utilizado para referirse a los terribles efectos de la tuberculosis y otras enfermedades. Poe no ahorra detalle al describir c\u00f3mo el desdichado paciente se pudre literalmente ante sus ojos, con un estilo que sugiere un m\u00f3rboso estudio de los manuales m\u00e9dicos: \u00abEl pulm\u00f3n izquierdo llevaba dieciocho meses en un estado semi\u00f3seo o cartilaginoso, y por supuesto era vitalmente in\u00fatil. El derecho, en su parte superior, tambi\u00e9n estaba parcial, si no totalmente osificado, mientras que la regi\u00f3n inferior era s\u00f3lo una masa de tub\u00e9rculos purulentos comunicados el uno con el otro. Hab\u00eda varias perforaciones extensas; en un punto, se hab\u00eda producido la adhesi\u00f3n permanente a las costillas\u00bb. Cuando se aparta de los textos cl\u00ednicos, la poderosa imaginaci\u00f3n de Poe produce un efecto a\u00fan m\u00e1s escalofriante. Describe la voz del paciente diciendo que es para el o\u00eddo igual que \u00abuna sustancia gelatinosa o glutinosa para el tacto\u00bb y retrata con horripilante detalle la agon\u00eda final: \u00abEn un minuto, o incluso menos, todo su cuerpo se deshizo podrido entre mis manos. Sobre la cama, ante el grupo entero, yac\u00eda una masa casi l\u00edquida de horrible y detestable putridez\u00bb.\n\nA finales de diciembre de 1845, el Broadway Journal hab\u00eda perdido tanto sus lectores como sus apoyos financieros. La revista estaba pr\u00e1cticamente en quiebra cuando \u00e9l se puso al tim\u00f3n y ninguna cantidad que pudieran prestarle sus amigos bast\u00f3 para salvarla. Al final, se resign\u00f3 y acept\u00f3 que no se pod\u00eda hacer m\u00e1s. En una nota publicada en el \u00faltimo n\u00famero, quiso dar una impresi\u00f3n conciliadora: \u00abCompromisos inesperados requieren toda mi atenci\u00f3n, y, una vez cumplidos, al menos en lo que a m\u00ed respecta, los objetivos por los que se fund\u00f3 el Broadway Journal, me despido en funciones de director con tanta cordialidad de los amigos como de los enemigos\u00bb.\n\nFue el \u00faltimo trabajo que tendr\u00eda en el mundo de la prensa literaria. Privado del refugio del trabajo estable, se hundi\u00f3 cada vez m\u00e1s en sus h\u00e1bitos destructivos. Sus borracheras se volvieron m\u00e1s frecuentes y las disputas con sus antiguos amigos empezaron a tener consecuencias cada vez m\u00e1s graves. Circul\u00f3 el rumor de que se hab\u00eda vuelto loco y lo hab\u00edan encerrado en un manicomio. En una ocasi\u00f3n lleg\u00f3 a las manos con su antiguo amigo Thomas Dunn English. \u00abPoe estaba borracho y fue \u00e9l quien sali\u00f3 peor librado \u2013escribi\u00f3 un testigo\u2013, pues acab\u00f3 metido debajo de un sof\u00e1 de donde s\u00f3lo asomaba la cabeza. English no paraba de darle pu\u00f1adas y con cada golpe el anillo que llevaba en el dedo le hac\u00eda un corte en la cara.\u00bb Incluso entonces, Poe intent\u00f3 salvar el tipo gritando:\n\n\u2013Soltadlo, soltadlo, que ya es m\u00edo.\n\nLa antipat\u00eda de English se traslucir\u00eda en las p\u00e1ginas de una novela sat\u00edrica en la que retrat\u00f3 a Poe como un personaje particularmente desagradable llamado Marmaduke Hammerhead: \u00abSu rostro abotargado, sus ojos enrojecidos, su figura temblorosa y su d\u00e9bil constituci\u00f3n delataban la rapidez con que se estaba enterrando en su tumba de borracho; y su sonrisa est\u00fapida y las tonter\u00edas que balbuc\u00eda sin cesar eran prueba de que sus mejores cualidades estaban a punto de desaparecer\u00bb.\n\nEn mayo de 1846 llev\u00f3 a su familia al tranquilo pueblecito de Fordham, veinticinco kil\u00f3metros al norte, en lo que hoy es el Bronx. Poe esperaba que un ambiente m\u00e1s tranquilo ejerciese efectos beneficiosos sobre su salud, pero no hab\u00eda perdido ni un \u00e1pice de su beligerancia. En una serie de ensayos titulada The Literati of New York City [Los literatos de la ciudad de Nueva York], publicada en Godey's Lady's Book, atac\u00f3 a muchos de sus antiguos amigos y colegas. Entre ellos el m\u00e1s destacado era Thomas Dunn English, a quien seguir\u00eda insultando en la prensa y a quien denunci\u00f3 por difamaci\u00f3n. English prefiri\u00f3 marcharse de la ciudad antes que defenderse en los tribunales, por lo que tuvo que pagarle a Poe 325 d\u00f3lares como indemnizaci\u00f3n. El autor celebr\u00f3 la victoria compr\u00e1ndose un traje nuevo de color negro.\n\nPoco dur\u00f3 su alegr\u00eda por aquel triunfo. A finales de a\u00f1o, sus circunstancias hab\u00edan llegado a ser desesperadas y no falt\u00f3 quien manifestara preocupaci\u00f3n por su salud. En noviembre, un grupo de amigos bienintencionados llam\u00f3 la atenci\u00f3n sobre su estado con una nota en el Morning Express:\n\nENFERMEDAD DE EDGAR A. POE: Lamentamos enterarnos de que este caballero y su mujer est\u00e1n gravemente enfermos de tuberculosis y de que el infortunio se ha abatido sobre sus asuntos temporales. Es doloroso tener que decir que su estado es tal que apenas pueden procurarse lo m\u00e1s necesario para vivir. Es, sin duda, un triste destino, y esperamos que los amigos y admiradores del se\u00f1or Poe acudir\u00e1n en su auxilio en esta amarga hora de necesidad.\n\nUna segunda nota, publicada en las p\u00e1ginas del Saturday Evening Post, a\u00fan era m\u00e1s lastimosa: \u00abSe dice que Edgar A. Poe yace gravemente enfermo de fiebre cerebral, y que su mujer est\u00e1 en la fase terminal de una tuberculosis: carecen de dinero y amigos\u00bb.\n\nPoe apreci\u00f3 el inter\u00e9s que motiv\u00f3 su publicaci\u00f3n y se sinti\u00f3 agradecido por los consiguientes donativos, pero hiri\u00f3 su orgullo que lo presentaran como un caso de caridad p\u00fablica. Al mes siguiente, envi\u00f3 una carta a su amigo Nathaniel Willis del Mirror intentando poner a mal tiempo buena cara. \u00abSer\u00eda una locura por mi parte negar que he estado necesitado de dinero\u00bb, admiti\u00f3. No obstante insisti\u00f3 en que decir que \u00abestoy sin amigos es una burda calumnia [...] y, si la pasara por alto sin negarla, mil personas de coraz\u00f3n noble tendr\u00edan motivos para no perdon\u00e1rmelo\u00bb. En cuanto a su deteriorada salud, hizo una valiente afirmaci\u00f3n: \u00abLo cierto es que a\u00fan tengo mucho por hacer, y he decidido no morirme hasta que lo haya hecho\u00bb.\n\nPor desgracia, no pod\u00eda decirse lo mismo de Virginia. Su salud hab\u00eda entrado en franco declive los meses de invierno y, como carec\u00edan de mantas abrigadas, tiritaba debajo del capote militar que hab\u00eda llevado Poe en el ej\u00e9rcito. En sus horas finales, le suplic\u00f3 a su madre que cuidara de su marido cuando ella no estuviese ya en este mundo. Falleci\u00f3 \u2013\u00absufriendo muchos dolores\u00bb\u2013 el 30 de enero de 1847, a los veinticuatro a\u00f1os de edad.\n\nPara Poe fue una p\u00e9rdida incalculable. En junio de 1846, todav\u00eda dolido por el fiasco del Broadway Journal, le hab\u00eda escrito una sentida carta a su mujer: \u00abMant\u00e9n el \u00e1nimo con esperanza, y ten fe. Despu\u00e9s de mi \u00faltima gran decepci\u00f3n, habr\u00eda perdido todo el valor de no ser por ti..., mi querida esposa, ahora eres mi mayor y \u00fanico est\u00edmulo para seguir batallando con esta vida antip\u00e1tica, desagradable e ingrata\u00bb.\n\nAhora se hizo evidente que la larga enfermedad de Virginia se hab\u00eda cobrado su precio. Un a\u00f1o m\u00e1s tarde, Poe describ\u00eda el tormento durante el largo deterioro que hab\u00eda padecido. \u00abEnloquec\u00ed. Beb\u00ed, Dios sabe cu\u00e1nto y con qu\u00e9 frecuencia. Por supuesto, mis enemigos atribuyeron mi locura a la bebida, y no la bebida a la locura. Casi hab\u00eda abandonado la esperanza de una cura permanente, cuando encontr\u00e9 una en la muerte de mi mujer. Esto puedo soportarlo como un hombre. Lo que no habr\u00eda podido resistir mucho m\u00e1s tiempo sin perder totalmente el juicio era la horrible e interminable oscilaci\u00f3n entre la esperanza y la desesperanza. La muerte de quien era toda mi vida me ha deparado, pues, una nueva ilusi\u00f3n, aunque, \u00a1Dios!, qu\u00e9 triste existencia.\u00bb\n\nEsta nueva existencia mejor\u00f3 muy poco la antigua. Los h\u00e1bitos de Poe siguieron siendo igual de disolutos, y su fortuna no ten\u00eda visos de mejorar. Se dedic\u00f3 a trabajar en un libro titulado Eureka: investigaci\u00f3n sobre el universo material y espiritual, una obra de abstracci\u00f3n metaf\u00edsica que \u00e9l juzgaba de una relevancia decisiva. El editor George Putnam recordar\u00eda un encuentro en el que temblaba literalmente de emoci\u00f3n al hablarle de la \u00abprofunda importancia\u00bb de la obra. Putnam contaba que lleg\u00f3 a decirle que \u00abning\u00fan otro acontecimiento cient\u00edfico de la historia del mundo se acercaba en importancia a los planteamientos de este libro\u00bb. Cuando por fin se public\u00f3, en marzo de 1848, el libro y las conferencias que Poe imparti\u00f3 para promocionarlo se consideraron una sarta de \u00abdisparates hiperb\u00f3licos\u00bb. Incluso Evert Duyckinck, que por lo general siempre le hab\u00eda apoyado, dijo que la empresa le parec\u00eda \u00abun gigantesco absurdo\u00bb.\n\nLa relaci\u00f3n de Poe con la poeta Fanny Osgood hab\u00eda tocado a su fin cuando muri\u00f3 Virginia, pero el autor busc\u00f3 consuelo a su soledad con una serie de solemnes e incluso fren\u00e9ticos amor\u00edos. Muchas de las mujeres a quienes cortej\u00f3 eran casadas o inalcanzables, lo que serv\u00eda tan s\u00f3lo para aumentar su ardor. En ocasiones, sus avances amorosos iban en varias direcciones al mismo tiempo con resultados predeciblemente desdichados. Algunas de las mujeres a quienes se acercar\u00eda eran sencillas y bondadosas al estilo de Virginia e incluso de la se\u00f1ora Clemm (con quien segu\u00eda viviendo) y le ofrec\u00edan estabilidad dom\u00e9stica, aunque no complicidad intelectual. Mary Shew, una amiga de la familia que hab\u00eda atendido a Virginia en sus \u00faltimos d\u00edas, se convirti\u00f3 en la primera de sus nuevas obsesiones, seguida poco despu\u00e9s por Annie Richmond, a quien caracteriz\u00f3 en un relato como \u00abla perfecci\u00f3n de la naturalidad, en contraposici\u00f3n a la elegancia artificial\u00bb. Por contraste, Sarah Helen Whitman, una viuda joven y et\u00e9rea, era una aspirante a poeta que atrajo su inter\u00e9s creativo y halag\u00f3 su inteligencia. La naturaleza apresurada y dispersa de los m\u00faltiples cortejos de Poe sugiere que sus motivos eran complicados y tal vez contradictorios. Con el tiempo, su vida amorosa se volvi\u00f3 tan ca\u00f3tica que, cuando se public\u00f3 Annabel Lee, uno de sus mejores poemas, no menos de cuatro mujeres creyeron ser su fuente de inspiraci\u00f3n.\n\nLa salud de Poe sigui\u00f3 siendo fr\u00e1gil tras la muerte de Virginia. Marie Shew, que era hija de m\u00e9dico, observ\u00f3 que ten\u00eda el pulso irregular y pronunci\u00f3 este dr\u00e1stico diagn\u00f3stico: \u00abConclu\u00ed que ten\u00eda una lesi\u00f3n en un lado del cerebro y, como no soportaba los t\u00f3nicos o los estimulantes sin sufrir delirios, no albergu\u00e9 muchas esperanzas de que pudiera salir de la fiebre cerebral en que lo hab\u00eda sumido su extremado sufrimiento tanto f\u00edsico como espiritual\u00bb. Con lesi\u00f3n o sin ella, lo cierto es que su comportamiento sigui\u00f3 un ca\u00f3tico descenso en espiral. En noviembre de 1848, enloquecido por el rechazo de Sarah Helen Whitman, adopt\u00f3 una medida radical. En una escena que recuerda a las horas finales de Daniel Payne, escribi\u00f3 una nota para recordarle a Annie Richmond su \u00absacrosanta promesa\u00bb de asistirle en su lecho de muerte e ingiri\u00f3 una onza de l\u00e1udano. Es dif\u00edcil decir si quer\u00eda verdaderamente suicidarse o s\u00f3lo esperaba que este gesto teatral despertase la compasi\u00f3n de Helen. Inform\u00f3 a Annie Richmond de que \u00abel est\u00f3mago rechaz\u00f3 el l\u00e1udano\u00bb; no obstante Poe sufri\u00f3 un largo per\u00edodo de \u00abterribles horrores\u00bb. Un daguerrotipo hecho cuatro d\u00edas despu\u00e9s muestra los estragos del episodio en su rostro surcado por profundas arrugas, sus p\u00e1rpados hinchados y su expresi\u00f3n ausente.\n\nNada m\u00e1s recobrarse, volvi\u00f3 a caer en la bebida. En junio de 1849, de camino a una conferencia en Richmond, se detuvo en Filadelfia para cobrar \u00e1nimos. Detenido por embriaguez p\u00fablica, acab\u00f3 en la c\u00e1rcel de Moyamensing, donde sufri\u00f3 un terrible ataque de del\u00edrium tr\u00e9mens. Tuvo alucinaciones que no habr\u00edan estado fuera de lugar en El pozo y el p\u00e9ndulo. En una horrible visi\u00f3n imagin\u00f3 a Maria Clemm, la persona a quien m\u00e1s quer\u00eda en el mundo, sometida a los m\u00e1s indecibles tormentos: \u00abPara torturarme a m\u00ed y encogerme el coraz\u00f3n\u00bb, recordar\u00eda Poe, unos torturadores invisibles cog\u00edan a su pobre t\u00eda indefensa y \u00e9l ve\u00eda \u00abc\u00f3mo le aserraban los pies y los tobillos, luego las piernas a la altura de las rodillas, luego los muslos, las caderas y dem\u00e1s\u00bb.\n\nNo es sorprendente que Poe llegase angustiado y desali\u00f1ado a Richmond en julio de 1849. Para su gran alegr\u00eda le dispensaron una calurosa acogida como hijo de la ciudad y su conferencia convoc\u00f3 a una multitud extasiada. \u00abNunca me hab\u00edan recibido con tanto entusiasmo \u2013le cont\u00f3 a su t\u00eda\u2013. Los peri\u00f3dicos no han hecho m\u00e1s que alabarme antes y despu\u00e9s de la conferencia.\u00bb Muchos amigos de juventud pasaron a visitarle, y le alegr\u00f3 recordar \u00e9pocas m\u00e1s felices. Poco despu\u00e9s, reanud\u00f3 su relaci\u00f3n con Elmyra Royster, ahora la se\u00f1ora de Alexander Shelton, con quien se hab\u00eda prometido en secreto cuando dej\u00f3 Richmond para ir a la Universidad de Virginia. Convertida en una acaudalada viuda con dos hijos, la se\u00f1ora Shelton nunca hab\u00eda olvidado del todo sus amores de juventud, y hab\u00eda seguido con cari\u00f1o la carrera del poeta. Deseoso como estaba de volver a contraer matrimonio, la pasi\u00f3n juvenil de \u00e9ste no tard\u00f3 en volver a encenderse. A los pocos d\u00edas, le propuso cumplir el compromiso que contrajeron decenios antes. La se\u00f1ora Shelton dud\u00f3, pues conoc\u00eda en parte la historia de Poe y su debilidad por la bebida. Su incertidumbre aument\u00f3, como siempre, el ardor de Poe, quien prometi\u00f3 reformarse e incluso ingres\u00f3 en la secci\u00f3n de Richmond de los Hijos de la Abstinencia del Alcohol. Al parecer, la se\u00f1ora Shelton le dio motivos para suponer que estaba dispuesta a darle el s\u00ed. En septiembre, el autor hizo planes de volver a Nueva York para arreglar sus asuntos e instalarse definitivamente en Richmond, con su t\u00eda Maria. \u00abConf\u00edo \u2013le escribi\u00f3 a la se\u00f1ora Clemm la v\u00edspera de su partida\u2013 en que nuestros malos momentos hayan pasado ya.\u00bb\n\nEl 27 de septiembre, de regreso de Nueva York, se detuvo en Baltimore y se vio con unos viejos amigos que le propusieron celebrar su reencuentro con una copa de whisky. Poe, que llevaba sobrio tres meses, parece que no ofreci\u00f3 resistencia. Lo que sigui\u00f3 ha sido siempre una p\u00e1gina en blanco en la vida del autor, aunque ha sido motivo de muchas especulaciones. El primo de Poe, Neilson, que en la \u00e9poca estaba viviendo en Baltimore, dir\u00eda despu\u00e9s: \u00abJam\u00e1s he logrado esclarecer d\u00f3nde pas\u00f3 los d\u00edas que estuvo aqu\u00ed, ni en qu\u00e9 circunstancias\u00bb.\n\nSeis d\u00edas m\u00e1s tarde, el mi\u00e9rcoles 3 de octubre, lo encontraron desvanecido en el arroyo a la puerta de una taberna irlandesa. Ese d\u00eda se celebraban elecciones locales y la taberna serv\u00eda de oficina electoral, lo que ha llevado a suponer que alguien lo hab\u00eda convencido de votar a cambio de un trago. El hecho de que la ropa que llevaba puesta no fuese la suya sugiere que quiz\u00e1 votara varias veces y que podr\u00eda haberse cambiado para evitar que lo reconocieran en la oficina electoral. Poco despu\u00e9s, Joseph Evans Snodgrass, su viejo amigo residente en Baltimore, que adem\u00e1s de editor era m\u00e9dico, recibi\u00f3 una nota urgente. El hombre a quien Poe hab\u00eda ofrecido publicar El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat siete a\u00f1os antes se enter\u00f3 as\u00ed de que el autor estaba \u00aben muy mal estado\u00bb y \u00abnecesitaba ayuda inmediata\u00bb. Snodgrass corri\u00f3 a la taberna y encontr\u00f3 a Poe en un p\u00e9simo estado y murmurando incoherencias. Llam\u00f3 un coche para llevarlo al hospital. Luego recordar\u00eda que, cuando lleg\u00f3 el veh\u00edculo, \u00abtratamos de poner en pie al enfermo, para trasladarlo m\u00e1s f\u00e1cilmente. Pero era incapaz de andar. Lo condujimos al coche como si fuese un cad\u00e1ver, y lo levantamos del mismo modo. Mientras tanto, lo poco que quedaba de uno de los mayores genios del mundo en siglos de historia \u2013el autor de un poema que por s\u00ed solo bastar\u00eda, en opini\u00f3n de m\u00e1s de un cr\u00edtico, para garantizar a quien lo escribiera una fama duradera y envidiable\u2013 era tan incapaz de hablar que apenas murmuraba juramentos apenas inteligibles, y otras imprecaciones contra quienes trat\u00e1bamos de rescatarlo de la indigencia y la deshonra\u00bb.\n\nEn el cercano Hospital del Washington College, el m\u00e9dico de guardia John Moran lo ingres\u00f3 en el pabell\u00f3n de los alcoh\u00f3licos. Durante varias horas Poe pareci\u00f3 ignorar d\u00f3nde se encontraba. Pronto cay\u00f3 en un estado alucinatorio. Moran recordar\u00eda que inici\u00f3 una \u00abausente conversaci\u00f3n con varios objetos espectrales e imaginarios en las paredes. Estaba p\u00e1lido y ten\u00eda el cuerpo empapado de sudor\u00bb.\n\nAl cabo de dos d\u00edas, las alucinaciones remitieron, pero Poe segu\u00eda confuso y agitado. Cuando Moran intentaba calmarlo, Poe insist\u00eda en que lo mejor que pod\u00eda hacer era \u00absaltarse la tapa de los sesos con una pistola\u00bb. Al finalizar el d\u00eda, anot\u00f3 Moran, hab\u00eda ca\u00eddo en un \u00abviolento delirio resisti\u00e9ndose a los esfuerzos de dos enfermeras por sujetarlo a la cama\u00bb.\n\nA primeras horas de la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, \u00abse produjo un cambio muy notable. Debilitado por los esfuerzos, se tranquiliz\u00f3 y pareci\u00f3 descansar un rato; luego, con un leve movimiento de cabeza, dijo: \u00abQue Dios ayude a mi pobre alma\u00bb, y expir\u00f3. El m\u00e9dico anot\u00f3 la hora del fallecimiento: las cinco de la madrugada del domingo 7 de octubre de 1849. Poe ten\u00eda cuarenta a\u00f1os.\n\nEl funeral, celebrado al d\u00eda siguiente en el cementerio de la iglesia presbiteriana de Westminster en Baltimore, fue austero incluso para un mendigo. El primo de Virginia Poe, el reverendo William Clemm, ofici\u00f3 una ceremonia que dur\u00f3 tan s\u00f3lo tres minutos, y enterraron al difunto en un mugriento ata\u00fad que carec\u00eda de asas, de placa e incluso de coj\u00edn para la cabeza. \u00abHab\u00edan cavado una tumba entre los ruinosos recuerdos de la mortalidad \u2013escribir\u00eda Joseph Snodgrass\u2013. Metieron en ella a toda prisa el sencillo ata\u00fad y luego echaron tierra directamente sobre la tapa. Eso era tan poco frecuente, incluso en los entierros de la gente m\u00e1s pobre, que no pude sino reparar en la falta no s\u00f3lo de la caja acostumbrada para el ata\u00fad, sino siquiera de unos simples tablones para evitar el contacto directo con la tierra h\u00fameda y corrompida. Jam\u00e1s olvidar\u00e9 la sensaci\u00f3n de decepci\u00f3n, mezclada con asco y una especie de resentimiento, que recorri\u00f3 todo mi ser al o\u00edr el ruido de los terrones de barro al caer sobre la tapa del ata\u00fad.\u00bb\n\nAl cabo de pocas horas, los enemigos de Poe hac\u00edan cola para a\u00f1adir indignidades sobre su cad\u00e1ver. Un d\u00eda despu\u00e9s del funeral, apareci\u00f3 una necrol\u00f3gica en el Tribune de Horace Greeley: \u00abEdgar Allan Poe ha muerto \u2013empezaba el art\u00edculo\u2013. Falleci\u00f3 anteayer en Baltimore. La noticia sorprender\u00e1 a muchos, pero entristecer\u00e1 a pocos. Al poeta lo conoc\u00edan, personalmente o por su reputaci\u00f3n, en todo el pa\u00eds; ten\u00eda lectores en Inglaterra y en varios estados de la Europa continental, pero apenas ten\u00eda amigos y el pesar causado por su muerte se deber\u00e1 sobre todo a la consideraci\u00f3n de que el arte literario ha perdido con \u00e9l una de sus estrellas m\u00e1s brillantes y err\u00e1ticas\u00bb. La necrol\u00f3gica presentaba luego a Poe como un loco con una imaginaci\u00f3n enfermiza y un mendigo grosero dado a \u00abcaprichos vulgares\u00bb y \u00abpasiones innobles\u00bb. Conclu\u00eda con un pasaje tomado de una novela de Edward Bulwer-Lytton: \u00abLo dominaba hasta extremos morbosos ese deseo de destacar que se conoce vulgarmente por ambici\u00f3n, pero no el deseo de que lo apreciaran o amaran sus semejantes, s\u00f3lo el crudo deseo de triunfar \u2013no de brillar, ni de servir\u2013, triunfar para tener as\u00ed derecho a despreciar a un mundo que irritaba a su vanidad\u00bb.\n\nFirmada con el nombre de Ludwig, la difamatoria necrol\u00f3gica era en realidad obra de Rufus Griswold, que no hab\u00eda perdido el tiempo en vengarse de Poe, su enemigo literario y rival en el afecto de Fanny Osgood. Aunque varios de sus antiguos amigos, incluyendo a George Graham y Nathaniel Willis, salieron en defensa de su memoria, el propio Poe se hab\u00eda asegurado de que las opiniones de Griswold perduraran los a\u00f1os venideros. Con su extraordinario instinto de autodestrucci\u00f3n, Poe hab\u00eda nombrado a Griswold su albacea literario. Eso proporcion\u00f3 a su enemigo la oportunidad de extenderse en un \u00abMemoir of the Author\u00bb de treinta y cinco p\u00e1ginas a\u00f1adido a una edici\u00f3n p\u00f3stuma en dos vol\u00famenes de su obra. Decidido a pintarlo como un individuo moralmente depravado, Griswold compon\u00eda un largo cat\u00e1logo de pecados y delitos, muchos de ellos inventados para la ocasi\u00f3n. Lo acusaba de haber sido expulsado de la Universidad de Virginia, de desertar del ej\u00e9rcito, de adicci\u00f3n a las drogas, de intentar seducir a la segunda mujer de su padre adoptivo y de hacer proposiciones amorosas en estado de embriaguez a Sarah Helen Whitman que \u00abobligaron a \u00e9sta a llamar a la polic\u00eda\u00bb. Conclu\u00eda que hab\u00eda sido un hombre que apenas hab\u00eda manifestado \u00abalguna virtud en su vida o en sus escritos [...]. Lo peor no era que fuese irascible y envidioso, pues esos \u00e1ngulos estaban recubiertos de un cinismo fr\u00edo y repelente y sus pasiones se liberaban en forma de desprecios\u00bb. En privado, Griswold llev\u00f3 sus ataques mucho m\u00e1s lejos, e incluso se dedic\u00f3 a divulgar el rumor de que Poe hab\u00eda tenido relaciones sexuales con su t\u00eda Maria.\n\nEl calumnioso \u00abrecuerdo\u00bb escrito por Griswold se aligeraba a menudo con alabanzas a su prosa y poes\u00eda. Griswold ten\u00eda muy buena opini\u00f3n de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, que pon\u00eda como ejemplo de la astucia su autor. Encomiaba incluso las enga\u00f1osas notas a pie de p\u00e1gina que Poe hab\u00eda a\u00f1adido a la revisi\u00f3n de 1845 en Cuentos, por su manera de aportar claridad y \u00abverosimilitud\u00bb a la historia.\n\nLas alabanzas que le dedicaba como artista se ve\u00edan superadas por el veneno que vert\u00eda contra \u00e9l como hombre. Este sorprendente ejemplo de aniquilaci\u00f3n de una figura p\u00fablica, camuflada bajo la forma de una biograf\u00eda oficial, arrojar\u00eda una negra nube sobre la reputaci\u00f3n de Poe a lo largo de muchos a\u00f1os. No contento con difamar a su rival fallecido, Griswold tambi\u00e9n maltratar\u00eda a su leg\u00edtima heredera. Aunque su edici\u00f3n de las obras de Poe se vendi\u00f3 bien y de ella llegaron a hacerse diecisiete reediciones, se neg\u00f3 a tratar con Maria Clemm, que acab\u00f3 sus d\u00edas en un hogar de caridad en Baltimore. Maria reproch\u00f3 m\u00e1s de una vez a Griswold que subrayara los defectos del \u00abpobre Eddie\u00bb en p\u00fablico. \u00ab\u00bfSe ha sentido alguna vez tan mal como para desear la muerte? \u2013le pregunt\u00f3\u2013. Pues as\u00ed me siento yo.\u00bb\n\nEra un impulso que el propio Poe habr\u00eda entendido bien. Cuatro a\u00f1os antes, a finales de 1845, cuando la fama de El cuervo empezaba a olvidarse, \u00e9l mismo hab\u00eda escrito un oportuno, aunque quejoso, epitafio: \u00abHe luchado con perseverancia contra mil y una dificultades, y, aunque no haya ganado dinero, he logrado hacerme un hueco en el mundo de las letras, del que, dadas las circunstancias, no tengo motivos para avergonzarme\u00bb.\nEp\u00edlogo\n\nEl \u00faltimo grito desesperado\n\n> Y as\u00ed paso la noche tumbado junto a\n> \n> mi amada, mi vida, mi novia,\n> \n> en su sepulcro junto al mar\n> \n> en su rumorosa tumba a orillas del mar.\n> \n> EDGAR ALLAN POE, Annabel Lee\n\nDaguerrotipo de Poe tomado el 9 de noviembre de 1848, poco despu\u00e9s de un intento de suicidio con l\u00e1udano.\n\nCortes\u00eda de la Biblioteca del Congreso\n> \u00a1Oh! Gu\u00e1rdame de contemplar\n> \n> ese crimen en la noche negr\u00edsima\n> \n> que infunde pavor a los m\u00e1s valientes.\n> \n> All\u00ed se mezclan los gritos, las oraciones\n> \n> y las m\u00e1s horribles maldiciones.\n> \n> \u00a1Oh, Dios! S\u00e1lvame, ten piedad.\n> \n> \u00bfQui\u00e9n oir\u00e1 tus gritos, pobre doncella inocente?\n> \n> No hay ni un fuerte brazo que te auxilie\n> \n> ni un coraz\u00f3n lo bastante valeroso.\n> \n> Un \u00faltimo grito desesperado que al cielo llega,\n> \n> una amarga oraci\u00f3n pidiendo clemencia,\n> \n> \u00a1se acab\u00f3! Reina el silencio...\n> \n> \u00a1Ay! La escena ha concluido,\n> \n> aunque perduren la sucia inmundicia\n> \n> y un crimen tan macabro que es innombrable.\n> \n> Lejos, lejos de cualquier brazo que salvarte pueda,\n> \n> bienvenida a la fr\u00eda y sangrienta tumba,\n> \n> que la verg\u00fcenza oculta de una desdichada.\n> \n> Versos sobre la muerte de Mary Rogers,\n> \n> AN\u00d3NIMO (1841)\n\nEn la \u00e9poca de la muerte de Poe, el caso de Mary Rogers hab\u00eda entrado en su acto final. Poe s\u00f3lo hab\u00eda sobrevivido a Mary Rogers ocho a\u00f1os, pero, aunque la reputaci\u00f3n del poeta se viese triste pero temporalmente eclipsada, la fama y la influencia del caso de la cigarrera siguieron creciendo. Su lugar en la imaginaci\u00f3n popular hab\u00eda sufrido un extra\u00f1o cambio despu\u00e9s de la publicaci\u00f3n de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat. De ser considerada una v\u00edctima de la violencia de las bandas y el s\u00edmbolo de una fuerza policial corrupta e ineficaz, pas\u00f3 a convertirse en un emblema de la decadencia moral de la ciudad. Su nombre se pronunciaba a menudo en los p\u00falpitos de las iglesias neoyorquinas como triste recordatorio del precio del pecado.\n\nAunque el relato de Poe hab\u00eda contribuido a descartar la idea de que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una banda, el furor inicial contra los \u00abtah\u00fares y rufianes\u00bb hab\u00eda tocado la fibra sensible del p\u00fablico y servir\u00eda de catalizador para una serie de amplias reformas. En las semanas siguientes al asesinato, James Gordon Bennett hab\u00eda declarado que Nueva York hab\u00eda quedado \u00abdeshonrada y ultrajada ante el mundo civilizado\u00bb. Las subsiguientes revelaciones no bastaron para desbaratar el \u00abgran movimiento moral\u00bb de Bennett para revitalizar la aplicaci\u00f3n de la ley en la ciudad. Las fuerzas puestas en movimiento tras la reuni\u00f3n del Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad en agosto de 1841 conducir\u00edan a la publicaci\u00f3n, al a\u00f1o siguiente, de un tremendo informe municipal sobre el penoso estado en que se encontraba la polic\u00eda de Nueva York, en el que se hac\u00eda una referencia expl\u00edcita a la muerte de Mary Rogers: \u00abLos ciudadanos ven con sus propios ojos c\u00f3mo les roban sus propiedades \u2013afirmaba el documento\u2013. Los ladrones entran en las casas con tal facilidad, y tan poco temor a ser descubiertos, que ya nadie est\u00e1 a salvo. A pesar de lo populosa que es nuestra ciudad, a la gente le roban por las calles. Se detiene a miles de personas que luego salen impunes y las mujeres bellas e indefensas mueren ultrajadas y asesinadas sin que se encuentre ni rastro del criminal\u00bb.\n\nHar\u00edan falta tres a\u00f1os m\u00e1s, y dos cambios en la administraci\u00f3n municipal, para que se tomasen medidas concretas, pero en mayo de 1845 el poder legislativo del estado de Nueva York aprob\u00f3 por fin una Ley de Reforma de la Polic\u00eda que abol\u00eda la antigua red de serenos y alguaciles y creaba una fuerza policial permanente. La Ley de Reforma de la Polic\u00eda subrayaba la necesidad de prevenir el crimen, en lugar de descubrir a los autores de cr\u00edmenes ya cometidos, y por fin eliminaba el insostenible sistema de recompensas por la recuperaci\u00f3n de mercanc\u00edas robadas y otros servicios policiales. \u00abSe establecieron normas r\u00edgidas para el nombramiento de los agentes \u2013escribi\u00f3 el reverendo Matthew Hale Smith\u2013. Un cuerpo eficiente y vigoroso de hombres se convirti\u00f3 en guardi\u00e1n de la ciudad [...] y se restaur\u00f3 as\u00ed la dignidad de quienes la administraban.\u00bb Bennett tuvo adem\u00e1s la satisfacci\u00f3n personal de ver c\u00f3mo los cambios en el Ayuntamiento pon\u00edan fin a la carrera de su rival Mordecai Noah, que abandon\u00f3 el estrado para presidir la Hebrew Benevolent Society.\n\nVarios a\u00f1adidos al c\u00f3digo criminal neoyorquino de 1845 mostraban claramente la influencia del asesinato de Mary Rogers. Se propusieron diversas leyes para controlar los actos de adulterio y \u00abotras formas de seducci\u00f3n\u00bb, con penas especialmente duras en casos de \u00absecuestro con fines inmorales\u00bb. Sin duda el a\u00f1adido m\u00e1s significativo fue un estatuto de 1845, conocido como la \u00abLey del Aborto\u00bb, que reforzaba los estatutos ya existentes hasta el punto de poner de hecho fuera de la ley los tratamientos practicados en muchos salones abortistas de la ciudad. Dio la casualidad de que la aprobaci\u00f3n de la Ley del Aborto recibi\u00f3 un fuerte apoyo de un abogado neoyorquino llamado Frederick Mather, que a la saz\u00f3n era senador por el estado de Nueva York. Mather ten\u00eda su bufete en Nassau Street, no muy lejos de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, y era primo de Mary a trav\u00e9s de la rama de Hartford del clan Mather, la familia del primer marido de Phoebe Rogers.\n\nLa nueva ley del aborto se puso en pr\u00e1ctica de inmediato contra madame Restell, cuyo emporio abortista continuaba floreciendo a pesar de los incesantes ataques en las p\u00e1ginas de los peri\u00f3dicos. Aunque la polic\u00eda nunca encontr\u00f3 pruebas que relacionaran a Restell con la muerte de Mary Rogers, varios peri\u00f3dicos dieron por sentada su culpabilidad. \u00abLa \u00faltima vez que se vio a la desdichada joven iba hacia a la casa de madame Restell \u2013inform\u00f3 la Police Gazette en febrero de 1846\u2013. El cuerpo terriblemente lacerado de Weehawken no llevaba las marcas de una simple violaci\u00f3n [...]. Se trata de hechos extra\u00f1os, pero incontestables. [...]. \u00a1As\u00ed son estas abortistas! \u00a1Tales son sus cr\u00edmenes y los tugurios donde los cometen!\u00bb La Gazette inclu\u00eda una lista de las acusaciones fundadas contra Restell y hac\u00eda una caracter\u00edstica llamada a \u00abla aplicaci\u00f3n de alguna forma de venganza popular\u00bb.\n\nEl art\u00edculo tuvo un resultado dram\u00e1tico e inmediato. El lunes 23 de febrero de 1846, dos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de que la Police Gazette publicara sus incendiarias afirmaciones, una turba airada se present\u00f3 ante la residencia particular de madame Restell en Greenwich Street. El Morning News inform\u00f3 de que \u00abal parecer muchos hab\u00edan ido con la intenci\u00f3n de participar en un acto de violencia popular\u00bb. La muchedumbre no era la t\u00edpica pandilla de camorristas y malhechores, observaba el peri\u00f3dico. \u00abEntre la turba se contaban muchos de nuestros ciudadanos m\u00e1s respetables... algo inesperado y ciertamente amenazador, que demuestra la profunda repugnancia que producen entre las clases mejores las pr\u00e1cticas de esta mujer miserable.\u00bb\n\nA medida que la multitud se congregaba ante las puerta de la mansi\u00f3n de Restell, al grito de \u00ab\u00a1La horca es demasiado buena para ese monstruo!\u00bb, los \u00e1nimos se fueron calentando. \u00abSe oyeron terribles maldiciones contra la Restell y sus complices\u00bb, inform\u00f3 el Morning News, adem\u00e1s de gritos de \u00ab\u00a1Sacadla de ah\u00ed!\u00bb, \u00ab\u00bfD\u00f3nde est\u00e1n los mil ni\u00f1os asesinados en esa casa?\u00bb y \u00ab\u00bfQui\u00e9n asesin\u00f3 a Mary Rogers?\u00bb. La turba no tard\u00f3 en echar abajo las verjas de la entrada y en aporrear las puertas de la mansi\u00f3n. Pronto se hizo evidente que \u00abla indignaci\u00f3n popular iba a manifestarse con mayor gravedad, y el desdichado objeto de sus iras estuvo a punto de comprender que en este pa\u00eds hay un poder por encima de cualquier ley cuyo mandato se ejecutar\u00eda entre la violencia y la confusi\u00f3n si el brazo de la justicia se paralizase, o demostrase ser insuficiente y lo burlaran quienes cuentan con sus ganancias ileg\u00edtimas y ciertas peculiares influencias para salir impunes de sus cr\u00edmenes\u00bb.\n\nJusto cuando parec\u00eda inevitable que la turba sacara a rastras a madame Restell de su casa, dispuesta a cobrarse venganza, se hicieron notar sus \u00abpeculiares influencias\u00bb. George Matsell, el jefe de polic\u00eda de Nueva York, se present\u00f3 con un destacamento de agentes que cargaron inmediatamente contra la muchedumbre. Despu\u00e9s de detener a algunos de los \u00abm\u00e1s destacados\u00bb, las fuerzas de Matsell se las arreglaron para dispersar y contener a los dem\u00e1s agitadores. Luego se supo que madame Restell no estaba en la casa, pues la hab\u00edan prevenido del riesgo que corr\u00eda. Los muchos a\u00f1os que llevaba sobornando y pagando a la polic\u00eda hab\u00edan surtido efecto.\n\nEdgar Allan Poe todav\u00eda viv\u00eda en Nueva York en esa \u00e9poca, y es posible que hiciese algunos trabajos como redactor para la Police Gazette. \u00abLa tradici\u00f3n asegura que, entre 1846 y 1849, el a\u00f1o de su muerte, Poe form\u00f3 parte temporalmente de la plantilla del peri\u00f3dico \u2013escribi\u00f3 Edward van Every en Sins of New York [Pecados de Nueva York], una antolog\u00eda de los art\u00edculos de la Gazette publicada en 1930\u2013. Aunque no sabemos si es cierto [...]. De ser as\u00ed, Poe no firm\u00f3 ning\u00fan art\u00edculo.\u00bb Sin duda, resulta tentador pensar que Poe tuviese algo que ver con el incendiario art\u00edculo de la Gazette sobre madame Restell. La estancia de Poe en el Broadway Journal hab\u00eda terminado tristemente apenas un mes antes de la aparici\u00f3n del art\u00edculo, dej\u00e1ndolo sin dinero y necesitado de empleo. Su revisi\u00f3n definitiva de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat hab\u00eda aparecido en Cuentos el a\u00f1o anterior, por lo que recordar\u00eda los detalles del caso y sobre todo estar\u00eda al tanto de los \u00faltimos descubrimientos. El anonimato de la Police Gazette le habr\u00eda proporcionado mayor libertad para especular sobre el destino de Mary Rogers, y tal vez incluso para hacer uso de la informaci\u00f3n y las teor\u00edas que circulaban entre sus colegas. No obstante, el incidente de la mansi\u00f3n Restell coincide con uno de los per\u00edodos m\u00e1s ca\u00f3ticos de la vida del escritor, que dio pie a una serie de rumores sobre sus borracheras y su internamiento en el manicomio, y que conducir\u00eda a su retiro a la tranquilidad relativa de la granja de Fordham. Es imposible afirmar con certeza que Poe llegara a poner el pie en la redacci\u00f3n de la Police Gazette y mucho menos unir su nombre a ning\u00fan art\u00edculo concreto.\n\nEn cualquier caso, el episodio afect\u00f3 muy poco a madame Restell. A pesar de las nuevas leyes y de otros estallidos de violencia p\u00fablica, la \u00abmujer m\u00e1s perversa de Nueva York\u00bb continu\u00f3 dirigiendo su imperio otros tres decenios. De vez en cuando la deten\u00edan y llevaban a juicio, pero siempre se las arregl\u00f3 para salir bien librada y no sufrir consecuencias demasiado graves. Con ocasi\u00f3n de una de estas detenciones, le impusieron una fianza de 10.000 d\u00f3lares, que pag\u00f3 en met\u00e1lico adem\u00e1s de otros mil en prueba de su buena fe. \u00abLa ley ha quitado de su camino a todos sus rivales y sigue dirigiendo su plan de destrucci\u00f3n \u2013dir\u00eda la Police Gazette\u2013. No hacemos estas observaciones para animar a las autoridades a llevar a esta mujer ante la justicia. Ya hemos perdido todas las esperanzas.\u00bb\n\nPor fin, en 1878, todos aquellos decenios al tim\u00f3n del \u00absangriento imperio\u00bb se cobraron su precio. Tras una nueva campa\u00f1a de cr\u00edticas en la prensa y ante un c\u00famulo de sospechas sobre la misteriosa muerte de su marido, se detuvo a madame Restell a ra\u00edz de un enfrentamiento con Anthony Comstock, el famoso cruzado antivicio. Despu\u00e9s de un breve paso por las Tumbas, pag\u00f3 una vez m\u00e1s la fianza y regres\u00f3 a su mansi\u00f3n en la Quinta Avenida. Subi\u00f3 al piso de arriba, se prepar\u00f3 un ba\u00f1o caliente y se cort\u00f3 el cuello.\n\nEl New York Times reaccion\u00f3 con satisfacci\u00f3n a \u00abun final coherente con una carrera odiosa\u00bb. No obstante, incluso despu\u00e9s de muerta, madame Restell seguir\u00eda proyectando una larga sombra sobre la ciudad. James Gordon Bennett hijo, que hab\u00eda ocupado la direcci\u00f3n del Herald cuando su padre se jubil\u00f3 en 1867, anunci\u00f3 su intenci\u00f3n de publicar la lista de clientes de Restell para edificaci\u00f3n del p\u00fablico. La inquietud se apoder\u00f3 de los salones de fumadores y los clubes de moda. De todos modos, las comprometedoras listas desaparecieron antes de salir a la luz, a pesar de estar bajo custodia policial.\n\nHab\u00edan transcurrido treinta y siete a\u00f1os desde la muerte de Mary Rogers, pero el fallecimiento de madame Restell volvi\u00f3 a despertar el inter\u00e9s por el destino sufrido por la cigarrera, sobre todo por los numerosos art\u00edculos sensacionalistas que hab\u00edan relacionado a la famosa abortista con el crimen. En vida, Mary Rogers hab\u00eda inspirado muchos malos versos; muerta, sirvi\u00f3 de excusa para la publicaci\u00f3n de muchas novelas muy mal escritas, empezando por La bella cigarrera escrita por J. H. Ingraham en 1844, cuya calidad puede juzgarse por la exclamaci\u00f3n del joven Herman de Ruyter al enterarse de que su hermana Maria ha encontrado empleo en un almac\u00e9n de tabaco: \u00abPero, madre, \u00a1piense que es joven y pura! Piense que Maria es candorosa y muy bella e imag\u00ednela rodeada de tan graves peligros. \u00a1Piense en el riesgo que supondr\u00eda para su reputaci\u00f3n! \u00a1Aunque fuese tan bella como un lirio, el aliento de la calumnia marchitar\u00eda para siempre su belleza! \u00a1Oh, Maria, ojal\u00e1 te lo hubieses pensado un poco antes de dar este paso!\u00bb.\n\nEl aliento de la calumnia tambi\u00e9n soplaba en Mysteries and Miseries of New York [Misterios y miserias de Nueva York], una novela publicada en 1848 por Ned Buntline, seud\u00f3nimo del prol\u00edfico periodista Edward Zane Carroll Judson. Uno de los episodios centrales del libro gira en torno a una joven llamada Mary Sheffield, tambi\u00e9n conocida como \u00abla bella cigarrera\u00bb, cuyo cuerpo maltrecho y sin vida aparece flotando en el r\u00edo Hudson. Un art\u00edculo sobre el crimen publicado en el Herald neoyorquino atribuye el suceso al \u00abmaltrato y asesinato a manos de una banda de malhechores de Hoboken\u00bb, pero pronto se descubre que las se\u00f1ales de violencia en el cad\u00e1ver las infligi\u00f3 \u00abno una banda de malhechores\u00bb, sino una infame abortista llamada Caroline Sitstill, \u00abuna bruja, una diablesa, un aborto de su propio sexo a quien ser\u00eda una blasfemia llamar mujer\u00bb. En lugar de un final feliz, Buntline a\u00f1ad\u00eda un ap\u00e9ndice a su novela con el texto completo de la Ley de Reforma Policial de 1845.\n\nEn 1851 se public\u00f3 un op\u00fasculo titulado Confession of the Awful and Bloody Transactions of Charles Wallace [Confesi\u00f3n de los terribles y sangrientos manejos de Charles Wallace]. La portada identificaba a Wallace como el \u00abasesino de la se\u00f1orita Mary Rogers, la bella cigarrera de Broadway, Nueva York, cuyo destino ha estado a\u00f1os envuelto en un profundo misterio\u00bb. La supuesta confesi\u00f3n \u2013un fraude evidente\u2013 encajaba en la tradici\u00f3n de op\u00fasculos morbosos y sensacionalistas de la \u00e9poca y describ\u00eda el asesinato con todo el prop\u00f3sito de escandalizar a los lectores:\n\nSegu\u00ed apretando la cuerda hasta que sus mejillas adquirieron un tono purp\u00fareo. Empez\u00f3 a salirle sangre de la nariz y los o\u00eddos y cay\u00f3 de espaldas sobre la hierba aferr\u00e1ndose todav\u00eda a mi brazo izquierdo. En mi interior bull\u00eda el infierno y la venganza me pareci\u00f3 m\u00e1s dulce en ese momento que la propia vida. Sent\u00ed incluso que, si ella sobreviviera, me odiar\u00eda a\u00fan m\u00e1s que antes. Esta idea me volvi\u00f3 loco y segu\u00ed tirando de los extremos de la cuerda, y, cuando logr\u00e9 dominarme, descubr\u00ed que estaba muerta. Afloj\u00e9 la cuerda funesta con una sonrisa en el semblante.\n\nLa tragedia se present\u00f3 de manera a\u00fan m\u00e1s gr\u00e1fica en Tale of a Physician: or the Fruits and Seeds of Crime [Historia de un m\u00e9dico, o los frutos y las semillas del crimen], publicado en 1869 por Andrew Jackson Davis. Adem\u00e1s de popular novelista, a Davis se le conoc\u00eda como el \u00abadivino de Poughkeepsie\u00bb por su inter\u00e9s por el espiritismo, una creencia cada vez m\u00e1s extendida, y afirmaba haber recurrido a esos m\u00e9todos en su interpretaci\u00f3n del destino de la cigarrera. La historia de Davis se centra en una \u00abfamosa belleza\u00bb llamada Molly Ruciel que \u00abtrabaja de dependienta en un conocido almac\u00e9n del centro de la ciudad\u00bb. Despu\u00e9s de salir de casa un domingo por la ma\u00f1ana diciendo que va a pasar el d\u00eda con su t\u00eda, Molly acude a un establecimiento \u00abfeticida\u00bb regentado por una tal madame La Stelle; mientras se dispone a recibir tratamiento m\u00e9dico escribe una sentida carta a su madre: \u00abNo puedo decirte con palabras c\u00f3mo me han enga\u00f1ado. [...] \u00a1Oh!, no preguntes el nombre de qui\u00e9n me ha traicionado. Cre\u00ed que sus promesas ser\u00edan sinceras. Confi\u00e9 en su palabra. \u00a1Beb\u00ed hasta perder el sentido y me abandonaron todos mis temores y mis resoluciones!\u00bb. Intuyendo que no sobrevivir\u00e1 al tratamiento del m\u00e9dico, sutilmente llamado doctor Morte, a\u00f1ade una conmovedora conclusi\u00f3n: \u00abMe alegra que la muerte est\u00e9 tan pr\u00f3xima. Mi orgullo, mis esperanzas, el respeto que sent\u00eda por m\u00ed misma y mis ambiciones han desaparecido, mi querid\u00edsima madre, y no quiero sobrevivir al fruto de mi tentaci\u00f3n y transgresi\u00f3n... Adi\u00f3s, \u00a1adi\u00f3s para siempre!\u00bb.\n\nMomentos despu\u00e9s, mientras la hermosa paciente yace muerta ante \u00e9l, el doctor Morte ofrece un despiadado epitafio: \u00ab\u00a1Mala suerte! Aunque la chica ten\u00eda muy mal aspecto\u00bb.\n\nCualesquiera que fuesen sus dotes paranormales, reconoci\u00f3 su deuda con Poe al citar el poema El gusano vencedor, al principio del cap\u00edtulo fat\u00eddico:\n\n> \u00a1Fuera, fuera las luces, fuera todo!\n> \n> Y sobre su sombra palpitante,\n> \n> cae el tel\u00f3n, igual que una mortaja,\n> \n> con el rugido de una tormenta.\n\nLa novela de Davis apareci\u00f3 en una \u00e9poca en que empezaba a rehabilitarse la figura de Poe. Sus amigos hab\u00edan defendido con elocuencia su obra y su personalidad en los a\u00f1os que siguieron a la muerte del autor, pero los efectos del amargo ataque de Rufus Griswold siguieron manchando su reputaci\u00f3n. \u00abSu coraz\u00f3n estaba tan corrompido como infame era su conducta \u2013escribi\u00f3 un cr\u00edtico en 1854\u2013. Poe era un borracho empedernido, licencioso, falso, traicionero y capaz de cometer cualquier bajeza, villan\u00eda e indignidad.\u00bb Sin embargo, en Europa hab\u00eda empezado a apreciarse nuevamente su obra de la mano del poeta y cr\u00edtico Charles Baudelaire. Sus l\u00edricas traducciones de las obras de Poe tendr\u00edan una profunda influencia en la literatura francesa y ser\u00edan una fuente de inspiraci\u00f3n para el movimiento simbolista. Mientras otros cr\u00edticos atacaban el modo de vida \u00abdepravado\u00bb del autor, Baudelaire abrazaba al pauvre Eddie por haber metido un dedo en el ojo de la represiva y moralista sociedad norteamericana. En Alemania, Nietzsche y Rilke descubrieron a su vez a Poe y lo consideraron un m\u00e1rtir literario, igual que Kafka en Praga. \u00abPoe estaba enfermo \u2013escribi\u00f3 el autor checo\u2013. Era un pobre diablo alcoholizado que carec\u00eda de defensas contra el mundo, por lo que se refugi\u00f3 en la bebida. La imaginaci\u00f3n s\u00f3lo le serv\u00eda como una muleta. [...] La imaginaci\u00f3n es menos tramposa que la realidad.\u00bb\n\nEn Gran Breta\u00f1a, entre los admiradores de Poe se contaban Tennyson, Charles Dickens y Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Oscar Wilde le ten\u00eda por \u00abese maravilloso maestro de la expresi\u00f3n r\u00edtmica\u00bb, mientras Swinburne admiraba su \u00abgenio fuerte y delicado tan seguro de lo que pretend\u00eda y tan impecable en las mejores obras que nos ha dejado\u00bb. Entretanto, el mundillo literario norteamericano se resist\u00eda a ceder. Aunque Hawthorne alab\u00f3 la \u00abfuerza y originalidad\u00bb de Poe, Emerson lo tildaba de \u00abpoetastro\u00bb.\n\nJohn Henry Ingram public\u00f3 en 1874 el primer estudio de importancia sobre la vida y obra de Poe y lo ampli\u00f3 a dos vol\u00famenes en 1880. Defensor entusiasta de la reputaci\u00f3n del escritor, Ingram public\u00f3 tambi\u00e9n una edici\u00f3n en cuatro vol\u00famenes de su obra y se escribi\u00f3 con muchas personas que lo hab\u00edan conocido. La obra de Ingram abri\u00f3 la puerta a otros intentos por rehabilitarlo. El cr\u00edtico George Woodberry public\u00f3 en 1885 una impresionante biograf\u00eda en dos vol\u00famenes en la que trataba de ofrecer un retrato equilibrado y de desmentir muchos de los embustes de Rufus Griswold.\n\nA finales del siglo XIX hab\u00edan aparecido numerosas ediciones de sus obras a ambos lados del Atl\u00e1ntico, y casi todas inclu\u00edan El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, junto a Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue y La carta robada. Los tres cuentos de \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb, agrupados a menudo con El escarabajo de oro, servir\u00edan tanto de ejemplo como de inspiraci\u00f3n para el nuevo y popular g\u00e9nero del relato detectivesco. En La carta robada, Dupin hab\u00eda ejercitado su ingenio para recuperar una carta comprometedora para un personaje de la realeza. No fue casualidad que Esc\u00e1ndalo en Bohemia, uno de los primeros relatos en los que aparece un \u00abrazonador aficionado\u00bb llamado Sherlock Holmes, se centrase en la recuperaci\u00f3n de una carta comprometedora para un personaje de la realeza. A lo largo de cuarenta a\u00f1os, la influencia de Poe se har\u00eda notar una y otra vez en el sal\u00f3n de Baker Street. En Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, Dupin hab\u00eda hecho un revelador comentario respecto a la polic\u00eda, que hab\u00eda descartado una teor\u00eda que parec\u00eda imposible: \u00abNo nos corresponde a nosotros, como razonadores, rechazarla por su aparente imposibilidad. Lo que tenemos que hacer es demostrar que esa aparente imposibilidad no existe en realidad\u00bb. Sherlock Holmes ofrecer\u00eda numerosas variaciones sobre este tema a lo largo de toda su carrera. \u00abCu\u00e1ntas veces le he explicado \u2013le dir\u00e1 a Watson en El signo de los cuatro\u2013 que, una vez eliminado lo imposible, lo que quede, por imposible que sea, debe ser la verdad.\u00bb\n\n\u00abPoe es el maestro de todos nosotros \u2013dir\u00eda Arthur Conan Doyle, el creador de Holmes\u2013. \u00c9l es, en mi opini\u00f3n, el mejor escritor de relatos cortos de todos los tiempos. Su cerebro era como una vaina llena de semillas que se desperdigaron por todas partes, y de las que han brotado la mayor\u00eda de los cuentos modernos actuales. Basta pensar en c\u00f3mo se prodigaba, sin molestarse en repetir un \u00e9xito, y segu\u00eda adelante en busca de algo nuevo. Es el padre de la enorme progenie de escritores de relatos detectivescos. [...] Si todos los autores que cobran un cheque por un cuento inspirado de un modo u otro en Poe contribuyeran con la d\u00e9cima parte a erigirle un monumento, el maestro tendr\u00eda una pir\u00e1mide tan grande como la de Keops.\u00bb\n\nEl misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat ejerci\u00f3 siempre una singular fascinaci\u00f3n en esa \u00abenorme progenie\u00bb de escritores de novela criminal. Conan Doyle era s\u00f3lo uno m\u00e1s de los muchos autores que se interesaron por la relaci\u00f3n entre los cr\u00edmenes reales y de ficci\u00f3n, aunque lleg\u00f3 lo bastante lejos para aplicar la \u00abciencia deductiva\u00bb de su detective de ficci\u00f3n a un par de cr\u00edmenes reales. En The Story of Mr. George Edalji, Conan Doyle hizo una elocuente defensa de un joven abogado acusado de haber practicado una serie de espantosas mutilaciones al ganado, y en The Case of Oscar Slater la intervenci\u00f3n del autor fue decisiva para la puesta en libertad de un hombre err\u00f3neamente encarcelado por asesinato. Con el paso de los a\u00f1os, llegar\u00eda a ser incontable el n\u00famero de escritores que buscar\u00edan inspiraci\u00f3n en cr\u00edmenes reales para crear obras de ficci\u00f3n, poes\u00edas o ensayos, empezando por Browning, Hawthorne y Melville y acabando por Dreiser, Capote y Mailer.\n\nEntretanto, Mary Rogers hab\u00eda ca\u00eddo pr\u00e1cticamente en el olvido. Mientras florec\u00edan la reputaci\u00f3n y la influencia de Poe, los detalles del caso de la cigarrera se fueron borrando poco a poco de la memoria colectiva. Aunque sigui\u00f3 formando parte de la tradici\u00f3n neoyorquina, y su nombre no dejar\u00eda de citarse junto al de otras famosas v\u00edctimas de asesinatos como Helen Jewett y Stanford White, los detalles del crimen se volvieron m\u00e1s nebulosos con el paso de los a\u00f1os. Con el tiempo, El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat lleg\u00f3 a disociarse del caso de la cigarrera y la interpretaci\u00f3n hecha por Poe del asesinato se convirti\u00f3 en la versi\u00f3n aceptada. Anclado entre los monumentos gemelos de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue y La carta robada, pas\u00f3 de manera imprevista de la Ladies' Companion a la inmortalidad literaria. Aunque Poe hab\u00eda espigado los datos de los art\u00edculos de los peri\u00f3dicos y los hab\u00eda modificado a toda prisa para acomodarlos a los \u00faltimos descubrimientos, el relato se alz\u00f3 por encima del caos que hab\u00eda rodeado su composici\u00f3n y se revisti\u00f3 del manto de los hechos probados. Posteriormente, los cr\u00edticos se sorprender\u00edan de que Poe hubiera resuelto un crimen que ten\u00eda perpleja a la polic\u00eda y probado al mismo tiempo el poder de la \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb. Ya en 1874, John Ingram se crey\u00f3 obligado a recordar a sus lectores que Mary Rogers hab\u00eda sido una persona real: \u00abEn los \u00faltimos tiempos, se ha puesto de moda (sobre todo entre los extranjeros) dudar de que el misterio de Mary Rogers existiera en realidad y afirmar que todo lo invent\u00f3 el cerebro del poeta\u00bb.\n\nEl propio Poe hab\u00eda hecho todo lo posible por difuminar la l\u00ednea entre Mary Rogers y Marie Rog\u00eat. En los a\u00f1os siguientes a la publicaci\u00f3n de Cuentos, hab\u00eda recibido cartas de lectores que se interesaban por el caso. En enero de 1848, respondi\u00f3 a una carta de George Eveleth, un admirador de Maine, en la que respond\u00eda a una cr\u00edtica al relato. \u00abEn El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat no se ha omitido m\u00e1s que lo que yo quise omitir \u2013declar\u00f3 Poe\u2013. El \"oficial de marina\" que cometi\u00f3 el crimen (o m\u00e1s bien la muerte accidental a ra\u00edz de un aborto frustrado) lo confes\u00f3, y todo est\u00e1 resuelto. Pero, por deferencia a los parientes, no hablar\u00e9 m\u00e1s del asunto.\u00bb Esta extraordinaria y audaz afirmaci\u00f3n volv\u00eda a dar a entender que Poe sab\u00eda m\u00e1s de lo que pod\u00eda decir y a\u00f1adi\u00f3 una extra\u00f1a y desconcertante coda al misterio.\n\nDadas las tensiones y el alcoholismo de los a\u00f1os finales de su vida es dif\u00edcil saber c\u00f3mo valorar una observaci\u00f3n tan displicente y enga\u00f1osa. Su tono recuerda la afirmaci\u00f3n con que concluye El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat cuando se dice que \u00abtodos los detalles hipot\u00e9ticos principales\u00bb se hab\u00edan confirmado y que la identidad del asesino de Mary Rogers era un secreto a voces entre los enterados neoyorquinos. No obstante, por debajo de ese aire afable y confiado, hay en la carta varios detalles de importancia que pugnan por salir a la superficie y modifican la idea de la versi\u00f3n inicial de la historia. La afirmaci\u00f3n de que s\u00f3lo se hab\u00eda omitido lo que \u00e9l hab\u00eda querido omitir bien podr\u00eda referirse a las torpes intervenciones editoriales del final \u2013\u00abnos hemos tomado la libertad de omitir aqu\u00ed, del manuscrito puesto en nuestras manos...\u00bb\u2013, que invitaban al lector a pensar que el autor hab\u00eda nombrado al asesino, pero que manos m\u00e1s cautas hab\u00edan eliminado la informaci\u00f3n. Es como admitir que Poe nunca hab\u00eda tenido intenci\u00f3n de poner nombre al asesino, aunque por motivos literarios hab\u00eda querido dar a entender que Dupin s\u00ed lo hab\u00eda hecho.\n\nA\u00fan resulta m\u00e1s significativo que, en su carta a George Eveleth, aludiera entre comillas al oficial de marina de tez morena, cuya ocupaci\u00f3n tanto le hab\u00eda costado establecer, como si quisiese renegar de esa denominaci\u00f3n. Es probable que Poe insinuara que las circunstancias le hab\u00edan obligado a utilizar ese t\u00edtulo tan vago en lugar de una calificaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s concreta, que podr\u00eda haber identificado mejor al asesino. Las comillas, no obstante, parecen sugerir que el oficial de marina tal vez no fuese tal cosa. Despu\u00e9s de toda la gimnasia mental para probar ese punto \u2013la compa\u00f1\u00eda de \u00abuna joven un poco casquivana pero no depravada\u00bb; las \u00abcomunicaciones urgentes y bien escritas\u00bb a los peri\u00f3dicos\u2013, las aparentes evasivas de Poe en este punto equivalen casi a una retractaci\u00f3n.\n\nTodav\u00eda m\u00e1s notable es su alusi\u00f3n a \u00abla muerte accidental a ra\u00edz de un aborto frustrado\u00bb. Que se sepa, es la primera y unica vez que Poe utiliz\u00f3 ese t\u00e9rmino en relaci\u00f3n con el caso. Antes, hab\u00eda recurrido a vagos eufemismos como \u00abciertas cosas\u00bb que hab\u00eda que ocultar o \u00abun accidente fatal\u00bb. Que ahora aludiera directamente a este procedimiento m\u00e9dico indica que hab\u00eda llegado a aceptarlo como causa probable de la muerte. Incluso entonces, no obstante, conserva su ambig\u00fcedad caracter\u00edstica. La displicencia con que plantea, entre par\u00e9ntesis, la posibilidad de \u00abun aborto frustrado\u00bb, le permite dudar entre una \u00abmuerte accidental\u00bb y un asesinato. Pero una muerte accidental a manos de un abortista inepto es algo muy distinto a un estrangulamiento a manos de un amante enfurecido. En El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, Poe hab\u00eda prestado mucha atenci\u00f3n a las consecuencias del asesinato: \u00abEst\u00e1 solo con el fantasma de la muerta, aterrorizado por lo que yace inanimado delante de \u00e9l. El arrebato de su pasi\u00f3n ha pasado ya, y el miedo por la enormidad de lo que ha hecho empieza a abrirse paso en su pecho\u00bb. \u00c9sta no es la escena que habr\u00eda seguido a un procedimiento m\u00e9dico malogrado, por muy tr\u00e1gico que fuese el resultado.\n\nTodas estas vacilaciones palidecen en comparaci\u00f3n con la afirmaci\u00f3n tajante que hace Poe de que el malvado, fuese oficial de marina u otra cosa, lleg\u00f3 a confesar su crimen, pero que el asunto se silenci\u00f3 por deferencia a una familia presumiblemente influyente. La afirmaci\u00f3n recuerda a la que hace Poe en El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat cuando dice que, aparte de la confesi\u00f3n atribuida a madame Deluc, una segunda persona hab\u00eda admitido su culpabilidad. La repetida insistencia en esa confesi\u00f3n, una de las pocas cosas en las que se mantuvo en sus trece, es muy sugerente. Aunque es muy posible que su obstinaci\u00f3n no fuese sino otra licencia po\u00e9tica, parecida al \u00abbulo del globo\u00bb, cabe considerar la posibilidad de que en alg\u00fan momento tuviese acceso a informaci\u00f3n privilegiada. A su regreso a Nueva York en 1844, su empleo en el Evening Mirror lo puso casi literalmente pared por medio de la pensi\u00f3n Rogers. Mientras trabajaba en el Mirror, el Broadway Journal y en otros sitios debi\u00f3 de entrar en contacto con los periodistas que hab\u00edan cubierto el caso y tenido una importancia decisiva en la investigaci\u00f3n. (Aunque no est\u00e1 demostrado que trabajara en la Police Gazette, es f\u00e1cil que conociera a sus reporteros.) Lleg\u00f3 a conocer a Horace Greeley del Tribune lo bastante bien para pedirle un pr\u00e9stamo de cincuenta d\u00f3lares. El juez Mordecai Noah, que hab\u00eda vuelto al medio period\u00edstico como director del Sunday Times and Messenger, fue uno de los tres testigos que hablaron en defensa de Poe en el pleito por difamaci\u00f3n contra Thomas Dunn English. Es natural que esos hombres, al coincidir con el autor de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, le hablaran de su participaci\u00f3n en el caso de Mary Rogers. Si circulaban rumores sobre el caso, o hab\u00eda alg\u00fan secreto a voces sobre una confesi\u00f3n silenciada, es natural que Poe llegara a enterarse. Posiblemente, la promesa de inmunidad ofrecida por el gobernador Seward hubiese incitado alguna informaci\u00f3n protegida por condiciones de confidencialidad. En cualquier caso, Poe deb\u00eda de estar al tanto de las especulaciones sobre lo que hab\u00eda ocurrido. Y, como es natural, debi\u00f3 de intentar a\u00f1adir a su previa versi\u00f3n del asunto todo lo que pudiera averiguar.\n\nJohn Ingram, el primer bi\u00f3grafo de Poe, a\u00f1adir\u00eda en 1874 a\u00fan m\u00e1s confusi\u00f3n acerca del misterioso oficial de marina. Al tratar El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, insist\u00eda en que \u00abla narraci\u00f3n estaba basada en hechos reales, aunque los incidentes de la tragedia diverg\u00edan notablemente de los del cuento. El oficial de marina implicado se llamaba Spencer\u00bb. Ingram no a\u00f1ad\u00eda nada m\u00e1s ni revelaba la fuente en que basaba esa identificaci\u00f3n, aunque es posible que se lo insinuara en una carta Sarah Helen Whitman, la joven viuda que hab\u00eda sido objeto de las atenciones de Poe en sus \u00faltimos a\u00f1os. Diversos investigadores han tratado de rastrear esta vaga alusi\u00f3n hasta llegar a una prominente familia de marinos encabezada por un tal capit\u00e1n William Spencer. A primera vista, el capit\u00e1n Spencer parece un sospechoso muy prometedor. Se sab\u00eda que hab\u00eda estado en Nueva York en 1838 y en 1841, y su familia era lo bastante influyente para silenciar incluso el peor de los esc\u00e1ndalos (su hermano, John Canfield Spencer, fue el ministro de la Guerra del presidente Tyler). Visto m\u00e1s de cerca, no obstante, el hecho de que el capit\u00e1n Spencer tuviera cuarenta y ocho a\u00f1os en la \u00e9poca del asesinato no parece encajar con el retrato que hace Poe de un \u00abjoven Romeo\u00bb.\n\nEl sobrino del capit\u00e1n Spencer, un joven guardiamarina llamado Philip Spencer, tambi\u00e9n es un sospechoso interesante. En 1842, el a\u00f1o siguiente al asesinato de Mary Rogers, ahorcaron al joven Spencer por participar en un mot\u00edn, incidente que sirvi\u00f3 de inspiraci\u00f3n a la novela de Herman Melville Billy Budd. Pero la teor\u00eda de Poe sobre el oficial de marina de tez morena se basaba en su complicidad en la primera fuga de Mary Rogers en 1838, tres a\u00f1os antes del asesinato. En esa \u00e9poca, Philip Spencer era un colegial de quince a\u00f1os en una academia de Schenectady. Es improbable que hubiese podido cortejar y seducir a una joven que viv\u00eda en Nueva York, a unos doscientos kil\u00f3metros de distancia.\n\nIndependientemente de los m\u00e9ritos de los dos Spencer como sospechosos del crimen, es posible que la atenci\u00f3n que suscit\u00f3 la tragedia de Philip Spencer en todo el pa\u00eds despertase tambi\u00e9n la imaginaci\u00f3n de Poe y le llevara a fijarse en ese nombre. Queriendo distraer a Sarah Helen Whitman con el relato de c\u00f3mo busc\u00f3 inspiraci\u00f3n para El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, pudo dejarse llevar por sus fantas\u00edas po\u00e9ticas. Una alusi\u00f3n al famoso Spencer \u2013quien, como el oficial de marina de Poe, era conocido por su libertinaje\u2013 habr\u00eda ofrecido una soluci\u00f3n sencilla y sensacional.\n\nA falta de pruebas m\u00e1s concretas contra la familia Spencer, uno se siente tentado de buscar al culpable m\u00e1s cerca. En los decenios que siguieron a la muerte de Mary Rogers, incluso cuando la idea de su muerte en la mesa de un abortista fue ganando adeptos, se sigui\u00f3 especulando sobre la exacta cadena de acontecimientos que hab\u00eda conducido a la tragedia. Si, de hecho, Mary Rogers hab\u00eda muerto a ra\u00edz de un aborto frustrado, a\u00fan quedaban muchas preguntas por responder. El cad\u00e1ver estaba cubierto de ara\u00f1azos y moratones. Ten\u00eda los brazos atados por las mu\u00f1ecas con una cuerda. Se distingu\u00edan claros indicios de estrangulamiento (huellas de dedos) en el cuello, adem\u00e1s de la cinta de encaje hundida bajo la piel. Era evidente que no se trataba de un error m\u00e9dico normal. Todos los intentos por comprender el destino de la cigarrera dejaron sin responder esas preocupantes contradicciones. \u00bfC\u00f3mo y por qu\u00e9 se hab\u00eda producido aquella violencia, y, por encima de todo, qui\u00e9n era el responsable?\n\nA lo largo de los a\u00f1os, las teor\u00edas sobre este punto han dado muchas vueltas. Igual que en el caso de Jack el Destripador a finales del XIX, las diversas especulaciones sobre la muerte de Mary Rogers han configurado una lista aparentemente interminable de sospechosos, a menudo sin prestar demasiada atenci\u00f3n a las pruebas o su credibilidad. Un par de investigadores han llevado la especulaci\u00f3n al punto de llegar a la conclusi\u00f3n absurda de que el asesino fue nada menos que el propio Poe. Aunque nunca se ha demostrado que \u00e9ste llegase a ver siquiera a Mary Rogers, esta sugestiva teor\u00eda afirma que no s\u00f3lo frecuent\u00f3 la compa\u00f1\u00eda de la bella cigarrera, sino que tambi\u00e9n la asesin\u00f3 en un ataque de \u00abdemencia alcoh\u00f3lica\u00bb.\n\nEs un giro que sin duda habr\u00eda despertado el instinto narrativo de nuestro autor, aunque no su pasi\u00f3n por el razonamiento l\u00f3gico. \u00abNo se dedujo, ni podr\u00eda haberse deducido, por medio de un razonamiento inductivo \u2013dec\u00eda en El ajedrecista de Maelzel, al descartar una serie de suposiciones err\u00f3neas\u2013. Demostrar que ciertas cosas podr\u00edan hacerse de un modo determinado dista mucho de demostrar que se hayan hecho as\u00ed.\u00bb Pese a que el propio Poe no siempre observ\u00f3 esa distinci\u00f3n, comprend\u00eda al menos su enorme importancia.\n\nUna teor\u00eda m\u00e1s convincente carga la culpa sobre los hombros de Daniel Payne, cuya muerte en Weehawken y la angustiosa nota que dej\u00f3 indican ciertamente una conciencia culpable. Seg\u00fan esta teor\u00eda, Payne descubre que la joven est\u00e1 embarazada y la ayuda a concertar un aborto en la taberna de Loss. Agradecida, Mary accede a casarse con \u00e9l y a olvidar a los dem\u00e1s pretendientes, pero una vez practicada con \u00e9xito la interrupci\u00f3n del embarazo, cambia de opini\u00f3n y rompe el compromiso. Furioso, Payne pierde el control y la estrangula, tal vez sin darse cuenta, y luego le dice a la se\u00f1ora Rogers que ha muerto a manos del abortista. Incapaz de vivir con ese peso en su conciencia, se quita la vida dos meses despu\u00e9s.\n\nLa teor\u00eda es sugerente por muchos motivos, y el primero es que permite explicar tanto los indicios del aborto como las pruebas evidentes de que la muerte se produjo por estrangulamiento. La dificultad estriba en que Payne dispon\u00eda de una coartada no s\u00f3lo para el domingo fat\u00eddico, sino tambi\u00e9n para el d\u00eda siguiente, cuando lo vieron buscando a Mary en casa de sus parientes. Se ha especulado con la posibilidad de que el asesinato no se cometiera hasta \u00faltima hora del martes \u2013dos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary\u2013, cuando los movimientos de Payne no est\u00e1n tan bien documentados. Seg\u00fan esta hip\u00f3tesis, Payne podr\u00eda haber asesinado a Mary por haber roto su compromiso y luego insertado un anuncio falso en el Sun (\u00abse teme que haya podido sufrir alg\u00fan accidente\u00bb) para cubrirse las espaldas. Esta hip\u00f3tesis, por ingeniosa que parezca, no explica el hecho de que el anuncio del Sun apareciera el martes 27 de julio, por lo que lo habr\u00edan insertado antes de que se cometiera el supuesto crimen pasional.\n\nOtro intrigante personaje de la tragedia es Alfred Crommelin, el pretendiente rechazado que identific\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver en Elysian Fields. Se sabe que, antes de morir, Mary Rogers pas\u00f3 en dos ocasiones por su despacho. Aunque es totalmente veros\u00edmil que fuese en busca de dinero para pagarse un aborto, la rosa dejada en el agujero de la cerradura invita a otras especulaciones. Crommelin podr\u00eda haberse atrevido a confiar en que sus aspiraciones rom\u00e1nticas se viesen correspondidas. Es posible que Mary fuese a verle con la esperanza de librarse de su compromiso con Payne. La negativa del oficinista a responder a sus mensajes debi\u00f3 de complicar a\u00fan m\u00e1s la situaci\u00f3n. Sin el dinero de Crommelin, posiblemente Mary tendr\u00eda que renunciar a a los servicios de madame Restell y recurrir a los m\u00e1s baratos y presumiblemente peligrosos de la se\u00f1ora Loss. Que Crommelin conociera sus intenciones, explicar\u00eda que estuviese presente cuando sacaron el cad\u00e1ver a la orilla en Hoboken: deb\u00eda de ir camino de la Nick Moore House.\n\nNi Payne ni Crommelin son buenos sospechosos. Ambos dispon\u00edan de coartadas para el domingo fat\u00eddico y ninguno de los dos ten\u00eda suficiente influencia para ocultar su implicaci\u00f3n en el crimen si las autoridades o la prensa la descubrieran. Que los papeles encontrados en el cad\u00e1ver de Payne no se utilizaran como prueba de culpabilidad parece respaldar su inocencia, y el hecho de que Crommelin fuese tan insistente con la polic\u00eda y con el juez Gilbert Merritt sugiere que ten\u00eda poco que ocultar. Al mismo tiempo, si aceptamos \u2013o al menos consideramos\u2013 la idea de Poe de que el asesinato estaba relacionado de alg\u00fan modo con la breve desaparici\u00f3n de 1838, debe subrayarse que es probable que ese a\u00f1o Payne y Crommelin todav\u00eda no conocieran a Mary Rogers, pues la pensi\u00f3n todav\u00eda no hab\u00eda abierto sus puertas.\n\nQuien s\u00ed la conoc\u00eda en la \u00e9poca de su desaparici\u00f3n del almac\u00e9n de tabaco era el propio John Anderson. Cualquiera que considere el caso, aunque sea por encima, tendr\u00e1 que admitir que el inter\u00e9s de Anderson por Mary Rogers parece superar el de un t\u00edpico patr\u00f3n. Mary y su madre vivieron en su casa antes de comprar la pensi\u00f3n, y, cuando la muchacha dej\u00f3 su empleo en el almac\u00e9n, se cuenta que Anderson le implor\u00f3 de rodillas que volviera. En aquel entonces, igual que ahora, hab\u00eda mujeres hermosas de sobra en Nueva York y, si Mary Rogers hubiese sido s\u00f3lo una empleada decorativa, podr\u00eda haberla reemplazado con suma facilidad.\n\nEl negocio de Anderson continu\u00f3 prosperando tras la muerte de Mary Rogers. Posteriormente, se dedic\u00f3 a los negocios inmobiliarios y llegar\u00eda a ser uno de los hombres m\u00e1s acaudalados de la ciudad. No obstante, a pesar de su \u00e9xito, Anderson no pudo escapar a la sospecha de su implicaci\u00f3n culpable en la muerte de la famosa cigarrera. Se habl\u00f3 de un supuesto amor\u00edo con su joven empleada, que pudo conducir a un embarazo no deseado y a las desastrosas consecuencias que siguieron. Aunque se las hab\u00eda arreglado para ocultar que la polic\u00eda lo hab\u00eda interrogado por su posible relaci\u00f3n con el crimen, entre los ciudadanos m\u00e1s destacados de la ciudad corrieron rumores de que el tabaquero escond\u00eda un cad\u00e1ver en el armario. James Gordon Bennett conoc\u00eda los detalles del interrogatorio policial de Anderson y, en la \u00e9poca en que se cometi\u00f3 el crimen, se percibe en el tono del Herald cierta animosidad contra \u00e9l. A pesar de la riqueza y proyecci\u00f3n pol\u00edtica de Anderson, Bennett lo despacha llam\u00e1ndolo \u00abel cigarrero\u00bb y subraya que Mary Rogers \u00abno hab\u00eda pisado el tugurio de Anderson desde hac\u00eda casi tres a\u00f1os\u00bb.\n\nLas ambiciones pol\u00edticas de Anderson no tardaron en irse a pique. En un momento dado, Fernando Wood, el legendario pol\u00edtico, trat\u00f3 de persuadirle de que se presentara a alcalde, pero \u00e9l declin\u00f3 la oferta, temeroso de que la publicidad avivara a\u00fan m\u00e1s las especulaciones sobre el caso de Mary Rogers. En sus \u00faltimos a\u00f1os, se le amarg\u00f3 el car\u00e1cter y culp\u00f3 a menudo a Mary Rogers de frustrar sus ambiciones pol\u00edticas. Su socio Felix McCloskey recordar\u00eda que, en cierta ocasi\u00f3n, al pasar por el edificio de lo que hab\u00eda sido la pensi\u00f3n Rogers, maldijo el recuerdo de la muchacha asesinada por \u00abhaberle apartado de la pol\u00edtica y haber sido la causa de que lo menospreciaran en Nueva York\u00bb. En otra ocasi\u00f3n, McCloskey citar\u00eda otras palabras suyas \u2013\u00abQuiero que la gente sepa que no tuve nada que ver con su muerte\u00bb\u2013 y contar\u00eda que lleg\u00f3 a asegurarle \u00abque \u00e9l mismo no hab\u00eda tenido directamente nada que ver con su fallecimiento\u00bb. Al igual que la afirmaci\u00f3n de Poe sobre la misteriosa segunda confesi\u00f3n, la frase parece querer decir m\u00e1s de lo que dice e invita a considerarla con m\u00e1s atenci\u00f3n.\n\nDe viejo, Anderson se convirti\u00f3 en adepto del espiritismo y confi\u00f3 a varios de sus amigos que se comunicaba habitualmente con el esp\u00edritu de Mary. Una vez afirm\u00f3 que el esp\u00edritu de la joven le hab\u00eda dado buenos consejos comerciales. Abner Mattoon, senador del estado de Nueva York, recordar\u00eda que Anderson le hab\u00eda dicho que Mary Rogers \u00abse le aparec\u00eda de vez en cuando\u00bb. Anderson llegar\u00eda a decir: \u00abHe sufrido mucho por culpa de Mary Rogers, pero ahora todo est\u00e1 solucionado. Disfruto mucho comunic\u00e1ndome con ella cara a cara\u00bb.\n\nUn abogado que se ocup\u00f3 de sus negocios a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s insistir\u00eda en que el asesinato le hab\u00eda dejado \u00abuna huella de la que no pudo librarse nunca y que, cuando lleg\u00f3 a la vejez y empezaron a mermar sus facultades, acabar\u00eda minando sus facultades intelectuales\u00bb. Al final de su vida, Anderson se retir\u00f3 a una mansi\u00f3n en Tarrytown, donde instal\u00f3 persianas de acero para protegerse de una amenaza vaga e indefinida. Lleg\u00f3 a creer que sus hijos trataban de asesinarle y que la cocinera planeaba matarle ech\u00e1ndole \u00abalfileres en el rosbif\u00bb.\n\nAnderson muri\u00f3 en Par\u00eds en noviembre de 1881 a la edad de sesenta y nueve a\u00f1os, casi cuarenta a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s que Mary Rogers. Cuando se produjo su fallecimiento, como todos pensaban que hab\u00eda perdido el juicio, sus herederos impugnar\u00edan el testamento en una serie de pleitos que se alargar\u00edan m\u00e1s de un decenio. En mayo de 1887 el New York Times inform\u00f3 de la querella interpuesta por una hija suya. Bajo el titular \u00abUna antigua tragedia recordada\u00bb, la narraci\u00f3n de un prosaico pleito por la titularidad de unas tierras inclu\u00eda una sorprendente revelaci\u00f3n hecha con cierta displicencia y desinter\u00e9s. Ah\u00ed se contaba que Andrew Wheeler, antiguo socio de Anderson, mientras hac\u00eda una alusi\u00f3n a una conversaci\u00f3n que hab\u00eda tenido con \u00e9l sobre Poe y El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat, fue interrumpido por uno de los abogados, un antiguo juez llamado Curtis. En palabras del New York Times: \u00abEl ex juez Curtis le pregunt\u00f3 si no sab\u00eda que John Anderson hab\u00eda pagado a Poe la suma de 5.000 d\u00f3lares para que escribiera la historia de Marie Rog\u00eat a fin de desviar la atenci\u00f3n de \u00e9l, a quien muchos ten\u00edan por el autor del asesinato\u00bb. Wheeler, seg\u00fan el periodista del New York Times, respondi\u00f3 que \u00abera la primera noticia que ten\u00eda del asunto\u00bb y no se volvi\u00f3 a hablar del caso.\n\nA primera vista, la idea de que John Anderson encargase a Poe que escribiera El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat para borrar sus huellas parece un tanto fantasiosa y la mayor parte de los estudiosos la han desechado, aunque permite hacerse una idea de hasta qu\u00e9 punto el caso persigui\u00f3 a Anderson en sus \u00faltimos a\u00f1os. No obstante, conviene recordar que \u00e9ste deb\u00eda de saber que Poe, el autor del desafortunado The Conchologist's First Book, era un hombre dispuesto a hacer trabajos de encargo. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, responsable de una edici\u00f3n cr\u00edtica muy valorada de las obras de Poe, ha apuntado que el autor debi\u00f3 de tener buenas relaciones con Anderson hasta 1845, e incluso despu\u00e9s de la revisi\u00f3n de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat en los Cuentos, con sus alusiones a un funesto aborto. Dos semanas despu\u00e9s de que Poe se pusiera al tim\u00f3n del Broadway Journal, se publicaron varios anuncios del almac\u00e9n de tabaco de Anderson. En una \u00e9poca en que necesitaba dinero desesperadamente para reflotar la revista, Anderson pag\u00f3 por adelantado tres meses de anuncios. Huelga decir que el hecho de que los dos hicieran negocios juntos, aunque sugerente, no implica que Anderson encargara El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat como cortina de humo. En todo caso, la cifra de 5.000 d\u00f3lares resulta muy sospechosa. A Poe, que gan\u00f3 s\u00f3lo nueve d\u00f3lares por El cuervo, esta cantidad le habr\u00eda cambiado la vida. Thomas Mabbott, tal vez el m\u00e1s meticuloso de los estudiosos de su obra, se preocupa de subrayar que la historia de la implicaci\u00f3n de Anderson en la redacci\u00f3n de El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat no es m\u00e1s que una leyenda, aunque a\u00f1ade: \u00abHe llegado a considerarla con mucho respeto\u00bb.\n\nEl pleito sobre el testamento de John Anderson se prolongar\u00eda varios a\u00f1os y el caso de Mary Rogers saldr\u00eda a colaci\u00f3n en varias ocasiones. Una vez, mientras prestaba testimonio Felix McCloskey, el antiguo socio de Anderson, el juez trat\u00f3 de quitarle importancia declarando que \u00abno ve\u00eda qu\u00e9 importancia pod\u00eda tener el recuerdo de una tragedia ocurrida cuarenta y cinco a\u00f1os antes con la pol\u00e9mica sobre la salud mental del millonario\u00bb. A pesar de las reservas del juez, McCloskey no tard\u00f3 en volver sobre el asunto. En la primavera de 1891, McCloskey afirm\u00f3 ante el tribunal que Anderson le hab\u00eda dicho una vez que \u00abla chica se hab\u00eda sometido a un aborto, un a\u00f1o o un a\u00f1o y medio antes del asesinato, y que eso le hab\u00eda causado algunos problemas, pero que aparte de eso no hab\u00eda ning\u00fan motivo para que nadie creyera que hab\u00eda tenido algo que ver con el crimen\u00bb.\n\nAunque es posible que, despu\u00e9s de cincuenta a\u00f1os, McCloskey recordara s\u00f3lo vagamente las fechas, su afirmaci\u00f3n parece sugerir que la desaparici\u00f3n de Mary Rogers del almacen de tabaco en 1838 se produjo a consecuencia de un aborto. No est\u00e1 claro si Anderson fue responsable del embarazo o se limit\u00f3 a pagar para ponerle fin, pero el recuerdo de que \u00abeso le hab\u00eda causado algunos problemas\u00bb permitir\u00eda explicar su extremada susceptibilidad en los a\u00f1os que siguieron. Aunque no hubiera tenido nada que ver con los sucesos de 1841, cosa que hasta hoy sigue sin demostrarse, se habr\u00eda encontrado en una situaci\u00f3n muy delicada en caso de haber pagado el aborto anterior, sobre todo si Mary Rogers falleci\u00f3 mientras se le practicaba un segundo aborto tres a\u00f1os m\u00e1s tarde. Incluso si, como declar\u00f3 m\u00e1s tarde, no tuvo \u00abnada que ver con su muerte\u00bb, su complicidad, por peque\u00f1a que fuese, en el primer aborto lo habr\u00eda marcado como un malvado que la hab\u00eda ayudado a seguir la senda de la perdici\u00f3n. Dado el esc\u00e1ndalo que se produjo, puede suponerse lo que pensar\u00eda Anderson cuando asisti\u00f3 a la reuni\u00f3n del Comit\u00e9 de Seguridad en agosto de 1841 y contribuy\u00f3 con cincuenta d\u00f3lares a la \u00abdetenci\u00f3n de cualquier persona o personas implicadas en el asesinato\u00bb.\n\nSi Mary Rogers muri\u00f3 realmente mientras se le practicaba un segundo aborto en 1841 \u2013y si el famoso \u00abhombre de tez morena\u00bb era de hecho el propio abortista\u2013, queda sin explicar por qu\u00e9 la encontraron con el rostro golpeado y una cinta de encaje anudada alrededor del cuello, y se\u00f1ales de huellas en el cuello. Aunque la teor\u00eda del aborto se convirti\u00f3 en la m\u00e1s aceptada tras la muerte de la se\u00f1ora Loss, no daba cuenta de los evidentes indicios de estrangulamiento.\n\nUna explicaci\u00f3n posible se sugiere en las p\u00e1ginas de Tale of a Physician: or the Fruits and Seeds of Crime [Historia de un m\u00e9dico, o los frutos y semillas del cr\u00edmen], una novela escrita en 1869 por Andrew Jackson Davis. Cuando la hero\u00edna, Molly Ruciel, se presenta en el establecimiento \u00abfeticida\u00bb de madame La Stelle, se descubre que ya hab\u00eda estado all\u00ed tres a\u00f1os antes: \u00ab\u00a1Vaya!, otra vez la hermosa dependienta, \u00bfeh? Har\u00e1 ahora tres a\u00f1os y medio que sali\u00f3 de este hospital viva y con buena salud, \u00bfverdad, se\u00f1orita Molly Ruciel?\u00bb. Cuando la atemorizada joven expresa sus dudas, se hace evidente lo desesperado de su situaci\u00f3n. \u00abNo se preocupe, se\u00f1orita Molly \u2013le dicen\u2013. Su acaudalado admirador, el galante Jack Blake, ha pasado por aqu\u00ed. Todo est\u00e1 arreglado. Ese guapo brib\u00f3n lo ha pagado todo y dejado instrucciones muy precisas. Dice que necesita usted un tratamiento especial y ha pagado la factura.\u00bb Cuando la desdichada dependienta fallece durante la operaci\u00f3n, el m\u00e9dico se alarma mucho. \u00ab\u00a1Todo Nueva York conoce a esta chica! \u2013exclama su ayudante\u2013. Me temo que tenemos un trabajo infernal por delante.\u00bb Meten el cad\u00e1ver en un coche y trazan un plan para borrar las huellas de lo sucedido. \u00abEsta muerte causar\u00e1 un gran revuelo en todo Nueva York [...]. Tienen que encontrarla flotando en el r\u00edo, con toda clase de huellas de violencia cometida por varios hombres.\u00bb Tras llegar a tal conclusi\u00f3n, los culpables se dedican a infligir \u00absuficientes marcas de crueldad\u00bb al cad\u00e1ver y env\u00edan a alguien a dejar la ropa desgarrada en Weehawken. Despu\u00e9s, arrojan el cuerpo maltrecho al Hudson, y, cuatro d\u00edas m\u00e1s tarde, \u00abla gran ciudad de Nueva York se ve conmovida por una profunda e intensa excitaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nPoe habr\u00eda admirado el ingenio, aunque no la prosa del autor. Vale la pena se\u00f1alar que Andrew Jackson Davis vio a Poe al menos en una ocasi\u00f3n, y que sus actividades como el \u00abadivino de Poughkeepsie\u00bb bien pudieron coincidir con las de John Anderson, ferviente practicante del espiritismo. Por desgracia, como habr\u00eda admitido el propio Poe, la relevancia de tales coincidencias es discutible, e incluso las revelaciones en el caso de John Anderson, cincuenta a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s de la muerte de Mary Rogers, deben considerarse con cautela. Por mucho que se valore el c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades de Poe, es preciso admitir que cuando muri\u00f3 Anderson los secretos de Mary Rogers estaban m\u00e1s all\u00e1 de la mera \u00abraciocinaci\u00f3n\u00bb.\n\nCon el tiempo, el propio Poe podr\u00eda haber llegado a apreciar esos secretos. \u00abHay secretos que no pueden contarse \u2013escribi\u00f3 en El hombre de la multitud\u2013. Los hombres mueren de noche en su cama retorciendo las manos de fantasmales confesores y mir\u00e1ndoles lastimeros a los ojos, fallecen con el coraz\u00f3n desesperado y un nudo en la garganta por los terribles misterios que no pueden revelar. En ocasiones, \u00a1ay!, la conciencia de los hombres sufre bajo una carga tan horrible y pesada que s\u00f3lo en la tumba puede descargarse. Por eso mismo, la esencia de un crimen no llega a divulgarse nunca.\u00bb\nAgradecimientos\n\nEl caso de Mary Rogers plantea muchas dificultades al investigador moderno, sobre todo por lo disperso de los registros de la \u00e9poca. \u00abPuesto que no lleg\u00f3 a celebrarse ning\u00fan juicio \u2013observ\u00f3 el escritor Edmund Pearson en 1930\u2013, hay que buscar los hechos en los archivos de los peri\u00f3dicos neoyorquinos de finales del verano de 1841, cuando se alud\u00eda a este crimen famoso y discutido por todos tres veces por semana, por lo general en un p\u00e1rrafo de letra peque\u00f1a, perdido en la p\u00e1gina de opini\u00f3n. Imaginarme buscando esas noticias bastar\u00eda para que mi oculista sonriera de placer.\u00bb\n\nMi oculista tambi\u00e9n ha tenido motivos para alegrarse por mi inter\u00e9s por el destino de la bella cigarrera. No obstante, a diferencia de Edmund Pearson, he contado a mi favor con numerosos estudios recientes sobre el caso y sus consecuencias. Deseo expresar mi gratitud y admiraci\u00f3n por las obras de Amy Gilman Srebnick, John Evangelist Walsh, Raymond Paul, William K. Wimsatt y Samuel Worthen. Tambi\u00e9n estoy en deuda con muchos distinguidos estudiosos de la obra de Poe, entre ellos Thomas Ollive Mabbott, John Ward Ostrom, Kenneth Silverman y Jeffrey Meyers.\n\nTambi\u00e9n quiero agradecer la generosa ayuda de las siguientes personas e instituciones: la Biblioteca P\u00fablica de Nueva York, la Sociedad Hist\u00f3rica de Nueva York, los Archivos Municipales del Ayuntamiento de Nueva York, el Museo de la Ciudad de Nueva York, Thomas Mann y el personal de la Librer\u00eda del Congreso, Jackie Donovan y la Sociedad Anticuaria Americana, el Museo Poe de Richmond, la Sociedad Edgar Allan Poe de Baltimore, la Casa Museo de Edgar Allan Poe de Baltimore, el Sitio Nacional Hist\u00f3rico Edgar Allan Poe de Filadelfia, la Casa Edgar Allan Poe de Nueva York, los caballeros de Squatting Toad, y sobre todo Allen Appel y Larry Kahaner, Sean Tinslay de la Librer\u00eda Anticuaria de Australia, Ben Robinson, John Lellenberg, Lloyd Rose, Mitch Hoffman de Dutton, Erika Kahn, Donald Maas, de la agencia literaria Donald Maas, David Stashower y Sonny Wareham.\nBibliograf\u00eda selecta\n\nAllen, Hervey: Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, Farrar & Rinehart, Nueva York, 1934.\n\nAnbinder, Tyler: Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum, Plume, Nueva York, 2002.\n\nAn\u00f3nimo: Madame Kestell, An Account of Her Life and Horrible Practices, Together with Prostitution in New York, Its Extent, Causes, and Effects upon Society, edici\u00f3n privada, Nueva York, 1847.\n\nAn\u00f3nimo: Tragic Almanack 1843, C. P. Huestis, Nueva York, 1843.\n\nAsbury, Herbert: All Around the Town, Thunder's Mouth Press, Nueva York 2003.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: The Gangs of New York, Garden City Publishing Co., Garden City, 1927.\n\nBelden, Ezekiel Porter: New York, Past, Present, and Future: Comprising a History of the City of New York, G. P. Putnam, Nueva York, 1849.\n\nBorowitz, Albert: Blood & Ink: An International Guide to Fact-Based Crime Literature, The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 2002.\n\nBotkin, B. A., ed.: New York City Folklore, Random House, Nueva York, 1956.\n\nBurdett, Charles: Lilla Hart: A Tale of New York, Baker & Scribner, Nueva York, 1846.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Never Too Late, D. Appleton & Co, Nueva York, 1845.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Chances and Changes, or, Life As It Is, D. Appleton & Co, Nueva York, 1863.\n\nBurrows, Edwin G. y Mike Wallace: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Oxford University Press, Nueva York y Oxford, 1999.\n\nByrnes, Thomas: 1886 Professional Criminals of America, The Lyons Press, Nueva York, 2000.\n\nCohen, Patricia Cline: The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Nueva York, 1998.\n\nCrockett, Albert Stevens: When James Gordon Bennett Was Caliph of Bagdad, Funk & Wagnalls, Nueva York, 1926.\n\nCrouse, Russel: Murder Won 't Out, Doubleday, Doran & Co., Nueva York, 1932.\n\nCrouthamel, James L: Bennett's New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press, Syracuse University Press, Nueva York, 1989.\n\nDavis, Andrew Jackson: The Present Age and Inner Life, Austin Publishing Co., Rochester, 1910.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Tale of a Physician, or, the Seeds and Fruit of Crime, William White & Co., Boston, 1869.\n\nDickens, Charles: American Notes, Penguin Classics, Nueva York, 2000.\n\nFoster, George G. New York By Gas-Light and Other Urban Sketches, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990.\n\nGear Rick: The Mystery of Mary Rogers, NBM\/Comics Lit., Nueva York, 2001.\n\nHarrison, James A.: Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Haskell House, Nueva York, 1970.\n\nHomberger, Eric: The Historical Atlas of New York City, Henry Holt & Co., Nueva York, 1994.\n\nHone, Philip: The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828-1851 (2 vols.) Alan Nevins, ed., Dodd Mead & Co., Nueva York, 1927.\n\nIngraham, J. H.: The Beautiful Cigar Girl, or, the Mysteries of Broadway, Robert M. De Witt, Nueva York, 1844.\n\nIngram, John H.: Edgar Allan Poe. His Life, Letters and Opinions (2 vols.), John Hogg, Londres, 1880.\n\nIrving, Washington: The Works of Washington Irving, Volume 5: Salmagundi, Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus, The Co-operative Publication Society, Nueva York, 1920.\n\nJackson, Kenneth T., ed.: The Encyclopedia of New York City, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995.\n\nJacobs, Robert D.: Poe: Journalist & Critic, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1969.\n\nJudson, Edward Zane Carroll [Ned Buntline]: Mysteries and Miseries of New York: A Story of Real Life, Berford & Co., Nueva York, 1848.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Three Years After: A Sequel to Mysteries and Miseries of New York, Berford & Co., Nueva York, 1849.\n\nKeller, Allan: Scandalous Lady: The Life and Times of Madame Restell, New York Most Notorious Abortionist, Atheneum, Nueva York, 1981.\n\nKennedy, J. Gerald, ed.: A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001.\n\nKluger, Richard: The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune, Alfred A. Knopf, Nueva York, 1986.\n\nLardner, James y Thomas Reppetto: NYPD: A City and Its Police, Henry Holt & Co., Nueva York, 2000.\n\nLauvri\u00e8re, Emile: The Strange Life and Strange Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, J. B. Lippincott Co., Filadelfia, 1935.\n\nLink, S. A., ed.: Edgar Allan Poe: Biography and Selected Letters, F. A. Owen Publishing Co., Dansvile, 1910.\n\nLippard, George: New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million, E. Mendenhall, Cincinnati, 1854.\n\nMabbott, Thomas Olive, ed.: Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Poems, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2000.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Sketches (2 vols.), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2000.\n\nMcCullough, Esther Morgan, ed.: As I Pass, O Manhattan: An Anthology of Life in New York, Coley Taylor, North Bennington,1956.\n\nMeyers, Jeffrey: Edgar Allan Poe: His Life & Legacy, Charles Scribner's Sons, Nueva York, 1992.\n\nO'Connor, Richard: The Scandalous Mr. Bennett, Doubleday & Company, Nueva York, 1962.\n\nOstrom, John Ward, ed.: The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1948.\n\nPaul, Raymond: Who Murdered Mary Rogers?, PrenticeHall, Nueva Jersey, 1971.\n\nPearce, Charles E.: Unsolved Murder Mysteries, Stanley Paul & Co., Londres, 1924.\n\nPearson, Edmund: Instigation of the Devil, Charles Scribner's Sons, Nueva York, 1930.\n\nPhillips, Mary E.: Edgar Allan Poe: The Man, (2 vols.), John C. Winston Co., Chicago, 1926.\n\nPorges, Irwin: Edgar Allan Poe, Chilton Books, Filadelfia, 1963.\n\nPray Isaac: Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times, Stringer & Townsend, Nueva York, 1855.\n\nQuinn, Arthur Hobson: Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1998.\n\nRosenheim, Shawn y Stephen Radhman, eds.: The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995.\n\nSante, Luc: Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, Vintage Books, Nueva York, 1992.\n\nSilverman, Kenneth: Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Neverending Remembrance, HarperCollins Publishers, Nueva York, 1991.\n\nSmith, Matthew Hale: Sunshine and Shadow in New York, J. B. Burr & Co., Hartford, 1869.\n\nSoya, Dawn B: Edgar Allan Poe A to Z, Checkmark Books, New York, 2001.\n\nSrebnick, Amy Gilman: The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York, Oxford University Press, Nueva York y Oxford, 1995.\n\nStanard, Mary Newton: The Dreamer: A Romantic Rendering of the Life Story of Edgar Allan Poe, J. B. Lippincott Co., Filadelfia, 1925.\n\nSymons, Julian: The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Work of Edgar Allan Poe, Harper & Row, Nueva York, 1978.\n\nThomas, Dwight y David K. Jackson: The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849, G. K. Hall, Nueva York, 1987.\n\nVan Every, Edward: Sins of New York as \u00abExposed\u00bb by the Police Gazette, Frederick A. Stokes, Nueva York, 1930.\n\nWallace, Charles: A Confession of the Awful and Bloody Transactions in the Life of Charles Wallace, B. B. Barclay & Co., Nueva Orleans, 1851.\n\nWallace, Irving: The Fabulous Originals, Alfred A. Knopf, Nueva York, 1956.\n\nWalling, George W.: Recollections of a New York Chief of Police, Patterson Smith Reprint Series, Nueva Jersey, 1972.\n\nWalsh, John Evangelist: Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1998.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances Behind The Mistery of Marie Roget, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1968.\n\nWimsatt, William K., Jr: Poe and the Mystery of Mary Rogers, Modern Language Association of America, Nueva York, 1941.\n\nWinwar, Frances: The Haunted Palace: A Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Harper & Row, Nueva York, 1959.\n\nWoodberry George E.: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe: Personal and Literary with his Chief Correspondence with Men of Letters (2 vols.), Biblio & Tannen, Nueva York, 1965.\n\nWorthen, Samuel Copp: \u00abA Strange Aftermath of the Mystery of Marie Roget.\u00bb The Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 60 (1942), pp. 116-123.\n\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013: \u00abPoe and the Beautiful Cigar Girl.\u00bb American Literature 20 (1948), pp. 305-312.\n\nDiarios, revistas y peri\u00f3dicos consultados\n\nAmerican Literature, The Broadway Journal, Brother Jonathan, The Commercial Advertiser, Detective Magazine, Era Magazine, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, The Ladies' Companion, Littell's Living Age, The Morning Courier, The National Police Gazette, The New Yorker, The New York Enquirer, The New York Evening Post, The New York Herald, The New York Journal of Commerce, The New York Sun, The New York Times, The New York Tribune, The Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, The Sunday Morning Atlas, The Tattler.\nAp\u00e9ndice\n\nEdgar Allan Poe\n\nEl misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat\n\nContinuaci\u00f3n de Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue\nEs giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel l\u00e4uft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und Zuf\u00e4lle modificiren gew\u00f6hnlich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass si unvollkommen sind. So bie der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Lutherthum hervor.\n\nHay series ideales de acontecimientos que discurren paralelos a los reales. Raramente coinciden. Por lo general, los hombres y las circunstancias modifican el curso ideal de los acontecimientos, por lo que parecen imperfectos y sus consecuencias son asimismo imperfectas. As\u00ed ocurri\u00f3 con la Reforma: en lugar del protestantismo lleg\u00f3 el luteranismo.\n\nNOVALIS, Moral Ansichten\n\nHay pocas personas, incluso entre los pensadores m\u00e1s ecu\u00e1nimes, que no se hayan visto sorprendidas en ocasiones por una vaga pero emocionante creencia en lo sobrenatural, a ra\u00edz de una serie de coincidencias en apariencia tan extraordinarias que el intelecto es incapaz de aceptarlas como tales. Estos sentimientos (pues las medias creencias nunca tienen la misma fuerza que los pensamientos) pocas veces se acallan del todo a menos que invoque uno la doctrina de la probabilidad, o, como se la denomina t\u00e9cnicamente, c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades. Ahora bien, este c\u00e1lculo es, en esencia, puramente matem\u00e1tico, y as\u00ed asistimos a la anomal\u00eda de ver lo m\u00e1s r\u00edgido y exacto de las ciencias aplicado a la sombra y a la espiritualidad de la especulaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s intangible.\n\nLos extraordinarios detalles que me propongo hacer p\u00fablicos constituyen, en cuanto a su secuencia temporal, la rama primaria de una serie de coincidences apenas inteligibles, cuya rama secundaria reconocer\u00e1n todos los lectores en el reciente asesinato de MARY CECILIA ROGERS en Nueva York.\n\nCuando, en un art\u00edculo titulado Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue, trat\u00e9, har\u00e1 cosa de un a\u00f1o, de describir algunos rasgos muy notables de la personalidad de mi amigo el caballero C. Auguste Dupin, no se me ocurri\u00f3 pensar que volver\u00eda a ocuparme de \u00e9l. Mi objetivo era la descripci\u00f3n de dicha personalidad, y lo cumpl\u00ed con creces merced a la descabellada serie de circunstancias que pusieron de relieve la idiosincrasia de Dupin. Podr\u00eda haber recurrido a otros ejemplos, pero ya hab\u00eda demostrado lo que ten\u00eda que demostrar. No obstante, acontecimientos posteriores me han revelado sorprendentes detalles que llevan consigo una especie de confesi\u00f3n obligada. Despu\u00e9s de o\u00edr lo que he o\u00eddo \u00faltimamente, ser\u00eda extra\u00f1o que guardase silencio sobre lo que vi y o\u00ed hace ahora tanto tiempo.\n\nTras la conclusi\u00f3n de la tragedia que ocasion\u00f3 la muerte de madame L'Espanaye y su hija, el mencionado caballero apart\u00f3 enseguida el asunto de su imaginaci\u00f3n y recay\u00f3 en su habitual tendencia a la enso\u00f1aci\u00f3n y la melancol\u00eda. Propenso como soy a la abstracci\u00f3n, no tard\u00e9 en unirme a \u00e9l y, en nuestras habitaciones del Faubourg Saint-Germain, dejamos de preocuparnos por el futuro y dormitamos tranquilamente en el presente, entretejiendo el tedioso mundo con nuestros sue\u00f1os.\n\nNo obstante, dichos sue\u00f1os distaban mucho de ser tranquilos. Puede uno imaginar que el papel interpretado por mi amigo en la tragedia de la rue Morgue hab\u00eda dejado impronta en la polic\u00eda parisina. Entre sus miembros, el nombre de Dupin se hizo muy popular. Nunca lleg\u00f3 a explicarle al prefecto, ni a nadie m\u00e1s que a m\u00ed, la sencillez de las deducciones con que hab\u00eda resuelto el misterio, por lo que no es de extra\u00f1ar que la resoluci\u00f3n del caso se considerase poco menos que milagrosa, ni que las habilidades anal\u00edticas del caballero le otorgaran fama de intuitivo. Su franqueza le habr\u00eda impulsado a desenga\u00f1ar de semejante idea a cualquier investigador, pero su indolencia le impidi\u00f3 seguir prestando atenci\u00f3n a un asunto que hac\u00eda mucho que hab\u00eda dejado de interesarle. Ocurri\u00f3 as\u00ed que se vio convertido en el centro de atenci\u00f3n de la polic\u00eda, que en no pocos casos trat\u00f3 de emplear sus servicios en la Prefectura. Uno de los ejemplos m\u00e1s notables fue el del asesinato de una joven llamada Marie Rog\u00eat.\n\nDicho suceso ocurri\u00f3 unos dos a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s de la atrocidad de la rue Morgue. Marie, cuyo nombre y apellido llamar\u00e1 de inmediato la atenci\u00f3n por su parecido con el de la desdichada cigarrera, era la hija \u00fanica de la viuda Estelle Rog\u00eat. El padre hab\u00eda muerto cuando la chica era s\u00f3lo una ni\u00f1a, y, desde el momento de su muerte hasta dieciocho meses antes del asesinato que es objeto de nuestro relato, la madre y la hija hab\u00edan vivido juntas en la rue Pav\u00e9e Sainte-Andr\u00e9e, donde madame regentaba una pensi\u00f3n, ayudada por Marie. As\u00ed siguieron las cosas hasta que la \u00faltima cumpli\u00f3 veintid\u00f3s a\u00f1os, momento en que su gran belleza atrajo la atenci\u00f3n de un perfumista due\u00f1o de una de las tiendas del Palais Royal, cuyos clientes eran sobre todo los desesperados aventureros que frecuentan el barrio. Monsieur Le Blanc comprendi\u00f3 las ventajas que se derivar\u00edan de que la hermosa Marie trabajase en su perfumer\u00eda; y la chica acept\u00f3 entusiasmada sus generosas proposiciones, aunque la madre expresara sus reparos.\n\nLas esperanzas del perfumista se vieron cumplidas y su tienda no tard\u00f3 en hacerse famosa gracias a los encantos de la vivaracha grisette. Llevaba un a\u00f1o trabajando para \u00e9l cuando a sus admiradores les sorprendi\u00f3 su desaparici\u00f3n de la tienda. Monsieur Le Blanc fue incapaz de explicar dicha ausencia y madame Rog\u00eat estaba loca de terror y preocupaci\u00f3n. Los peri\u00f3dicos enseguida se enteraron del asunto, y la polic\u00eda estaba a punto de emprender una concienzuda investigaci\u00f3n, cuando, una ma\u00f1ana, al cabo de una semana, Marie, con buena salud, aunque tal vez un poco m\u00e1s triste que de costumbre, volvi\u00f3 a ocupar su puesto detr\u00e1s del mostrador de la perfumer\u00eda. Todas las investigaciones, excepto, claro, las de car\u00e1cter privado, cesaron de inmediato. Monsieur Le Blanc aleg\u00f3 desconocer totalmente lo ocurrido, igual que hab\u00eda hecho antes. Marie, igual que madame, respondi\u00f3 a todas las preguntas diciendo que hab\u00eda pasado esa semana en casa de un pariente en el campo. As\u00ed se fue acallando el asunto, que acab\u00f3 olvid\u00e1ndose, pues la joven, evidentemente para evitar la impertinencia de los curiosos, se despidi\u00f3 definitivamente del perfumista, y se refugi\u00f3 en casa de su madre en la rue Pav\u00e9e Sainte-Andr\u00e9e.\n\nUnos cinco meses despu\u00e9s de su regreso, sus amigos se alarmaron cuando desapareci\u00f3 por segunda vez. Pasaron tres d\u00edas sin que se supiera nada de ella. Al cuarto, encontraron su cad\u00e1ver flotando en el Sena, cerca de la orilla que hay enfrente del Quartier de la rue Sainte Andr\u00e9e, en un lugar no muy lejano del apartado barrio de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule.\n\nLa atrocidad de aquel asesinato (pues enseguida fue evidente que se trataba de un crimen), la juventud y la belleza de la v\u00edctima, y, sobre todo, su previa notoriedad contribuyeron a causar una gran conmoci\u00f3n en el esp\u00edritu de los sensibles parisinos. No recuerdo otro caso que haya producido un efecto tan intenso y generalizado. Durante varias semanas, la discusi\u00f3n de aquellos hechos tan absorbentes releg\u00f3 a un segundo plano incluso las cuestiones pol\u00edticas de mayor trascendencia. El prefecto hizo esfuerzos impropios de \u00e9l, y, por supuesto, toda la polic\u00eda de Par\u00eds se volc\u00f3 en la investigaci\u00f3n.\n\nCuando se produjo el descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver, se pens\u00f3 que el asesino no podr\u00eda eludir m\u00e1s que por un breve per\u00edodo de tiempo las pesquisas que se iniciaron casi de inmediato. Hasta pasada una semana no se consider\u00f3 necesario ofrecer una recompensa, e incluso entonces se limit\u00f3 s\u00f3lo a mil francos. Entretanto, la investigaci\u00f3n prosigui\u00f3 con vigor, aunque no siempre con buen juicio, y se interrog\u00f3 a un gran n\u00famero de individuos, aunque la falta total de pistas que contribuyeran a desvelar el misterio aument\u00f3 la preocupaci\u00f3n popular. Pasados diez d\u00edas, se juzg\u00f3 recomendable doblar la suma propuesta originalmente; y por fin, transcurridas dos semanas sin que se descubriese nada y despu\u00e9s de que los prejuicios que siempre existen en Par\u00eds contra la polic\u00eda salieran a relucir en varios \u00e9meutes graves, el propio prefecto se crey\u00f3 obligado a ofrecer la suma de veinte mil francos por cualquier prueba que condujese a \u00abla condena del asesino\u00bb, o, en caso de que hubiese varios implicados, a \u00abla condena de cualquiera de los asesinos\u00bb. En la proclama que establec\u00eda dicha recompensa se promet\u00eda el indulto total a cualquier c\u00f3mplice que declarase contra sus compinches; y a eso se a\u00f1adi\u00f3 otra proclama de un comit\u00e9 de ciudadanos que ofrec\u00eda diez mil francos aparte de los prometidos por el prefecto. La recompensa total ascend\u00eda a no menos de treinta mil francos, una suma extraordinaria si se considera la condici\u00f3n humilde de la joven, y la frecuencia con que ocurren, sobre todo en las grandes ciudades, atrocidades como la descrita.\n\nAhora nadie dudaba de que el misterio del asesinato tardar\u00eda muy poco en resolverse. Sin embargo, aunque, en uno o dos casos, se practicaron detenciones que parecieron prometedoras, no se pudo probar nada que implicase a los sospechosos y acabaron poni\u00e9ndolos en libertad. Por raro que parezca, pasaron tres semanas sin que ninguna luz pareciese esclarecer el asunto, y sin que ning\u00fan rumor de lo sucedido llegase a o\u00eddos de Dupin y m\u00edos. Dedicados a investigaciones que hab\u00edan absorbido toda nuestra atenci\u00f3n, hac\u00eda casi un mes que ni \u00e9l ni yo sal\u00edamos a la calle ni recib\u00edamos ni hoje\u00e1bamos los editoriales pol\u00edticos en los peri\u00f3dicos. El primero en hablarnos del asesinato fue G. en persona. Vino a vernos a primera hora de la tarde del 30 de julio de 18** y se qued\u00f3 con nosotros hasta bien entrada la noche. Estaba molesto por el fracaso de todos sus esfuerzos por atrapar a los asesinos. Su reputaci\u00f3n \u2013eso dijo con un caracter\u00edstico aire parisino\u2013 estaba en juego. Incluso su honor corr\u00eda peligro. Todas las miradas estaban pendientes de \u00e9l, y no hab\u00eda nada que no estuviese dispuesto a hacer con tal de resolver el misterio. Concluy\u00f3 con un extra\u00f1o discurso alabando lo que \u00e9l llam\u00f3 complacido el \u00abtacto\u00bb de Dupin, y le hizo una propuesta directa y sin duda generosa, cuya naturaleza concreta no me considero autorizado a detallar, pero que nada tiene que ver con el asunto de este relato.\n\nMi amigo rechaz\u00f3 los halagos como mejor pudo, pero acept\u00f3 la oferta de inmediato, pese a que las ventajas fuesen muy discutibles. Una vez acordado ese punto, el prefecto se explay\u00f3 explicando su propia visi\u00f3n e intercalando largos comentarios acerca de las pruebas, que todav\u00eda no conoc\u00edamos. Disert\u00f3 largo y tendido, sin duda de forma muy erudita, mientras yo aventuraba alguna que otra sugerencia y la noche nos envolv\u00eda so\u00f1olienta. Dupin, sentado muy erguido en su sill\u00f3n, parec\u00eda la personificaci\u00f3n de la atenci\u00f3n m\u00e1s respetuosa. No se quit\u00f3 las antiparras hasta terminada la conversaci\u00f3n y un r\u00e1pido vistazo por debajo de sus cristales verdes me bast\u00f3 para convencerme de que se hab\u00eda pasado durmiendo, aunque fuera en silencio, las siete u ocho pesadas horas que precedieron a la partida del prefecto.\n\nPor la ma\u00f1ana, consegu\u00ed en la prefectura un informe completo de todas las pruebas obtenidas, y, en diversas oficinas de peri\u00f3dicos, un ejemplar de todos los diarios en los que se hubiese publicado alguna informaci\u00f3n relevante sobre aquel triste asunto. Quitando todo lo que no hab\u00eda podido probarse, la informaci\u00f3n de que dispon\u00edamos era \u00e9sta:\n\nMarie Rog\u00eat sali\u00f3 de casa de su madre, en la rue Pav\u00e9e Sainte-Andr\u00e9e, a eso de las nueve en punto de la ma\u00f1ana del 22 de junio de 18**. Al salir, inform\u00f3 a un tal Jacques St. Eustache,y s\u00f3lo a \u00e9l, de su intenci\u00f3n de pasar el d\u00eda con su t\u00eda, que resid\u00eda en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes. La rue des Dr\u00f4mes es una calle corta y estrecha pero concurrida cercana a la orilla del r\u00edo, y dista unos tres kil\u00f3metros en l\u00ednea recta de la pensi\u00f3n de madame Rog\u00eat. St. Eustache era el novio de Marie y se alojaba y com\u00eda en la pensi\u00f3n. Al caer el sol ten\u00eda que verse con su prometida y acompa\u00f1arla a casa. Por la tarde, no obstante, llovi\u00f3 mucho y, pensando que Marie se quedar\u00eda en casa de su t\u00eda (como hab\u00eda hecho antes en similares circunstancias), no crey\u00f3 necesario esperarla. Al caer la noche, madame Rog\u00eat (que era una anciana enferma de setenta a\u00f1os) expres\u00f3 su temor de \u00abno volver a ver a Marie\u00bb, pero en ese momento nadie hizo mucho caso a dicha observaci\u00f3n.\n\nEl lunes se supo que la joven no hab\u00eda estado en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes; y, despu\u00e9s de un d\u00eda sin noticias suyas, se inici\u00f3 una b\u00fasqueda en varios lugares de la ciudad y sus alrededores. No obstante, hasta pasados cuatro d\u00edas de su desaparici\u00f3n, no se supo nada de ella. Ese d\u00eda (el mi\u00e9rcoles 25 de junio) un tal monsieur Beauvais, que hab\u00eda estado preguntando por Marie cerca de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule, en la orilla del Sena opuesta a la rue Pav\u00e9e Sainte-Andr\u00e9e, supo que unos pescadores acababan de sacar a la orilla un cad\u00e1ver que hab\u00edan encontrado flotando en el r\u00edo. Al ver el cuerpo, Beauvais, tras un momento de duda, lo identific\u00f3 como el de la joven de la perfumer\u00eda. Su amigo lo reconoci\u00f3 con mayor rapidez. El rostro estaba manchado de sangre, parte de la cual hab\u00eda salido de la boca. No hab\u00eda rastro de espuma, como ocurre con los ahogados. No hab\u00eda decoloraci\u00f3n del tejido celular. En torno a la garganta hab\u00eda moratones e impresiones de dedos. Los brazos estaban r\u00edgidos y cruzados sobre el pecho. El pu\u00f1o derecho estaba cerrado, el izquierdo parcialmente abierto. En la mu\u00f1eca izquierda se observaban dos erosiones circulares, producidas en apariencia por una cuerda a la que hab\u00edan dado varias vueltas. Parte de la mu\u00f1eca derecha estaba excoriada, igual que toda la espalda y sobre todo los omoplatos. Los pescadores hab\u00edan atado el cad\u00e1ver a una cuerda para arrastrarlo hasta la orilla, pero ninguna de las excoriaciones eran producto del arrastre. La carne del cuello estaba muy hinchada. En apariencia no hab\u00eda cortes, ni moratones que pareciesen producidos por golpes. Se encontr\u00f3 un trozo de encaje atado con tanta fuerza alrededor del cuello que apenas se ve\u00eda: se hab\u00eda enterrado totalmente en la carne, apretado por un nudo que quedaba justo detr\u00e1s de la oreja izquierda. S\u00f3lo eso habr\u00eda bastado para producir la muerte. El testimonio de los m\u00e9dicos confirm\u00f3 confidencialmente el car\u00e1cter virtuoso de la fallecida. La hab\u00edan sometido a una brutal violencia. El cad\u00e1ver se hallaba en tal estado cuando lo encontraron que sus amigos apenas pudieron identificarlo.\n\nEl vestido estaba desgarrado y desarreglado. Ten\u00eda un corte de unos treinta cent\u00edmetros desde el dobladillo, que no estaba desgarrado, hasta la cintura. Daba tres vueltas en torno al talle, sujeto con una especie de vuelta de cabo en la espalda. La prenda de debajo del vestido era de muselina fina y hab\u00edan recortado con el mayor cuidado un trozo de m\u00e1s o menos medio metro de ancho. Dicha tira se encontr\u00f3 en torno a su cuello, holgada pero atada con un nudo muy firme. Por encima de la tira de muselina y la de encaje se encontraron las cintas de un sombrero y el propio sombrero. El nudo con que estaban atadas las cintas no era propio de una dama, sino un nudo marinero.\n\nDespu\u00e9s del reconocimiento del cad\u00e1ver, no lo llevaron, como de costumbre, a la morgue (dicha formalidad era superflua), sino que lo enterraron apresuradamente no muy lejos del lugar donde lo hab\u00edan sacado a la orilla. Gracias a los esfuerzos de Beauvais, el hallazgo se silenci\u00f3 todo lo posible y pasaron varios d\u00edas antes de que se despertara la curiosidad del p\u00fablico. No obstante, un peri\u00f3dico hebdomadario acab\u00f3 ocup\u00e1ndose del asunto, se exhum\u00f3 y volvi\u00f3 a examinarse el cad\u00e1ver, aunque no se descubri\u00f3 nada aparte de lo ya se\u00f1alado. Se envi\u00f3 la ropa a la madre y los amigos de la fallecida, que la identificaron como la que llevaba la chica al abandonar su casa.\n\nEntretanto la agitaci\u00f3n aumentaba a cada hora que pasaba. Se detuvo y puso en libertad a varias personas. Al principio las sospechas recayeron sobre St. Eustache, que fue incapaz de aclarar su paradero el domingo que Marie se fue de casa. Sin embargo, despu\u00e9s present\u00f3 a monsieur G. testimonios escritos que daban cuenta de d\u00f3nde hab\u00eda estado cada hora del d\u00eda en cuesti\u00f3n. A medida que pasaba el tiempo sin que se produjese ning\u00fan descubrimiento, empezaron a circular un millar de rumores contradictorios y los periodistas se dedicaron a hacer toda suerte de conjeturas. Entre ellas la que m\u00e1s atrajo el inter\u00e9s del p\u00fablico fue la idea de que Marie Rog\u00eat segu\u00eda con vida y el cad\u00e1ver aparecido en el Sena era el de otra desdichada. Me parece oportuno incluir aqu\u00ed algunos pasajes en los que puede leerse dicha sugerencia. Se trata de traducciones literales de L'\u00c9toile, un peri\u00f3dico dirigido, por lo general, con mucha habilidad.\n\nMademoiselle Rog\u00eat sali\u00f3 de casa de su madre el domingo por la ma\u00f1ana del 22 de junio de 18** con el prop\u00f3sito declarado de visitar a su t\u00eda, o alg\u00fan otro pariente, en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes. A partir de esa hora, nadie parece haberla visto. No hay ni el menor rastro ni noticias de ella. [...] Al menos hasta el momento no se ha presentado nadie que la viera ese d\u00eda despu\u00e9s de abandonar la casa materna. [...] Ahora bien, aunque no hay pruebas de que Marie Rog\u00eat se encontrara a\u00fan entre los vivos despu\u00e9s de las nueve del domingo 22 de junio, s\u00ed las hay de que hasta ese momento estaba con vida. El mi\u00e9rcoles a las doce del mediod\u00eda, se descubri\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver de una mujer flotando junto a la orilla de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule. Eso ocurri\u00f3, a\u00fan suponiendo que la arrojaran al r\u00edo tres horas despu\u00e9s de marcharse de casa, s\u00f3lo tres d\u00edas, hora m\u00e1s hora menos, despu\u00e9s de dejar su hogar. No obstante, parece una locura suponer que el asesinato, si es que la asesinaron, se consumara tan pronto y diera a los asesinos la oportunidad de arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al r\u00edo antes de la medianoche. Quienes cometen cr\u00edmenes tan atroces prefieren la oscuridad a la luz... Por tanto, si el cad\u00e1ver encontrado en el r\u00edo es el de Marie Rog\u00eat, tan s\u00f3lo pod\u00eda llevar en el agua dos d\u00edas y medio, o tres a lo sumo. La experiencia demuestra que los cuerpos de los ahogados, o de aquellos a quienes se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta, no salen a flote hasta que, pasados de seis a diez d\u00edas, la descomposici\u00f3n es suficiente para devolverlos a la superficie. Incluso si se dispara un ca\u00f1onazo para sacar el cad\u00e1ver, vuelve a hundirse si no han transcurrido al menos cinco o seis d\u00edas desde el momento en que se produjo la inmersi\u00f3n. Nos preguntamos ahora qu\u00e9 pudo ocurrir en este caso para que se produjese semejante alteraci\u00f3n en el curso natural de las cosas. Si hubiesen dejado el cad\u00e1ver maltratado en la orilla hasta la noche del martes, sin duda se habr\u00edan encontrado huellas de los asesinos. Tambi\u00e9n parece dudoso que saliese tan pronto a flote, aunque lo arrojasen al agua dos d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de cometerse el crimen. Y, lo que es m\u00e1s, resulta muy improbable que los malvados que supuestamente hab\u00edan cometido semejante asesinato arrojaran el cad\u00e1ver al agua sin un peso para hundirlo, cuando habr\u00eda sido tan f\u00e1cil hacerlo.\n\nAqu\u00ed el director procede a argumentar que el cad\u00e1ver deb\u00eda de llevar en el agua no s\u00f3lo tres, sino al menos quince d\u00edas, ya que estaba tan descompuesto que Beauvais tuvo dificultades para reconocerlo. Este \u00faltimo punto, no obstante, fue totalmente refutado despu\u00e9s. Contin\u00fao con la traducci\u00f3n:\n\n\u00bfCu\u00e1les son entonces los hechos en que se basa monsieur Beauvais para decir que no le cabe duda de que el cad\u00e1ver era el de Marie Rog\u00eat? Desgarr\u00f3 la manga del vestido, y afirma que descubri\u00f3 marcas que le convencieron de su identidad. Todo el mundo dio por sentado que estas marcas deb\u00edan de ser cicatrices. Frot\u00f3 el brazo y comprob\u00f3 que ten\u00eda vello, detalle tan poco concluyente como quepa imaginar, y tan poco probatorio como encontrar un brazo dentro de la manga. Monsieur Beauvais no regres\u00f3 esa noche, pero a las siete de la tarde del mi\u00e9rcoles envi\u00f3 un recado a madame Rog\u00eat inform\u00e1ndole de que la investigaci\u00f3n sobre su hija segu\u00eda en marcha. Si aceptamos que, dada su edad y su aflicci\u00f3n, madame Rog\u00eat no estaba en situaci\u00f3n de presentarse en el lugar de los hechos (lo que supone aceptar mucho), sin duda alguien tendr\u00eda que haber sentido la necesidad de ir a supervisar la investigaci\u00f3n, si es que de verdad cre\u00edan que el cad\u00e1ver era el de Marie. No se present\u00f3 nadie. No se dijo ni oy\u00f3 nada de los hechos en la rue Pav\u00e9e Sainte-Andr\u00e9e que llegara a conocimiento de los habitantes de la casa. Monsieur St. Eustache, el enamorado de Marie, que se alojaba en casa de su madre, ha declarado que nada supo del descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver de su prometida hasta la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, cuando monsieur Beauvais se present\u00f3 en su habitaci\u00f3n y se lo cont\u00f3. Resulta cuanto menos sorprendente que recibiera una noticia semejante con tanta frialdad.\n\nDe este modo, el peri\u00f3dico se esforzaba por crear la impresi\u00f3n de cierta apat\u00eda por parte de los parientes de Marie, contradictoria con la suposici\u00f3n de que dichos parientes cre\u00edan que el cad\u00e1ver era el de la muchacha. Sus insinuaciones se reducen a esto: Marie, con la complicidad de sus amigos, se hab\u00eda ausentado de la ciudad por razones que implicaban el menoscabo de su virtud; esos mismos amigos, al descubrirse un cad\u00e1ver en el Sena que se parec\u00eda a la chica, hab\u00edan aprovechado la ocasi\u00f3n para convencer al p\u00fablico de su muerte. Pero, una vez m\u00e1s, L'\u00c9toile se apresuraba al sacar conclusiones. Pudo demostrarse que no se dio tal apat\u00eda: la anciana se\u00f1ora estaba muy d\u00e9bil y tan nerviosa que era incapaz de ocuparse de nada; St. Eustache, lejos de recibir la noticia con frialdad, se desesper\u00f3 y comport\u00f3 de tal modo que monsieur Beauvais tuvo que pedirle a un amigo y pariente suyo que se ocupara de \u00e9l y no le permitiese asistir a la exhumaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver. Adem\u00e1s, aunque L'\u00c9toile afirm\u00f3 que el entierro corri\u00f3 a cargo del erario p\u00fablico, que la familia declin\u00f3 una ventajosa oferta de una sepultura privada y que ning\u00fan familiar asisti\u00f3 a la ceremonia, para reforzar as\u00ed la impresi\u00f3n que el peri\u00f3dico pretend\u00eda transmitir, despu\u00e9s se demostr\u00f3 que nada de eso era cierto. En otro ejemplar del peri\u00f3dico se hizo un intento de desviar las sospechas hacia el propio Beauvais. El director afirma:\n\nSe ha producido una novedad en el caso. Se nos ha informado de que, en cierta ocasi\u00f3n, cuando madame B. se encontraba en casa de madame Rog\u00eat, monsieur Beauvais, que sal\u00eda en ese momento, le advirti\u00f3 de que no tardar\u00eda en presentarse all\u00ed un gendarme, y le pidi\u00f3 que no le dijera nada hasta que \u00e9l volviera a ocuparse personalmente del asunto... Tal como est\u00e1n las cosas, da la sensaci\u00f3n de que monsieur Beauvais guarda todos los datos en su cabeza. No se puede dar un solo paso sin contar con monsieur Beauvais, pues vayamos donde vayamos siempre acabamos tropezando con \u00e9l [...]. Por uno u otro motivo, decidi\u00f3 que nadie m\u00e1s que \u00e9l tuviese acceso a la investigaci\u00f3n, y se las ha arreglado para apartar a todos los parientes masculinos de un modo muy peculiar. Parece haberse mostrado tambi\u00e9n reacio a que los parientes vieran el cad\u00e1ver.\n\nHechos posteriores a\u00f1adieron cierta credibilidad a las sospechas arrojadas as\u00ed sobre Beauvais. Una persona que fue a visitarlo a su despacho unos d\u00edas antes de la desaparici\u00f3n de la joven, en un momento en que \u00e9l se encontraba fuera, hab\u00eda visto una rosa en la cerradura de la puerta y el nombre \u00abMarie\u00bb escrito en una pizarra peque\u00f1a que colgaba al lado.\n\nLa impresi\u00f3n general, por lo que pudimos espigar de los peri\u00f3dicos, fue que Marie hab\u00eda sido v\u00edctima de una banda de criminales, que la hab\u00edan llevado al otro lado del r\u00edo, maltratado y asesinado. Le Commerciel, no obstante, un peri\u00f3dico muy influyente, se esforz\u00f3 en combatir aquella idea popular. Cito un pasaje de dos de sus columnas:\n\nEstamos convencidos de que la investigaci\u00f3n ha seguido una falsa pista al encaminarse hacia la Barri\u00e8re du Roule. Es imposible que una persona como esta joven, a la que conoc\u00edan cientos de personas, recorriera tres manzanas sin que nadie la viera; por otro lado, cualquiera que la hubiese visto la habr\u00eda recordado, pues causaba impresi\u00f3n en cuantos la conoc\u00edan. Las calles estaban atestadas cuando sali\u00f3 [...]. Es imposible que pudiera llegar a la Barri\u00e8re du Roule o a la rue des Dr\u00f4mes sin que la reconociese al menos una docena de personas; sin embargo, no se ha encontrado a nadie que la viera salir de casa de su madre, y no hay m\u00e1s prueba de que as\u00ed lo hiciera que el testimonio que se refiere a las intenciones de Marie. Su vestido estaba desgarrado, enrollado en torno a su cuerpo y atado; y as\u00ed es como lo transportaron convertido en un fardo. Si el asesinato se hubiese cometido en la Barri\u00e8re du Roule no habr\u00eda habido necesidad de hacerlo. El hecho de que el cad\u00e1ver apareciese flotando cerca de la Barri\u00e8re no demuestra que la arrojaran al agua all\u00ed [...]. Alguien cort\u00f3 un trozo de treinta por sesenta cent\u00edmetros de las enaguas de la desdichada joven y la amordaz\u00f3 con \u00e9l para evitar sus gritos. Quienes hicieran esto no ten\u00edan pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo.\n\nNo obstante, un d\u00eda o dos antes de que el prefecto pasara a visitarnos, lleg\u00f3 a o\u00eddos de la polic\u00eda una informaci\u00f3n de inter\u00e9s que parec\u00eda desmentir al menos parte de los argumentos de Le Commerciel. Dos ni\u00f1os peque\u00f1os, hijos de una tal madame Deluc, que vagabundeaban por los bosques cerca de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule, entraron por casualidad en un espeso bosquecillo, en el que encontraron tres o cuatro piedras muy grandes que formaban una especie de asiento con respaldo y un reposapi\u00e9s. En la piedra superior hab\u00eda unas enaguas blancas, en la otra una bufanda de seda. Tambi\u00e9n se encontraron all\u00ed una sombrilla, unos guantes y un pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo. El pa\u00f1uelo llevaba el nombre de \u00abMarie Rog\u00eat\u00bb. Entre las zarzas de los alrededores se encontraron jirones del vestido. La tierra estaba pisoteada, los arbustos estaban quebrados y hab\u00eda otras pruebas de que se hab\u00eda producido una pelea. Se descubri\u00f3 que alguien hab\u00eda derribado las vallas que hab\u00eda entre el bosquecillo y el r\u00edo, y en el suelo se observaron se\u00f1ales de que hab\u00edan arrastrado por \u00e9l una pesada carga.\n\nUn peri\u00f3dico hebdomadario, Le Soleil hizo los siguientes comentarios sobre el hallazgo, que en realidad se limitaban a reflejar los sentimientos de toda la prensa parisina:\n\nEs evidente que los objetos hallados llevaban all\u00ed al menos tres o cuatro semanas; estaban rotos y enmohecidos por la lluvia, y el moho hab\u00eda hecho que se pegaran entre s\u00ed. La hierba hab\u00eda crecido en torno a algunos de ellos. La seda de la sombrilla era fuerte, pero por dentro los hilos se hab\u00edan pegado unos a otros. Los pliegues de la parte superior estaban enmohecidos y podridos y se rompieron al abrirla [...]. Los jirones de vestido desgarrados por los matorrales ten\u00edan unos siete por quince cent\u00edmetros. Uno de ellos era el dobladillo del vestido y estaba remendado; el otro era parte de la falda, pero no del dobladillo. Parec\u00edan tiras arrancadas y estaban entre las zarzas a unos treinta cent\u00edmetros del suelo [...]. No cabe la menor duda, por tanto, de que se ha descubierto el lugar donde se produjo tan espantoso ultraje.\n\nA ra\u00edz de dicho descubrimiento, aparecieron nuevas pruebas. Madame Deluc testific\u00f3 que regenta una taberna de carretera junto a la orilla del r\u00edo, enfrente de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule. Se trata de una zona particularmente solitaria, frecuentada por todos los rufianes de la ciudad, que acuden a ella en bote. A eso de las tres de la tarde del domingo de autos, lleg\u00f3 a la taberna una joven acompa\u00f1ada de un joven de tez morena. Los dos se quedaron un rato. Cuando se marcharon tomaron por un camino que conduce a unos bosques muy espesos que hay cerca de all\u00ed. Madame Deluc se fij\u00f3 en el vestido que llevaba la chica, debido a su parecido con el de una pariente fallecida. Repar\u00f3 sobre todo en su bufanda. Poco despu\u00e9s de la partida de la pareja, se present\u00f3 un grupo de maleantes, que se condujeron de forma escandalosa, comieron y bebieron, y luego se marcharon sin pagar por el mismo camino que la chica y el joven; al atardecer volvieron a la taberna y cruzaron el r\u00edo aparentemente con mucha prisa.\n\nPoco despu\u00e9s de oscurecer, esa misma noche, madame Deluc y su hijo mayor oyeron los gritos de una mujer cerca de la taberna. Los gritos fueron violentos pero duraron poco. Madame D. reconoci\u00f3 no s\u00f3lo la bufanda que apareci\u00f3 en el bosquecillo, sino el vestido que llevaba puesto el cad\u00e1ver. Un conductor de \u00f3mnibus, Valence, testific\u00f3 entonces que el domingo de autos hab\u00eda visto a Marie cruzar el Sena en un ferry en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un joven de tez morena. Valence conoc\u00eda a la muchacha y estaba seguro de no haberse confundido. Los parientes de Marie reconocieron todos los efectos encontrados en el bosquecillo.\n\nLas pruebas y testimonios que reun\u00ed a partir de los peri\u00f3dicos por petici\u00f3n de Dupin inclu\u00edan tan s\u00f3lo un punto m\u00e1s, aunque, al parecer, de enorme importancia. Justo despu\u00e9s de descubrirse la ropa tal como he descrito, se hall\u00f3 cerca del lugar donde se supon\u00eda que hab\u00eda ocurrido la agresi\u00f3n el cuerpo moribundo o sin vida de St. Eustache, el prometido de Marie. Junto a \u00e9l se encontr\u00f3 una botellita vac\u00eda con una etiqueta que dec\u00eda \u00abl\u00e1udano\u00bb. Su aliento dio testimonio del veneno. Muri\u00f3 sin decir palabra. En su traje hab\u00eda una carta, donde expresaba brevemente su amor por Marie y su intenci\u00f3n de suicidarse.\n\n\u2013No necesito decirle \u2013dijo Dupin en cuanto termin\u00f3 de hojear mis notas\u2013 que este caso es mucho m\u00e1s enrevesado que el de la rue Morgue, del que se diferencia en un aspecto muy importante. Tenemos aqu\u00ed un ejemplo de un crimen atroz, pero ordinario. No hay en \u00e9l nada particularmente outr\u00e9. Observar\u00e1 que, precisamente por ese motivo, se ha considerado tan dif\u00edcil de resolver. Por eso mismo al principio pareci\u00f3 innecesario ofrecer una recompensa. Los esbirros de G. creyeron comprender enseguida c\u00f3mo y por qu\u00e9 podr\u00eda haberse cometido semejante atrocidad. Imaginaron un modo, muchos modos, y un motivo, muchos motivos, y, como no era imposible que uno de esos m\u00faltiples modos y motivos pudiera ser el verdadero, dieron por supuesto que deb\u00eda serlo. Sin embargo, la rapidez con que se concibieron esas fantas\u00edas y la credibilidad que se les concedi\u00f3 deber\u00edan haberse tomado por un indicio m\u00e1s de las dificultades que de las facilidades a las que habr\u00eda que enfrentarse para resolver el caso. Ya le he dicho alguna vez que la raz\u00f3n se abre paso en busca de la verdad por encima del plano de lo ordinario, si es que ha de hacerlo, y la pregunta que debemos plantearnos en casos como \u00e9ste no es tanto \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 ha sucedido?\u00bb como \u00ab\u00bfQu\u00e9 ha sucedido que no haya sucedido nunca antes?\u00bb. En las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en casa de madame L'Espanaye, los agentes de G. se quedaron confusos y descorazonados precisamente por lo extra\u00f1o e infrecuente del caso, que, para un intelecto debidamente ordenado, habr\u00eda significado un presagio seguro de \u00e9xito; mientras que el car\u00e1cter ordinario de todas y cada una de las apariencias del caso de la perfumera podr\u00eda haber sumido a ese mismo intelecto en la desesperanza, precisamente mientras los funcionarios de la prefectura lo entend\u00edan como indicio de un f\u00e1cil triunfo.\n\n\u00bbEn el caso de madame L'Espanaye y su hija, no cab\u00eda la menor duda, incluso desde el principio de la investigaci\u00f3n, de que se hab\u00eda cometido un asesinato. La idea del suicidio qued\u00f3 descartada desde el principio. Aqu\u00ed tambi\u00e9n, podemos descartar, desde un primer momento, cualquier suposici\u00f3n en ese sentido. El cad\u00e1ver hallado en la Barri\u00e8re du Roule se encontraba en tal estado que no cabe la menor duda respecto a ese punto tan importante. Sin embargo, lleg\u00f3 a sugerirse que el cad\u00e1ver descubierto no era el de Marie Rog\u00eat, por la condena de cuyo asesino, o asesinos, se ofrece la recompensa, y por quien hemos llegado al acuerdo con el prefecto. Conocemos bien a dicho caballero y no creo que debamos confiar demasiado en \u00e9l. Si basamos nuestras investigaciones en el hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver y, al perseguir al asesino, descubrimos que el cad\u00e1ver es de otra persona, o averiguamos que Marie no fue asesinada y sigue con vida, nuestro esfuerzo habr\u00e1 sido en vano, pues con quien hemos hecho el trato es con monsieur G. Por nuestro inter\u00e9s, aunque no tanto por el de la justicia, el primer paso deber\u00eda ser comprobar que el cad\u00e1ver es el de la joven desaparecida.\n\n\u00bbLos argumentos de L'\u00c9toile han tenido amplia repercusi\u00f3n en la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica, y no hay m\u00e1s que ver c\u00f3mo empieza hoy uno de sus art\u00edculos para reparar en que el propio diario parece convencido de su importancia. \"Varios peri\u00f3dicos del d\u00eda \u2013afirma\u2013 hablan del concluyente art\u00edculo del lunes en L'\u00c9toile.\" En mi opini\u00f3n, lo \u00fanico que parece concluyente en ese art\u00edculo es el celo de quien lo ha redactado. Deber\u00edamos tener siempre presente que, en general, el objetivo de nuestros peri\u00f3dicos es m\u00e1s causar sensaci\u00f3n que promover la causa de la verdad. Esto s\u00f3lo lo hacen cuando coincide con lo primero. Una publicaci\u00f3n que se contenta con la opini\u00f3n m\u00e1s extendida (por muy fundamentada que est\u00e9) no logra el favor de la multitud. La masa popular s\u00f3lo considera profundo aquello que se encuentra en clara contradicci\u00f3n con la idea general. Tanto en el raciocinio como en la literatura, lo \u00fanico inmediata y universalmente aceptado es el epigrama. Y eso que, en ambos casos, ocupa el lugar m\u00e1s bajo en la escala de m\u00e9ritos.\n\n\u00bbA lo que me refiero es a que es la mezcla de epigrama y melodrama que apunta a que Marie Rog\u00eat siga con vida, y no su verdadera credibilidad, lo que ha hecho que L'\u00c9toile lo sugiera y lo que le ha ganado el favor del p\u00fablico. Examinemos los principales argumentos del peri\u00f3dico tratando de evitar la incoherencia con que se han expuesto.\n\n\u00bbEl principal objetivo del redactor es demostrar, por el escaso tiempo transcurrido entre la desaparici\u00f3n de Marie y el hallazgo del cad\u00e1ver en el r\u00edo, que es imposible que dicho cad\u00e1ver sea el de la joven, por lo que reducir al m\u00e1ximo dicho intervalo se convierte en su principal objetivo. Con tal de lograrlo, se deja arrastrar desde el primer momento por meras suposiciones. \"Es una locura suponer \u2013afirma\u2013 que el asesinato, si es que la joven muri\u00f3 asesinada, pudiese consumarse tan pronto y diera a los asesinos la oportunidad de arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al r\u00edo antes de la medianoche.\" Nada m\u00e1s natural que preguntarse a continuaci\u00f3n \u00bfpor qu\u00e9? \u00bfPor qu\u00e9 ha de ser una locura suponer que el asesinato se cometiera incluso cinco minutos despu\u00e9s de que la joven saliera de casa de su madre? \u00bfPor qu\u00e9 iba a serlo suponer que se produjo en cualquier otro momento del d\u00eda? Se han cometido asesinatos a todas horas. Si se hubiese perpetrado en cualquier momento entre las nueve de la ma\u00f1ana del domingo y un cuarto de hora antes de la medianoche, habr\u00eda habido tiempo de sobra para \"arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al r\u00edo antes de la medianoche\". La suposici\u00f3n se reduce por tanto a pensar que el asesinato no se cometi\u00f3 el domingo, y, si permitimos que L'\u00c9toile suponga eso, lo mismo podemos permitirle cualquier otra cosa. El p\u00e1rrafo que empieza \"Es una locura suponer que el asesinato, etc\u00e9tera\", tal como aparece en L'\u00c9toile, debi\u00f3 de concebirse as\u00ed en la imaginaci\u00f3n de quien lo redact\u00f3: \"Es una locura suponer que el asesinato, si es que la joven muri\u00f3 asesinada, pudiese consumarse tan pronto y diera a los asesinos la oportunidad de arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al r\u00edo antes de la medianoche; es una locura, decimos, suponer todo esto, y suponer al mismo tiempo (tal como estamos decididos a hacer) que el cad\u00e1ver no lo arrojaron al r\u00edo hasta despu\u00e9s de medianoche\", frase suficientemente inconsistente en s\u00ed misma, pero no tan absurda como la que imprimieron en realidad.\n\n\u00bbSi mi prop\u00f3sito fuese s\u00f3lo refutar este pasaje del argumento de L'\u00c9toile \u2013prosigui\u00f3 Dupin\u2013, podr\u00eda dejarlo aqu\u00ed. Pero no tenemos que hab\u00e9rnoslas con L'\u00c9toile, sino con la verdad. La frase en cuesti\u00f3n no tiene m\u00e1s que un sentido, tal como he demostrado, pero es imprescindible que vayamos m\u00e1s all\u00e1 en busca de la idea que esas palabras han tratado de insinuar sin conseguirlo. El prop\u00f3sito del periodista era sugerir que, en cualquier momento del d\u00eda o de la noche del domingo en que se cometiera el crimen, era improbable que los asesinos se arriesgasen a transportar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el r\u00edo antes de la medianoche. Y ah\u00ed radica, en realidad, la suposici\u00f3n contra la que protesto. Se da por sentado que el asesinato se cometi\u00f3 en un lugar y en unas circunstancias en las que fue necesario transportar el cad\u00e1ver hasta el r\u00edo. Ahora bien, el asesinato pudo cometerse a la orilla del r\u00edo, o en el mismo r\u00edo, por lo que pudieron arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al agua en cualquier momento del d\u00eda o de la noche, por tratarse del m\u00e9todo m\u00e1s evidente e inmediato de deshacerse de \u00e9l. Comprenda usted que no digo que se trate de algo probable o que sea \u00e9sa mi opini\u00f3n sobre lo sucedido. Mi prop\u00f3sito, hasta el momento, nada tiene que ver con los hechos del caso. Tan s\u00f3lo pretendo prevenirle contra el tono general de las sugerencias de L'\u00c9toile llamando su atenci\u00f3n sobre su car\u00e1cter tendencioso desde el primer momento.\n\n\u00bbDespu\u00e9s de poner l\u00edmite a sus propias ideas preconcebidas, y tras dar por supuesto que, si aqu\u00e9l era el cad\u00e1ver de Marie, deb\u00eda de llevar muy poco tiempo en el agua, el peri\u00f3dico prosigue diciendo: \"La experiencia demuestra que los cuerpos de los ahogados, o de aquellos a quienes se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta, no salen a flote hasta que, pasados de seis a diez d\u00edas, la descomposici\u00f3n es suficiente para devolverlos a la superficie. Incluso si se dispara un ca\u00f1onazo para sacar el cad\u00e1ver, vuelve a hundirse si no han transcurrido al menos cinco o seis d\u00edas desde el momento en que se produjo la inmersi\u00f3n.\"\n\n\u00bbTodos los peri\u00f3dicos de Par\u00eds, excepto Le Moniteur, han aceptado de manera t\u00e1cita tales afirmaciones. Esta \u00faltima publicaci\u00f3n s\u00f3lo se esfuerza por refutar la parte del p\u00e1rrafo que alude a los \"cuerpos de los ahogados\", y cita cinco o seis casos en los que los cad\u00e1veres de personas que fallecieron ahogadas se encontraron flotando en el r\u00edo antes de que transcurriera un lapso de tiempo como el que sostiene L'\u00c9toile. Pero el intento por parte de Le Moniteur de refutar toda la argumentaci\u00f3n de L'\u00c9toile citando unos cuantos ejemplos que la contradicen adolece de cierta falta de l\u00f3gica. Aunque hubiese sido posible alegar cincuenta en lugar de cinco ejemplos de cad\u00e1veres encontrados flotando en el r\u00edo al cabo de dos o tres d\u00edas, esos cincuenta ejemplos podr\u00edan seguir consider\u00e1ndose meras excepciones a la regla de L'\u00c9toile si \u00e9sta no puede desmentirse por completo. Si se admite la regla (y Le Moniteur no la niega en ning\u00fan momento, sino que se limita a insistir en sus excepciones), el argumento de L'\u00c9toile conserva toda su fuerza, pues no pretende otra cosa que cuestionar la probabilidad de que el cad\u00e1ver saliera a flote en menos de tres d\u00edas; y dicha probabilidad estar\u00e1 a favor de L'\u00c9toile hasta que los ejemplos tan puerilmente alegados sean suficientes para constituir una regla antag\u00f3nica.\n\n\u00bbComprender\u00e1 usted enseguida que toda argumentaci\u00f3n en esta l\u00ednea debe dirigirse contra la regla en s\u00ed, y para eso debemos examinar hasta qu\u00e9 punto es \u00e9sta razonable. Por lo general, el cuerpo humano no es ni m\u00e1s liviano ni mucho m\u00e1s pesado que las aguas del Sena; es decir, que el peso del cuerpo humano, en condiciones naturales, equivale poco m\u00e1s o menos al volumen de agua dulce que desplaza. Los cuerpos de las personas m\u00e1s gruesas y corpulentas, de huesos peque\u00f1os y, en general, los de las mujeres son m\u00e1s ligeros que los cuerpos delgados, de huesos grandes y los de los hombres; adem\u00e1s, el peso espec\u00edfico del agua de un r\u00edo se ve m\u00e1s o menos influido por el flujo procedente del mar. Pero, dejando esto aparte, puede afirmarse que muy pocos cuerpos se hundir\u00edan por s\u00ed mismos, incluso en agua dulce. Casi todos los que caen a un r\u00edo logran mantenerse a flote, si consiguen equilibrar el peso espec\u00edfico del agua con el suyo, es decir, si quedan casi sumergidos con el m\u00ednimo posible fuera del agua. La posici\u00f3n ideal para alguien que no sepa nadar es la vertical, como si estuviese andando sobre el suelo, con la cabeza echada hacia atr\u00e1s y sumergida, dejando fuera la boca y la nariz. En esa postura podremos flotar sin dificultad y sin esfuerzo. Es evidente, no obstante, que el peso del cuerpo y el de la masa de agua desplazada estar\u00e1n en un equilibrio muy precario y la menor diferencia har\u00e1 que predomine uno de ellos. Por ejemplo, un brazo levantado fuera del agua, y privado as\u00ed de su sost\u00e9n, ser\u00e1 un peso adicional, suficiente para sumergir toda la cabeza, mientras que la ayuda de un peque\u00f1o trozo de madera nos permitir\u00e1 sacar la cabeza del agua lo bastante para mirar a nuestro alrededor. Pues bien, siempre que alguien que no sabe nadar se debate en el agua, eleva indefectiblemente los brazos mientras trata de conservar la cabeza en su posici\u00f3n perpendicular habitual. El resultado es la inmersi\u00f3n de la nariz y la boca, y la entrada, en los consiguientes esfuerzos por respirar, de agua en los pulmones. Mucha entra tambi\u00e9n en el est\u00f3mago y el cuerpo se vuelve as\u00ed m\u00e1s pesado por la diferencia entre el peso del aire que ocupaba originalmente dichas cavidades y el fluido que las llena ahora. Esta diferencia basta, por lo general, para que el cuerpo se hunda, pero no en el caso de individuos de huesos peque\u00f1os y con una excesiva cantidad de materia grasa. Dichos individuos siguen a flote incluso despu\u00e9s de ahogarse.\n\n\u00bbSuponiendo que el cuerpo se hunda hasta el fondo del r\u00edo, all\u00ed seguir\u00e1 hasta que, por alg\u00fan motivo, su peso espec\u00edfico vuelva a ser menor que el de la masa de agua que desplaza. Esto puede deberse a la descomposici\u00f3n u otros motivos. El resultado de la descomposici\u00f3n es la generaci\u00f3n de gas, que distiende los tejidos celulares y todas las cavidades y produce esa apariencia hinchada tan horrible. Cuando la distensi\u00f3n llega a ser tan grande que el cuerpo aumenta de tama\u00f1o sin que se produzca el correspondiente aumento de masa, su peso espec\u00edfico se vuelve menor que el del agua que desplaza y, en consecuencia, emerge a la superficie. Pero la descomposici\u00f3n depende de innumerables circunstancias y se acelera o retrasa por un sinf\u00edn de motivos: por ejemplo, por el fr\u00edo o el calor de la estaci\u00f3n, por la impregnaci\u00f3n de minerales o la pureza del agua, por la profundidad, por la corriente o el estancamiento de \u00e9sta, y por las caracter\u00edsticas del cuerpo, seg\u00fan si estaba sano o enfermo antes de producirse la muerte. Por eso mismo, es imposible establecer con seguridad el momento preciso en que emerger\u00e1 el cuerpo a ra\u00edz de la descomposici\u00f3n. En ciertas condiciones, el acontecimiento puede producirse al cabo de una hora; en otras, puede no llegar a suceder jam\u00e1s. Hay preparados qu\u00edmicos, como el bicloruro de mercurio, mediante los cuales un cuerpo puede preservarse para siempre de la corrupci\u00f3n. Pero, aparte de por la descomposici\u00f3n, puede generarse, y as\u00ed ocurre a menudo, gas en el interior del est\u00f3mago por la fermentaci\u00f3n acetosa de la materia vegetal (o en el interior de otras cavidades por diversos motivos), suficiente para crear una distensi\u00f3n capaz de sacar el cad\u00e1ver a la superficie. El efecto causado por el disparo de un ca\u00f1\u00f3n es s\u00f3lo el de una vibraci\u00f3n, que puede liberar el cad\u00e1ver del fango o limo en que est\u00e9 enterrado, permitiendo as\u00ed que emerja cuando otros factores lo hayan preparado para ello, o ayudar a vencer la resistencia de algunas partes putrescentes de los tejidos celulares permitiendo que las cavidades se distiendan bajo la influencia del gas.\n\n\u00bbUna vez tenemos ante nosotros toda la ciencia de este asunto, podemos refutar f\u00e1cilmente las afirmaciones de L'\u00c9toile. \"La experiencia demuestra \u2013dice el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 que los cuerpos de los ahogados, o de aquellos a quienes se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta, no salen a flote hasta que, pasados de seis a diez d\u00edas, la descomposici\u00f3n es suficiente para devolverlos a la superficie. Incluso si se dispara un ca\u00f1onazo para sacar el cad\u00e1ver, vuelve a hundirse si no han transcurrido al menos cinco o seis d\u00edas desde el momento en que se produjo la inmersi\u00f3n.\"\n\n\u00bbEs evidente que todo el p\u00e1rrafo no es m\u00e1s que un encadenamiento de inconsecuencias e incoherencias. La experiencia no demuestra que hayan de pasar de seis a diez d\u00edas para que la descomposici\u00f3n devuelva a la superficie los cuerpos de los ahogados. Tanto la ciencia como la experiencia demuestran que el momento en que emergen es, y debe ser por fuerza, imposible de determinar. Si, por otra parte, un cad\u00e1ver sale a flote por el disparo de un ca\u00f1\u00f3n, no \"volver\u00e1 a hundirse\" hasta que la descomposici\u00f3n haya progresado lo suficiente para permitir la salida del gas generado en su interior. Quiero, no obstante, llamar su atenci\u00f3n sobre c\u00f3mo se distingue entre los \"cuerpos de los ahogados\" y los de \"aquellos a quienes se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta\". Aunque el autor admita que hay una diferencia, incluye a ambos en la misma categor\u00eda. Ya le he mostrado c\u00f3mo el cuerpo de una persona que se est\u00e1 ahogando se vuelve m\u00e1s pesado que la masa de agua que desplaza, y que no se hundir\u00eda de no ser porque al debatirse eleva los brazos por encima de la superficie y en sus esfuerzos por respirar ingiere agua que reemplaza el aire que hab\u00eda en sus pulmones. Pero estos esfuerzos y respiraciones no los hace un cad\u00e1ver al que \"se arroja al agua despu\u00e9s de una muerte violenta\". Por ello, lo habitual es que, en estos casos, el cuerpo no se hunda, circunstancia que evidentemente ignora L'\u00c9toile. Cuando la descomposici\u00f3n est\u00e9 muy avanzada \u2013cuando la carne se haya desprendido en gran medida de los huesos\u2013, entonces, y s\u00f3lo entonces, es cuando perderemos de vista el cad\u00e1ver.\n\n\u00bb\u00bfQu\u00e9 decir ahora del argumento de que el cuerpo encontrado no pod\u00eda ser el de Marie Rog\u00eat porque hab\u00eda aparecido flotando s\u00f3lo tres d\u00edas despu\u00e9s de su desaparici\u00f3n? De haberse ahogado, pudo no hundirse nunca, por tratarse de una mujer, y, en caso de que se hubiese hundido, pudo reaparecer al cabo de veinticuatro horas o menos. Pero nadie dice que se ahogara; y, de haber muerto antes de que la arrojaran al r\u00edo, habr\u00edan podido encontrarla a flote en cualquier momento.\n\n\u00bb\"Pero \u2013dice L'\u00c9toile\u2013, si hubiesen dejado el cad\u00e1ver maltratado en la orilla hasta la noche del martes, sin duda se habr\u00edan encontrado huellas de los asesinos.\" Al principio, resulta dif\u00edcil comprender la intenci\u00f3n del redactor. Trata de anticiparse a lo que considera una posible objeci\u00f3n a su teor\u00eda: que dejaran el cad\u00e1ver en la orilla dos d\u00edas sometido a una r\u00e1pida descomposici\u00f3n, m\u00e1s r\u00e1pida que de haber estado sumergido en el agua. Supone que, en ese caso, podr\u00eda haber aparecido a flote el mi\u00e9rcoles, y cree que s\u00f3lo dadas tales circunstancias podr\u00eda haberlo hecho. Por tanto se apresura a demostrar que es imposible que lo dejaran en la orilla, pues en ese caso \"se habr\u00edan encontrado huellas de los asesinos\". Lo imagino a usted sonriendo ante este sequitur. No comprende por qu\u00e9 la mera presencia del cad\u00e1ver en la orilla podr\u00eda multiplicar las huellas de los asesinos. Ni yo tampoco.\n\n\u00bb\"Y, lo que es m\u00e1s, resulta muy improbable \u2013prosigue el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 que los malvados que supuestamente hab\u00edan cometido semejante asesinato arrojaran el cad\u00e1ver al agua sin un peso para hundirlo, cuando habr\u00eda sido tan f\u00e1cil hacerlo.\" \u00a1Observe aqu\u00ed cu\u00e1n risible es semejante confusi\u00f3n de pensamiento! Nadie, ni siquiera L'\u00c9toile, cuestiona que se haya cometido un asesinato. Los signos de violencia son demasiado evidentes. El \u00fanico prop\u00f3sito del redactor es demostrar que el cuerpo no es el de Marie. Pretende demostrar que Marie no fue asesinada, sin dudar de que el cad\u00e1ver encontrado lo haya sido. Pero sus observaciones s\u00f3lo prueban lo segundo. He aqu\u00ed un cad\u00e1ver al que no han atado ning\u00fan peso. Si lo hubieran echado al agua los asesinos, le habr\u00edan puesto uno. Luego no lo arrojaron al agua los asesinos. Si algo se prueba, es s\u00f3lo eso. La cuesti\u00f3n de la identidad ni siquiera se plantea, y L'\u00c9toile se ha tomado tantas molestias s\u00f3lo para contradecir lo que admit\u00eda un momento antes. \"Estamos totalmente convencidos \u2013afirma\u2013 de que el cuerpo encontrado es el de una mujer asesinada.\"\n\n\u00bbNo es \u00e9sta la \u00fanica ocasi\u00f3n en que el redactor se contradice sin darse cuenta. Su principal objetivo, tal como he dicho, es reducir lo m\u00e1s posible el per\u00edodo entre la desaparici\u00f3n de Marie y el hallazgo de su cad\u00e1ver. Sin embargo, lo vemos insistir en el hecho de que nadie vio a la chica desde el momento en que sali\u00f3 de casa de su madre. \"No hay pruebas \u2013dice\u2013 de que Marie Rog\u00eat se encontrara a\u00fan entre los vivos despu\u00e9s de las nueve del domingo 22 de junio.\" Dado que se trata de un argumento claramente parcial, m\u00e1s le valdr\u00eda haberlo dejado de lado, pues, en caso de que alguien hubiese visto a Marie, digamos el lunes o el martes, el intervalo en cuesti\u00f3n se habr\u00eda reducido mucho, y seg\u00fan su propio razonamiento la probabilidad de que se tratara del cad\u00e1ver de la grisette habr\u00eda disminuido igualmente. No obstante, resulta divertido observar c\u00f3mo insiste L'\u00c9toile en ese punto, convencido de que refuerza su argumentaci\u00f3n general.\n\n\u00bbVolvamos a examinar ahora la parte del art\u00edculo que se refiere a la identificaci\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver por parte de Beauvais. Respecto al vello del brazo, L'\u00c9toile ha sido muy poco ingenioso. A menos que monsieur Beauvais sea un idiota, jam\u00e1s habr\u00eda basado su identificaci\u00f3n s\u00f3lo en el vello del brazo. Ning\u00fan brazo carece de vello. La generalizaci\u00f3n en que incurre L'\u00c9toile es una mera perversi\u00f3n de la fraseolog\u00eda del testigo. Puede que citase alguna peculiaridad del vello, referida tal vez al color, la cantidad, la longitud o su situaci\u00f3n.\n\n\u00bb\"Su pie \u2013dice el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 era peque\u00f1o, pero tambi\u00e9n lo son otros tantos miles de pies. Los zapatos o las ligas tampoco constituyen ninguna prueba, pues ambas cosas se venden en lotes. Lo mismo se puede decir de las flores de su sombrero. Monsieur Beauvais insiste en que el cierre de la liga encontrada hab\u00eda sido cambiado de sitio para que ajustara. Lo cual es como no decir nada, pues la mayor\u00eda de las mujeres prefiere llevarse las ligas a casa y ajust\u00e1rselas all\u00ed a la pierna antes que prob\u00e1rselas en la tienda.\" Aqu\u00ed resulta dif\u00edcil creer que el redactor est\u00e9 hablando en serio. Si monsieur Beauvais, en su b\u00fasqueda del cuerpo de Marie, encontr\u00f3 un cad\u00e1ver cuyo tama\u00f1o y aspecto se correspond\u00eda con los de la joven desaparecida, es de suponer que supusiera que hab\u00eda dado con ella sin pararse a hacer mayores consideraciones sobre su vestimenta. Si, adem\u00e1s del tama\u00f1o y el aspecto general, descubri\u00f3 en su brazo un vello peculiar similar al que hab\u00eda observado en la muchacha cuando estaba con vida, su opini\u00f3n debi\u00f3 de reforzarse con raz\u00f3n, precisamente por la peculiaridad de dicho vello. Si los pies del cad\u00e1ver eran peque\u00f1os, al igual que los de Marie, la probabilidad de que se tratase del cad\u00e1ver de \u00e9sta aumentar\u00eda no en proporci\u00f3n meramente aritm\u00e9tica, sino geom\u00e9trica o acumulativa. A\u00f1\u00e1danse a eso los zapatos, similares a los que llevaba el d\u00eda en que desapareci\u00f3, y, aunque sea cierto que se \"vendan en lotes\", la probabilidad habr\u00e1 aumentado hasta casi rozar la certeza. Algo que, en s\u00ed mismo, no ser\u00eda ninguna prueba de identidad se convierte, por su funci\u00f3n corroborativa, en la m\u00e1s segura de las pruebas. Sumemos a eso las flores en el sombrero, id\u00e9nticas a las que llevaba la joven desaparecida, y no necesitaremos buscar nada m\u00e1s. Y, si una flor nos bastar\u00eda para no pedir ninguna otra prueba, \u00bfqu\u00e9 diremos de dos, tres o m\u00e1s? Cada prueba a\u00f1adida no se suma a las dem\u00e1s, sino que se multiplica por cientos o miles. Descubramos ahora, en el cad\u00e1ver, unas ligas como las que utilizaba la fallecida y casi parece absurdo seguir dudando. Pero es que adem\u00e1s las ligas estaban ajustadas moviendo el cierre del mismo modo en que lo hab\u00eda hecho Marie poco antes de salir de casa. Dudar es ahora locura o hipocres\u00eda. Lo que dice L'\u00c9toile respecto a que dicho acortamiento de las ligas es algo frecuente demuestra tan s\u00f3lo su propia pertinacia en el error. La naturaleza el\u00e1stica de las ligas prueba por s\u00ed misma que no suele ser necesario acortarlas. Lo que est\u00e1 hecho para ajustarse solo no requiere por lo general volver a ser ajustado. Que Marie tuviese que ajustarse las ligas tal como se ha descrito debi\u00f3 de ser algo accidental en sentido estricto, por lo que deber\u00edan haber bastado por s\u00ed solas para establecer su identidad. Pero no es s\u00f3lo que el cad\u00e1ver tuviera las ligas de la joven desaparecida, ni sus zapatos, o su sombrero, o las flores del sombrero, o sus pies, o la peculiar se\u00f1al en el brazo, o su mismo tama\u00f1o y aspecto, sino que ten\u00eda todas y cada una de esas cosas juntas. Si pudiera probarse que el director de L'\u00c9toile albergaba verdaderamente alguna duda dadas las circunstancias, en su caso no habr\u00eda necesidad de solicitar un de lunatico inquirendo. Le ha parecido muy sagaz hacerse eco de la ch\u00e1chara de los abogados, quienes, en su mayor parte, se contentan a su vez con repetir los preceptos angulosos de los tribunales. Me parece pertinente observar aqu\u00ed que gran parte de las pruebas que se rechazan en los tribunales son la mejor de las pruebas para la inteligencia. Pues el tribunal, guiado por los principios generales de la evidencia \u2013principios reconocidos y registrados\u2013, rechaza apartarse de ellos en casos particulares. La firme adhesi\u00f3n a dichos principios, unida al desprecio por las excepciones, es un medio seguro de alcanzar el m\u00e1ximo de verdad alcanzable en un per\u00edodo largo de tiempo. La pr\u00e1ctica indiscriminada es, por tanto, razonable, aunque engendre muchos errores individuales.\n\n\u00bbRespecto a las insinuaciones vertidas contra Beauvais estar\u00e1 usted dispuesto a desecharlas de un plumazo. Ya habr\u00e1 comprendido usted la verdadera personalidad de tan excelente caballero. Es un entrometido con mucha noveler\u00eda y muy pocas luces. Y cualquier persona as\u00ed, en una situaci\u00f3n tan indiscutiblemente conmocionante como \u00e9sta, se comporta de un modo que atrae las sospechas de los suspicaces y malintencionados. Monsieur Beauvais (seg\u00fan consta en las notas que tom\u00f3 usted) se entrevist\u00f3 varias veces con el director de L'\u00c9toile y lo contrari\u00f3 al aventurar la opini\u00f3n de que el cad\u00e1ver, a pesar de su teor\u00eda, era sin duda alguna el de Marie. \"Insiste en afirmar \u2013dice el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 que el cad\u00e1ver era el de Marie, pero no aporta prueba alguna, adem\u00e1s de las ya comentadas, para convencer a los dem\u00e1s.\" Sin insistir en el hecho de que aportar mejores pruebas \"para convencer a los dem\u00e1s\" habr\u00eda sido imposible, vale la pena observar que, en un caso as\u00ed, un hombre puede estar convencido, y ser incapaz de ofrecer una sola raz\u00f3n de su convencimiento a un tercero. No hay nada m\u00e1s vago que las impresiones sobre la identidad personal. Todo el mundo reconoce a su vecino, pero no siempre se pueden dar razones que justifiquen ese reconocimiento. El director de L'\u00c9toile no ten\u00eda derecho a ofenderse por la irracional creencia de monsieur Beauvais.\n\n\u00bbLas sospechosas circunstancias que lo rodean encajan mucho mejor con mi hip\u00f3tesis del entrometido lleno de noveler\u00eda que con las insinuaciones de culpabilidad vertidas por el redactor. Una vez adoptada la interpretaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s caritativa, no tendremos dificultad en comprender lo de la rosa en el agujero de la cerradura; lo de \"Marie\" escrito en la pizarra; lo de que se las arreglara \"para apartar a todos los parientes masculinos\"; lo de que se mostrara tan \"reacio a que los parientes vieran el cad\u00e1ver\"; lo de que advirtiera a madame B. de que no hablase con el gendarme hasta que \u00e9l regresara; y, por \u00faltimo, su aparente determinaci\u00f3n de que \"nadie m\u00e1s que \u00e9l tuviese acceso a la investigaci\u00f3n\". En mi opini\u00f3n, es incuestionable que Beauvais era pretendiente de Marie, que la joven coqueteaba con \u00e9l y que nuestro hombre deseaba dar la impresi\u00f3n de disfrutar de su intimidad y confianza. No insistir\u00e9 m\u00e1s en este punto. Y, dado que las pruebas contradicen totalmente las afirmaciones de L'\u00c9toile respecto a la supuesta apat\u00eda de la madre y los dem\u00e1s parientes, una apat\u00eda contradictoria con su convencimiento de que el cad\u00e1ver era el de la perfumera, proseguiremos como si la cuesti\u00f3n de la identidad estuviese demostrada a nuestra entera satisfacci\u00f3n.\n\n\u2013Y \u00bfqu\u00e9 opina usted \u2013pregunt\u00e9\u2013 de las opiniones de Le Commerciel?\n\n\u2013Que, en esencia, merecen mucha m\u00e1s atenci\u00f3n que cualquiera de las que se han formulado sobre el asunto. Las deducciones de las premisas son agudas y razonables, aunque al menos en dos casos se basan en observaciones imperfectas. Le Commerciel pretende dar a entender que Marie fue atacada por un grupo de rufianes cerca de casa de su madre. \"Es imposible\u2013 afirma\u2013 que una persona como esta joven, a la que conoc\u00edan cientos de personas, recorriera tres manzanas sin que nadie la viera.\" Es una idea t\u00edpica de un hombre que vive desde hace mucho tiempo en Par\u00eds, un hombre p\u00fablico, cuyas idas y venidas por la ciudad se limitan a la proximidad de las oficinas p\u00fablicas. Sabe que raras veces se aleja a m\u00e1s de una docena de manzanas de su bureau sin que lo reconozcan y saluden. Y, consciente de sus relaciones personales, compara su propia notoriedad con la de la perfumera, no ve gran diferencia entre ambas y llega a la conclusi\u00f3n de que cuando la joven sal\u00eda de paseo deb\u00edan de reconocerla igual que a \u00e9l. Y \u00e9se ser\u00eda ciertamente el caso si sus paseos tuviesen la misma naturaleza met\u00f3dica e invariable y fuesen tan limitados como los suyos. \u00c9l va de aqu\u00ed para all\u00e1 a intervalos regulares, dentro de un c\u00edrculo reducido de personas que lo conocen porque, debido a su ocupaci\u00f3n, tienen intereses similares. Sin embargo, podemos suponer que los paseos de Marie fuesen de naturaleza errabunda. En este caso concreto, lo m\u00e1s probable es que tomara una ruta distinta a la acostumbrada. El paralelismo que hemos supuesto en la imaginaci\u00f3n de Le Commerciel s\u00f3lo podr\u00eda sostenerse si se tratara de dos personas que atravesaran la ciudad de un extremo al otro. En ese caso, si aceptamos que el n\u00famero de conocidos de cada cual es parecido, tambi\u00e9n ser\u00eda similar la probabilidad de que ambos se encontrasen con alg\u00fan amigo. Por mi parte, no s\u00f3lo me parece posible, sino mucho m\u00e1s que probable que Marie recorriera muchas veces las calles que llevan de su casa a la de su t\u00eda sin encontrarse con nadie que la conociera. Al considerar la cuesti\u00f3n como es debido, debemos tener presente la gran desproporci\u00f3n entre las amistades personales incluso de la persona m\u00e1s popular de Par\u00eds y la poblaci\u00f3n de dicha ciudad.\n\n\u00bbPero, por mucha fuerza que parezcan tener las sugerencias de Le Commerciel, el caso es que disminuye mucho si tenemos en cuenta la hora a la que sali\u00f3 la chica. \"Las calles estaban atestadas cuando sali\u00f3\", afirma el peri\u00f3dico. Sin embargo no es as\u00ed. Eran las nueve en punto de la ma\u00f1ana. A las nueve en punto de la ma\u00f1ana de cualquier d\u00eda de la semana, con la excepci\u00f3n del domingo, las calles de la ciudad est\u00e1n, es cierto, atestadas de gente. A las nueve de un domingo, el populacho est\u00e1 todav\u00eda en su casa, prepar\u00e1ndose para ir a la iglesia. A nadie puede pas\u00e1rsele por alto cu\u00e1n particularmente desiertas est\u00e1n las calles de la ciudad de ocho a diez de la ma\u00f1ana del domingo. Entre las diez y las once est\u00e1n atestadas, pero no tan pronto como hemos dicho.\n\n\u00bbHay otro aspecto en el que parece observarse un error de observaci\u00f3n por parte de Le Commerciel. \"Alguien \u2013afirma\u2013 cort\u00f3 un trozo de treinta por sesenta cent\u00edmetros de las enaguas de la desdichada joven y la amordaz\u00f3 con \u00e9l para evitar sus gritos. Quienes hicieran esto no ten\u00edan pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo.\" Despu\u00e9s trataremos de demostrar si esta idea est\u00e1 o no bien fundada, pero est\u00e1 claro que con lo de personas que \"no ten\u00edan pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo\" el director se refiere a delincuentes de la peor estofa. No obstante, da la casualidad de que precisamente esa clase de malhechores siempre llevan pa\u00f1uelo aunque carezcan hasta de camisa. Habr\u00e1 reparado usted en lo indispensable que se ha vuelto el pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo para un granuja.\n\n\u2013\u00bfY qu\u00e9 debemos pensar \u2013pregunt\u00e9\u2013 del art\u00edculo de Le Soleil?\n\n\u2013Pues que es una aut\u00e9ntica l\u00e1stima que su autor no naciera loro, en cuyo caso habr\u00eda sido el m\u00e1s ilustre de su especie. Se ha limitado a repetir opiniones ya publicadas, espig\u00e1ndolas con loable esfuerzo de uno y otro peri\u00f3dico. \"Es evidente que los objetos hallados llevaban all\u00ed al menos tres o cuatro semanas \u2013afirma\u2013 y no cabe la menor duda de que se ha descubierto el lugar donde se produjo tan espantoso ultraje.\" Los hechos reproducidos aqu\u00ed por Le Soleil est\u00e1n muy lejos de eliminar todas mis dudas al respecto, y despu\u00e9s los examinaremos con m\u00e1s atenci\u00f3n al tratar otro aspecto del asunto.\n\n\u00bbOcup\u00e9monos ahora de otras investigaciones. Habr\u00e1 reparado usted en la considerable negligencia con que se examin\u00f3 el cad\u00e1ver. Desde luego, la cuesti\u00f3n de la identidad debi\u00f3 de quedar probada enseguida, pero hab\u00eda otras cosas que determinar. \u00bfHab\u00edan despojado al cad\u00e1ver en alg\u00fan sentido? \u00bfLlevaba la fallecida joyas al salir de casa? Y, en tal caso, \u00bflas llevaba cuando la encontraron? Son cuestiones de gran importancia que se descuidaron por completo al reunir las pruebas, y hay otras de igual relevancia a las que tampoco se prest\u00f3 ninguna atenci\u00f3n. Tendremos que tratar de averiguarlas por nuestra cuenta. Habr\u00e1 que volver a examinar el caso de St. Eustache. No sospecho de \u00e9l, pero lo mejor ser\u00e1 proceder de forma met\u00f3dica. Comprobaremos sin dejar lugar a dudas la validez de sus declaraciones sobre su paradero el pasado domingo. Estas declaraciones son f\u00e1ciles de tergiversar. No obstante, si no encontramos nada raro, lo descartaremos de nuestras investigaciones. Su suicidio, aunque corroborar\u00eda las sospechas si sus declaraciones resultaran enga\u00f1osas, no ser\u00eda ni mucho menos inexplicable en caso contrario y tampoco deber\u00eda apartarnos de nuestra l\u00ednea normal de an\u00e1lisis.\n\n\u00bbLo que me propongo hacer ahora es dejar a un lado el n\u00facleo de la tragedia y centrar nuestra atenci\u00f3n en sus aleda\u00f1os. Uno de los errores m\u00e1s frecuentes en investigaciones como \u00e9sta consiste en limitar las pesquisas a lo inmediato y despreciar los hechos colindantes o circunstanciales. Los tribunales siguen la mala pr\u00e1ctica de reducir las pruebas y los testimonios a lo aparentemente relevante. Sin embargo, la experiencia demuestra, al igual que la l\u00f3gica, que una parte muy grande, tal vez la m\u00e1s grande, de la verdad surge de lo que parece irrelevante. Gracias al esp\u00edritu, si no a la letra, de este principio, la ciencia moderna ha decidido hacer sus c\u00e1lculos bas\u00e1ndose en lo imprevisto. Pero tal vez no me comprenda usted. La historia del conocimiento humano ha demostrado constantemente que los m\u00e1s valiosos descubrimientos se deben a hechos colindantes, incidentales o incluso accidentales, hasta el punto de que, por el bien del progreso, se ha hecho necesario invertir mucho en inventos que surgen por casualidad y totalmente al margen de lo esperable. Ya no es l\u00f3gico basarse en lo que ha sido para prever lo que ser\u00e1. Lo accidental se considera parte de la subestructura. Lo casual pasa a ser objeto de c\u00e1lculo absoluto. Sometemos lo inesperado y lo inconcebible a las f\u00f3rmulas matem\u00e1ticas de las escuelas.\n\n\u00bbRepito que es un hecho demostrado que la mayor parte de la verdad surge de lo colindante y, seg\u00fan el esp\u00edritu del principio que eso implica, apartar\u00e9 nuestras pesquisas en este caso de las trilladas y hasta ahora infructuosas pistas del suceso para estudiar las circunstancias que lo rodean. Mientras usted comprueba la validez de esas declaraciones, yo examinar\u00e9 los peri\u00f3dicos de forma m\u00e1s general de lo que lo ha hecho usted. Hasta ahora no hemos hecho m\u00e1s que reconocer el terreno de la investigaci\u00f3n, y me extra\u00f1ar\u00eda que una indagaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s extensa como la que le propongo no nos deparase algunos datos insignificantes que establezcan una direcci\u00f3n para nuestras investigaciones.\n\nSiguiendo las instrucciones de Dupin, verifiqu\u00e9 cuidadosamente las declaraciones. El resultado fue un firme convencimiento de su verosimilitud y de la consecuente inocencia de St. Eustache. Entretanto, mi amigo se entretuvo estudiando, con una minuciosidad que, a mi entender, carec\u00eda de objeto, los diversos archivos period\u00edsticos. Al cabo de una semana, me mostr\u00f3 los siguientes pasajes:\n\nHar\u00e1 ahora tres a\u00f1os y medio, la desaparici\u00f3n de esta misma Marie Rog\u00eat de la parfumerie de monsieur Le Blanc, en el Palais Royal, caus\u00f3 un revuelo muy semejante. No obstante, al cabo de una semana, volvi\u00f3 a encontr\u00e1rsela detr\u00e1s del mostrador tan bien como siempre, aunque con una leve palidez nada habitual en ella. Monsieur Le Blanc y la madre de la chica declararon que Marie hab\u00eda ido a visitar a una amiga en el campo, y el asunto se silenci\u00f3 a toda prisa. Presumimos que esta otra ausencia obedece a un capricho de la misma naturaleza, y que, transcurrida una semana, o tal vez un mes, volveremos a tenerla entre nosotros. Peri\u00f3dico vespertino, lunes 23 de junio.\n\nUn diario vespertino alud\u00eda ayer a la misteriosa desaparici\u00f3n previa de mademoiselle Rog\u00eat. Es bien conocido que la semana en que se ausent\u00f3 de la parfumerie de Le Blanc estuvo en compa\u00f1\u00eda de un joven oficial de la marina notorio por su libertinaje. Se cree que una disputa providencial la impuls\u00f3 a regresar a casa. Conocemos el nombre del Romeo en cuesti\u00f3n (que, actualmente, se encuentra acuartelado en Par\u00eds), pero por razones evidentes no lo haremos p\u00fablico. Le Mercure, ma\u00f1ana del martes 24 de junio.\n\nAnteayer se perpetr\u00f3 un atroz atentado cerca de esta ciudad. Un caballero, acompa\u00f1ado de su mujer y su hija, contrat\u00f3 los servicios de seis j\u00f3venes que paseaban en bote cerca de la orilla del Sena para que los llevaran al otro lado. Al llegar a la orilla opuesta, los tres pasajeros desembarcaron y se alejaron hasta perder de vista el bote. Entonces la hija repar\u00f3 en que hab\u00eda olvidado su sombrilla. Al volver a buscarla, la asaltaron, la llevaron al r\u00edo, la amordazaron y la ultrajaron, y por fin la devolvieron a la orilla no muy lejos de donde hab\u00eda subido al bote con sus padres. Los criminales han escapado de momento, pero la polic\u00eda sigue su pista y pronto apresar\u00e1 a algunos de ellos. Peri\u00f3dico matutino, 25 de junio.\n\nHemos recibido una o dos comunicaciones, que pretenden culpar a Mennais de esta \u00faltima atrocidad, pero, puesto que dicho caballero ha sido exonerado por la investigaci\u00f3n y dado que los argumentos de quienes nos escriben parecen m\u00e1s entusiastas que fundados, no nos parece oportuno darlas a conocer. Peri\u00f3dico matutino, 28 de junio.\n\nHemos recibido varias comunicaciones muy convincentes, y que, al parecer, proceden de distintas fuentes, que dan por seguro que la desdichada Marie Rog\u00eat fue v\u00edctima de una de las muchas bandas de maleantes que infestan los domingos las afueras de la ciudad. Nuestra propia opini\u00f3n se inclina decididamente a favor de dicha hip\u00f3tesis. En pr\u00f3ximas ediciones expondremos dichos argumentos. Peri\u00f3dico vespertino, martes 31 de junio.\n\nEl lunes, uno de los marineros de las gabarras del servicio de aduanas encontr\u00f3 un bote vac\u00edo flotando en el Sena. La vela estaba en el fondo del bote. El marinero lo arrastr\u00f3 hasta el muelle de gabarras. A la ma\u00f1ana siguiente, lo retiraron de all\u00ed sin el conocimiento de ninguno de los agentes de aduanas. El tim\u00f3n se halla ahora en sus oficinas. La Diligence, jueves 26 de junio.\n\nAl leer los pasajes, no s\u00f3lo me parecieron irrelevantes, sino que no acert\u00e9 a comprender de qu\u00e9 modo pod\u00edan relacionarse con el caso. Esper\u00e9 alguna explicaci\u00f3n de Dupin.\n\n\u2013No es mi intenci\u00f3n, de momento \u2013dijo\u2013, demorarme en los dos primeros pasajes. Los he copiado, sobre todo, para demostrarle la extraordinaria negligencia de la polic\u00eda, que, por lo que me ha contado el prefecto, no se ha molestado siquiera en interrogar al oficial de marina al que se alude en uno de ellos. Sin embargo, ser\u00eda una locura afirmar que no hay por qu\u00e9 suponer que la primera y la segunda desaparici\u00f3n de Marie est\u00e9n relacionadas. Admitamos que la primera fuga concluyera con una disputa entre enamorados y el regreso de la seducida. Podremos considerar que una segunda fuga (en caso de que haya vuelto a producirse una fuga) es indicio de que el seductor ha reanudado sus avances y no de que haya aparecido un nuevo pretendiente. Se tratar\u00eda, pues, de una reconciliaci\u00f3n con su enamorado m\u00e1s que del inicio de un nuevo amor\u00edo. Hay diez probabilidades contra una de que el hombre que se fug\u00f3 una vez con Marie volviera a proponerle una nueva fuga, y no de que a la primera propuesta siguiera otra sugerida por otra persona distinta. Perm\u00edtame observar que el tiempo transcurrido entre la primera fuga (que parece haber quedado demostrada) y la segunda (s\u00f3lo presumible) es de unos pocos meses m\u00e1s que la duraci\u00f3n media de las traves\u00edas de nuestros barcos de guerra. \u00bfNo ver\u00eda interrumpida el seductor su primera bajeza por la necesidad de embarcarse y aprovechar\u00eda la primera oportunidad a su regreso para reanudar sus bajos prop\u00f3sitos todav\u00eda no consumados... o al menos no consumados por \u00e9l? Nada sabemos al respecto.\n\n\u00bbObjetar\u00e1 usted que, en el segundo caso, no se produjo fuga alguna. Ciertamente no... pero \u00bfpodemos afirmar que no existieron esos prop\u00f3sitos frustrados? Aparte de St. Eustache, y tal vez de Beauvais, no conocemos otro pretendiente honorable de Marie. Nada se dice de ning\u00fan otro. \u00bfQui\u00e9n, entonces, es el enamorado secreto del que los parientes (al menos la mayor\u00eda) lo ignoran todo pero con quien Marie se ve la ma\u00f1ana del domingo, y que goza tanto de su confianza que no duda en quedarse con \u00e9l hasta que las sombras de la tarde caen sobre las solitarias arboledas de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule? \u00bfQui\u00e9n es ese enamorado secreto de quien nada sabe la mayor\u00eda de los parientes? Y \u00bfqu\u00e9 significa la singular profec\u00eda de madame Rog\u00eat la ma\u00f1ana de la partida de su hija: \"Temo que no volver\u00e9 a ver a Marie\"?\n\n\u00bbEn cualquier caso, aunque nos cueste imaginar que madame Rog\u00eat estuviese al tanto del proyecto de fuga, \u00bfno podemos suponer que la joven tuviese ese prop\u00f3sito? Al salir de casa, dio a entender que iba a visitar a su t\u00eda en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes, y pidi\u00f3 a St. Eustache que pasara a recogerla al anochecer. A primera vista, ese hecho parece contradecir mi sugerencia. Pero reflexionemos. Es bien sabido que se encontr\u00f3 con alguien y que, tras cruzar el r\u00edo en su compa\u00f1\u00eda, lleg\u00f3 a la Barri\u00e8re du Roule pasadas las tres de la tarde. Pero, al consentir en acompa\u00f1ar a ese individuo (por el prop\u00f3sito que fuese, y tanto si su madre estaba al tanto como si no), debi\u00f3 de pensar en lo que hab\u00eda dicho al salir de casa y en la sorpresa y las sospechas que despertar\u00eda en su prometido, St. Eustache, pues, cuando pasara a recogerla a la hora convenida por la rue des Dr\u00f4mes, descubrir\u00eda que no hab\u00eda estado all\u00ed, y, lo que es m\u00e1s, cuando volviese a la pensi\u00f3n con tan alarmante noticia se encontrar\u00eda con que segu\u00eda sin volver. Como digo, debi\u00f3 de pensar en todo esto. Debi\u00f3 de prever el disgusto que causar\u00eda a St. Eustache y las sospechas que despertar\u00eda en los dem\u00e1s. Es imposible que pensara en volver para enfrentarse a semejantes sospechas, pero \u00e9stas dejan de tener importancia si suponemos que no ten\u00eda intenci\u00f3n de regresar.\n\n\u00bbPodemos, pues, imaginarla pensando de este modo: \"Me dispongo a encontrarme con cierta persona para fugarme con ella, o con otro prop\u00f3sito que s\u00f3lo yo conozco. Debo asegurarme de que no haya interrupciones, pues necesitamos tiempo para escapar a cualquier posible persecuci\u00f3n, as\u00ed que dar\u00e9 a entender que me dispongo a ir de visita y a pasar el d\u00eda con mi t\u00eda en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes. Le dir\u00e9 a St. Eustache que no vaya a recogerme hasta la noche: de este modo podr\u00e9 estar el mayor tiempo posible fuera de casa sin despertar sospechas ni preocupar a nadie, y ganar m\u00e1s tiempo que de ninguna otra forma. Si le pido a St. Eustache que pase a recogerme al anochecer, me asegurar\u00e9 de que no se presente antes, pero, si no se lo pido, dispondr\u00e9 de menos tiempo, pues todo el mundo contar\u00e1 con que vuelva antes, y mi ausencia les preocupar\u00e1. Si mis planes fuesen regresar en alg\u00fan momento, si quisiera dar s\u00f3lo un paseo con el individuo en cuesti\u00f3n, no me convendr\u00eda pedirle a St. Eustache que pasara a recogerme, ya que al hacerlo se dar\u00eda cuenta de que le hab\u00eda mentido, cosa que podr\u00eda ocultarle saliendo de casa sin darle explicaciones, volviendo antes de la noche y diciendo despu\u00e9s que hab\u00eda estado en casa de mi t\u00eda en la rue des Dr\u00f4mes. Pero, como no tengo intenci\u00f3n de regresar, o al menos hasta pasadas unas semanas, o hasta haber ocultado ciertas cosas, lo \u00fanico que debe preocuparme es ganar el mayor tiempo posible\".\n\n\u00bbHa se\u00f1alado usted en sus notas que la opini\u00f3n m\u00e1s generalizada sobre este triste asunto es, y as\u00ed fue desde el primer momento, que la joven fue v\u00edctima de una banda de delincuentes. Pues bien, con ciertas condiciones, no conviene pasar por alto la opini\u00f3n popular. Cuando surge por s\u00ed misma, y cuando se manifiesta de una manera estrictamente espont\u00e1nea, deber\u00edamos considerarla como esa intuici\u00f3n que es parte de la idiosincrasia de un individuo de genio. En noventa y nueve casos de cada cien me inclino a aceptar su veredicto. Pero es importante que no encontremos rastro alguno de sugesti\u00f3n. La opini\u00f3n popular tiene que ser rigurosamente popular y con frecuencia es dif\u00edcil percibir y mantener esa distinci\u00f3n. En el caso que nos ocupa, tengo la impresi\u00f3n de que la \"opini\u00f3n popular\" sobre la intervenci\u00f3n de una banda est\u00e1 influida por el suceso colindante que se detalla en el tercero de los pasajes que le he mostrado. Todo Par\u00eds est\u00e1 conmovido por la aparici\u00f3n del cad\u00e1ver de Marie, una joven hermosa y c\u00e9lebre, que se ha hallado flotando en el r\u00edo y con indicios de violencia. Y ahora se sabe que, en los mismos d\u00edas en que se supone que la joven fue asesinada, una banda de rufianes perpetr\u00f3 un atentado de naturaleza similar, aunque menos grave, al sufrido por la fallecida, en la persona de otra joven. \u00bfAcaso hemos de extra\u00f1arnos de que esta atrocidad haya influido en la idea del pueblo sobre la otra? Semejante idea esperaba que le indicasen qu\u00e9 direcci\u00f3n seguir y esta \u00faltima infamia parec\u00eda indic\u00e1rsela de forma muy oportuna. A Marie la encontraron en el r\u00edo, y fue all\u00ed donde aconteci\u00f3 este otro ultraje. La relaci\u00f3n entre los dos sucesos era tan palpable que lo raro habr\u00eda sido que el populacho no hubiera reparado en ella. Pero, de hecho, el primer ultraje demuestra tan s\u00f3lo que el segundo, cometido casi al mismo tiempo, no se cometi\u00f3 del mismo modo. Ser\u00eda ciertamente asombroso que, mientras una banda de malhechores perpetraba una infamia casi sin precedentes en un sitio, otra banda similar perpetrase otra infamia de id\u00e9ntica naturaleza en un lugar similar, en la misma ciudad, en las mismas circunstancias, con los mismos medios y en el mismo per\u00edodo de tiempo. Sin embargo, \u00bfen qu\u00e9 sino en esa incre\u00edble serie de coincidencias pretende hacernos creer la opini\u00f3n accidentalmente influida del populacho?\n\n\u00bbAntes de seguir, consideremos el supuesto lugar de los hechos en el bosquecillo de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule. Dicho bosquecillo, aunque espeso, est\u00e1 cerca de un camino p\u00fablico. En su interior hab\u00eda tres o cuatro grandes piedras que formaban una especie de asiento, con respaldo y un reposapi\u00e9s. Sobre la piedra superior se encontraron unas enaguas blancas; en la segunda, una bufanda de seda. Tambi\u00e9n se hallaron una sombrilla, unos guantes y un pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo. El pa\u00f1uelo llevaba el nombre \"Marie Rog\u00eat\". En las ramas, a uno y otro lado, hab\u00eda fragmentos de vestido. La tierra estaba pisoteada, los arbustos rotos y todos los indicios apuntaban a que se hab\u00eda producido una lucha violenta.\n\n\u00bbA pesar del entusiasmo con que la prensa recibi\u00f3 el descubrimiento de este bosquecillo y la unanimidad con que se dio por sentado que se trataba del lugar de los hechos, es preciso admitir que hab\u00eda muchas razones para dudarlo. Puedo creer o no que lo fuera, pero existen sobradas razones para dudarlo. Si, como sugiri\u00f3 Le Commerciel, el verdadero lugar de los hechos se hallara en las proximidades de la rue Pav\u00e9e Ste. Andr\u00e9e, y suponiendo que quienes cometieron el crimen siguieran en Par\u00eds, \u00e9stos debieron quedarse aterrados al ver que la atenci\u00f3n p\u00fablica se dirig\u00eda por el buen camino con tanta agudeza; y algunos debieron comprender enseguida la necesidad de hacer algo para desviar la atenci\u00f3n. Y, dado que el bosquecillo ya hab\u00eda despertado sospechas, nada m\u00e1s natural que abandonar all\u00ed los objetos que se encontraron. No hay pruebas, aunque Le Soleil suponga lo contrario, de que los objetos descubiertos llevasen all\u00ed m\u00e1s de unos d\u00edas; sin embargo, numerosas pruebas circunstanciales parecen indicar que no pod\u00edan haber estado en dicho lugar los veinte d\u00edas transcurridos desde el domingo fat\u00eddico y la tarde en que los ni\u00f1os los encontraron. \"Estaban rotos y enmohecidos por la lluvia, y el moho hab\u00eda hecho que se pegaran entre s\u00ed. La hierba hab\u00eda crecido en torno a algunos de ellos. La seda de la sombrilla era fuerte, pero por dentro los hilos se hab\u00edan pegado unos a otros. Los pliegues de la parte superior estaban enmohecidos y podridos y se rompieron al abrirla.\" En cuanto a lo de que la hierba hubiera \"crecido en torno a algunos de ellos\", es evidente que s\u00f3lo pudo saberse por la declaraci\u00f3n, y por tanto por los recuerdos, de dos ni\u00f1os peque\u00f1os, pues ambos cogieron aquellos objetos y se los llevaron a casa antes de que los viera una tercera persona. Sin embargo, la hierba puede crecer, sobre todo si el tiempo es c\u00e1lido y h\u00famedo (como era en la \u00e9poca del asesinato), hasta cinco y siete cent\u00edmetros al d\u00eda. Una sombrilla abandonada sobre un c\u00e9sped reci\u00e9n cortado podr\u00eda quedar oculta de la vista en s\u00f3lo una semana. \u00bfY qu\u00e9 decir del moho, en el que el director de Le Soleil insiste con tanta pertinacia que utiliza la palabra no menos de tres veces en el citado pasaje? \u00bfDe verdad ignora su naturaleza? \u00bfHabr\u00e1 que explicarle que se trata de una de las muchas clases de hongos, cuyo rasgo m\u00e1s com\u00fan consiste en nacer y morir en menos de veinticuatro horas?\n\n\u00bbVemos as\u00ed, de un simple vistazo, que todo lo que se ha alegado de manera tan triunfal para demostrar que los objetos \"llevaban all\u00ed al menos tres o cuatro semanas\" tiene una validez nula como prueba. Por otro lado, es muy dif\u00edcil creer que esos objetos llevaran en el bosquecillo m\u00e1s de una semana. Cualquiera que conozca las cercan\u00edas de Par\u00eds sabe lo extremadamente dif\u00edcil que es encontrar un lugar solitario, a no ser que uno se aleje mucho. Ni por un momento cabe imaginar un solo sitio inexplorado o siquiera poco frecuentado en sus bosques y arboledas. Cualquier sincero enamorado de la naturaleza que est\u00e9 encadenado por su trabajo al polvo y el calor de esta gran metr\u00f3poli y trate, incluso en un d\u00eda laborable, de saciar su sed de soledad en los lugares llenos de natural belleza que rodean la ciudad ver\u00e1 disiparse a cada paso el creciente encanto por la voz y la intromisi\u00f3n de alg\u00fan rufi\u00e1n o alg\u00fan grupo de juerguistas. En vano buscar\u00e1 la soledad en lo m\u00e1s espeso del bosque. Ah\u00ed est\u00e1n los rincones preferidos por esa gentuza y los templos m\u00e1s profanados. Asqueado, nuestro vagabundo volver\u00e1 al sucio Par\u00eds, que le parecer\u00e1 ahora menos odioso, por no ser un sumidero en el que se acumula de forma tan incongruente la porquer\u00eda. Y, si los aleda\u00f1os de Par\u00eds est\u00e1n abarrotados de gentuza los d\u00edas laborables, \u00a1qu\u00e9 decir de los domingos! Es entonces cuando, libre del yugo del trabajo, o privado de la oportunidad de cometer cr\u00edmenes, el rufi\u00e1n de la ciudad se dirige a las afueras, no porque le guste el campo, que en el fondo desprecia, sino para escapar de las restricciones y los convencionalismos de la sociedad. No va tanto en busca del aire fresco y el verdor de los \u00e1rboles como de la impunidad que le ofrece la campi\u00f1a. Aqu\u00ed, en la taberna de carretera o entre el follaje del bosque, se entrega sin m\u00e1s testigos que sus amigos a los desenfrenados excesos de la falsa hilaridad, producto tanto de la falta de restricciones como del ron. No digo nada que no sea evidente para cualquier observador neutral si repito que es poco menos que milagroso que alguien encontrara los efectos citados al cabo de una semana en un bosquecillo de las afueras de Par\u00eds.\n\n\u00bbPero no faltan otros motivos para sospechar que alguien dej\u00f3 dichos objetos en el bosquecillo con el prop\u00f3sito de desviar la atenci\u00f3n del aut\u00e9ntico lugar de los hechos. En primer lugar, permita que le haga notar la fecha en que se descubrieron. Relaci\u00f3nela ahora con el quinto pasaje que he extra\u00eddo de los peri\u00f3dicos. Se dar\u00e1 cuenta de que el hallazgo sigui\u00f3 casi inmediatamente a las apremiantes notificaciones enviadas al peri\u00f3dico vespertino. Dichas comunicaciones, aunque distintas, y procedentes, al parecer, de varias fuentes, pretend\u00edan todas ellas la misma cosa: encauzar la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica a la idea de que una banda hab\u00eda perpetrado el ultraje y se\u00f1alar los alrededores de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule como escenario del atentado. Pues bien, por supuesto, lo interesante es que los dos ni\u00f1os no encontraron los objetos a consecuencia de dichas comunicaciones o de la presi\u00f3n de la opini\u00f3n p\u00fablica: podr\u00eda pensarse que, si no los hallaron antes fue por la sencilla raz\u00f3n de que no estaban en el bosque y los culpables autores de las propias comunicaciones no los dejaron en \u00e9l hasta la fecha, o un poco antes, de hacerlas.\n\n\u00bbEl bosquecillo en cuesti\u00f3n es sumamente interesante. La vegetaci\u00f3n en \u00e9l es muy densa y en su interior hab\u00eda tres curios\u00edsimas piedras, que formaban un asiento con respaldo y un reposapi\u00e9s. Y este bosquecillo, tan artificial, se halla en la inmediata vecindad y a apenas unos metros de la morada de madame Deluc, cuyos hijos ten\u00edan la costumbre de inspeccionar con mucho detenimiento los arbustos de la zona en busca de corteza de sasafr\u00e1s. \u00bfSer\u00eda descabellado apostar \u2013incluso mil contra uno\u2013 que no pasaba ni un solo d\u00eda sin que alguno de esos ni\u00f1os se colara en el umbr\u00edo recinto del bosque y se sentara en el trono natural que forman las piedras? Quien titubee al hacer semejante apuesta o bien es que no ha sido nunca ni\u00f1o o ha olvidado la naturaleza del car\u00e1cter infantil. Repito: es extremadamente dif\u00edcil comprender c\u00f3mo esos objetos pudieron pasar m\u00e1s de uno o dos d\u00edas en el bosque sin que nadie los descubriera. Y eso nos da motivos de sobra para sospechar, pese a la dogm\u00e1tica ignorancia de Le Soleil, que los dejaron ah\u00ed en una fecha relativamente tard\u00eda.\n\n\u00bbPero hay otras razones a\u00fan m\u00e1s poderosas que nos inducen a creerlo. Permita que llame ahora su atenci\u00f3n sobre la distribuci\u00f3n extremadamente artificiosa de los objetos. En la piedra superior aparecieron unas enaguas blancas; en la segunda, una bufanda de seda; tirados por el suelo una sombrilla, unos guantes y un pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo con el nombre \"Marie Rog\u00eat\". He aqu\u00ed la distribuci\u00f3n que har\u00eda naturalmente una persona no muy astuta que quisiera dar impresi\u00f3n de naturalidad. Pero no tiene nada de natural. Lo l\u00f3gico habr\u00eda sido encontrar todos los objetos pisoteados en el suelo. En los estrechos l\u00edmites de la arboleda no parece posible que las enaguas y la bufanda quedaran sobre las rocas en medio de una reyerta entre varias personas. Se nos dice que hab\u00eda indicios de lucha, que los arbustos estaban quebrados y la tierra pisoteada, pero las enaguas y la bufanda las encontraron como si las hubiesen dejado sobre un estante. \"Los jirones de vestido desgarrados por los matorrales ten\u00edan unos siete por quince cent\u00edmetros. Uno de ellos era el dobladillo del vestido y estaba remendado; el otro era parte de la falda, pero no del dobladillo. Parec\u00edan tiras arrancadas.\" Aqu\u00ed, sin darse cuenta, Le Soleil ha dicho una frase extraordinariamente sospechosa. Es cierto que los jirones, tal como se han descrito, parecen \"tiras arrancadas\", pero a mano y deliberadamente. Es muy raro que un trozo de una prenda como la que nos ocupa se arranque por la acci\u00f3n de una espina. Por la propia naturaleza de ese g\u00e9nero de tejidos, una espina o un clavo que se enganche en ellos por accidente los desgarra de forma rectangular, dividi\u00e9ndolos en dos desgarrones longitudinales que forman \u00e1ngulo recto entre s\u00ed, y se unen en el punto donde entr\u00f3 la espina... pero es casi imposible que un jir\u00f3n se desgarre. Ni usted ni yo lo hemos visto nunca. Para arrancar un trozo de un vestido hacen falta dos fuerzas que tiren en direcciones opuestas. S\u00f3lo si el tejido tiene dos bordes, como, por ejemplo, un pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo, si se desea arrancar una tira, basta con una \u00fanica fuerza para lograrlo. Pero, en el caso que nos ocupa, estamos hablando de un vestido, que tiene un \u00fanico borde. Que se arrancase un trozo desde el interior, donde no hay ning\u00fan borde, por acci\u00f3n de las espinas habr\u00eda sido un aut\u00e9ntico milagro, y no habr\u00eda bastado con una sola espina. De hecho, aunque s\u00f3lo hubiera tenido un borde, habr\u00edan hecho falta dos, una que actuara en dos direcciones y otra en una. Y eso suponiendo que el borde no tuviese dobladillo. De lo contrario, ser\u00eda casi imposible. Vemos as\u00ed los numerosos y grandes obst\u00e1culos que se oponen a la idea de que los trozos se \"arrancasen\" s\u00f3lo por acci\u00f3n de las \"espinas\"; sin embargo, se nos pide que creamos no s\u00f3lo que se arranc\u00f3 un trozo, sino varios. \"Uno de ellos \u2013nos dicen\u2013 \u00a1era el dobladillo del vestido!\" Otro era \"parte de la falda, pero no del dobladillo\". O, lo que viene a ser lo mismo, \u00a1que se arranc\u00f3 del interior sin bordes del vestido por la mera acci\u00f3n de las espinas! Disculpar\u00eda a cualquiera que no diese cr\u00e9dito a estas cosas; sin embargo, tomadas en su conjunto, ofrecen menos base para la sospecha que la sorprendente circunstancia de que esos mismos objetos los olvidasen en el bosquecillo los mismos asesinos que se tomaron la molestia de transportar el cad\u00e1ver. No obstante, no habr\u00e1 comprendido usted del todo lo que le digo si ha llegado a la conclusi\u00f3n de que pretendo negar que el bosque fuese el lugar donde se produjo el atentado. Es posible que el delito se cometiera all\u00ed, o, lo que es m\u00e1s probable, que ocurriera un accidente en casa de madame Deluc. Pero lo cierto es que no tiene mayor importancia. No estamos tratando de descubrir el lugar de los hechos, sino a quienes perpetraron el asesinato. Lo que he explicado con tanto detalle no tiene otro fin que mostrarle a usted cu\u00e1n aventuradas y absurdas son las afirmaciones de Le Soleil, y sobre todo suscitar de forma natural sus dudas acerca de que el asesinato lo cometiera una banda.\n\n\u00bbRetomemos la cuesti\u00f3n recordando los repugnantes detalles del m\u00e9dico forense durante la investigaci\u00f3n judicial. Baste decir que sus inferencias sobre el n\u00famero de rufianes que participaron en el asalto las han puesto en rid\u00edculo, por imprecisas y faltas de base, todos los anatomistas de Par\u00eds. No es que no pudiera haber ocurrido como sugiere, sino que no hab\u00eda fundamentos en los que basar dichas inferencias. \u00bfY acaso no los hab\u00eda para otras?\n\n\u00bbReflexionemos ahora sobre los \"indicios de lucha\" y deje que le pregunte qu\u00e9 se supone que prueban dichos indicios. \u00bfLa presencia de una banda? Y \u00bfno demostrar\u00e1n m\u00e1s bien su ausencia? \u00bfQu\u00e9 lucha pudo producirse? \u00bfQu\u00e9 lucha tan violenta como para dejar huellas por todas partes pudo producirse entre una joven d\u00e9bil e indefensa y la supuesta banda de malhechores? Un silencioso apret\u00f3n de unos cuantos brazos robustos y todo habr\u00eda terminado. La v\u00edctima habr\u00eda quedado reducida a una total pasividad. Tenga presente que los argumentos aducidos para descartar el bosquecillo como lugar de los hechos son en su mayor parte aplicables s\u00f3lo si el atentado lo cometi\u00f3 m\u00e1s de un individuo. S\u00f3lo si pensamos en un \u00fanico atacante, podemos concebir una pelea tan violenta y obstinada, capaz de dejar esas huellas.\n\n\u00bbEs m\u00e1s, ya he se\u00f1alado las sospechas que despierta el hecho de que quienquiera que cometiese el crimen olvidara los objetos en cuesti\u00f3n en el bosque. Es casi inconcebible que semejantes pruebas incriminatorias quedasen por accidente en el lugar donde se encontraron. Damos por supuesto que el asesino tuvo la suficiente presencia de \u00e1nimo para retirar el cad\u00e1ver, y sin embargo admitimos que una prueba a\u00fan m\u00e1s delatora que el propio cad\u00e1ver (cuyos rasgos no tardar\u00eda en borrar la corrupci\u00f3n de la carne) quedara a la vista de cualquiera en el lugar del crimen... y me refiero, claro, al pa\u00f1uelo con el nombre de la fallecida. Si fue un accidente, no lo cometi\u00f3 una banda. S\u00f3lo cabe imaginarlo cometido por una sola persona. Veamos. Un individuo acaba de cometer el asesinato. Est\u00e1 solo con el fantasma de la muerta, aterrorizado por lo que yace inanimado delante de \u00e9l. El arrebato de su pasi\u00f3n ha pasado ya, y el miedo por la enormidad de lo que ha hecho empieza a abrirse paso en su pecho. Carece de esa confianza que inspira la presencia de otros. Est\u00e1 solo con la muerta. Tiembla y est\u00e1 confundido. Sin embargo, debe deshacerse del cad\u00e1ver. Lo arrastra hasta el r\u00edo y deja tras \u00e9l las otras pruebas que lo acusan; ser\u00eda dif\u00edcil, si no imposible, cargar con todo a la vez, y tiempo habr\u00e1 de volver despu\u00e9s a por lo que falte. Pero en el trabajoso recorrido hasta el agua su temor se duplica. La vida resuena por doquier. Cien veces oye o cree o\u00edr los pasos de alguien que le observa. Incluso las luces de la ciudad lo perturban. Sin embargo, al cabo de un tiempo, despu\u00e9s de largas y frecuentes pausas de profundo temor, alcanza el borde del agua y se deshace de su pavorosa carga, tal vez con la ayuda de un bote. Pero ahora \u00bfqu\u00e9 tesoros tiene el mundo? \u00bfQu\u00e9 amenazas de venganza puede entra\u00f1ar capaces de obligar al solitario asesino a regresar por el arduo y peligroso sendero al bosquecillo que guarda tan escalofriantes recuerdos? No ha de volver, sean cuales sean las consecuencias. No podr\u00eda regresar ni aunque quisiera. Su \u00fanica obsesi\u00f3n es huir de all\u00ed cuanto antes. Da la espalda para siempre a los terribles arbustos y huye de la furia que habr\u00e1 de perseguirle.\n\n\u00bbPero \u00bfy si hubiese sido una banda? El no estar solos les habr\u00eda inspirado confianza, suponiendo que \u00e9sta falte alguna vez en el pecho de un criminal endurecido; y eso es lo que suelen ser los integrantes de bandas semejantes. Ser muchos, digo, habr\u00eda impedido que fuesen presa de un temor tan irracional como el que he dicho que debi\u00f3 de paralizar a un hombre solo. Si uno, dos o tres de ellos hubieran cometido un descuido, un cuarto le habr\u00eda puesto remedio. No habr\u00edan dejado nada tras ellos; pues siendo muchos habr\u00edan podido llev\u00e1rselo todo consigo sin necesidad de volver.\n\n\u00bbConsidere ahora la circunstancia de que el vestido que llevaba el cad\u00e1ver cuando lo encontraron tuviera \"un corte de unos treinta cent\u00edmetros desde el dobladillo hasta la cintura, que no estaba desgarrado. Daba tres vueltas en torno a la cintura e iba sujeto con una especie de vuelta de cabo en la espalda\". Eso se hizo con el evidente designio de proporcionar un asa con la que transportar el cuerpo. Pero \u00bfhabr\u00edan recurrido a semejante procedimiento si hubiesen sido varios hombres? Los miembros del cad\u00e1ver habr\u00edan sido no s\u00f3lo suficiente asidero, sino tambi\u00e9n el mejor posible, para tres o cuatro personas. El medio utilizado es propio de un \u00fanico individuo; y eso nos conduce al hecho de que \"alguien hubiera derribado las vallas que hab\u00eda entre el bosquecillo y el r\u00edo\", y de que en el suelo se encontraran se\u00f1ales \"de que hab\u00edan arrastrado por \u00e9l una pesada carga\". \u00bfSe habr\u00eda molestado un grupo de individuos en derribar unas vallas para arrastrar un cuerpo que podr\u00edan haber alzado por encima en un instante? \u00bfHabr\u00edan arrastrado un cad\u00e1ver dejando huellas evidentes en la tierra?\n\n\u00bbY ahora debemos referirnos a una observaci\u00f3n de Le Commerciel, una observaci\u00f3n que en cierta medida ya he comentado antes. \"Alguien \u2013dice el peri\u00f3dico\u2013 cort\u00f3 un trozo de treinta por sesenta cent\u00edmetros de las enaguas de la desdichada joven y la amordaz\u00f3 con \u00e9l para evitar sus gritos. Quienes hicieran esto no ten\u00edan pa\u00f1uelo de bolsillo.\"\n\n\u00bbYa he dado a entender antes que un verdadero maleante jam\u00e1s sale a la calle sin un pa\u00f1uelo en el bolsillo. Pero no es de eso de lo que quiero hablar ahora. Que semejante vendaje no se emple\u00f3 por falta de pa\u00f1uelo, ni con el prop\u00f3sito imaginado por Le Commerciel, lo demuestra el hallazgo del pa\u00f1uelo abandonado en el bosquecillo; y que no fue utilizado \"para evitar sus gritos\" es evidente por el hecho de que se utilizara dicho vendaje en lugar de algo que habr\u00eda sido mucho m\u00e1s apropiado. Sin embargo, los testimonios dicen que la tira en cuesti\u00f3n \"se encontr\u00f3 en torno a su cuello, holgada, pero atada con un nudo muy firme\". Son palabras bastante vagas, pero difieren materialmente de las de Le Commerciel. La tira ten\u00eda medio metro de ancho, por lo que, a pesar de ser de muselina, deb\u00eda de formar un asa bastante resistente al doblarla o arrugarla longitudinalmente. Y as\u00ed es como se descubri\u00f3. Mi deducci\u00f3n es la siguiente. El asesino solitario, despu\u00e9s de cargar con el cad\u00e1ver un rato (desde el bosquecillo o desde otro sitio) ayud\u00e1ndose del asa atada en torno a la cintura de la muerta, comprob\u00f3 que de ese modo el peso era demasiado para \u00e9l. Decidi\u00f3 entonces arrastrar la carga, tal como demuestran todas las pruebas. Para eso necesitaba atar una especie de cuerda a alguna de las extremidades. Ning\u00fan sitio mejor que el cuello donde la cabeza impedir\u00eda que se soltara. Sin duda, el asesino debi\u00f3 de pensar en la tira que rodeaba la cintura de la joven. Y la habr\u00eda utilizado de no haber sido porque estaba ya anudada en torno al cad\u00e1ver y no del todo arrancada del vestido. Era m\u00e1s f\u00e1cil arrancar otra tira de las enaguas. La arranc\u00f3, la at\u00f3 en torno al cuello y arrastr\u00f3 as\u00ed a su v\u00edctima hasta el borde del r\u00edo. Que el asesino emplease esa tira tan trabajosa de obtener, y s\u00f3lo en parte adecuada para tal fin, demuestra que la necesidad de utilizarla surgi\u00f3 cuando ya no pod\u00eda recurrir al pa\u00f1uelo, es decir, despu\u00e9s de salir del bosquecillo (si es que fue en el bosquecillo) y a mitad de camino entre el bosquecillo y el r\u00edo.\n\n\u00bbObjetar\u00e1 usted que el testimonio de madame (\u00a1!) Deluc apunta concretamente a la presencia de una banda en las cercan\u00edas del bosquecillo, m\u00e1s o menos en el momento en que se cometi\u00f3 el asesinato. Lo admito. Me extra\u00f1ar\u00eda que no hubiera habido una docena de bandas similares a las descritas por madame Deluc en las cercan\u00edas de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule m\u00e1s o menos cuando ocurri\u00f3 la tragedia. Sin embargo, la que se ha ganado la animadversi\u00f3n \u2013y el testimonio un tanto tard\u00edo y sospechoso\u2013 de madame Deluc es la \u00fanica a la que esta honrada y escrupulosa se\u00f1ora reprocha haberse comido sus pasteles y bebido su co\u00f1ac sin tomarse la molestia de pagar antes de marcharse. Et hinc illae irae?\n\n\u00bbPero \u00bfcu\u00e1l fue exactamente el testimonio de madame Deluc? \"Se present\u00f3 un grupo de maleantes, que se condujeron de forma escandalosa, comieron y bebieron, y luego se marcharon sin pagar por el mismo camino que la chica y el joven; al atardecer volvieron a la taberna y cruzaron el r\u00edo aparentemente con mucha prisa.\"\n\n\u00bbPues bien, es probable que esas prisas a\u00fan le pareciesen mayores a madame Deluc, que se qued\u00f3 lament\u00e1ndose por unos pasteles y una cerveza profanados por los que todav\u00eda deb\u00eda de esperar recibir alguna compensaci\u00f3n. De lo contrario \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 iba a insistir en lo de la prisa, si estaba atardeciendo? No hay por qu\u00e9 asombrarse de que unos maleantes se apresuren a regresar a casa cuando todav\u00eda tienen que cruzar un r\u00edo, amenaza tormenta y se acerca la noche\n\n\u00bbY digo que se acerca, porque todav\u00eda no hab\u00eda anochecido. Fue \"al atardecer\" cuando la prisa de aquellos \"sinverg\u00fcenzas\" ofendi\u00f3 los castos ojos de madame Deluc. Pero se nos dice que esa misma noche madame Deluc y su hijo mayor \"oyeron los gritos de una mujer cerca de la taberna\". Y \u00bfcon qu\u00e9 palabras describe madame Deluc el momento de la noche en que se oyeron los gritos? \"Poco despu\u00e9s de oscurecer\", nos dice. Pero \"poco despu\u00e9s de oscurecer\" significa que hab\u00eda oscurecido, mientras que \"al atardecer\" sigue siendo de d\u00eda. Est\u00e1 muy claro que la banda se march\u00f3 de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule antes de los gritos o\u00eddos (\u00bf?) por madame Deluc. Y, aunque en las m\u00faltiples transcripciones de su testimonio las expresiones utilizadas son siempre las mismas que he se\u00f1alado en mi conversaci\u00f3n con usted, ni uno solo de los peri\u00f3dicos ni de los secuaces de la polic\u00eda ha reparado en tama\u00f1a discrepancia.\n\n\u00bbS\u00f3lo a\u00f1adir\u00e9 otro argumento contra la idea de que se tratase de una banda; aunque \u00e9ste tiene, al menos en mi opini\u00f3n, un peso casi irresistible. Dadas las circunstancias de la cuantiosa recompensa y del perd\u00f3n ofrecidos a cambio de una declaraci\u00f3n condenatoria, es inconcebible que alg\u00fan miembro de ese grupo de malhechores no haya traicionado ya a sus c\u00f3mplices. Los miembros de una banda no ambicionan tanto la recompensa o el indulto, como temen que alguien los traicione. Si traicionan es para que no los traicionen a ellos. Que el secreto no se haya divulgado es la mejor prueba de que es ciertamente un secreto. Los horrores de tan terrible crimen s\u00f3lo los conoce una persona, o dos, y Dios.\n\n\u00bbRecapitulemos los escasos pero evidentes frutos de nuestro largo an\u00e1lisis. Hemos llegado a la idea de un accidente fatal acaecido en la taberna de madame Deluc o de un asesinato perpetrado en el bosquecillo de la Barri\u00e8re du Roule, por un amante o una persona \u00edntima y secretamente vinculada a la fallecida. Dicha persona es morena. Su tez, la vuelta de cabo en la tira que rodeaba la cintura del cad\u00e1ver y el \"nudo marinero\" con que estaban atadas las cintas del sombrero apuntan a un marino. Su relaci\u00f3n con la difunta, una joven un poco casquivana pero no depravada, indica que no debe tratarse de un simple marinero. Lo que corroboran las comunicaciones urgentes y bien escritas. La circunstancia de la primera fuga, tal como la narra Le Mercure, tiende a relacionar la idea del marino con la del \u00aboficial de marina\u00bb que, por lo que sabemos, fue el primero en descarriar a la infortunada.\n\n\u00bbY eso encaja con la desaparici\u00f3n del hombre de la tez morena. Permita que me detenga a subrayar que dicha persona es morena y atezada y que el suyo no es un color moreno normal: tanto Valence como madame Deluc se fijaron ante todo en ese rasgo. Pero \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 desapareci\u00f3? \u00bfLo asesinaron los otros miembros de la banda? Y en tal caso, \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 s\u00f3lo hay huellas de la chica asesinada? El escenario de los dos cr\u00edmenes tuvo que ser el mismo. Los asesinos se habr\u00edan deshecho de los cad\u00e1veres del mismo modo. Tambi\u00e9n podr\u00eda pensarse que el hombre sigue con vida, pero ha optado por ocultarse por miedo a que lo acusen del asesinato. Dicha consideraci\u00f3n es cre\u00edble ahora, pues hay quien ha declarado que lo vieron con Marie, pero carec\u00eda de sentido en el momento del crimen. El primer impulso de un inocente habr\u00eda sido denunciarlo y colaborar en la identificaci\u00f3n de los malhechores. Era lo m\u00e1s sensato. Lo hab\u00edan visto con la chica. Hab\u00eda cruzado el r\u00edo con ella en un ferry. Hasta un idiota habr\u00eda reparado en que denunciar a los asesinos era el \u00fanico medio seguro de apartar de s\u00ed las sospechas. Es dif\u00edcil imaginarlo, la noche de ese domingo fat\u00eddico, inocente e ignorante del atentado que acababa de producirse. Pero s\u00f3lo as\u00ed es posible concebir que, si segu\u00eda con vida, no corriera a denunciar a los asesinos.\n\n\u00bb\u00bfDe qu\u00e9 medios disponemos para conocer la verdad? Veremos c\u00f3mo se multiplican y se vuelven cada vez m\u00e1s claros a medida que prosigamos. Cribemos hasta el fondo el asunto de la primera fuga. Averig\u00fcemos toda la historia del \"oficial\", sus presentes circunstancias y su paradero en el preciso momento del asesinato. Comparemos cuidadosamente las diversas comunicaciones enviadas al peri\u00f3dico vespertino cuyo objeto era incriminar a una banda de criminales. Comparemos despu\u00e9s el estilo y la caligraf\u00eda de dichas comunicaciones con las enviadas antes al peri\u00f3dico matutino y que con tanta vehemencia insist\u00edan en la culpabilidad de Mennais. Y, una vez hecho eso, volvamos a compararlas con la caligraf\u00eda del oficial. Tratemos de averiguar, mediante repetidos interrogatorios a madame Deluc y a sus hijos, y al conductor de \u00f3mnibus, Valence, algo m\u00e1s sobre el aspecto y porte del \"hombre de tez oscura\". Estas investigaciones, h\u00e1bilmente dirigidas, nos proporcionar\u00e1n sin duda informaci\u00f3n que los propios testigos no son conscientes de poseer. Sigamos despu\u00e9s la pista del bote encontrado por el marinero la ma\u00f1ana del lunes 23 de junio, y que retiraron del muelle de gabarras sin el conocimiento de ninguno de los agentes de aduanas, y sin el tim\u00f3n, poco antes del descubrimiento del cad\u00e1ver.\n\n\u00bbCon un poco de discreci\u00f3n y perseverancia sin duda llegaremos a encontrar el bote, pues no s\u00f3lo podr\u00e1 identificarlo el marinero que lo encontr\u00f3, sino que contamos con el tim\u00f3n. Nadie con la conciencia totalmente tranquila habr\u00eda olvidado el tim\u00f3n de un barco de vela sin ir a buscarlo. Y permita ahora que haga una pausa para insinuar otra cuesti\u00f3n. No se public\u00f3 ning\u00fan anuncio de que hubiesen encontrado el bote. Se lo llevaron del muelle con tanta discreci\u00f3n como lo hab\u00edan arrastrado hasta \u00e9l. \u00bfC\u00f3mo pudo saber su due\u00f1o o su patr\u00f3n el martes por la ma\u00f1ana el sitio exacto donde lo hab\u00edan atracado, a menos que supongamos que se trataba de alguien relacionado con la Marina y que dicha vinculaci\u00f3n personal y permanente le permit\u00eda enterarse de todas las novedades, incluso de los chismes m\u00e1s irrelevantes?\n\n\u00bbAl hablar del asesino solitario que arrastr\u00f3 su carga a la orilla, ya suger\u00ed la probabilidad de que se hubiese servido de un bote. Ahora podemos dar por sentado que a Marie Rog\u00eat la echaron al agua desde un bote. Nada m\u00e1s l\u00f3gico. El cad\u00e1ver no pod\u00eda dejarse en las aguas poco profundas de la orilla. Las peculiares marcas de la espalda y los hombros de la v\u00edctima recuerdan a las cuadernas de un bote. Y que el cuerpo apareciera sin un peso tambi\u00e9n corrobora la misma idea. Si lo hubiesen arrojado al agua desde la orilla, le habr\u00edan atado un peso. La \u00fanica manera de explicarnos su ausencia es imaginar que el asesino se hubiera olvidado de cogerlo antes de internarse en el r\u00edo. Al disponerse a arrojar el cad\u00e1ver al agua debi\u00f3 de reparar en su olvido, pero la cosa ya no ten\u00eda remedio. Cualquier riesgo le parecer\u00eda preferible a regresar a aquella orilla maldita. Tras librarse de su terrible carga, el asesino probablemente volvi\u00f3 a la ciudad a toda prisa. Una vez all\u00ed, desembarc\u00f3 en alg\u00fan oscuro embarcadero. Pero \u00bfpor qu\u00e9 no amarr\u00f3 el bote? Ten\u00eda demasiada prisa. Adem\u00e1s, amarrarlo al embarcadero debi\u00f3 de parecerle igual que dejar una prueba contra \u00e9l. Su reacci\u00f3n natural fue alejar de s\u00ed todo lo que tuviera que ver con el crimen. No s\u00f3lo huy\u00f3 del embarcadero, sino que no quiso que el bote se quedara all\u00ed. Sin duda lo empuj\u00f3 a la deriva. Prosigamos con nuestras suposiciones. Por la ma\u00f1ana, el muy canalla descubre con indecible horror que han recogido el bote y lo han amarrado en un lugar que \u00e9l frecuenta a diario, tal vez un sitio que el deber le obliga a frecuentar. La noche siguiente, sin atreverse a pedir el tim\u00f3n, se lo lleva. Pues bien, \u00bfd\u00f3nde est\u00e1 ahora ese bote sin tim\u00f3n? Es lo primero que debemos averiguar. En cuanto lo descubramos, nuestro \u00e9xito estar\u00e1 garantizado. Ese bote nos guiar\u00e1, con una rapidez que nos sorprender\u00e1 incluso a nosotros mismos, hasta la persona que lo utiliz\u00f3 la medianoche de ese funesto domingo. Una confirmaci\u00f3n seguir\u00e1 a otra y daremos con el asesino.\n\n[Por motivos que no detallaremos, pero que ser\u00e1n obvios para muchos lectores, nos hemos tomado la libertad de omitir aqu\u00ed, del manuscrito puesto en nuestras manos, la parte que detalla c\u00f3mo se sigui\u00f3 la pista indicada por Dupin. \u00danicamente nos parece oportuno se\u00f1alar que, en suma, se consigui\u00f3 el resultado deseado; y que el prefecto cumpli\u00f3, aunque a rega\u00f1adientes, lo pactado con dicho caballero. El art\u00edculo del se\u00f1or Poe concluye con las siguientes palabras. Dir.]\n\nEnti\u00e9ndase que hablo de coincidencias y de nada m\u00e1s. Lo que dije antes al respecto tendr\u00eda que ser suficiente. En mi coraz\u00f3n no hay sitio para lo sobrenatural. Nadie que est\u00e9 en sus cabales negar\u00e1 que la naturaleza y su Dios son cosas distintas. Que este \u00faltimo, al haber creado la primera, puede controlarla y modificarla a voluntad tambi\u00e9n est\u00e1 fuera de toda duda. Y digo \u00aba voluntad\u00bb, pues de eso se trata, y no de una cuesti\u00f3n de poder, como ha cre\u00eddo absurdamente la l\u00f3gica. No es que la Deidad no pueda modificar sus leyes, sino que ser\u00eda un insulto suponer que pudiera tener necesidad de hacerlo. En su origen, dichas leyes se concibieron para abarcar todas las contingencias que pueda deparar el futuro. Trat\u00e1ndose de Dios, todo es Ahora.\n\nRepito, pues, que para m\u00ed estas cosas son puras coincidencias. Y, lo que es m\u00e1s, en lo que acabo de contar se ver\u00e1 que entre el destino de la desdichada Mary Cecilia Rogers, hasta donde se conoce dicho destino, y el de la tal Marie Rog\u00eat, hasta cierto momento de su vida, se ha dado un paralelismo tan exacto que la raz\u00f3n se siente confundida. Digo que se ver\u00e1. Pero que nadie piense ni por un instante que, al relatar la triste historia de Marie desde el momento citado y trazar hasta su desenlace el misterio que la rodeaba, ha sido mi intenci\u00f3n sugerir que el paralelismo contin\u00faa o insinuar que las medidas adoptadas en Par\u00eds para descubrir al asesino de una grisette, u otras fundadas en deducciones similares, dar\u00edan resultados parecidos.\n\nPues, en lo que se refiere a esta \u00faltima suposici\u00f3n, habr\u00eda que tener en cuenta que la m\u00e1s trivial diferencia entre los hechos de los dos casos podr\u00eda dar lugar a errores de la mayor importancia, al hacer que el curso de ambos acontecimientos divergiera por completo, igual que, en aritm\u00e9tica, un error, inapreciable en s\u00ed mismo, acaba produciendo, al multiplicarse en los distintos pasos de un proceso, un resultado totalmente alejado de la verdad. Y, en cuanto a la primera suposici\u00f3n, no debemos olvidar que el propio c\u00e1lculo de probabilidades proh\u00edbe prolongar el paralelismo, y lo proh\u00edbe con una fuerza y una decisi\u00f3n proporcionadas, pues dicho paralelismo ya ha sido exacto durante mucho tiempo. He aqu\u00ed una de esas proposiciones an\u00f3malas que, en apariencia, requieren un modo de pensar no matem\u00e1tico, pero que s\u00f3lo los matem\u00e1ticos pueden entender plenamente. Nada, por ejemplo, m\u00e1s dif\u00edcil que convencer a un lector normal de que el hecho de que el seis haya salido dos veces seguidas en una partida de dados es raz\u00f3n suficiente para apostar a que tal circunstancia no volver\u00e1 a producirse al tercer intento. El intelecto rechaza de inmediato una idea semejante. No parece que dos jugadas ya realizadas y pertenecientes al pasado puedan influir en una jugada que s\u00f3lo existe en el futuro. La probabilidad de sacar un seis da la impresi\u00f3n de ser exactamente la misma que en cualquier otro instante, o, lo que es lo mismo, de estar sujeta s\u00f3lo a la influencia de los otros resultados que puedan producirse en una partida de dados. Y esta reflexi\u00f3n parece tan evidente que cualquier intento de contradecirla se recibir\u00e1 antes con una sonrisa despectiva que con una atenci\u00f3n respetuosa. El grave error que esto implica excede los l\u00edmites de este art\u00edculo y no pretendo exponerlo aqu\u00ed; quienes entienden de filosof\u00eda no necesitan explicaciones. Baste con decir que es parte de la infinita serie de equivocaciones que se interponen en la senda de la raz\u00f3n a ra\u00edz de su tendencia a buscar la verdad en el detalle.\n*. L\u00e1tigo. [Esta nota, como las siguientes, es del traductor.]\n\n*. As\u00ed se denominaba a las familias holandesas del primitivo Estado de Nueva York. El t\u00e9rmino se populariz\u00f3 cuando Washington Irving public\u00f3 su libro A History of New York (1809) bajo el seud\u00f3nimo de Dietrich Knickerbocker.\n\n*. Nueva York.\n\n*. La expedici\u00f3n de Meriwether Lewis y William Clark (1804-1806) fue la primera expedici\u00f3n terrestre en cruzar Estados Unidos de este a oeste.\n\n*. Medio no distribuido. Una falacia l\u00f3gica en la que el t\u00e9rmino central en un silogismo categ\u00f3rico no est\u00e1 distribuido.\n\n*. Hecho consumado.\n\n. Cuando El misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat se public\u00f3 por primera vez, las notas al pie que se incluyen ahora no se consideraron necesarias; pero el lapso de varios a\u00f1os transcurrido desde que ocurri\u00f3 la tragedia en la que se basa este relato hace imprescindible incluirlas, y tambi\u00e9n decir unas palabras sobre el esquema general que seguiremos. Una joven, Mary Cecilia Rogers, fue asesinada en las cercan\u00edas de Nueva York; y, aunque su muerte caus\u00f3 un profundo y duradero revuelo, el misterio que rode\u00f3 el crimen segu\u00eda sin resolverse en la \u00e9poca en que se public\u00f3 este relato (noviembre de 1842). Con la excusa de contar el destino de una grisette parisina, el autor ha seguido con minucioso detalle los hechos esenciales y trazado un mero paralelismo con los hechos no esenciales del asesinato de Mary Rogers. As\u00ed, toda argumentaci\u00f3n fundada en la ficci\u00f3n es aplicable a la verdad, pues el objetivo era la investigaci\u00f3n de la verdad.\n\nEl misterio de Marie Rog\u00eat se escribi\u00f3 lejos del lugar de los hechos, y sin otro medio para investigarlo que el que proporcionaban los peri\u00f3dicos. Por ello al escritor se le escaparon muchos detalles que podr\u00eda haber conocido de haberse encontrado en la ciudad y haber visitado los lugares donde ocurri\u00f3 la tragedia. No obstante, tal vez convenga se\u00f1alar que las confesiones de dos personas (una de ellas la madame Deluc del relato), hechas en momentos distintos y mucho despu\u00e9s de la publicaci\u00f3n de la historia, confirmaron totalmente no s\u00f3lo las conclusiones generales, sino tambi\u00e9n los principales detalles hipot\u00e9ticos mediante los cuales \u00e9stas se alcanzaron. [Esta nota, como las siguientes, a menos que se indique lo contrario, es del autor y pertenece a la edici\u00f3n revisada de 1845.]\n\n. Nassau Street.\n\n. Weehawken.\n\n. Motines. [N. del T.]\n\n. Payne.\n\n. Crommelin.\n\n. The New York Mercury.\n\n. El neoyorquino Brother Jonathan, dirigido por H. Hastings.\n\n. El Journal of Commerce neoyorquino.\n\n. El Saturday Evening Post, de Filadelfia, dirigido por C. I. Peterson.\n\n. Adam.\n\n. Excesivo. [N. del T.]\n\n. V\u00e9ase Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue.\n\n. El neoyorquino Commercial Advertiser, dirigido por el coronel Stone.\n\n. En este punto se interrump\u00eda la primera entrega del original publicado en noviembre de 1842. [N. del T.]\n\n. Investigaci\u00f3n sobre el estado mental de una persona. [N. del T.]\n\n. Toda teor\u00eda basada en las cualidades de un objeto no podr\u00e1 desarrollarse seg\u00fan sus fines; y quien organice los asuntos con respecto a sus causas dejar\u00e1 de valorarlos respecto a sus resultados. As\u00ed la jurisprudencia de cada naci\u00f3n demuestra que, cuando la ley se convierte en una ciencia y un sistema, deja de ser justicia. Los errores a que conduce la ciega devoci\u00f3n a los principios de clasificaci\u00f3n por parte de la ley son evidentes si se observa con qu\u00e9 frecuencia la legislatura se ha visto obligada a intervenir para restablecer la equidad que aqu\u00e9lla hab\u00eda perdido. Landor.\n\n. El neoyorquino Express.\n\n. The New York Herald.\n\n. The New York Courier and Enquirer.\n\n. Mennais fue uno de los sospechosos a quienes se arrest\u00f3 en un primer momento, pero se le liber\u00f3 por falta total de pruebas.\n\n. The New York Courier and Enquirer.\n\n. The New York Evening Post.\n\n. The New York Standard.\n\n. Aqu\u00ed se interrump\u00eda la segunda entrega, publicada en diciembre de 1842. [N. del T.]\n\n. \u00bfY de ah\u00ed su rabia? [N. del T.]\n\n. De la Lady's Companion de Snowden.\nT\u00edtulo original: The Beautiful Cigar Girl. Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe And the Invention of Murder\n\nEsta traducci\u00f3n se publica por acuerdo con Random House, un sello editorial  \nde Random House Publishing Group, una divisi\u00f3n de Random House Group, Inc.\n\n\u00a9 Daniel Stashower, 2010\n\n\u00a9 de la traducci\u00f3n: Miguel Temprano Garc\u00eda\n\nEdici\u00f3n en formato digital: diciembre de 2013\n\n\u00a9 de esta edici\u00f3n:  \nAlba Editorial, S.L.U.  \nBaixada de Sant Miquel, 1 bajos  \n08002 Barcelona\n\nDise\u00f1o de la cubierta: Alba Editorial, S.L.U.\n\nQuedan prohibidos, dentro de los l\u00edmites establecidos en la ley y bajo los apercibimientos legalmente previstos, la reproducci\u00f3n total o parcial de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento, as\u00ed como el alquiler o cualquier otra forma de cesi\u00f3n de la obra sin la autorizaci\u00f3n previa y por escrito de los titulares del copyright. Dir\u00edjase a CEDRO (Centro Espa\u00f1ol de Derechos Reprogr\u00e1ficos, http:\/\/www.cedro.org) si necesita reproducir alg\u00fan fragmento de esta obra.\n\nISBN: 978-84-8428-976-0\n\nDep\u00f3sito legal: B-27.621-13\n\nConversi\u00f3n a formato digital: Abogal\n\nwww.albaeditorial.es\n\nAlba es un sello editorial que desde 1993 ha emprendido una labor de recuperaci\u00f3n de literatura cl\u00e1sica (Alba Cl\u00e1sica y Maior), as\u00ed como de ensayo hist\u00f3rico, literario y memor\u00edsticos (Colecci\u00f3n Trayectos). Asimismo, merece una especial menci\u00f3n la colecci\u00f3n Artes Esc\u00e9nicas, dedicada a la formaci\u00f3n de actores y la colecci\u00f3n Fuera de Campo conocida por la publicaci\u00f3n de textos de formaci\u00f3n cinematogr\u00e1fica y literaria en todos sus \u00e1mbitos. Tambi\u00e9n destacan sus originales y vistosos libros de cocina, as\u00ed como sus Gu\u00edas del escritor destinadas a aficionados y profesionales de la escritura. Por todo ello le fue concedido el Premio Nacional a la Mejor Labor Editorial, 2010. En 2012 ha incorporado a su cat\u00e1logo dos nuevas colecciones, Contempor\u00e1nea (dedicada a la ficci\u00f3n de hoy) y Rara Avis (cl\u00e1sicos raros de los siglos XIX y XX).\n\nConsulta www.albaeditorial.es\n\nAlba Editorial, s.l.u.  \nBaixada de Sant Miquel, 1 bajos  \n08002. Barcelona\n\nT. 93 415 29 29  \nF. 93 415 74 93\n\ninfo@albaeditorial.es\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n## Terry Pratchett\n\n## Witches Abroad\n\nA Novel of Discworld\u00ae\n\nDedicated to all those people\u2014and why  \nnot?\u2014who, after the publication of  \nWyrd Sisters, deluged the author with  \ntheir version of the words of  \n\"The Hedgehog Song.\"  \nDeary deary me...\n\n## Contents\n\nBegin Reading\n\nAbout the Author\n\nPraise\n\nOther Books by Terry Pratchett\n\nCopyright\n\nAbout the Publisher\n\n##\n\n## Begin Reading\n\nThis is the Discworld, which travels through space on the back of four elephants which themselves stand on the shell of Great A'Tuin, the sky turtle.\n\nOnce upon a time such a universe was considered unusual and, possibly, impossible.\n\nBut then...it used to be so simple, once upon a time.\n\nBecause the universe was full of ignorance all around and the scientist panned through it like a prospector crouched over a mountain stream, looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of unreason, the sand of uncertainty and the little whiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.\n\nOccasionally he would straighten up and say things like \"Hurrah, I've discovered Boyle's Third Law.\" And everyone knew where they stood. But the trouble was that ignorance became more interesting, especially big fascinating ignorance about huge and important things like matter and creation, and people stopped patiently building their little houses of rational sticks in the chaos of the universe and started getting interested in the chaos itself\u2014partly because it was a lot easier to be an expert on chaos, but mostly because it made really good patterns that you could put on a t-shirt.\n\nAnd instead of getting on with proper science* scientists suddenly went around saying how impossible it was to know anything, and that there wasn't really anything you could call reality to know anything about, and how all this was tremendously exciting, and incidentally did you know there were possibly all these little universes all over the place but no one can see them because they are all curved in on themselves? Incidentally, don't you think this is a rather good t-shirt?\n\nCompared to all this, a large turtle with a world on its back is practically mundane. At least it doesn't pretend it doesn't exist, and no one on the Discworld ever tried to prove it didn't exist in case they turned out to be right and found themselves suddenly floating in empty space. This is because the Discworld exists right on the edge of reality. The least little things can break through to the other side. So, on the Discworld, people take things seriously.\n\nLike stories.\n\nBecause stories are important.\n\nPeople think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.\n\nStories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.\n\nStories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling...stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness.\n\nAnd their very existence overlays a faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history. Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow in the same way that water follows certain paths down a mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper.\n\nThis is called the theory of narrative causality and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.\n\nThis is why history keeps on repeating all the time.\n\nSo a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods. A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story.\n\nIt is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark on a quest which has so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed.\n\nStories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.*\n\nIt takes a special kind of person to fight back, and become the bicarbonate of history.\n\nOnce upon a time...\n\nGray hands gripped the hammer and swung it, striking the post so hard that it sank a foot into the soft earth.\n\nTwo more blows and it was fixed immovably.\n\nFrom the trees around the clearing the snakes and birds watched silently. In the swamp the alligators drifted like patches of bad-assed water.\n\nGray hands took up the crosspiece and fixed it in place, tying it with creepers, pulling them so tight that they creaked.\n\nShe watched him. And then she took up a fragment of mirror and tied it to the top of the post.\n\n\"The coat,\" she said.\n\nHe took up the coat and fitted it over the crosspiece. The pole wasn't long enough, so that the last few inches of sleeve draped emptily.\n\n\"And the hat,\" she said.\n\nIt was tall, and round, and black. It glistened.\n\nThe piece of mirror gleamed between the darkness of the hat and the coat.\n\n\"Will it work?\" he said.*\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"Even mirrors have their reflection. We got to fight mirrors with mirrors.\" She glared up through the trees to a slim white tower in the distance. \"We've got to find her reflection.\"\n\n\"It'll have to reach out a long way, then.\"\n\n\"Yes. We need all the help we can get.\"\n\nShe looked around the clearing.\n\nShe had called upon Mister Safe Way, Lady Bon Anna, Hotaloga Andrews and Stride Wide Man. They probably weren't very good gods.\n\nBut they were the best she'd been able to make.\n\nThis is a story about stories.\n\nOr what it really means to be a fairy godmother.\n\nBut it's also, particularly, about reflections and mirrors.\n\nAll across the multiverse there are backward tribes* who distrust mirrors and images because, they say, they steal a bit of a person's soul and there's only so much of a person to go around. And the people who wear more clothes say this is just superstition, despite the fact that other people who spend their lives appearing in images of one sort or another seem to develop a thin quality. It's put down to over-work and, tellingly, over-exposure instead.\n\nJust superstition. But a superstition doesn't have to be wrong.\n\nA mirror can suck up a piece of soul. A mirror can contain the reflection of the whole universe, a whole skyful of stars in a piece of silvered glass no thicker than a breath.\n\nKnow about mirrors and you nearly know everything.\n\nLook into the mirror...\n\n...further...\n\n...to an orange light on a cold mountaintop, thousands of miles from the vegetable warmth of that swamp...\n\nLocal people called it the Bear Mountain. This was because it was a bare mountain, not because it had a lot of bears on it. This caused a certain amount of profitable confusion, though; people often strode into the nearest village with heavy duty crossbows, traps and nets and called haughtily for native guides to lead them to the bears. Since everyone locally was making quite a good living out of this, what with the sale of guide books, maps of bear caves, ornamental cuckoo-clocks with bears on them, bear walking-sticks and cakes baked in the shape of a bear, somehow no one had time to go and correct the spelling.*\n\nIt was about as bare as a mountain could be.\n\nMost of the trees gave out about halfway to the top, only a few pines hanging on to give an effect very similar to the couple of pathetic strands teased across his scalp by a baldie who won't own up.\n\nIt was a place where witches met.\n\nTonight a fire gleamed on the very crest of the hill. Dark figures moved in the flickering light.\n\nThe moon coasted across a lacework of clouds.\n\nFinally, a tall, pointy-hatted figure said, \"You mean everyone brought potato salad?\"\n\nThere was one Ramtop witch who was not attending the sabbat. Witches like a night out as much as anyone else but, in this case, she had a more pressing appointment. And it wasn't the kind of appointment you can put off easily.\n\nDesiderata Hollow was making her will.\n\nWhen Desiderata Hollow was a girl, her grandmother had given her four important pieces of advice to guide her young footsteps on the unexpectedly twisting pathway of life.\n\nThey were:\n\nNever trust a dog with orange eyebrows,\n\nAlways get the young man's name and address,\n\nNever get between two mirrors,\n\nAnd always wear completely clean underwear every day because you never knew when you were going to be knocked down and killed by a runaway horse and if people found you had unsatisfactory underwear on, you'd die of shame.\n\nAnd then Desiderata grew up to become a witch. And one of the minor benefits of being a witch is that you know exactly when you're going to die and can wear what underwear you like.*\n\nThat had been eighty years earlier, when the idea of knowing exactly when you were going to die had seemed quite attractive because secretly, of course, you knew you were going to live forever.\n\nThat was then.\n\nAnd this was now.\n\nForever didn't seem to last as long these days as once it did.\n\nAnother log crumbled to ash in the fireplace. Desiderata hadn't bothered to order any fuel for the winter. Not much point, really.\n\nAnd then, of course, there was this other thing...\n\nShe'd wrapped it up carefully into a long, slim package. Now she folded up the letter, addressed it, and pushed it under the string. Job done.\n\nShe looked up. Desiderata had been blind for thirty years, but this hadn't been a problem. She'd always been blessed, if that was the word, with second sight. So when the ordinary eyes gave out you just trained yourself to see into the present, which anyway was easier than the future. And since the eyeball of the occult didn't depend on light, you saved on candles. There was always a silver lining, if you knew where to look. In a manner of speaking.\n\nThere was a mirror on the wall in front of her.\n\nThe face in it was not her own, which was round and pink.\n\nIt was the face of a woman who was used to giving orders. Desiderata wasn't the sort to give orders. Quite the reverse, in fact.\n\nThe woman said, \"You are dying, Desiderata.\"\n\n\"I am that, too.\"\n\n\"You've grown old. Your sort always do. Your power is nearly gone.\"\n\n\"That's a fact, Lilith,\" said Desiderata mildly.\n\n\"So your protection is withdrawing from her.\"\n\n\"'Fraid so,\" said Desiderata.\n\n\"So now it's just me and the evil swamp woman. And I will win.\"\n\n\"That's how it seems, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"You should have found a successor.\"\n\n\"Never had the time. I'm not the planning sort, you know.\"\n\nThe face in the mirror got closer, as if the figure had moved a little nearer to its side of the mirror.\n\n\"You've lost, Desiderata Hollow.\"\n\n\"So it goes.\" Desiderata got to her feet, a little unsteadily, and picked up a cloth.\n\nThe figure seemed to be getting angry. It clearly felt that people who had lost ought to look downcast, and not as if they were enjoying a joke at your expense.\n\n\"Don't you understand what losing means?\"\n\n\"Some people are very clear about that,\" said Desiderata. \"Goodbye, m'lady.\" She hung the cloth over the mirror.\n\nThere was an angry intake of breath, and then silence.\n\nDesiderata stood as if lost in thought.\n\nThen she raised her head, and said: \"Kettle boiled just now. Would you like a cup of tea?\"\n\nNO, THANK YOU, said a voice right behind her.\n\n\"How long have you been waiting?\"\n\nFOREVER.\n\n\"Not keeping you, am I?\"\n\nIT'S A QUIET NIGHT.\n\n\"I'm making a cup of tea. I think there's one biscuit left.\"\n\nNO, THANK YOU.\n\n\"If you feel peckish, it's in the jar on the mantelpiece. That's genuine Klatchian pottery, you know. Made by a genuine Klatchian craftsman. From Klatch,\" she added.\n\nINDEED?\n\n\"I used to get about a lot in my younger days.\"\n\nYES?\n\n\"Great times.\" Desiderata poked the fire. \"It was the job, you see. Of course, I expect it's very much the same for you.\"\n\nYES.\n\n\"I never knew when I was going to be called out. Well, of course you'd know about that, wouldn't you. Kitchens, mainly. It always seemed to be kitchens. Balls sometimes, but generally it was kitchens.\" She picked up the kettle and poured the boiling water into the teapot on the hearth.\n\nINDEED.\n\n\"I used to grant their wishes.\"\n\nDeath looked puzzled.\n\nWHAT? YOU MEAN LIKE...FITTED CUPBOARDS? NEW SINKS? THAT KIND OF THING?\n\n\"No, no. The people.\" Desiderata sighed. \"It's a big responsibility, fairy godmothering. Knowing when to stop, I mean. People whose wishes get granted often don't turn out to be very nice people. So should you give them what they want\u2014or what they need?\"\n\nDeath nodded politely. From his point of view, people got what they were given.\n\n\"Like this Genua thing\u2014\" Desiderata began.\n\nDeath looked up sharply.\n\nGENUA?\n\n\"You know it? Well, of course you would.\"\n\nI...KNOW EVERYWHERE, OF COURSE.\n\nDesiderata's expression softened. Her inner eyes were looking elsewhere.\n\n\"There were two of us. Godmothers go in twos, you know. Me and Lady Lilith? There's a lot of power in godmothering. It's like being part of history. Anyway, the girl was born, out of wedlock but none the worse for that, it wasn't as if they couldn't have married, they just never got around to it...and Lilith wished for her to have beauty and power and marry a prince. Hah! And she's been working on that ever since. What could I do? You can't argue with wishes like that. Lilith knows the power of a story. I've done the best I could, but Lilith's got the power. I hear she runs the city now. Changing a whole country just to make a story work! And now it's too late anyway. For me. So I'm handing on the responsibility. That's how it goes, with fairy godmothering. No one ever wants to be a fairy godmother. Except Lilith, of course. Got a bee in her bonnet about it. So I'm sending someone else. I may have left things too late.\"\n\nDesiderata was a kindly soul. Fairy godmothers develop a very deep understanding about human nature, which makes the good ones kind and the bad ones powerful. She was not someone to use extreme language, but it was possible to be sure that when she deployed a mild term like \"a bee in her bonnet\" she was using it to define someone whom she believed to be several miles over the madness horizon and accelerating.\n\nShe poured out the tea.\n\n\"That's the trouble with second sight,\" she said.\n\n\"You can see what's happenin', but you don't know what it means. I've seen the future. There's a coach made out of a pumpkin. And that's impossible. And there's coachmen made out of mice, which is unlikely. And there's a clock striking midnight, and something about a glass slipper. And it's all going to happen. Because that's how stories have to work. And then I thought: I know some people who make stories work their way.\"\n\nShe sighed again. \"Wish I was going to Genua,\" she said. \"I could do with the warmth. And it's Fat Tuesday coming up. Always went to Genua for Fat Tuesday in the old days.\"\n\nThere was an expectant silence.\n\nThen Death said, YOU SURELY ARE NOT ASKING ME to grant a wish?\n\n\"Hah! No one grants a fairy godmother's wishes.\" Desiderata had that inward look again, her voice talking to herself. \"See? I got to get the three of them to Genua. Got to get 'em there because I've seen 'em there. Got to be all three. And that ain't easy, with people like them. Got to use headology. Got to make 'em send 'emselves. Tell Esme Weatherwax she's got to go somewhere and she won't go out of contrariness, so tell her she's not to go and she'll run there over broken glass.That's the thing about the Weatherwaxes, see. They don't know how to be beaten.\"\n\nSomething seemed to strike her as funny.\n\n\"But one of 'em's going to have to learn.\"\n\nDeath said nothing. From where he sat, Desiderata reflected, losing was something that everyone learned.\n\nShe drained her tea. Then she stood up, put on her pointy hat with a certain amount of ceremony, and hobbled out of the back door.\n\nThere was a deep trench dug under the trees a little way from the house, down into which someone had thoughtfully put a short ladder. She climbed in and, with some difficulty, heaved the ladder onto the leaves. Then she lay down. She sat up.\n\n\"Mr. Chert the troll down at the sawmill does a very good deal on coffins, if you don't mind pine.\"\n\nI SHALL DEFINITELY BEAR IT IN MIND.\n\n\"I got Hurker the poacher to dig the hole out for me,\" she said, conversationally, \"and he's goin' to come along and fill it in on his way home. I believe in being neat. Take it away, maestro.\"\n\nWHAT? OH. A FIGURE OF SPEECH.\n\nHe raised his scythe.\n\nDesiderata Hollow went to her rest.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"that was easy. What happens now?\"\n\nAnd this is Genua. The magical kingdom. The diamond city. The fortunate country.\n\nIn the center of the city a woman stood between two mirrors, watching herself reflected all the way to infinity.\n\nThe mirrors were themselves in the center of an octagon of mirrors, open to the sky on the highest tower of the palace. There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.\n\nHer name was Lady Lilith de Tempscire, although she had answered to many others in the course of a long and eventful life. And that was something you learned to do early on, she'd found. If you wanted to get anywhere in this world\u2014and she'd decided, right at the start, that she wanted to get as far as it was possible to go\u2014you wore names lightly, and you took power anywhere you found it. She had buried three husbands, and at least two of them had been already dead.\n\nAnd you moved around a lot. Because most people didn't move around much. Change countries and your name and, if you had the right manner, the world was your mollusc. For example, she'd had to go a mere hundred miles to become a Lady.\n\nShe'd go to any lengths now...\n\nThe two main mirrors were set almost, but not quite, facing one another, so that Lilith could see over her shoulder and watch her images curve away around the universe inside the mirror.\n\nShe could feel herself pouring into herself, multiplying itself via the endless reflections.\n\nWhen Lilith sighed and strode out from the space between the mirrors the effect was startling. Images of Lilith hung in the air behind her for a moment, like three-dimensional shadows, before fading.\n\nSo...Desiderata was dying. Interfering old baggage. She deserved death. She'd never understood the kind of power she'd had. She was one of those people afraid to do good for fear of doing harm, who took it all so seriously that they'd constipate themselves with moral anguish before granting the wish of a single ant.\n\nLilith looked down and out over the city. Well, there were no barriers now. The stupid voodoo woman in the swamp was a mere distraction, with no understanding.\n\nNothing stood in the way of what Lilith liked more than anything else.\n\nA happy ending.\n\nUp on the mountain, the sabbat had settled down a bit.\n\nArtists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches' sabbat. This comes from spending too much time in small rooms with the curtains drawn, instead of getting out in the healthy fresh air.\n\nFor example, there's the dancing around naked. In the average temperate climate there are very few nights when anyone would dance around at midnight with no clothes on, quite apart from the question of stones, thistles, and sudden hedgehogs.\n\nThen there's all that business with goat-headed gods. Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.\n\nAnd there's the food and drink\u2014the bits of reptile and so on. In fact, witches don't go for that sort of thing. The worst you can say about the eating habits of the older type of witch is that they tend to like ginger biscuits dipped in tea with so much sugar in it that the spoon won't move and will drink it out of the saucer if they think it's too hot. And do so with appreciative noises more generally associated with the cheaper type of plumbing system. Legs of toad and so on might be better than this.\n\nThen there's the mystic ointments. By sheer luck, the artists and writers are on firmer ground here. Most witches are elderly, which is when ointments start to have an attraction, and at least two of those present tonight were wearing Granny Weatherwax's famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment. This didn't make you fly and see visions, but it did prevent colds, if only because the distressing smell that developed around about the second week kept everyone else so far away you couldn't catch anything from them.\n\nAnd finally there's sabbats themselves. Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is \"Don't do what you will, do what I say.\" The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.\n\nLike now.\n\nThe conversation, given Desiderata's absence, had naturally turned to the increasing shortage of witches.*\n\n\"What, no one?\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"No one,\" said Gammer Brevis.\n\n\"I call that terrible,\" said Granny. \"That's disgustin'.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said Old Mother Dismass.\n\n\"She calls it disgusting!\" shouted Gammer Brevis.\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"There's no girl to put forward! To take Desiderata's place!\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nThe implications of this sank in.\n\n\"If anyone doesn't want their crusts I'll 'ave 'em,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"We never had this sort of thing in my young days,\" said Granny. \"There was a dozen witches this side of the mountain alone. Of course, that was before all this\"\u2014she made a face\u2014\"making your own entertainment. There's far too much of this making your own entertainment these days. We never made our own entertainment when I was a girl. We never had time.\"\n\n\"Tempers fuggit,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Tempers fuggit. Means that was then and this is now,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I don't need no one to tell me that, Gytha Ogg. I know when now is.\"\n\n\"You got to move with the times.\"\n\n\"I don't see why. Don't see why we\u2014\"\n\n\"So I reckon we got to shift the boundaries again,\" said Gammer Brevis.\n\n\"Can't do that,\" said Granny Weatherwax promptly. \"I'm doing four villages already. The broomstick hardly has time to cool down.\"\n\n\"Well, with Mother Hollow passing on, we're definitely short handed,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"I know she didn't do a lot, what with her other work, but she was there. That's what it's all about. Being there. There's got to be a local witch.\"\n\nThe four witches stared gloomily at the fire. Well, three of them did. Nanny Ogg, who tended to look on the cheerful side, made toast.\n\n\"They've got a wizard in, down in Creel Springs,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"There wasn't anyone to take over when old Granny Hopliss passed on, so they sent off to Ankh-Morpork for a wizard. An actual wizard. With a staff. He's got a shop there and everything, with a brass sign on the door. It says 'Wizard.'\"\n\nThe witches sighed.\n\n\"Mrs. Singe passed on,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"And Gammer Peavey passed on.\"\n\n\"Did she? Old Mabel Peavey?\" said Nanny Ogg, through a shower of crumbs. \"How old was she?\"\n\n\"One hundred and nineteen,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"I said to her, 'You don't want to go climbing mountains at your age' but she wouldn't listen.\"\n\n\"Some people are like that,\" said Granny. \"Stubborn as mules. Tell them they mustn't do something and they won't stop till they've tried it.\"\n\n\"I actually heard her very last words,\" said Gammer.\n\n\"What did she say?\" said Granny.\n\n\"As I recall, 'oh bugger,'\" said Gammer.\n\n\"It's the way she would have wanted to go,\" said Nanny Ogg. The other witches nodded.\n\n\"You know...we could be looking at the end of witchcraft in these parts,\" said Gammer Brevis.\n\nThey stared at the fire again.\n\n\"I don't 'spect anyone's brought any marshmallows?\" said Nanny Ogg, hopefully.\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked at her sister witches. Gammer Brevis she couldn't stand; the old woman taught school on the other side of the mountain, and had a nasty habit of being reasonable when provoked. And Old Mother Dismass was possibly the most useless sibyl in the history of oracular revelation. And Granny really couldn't be having at all with Nanny Ogg, who was her best friend.\n\n\"What about young Magrat?\" said Old Mother Dismass innocently. \"Her patch runs right alongside Desiderata's. Maybe she could take on a bit extra?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg exchanged glances.\n\n\"She's gone funny in the head,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Now, come on, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Well, I call it funny,\" said Granny. \"You can't tell me that saying all that stuff about relatives isn't going funny in the head.\"\n\n\"She didn't say that,\" said Nanny. \"She said she wanted to relate to herself.\"\n\n\"That's what I said,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"I told her: Simplicity Garlick was your mother, Araminta Garlick was your granny. Yolande Garlick is your aunt and you're your...you're your me.\"\n\nShe sat back with the satisfied look of someone who has solved everything anyone could ever want to know about a personal identity crisis.\n\n\"She wouldn't listen,\" she added.\n\nGammer Brevis wrinkled her forehead.\n\n\"Magrat?\" she said. She tried to get a mental picture of the Ramtops' youngest witch and recalled\u2014well, not a face, just a slightly watery-eyed expression of hopeless goodwill wedged between a body like a maypole and hair like a haystack after a gale. A relentless doer of good works. A worrier. The kind of person who rescued small lost baby birds and cried when they died, which is the function kind old Mother Nature usually reserves for small lost baby birds.\n\n\"Doesn't sound like her,\" she said.\n\n\"And she said she wanted to be more self-assertive,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Nothing wrong with being self-assertive,\" said Nanny. \"Self asserting's what witching's all about.\"\n\n\"I never said there was anything wrong with it,\" said Granny. \"I told her there was nothing wrong with it. You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just so long as you do what you're told.\"\n\n\"Rub this on and it'll clear up in a week or two,\" said Old Mother Dismass.\n\nThe other three witches watched her expectantly, in case there was going to be anything else. It became clear that there wasn't.\n\n\"And she's running\u2014what's that she's running, Gytha?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Self-defense classes,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"But she's a witch,\" Gammer Brevis pointed out.\n\n\"I told her that,\" said Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was. \"She said that wasn't the point. Wasn't the point. That's what she said.\"\n\n\"No one goes to them, anyway,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"I thought she was going to get married to the king,\" said Gammer Brevis.\n\n\"Everyone did,\" said Nanny. \"But you know Magrat. She tends to be open to ideas. Now she says she refuses to be a sex object.\"\n\nThey all thought about this. Finally Gammer Brevis said, slowly, in the manner of one surfacing from the depths of fascinated cogitation, \"But she's never been a sex object.\"\n\n\"I'm pleased to say I don't even know what a sex object is,\" said Granny Weatherwax firmly.\n\n\"I do,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nThey looked at her.\n\n\"Our Shane brought one home from foreign parts once.\"\n\nThey carried on looking at her.\n\n\"It was brown and fat and had beads on and a face and two holes for the string.\"\n\nThis didn't seem to avert their gaze.\n\n\"Well, that's what he said it was,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I think you're talking about a fertility idol,\" said Gammer Brevis helpfully.\n\nGranny shook her head.\n\n\"Doesn't sound much like Magrat to me\u2014\" she began.\n\n\"You can't tell me that's worth tuppence,\" said Old Mother Dismass, from whatever moment of time she was currently occupying.\n\nNo one was ever quite sure which it was.\n\nIt was an occupational hazard for those gifted with second sight. The human mind isn't really designed to be sent rocketing backward and forward along the great freeway of time and can become, as it were, detached from its anchorage, seeing randomly into the past and the future and only occasionally into the present. Old Mother Dismass was temporally unfocused. This meant that if you spoke to her in August she was probably listening to you in March. It was best just to say something now and hope she'd pick it up next time her mind was passing through.\n\nGranny waved her hands experimentally in front of Old Mother Dismass's unseeing eyes.\n\n\"She's gone again,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, if Magrat can't take it on there's Millie Hopgood from over Slice way,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"She's a hard-working girl. Mind you, she's got a worse squint than Magrat.\"\n\n\"Nothing wrong with that. A squint looks good on a witch,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"But you have to know how to use it,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Old Gertie Simmons used to have a squint and she was always putting the evil influence on the end of her own nose. We can't have people thinkin' that if you upset a witch she curses and mutters and then her own nose drops off.\"\n\nThey all stared at the fire again.\n\n\"I suppose Desiderata wouldn't have chosen her own successor?\" said Gammer Brevis.\n\n\"Can't go doin' that,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"That's not how we do things in these parts.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Desiderata didn't spend much time in these parts. It was the job. She was always going off to foreign parts.\"\n\n\"I can't be having with foreign parts,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"You've been to Ankh-Morpork,\" said Nanny mildly. \"That's foreign.\"\n\n\"No it's not. It's just a long way off. That's not the same as foreign. Foreign's where they gabble at you in heathen lingo and eat foreign muck and worship, you know, objects,\" said Granny Weatherwax, goodwill diplomat. \"Foreign can be quite close too, if you're not careful. Huh,\" she added witheringly. \"Yes, she could bring back just about anything from foreign parts.\"\n\n\"She brought me back a nice blue and white plate once,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"That's a point,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"Someone'd better go and see to her cottage. She had quite a lot of good stuff there. It'd be dreadful to think of some thief getting in there and having a rummage.\"\n\n\"Can't imagine any thief'd want to break into a witch's\u2014\" Granny began, and then stopped abruptly.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said meekly. \"Good idea. I'll see to it directly.\"\n\n\"No, I'll see to it,\" said Nanny Ogg, who'd also had time to work something out. \"It's right on my way home. No problem.\"\n\n\"No, you'll be wanting to get home early,\" said Granny. \"Don't you bother yourself. It'd be no trouble.\"\n\n\"Oh, it won't be any trouble at all,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"You don't want to go tiring yourself out at your age,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\nThey glared at one another.\n\n\"I really don't see that it matters,\" said Gammer Brevis. \"You might as well go together rather than fight about it.\"\n\n\"I'm a bit busy tomorrow,\" said Granny. \"How about after lunch?\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"We'll meet at her cottage. Right after lunch.\"\n\n\"We had one once but the bit you unscrew fell off and got lost,\" said Old Mother Dismass.\n\nHurker the poacher shovelled the last of the earth into the hole. He felt he ought to say a few words.\n\n\"Well, that's about it, then,\" he said.\n\nShe'd definitely been one of the better witches, he thought, as he wandered back to the cottage in the pre-dawn gloom. Some of the other ones\u2014while of course being wonderful human beings, he added to himself hurriedly, as fine a bunch of women as you could ever hope to avoid\u2014were just a bit overpowering. Mistress Hollow had been a listening kind of person.\n\nOn the kitchen table was a long package, a small pile of coins, and an envelope.\n\nHe opened the envelope, although it was not addressed to him.\n\nInside was a smaller envelope, and a note.\n\nThe note said: I'm watching you, Albert Hurker. Deliver the packige and the envlope and if you dare take a peek inside something dretful will happen to you. As a profesional Good Farey Godmother I aint allowed to curse anyone but I Predict it would probly involve bein bittern by an enraged wolf and your leg going green and runny and dropping off, dont arsk me how I know anyway you carnt because, I am dead. All the best, Desiderata.\n\nHe picked up the package with his eyes shut.\n\nLight travels slowly in the Discworld's vast magical field, which means that time does too. As Nanny Ogg would put it, when it's teatime in Genua it's Tuesday over here...\n\nIn fact it was dawn in Genua. Lilith sat in her tower, using a mirror, sending her own image out to scan the world. She was searching.\n\nWherever there was a sparkle on a wave crest, wherever there was a sheet of ice, wherever there was a mirror or a reflection then Lilith knew she could see out. You didn't need a magic mirror. Any mirror would do, if you knew how to use it. And Lilith, crackling with the power of a million images, knew that very well.\n\nThere was just a nagging doubt. Presumably Desiderata would have got rid of it. Her sort were like that. Conscientious. And presumably it would be to that stupid girl with the watery eyes who sometimes visited the cottage, the one with all the cheap jewelry and the bad taste in clothes. She looked just the type.\n\nBut Lilith wanted to be sure. She hadn't got where she was today without being sure.\n\nIn puddles and windows all over Lancre, the face of Lilith appeared momentarily and then moved on...\n\nAnd now it was dawn in Lancre. Autumn mists rolled through the forest.\n\nGranny Weatherwax pushed open the cottage door. It wasn't locked. The only visitor Desiderata had been expecting wasn't the sort to be put off by locks.\n\n\"She's had herself buried around the back,\" said a voice behind her. It was Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny considered her next move. To point out that Nanny had deliberately come early, so as to search the cottage by herself, then raised questions about Granny's own presence. She could undoubtedly answer them, given enough time. On the whole, it was probably best just to get on with things.\n\n\"Ah,\" she said, nodding. \"Always very neat in her ways, was Desiderata.\"\n\n\"Well, it was the job,\" said Nanny Ogg, pushing past her and eyeing the room's contents speculatively. \"You got to be able to keep track of things, in a job like hers. By gor', that's a bloody enormous cat.\"\n\n\"It's a lion,\" said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.\n\n\"Must've hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Someone killed it,\" said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.\n\n\"Should think so,\" said Nanny. \"If I'd seen something like that eatin' its way through the wall I'd of hit it myself with the poker.\"\n\nThere was of course no such thing as a typical witch's cottage, but if there was such a thing as a nontypical witch's cottage, then this was certainly it. Apart from various glassy-eyed animal heads, the walls were covered in bookshelves and watercolor pictures. There was a spear in the umbrella stand. Instead of the more usual earthenware and china on the dresser there were foreign-looking brass pots and fine blue porcelain. There wasn't a dried herb anywhere in the place but there were a great many books, most of them filled with Desiderata's small, neat handwriting. A whole table was covered with what were probably maps, meticulously drawn.\n\nGranny Weatherwax didn't like maps. She felt instinctively that they sold the landscape short.\n\n\"She certainly got about a bit,\" said Nanny Ogg, picking up a carved ivory fan and flirting coquettishly.*\n\n\"Well, it was easy for her,\" said Granny, opening a few drawers. She ran her fingers along the top of the mantelpiece and looked at them critically.\n\n\"She could have found time to go over the place with a duster,\" she said vaguely. \"I wouldn't go and die and leave my place in this state.\"\n\n\"I wonder where she left...you know...it?\" said Nanny, opening the door of the grandfather clock and peering inside.\n\n\"Shame on you, Gytha Ogg,\" said Granny. \"We're not here to look for that.\"\n\n\"Of course not. I was just wondering...\" Nanny Ogg tried to stand on tiptoe surreptitiously, in order to see on top of the dresser.\n\n\"Gytha! For shame! Go and make us a cup of tea!\"\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\nNanny Ogg disappeared, muttering, into the scullery. After a few seconds there came the creaking of a pump handle.\n\nGranny Weatherwax sidled toward a chair and felt quickly under the cushion.\n\nThere was a clatter from the next room. She straightened up hurriedly.\n\n\"I shouldn't think it'd be under the sink, neither,\" she shouted.\n\nNanny Ogg's reply was inaudible.\n\nGranny waited a moment, and then crept rapidly over to the big chimney. She reached up and felt cautiously around.\n\n\"Looking for something, Esme?\" said Nanny Ogg behind her.\n\n\"The soot up here is terrible,\" said Granny, standing up quickly. \"Terrible soot there is.\"\n\n\"It's not up there, then?\" said Nanny Ogg sweetly.\n\n\"Don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"You don't have to pretend. Everyone knows she must have had one,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"It goes with the job. It practic'ly is the job.\"\n\n\"Well...maybe I just wanted a look at it,\" Granny admitted. \"Just hold it a while. Not use it. You wouldn't catch me using one of those things. I only ever saw it once or twice. There ain't many of 'em around these days.\"\n\nNanny Ogg nodded. \"You can't get the wood,\" she said.\n\n\"You don't think she's been buried with it, do you?\"\n\n\"Shouldn't think so. I wouldn't want to be buried with it. Thing like that, it's a bit of a responsibility. Anyway, it wouldn't stay buried. A thing like that wants to be used. It'd be rattling around your coffin the whole time. You know the trouble they are.\"\n\nShe relaxed a bit. \"I'll sort out the tea things,\" she said. \"You light the fire.\"\n\nShe wandered back into the scullery.\n\nGranny Weatherwax reached along the mantelpiece for the matches, and then realized that there wouldn't be any. Desiderata had always said she was much too busy not to use magic around the house. Even her laundry did itself.\n\nGranny disapproved of magic for domestic purposes, but she was annoyed. She also wanted her tea.\n\nShe threw a couple of logs into the fireplace and glared at them until they burst into flame out of sheer embarrassment.\n\nIt was then that her eye was caught by the shrouded mirror.\n\n\"Coverin' it over?\" she murmured. \"I didn't know old Desiderata was frightened of thunderstorms.\"\n\nShe twitched aside the cloth.\n\nShe stared.\n\nVery few people in the world had more self-control than Granny Weatherwax. It was as rigid as a bar of cast iron. And about as flexible.\n\nShe smashed the mirror.\n\nLilith sat bolt upright in her tower of mirrors.\n\nHer?\n\nThe face was different, of course. Older. It had been a long time. But eyes don't change, and witches always look at the eyes.\n\nHer!\n\nMagrat Garlick, witch, was also standing in front of a mirror. In her case it was totally unmagical. It was also still in one piece, but there had been one or two close calls.\n\nShe frowned at her reflection, and then consulted the small, cheaply-woodcut leaflet that had arrived the previous day.\n\nShe mouthed a few words under her breath, straightened up, extended her hands in front of her, punched the air vigorously and said: \"HAAAAiiiii-eeeeeeehgh! Um.\"\n\nMagrat would be the first to admit that she had an open mind. It was as open as a field, as open as the sky. No mind could be more open without special surgical implements. And she was always waiting for something to fill it up.\n\nWhat it was currently filling up with was the search for inner peace and cosmic harmony and the true essence of Being.\n\nWhen people say \"An idea came to me\" it isn't just a metaphor. Raw inspirations, tiny particles of self-contained thought, are sleeting through the cosmos all the time. They get drawn to heads like Magrat's in the same way that water runs into a hole in the desert.\n\nIt was all due to her mother's lack of attention to spelling, she speculated. A caring parent would have spelled Margaret correctly. And then she could have been a Peggy, or a Maggie\u2014big, robust names, full of reliability. There wasn't much you could do with a Magrat. It sounded like something that lived in a hole in a river bank and was always getting flooded out.\n\nShe considered changing it, but knew in her secret heart that this would not work. Even if she became a Chloe or an Isobel on top she'd still be a Magrat underneath. But it would be nice to try. It'd be nice not to be a Magrat, even for a few hours.\n\nIt's thoughts like this that start people on the road to Finding Themselves. And one of the earliest things Magrat had learned was that anyone Finding Themselves would be unwise to tell Granny Weatherwax, who thought that female emancipation was a women's complaint that shouldn't be discussed in front of men.\n\nNanny Ogg was more sympathetic but had a tendency to come out with what Magrat thought of as double-intenders, although in Nanny Ogg's case they were generally single entendres and proud of it.\n\nIn short, Magrat had despaired of learning anything at all from her senior witches, and was casting her net further afield. Much further afield. About as far afield as a field could be.\n\nIt's a strange thing about determined seekers-after-wisdom that, no matter where they happen to be, they'll always seek that wisdom which is a long way off. Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.*\n\nCurrently Magrat was finding herself through the Path of The Scorpion, which offered cosmic harmony, inner one-ness and the possibility of knocking an attacker's kidneys out through his ears. She'd sent off for it.\n\nThere were problems. The author, Grand Master Lobsang Dibbler, had an address in Ankh-Morpork. This did not seem like a likely seat of cosmic wisdom. Also, although he'd put in lots of stuff about the Way not being used for aggression and only to be used for cosmic wisdom, this was in quite small print between enthusiastic drawings of people hitting one another with rice flails and going \"Hai!\" Later on you learned how to cut bricks in half with your hand and walk over red hot coals and other cosmic things.\n\nMagrat thought that Ninja was a nice name for a girl.\n\nShe squared up to herself in the mirror again.\n\nThere was a knock at the door. Magrat went and opened it.\n\n\"Hai?\" she said.\n\nHurker the poacher took a step backward. He was already rather shaken. An angry wolf had trailed him part of the way through the forest.\n\n\"Um,\" he said. He leaned forward, his shock changing to concern. \"Have you hurt your head, Miss?\"\n\nShe looked at him in incomprehension. Then realization dawned. She reached up and took off the headband with the chrysanthemum pattern on it, without which it is almost impossible to properly seek cosmic wisdom by twisting an opponent's elbows through 360 degrees.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"Got a package for you,\" said Hurker, presenting it.\n\nIt was about two feet long, and very thin.\n\n\"There's a note,\" said Hurker helpfully. He shuffled around as she unfolded it, and tried to read it over her shoulder.\n\n\"It's private,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Is it?\" said Hurker, agreeably.\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"I was tole you'd give me a penny for delivering it,\" said the poacher. Magrat found one in her purse.\n\n\"Money forges the chains which bind the laboring classes,\" she warned, handing it over. Hurker, who had never thought of himself as a laboring class in his life, but who was prepared to listen to almost any amount of gibberish in exchange for a penny, nodded innocently.\n\n\"And I hope your head gets better, Miss,\" he said.\n\nWhen Magrat was left alone in her kitchen-cum-dojo she unwrapped the parcel. It contained one slim white rod.\n\nShe looked at the note again. It said, \"I niver had time to Trane a replaysment so youll have to Do. You must goe to the city of Genua. I would of done thys myself only cannot by reason of bein dead. Ella Saturday muste NOTTE marry the prins. PS This is importent.\"\n\nShe looked at her reflection in the mirror.\n\nShe looked down at the note again.\n\n\"PSPS Tell those 2 Olde Biddys they are Notte to come with Youe, they will onlie Ruine everythin.\"\n\nThere was more.\n\n\"PSPSPS It has tendincy to resett to pumpkins but you will gett the hange of it in noe time.\"\n\nMagrat looked at the mirror again. And then down at the wand.\n\nOne minute life is simple, and then suddenly it stretches away full of complications.\n\n\"Oh, my,\" she said. \"I'm a fairy godmother!\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax was still standing staring at the crazily-webbed fragments when Nanny Ogg ran in.\n\n\"Esme Weatherwax, what have you done? That's bad luck, that is...Esme?\"\n\n\"Her? Her?\"\n\n\"Are you all right?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax screwed up her eyes for a moment, and then shook her head as if trying to dislodge an unthinkable thought.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You've gone all pale. Never seen you go all pale like that before.\"\n\nGranny slowly removed a fragment of glass from her hat.\n\n\"Well...bit of a turn, the glass breaking like that...\" she mumbled.\n\nNanny looked at Granny Weatherwax's hand. It was bleeding. Then she looked at Granny Weatherwax's face, and decided that she'd never admit that she'd looked at Granny Weatherwax's hand.\n\n\"Could be a sign,\" she said, randomly selecting a safe topic. \"Once someone dies, you get that sort of thing. Pictures fallin' off walls, clocks stopping...great big wardrobes falling down the stairs...that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"I've never believed in that stuff, it's...what do you mean, wardrobes falling down the stairs?\" said Granny. She was breathing deeply. If it wasn't well known that Granny Weatherwax was tough, anyone might have thought she had just had the shock of her life and was practically desperate to take part in a bit of ordinary everyday bickering.\n\n\"That's what happened after my Great-Aunt Sophie died,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Three days and four hours and six minutes to the very minute after she died, her wardrobe fell down the stairs. Our Darren and our Jason were trying to get it around the bend and it sort of slipped, just like that. Uncanny. Weeell, I wasn't going to leave it there for her Agatha, was I, only ever visited her mum on Hogswatchday, and it was me that nursed Sophie all the way through to the end\u2014\"\n\nGranny let the familiar, soothing litany of Nanny Ogg's family feud wash over her as she groped for the teacups.\n\nThe Oggs were what is known as an extended family\u2014in fact not only extended but elongated, protracted and persistent. No normal sheet of paper could possibly trace their family tree, which in any case was more like a mangrove thicket. And every single branch had a low-key, chronic vendetta against every other branch, based on such well-established causes c\u00e9l\u00e8bres as What Their Kevin Said About Our Stan At Cousin Di's Wedding and Who Got The Silver Cutlery That Auntie Em Promised Our Doreen Was To Have After She Died, I'd Like To Know, Thank You Very Much, If You Don't Mind.\n\nNanny Ogg, as undisputed matriarch, encouraged all sides indiscriminately. It was the nearest thing she had to a hobby.\n\nThe Oggs contained, in just one family, enough feuds to keep an entire Ozark of normal hillbillies going for a century.\n\nAnd sometimes this encouraged a foolish outsider to join in and perhaps make an uncomplimentary remark about one Ogg to another Ogg. Whereupon every single Ogg would turn on him, every part of the family closing up together like the parts of a well-oiled, blue-steeled engine to deal instant merciless destruction to the interloper.\n\nRamtop people believed that the Ogg feud was a blessing. The thought of them turning their immense energy on the world in general was a terrible one. Fortunately, there was no one an Ogg would rather fight than another Ogg. It was family.\n\nOdd things, families, when you came to think of it...\n\n\"Esme? You all right?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You've got them cups rattling like nobody's business! And tea all over the tray.\"\n\nGranny looked down blankly at the mess, and rallied as best she could.\n\n\"Not my damn fault if the damn cups are too small,\" she muttered.\n\nThe door opened.\n\n\"Morning, Magrat,\" she added, without looking around. \"What're you doing here?\"\n\nIt was something about the way the hinges creaked. Magrat could even open a door apologetically.\n\nThe younger witch sidled speechlessly into the room, face beetroot red, arms held behind her back.\n\n\"We'd just popped in to sort out Desiderata's things, as our duty to a sister witch,\" said Granny loudly.\n\n\"And not to look for her magic wand,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Gytha Ogg!\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked momentarily guilty, and then hung her head.\n\n\"Sorry, Esme.\"\n\nMagrat brought her arms around in front of her.\n\n\"Er,\" she said, and blushed further.\n\n\"You found it!\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Uh, no,\" said Magrat, not daring to look Granny in the eyes. \"Desiderata gave it to...me.\"\n\nThe silence crackled and hummed.\n\n\"She gave it to you?\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Uh. Yes.\"\n\nNanny and Granny looked at one another.\n\n\"Well!\" said Nanny.\n\n\"She does know you, doesn't she?\" demanded Granny, turning back to Magrat.\n\n\"I used to come over here quite often to look at her books,\" Magrat confessed. \"And...and she liked to cook foreign food and no one else around here would eat it, so I'd come up to keep her company.\"\n\n\"Ah-ha! Curryin' favor!\" snapped Granny.\n\n\"But I never thought she'd leave me the wand,\" said Magrat. \"Really I didn't!\"\n\n\"There's probably some mistake,\" said Nanny Ogg kindly. \"She probably wanted you to give it to one of us.\"\n\n\"That'll be it, right enough,\" said Granny. \"She knew you were good at running errands and so on. Let's have a look at it.\"\n\nShe held out her hand.\n\nMagrat's knuckles tightened on the wand.\n\n\"...she gave it me...\" she said, in a tiny voice.\n\n\"Her mind was definitely wandering toward the end,\" said Granny.\n\n\"...she gave it me...\"\n\n\"Fairy godmotherin's a terrible responsibility,\" said Nanny. \"You got to be resourceful and flexible and tactful and able to deal with complicated affairs of the heart and stuff. Desiderata would have known that.\"\n\n\"...yes, but she gave it me...\"\n\n\"Magrat Garlick, as senior witch I command you to give me the wand,\" said Granny. \"They cause nothing but trouble!\"\n\n\"Hold on, hold on,\" said Nanny. \"That's going a bit far\u2014\"\n\n\"...no...\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Anyway, you ain't senior witch,\" said Nanny. \"Old Mother Dismass is older'n you.\"\n\n\"Shut up. Anyway, she's non compost mental,\" said Granny.\n\n\"...you can't order me. Witches are non-hierarchical...\" said Magrat.\n\n\"That is wanton behavior, Magrat Garlick!\"\n\n\"No it's not,\" said Nanny Ogg, trying to keep the peace. \"Wanton behavior is where you go around without wearing any\u2014\"\n\nShe stopped. Both of the older witches watched a small piece of paper fall out of Magrat's sleeve and zigzag down to the floor. Granny darted forward and snatched it up.\n\n\"Aha!\" she said triumphantly. \"Let's see what Desiderata really said...\"\n\nHer lips moved as she read the note. Magrat tried to wind herself up tighter.\n\nA couple of muscles flickered on Granny's face. Then, calmly, she screwed up the note.\n\n\"Just as I thought,\" she said, \"Desiderata says we are to give Magrat all the help we can, what with her being young and everything. Didn't she, Magrat?\"\n\nMagrat looked up into Granny's face.\n\nYou could call her out, she thought. The note was very clear...well, the bit about the older witches was, anyway...and you could make her read it aloud. It's as plain as day. Do you want to be third witch forever? And then the flame of rebellion, burning in a very unfamiliar hearth, died.\n\n\"Yes,\" she muttered hopelessly, \"something like that.\"\n\n\"It says it's very important we go to some place somewhere to help someone marry a prince,\" said Granny.\n\n\"It's Genua,\" said Magrat. \"I looked it up in Desiderata's books. And we've got to make sure she doesn't marry a prince.\"\n\n\"A fairy godmother stopping a girl from marryin' a prince?\" said Nanny. \"Sounds a bit...contrary.\"\n\n\"Should be an easy enough wish to grant, anyway,\" said Granny. \"Millions of girls don't marry a prince.\"\n\nMagrat made an effort.\n\n\"Genua really is a long way away,\" she said.\n\n\"I should 'ope so,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"The last thing we want is foreign parts up close.\"\n\n\"I mean, there'll be a lot of traveling,\" said Magrat wretchedly. \"And you're...not as young as you were.\"\n\nThere was a long, crowded silence.\n\n\"We start tomorrow,\" said Granny Weatherwax firmly.\n\n\"Look,\" said Magrat desperately, \"why don't I go by myself?\"\n\n\"'Cos you ain't experienced at fairy godmothering,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\nThis was too much even for Magrat's generous soul.\n\n\"Well, nor are you,\" she said.\n\n\"That's true,\" Granny conceded. \"But the point is...the point is...the point is we've not been experienced for a lot longer than you.\"\n\n\"We've got a lot of experience of not having any experience,\" said Nanny Ogg happily.\n\n\"That's what counts every time,\" said Granny.\n\nThere was only one small, speckled mirror in Granny's house. When she got home, she buried it at the bottom of the garden.\n\n\"There,\" she said. \"Now trying spyin' on me.\"\n\nIt never seemed possible to people that Jason Ogg, master blacksmith and farrier, was Nanny Ogg's son. He didn't look as if he could possibly have been born, but as if he must have been constructed. In a shipyard. To his essentially slow and gentle nature genetics had seen fit to add muscles that should have gone to a couple of bullocks, arms like treetrunks, and legs like four beer barrels stacked in twos.\n\nTo his glowing forge were brought the stud stallions, the red-eyed and foam-flecked kings of the horse nation, the soup-plate-hoofed beasts that had kicked lesser men through walls. But Jason Ogg knew the secret of the mystic Horseman's Word, and he would go alone into the forge, politely shut the door, and lead the creature out again after half an hour, newly shod and strangely docile.*\n\nBehind his huge brooding shape clustered the rest of Nanny Ogg's endless family and a lot of other townsfolk who, seeing some interesting activity involving witches, couldn't resist the opportunity for what was known in the Ramtops as a good oggle.\n\n\"We'm off then, our Jason,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"They do say the streets in foreign parts are paved with gold. I could prob'ly make my fortune, eh?\"\n\nJason's hairy brow creased in intense thought.\n\n\"Us could do with a new anvil down forge,\" he volunteered.\n\n\"If I come back rich, you won't never have to go down the forge ever again,\" said Nanny.\n\nJason frowned.\n\n\"But I likes t'forge,\" he said, slowly.\n\nNanny looked momentarily taken aback. \"Well, then\u2014then you shall have an anvil made of solid silver.\"\n\n\"Wunt be no good, ma. It'd be too soft,\" said Jason.\n\n\"If I brings you back an anvil made of solid silver you shall have an anvil made of solid silver, my lad, whether you likes it or not!\"\n\nJason hung his huge head. \"Yes, mum,\" he said.\n\n\"You see to it that someone comes in to keep the house aired every day reg'lar,\" said Nanny. \"I want a fire lit in that grate every morning.\"\n\n\"Yes, mum.\"\n\n\"And everyone's to go in through the back door, you hear? I've put a curse on the front porch. Where's those girls got to with my luggage?\" She scurried off, a small gray bantam scolding a flock of hens.\n\nMagrat listened to all this with interest. Her own preparations had consisted of a large sack containing several changes of clothes to accommodate whatever weather foreign parts might suffer from, and a rather smaller one containing a number of useful-looking books from Desiderata Hollow's cottage. Desiderata had been a great note-taker, and had filled dozens of little books with neat writing and chapter headings like \"With Wand and Broomstick Across the Great Nef Desert.\"\n\nWhat she had never bothered to do, it seemed, was write down any instructions for the wand. As far as Magrat knew, you waved it and wished.\n\nAlong the track to her cottage, several unanticipated pumpkins bore witness to this as an unreliable strategy. One of them still thought it was a stoat.\n\nNow Magrat was left alone with Jason, who shuffled his feet.\n\nHe touched his forelock. He'd been brought up to be respectful to women, and Magrat fell broadly into this category.\n\n\"You will look after our mum, won't you, Mistress Garlick?\" he said, a hint of worry in his voice. \"She'm acting awful strange.\"\n\nMagrat patted him gently on the shoulder.\n\n\"This sort of thing happens all the time,\" she said. \"You know, after a woman's raised a family and so on, she wants to start living her own life.\"\n\n\"Whose life she bin living, then?\"\n\nMagrat gave him a puzzled look. She hadn't questioned the wisdom of the thought when it had first arrived in her head.\n\n\"You see, what it is,\" she said, making an explanation up as she went along, \"there comes a time in a woman's life when she wants to find herself.\"\n\n\"Why dint she start looking here?\" said Jason plaintively. \"I mean, I ain't wanting to talk out of turn, Miss Garlick, but we was looking to you to persuade her and Mistress Weatherwax not to go.\"\n\n\"I tried,\" said Magrat. \"I really did. I said, you don't want to go, I said. Anno domini, I said. Not as young as you used to be, I said. Silly to go hundreds of miles just for something like this, especially at your age.\"\n\nJason put his head on one side. Jason Ogg wouldn't end up in the finals of the All-Discworld uptake speed trials, but he knew his own mother.\n\n\"You said all that to our mum?\" he said.\n\n\"Look, don't worry,\" said Magrat, \"I'm sure no harm can\u2014\"\n\nThere was a crash somewhere over their heads. A few autumn leaves spiraled gently toward the ground.\n\n\"Bloody tree...who put that bloody tree there?\" came a voice from on high.\n\n\"That'll be Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\nIt was one of the weak spots of Granny Weatherwax's otherwise well-developed character that she'd never bothered to get the hang of steering things. It was alien to her nature. She took the view that it was her job to move and the rest of the world to arrange itself so that she arrived at her destination. This meant that she occasionally had to climb down trees she'd never climbed up. This she did now, dropping the last few feet and daring anyone to comment.\n\n\"Well, now we're all here,\" said Magrat brightly.\n\nIt didn't work. Granny Weatherwax's eyes focused immediately somewhere around Magrat's knees.\n\n\"And what do you think you're wearing?\" she said.\n\n\"Ah. Um. I thought...I mean it gets cold up there...what with the wind and everything,\" Magrat began. She had been dreading this, and hating herself for being so weak. After all, they were practical. The idea had come to her one night. Apart from anything else, it was almost impossible to do Mr. Lobsang Dibbler's cosmic harmony death kicks when your legs kept getting tangled in a skirt.\n\n\"Trousers?\"\n\n\"They're not exactly the same as ordinary\u2014\"\n\n\"And there's men 'ere lookin',\" said Granny. \"I think it's shameful!\"\n\n\"What is?\" said Nanny Ogg, coming up behind her.\n\n\"Magrat Garlick, standin' there bifurcated,\" said Granny, sticking her nose in the air.\n\n\"Just so long as she got the young man's name and address,\" said Nanny Ogg amiably.\n\n\"Nanny!\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I think they look quite comfy,\" Nanny went on. \"A bit baggy, though.\"\n\n\"I don't 'old with it,\" said Granny. \"Everyone can see her legs.\"\n\n\"No they can't,\" said Nanny. \"The reason being, the material is in the way.\"\n\n\"Yes, but they can see where her legs are,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"That's silly. That's like saying everyone's naked under their clothes,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Magrat Garlick, may you be forgiven,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Well, it's true!\"\n\n\"I'm not,\" said Granny flatly, \"I got three vests on.\"\n\nShe looked Nanny up and down. Gytha Ogg, too, had made sartorial preparations for foreign parts. Granny Weatherwax could find little to disapprove of, although she made an effort.\n\n\"And will you look at your hat,\" she mumbled.Nanny, who had known Esme Weatherwax for seventy years, merely grinned.\n\n\"All the go, ain't it?\" she said. \"Made by Mr. Vernissage over in Slice. It's got willow reinforcing all the way up to the point and eighteen pockets inside. Can stop a blow with a hammer, this hat. And how about these?\"\n\nNanny raised the hem of her skirt. She was wearing new boots. As boots, Granny Weatherwax could find nothing to complain of in them. They were of proper witch construction, which is to say that a loaded cart could have run over them without causing a dent in the dense leather. As boots, the only thing wrong with them was the color.\n\n\"Red?\" said Granny. \"That's no color for a witch's boots!\"\n\n\"I likes 'em,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny sniffed. \"You can please yourself, I'm sure,\" she said. \"I'm sure in foreign parts they goes in for all sorts of outlandish things. But you know what they say about women who wear red boots.\"\n\n\"Just so long as they also say they've got dry feet,\" said Nanny cheerfully. She put her door key into Jason's hand.\n\n\"I'll write you letters if you promise to find someone to read them to you,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, mum. What about the cat, mum?\" said Jason.\n\n\"Oh, Greebo's coming with us,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"What? But he's a cat!\" snapped Granny Weatherwax. \"You can't take cats with you! I'm not going travelin' with no cat! It's bad enough travelin' with trousers and provocative boots!\"\n\n\"He'll miss his mummy if he's left behind, won't he,\" crooned Nanny Ogg, picking up Greebo. He hung limply, like a bag of water gripped around the middle.\n\nTo Nanny Ogg Greebo was still the cute little kitten that chased balls of wool around the floor.\n\nTo the rest of the world he was an enormous tomcat, a parcel of incredibly indestructible life forces in a skin that looked less like a fur than a piece of bread that had been left in a damp place for a fortnight. Strangers often took pity on him because his ears were nonexistent and his face looked as though a bear had camped on it. They could not know that this was because Greebo, as a matter of feline pride, would attempt to fight or rape absolutely anything, up to and including a four-horse logging wagon. Ferocious dogs would whine and hide under the stairs when Greebo sauntered down the street. Foxes kept away from the village. Wolves made a detour.\n\n\"He's an old softy really,\" said Nanny.\n\nGreebo turned upon Granny Weatherwax a yellow-eyed stare of self-satisfied malevolence, such as cats always reserve for people who don't like them, and purred. Greebo was possibly the only cat who could snigger in purr.\n\n\"Anyway,\" said Nanny, \"witches are supposed to like cats.\"\n\n\"Not cats like him, they're not.\"\n\n\"You're just not a cat person, Esme,\" said Nanny, cuddling Greebo tightly.\n\nJason Ogg pulled Magrat aside.\n\n\"Our Sean read to me in the almanac where there's all these fearsome wild beasts in foreign parts,\" he whispered. \"Huge hairy things that leap out on travelers, it said. I'd hate to think what'd happen if they leapt out on mum and Granny.\"\n\nMagrat looked up into his big red face.\n\n\"You will see no harm comes to them, won't you,\" said Jason.\n\n\"Don't you worry,\" she said, hoping that he needn't. \"I'll do my best.\"\n\nJason nodded. \"Only it said in the almanac that some of them were nearly extinct anyway,\" he said.\n\nThe sun was well up when the three witches spiraled into the sky. They had been delayed for a while because of the intractability of Granny Weatherwax's broomstick, the starting of which always required a great deal of galloping up and down. It never seemed to get the message until it was being shoved through the air at a frantic running speed. Dwarf engineers everywhere had confessed themselves totally mystified by it. They had replaced the stick and the bristles dozens of times.\n\nWhen it rose, eventually, it was to a chorus of cheers.\n\nThe tiny kingdom of Lancre occupied little more than a wide ledge cut into the side of the Ramtop mountains. Behind it, knife-edge peaks and dark winding valleys climbed into the massive backbone of the central ranges.\n\nIn front, the land dropped abruptly to the Sto plains, a blue haze of woodlands, a broader expanse of ocean and, somewhere in the middle of it all, a brown smudge known as Ankh-Morpork.\n\nA skylark sang, or at least started to sing. The rising point of Granny Weatherwax's hat right underneath it completely put it off the rhythm.\n\n\"I ain't going any higher,\" she said.\n\n\"If we go high enough we might be able to see where we're going,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"You said you looked at Desiderata's maps,\" said Granny.\n\n\"It looks different from up here, though,\" said Magrat. \"More...sticking up. But I think we go...that way.\"\n\n\"You sure?\"\n\nWhich was the wrong question to ask a witch. Especially if the person doing the asking was Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Positive,\" said Magrat.\n\nNanny Ogg looked up at the high peaks.\n\n\"There's a lot of big mountains that way,\" she said.\n\nThey rose tier on tier, speckled with snow, trailing endless pennants of ice crystals high overhead. No one ski'd in the high Ramtops, at least for more than a few feet and a disappearing scream. No one ran up them wearing dirndls and singing. They were not nice mountains. They were the kind of mountains where winters went for their summer holidays.\n\n\"There's passes and things through them,\" said Magrat uncertainly.\n\n\"Bound to be,\" said Nanny.\n\nYou can use two mirrors like this, if you know the way of it: you set them so that they reflect each other. For if images can steal a bit of you, then images of images can amplify you, feeding you back on yourself, giving you power...\n\nAnd your image extends forever, in reflections of reflections of reflections, and every image is the same, all the way around the curve of light.\n\nExcept that it isn't.\n\nMirrors contain infinity.\n\nInfinity contains more things than you think.\n\nEverything, for a start.\n\nIncluding hunger.\n\nBecause there's a million billion images and only one soul to go around.\n\nMirrors give plenty, but they take away lots.\n\nMountains unfolded to reveal more mountains. Clouds gathered, heavy and gray.\n\n\"I'm sure we're going the right way,\" said Magrat. Freezing rock stretched away. The witches flew along a maze of twisty little canyons, all alike.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Well, you won't let me fly high enough,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It's going to snow like blazes in a minute,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nIt was early evening. Light was draining out of the high valleys like custard.\n\n\"I thought...there'd be villages and things,\" said Magrat, \"where we could buy interesting native produce and seek shelter in rude huts.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't even get trolls up here,\" said Granny.\n\nThe three broomsticks glided down into a bare valley, a mere notch in the mountain side.\n\n\"And it's bloody cold,\" said Nanny Ogg. She grinned. \"Why're they called rude huts, anyway?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax climbed off her broomstick and looked at the rocks around her. She picked up a stone and sniffed it. She wandered over to a heap of scree that looked like any other heap of scree to Magrat, and prodded it.\n\n\"Hmm,\" she said.\n\nA few snow crystals landed on her hat.\n\n\"Well, well,\" she said.\n\n\"What're you doing, Granny?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Cogitatin'.\"\n\nGranny walked to the valley's steep side and strolled along it, peering at the rock. Nanny Ogg joined her.\n\n\"Up here?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I reckon.\"\n\n\"'S a bit high for 'em, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Little devils get everywhere. Had one come up in my kitchen once,\" said Granny. 'Following a seam,' he said.\"\n\n\"They're buggers for that,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Would you mind telling me,\" said Magrat, \"what you're doing? What's so interesting about heaps of stones?\"\n\nThe snow was falling faster now.\n\n\"They ain't stones, they're spoil,\" said Granny. She reached a flat wall of ice-covered rock, no different in Magrat's eyes from the rock available in a range of easy-to-die-on sizes everywhere in the mountains, and paused as if listening.\n\nThen she stood back, hit the rock sharply with her broomstick, and spake thusly:\n\n\"Open up, you little sods!\"\n\nNanny Ogg kicked the rock. It made a hollow boom.\n\n\"There's people catching their death of cold out here!\" she added.\n\nNothing happened for a while. Then a section of rock swung in a few inches. Magrat saw the glint of a suspicious eye.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Dwarfs?\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny Weatherwax leaned down until her nose was level with the eye.\n\n\"My name,\" she said, \"is Granny Weatherwax.\"\n\nShe straightened up again, her face glowing with self-satisfaction.\n\n\"Who's that, then?\" said a voice from somewhere below the eye. Granny's expression froze.\n\nNanny Ogg nudged her partner.\n\n\"We must be more'n fifty miles away from home,\" she said. \"They might not have heard of you in these parts.\"\n\nGranny leaned down again. Accumulated snowflakes cascaded off her hat.\n\n\"I ain't blaming you,\" she said, \"but I know you'll have a King in there, so just you go and tell him Granny Weatherwax is here, will you?\"\n\n\"He's very busy,\" said the voice. \"We've just had a bit of trouble.\"\n\n\"Then I'm sure he don't want anymore,\" said Granny.\n\nThe invisible speaker appeared to give this some consideration.\n\n\"We put writing on the door,\" it said sulkily. \"In invisible runes. It's really expensive, getting proper invisible runes done.\"\n\n\"I don't go around readin' doors,\" said Granny.\n\nThe speaker hesitated.\n\n\"Weatherwax, did you say?\"\n\n\"Yes. With a W. As in 'witch.'\"\n\nThe door slammed. When it was shut, there was barely a visible crack in the rock.\n\nThe snow was falling fast now. Granny Weatherwax jiggled up and down a bit to keep warm.\n\n\"That's foreigners for you,\" she said, to the frozen world in general.\n\n\"I don't think you can call dwarfs foreigners,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Don't see why not,\" said Granny. \"A dwarf who lives a long way off has got to be foreign. That's what foreign means.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Funny to think of it like that,\" said Nanny.\n\nThey watched the door, their breath forming three little clouds in the darkening air. Magrat peered at the stone door.\n\n\"I didn't see any invisible runes,\" she said.\n\n\"'Corse not,\" said Nanny. \"That's 'cos they're invisible.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"Don't be daft.\"\n\nThe door swung open again.\n\n\"I spoke to the King,\" said the voice.\n\n\"And what did he say?\" said Granny expectantly.\n\n\"He said, 'Oh, no! Not on top of everything else!'\"\n\nGranny beamed. \"I knew 'e would have heard of me,\" she said.\n\nIn the same way that there are a thousand Kings of the Gypsies, so there are a thousand Kings of the Dwarfs. The term means something like \"senior engineer.\" There aren't any Queens of the Dwarfs. Dwarfs are very reticent about revealing their sex, which most of them don't consider to be very important compared to things like metallurgy and hydraulics.\n\nThis king was standing in the middle of a crowd of shouting miners. He* looked up at the witches with the expression of a drowning man looking at a drink of water.\n\n\"Are you really any good?\" he said.\n\nNanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax looked at one another.\n\n\"I think 'e's talking to you, Magrat,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Only we've had a big fall in gallery nine,\" said the King. \"It looks bad. A very promising vein of gold-bearing quartz is irretrievably trapped.\"\n\nOne of the dwarfs beside him muttered something.\n\n\"Oh, yeah. And some of the lads,\" said the King vaguely. \"And then you turn up. So the way I look at it, it's probably fate.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax shook the snow off her hat and looked around.\n\nShe was impressed, despite herself. You didn't often see proper dwarf halls these days. Most dwarfs were off earning big money in the cities down in the lowlands, where it was much easier to be a dwarf\u2014for one thing, you didn't have to spend most of your time underground hitting your thumb with a hammer and worrying about fluctuations in the international metal markets. Lack of respect for tradition, that was the trouble these days. And take trolls. There were more trolls in Ankh-Morpork now than in the whole mountain range. Granny Weatherwax had nothing against trolls but she felt instinctively that if more trolls stopped wearing suits and walking upright, and went back to living under bridges and jumping out and eating people as nature intended, then the world would be a happier place.\n\n\"You'd better show us where the problem is,\" she said. \"Lots of rocks fallen down, have they?\"\n\n\"Pardon?\" said the King.\n\nIt's often said that eskimos have fifty words for snow.*\n\nThis is not true.\n\nIt's also said that dwarfs have two hundred words for rock.\n\nThey don't. They have no words for rock, in the same way that fish have no words for water. They do have words for igneous rock, sedimentary rock, metamorphic rock, rock underfoot, rock dropping on your helmet from above, and rock which looked interesting and which they could have sworn they left here yesterday. But what they don't have is a word meaning \"rock.\" Show a dwarf a rock and he sees, for example, an inferior piece of crystalline sulphite of barytes.\n\nOr, in this case, about two hundred tons of lowgrade shale. When the witches arrived at the disaster site dozens of dwarfs were working feverishly to prop the cracked roof and cart away the debris. Some of them were in tears.\n\n\"It's terrible...terrible,\" muttered one of them. \"A terrible thing.\"\n\nMagrat lent him her handkerchief. He blew his nose noisily.\n\n\"Could mean a big slippage on the fault line and then we've lost the whole seam,\" he said, shaking his head. Another dwarf patted him on the back.\n\n\"Look on the bright side,\" he said. \"We can always drive a horizontal shaft off gallery fifteen. We're bound to pick it up again, don't you worry.\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Magrat, \"there are dwarfs behind all that stuff, are there?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said the King. His tone suggested that this was merely a regrettable side-effect of the disaster, because getting fresh dwarfs was only a matter of time whereas decent gold-bearing rock was a finite resource.\n\nGranny Weatherwax inspected the rockfall critically.\n\n\"We shall have to have everyone out of here,\" she said. \"This is goin' to have to be private.\"\n\n\"I know how it is,\" said the King. \"Craft secrets, I expect?\"\n\n\"Something like that,\" said Granny.\n\nThe King shooed the other dwarfs out of the tunnel, leaving the witches alone in the lantern light. A few bits of rock fell out of the ceiling.\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Granny.\n\n\"You've gone and done it now,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Anything's possible if you set your mind to it,\" said Granny vaguely.\n\n\"Then you'd better set yours good and hard, Esme. If the Creator had meant us to shift rocks by witchcraft, he wouldn't have invented shovels. Knowing when to use a shovel is what being a witch is all about. And put down that wheelbarrow, Magrat. You don't know nothing about machinery.\"\n\n\"All right, then,\" said Magrat. \"Why don't we try the wand?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax snorted. \"Hah! Here? Whoever heard of a fairy godmother in a mine?\"\n\n\"If I was stuck behind a load of rocks under a mountain I'd want to hear of one,\" said Magrat hotly.\n\nNanny Ogg nodded. \"She's got a point there, Esme. There's no rule about where you fairy godmother.\"\n\n\"I don't trust that wand,\" said Granny. \"It looks wizardly to me.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" said Magrat, \"generations of fairy godmothers have used it.\"\n\nGranny flung her hands in the air.\n\n\"All right, all right, all right,\" she snapped. \"Go ahead! Make yourself look daft!\"\n\nMagrat took the wand out of her bag. She'd been dreading this moment.\n\nIt was made of some sort of bone or ivory; Magrat hoped it wasn't ivory. There had been markings on it once, but generations of plump fairy godmotherly hands had worn them almost smooth. Various gold and silver rings were set into the wand. Nowhere were there any instructions. Not so much as a rune or a sigil anywhere on its length indicated what you were supposed to do with it.\n\n\"I think you're supposed to wave it,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I'm pretty sure it's something like that.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax folded her arms. \"That's not proper witching,\" she said.\n\nMagrat gave the wand an experimental wave. Nothing happened.\n\n\"Perhaps you have to say something?\" said Nanny.\n\nMagrat looked panicky.\n\n\"What do fairy godmothers say?\" she wailed.\n\n\"Er,\" said Nanny, \"dunno.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said Granny.\n\nNanny Ogg sighed. \"Didn't Desiderata tell you anything?\"\n\n\"Nothing!\"\n\nNanny shrugged.\n\n\"Just do your best, then,\" she said.\n\nMagrat stared at the pile of rocks. She shut her eyes. She took a deep breath. She tried to make her mind a serene picture of cosmic harmony. It was all very well for monks to go on about cosmic harmony, she reflected, when they were nicely tucked away on snowy mountains with only yetis to worry about. They never tried seeking inner peace with Granny Weatherwax glaring at them.\n\nShe waved the wand in a vague way and tried to put pumpkins out of her mind.\n\nShe felt the air move. She heard Nanny gasp.\n\nShe said, \"Has anything happened?\"\n\nAfter a while Nanny Ogg said, \"Yeah. Sort of. I hope they're hungry, that's all.\"\n\nAnd Granny Weatherwax said, \"That's fairy godmothering, is it?\"\n\nMagrat opened her eyes.\n\nThere was still a heap, but it wasn't rock anymore.\n\n\"There's a, wait for it, there's a bit of a squash in here,\" said Nanny.\n\nMagrat opened her eyes wider.\n\n\"Still pumpkins?\"\n\n\"Bit of a squash. Squash,\" said Nanny, in case anyone hadn't got it.\n\nThe top of the heap moved. A couple of small pumpkins rolled down almost to Magrat's feet, and a small dwarfish face appeared in the hole.\n\nIt stared down at the witches.\n\nEventually Nanny Ogg said, \"Everything all right?\"\n\nThe dwarf nodded. Its attention kept turning to the pile of pumpkins that filled the tunnel from floor to ceiling.\n\n\"Er, yes,\" it said. \"Is dad there?\"\n\n\"Dad?\"\n\n\"The King.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Nanny Ogg cupped her hands around her mouth and turned to face up the tunnel. \"Hey, King!\"\n\nThe dwarfs appeared. They looked at the pumpkins, too. The King stepped forward and stared up into the face of his son.\n\n\"Everything all right, son?\"\n\n\"It's all right, dad. No faulting or anything.\"\n\nThe King sagged with relief. Then, as an afterthought, he added, \"Everyone all right?\"\n\n\"Fine, dad.\"\n\n\"I was quite worried for a time there. Thought we might have hit a section of conglomerate or something.\"\n\n\"Just a patch of loose shale, dad.\"\n\n\"Good.\" The King looked at the heap again. He scratched his beard. \"Can't help noticing you seem to have struck pumpkin.\"\n\n\"I thought it was an odd kind of sandstone, dad.\"\n\nThe King walked back to the witches.\n\n\"Can you turn anything into anything?\" he said hopefully.\n\nNanny Ogg looked sideways at Magrat, who was still staring at the wand in a sort of shock.\n\n\"I think we only do pumpkins at the moment,\" she said cautiously.\n\nThe King looked a little disappointed.\n\n\"Well, then,\" he said, \"if there's anything I can do for you ladies...a cup of tea or something...\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax stepped forward. \"I was just thinking something like that myself,\" she said.\n\nThe King beamed.\n\n\"Only more expensive,\" said Granny.\n\nThe King stopped beaming.\n\nNanny Ogg sidled up to Magrat, who was shaking the wand and staring at it.\n\n\"Very clever,\" she whispered. \"Why'd you think of pumpkins?\"\n\n\"I didn't!\"\n\n\"Don't you know how to work it?\"\n\n\"No! I thought you just had to, you know, want something to happen!\"\n\n\"There's probably more to it than just wishing,\" said Nanny, as sympathetically as possible. \"There generally is.\"\n\nSome time around dawn, in so far as dawn happened in the mines, the witches were led to a river somewhere deep in the mountains, where a couple of barges were moored. A small boat was pulled up to a stone jetty.\n\n\"This'll take you right through the mountains,\" said the King. \"I think it goes all the way to Genua, to tell the truth.\" He took a large basket off an attendant dwarf. \"And we've packed you some lovely food,\" he said.\n\n\"Are we going to go all the way in a boat?\" said Magrat. She gave the wand a few surreptitious flourishes. \"I'm not good at boats.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" said Granny, climbing aboard, \"the river knows its way out of the mountains, which is more than we do. We can use the brooms later on, where the landscape's acting a bit more sensible.\"\n\n\"And we can have a bit of a rest,\" said Nanny, sitting back.\n\nMagrat looked at the two older witches, who were making themselves comfortable in the stern like a couple of hens settling down on a nest.\n\n\"Do you know how to row a boat?\" she said.\n\n\"We don't have to,\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat nodded gloomily. Then a tiny bit of self-assertion flashed a fin.\n\n\"I don't think I do, too,\" she ventured.\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Nanny. \"If we sees you doing anything wrong, we'll be sure to tell you. Cheerio, your kingship.\"\n\nMagrat sighed, and picked up the oars.\n\n\"The flat bits go in the water,\" said Granny helpfully.\n\nThe dwarfs waved. The boat drifted out into midstream, moving slowly in a circle of lantern light. Magrat found that all she really had to do was keep it pointing the right way in the current.\n\nShe heard Nanny say: \"Beats me why they're always putting invisible runes on their doors. I mean, you pays some wizard to put invisible runes on your door, and how do you know you've got value for money?\"\n\nShe heard Granny say: \"No problem there. If you can't see 'em, you know you've got proper invisible runes.\"\n\nShe heard Nanny say: \"Ah, that'd be it. Right, let's see what we've got for lunch.\" There was a rustling noise.\n\n\"Well, well, well.\"\n\n\"What is it, Gytha?\"\n\n\"Pumpkin.\"\n\n\"Pumpkin what?\"\n\n\"Pumpkin nothing. Just pumpkin pumpkin.\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose they've got a lot of pumpkin,\" said Magrat. \"You know how it is at the end of the summer, there's always so much in the garden. I'm always at my wits' end to think of new types of chutney and pickles to use it all up\u2014\"\n\nIn the dim light she could see Granny's face which seemed to be suggesting that if Magrat was at her wits' end, it was a short stroll.\n\n\"I,\" said Granny, \"have never made a pickle in my life.\"\n\n\"But you like pickles,\" said Magrat. Witches and pickles went together like\u2014she hesitated before the stomach-curdling addition of peaches and cream, and mentally substituted \"things that went together very well.\" The sight of Nanny Ogg's single remaining tooth at work on a pickled onion could bring tears to the eyes.\n\n\"I likes 'em fine,\" said Granny. \"I gets 'em given to me.\"\n\n\"You know,\" said Nanny, investigating the recesses of the basket, \"whenever I deals with dwarfs, the phrase 'Duck's arse' swims across my mind.\"\n\n\"Mean little devils. You should see the prices they tries to charge me when I takes my broom to be repaired,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Yes, but you never pay,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"That's not the point,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"They shouldn't be allowed to charge that sort of money. That's thievin', that is.\"\n\n\"I don't see how it can be thieving if you don't pay anyway,\" Magrat persisted.\n\n\"I never pay for anything,\" said Granny. \"People never let me pay. I can't help it if people gives me things the whole time, can I? When I walks down the street people are always running out with cakes they've just baked, and fresh beer, and old clothes that've hardly been worn at all. 'Oh, Mistress Weatherwax, pray take this basket of eggs,' they say. People are always very kind. Treat people right an' they'll treat you right. That's respect. Not having to pay,\" she finished, sternly, \"is what bein' a witch is all about.\"\n\n\"Here, what's this?\" said Nanny, pulling out a small packet. She unwrapped the paper and revealed several hard brown discs.\n\n\"My word,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"I take it all back. That's the famous dwarf bread, that is. They don't give that to just anyone.\"\n\nNanny tapped it on the edge of the boat. It made a noise very similar to the kind of noise you get when a wooden ruler is held over the edge of a desk and plucked; a sort of hollow boioioing sound.\n\n\"They say it never goes stale even if you stores it for years,\" said Granny.\n\n\"It'd keep you going for days and days,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nMagrat reached across, took one of the flat loaves, tried to break it, and gave up.\n\n\"You're supposed to eat it?\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, I don't think it's for eating,\" said Nanny. \"It's more for sort of\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014keeping you going,\" said Granny. \"They say that\u2014\"\n\nShe stopped.\n\nAbove the noise of the river and the occasional drip of water from the ceiling they could all hear, now, the steady slosh-slosh of another craft heading toward them.\n\n\"Someone's following us!\" hissed Magrat.\n\nTwo pale glows appeared at the edge of the lamplight. Eventually they turned out to be the eyes of a small gray creature, vaguely froglike, paddling toward them on a log.\n\nIt reached the boat. Long clammy fingers grabbed the side, and a lugubrious face rose level with Nanny Ogg's.\n\n\"'ullo,\" it said. \"It'sss my birthday.\"\n\nAll three of them stared at it for a while. Then Granny Weatherwax picked up an oar and hit it firmly over the head. There was a splash, and a distant cursing.\n\n\"Horrible little bugger,\" said Granny, as they rowed on. \"Looked like a troublemaker to me.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"It's the slimy ones you have to watch out for.\"\n\n\"I wonder what he wanted?\" said Magrat.\n\nAfter half an hour the boat drifted out through a cave mouth and into a narrow gorge between cliffs. Ice glistened on the walls, and there were drifts of snow on some of the outcrops.\n\nNanny Ogg looked around guilelessly, and then fumbled somewhere in the depths of her many skirts and produced a small bottle. There was a glugging noise.\n\n\"I bet there's a fine echo here,\" she said, after a while.\n\n\"Oh no you don't,\" said Granny firmly.\n\n\"Don't what?\"\n\n\"Don't sing That Song.\"\n\n\"Pardon, Esme?\"\n\n\"I ain't going,\" said Granny, \"if you insists on singing That Song.\"\n\n\"What song would that be?\" said Nanny innocently.\n\n\"You know the song to whom I am referring,\" said Granny icily. \"You always get drunk and let me down and sing it.\"\n\n\"Can't recall any song like that, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg meekly.\n\n\"The one,\" said Granny, \"about the rodent that can't\u2014that can't ever be persuaded to care about anything.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Nanny, beaming as light dawned, \"you mean The Hedgehog Can Never Be Bugg\u2014\"\n\n\"That's the one!\"\n\n\"But it's traditional,\" said Nanny. \"Anyway, in foreign parts people won't know what the words mean.\"\n\n\"They will the way you sings them,\" said Granny. \"The way you sings them, creatures what lives on the bottoms of ponds'd know what they mean.\"\n\nMagrat looked over the side of the boat. Here and there the ripples were edged with white. The current was running a bit faster, and there were lumps of ice in it.\n\n\"It's only a folk song, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Hah!\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"I should just say it is a folk song! I knows all about folk songs. Hah! You think you're listenin' to a nice song about...about cuckoos and fiddlers and nightingales and whatnot, and then it turns out to be about...about something else entirely,\" she added darkly. \"You can't trust folk songs. They always sneak up on you.\"\n\nMagrat fended them off a rock. An eddy spun them around slowly.\n\n\"I know one about two little bluebirds,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Um,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"They may start out by being bluebirds, but I bet they ends up some kind of mettyfor,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Er, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It was bad enough Magrat telling me about maypoles and what's behind 'em,\" said Granny. She added, wistfully, \"I used to enjoy looking at a maypole of a spring morning.\"\n\n\"I think the river's getting a bit sort of rough,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I don't see why people can't just let things be,\" said Granny.\n\n\"I mean really quite rough, really...\" said Magrat, pushing them away from a jagged rock.\n\n\"She's right, you know,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"It's a bit on the choppy side.\"\n\nGranny looked over Magrat's shoulder at the river ahead. It had a cut-off look, such as might be associated with, for example, an imminent waterfall. The boat was now surging along. There was a muted roar.\n\n\"They never said anything about a waterfall,\" she said.\n\n\"I 'spect they thought we'd find out for ourselves,\" said Nanny Ogg, gathering up her possessions and hauling Greebo out of the bottom of the boat by the scruff of his neck. \"Very sparin' with information, your average dwarf. Thank goodness witches float. Anyway, they knew we'd got the brooms.\"\n\n\"You've got brooms,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"How'm I supposed to get mine started in a boat? Can't run up and down, can I? And stop movin' about like that, you'll have us all over\u2014\"\n\n\"Get your foot out of the way, Esme\u2014\"\n\nThe boat rocked violently.\n\nMagrat rose to the occasion. She pulled out the wand, just as a wavelet washed over the boat.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" she said, \"I'll use the wand. I think I've got the hang of it now\u2014\"\n\n\"No!\" screamed Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg together.\n\nThere was a large, damp noise. The boat changed shape. It also changed color. It became a cheery sort of orange.\n\n\"Pumpkins!\" screamed Nanny Ogg, as she was gently tipped into the water. \"More bloody pumpkins!\"\n\nLilith sat back. The ice around the river hadn't been that good as a mirror, but it had been good enough.\n\nWell. A wishy-washy overgrown girl more suitable to the attentions of a fairy godmother than to being one, and a little old washerwoman-type who got drunk and sang songs. And a wand the stupid girl didn't know how to use.\n\nIt was annoying. More than that, it was demeaning. Surely Desiderata and Mrs. Gogol could have achieved something better than this. You derived status by the strength of your enemies.\n\nOf course, there was her. After all this time...\n\nOf course. She approved of that. Because there would have to be three of them. Three was an important number for stories. Three wishes, three princes, three billy goats, three guesses...three witches. The maiden, the mother and the...other one. That was one of the oldest stories of all.\n\nEsme Weatherwax had never understood stories. She'd never understood how real reflections were. If she had, she'd probably have been ruling the world by now.\n\n\"You're always looking in mirrors!\" said a petulant voice. \"I hate it when you're always looking in mirrors!\"\n\nThe Duc sprawled in a chair in one corner, all black silk and well-turned legs. Lilith would not normally allow anyone inside the nest of mirrors but it was, technically, his castle. Besides, he was too vain and stupid to know what was going on. She'd seen to that. At least, she'd thought she had. Lately, he seemed to be picking things up...\n\n\"I don't know why you have to do that,\" he whined. \"I thought magic was just a matter of pointing and going whoosh.\"\n\nLilith picked up her hat, and glanced at a mirror as she adjusted it.\n\n\"This way's safer,\" she said. \"It's self-contained. When you use mirror magic, you don't have to rely on anyone except yourself. That's why no one's ever conquered the world with magic...yet. They try to take it from...other places. And there's always a price. But with mirrors, you're beholden to no one but your own soul.\"\n\nShe lowered the veil from the hat brim. She preferred the privacy of a veil, outside the security of the mirrors.\n\n\"I hate mirrors,\" muttered the Duc.\n\n\"That's because they tell you the truth, my lad.\"\n\n\"It's cruel magic, then.\"\n\nLilith tweaked the veil into a fetching shape.\n\n\"Oh, yes. With mirrors, all the power is your own. There's nowhere else it can come from,\" she said.\n\n\"The swamp woman gets it from the swamp,\" said the Duc.\n\n\"Ha! And it'll claim her one day. She doesn't understand what she's doing.\"\n\n\"And you do?\"\n\nShe felt a pang of pride. He was actually resenting her! She really had done a good job there.\n\n\"I understand stories,\" she said. \"That's all I need.\"\n\n\"But you haven't brought me the girl,\" said the Duc. \"You promised me the girl. And then it'll be all over and I can sleep in a real bed and I won't need anymore reflecting magic\u2014\"\n\nBut even a good job can go too far.\n\n\"You've had your fill of magic?\" said Lilith sweetly. \"You'd like me to stop? It would be the easiest thing in the world. I found you in the gutter. Would you like me to send you back?\"\n\nHis face became a mask of panic.\n\n\"I didn't mean that! I just meant...well, then everything will be real. Just one kiss, you said. I can't see why that's so hard to arrange.\"\n\n\"The right kiss at the right time,\" said Lilith. \"It has to be at the right time, otherwise it won't work.\" She smiled. He was trembling, partly out of lust, mainly out of terror, and slightly out of heredity.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" she said. \"It can't not happen.\"\n\n\"And these witches you showed me?\"\n\n\"They're just...part of the story. Don't worry about them. The story will just absorb them. And you'll get her because of stories. Won't that be nice? And now...shall we go? I expect you've got some ruling to do?\"\n\nHe picked up the inflexion. It was an order. He stood up, extended an arm to take hers, and together they went down to the palace's audience chamber.\n\nLilith was proud of the Duc. Of course, there was his embarrassing little nocturnal problem, because his morphic field weakened when he slept, but that wasn't yet a major difficulty. And there was the trouble with mirrors, which showed him as he really was, but that was easily overcome by banning all mirrors save hers. And then there were his eyes. She couldn't do anything about the eyes. There was practically no magic that could do anything about someone's eyes. All she had been able to come up with there were the smoked glasses.\n\nEven so, he was a triumph. And he was so grateful. She'd been good for him.\n\nShe'd made a man of him, for a start.\n\nSome way downriver from the waterfall, which was the second highest anywhere on the Disc and had been discovered in the Year of the Revolving Crab by the noted explorer Guy de Yoyo,* Granny Weatherwax sat in front of a small fire with a towel around her shoulders and steamed.\n\n\"Still, look on the bright side,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"At least I was holding my broom and you at the same time. And Magrat had hers. Otherwise we'd all be looking at the waterfall from underneath.\"\n\n\"Oh, good. A silver lining,\" said Granny, her eyes glinting evilly.\n\n\"Bit of an adventure, really,\" said Nanny, grinning encouragingly. \"One day we'll look back on this and laugh.\"\n\n\"Oh, good,\" said Granny.\n\nNanny dabbed at the claw marks on her arm. Greebo, with a cat's true instinct for self-preservation, had clawed his way up his mistress and taken a flying leap to safety from the top of her head. Now he was curled up by the fire, dreaming cat dreams.\n\nA shadow passed over them. It was Magrat, who had been combing the riverbanks.\n\n\"I think I've got nearly everything,\" she said as she landed. \"Here's Granny's broomstick. And...oh, yes...the wand.\" She gave a brave little smile. \"Little pumpkins were bobbing to the surface. That's how I found it.\"\n\n\"My word, that was lucky,\" said Nanny Ogg encouragingly. \"Hear that, Esme? We shan't be wanting for food, at any rate.\"\n\n\"And I've found the basket with the dwarf bread in it,\" said Magrat, \"although I'm afraid it might be spoilt.\"\n\n\"It won't be, take it from me,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"You can't spoil dwarf bread. Well, well,\" she said, sitting down again. \"We've got quite a little picnic, haven't we...and a nice bright fire and...and a nice place to sit and...I'm sure there's lots of poor people in places like Howondaland and suchlike who'd give anything to be here right now...\"\n\n\"If you don't stop being so cheerful, Gytha Ogg, I shall give you such a ding around the ear with the flat of my hand,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"You sure you're not catching a chill?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"I'm dryin' out,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"from the inside.\"\n\n\"Look, I'm really sorry,\" said Magrat. \"I said I was sorry.\"\n\nNot that she was quite certain what for, she told herself. The boat wasn't her idea. She hadn't put the waterfall there. She hadn't even been in a position to see it coming. She'd turned the boat into a pumpkin, but she hadn't meant to. It could have happened to anyone.\n\n\"I managed to save Desiderata's notebooks, too,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, that's a blessing,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Now we know where we're lost.\"\n\nShe looked around. They were through the worst of the mountains, but there were still peaks around and high meadows stretching to the snowline.From somewhere in the distance came the clonking of goat bells.\n\nMagrat unfolded a map. It was creased, damp, and the pencil had run. She pointed cautiously to a smudged area.\n\n\"I think we're here,\" she said.\n\n\"My word,\" said Nanny Ogg, whose grasp of the principles of cartography was even shakier than Granny's. \"Amazing how we can all fit on that little bit of paper.\"\n\n\"I think perhaps it would be a good idea at the moment if we just followed the river,\" said Magrat. \"Without in any way going on it,\" she added quickly.\n\n\"I suppose you didn't find my bag?\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"It had pers'nal items in.\"\n\n\"Probably sank like a stone,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny Weatherwax stood up like a general who's just had news that his army has come second.\n\n\"Come on,\" she said. \"Where to next, then?\"\n\nWhat was next was forest\u2014dark and ferociously coniferous. The witches flew over it in silence. There were occasional, isolated cottages half-hidden in the trees. Here and there a crag loomed over the sylvanian gloom, shrouded in mist even in mid-afternoon. Once or twice they flew past castles, if that's what you could call them; they didn't look built, more extruded from the landscape.\n\nIt was the kind of landscape that had a particular type of story attached to it, featuring wolves and garlic and frightened women. A dark and thirsty story, a story that flapped wings against the moon...\n\n\"Der flabberghast,\" muttered Nanny.\n\n\"What's that?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It's foreign for bat.\"\n\n\"I've always liked bats,\" said Magrat. \"In general.\"\n\nThe witches found that, by unspoken agreement, they were flying closer together.\n\n\"I'm getting hungry,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"And don't no one mention pumpkin.\"\n\n\"There's dwarf bread,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"There's always the dwarf bread,\" said Granny. \"I fancy something cooked this year, thank you all the same.\"\n\nThey flew past another castle, occupying the entire summit of a crag.\n\n\"What we need is a nice little town or something,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"But the one down there will have to do,\" said Granny.\n\nThey looked down at it. It wasn't so much a town as a huddle of houses, clustering together against the trees. It looked as cheerless as an empty hearth, but the shadows of the mountains were already speeding across the forest and something about the landscape tacitly discouraged night-time flying.\n\n\"Can't see many people about,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Maybe they turn in early in these parts,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"It's hardly even sunset,\" said Magrat. \"Perhaps we ought to go up to that castle?\"\n\nThey all looked at the castle.\n\n\"No-o-o,\" said Granny slowly, speaking for all of them. \"We know our place.\"\n\nSo they landed, instead, in what was presumably the town square. A dog barked, somewhere behind the buildings. A shutter banged closed.\n\n\"Very friendly,\" said Granny. She walked over to a larger building that had a sign, unreadable under the grime, over the door. She gave the woodwork a couple of thumps.\n\n\"Open up!\" she said.\n\n\"No, no, you don't say that,\" said Magrat. She shouldered her way past, and tapped on the door. \"Excuse me! Bona fide travelers!\"\n\n\"Bona what?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"That's what you need to say,\" said Magrat. \"Any inn has got to open up for bona fide travelers and give them succor.\"\n\n\"Has it?\" said Nanny, with interest. \"That sounds like a thing worth knowing.\"\n\nThe door remained shut.\n\n\"Let me 'ave a go,\" said Nanny. \"I know some foreign lingo.\"\n\nShe hammered on the door.\n\n\"Openny vous, gunga din, chop-chop, pretty damn quick,\" she said.\n\nGranny Weatherwax listened carefully.\n\n\"That's speaking foreign, is it?\"\n\n\"My grandson Shane is a sailor,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"You'd be amazed, the words he learns about foreign parts.\"\n\n\"I expects I would,\" said Granny. \"And I 'opes they works better for him.\"\n\nShe thumped on the door again. And this time it opened, very slowly. A pale face peered around it.\n\n\"Excuse me\u2014\" Magrat began.\n\nGranny pushed the door open. The face's owner had been leaning on it; they could hear the scrape of his boots over the floor as he was shoved gently backward.\n\n\"Blessings be on this house,\" Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house, and reminded them about any fresh cakes, newly-baked bread or bundles of useful old clothing that might have temporarily escaped their minds.\n\nIt looked like one of the other things had been on this house already.\n\nIt was an inn, of sorts. The three witches had never seen such a cheerless place in their lives. But it was quite crowded. A score or more pale-faced people watched them solemnly from benches around the walls.\n\nNanny Ogg sniffed.\n\n\"Cor,\" she said. \"Talk about garlic!\" And, indeed, bunches of it hung from every beam. \"You can't have too much garlic, I always say. I can see I'm going to like it here.\"\n\nShe nodded to a white-faced man behind the bar.\n\n\"Gooden day, big-feller mine host! Trois beers por favor avec us, silver plate.\"\n\n\"What's a silver plate got to do with it?\" demanded Granny.\n\n\"It's foreign for please,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I bet it isn't really,\" said Granny. \"You're just making it up as you goes along.\"\n\nThe innkeeper, who worked on the fairly simple principle that anyone walking through the door wanted something to drink, drew three beers.\n\n\"See?\" said Nanny, triumphantly.\n\n\"I don't like the way everyone's looking at us,\" said Magrat, as Nanny babbled on to the perplexed man in her very own esperanto. \"A man over there grinned at me.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax sat down on a bench, endeavoring to position herself so that as small an amount of her body as possible was in contact with the wood, in case being foreign was something you could catch.\n\n\"There,\" said Nanny, bustling up with a tray, \"nothing to it. I just cussed at him until he understood.\"\n\n\"It looks horrible,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Garlic sausage and garlic bread,\" said Nanny. \"My favorite.\"\n\n\"You ought to have got some fresh vegetables,\" said Magrat the dietitian.\n\n\"I did. There's some garlic,\" said Nanny happily, cutting a generous slice of eye-watering sausage. \"And I think I definitely saw something like pickled onions on one of the shelves.\"\n\n\"Yes? Then we're going to need at least two rooms for tonight,\" said Granny sternly.\n\n\"Three,\" said Magrat, very quickly.\n\nShe risked another look around the room. The silent villagers were staring at them intently, with a look she could only describe to herself as a sort of hopeful sadness. Of course, anyone who spent much time in the company of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg got used to being stared at; they were the kind of people that filled every space from edge to edge. And probably people in these parts didn't often see strangers, what with the thick forests and all. And the sight of Nanny Ogg eating a sausage with extreme gusto would even outrank her pickled onion number as major entertainment anywhere.\n\nEven so...the way people were staring...\n\nOutside, deep in the trees, a wolf howled.\n\nThe assembled villagers shivered in unison, as though they had been practicing. The landlord muttered something to them. They got up, reluctantly, and filed out of the door, trying to keep together. An old lady laid her hand on Magrat's shoulder for a moment, shook her head sadly, sighed, and then scuttled away. But Magrat was used to this, too. People often felt sorry for her when they saw her in Granny's company.\n\nEventually the landlord lurched across to them with a lighted torch, and motioned them to follow him.\n\n\"How did you make him understand about the beds?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I said, 'Hey mister, jigajig toot sweet all same No. 3,'\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny Weatherwax tried this under her breath, and nodded.\n\n\"Your lad Shane certainly gets around a bit, doesn't he,\" she remarked.\n\n\"He says it works every time,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nIn fact there were only two rooms, up a long, winding and creaky stairway. And Magrat got one to herself. Even the landlord seemed to want it that way. He'd been very attentive.\n\nShe wished he hadn't been so keen to bar the shutters, though. Magrat liked to sleep with a window open. As it was, it was too dark and stuffy.\n\nAnyway, she thought, I am the fairy godmother. The others are just accompanying me.\n\nShe peered hopelessly at herself in the room's tiny cracked mirror and then lay and listened to them on the far side of the paper-thin wall.\n\n\"What're you turning the mirror to the wall for, Esme?\"\n\n\"I just don't like 'em, staring like that.\"\n\n\"They only stares if you're staring at 'em, Esme.\"\n\nSilence, and then: \"Eh, what's this round thing for, then?\"\n\n\"I reckon it's supposed to be a pillow, Esme.\"\n\n\"Hah! I don't call it a pillow. And there's no proper blankets, even. What'd you say this thing's called?\"\n\n\"I think it's called a duvit, Esme.\"\n\n\"We call them an eiderdown where I come from. Hah!\"\n\nThere was a respite. Then:\n\n\"Have you brushed your tooth?\"\n\nAnd another pause. Then:\n\n\"Oo, you haven't half got cold feet, Esme.\"\n\n\"No, they ain't. They're lovely and snug.\"\n\nAnd another silence. Then:\n\n\"Boots! Your boots! You've got your boots on!\"\n\n\"I should just think I 'ave got my boots on, Gytha Ogg.\"\n\n\"And your clothes! You haven't even undressed!\"\n\n\"You can't be too careful in foreign parts. There could be all sorts out there, a-creepin' around.\"\n\nMagrat snuggled under the\u2014what was it?\u2014duvit, and turned over. Granny Weatherwax appeared to need one hour's sleep a night, whereas Nanny Ogg would snore on a fence rail.\n\n\"Gytha? Gytha! GYTHA!\"\n\n\"Wha'?\"\n\n\"Are you awake?\"\n\n\"'M now...\"\n\n\"I keep 'earing a noise!\"\n\n\"...so do I...\"\n\nMagrat dozed for a while.\n\n\"Gytha? GYTHA!\"\n\n\"...wha' now?...\"\n\n\"I'm sure someone rattled our shutters!\"\n\n\"...not at our time of life...now g' back t' slee'...\"\n\nThe air in the room was getting hotter and stuffier by the minute. Magrat got out of bed, unbolted the shutters and flung them back dramatically.\n\nThere was a grunt, and a distant thud of something hitting the ground.\n\nThe full moon streamed in. She felt a lot better for that, and got back into bed.\n\nIt seemed no time at all before the voice from next door woke her again.\n\n\"Gytha Ogg, what are you doing?\"\n\n\"I'm 'aving a snack.\"\n\n\"Can't you sleep?\"\n\n\"Just can't seem to be able to get off, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Can't imagine why.\"\n\n\"Here, that's garlic sausage you're eating! I'm actually sharing a bed with someone eating garlic sausage.\"\n\n\"Hey, that's mine! Give it back\u2014\"\n\nMagrat was aware of booted footsteps in the pit of the night, and the sound of a shutter being swung back in the next room.\n\nShe thought she heard a faint \"oof\" and another muted thud.\n\n\"I thought you liked garlic, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg's resentful voice.\n\n\"Sausage is all right in its place, and its place ain't in bed. And don't you say a word. Now move over. You keep taking all the duvit.\"\n\nAfter a while the velvet silence was broken by Granny's deep and resonant snore. Shortly afterward it was joined by the genteel snoring of Nanny, who had spent far more time sleeping in company than Granny and had evolved a more accommodating nasal orchestra. Granny's snore would have cut logs.\n\nMagrat folded the horrible round hard pillow over her ears and burrowed under the bedclothes.\n\nSomewhere on the chilly ground, a very large bat was trying to get airborne again. It had already been stunned twice, once by a carelessly opened shutter and once by a ballistic garlic sausage, and wasn't feeling very well at all. One more setback, it was thinking, and it's back off to the castle. Besides, it'd be sunrise soon.\n\nIts red eyes glinted as it looked up at Magrat's open window. It tensed\u2014\n\nA paw landed on it.\n\nThe bat looked around.\n\nGreebo had not had a very good night. He had investigated the whole place with regard to female cats, and found none. He had prowled among the middens, and drawn a blank. People in this town didn't throw the garbage away. They ate it.\n\nHe'd trotted into the woods and found some wolves and had sat and grinned at them until they got uncomfortable and went away.\n\nYes, it had been a very uneventful night. Until now.\n\nThe bat squirmed under his claw. It seemed to Greebo's small cat brain that it was trying to change its shape, and he wasn't having any of that from a mouse with wings on.\n\nEspecially now, when he had someone to play with.\n\nGenua was a fairytale city. People smiled and were joyful the livelong day. Especially if they wanted to see another livelong day.\n\nLilith made certain of that. Of course, people had probably thought they were happy in the days before she'd seen to it that the Duc replaced the old Baron, but it was a random, untidy happiness, which was why it was so easy for her to move in.\n\nBut it wasn't a way of life. There was no pattern to it.\n\nOne day they'd thank her.\n\nOf course, there were always a few difficult ones. Sometimes, people just didn't know how to act. You did your best for them, you ruled their city properly, you ensured that their lives were worthwhile and full of happiness every hour of the day and then, for no reason at all, they turned on you.\n\nGuards lined the audience chamber. And there was an audience. Technically, of course, it was the ruler who gave the audience, but Lilith liked to see people watching. One pennyworth of example was worth a pound of punishment.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of crime in Genua these days. At least, not what would be considered crime elsewhere. Things like theft were easily dealt with and hardly required any kind of judicial process. Far more important, in Lilith's book, were crimes against narrative expectation. People didn't seem to know how they should behave.\n\nLilith held a mirror up to Life, and chopped all the bits off Life that didn't fit...\n\nThe Duc lounged bonelessly on his throne, one leg dangling over the armrest. He'd never got the hang of chairs.\n\n\"And what has this one done?\" he said, and yawned. Opening his mouth wide was something he was good at, at least.\n\nA little old man cowered between two guards.\n\nThere's always someone willing to be a guard, even in places like Genua. Besides, you got a really smart uniform, with blue trousers and a red coat and a high black hat with a cockade in it.\n\n\"But I...I can't whistle,\" quavered the old man.\"I...I didn't know it was compulsory...\"\n\n\"But you are a toymaker,\" said the Duc. \"Toymakers whistle and sing the whole day long.\" He glanced at Lilith. She nodded.\n\n\"I don't know any...s-songs,\" said the toymaker. \"I never got taught s-songs. Just how to make toys. I was 'prenticed at making toys. Seven years before the little hammer, man and boy...\"\n\n\"It says here,\" said the Duc, making a creditable impersonation of someone reading the charge sheet in front of him, \"that you don't tell the children stories.\"\n\n\"No one ever told me about telling...s-stories,\" said the toymaker. \"Look, I just make toys. Toys. That's all I'm good at. Toys. I make good t-toys. I'm just a t-toymaker.\"\n\n\"You can't be a good toymaker if you don't tell stories to the children,\" said Lilith, leaning forward.\n\nThe toymaker looked up at the veiled face.\n\n\"Don't know any,\" he said.\n\n\"You don't know any?\"\n\n\"I could t-tell 'em how to make toys,\" the old man quavered.\n\nLilith sat back. It was impossible to see her expression under the veil.\n\n\"I think it would be a good idea if the People's Guards here took you away,\" she said, \"to a place where you will certainly learn to sing. And possibly, after a while, you might even whistle. Won't that be nice?\"\n\nThe old Baron's dungeons had been disgusting. Lilith had had them repainted and refurnished. With a lot of mirrors.\n\nWhen the audience was over one member of the crowd slipped out through the palace kitchens. The guards on the side gate didn't try to stop her. She was a very important person in the small compass of their lives.\n\n\"Hello, Mrs. Pleasant.\"\n\nShe stopped, reached into her basket and produced a couple of roast chicken legs.\n\n\"Just tryin' a new peanut coating,\" she said. \"Would value your opinions, boys.\"\n\nThey took them gratefully. Everyone liked to see Mrs. Pleasant. She could do things with a chicken that would almost make it glad it had been killed.\n\n\"And now I'm just going out to get some herbs,\" she said.\n\nThey watched her as she went like a fat, determined arrow in the direction of the market place, which was right on the edge of the river. Then they ate the chicken legs.\n\nMrs. Pleasant bustled among the market stalls; and she took great care to bustle. Even in Genua there were always people ready to tell a tale. Especially in Genua. She was a cook, so she bustled. And made sure she stayed fat and was, fortunately, naturally jolly. She made sure she had floury arms at all times. If she felt under suspicion, she'd say things like \"Lawks!\" She seemed to be getting away with it so far.\n\nShe looked for the sign. And there it was. Perched up on the roof pole of a stall that was otherwise stacked with cages of hens, gazoots, Wheely cranes and other fowl, was a black cockerel. The voodoo doctor was In.\n\nEven as her eye found it the cockerel's head turned to look at her.\n\nSet a little way back from the rest of the stalls was a small tent, similar to many around the market. A cauldron bubbled in front of it on a charcoal fire. There were bowls beside it, and a ladle, and beside them a plate with coins on it. There were quite a lot of coins; people paid for Mrs. Gogol's cooking whatever they thought it was worth, and the plate was hardly big enough.\n\nThe thick liquid in the cauldron was an unappetizing brown. Mrs. Pleasant helped herself to a bowlful, and waited. Mrs. Gogol had certain talents.\n\nAfter a while a voice from the tent said, \"What's new, Mrs. Pleasant?\"\n\n\"She's shut up the toymaker,\" said Mrs. Pleasant, to the air in general. \"And yesterday it was old Devereaux the innkeeper for not being fat and not having a big red face. That's four times this month.\"\n\n\"You come in, Mrs. Pleasant.\"\n\nIt was dark and hot inside the tent. There was another fire in there, and another pot. Mrs. Gogol was hunched over it, stirring. She motioned the cook to a pair of bellows.\n\n\"Blow up the coals a tad, and we'll see what's what,\" she said.\n\nMrs. Pleasant obeyed. She didn't use magic herself, other than that necessary to get a roux to turn or bread to rise, but she respected it in others. Especially in the likes of Mrs. Gogol.\n\nThe charcoal blazed white. The thick liquid in the pot began to churn. Mrs. Gogol peered into the steam.\n\n\"What're you doing, Mrs. Gogol?\" said the cook anxiously.\n\n\"Trying to see what's goin' to happen,\" said the voodoo woman. The voice dropped into the rolling growl of the psychically gifted.\n\nMrs. Pleasant squinted into the roiling mass.\n\n\"Someone's going to be eatin' shrimp?\" she said helpfully.\n\n\"Ye see that bit of okra?\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Ye see the way the crab legs keep coming up just there?\"\n\n\"You never were one to stint the crab meat,\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\n\"See the way the bubbles is so thick by the okuh leaves? See the way it all spirals around that purple onion?\"\n\n\"I see it! I see it!\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\n\"And you know what that means?\"\n\n\"Means it's going to taste real fine!\"\n\n\"Sure,\" said Mrs. Gogol, kindly. \"And it means some people's coming.\"\n\n\"Wow! How many?\"\n\nMrs. Gogol dipped a spoon into the seething mass and tasted it.\n\n\"Three people,\" she said. She smacked her lips thoughtfully. \"Women.\"\n\nShe dipped the spoon again.\n\n\"Have a taste,\" she said. \"There's a cat, too. Ye can tell by the sassafras.\" She smacked her lips. \"Gray. One eye.\" She explored the cavity of a tooth with her tongue. \"The...left one.\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant's jaw dropped.\n\n\"They'll find you before they find me,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"You lead 'em here.\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant stared at Mrs. Gogol's grim smile and then back down at the mixture in the pot.\n\n\"They coming all this way for a taste?\" she said.\n\n\"Sure.\" Mrs. Gogol sat back. \"You been to see the girl in the white house?\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant nodded. \"Young Embers,\" she said. \"Yeah. When I can. When the Sisters are out at the palace. They got her real scared, Mrs. Gogol.\"\n\nShe looked down at the pot again, and back up to Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Can you really see\u2014?\"\n\n\"I expect you've got things to marinate?\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah.\" Mrs. Pleasant backed out, but with reluctance. Then she halted. Mrs. Pleasant, at rest, was not easily moved again until she wanted to be.\n\n\"That Lilith woman says she can see the whole world in mirrors,\" she said, in slightly accusing tones.\n\nMrs. Gogol shook her head.\n\n\"All anyone gets in a mirror is themselves,\" she said. \"But what you gets in a good gumbo is everything.\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant nodded. This was a well-known fact. She couldn't dispute it.\n\nMrs. Gogol shook her head sadly when the cook had gone. A voodoo woman was reduced to all sorts of stratagems in order to appear knowing, but she felt slightly ashamed of letting an honest woman believe that she could see the future in a pot of gumbo. Because all you could see in a pot of Mrs. Gogol's gumbo was that the future certainly contained a very good meal.\n\nShe'd really seen it in a bowl of jambalaya she'd prepared earlier.\n\nMagrat lay with the wand under her pillow. She wobbled gently between sleep and wakefulness.\n\nCertainly she was the best person for the wand. There was no doubt about that. Sometimes\u2014and she hardly dared give the thought headroom, when she was under the same roof as Granny Weatherwax\u2014she really wondered about the others' commitment to witchcraft. Half the time they didn't seem to bother.\n\nTake medicine, for example. Magrat knew she was much better than them at herbs. She'd inherited several large books on the subject from Goodie Whemper, her predecessor in the cottage, and had essayed a few tentative notes of her own as well. She could tell people things about the uses of Devil's Bit Scabious that would interest them so much they'd rush off, presumably to look for someone else to tell. She could fractionally distil, and double-distil, and do things that meant sitting up all night watching the color of the flame under the retort. She worked at it.\n\nWhereas Nanny just tended to put a hot poultice on everything and recommend a large glass of whatever the patient liked best on the basis that since you were going to be ill anyway you might as well get some enjoyment out of it. (Magrat forbade her patients alcohol, because of what it did to the liver; if they didn't know what it did to the liver, she spent some time telling them.)\n\nAnd Granny...she just gave people a bottle of colored water and told them they felt a lot better.\n\nAnd what was so annoying was that they often did.\n\nWhere was the witchcraft in that?\n\nWith a wand, though, things could be different. You could help people a lot with a wand. Magic was there to make life better. Magrat knew this in the pink fluttering boudoir of her heart.\n\nShe dipped under the surface of sleep again.\n\nAnd there was an odd dream. She never mentioned it to anyone afterward because, well, you didn't. Not things like that.\n\nBut she thought she'd got up in the night, awakened by the silence, to get some more air. And as she passed the mirror she saw a movement in it.\n\nIt wasn't her face. It looked a lot like Granny Weatherwax. It smiled at her\u2014a much nicer and friendlier smile than she'd ever got from Granny, Magrat recalled\u2014and then vanished, the cloudy silver surface closing over it.\n\nShe hurried back to bed and awoke to the sound of a brass band, engaged in unrelenting oompah. People were shouting and laughing.\n\nMagrat got dressed quickly, went out into the corridor, and knocked on the door of the older witches. There was no reply. She tried the handle.\n\nAfter she'd rattled it a couple of times there was a thump as the chair wedged under the handle on the other side, the better to deter ravishers, burglars and other nocturnal intruders, fell over.\n\nGranny Weatherwax's boots protruded from under the covers at one end of the bed. Nanny Ogg's bare feet, Nanny being something of a night-time revolver, were beside them. Faint snores rattled the jug on the washbasin; these were no longer the fullnosed roars of a quick forty-winks catnapper, but the well-paced growls of someone who intends to make a night of it.\n\nMagrat knocked on the sole of Granny's boot.\n\n\"Hey, wake up! Something's going on.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax waking up was quite an impressive sight, and one not seen by many people.\n\nMost people, on waking up, accelerate through a quick panicky pre-consciousness check-up: who am I, where am I, who is he\/she, good god, why am I cuddling a policeman's helmet, what happened last night?\n\nAnd this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model airplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time\u2014there's that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from fast asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking.\n\nShe sniffed. \"Something's burning,\" she said.\n\n\"They've got a bonfire, too,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny sniffed again.\n\n\"They're roasting garlic?\" she said.\n\n\"I know. I can't imagine why. They're ripping all the shutters off the windows and burning them in the square and dancing around the fire.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax gave Nanny Ogg a vicious jab with her elbow.\n\n\"Wake up, you.\"\n\n\"Wstph?\"\n\n\"I didn't get a wink of sleep all night,\" said Granny reproachfully, \"what with her snoring.\"\n\nNanny Ogg raised the covers cautiously.\n\n\"It's far too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning,\" she said.\n\n\"Come on,\" said Granny. \"We needs your skill with languages.\"\n\nThe owner of the inn flapped his arms up and down and ran around in circles. Then he pointed at the castle that towered over the forest. Then he sucked vigorously at his wrist. Then he fell over on his back. And then he looked expectantly at Nanny Ogg, while behind him the bonfire of garlic and wooden stakes and heavy window shutters burned merrily.\n\n\"No,\" said Nanny, after a while. \"Still non conprendy, mine hair.\"\n\nThe man got up, and brushed some dust off his leather breeches.\n\n\"I think he's saying that someone's dead,\" said Magrat. \"Someone in the castle.\"\n\n\"Well, I must say, everyone seems very cheerful about it,\" said Granny Weatherwax severely.\n\nIn the sunlight of the new day the village looked far more cheerful. Everyone kept nodding happily at the witches.\n\n\"That's because it was probably the landlord,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Bit of a bloodsucker, I think he's sayin'.\"\n\n\"Ah. That'd be it, then.\" Granny rubbed her hands together and looked approvingly at the breakfast table, which had been dragged out into the sunshine. \"Anyway, the food has certainly improved. Pass the bread, Magrat.\"\n\n\"Everyone keeps smiling and waving at us,\" said Magrat. \"And look at all this food!\"\n\n\"That's only to be expected,\" said Granny, with her mouth full. \"They've only had us here one night and already they're learnin' it's lucky to be kind to witches. Now help me get the lid off this honey.\"\n\nUnder the table, Greebo sat and washed himself. Occasionally he burped.\n\nVampires have risen from the dead, the grave and the crypt, but have never managed it from the cat.\n\nDear Jason and all at No. 21, No. 34, No. 15, No. 87 and No. 61 but not at No. 18 until she gives back the bowl she definitly borrowed whatever she says.\n\nWell here we are, cor what a lark so far, dont arsk ME about pumkins, still, no harm done. Im drawin a picture of where we stayed larst night I have put an X on our room where our room is. The weather\u2014\n\n\"What are you doing, Gytha? We're ready to leave.\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked up, her face still creased with the effort of composition.\n\n\"I thought it would be nice to send something to our Jason. You know, to stop him worryin'. So I done a drawing of this place on a piece of card and Mine Hair here will give it to someone going our way. You never know, it might get there.\"\n\n\u2014continues Fine.\n\nNanny Ogg sucked the end of her pencil. Not for the first time in the history of the universe, someone for whom communication normally came as effortlessly as a dream was stuck for inspiration when faced with a few lines on the back of a card.\n\nWell that about wraps it up for now, will wright again soone MUM. P.S. the Cat is looking very Peeky I think he misses his Home.\n\n\"Will you come on, Gytha? Magrat's getting my broom started for me.\"\n\nP.P.S. Granny sends her Love.\n\nNanny Ogg sat back, content in the knowledge of a job well done.*\n\nMagrat reached the end of the town square and stopped to rest.\n\nQuite an audience had gathered to see a woman with legs. They were very polite about it. Somehow, that made it worse.\n\n\"It doesn't fly unless you run really fast,\" she explained, aware even as she spoke how stupid this sounded, especially if you were listening in a foreign language. \"I think it's called hump starting.\"\n\nShe took a deep breath, scowled in concentration, and ran forward again.\n\nThis time it started. It jolted in her hands. The bristles rustled. She managed to slip it into neutral before it could drag her along the ground. One thing about Granny Weatherwax's broomstick\u2014it was one of the very old-fashioned ones, built in the days when broomsticks were built to last and not fall apart with woodworm after ten years\u2014was that while it might take some starting, when it went it didn't hang about.\n\nMagrat had once considered explaining the symbolism of the witches' broomstick to Granny Weatherwax, and decided not to. It would have been worse than the row about the significance of the maypole.\n\nDeparture took some time. The villagers insisted on giving them little gifts of food. Nanny Ogg made a speech which no one understood but which was generally cheered. Greebo, hiccuping occasionally, oozed into his accustomed place among the bristles of Nanny's broomstick.\n\nAs they rose above the forest a thin plume of smoke also rose from the castle. And then there were flames.\n\n\"I see people dancing in front of it,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Always a dangerous business, rentin' property,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"I expect he was a bit lax when it came to redecoratin' and repairin' the roof and suchlike. People take against that kind of thing. My landlord hasn't done a hand's turn on my cottage the whole time I've been there,\" she added. \"It's shameful. And me an old woman, too.\"\n\n\"I thought you owned your place,\" said Magrat, as the broomsticks set off over the forest.\n\n\"She just ain't paid no rent for sixty years,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Is that my fault?\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"It's not my fault. I'd be quite willin' to pay.\" She smiled a slow, self-confident smile. \"All he has to do is ask,\" she added.\n\nThis is the Discworld, seen from above, its cloud formations circling in long curved patterns.\n\nThree dots emerged from the cloud layer.\n\n\"I can see why travelin' doesn't catch on. I call this boring. Nothing but forest for hours and hours.\"\n\n\"Yes, but flying gets you to places quickly, Granny.\"\n\n\"How long've we been flying, anyway?\"\n\n\"About ten minutes since you last asked, Esme.\"\n\n\"You see? Boring.\"\n\n\"It's sitting on the sticks I don't like. I reckon there ought to be a special broomstick for going long distances, right? One you could stretch out on and have a snooze.\"\n\nThey all considered this.\n\n\"And have your meals on,\" added Nanny. \"Proper meals, I mean. With gravy. Not just sandwiches and stuff.\" An experiment in aerial cookery on a small oil burner had been hastily curtailed after it threatened to set fire to Nanny's broomstick.\n\n\"I suppose you could do it if you had a really big broomstick,\" said Magrat. \"About the size of a tree, perhaps. Then one of us could do the steering and another one could do the cooking.\"\n\n\"It'd never happen,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"The reason being, the dwarfs would make you pay a fortune for a stick that big.\"\n\n\"Yes, but what you could do,\" said Magrat, warming to her subject, \"is get people to pay you to give them rides. There must be lots of people fed up with highwaymen and...and being seasick and that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"How about it, Esme?\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I'll do the steering and Magrat'll do the cooking.\"\n\n\"What shall I do, then?\" said Granny Weatherwax suspiciously.\n\n\"Oh...well...there ought to be someone to, you know, welcome people onto the stick and give them their meals,\" said Magrat. \"And tell them what to do if the magic fails, for example.\"\n\n\"If the magic fails everyone'll crash into the ground and die,\" Granny pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, but someone will have to tell them how to do that,\" said Nanny Ogg, winking at Magrat. \"They won't know how to, not being experienced in flying.\"\n\n\"And we could call ourselves...\" she paused. As always on the Discworld, which was right on the very edge of unreality, little bits of realness crept in whenever someone's mind was resonating properly. This happened now.\n\n\"...Three Witches Airborne,\" she said. \"How about that?\"\n\n\"Broomsticks Airborne,\" said Magrat. \"Or Pan...air...\"\n\n\"There's no need to bring religion into it,\" sniffed Granny.\n\nNanny Ogg looked slyly from Granny to Magrat.\n\n\"We could call it Vir\u2014\" she began.\n\nA gust of wind caught all three sticks and whirled them up. There was a brief panic as the witches brought them under control.\n\n\"Load of nonsense,\" muttered Granny.\n\n\"Well, it passes the time,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny looked morosely at the greenery below.\n\n\"You'd never get people to do it,\" she said. \"Load of nonsense.\"\n\nDear Jason en famile,\n\nOverleaf on the other side please find enclosed a sketch of somewhere some king died and was buried, search me why. It's in some village wear we stopped last night. We had some stuff it was chewy you'll never guess it was snails, and not bad and Esme had three helpins before she found out and then had a Row with the cook and Magrat was sick all night just at the thought of it and had the dire rear. Thinking of you your loving MUM. PS the privies here are DESGUSTING, they have them INDORES, so much for HIGEINE.\n\nSeveral days passed.\n\nIn a quiet little inn in a tiny country Granny Weatherwax sat and regarded the food with deep suspicion. The owner hovered with the frantic expression of one who knows, even before he starts, that he's not going to come out of this ahead of the game.\n\n\"Good simple home cooking,\" said Granny. \"That's all I require. You know me. I'm not the demanding sort. No one could say I'm the demanding sort. I just want simple food. Not all grease and stuff. It comes to something when you complain about something in your lettuce and it turns out to be what you ordered.\"\n\nNanny Ogg tucked her napkin into the top of her dress and said nothing.\n\n\"Like that place last night,\" said Granny. \"You'd think you'd be all right with sandwiches, wouldn't you? I mean...sandwiches? Simplest food there is in the whole world. You'd think even foreigners couldn't get sandwiches wrong. Hah!\"\n\n\"They didn't call them sandwiches, Granny,\" said Magrat, her eyes dwelling on the owner's frying pan. \"They called them...I think they called them smorgy's board.\"\n\n\"They was nice,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I'm very partial to a pickled herring.\"\n\n\"But they must think we're daft, not noticing they'd left off the top slice,\" said Granny triumphantly. \"Well, I told them a thing or two! Another time they'll think twice before trying to swindle people out of a slice of bread that's theirs by rights!\"\n\n\"I expect they will,\" said Magrat darkly.\n\n\"And I don't hold with all this giving things funny names so people don't know what they're eating,\" said Granny, determined to explore the drawbacks of international cookery to the full. \"I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like...well...Bubble and Squeak, or...or...\"\n\n\"Spotted Dick,\" said Nanny absently. She was watching the progress of the pancakes with some anticipation.\n\n\"That's right. Decent honest food. I mean, take that stuff we had for lunch. I'm not saying it wasn't nice,\" said Granny graciously. \"In a foreign sort of way, of course. But they called it Cwuissses dee Grenolly, and who knows what that means?\"\n\n\"Frogs' legs,\" translated Nanny, without thinking.\n\nThe silence was filled with Granny Weatherwax taking a deep breath and a pale green color creeping across Magrat's face. Nanny Ogg now thought quicker than she had done for a very long time.\n\n\"Not actual frogs' legs,\" she said hurriedly. \"It's like Toad-in-the-Hole is really only sausage and batter puddin'. It's just a joke name.\"\n\n\"It doesn't sound very funny to me,\" said Granny. She turned to glare at the pancakes.\n\n\"At least they can't muck up a decent pancake,\" she said. \"What'd they call them here?\"\n\n\"Crap suzette, I think,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny forbore to comment. But she watched with grim satisfaction as the owner finished the dish and gave her a hopeful smile.\n\n\"Oh, now he expects us to eat them,\" she said. \"He only goes and sets fire to them, and then he still expects us to eat them!\"\n\nIt might later have been possible to chart the progress of the witches across the continent by some sort of demographic survey. Long afterward, in some quiet, onion-hung kitchens, in sleepy villages nestling among hot hills, you might have found cooks who wouldn't twitch and try to hide behind the door when a stranger came into the kitchen.\n\nDear Jason,\n\nIt is defnity more warmer here, Magrat says it is because we are getting further from the Hub and, a funny thing, all the money is different. You have to change it for other money which is all different shapes and is not proper money at all in my opinion. We generally let Esme sort that out, she gets a very good rate of exchange, it is amazing, Magrat says she will wright a book called Traveling on One Dollar a Day, and it's always the same dollar. Esme is getting to act just like a foreigner, yesterday she took her shawl off, next thing it will be dancing on tables. This is a picture of some famous bridge or other. Lots of love, MUM.\n\nThe sun beat down on the cobbled street, and particularly on the courtyard of a little inn.\n\n\"It's hard to imagine,\" said Magrat, \"that it's autumn back home.\"\n\n\"Garkon? Mucho vino aveck zei, grassy ass.\"\n\nThe innkeeper, who did not understand one word and was a good-natured man who certainly did not deserve to be called a garkon, smiled at Nanny. He'd smile at anyone with such an unlimited capacity for drink.\n\n\"I don't hold with putting all these tables out in the street, though,\" said Granny Weatherwax, although without much severity. It was pleasantly warm. It wasn't that she didn't like autumn, it was a season she always looked forward to, but at her time of life it was nice to know that it was happening hundreds of miles away while she wasn't there.\n\nUnderneath the table Greebo dozed on his back with his legs in the air. Occasionally he twitched as he fought wolves in his sleep.\n\n\"It says in Desiderata's notes,\" said Magrat, turning the stiff pages carefully, \"that in the late summer here they have this special traditional ceremony where they let a lot of bulls run through the street.\"\n\n\"That'd be something worth seeing,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"Why do they do it?\"\n\n\"So all the young men can chase them to show how brave they are,\" said Magrat. \"Apparently they pull their rosettes off.\"\n\nA variety of expressions passed across Nanny Ogg's wrinkled face, like weather over a stretch of volcanic badlands.\n\n\"Sounds a bit strange,\" she said at last. \"What do they do that for?\"\n\n\"She doesn't explain it very clearly,\" said Magrat. She turned another page. Her lips moved as she read on. \"What does cojones mean?\"\n\nThey shrugged.\n\n\"Here, you want to slow down on that drink,\" said Granny, as a waiter put down another bottle in front of Nanny Ogg. \"I wouldn't trust any drink that's green.\"\n\n\"It's not like proper drink,\" said Nanny. \"It says on the label it's made from herbs. You can't make a serious drink out of just herbs. Try a drop.\"\n\nGranny sniffed the opened bottle.\n\n\"Smells like aniseed,\" she said.\n\n\"It says 'Absinthe' on the bottle,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Oh, that's just a name for wormwood,\" said Magrat, who was good at herbs. \"My herbal says it's good for stomach diforders and prevents sicknefs after meals.\"\n\n\"There you are, then,\" said Nanny. \"Herbs. It's practic'ly medicine.\" She poured a generous measure for the other two. \"Give it a go, Magrat. It'll put a cheft on your cheft.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax surreptitiously loosened her boots. She was also debating whether to remove her vest. She probably didn't need all three.\n\n\"We ought to be getting on,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, I'm fed up with the broomsticks,\" said Nanny. \"More than a couple of hours on a stick and I've gone rigid in the dairy air.\"\n\nShe looked expectantly at the other two. \"That foreign for bum,\" she added. \"Although, it's a funny thing, in some foreign parts 'bum' means 'tramp' and 'tramp' means 'hobo'. Funny things, words.\"\n\n\"A laugh a minute,\" said Granny.\n\n\"The river's quite wide here,\" said Magrat. \"There's big boats. I've never been on a proper boat. You know? The kind that doesn't sink easily?\"\n\n\"Broomsticks is more witchy,\" said Granny, but not with much conviction. She did not have Nanny Ogg's international anatomical vocabulary, but bits of her she wouldn't even admit to knowing the names of were definitely complaining.\n\n\"I saw them boats,\" said Nanny. \"They looked like great big rafts with houses on. You wouldn't hardly know you're on a boat, Esme. 'Ere, what's he doing?\"\n\nThe innkeeper had hurried out and was taking the jolly little tables back inside. He nodded at Nanny and spoke with a certain amount of urgency.\n\n\"I think he wants us to go inside,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I likes it out here,\" said Granny. \"I LIKES IT OUT HERE, THANK YOU,\" she repeated. Granny Weatherwax's approach to foreign tongues was to repeat herself loudly and slowly.\n\n\"'Ere, you stop trying to take our table away!\" snapped Nanny, thumping his hands.\n\nThe innkeeper spoke hurriedly and pointed up the street.\n\nGranny and Magrat glanced inquiringly at Nanny Ogg. She shrugged.\n\n\"Didn't understand any of that,\" she admitted.\n\n\"WE'RE STOPPIN' WHERE WE ARE, THANK YOU,\" said Granny. The innkeeper's eyes met hers. He gave in, waved his hands in the air in exasperation, and went inside.\n\n\"They think they can take advantage of you when you're a woman,\" said Magrat. She stifled a burp, discreetly, and picked up the green bottle again. Her stomach was feeling a lot better already.\n\n\"That's very true. D'you know what?\" said Nanny Ogg, \"I barricaded meself in my room last night and a man didn't even try to break in.\"\n\n\"Gytha Ogg, sometimes you\u2014\" Granny stopped as she caught sight of something over Nanny's shoulder.\n\n\"There's a load of cows coming down the street,\" she said.\n\nNanny turned her chair around.\n\n\"It must be that bull thing Magrat mentioned,\" she said. \"Should be worth seein'.\"\n\nMagrat glanced up. All along the street people were craning out of every second-story window. A jostle of horns and hooves and steaming bodies was approaching rapidly.\n\n\"There's people up there laughing at us,\" she said accusingly.\n\nUnder the table Greebo stirred and rolled over. He opened his good eye, focused on the approaching bulls, and sat up. This looked like being fun.\n\n\"Laughin'?\" said Granny. She looked up. The people aloft did indeed appear to be enjoying a joke.\n\nHer eyes narrowed.\n\n\"We're just goin' to carry on as if nothin' is happening,\" she declared.\n\n\"But they're quite big bulls,\" said Magrat nervously.\n\n\"They're nothing to do with us,\" said Granny. \"It's nothin' to do with us if a lot of foreigners want to get excited about things. Now pass me the herbal wine.\"\n\nAs far as Lagro te Kabona, innkeeper, could remember the events of that day, they seemed to happen like this:\n\nIt was the time of the Thing with the Bulls. And the mad women just sat there, drinking absinthe as if it was water! He tried to get them to come indoors, but the old one, the skinny one, just shouted at him. So he let them bide, but left the door open\u2014people soon got the message when the bulls came down the street with the young men of the village after them. Whoever snatched the big red rosette from between the horns of the biggest bull got the seat of honor at that night's feast plus\u2014Lagro smiled a smile of forty years remembrance\u2014a certain informal but highly enjoyable relationship with the young women of the town for quite some time after...\n\nAnd the mad women just sat there.\n\nThe leading bull had been a bit uncertain about this. Its normal course of action would be to roar and paw the ground a bit to get the targets running in an interesting way and its mind wasn't able to cope with this lack of attention, but that hadn't been its major problem, because its major problem had been twenty other bulls right behind it.\n\nAnd even that ceased to be its major problem, because the terrible old woman, the one all in black, had stood up, muttered something at it and smacked it between the eyes. Then the horrible dumpy one whose stomach had the resilience and capacity of a galvanized water tank fell backward off her chair, laughing, and the young one\u2014that is, the one who was younger than the other two\u2014started flapping at the bulls as if they were ducks.\n\nAnd then the street was full of angry, bewildered bulls, and a lot of shouting, terrified young men. It's one thing to chase a lot of panicking bulls, and quite another to find that they're suddenly trying to run the other way.\n\nThe innkeeper, from the safety of his bedroom window, could hear the horrible women shouting things to one another. The dumpy one kept laughing and shouting some sort of battle cry\u2014\"TrytheHorsemanswordEsme!\" and then the younger one, who was pushing her way through the animals as if being gored to death was something that only happened to other people, found the lead bull and took the rosette off it, with the same air of concern as an old woman may take a thorn out of her cat's paw. She held it as if she didn't know what it was or what she should do with it...\n\nThe sudden silence affected even the bulls. Their tiny little bloodshot brains sensed something wrong. The bulls were embarrassed.\n\nFortunately, the horrible women left on a riverboat that afternoon, after one of them rescued her cat which had cornered twenty-five stone of confused bull and was trying to toss it in the air and play with it.\n\nThat evening Lagro te Kabona made a point of being very, very kind to his old mother.\n\nAnd the village held a flower festival next year, and no one ever talked about the Thing with the Bulls ever, ever again.\n\nAt least, not in front of the men.\n\nThe big paddlewheel sloshed through the thick brown soup of the river. The motive power was several dozen trolls under a sunshade, trudging along an endless belt. Birds sang in the trees on the distant banks. The scent of hibiscus wafted across the water, almost but unfortunately not quite overpowering the scent of the river itself.\n\n\"Now this,\" said Nanny Ogg, \"is more like it.\"\n\nShe stretched out on the deckchair and turned to look at Granny Weatherwax, whose brows were knitted in the intense concentration of reading.\n\nNanny's mouth spread in an evil grin.\n\n\"You know what this river's called?\" she said.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"'S called the Vieux River.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Know what that means?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"The Old (Masculine) River,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Words have sex in foreign parts,\" said Nanny, hopefully.\n\nGranny didn't budge.\n\n\"Wouldn't be at all surprised,\" she murmured. Nanny sagged.\n\n\"That's one of Desiderata's books, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Granny. She licked her thumb decorously and turned the page.\n\n\"Where's Magrat gone?\"\n\n\"She's having a lie-down in the cabin,\" said Granny, without looking up.\n\n\"Tummy upset?\"\n\n\"It's her head this time. Now be quiet, Gytha. I'm having a read.\"\n\n\"What about?\" said Nanny cheerfully.\n\nGranny Weatherwax sighed, and put her finger on the page to mark her place.\n\n\"This place we're going to,\" she said. \"Genua. Desiderata says it's decadent.\"\n\nNanny Ogg's smile remained fixed.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said. \"That's good, is it? I've never been to a city before.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax paused. She'd been pondering for some while. She wasn't at all certain about the meaning of the word \"decadent.\" She'd dismissed the possibility that it meant \"having ten teeth\" in the same sense that Nanny Ogg, for example, was unident. Whatever it meant, it was something Desiderata had felt necessary to write down. Granny Weatherwax did not generally trust books as a means of information, but now she had no choice.\n\nShe had a vague idea that \"decadent\" had something to do with not opening the curtains all day.\n\n\"She says it's also a city of art, wit and culture,\" said Granny.\n\n\"We shall be all right there, then,\" said Nanny confidently.\n\n\"Particularly noted for the beauty of its women, she says here.\"\n\n\"We shall fade right in, no trouble.\"\n\nGranny turned the pages carefully. Desiderata had paid close attention to affairs all over the Disc. On the other hand, she hadn't been writing for readers other than herself, so her notes tended to the cryptic and were aides m\u00e9moire rather than coherent accounts.\n\nGranny read: \"Now L. rules the citie as the power behint the throne, and Baron S. they say has been killd, drowned in the river. He was a wicked man tho not I think as wicked as L, for she says she wants to make it a Magic Kingdom, a Happy and Peaseful place, and wen people do that look out for Spies on every corner and no manne dare speak out, for who dare speke out against Evile done in the name of Happyness and Pease? All the Streetes are clean and Axes are sharp. But E. is safe at least, for now. L. has plans for her. And Mrs. G who was the Baron's amour hides in the swamp and fites back with swamp magic, but you cannot fite mirror magic which is all Reflection.\"\n\nFairy godmothers came in twos, Granny knew. So that was Desiderata and...and L...but who was this person in the swamp?\n\n\"Gytha?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Wazzat?\" said Nanny Ogg, who was dozing off.\n\n\"Desiderata says some woman here is someone's armor.\"\n\n\"Prob'ly a mettyfor,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Granny darkly, \"one of them things.\"\n\n\"But no one can stop Mardi Gras,\" she read. \"If anything canne be done it be on Samedi Nuit Morte, the last night of carnivale, the night halfway between the Living and the Dead, when magic flows in the streets. If L. is vooneruble it is then, for carnivale is everythinge she hates...\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax pulled her hat down over her eyes to shield them from the sun.\n\n\"It says here they have a great big carnival every year,\" she said. \"Mardi Gras, it's called.\"\n\n\"That means Fat Lunchtime,\" said Nanny Ogg, international linguist. \"Garkon! Etcetra gross Mint Tulip avec petit bowl de peanuts, pour favor!\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax shut the book.\n\nShe would not of course admit it to a third party, least of all another witch, but as Genua drew nearer Granny was becoming less and less confident.\n\nShe was waiting in Genua. After all this time! Staring at her out of the mirror! Smiling!\n\nThe sun beat down. She tried defying it. Sooner or later she was going to have to give in, though. It was going to be time to remove another vest.\n\nNanny Ogg sat and drew cards for her relatives for a while, and then yawned. She was a witch who liked noise and people around her. Nanny Ogg was getting bored. It was a big boat, more like a floating inn, and she felt certain there was some excitement somewhere.\n\nShe laid her bag on her seat and wandered away to look for it.\n\nThe trolls plodded on.\n\n##\n\nThe sun was red, fat and low when Granny Weatherwax awoke. She looked around guiltily from the shelter of her hatbrim in case anyone had noticed her asleep. Falling asleep during the day was something only old women did, and Granny Weatherwax was an old woman only when it suited her purposes.\n\nThe only spectator was Greebo, curled up on Nanny's chair. His one good eye was fixed on her, but it wasn't so terrifying as the milky white stare of his blind one.\n\n\"Just considerin' our strategy,\" she muttered, just in case.\n\nShe closed the book and strode off to their cabin. It wasn't a big one. Some of the staterooms looked huge, but what with the herbal wine and everything Granny hadn't felt up to using any Influence to get one.\n\nMagrat and Nanny Ogg were sitting on a bunk, in gloomy silence.\n\n\"I feels a bit peckish,\" said Granny. \"I smelled stew on the way here, so let's go and have a look, eh? What about that?\"\n\nThe other two continued to stare at the floor.\n\n\"I suppose there's always pumpkin,\" said Magrat. \"And there's always the dwarf bread.\"\n\n\"There's always dwarf bread,\" said Nanny automatically. She looked up, her face a mask of shame.\n\n\"Er, Esme...er...you know the money...\"\n\n\"The money what we all gave you to keep in your knickers for safety?\" said Granny. Something about the way the conversation was going suggested the first few pebbles slipping before a major landslide.\n\n\"That's the money I'm referrin' to...er...\"\n\n\"The money in the big leather bag that we were goin' to be very careful about spendin'?\" said Granny.\n\n\"You see...the money...\"\n\n\"Oh, that money,\" said Granny.\n\n\"...is gone...\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Stolen?\"\n\n\"She's been gambling,\" said Magrat, in tones of smug horror. \"With men.\"\n\n\"It wasn't gambling!\" snapped Nanny. \"I never gamble! They were no good at cards! I won no end of games!\"\n\n\"But you lost money,\" said Granny.\n\nNanny Ogg looked down again, and muttered something.\n\n\"What?\" said Granny.\n\n\"I said I won nearly all of them,\" said Nanny. \"And then I thought, here, we could really have a bit of money to, you know, spend in the city, and I've always been very good at Cripple Mr. Onion...\"\n\n\"So you decided to bet heavily,\" said Granny.\n\n\"How did you know that?\"\n\n\"Got a feelin' about it,\" said Granny wearily. \"And suddenly everyone else was lucky, am I right?\"\n\n\"It was weird,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"Well, it's not gambling,\" said Nanny. \"I didn't see it was gambling. They were no good when I started playing. It's not gambling to play against someone who's no good. It's common sense.\"\n\n\"There was nearly fourteen dollars in that bag,\" said Magrat, \"not counting the foreign money.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax sat down on the bunk and drummed her fingers on the woodwork. There was a faraway look in her eyes. The phrase \"card sharp\" had never reached her side of the Ramtops, where people were friendly and direct and, should they encounter a professional cheat, tended to nail his hand to the table in an easy and outgoing manner without asking him what he called himself. But human nature was the same everywhere.\n\n\"You're not upset, are you, Esme?\" said Nanny anxiously.\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"I expect I can soon pick up a new broom when we get home.\"\n\n\"Hm...what?\"\n\n\"After she lost all her money she bet her broom,\" said Magrat triumphantly.\n\n\"Have we got any money at all?\" said Granny.\n\nA trawl of various pockets and knicker legs produced forty-seven pence.\n\n\"Right,\" said Granny. She scooped it up. \"That ought to be enough. To start with, anyway. Where are these men?\"\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I'm going to play cards,\" said Granny.\n\n\"You can't do that!\" said Magrat, who had recognized the gleam in Granny's eye. \"You're going to use magic to win! You mustn't use magic to win! Not to affect the laws of chance! That's wicked!\"\n\nThe boat was practically a floating town, and in the balmy night air no one bothered much about going indoors. The riverboat's flat deck was dotted with groups of dwarfs, trolls and humans, lounging among the cargo. Granny threaded her way between them and headed for the long saloon that ran almost the entire length of the boat. There was the sound of revelry within.\n\nThe riverboats were the quickest and easiest transport for hundreds of miles. On them you got, as Granny would put it, all sorts, and the riverboats going downstream were always crowded with a certain type of opportunist as Fat Lunchtime approached.\n\nShe walked into the saloon. An onlooker might have thought it had a magic doorway. Granny Weatherwax, as she walked toward it, strode as she usually strode. As soon as she passed through, though, she was suddenly a bent old woman, hobbling along, and a sight to touch all but the wickedest heart.\n\nShe approached the bar, and then stopped. Behind it was the biggest mirror Granny had ever seen. She stared fixedly at it, but it seemed safe enough. Well, she'd have to risk it.\n\nShe hunched her back a little more and addressed the barman.\n\n\"Excuzee moir, young homme,\" she began.*.\n\nThe barman gave her a disinterested look and went on polishing a glass.\n\n\"What can I do for you, old crone?\" he said.\n\nThere was only the faintest suggestion of a flicker in Granny's expression of elderly imbecility.\n\n\"Oh...you can understand me?\" she said.\n\n\"We get all sorts on the river,\" said the barman.\n\n\"Then I was wondering if you could be so kind as to loan me a deck, I thinks it's called, of cards,\" quavered Granny.\n\n\"Going to play a game of Old Maid, are you?\" said the barman.\n\nThere was a chilly flicker across Granny's eyes again as she said, \"No. Just Patience. I'd like to try and get the hang of it.\"\n\nHe reached under the counter and tossed a greasy pack toward her.\n\nShe thanked him effusively and tottered off to a small table in the shadows, where she dealt a few cards randomly on the drink-ringed surface and stared at them.\n\nIt was only a few minutes later that a gentle hand was laid on her shoulder. She looked up into a friendly, open face that anyone would lend money to. A gold tooth glittered as the man spoke.\n\n\"Excuse me, good mother,\" he said, \"but my friends and I\"\u2014he gestured to some more welcoming faces at a nearby table\u2014\"would feel much more comfortable in ourselves if you were to join us. It can be very dangerous for a woman traveling by herself.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax smiled nicely at him, and then waved vaguely at her cards.\n\n\"I can never remember whether the ones are worth more or less than the pictures,\" she said. \"Forget my own head next, I expect!\"\n\nThey all laughed. Granny hobbled to the other table. She took the vacant seat, which put the mirror right behind her shoulder.\n\nShe smiled to herself and then leaned forward, all eagerness.\n\n\"So tell me,\" she said, \"how do you play this game, then?\"\n\nAll witches are very conscious of stories. They can feel stories, in the same way that a bather in a little pool can feel the unexpected trout.\n\nKnowing how stories work is almost all the battle.\n\nFor example, when an obvious innocent sits down with three experienced card sharpers and says \"How do you play this game, then?\", someone is about to be shaken down until their teeth fall out.\n\nMagrat and Nanny Ogg sat side by side on the narrow bunk. Nanny was distractedly tickling Greebo's stomach, while he purred.\n\n\"She'll get into terrible trouble if she uses magic to win,\" said Magrat. \"And you know how she hates losing,\" she added.\n\nGranny Weatherwax was not a good loser. From her point of view, losing was something that happened to other people.\n\n\"It's her eggo,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Everyone's got one o' them. A eggo. And she's got a great big one. Of course, that's all part of bein' a witch, having a big eggo.\"\n\n\"She's bound to use magic,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It's tempting Fate, using magic in a game of chance,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Cheatin's all right. That's practic'ly fair. I mean, anyone can cheat. But using magic\u2014well, it's tempting Fate.\"\n\n\"No. Not Fate,\" said Magrat darkly.\n\nNanny Ogg shivered.\n\n\"Come on,\" said Magrat. \"We can't let her do it.\"\n\n\"It's her eggo,\" said Nanny Ogg weakly. \"Terrible thing, a big eggo.\"\n\n\"I got,\" said Granny, \"three little pictures of kings and suchlike and three of them funny number one cards.\"\n\nThe three men beamed and winked at one another.\n\n\"That's Triple Onion!\" said the one who had introduced Granny to the table, and who had turned out to be called Mister Frank.\n\n\"And that's good, is it?\" said Granny.\n\n\"It means you win yet again, dear lady!\" He pushed a pile of pennies toward her.\n\n\"Gosh,\" said Granny. \"That means I've got...what would it be...almost five dollars now?\"\n\n\"Can't understand it,\" said Mister Frank. \"It must be the famous beginner's luck, eh?\"\n\n\"Soon be poor men if it goes on like this,\" said one of his companions.\n\n\"She'll have the coats off our backs, right enough,\" said the third man. \"Haha.\"\n\n\"Think we should give up right now,\" said Mister Frank. \"Haha.\"\n\n\"Haha.\"\n\n\"Haha.\"\n\n\"Oh, I want to go on,\" said Granny, grinning anxiously. \"I'm just getting the hang of it.\"\n\n\"Well, you'd better give us a sporting chance to win a little bit back, haha,\" said Mister Frank. \"Haha.\"\n\n\"Haha.\"\n\n\"Haha.\"\n\n\"Haha. What about half a dollar a stake? Haha?\"\n\n\"Oh, I reckon she'll want a dollar a stake, a sporting lady like her,\" said the third man.\n\n\"Haha!\"\n\nGranny looked down at her pile of pennies. For a moment she looked uncertain and then, they could see, she realized: how much could she lose, the way the cards were going?\n\n\"Yes!\" she said. \"A dollar a stake!\" She blushed. \"This is exciting, isn't it!\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Mister Frank. He drew the pack toward him.\n\nThere was a horrible noise. All three men stared at the bar, where shards of mirror were cascading to the floor.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\nGranny gave him a sweet old smile. She hadn't appeared to look around.\n\n\"I reckon the glass he was polishing must of slipped out of his hand and smashed right into the mirror,\" she said. \"I do hope he don't have to pay for it out of his wages, the poor boy.\"\n\nThe men exchanged glances.\n\n\"Come on,\" said Granny, \"I've got my dollar all ready.\"\n\nMister Frank looked nervously at the ravaged frame. Then he shrugged.\n\nThe movement dislodged something somewhere. There was a muffled snapping noise, like a mousetrap carrying out the last rites. Mister Frank went white and gripped his sleeve. A small metal contraption, all springs and twisted metal, fell out. A crumpled-up Ace of Cups was tangled up in it.\n\n\"Whoops,\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat peered through the window into the saloon.\n\n\"What's she doin' now?\" hissed Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"She's grinning again,\" said Magrat.\n\nNanny Ogg shook her head. \"Eggo,\" she said.\n\nGranny Weatherwax had that method of play that has reduced professional gamblers to incoherent rage throughout the multiverse.\n\nShe held her cards tightly cupped in her hands a few inches from her face, allowing the merest fraction of each one to protrude. She glared at them as if daring them to offend her. And she never seemed to take her eyes off them, except to watch the dealing.\n\nAnd she took far too long. And she never, ever, took risks.\n\nAfter twenty-five minutes she was down one dollar and Mister Frank was sweating. Granny had already helpfully pointed out three times that he'd accidentally dealt cards off the bottom of the deck, and she'd asked for another pack \"because, look, this one's got all little marks on the back.\"\n\nIt was her eyes, that was what it was. Twice he'd folded on a perfectly good three-card Onion only to find that she'd been holding a lousy double Bagel. Then the third time, thinking he'd worked out her play, he'd called her out and run a decent flush right into the maw of a five-card Onion that the old bag must have been patiently constructing for ages. And then\u2014his knuckles went white\u2014and then the dreadful, terrible hag had said, \"Have I won? With all these little cards? Gorsh\u2014aren't I the lucky one!\"\n\nAnd then she started humming when she looked at her cards. Normally, the three of them would have welcomed this sort of thing. The teeth tappers, the eyebrow raisers, the ear rubbers\u2014they were as good as money in the sock under the mattress, to a man who knew how to read such things. But the appalling old crone was as transparent as a lump of coal. And the humming was...insistent. You found yourself trying to follow the tune. It made your teeth tingle. Next thing you were glumly watching while she laid down a measly Broken Flush in front of your even more measly two-card Onion and said, \"What, is it me again?\"\n\nMister Frank was desperately trying to remember how to play cards without his sleeve device, a handy mirror and a marked deck. In the teeth of a hum like a fingernail down a blackboard.\n\nIt wasn't as if the ghastly old creature even knew how to play properly.\n\nAfter an hour she was four dollars ahead and when she said, \"I am a lucky girl!\" Mister Frank bit through his tongue.\n\nAnd then he got a natural Great Onion. There was no realistic way to beat a Great Onion. It was something that happened to you once or twice in a lifetime.\n\nShe folded! The old bitch folded! She abandoned one blasted dollar and she folded!\n\nMagrat peered through the window again.\n\n\"What's happening?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"They all look very angry.\"\n\nNanny took off her hat and removed her pipe. She lit it and tossed the match overboard. \"Ah. She'll be humming, you mark my words. She's got a very annoying hum, has Esme.\" Nanny looked satisfied. \"Has she started cleaning out her ear yet?\"\n\n\"Don't think so.\"\n\n\"No one cleans out her ear like Esme.\"\n\nShe was cleaning out her ear!\n\nIt was done in a very ladylike way, and the daft old baggage probably wasn't even aware she was doing it. She just kept inserting her little finger in her ear and swiveling it around. It made a noise like a small pool cue being chalked.\n\nIt was displacement activity, that's what it was. They all cracked in the end...\n\nShe folded again! And it had taken him bloody five bloody minutes to put together a bloody Onion!\n\n\"I remember,\" said Nanny Ogg, \"when she come over our house for the party when King Verence got crowned and we played Chase My Neighbor Up the Passage with the kiddies for ha'pennies. She accused Jason's youngest of cheating and sulked for a week afterward.\"\n\n\"Was he cheating?\"\n\n\"I expect so,\" said Nanny proudly. \"The trouble with Esme is that she don't know how to lose. She's never had much practice.\"\n\n\"Lobsang Dibbler says sometimes you have to lose in order to win,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Sounds daft to me,\" said Nanny. \"That's Yen Buddhism, is it?\"\n\n\"No. They're the ones who say you have to have lots of money to win,\" said Magrat.* \"In the Path of the Scorpion, the way to win is to lose every fight except the last one. You use the enemy's strength against himself.\"\n\n\"What, you get him to hit himself, sort of thing?\" said Nanny. \"Sounds daft.\"\n\nMagrat glowered.\n\n\"What do you know about it?\" she said, with uncharacteristic sharpness.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm fed up!\" said Magrat. \"At least I'm making an effort to learn things! I don't go around just bullying people and acting bad-tempered all the time!\"\n\nNanny took her pipe out of her mouth.\n\n\"I'm not bad-tempered,\" she said mildly.\n\n\"I wasn't talking about you!\"\n\n\"Well, Esme's always been bad-tempered,\" said Nanny. \"It comes natural to her.\"\n\n\"And she hardly ever does real magic. What good is being a witch if you don't do magic? Why doesn't she use it to help people?\"\n\nNanny peered at her through the pipe smoke.\n\n\"'Cos she knows how good she'd be at it, I suppose,\" she said. \"Anyway, I've known her a long time. Known the whole family. All the Weatherwaxes is good at magic, even the men. They've got this magical streak in 'em. Kind of a curse. Anyway...she thinks you can't help people with magic. Not properly. It's true, too.\"\n\n\"Then what good\u2014?\"\n\nNanny prodded at the pipe with a match.\n\n\"I seem to recall she come over and helped you out when you had that spot of plague in your village,\" she said. \"Worked the clock around, I recall. Never known her not treat someone ill who needed it, even when they, you know, were pretty oozy. And when the big ole troll that lives under Broken Mountain came down for help because his wife was sick and everyone threw rocks at him, I remember it was Esme that went back with him and delivered the baby. Hah...then when old Chickenwire Hopkins threw a rock at Esme a little while afterward all his barns was mysteriously trampled flat in the night. She always said you can't help people with magic, but you can help them with skin. By doin' real things, she meant.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying she's not basically a nice person\u2014\" Magrat began.\n\n\"Hah! I am. You'd have to go a long day's journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg, \"and this is me sayin' it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don't like it.\"\n\nNanny tapped her pipe out on the rail and turned back to the saloon.\n\n\"What you got to understand about Esme, my girl,\" she said, \"is that she's got a psycholology as well as a big eggo. I'm damn glad I ain't.\"\n\nGranny was twelve dollars ahead. Everything else in the saloon had stopped. You could hear the distant splash of the paddles and the cry of the leadman.\n\nGranny won another five dollars with a three-card Onion.\n\n\"What do you mean, a psycholology?\" said Magrat. \"Have you been reading books?\"\n\nNanny ignored her.\n\n\"The thing to watch out for now,\" she said, \"is when she goes 'tch, tch, tch' under her breath. That comes after the ear-cleanin'. It gen'rally means she's plannin' somethin'.\"\n\nMister Frank drummed his fingers on the table, realized to his horror that he was doing it, and bought three new cards to cover his confusion. The old baggage didn't appear to notice.\n\nHe stared at the new hand.\n\nHe ventured two dollars and bought one more card.\n\nHe stared again.\n\nWhat were the odds, he thought, against getting a Great Onion twice in one day.\n\nThe important thing was not to panic.\n\n\"I think,\" he heard himself say, \"that I may hazard another two dollars.\"\n\nHe glanced at his companions. They obediently folded, one after another.\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" said Granny, apparently talking to her cards. She cleaned her ear again. \"Tch, tch, tch. What d'you call it when, you know, you want to put more money in, sort of thing?\"\n\n\"It's called raising,\" said Mister Frank, his knuckles going white.\n\n\"I'll do one of them raisins, then. Five dollars, I think.\"\n\nMister Frank's knees ground together.\n\n\"I'll see you and raise you ten dollars,\" he snapped.\n\n\"'I'll do that too,\" said Granny.\n\n\"I can go another twenty dollars.\"\n\n\"I\u2014\" Granny looked down, suddenly crestfallen. \"I've...got a broomstick.\"\n\nA tiny alarm bell rang somewhere at the back of Mister Frank's mind, but now he was galloping headlong to victory.\n\n\"Right!\"\n\nHe spread the cards on the table.\n\nThe crowd sighed.\n\nHe began to pull the pot toward him.\n\nGranny's hand closed over his wrist.\n\n\"I ain't put my cards down yet,\" she said archly.\n\n\"You don't need to,\" snapped Mister Frank. \"There's no chance you could beat that, madam.\"\n\n\"I can if I can Cripple it,\" said Granny. \"That's why it's called Cripple Mister Onion, ain't it?\"\n\nHe hesitated.\n\n\"But\u2014but\u2014you could only do that if you had a perfect ninecard run,\" he burbled, staring into the depths of her eyes.\n\nGranny sat back.\n\n\"You know,\" she said calmly, \"I thought I had rather a lot of these black pointy ones. That's good, is it?\"\n\nShe spread the hand. The collective audience made a sort of little gasping noise, in unison.\n\nMister Frank looked around wildly.\n\n\"Oh, very well done, madam,\" said an elderly gentleman. There was a round of polite applause from the crowd. The big, inconvenient crowd.\n\n\"Er...yes,\" said Mister Frank. \"Yes. Well done. You're a very quick learner, aren't you.\"\n\n\"Quicker'n you. You owe me fifty-five dollars and a broomstick,\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat and Nanny Ogg were waiting for her as she swept out.\n\n\"Here's your broom,\" she snapped. \"And I hopes you've got all your stuff together, 'cos we're leaving.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Because as soon as it gets quiet, some men are going to come looking for us.\"\n\nThey scurried after her toward their tiny cabin.\n\n\"You weren't using magic?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And not cheating?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"No. Just headology,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Where did you learn to play like that?\" Nanny demanded.\n\nGranny stopped. They cannoned into her.\n\n\"Remember last winter, when Old Mother Dismass was taken really bad and I went and sat up with her every night for almost a month?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You sit up every night dealing Cripple Mister Onion with someone who's got a detached retina in her second sight and you soon learn how to play,\" said Granny.\n\nDear Jason and everyone,\n\nWhat you get more of in foreign parts is smells, I am getting good at them. Esme is shouting at everyone, I think she thinks they're bein foreign just to Spite her, don't know when I last saw her enjoi herselfe so much. Mind you they need a good Shakin up if you ask me, for lunch we stopped somehwere and they did Steak Tartere and they acted VERY snooty just becos I wanted myne well done. All the best, MUM\n\nThe moon was closer here.\n\nThe orbit of the Discworld's moon meant that it was quite high when it passed over the high Ramtops. Here, nearer to the Rim, it was bigger. And more orange.\n\n\"Like a pumpkin,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"I thought we said we weren't going to mention pumpkins,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Well, we didn't have any supper,\" said Nanny.\n\nAnd there was another thing. Except during the height of summer the witches weren't used to warm nights. It didn't seem right, gliding along under a big orange moon over dark foliage that clicked and buzzed and whirred with insects.\n\n\"We must be far enough from the river now,\" said Magrat. \"Can't we land, Granny? No one could have followed us!\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked down. The river in this countryside meandered in huge glistening curves, taking twenty miles to cover five. The land between the snaking water was a patchwork of hillsides and woodlands. A distant glow might have been Genua itself.\n\n\"Riding a broomstick all night is a right pain in the itinerant,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\n\"There's a town over there,\" said Magrat. \"And a castle.\"\n\n\"Oh, not another one...\"\n\n\"It's a nice little castle,\" said Magrat. \"Can't we just call in? I'm fed up with inns.\"\n\nGranny looked down. She had very good night vision.\n\n\"Are you sure that's a castle?\" she said.\n\n\"I can see the turrets and everything,\" said Magrat. \"Of course it's a castle.\"\n\n\"Hmm. I can see more than turrets,\" said Granny. \"I think we'd better have a look at this, Gytha.\"\n\nThere was never any noise in the sleeping castle, except in the late summer when ripe berries fell off the bramble vines and burst softly on the floor. And sometimes birds would try to nest in the thorn thickets that now filled the throne room from floor to ceiling, but they never got very far before they, too, fell asleep. Apart from that, you'd need very keen hearing indeed to hear the growth of shoots and the opening of buds.\n\nIt had been like this for ten years. There was no sound in the\u2014\"Open up there!\"\n\n\"Bony fidy travelers seeking sucker!\"\n\n\u2014no sound in the\u2014\n\n\"Here, give us a leg up, Magrat. Right. Now...\"\n\nThere was a tinkle of broken glass.\n\n\"You've broken their window!\"\n\n\u2014not a sound in the\u2014\n\n\"You'll have to offer to pay for it, you know.\"\n\nThe castle gate swung open slowly. Nanny Ogg peered around it at the other two witches, while pulling thorns and burrs from her hair.\n\n\"It's bloody disgusting in here,\" she said. \"There's people asleep all over the place with spiders' webs all over 'em. You were right, Esme. There's been magic going on.\"\n\nThe witches pushed their way through the overgrown castle. Dust and leaves had covered the carpets. Young sycamores were making a spirited attempt to take over the courtyard. Vines festooned every wall.\n\nGranny Weatherwax pulled a slumbering soldier to his feet. Dust billowed off his clothes.\n\n\"Wake up,\" she demanded.\n\n\"Fzhtft,\" said the soldier, and slumped back.\n\n\"It's like that everywhere,\" said Magrat, fighting her way through a thicket of bracken that was growing up from the kitchen regions. \"There's the cooks all snoring and nothing but mold in the pots! There's even mice asleep in the pantry!\"\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Nanny. \"There'll be a spinning wheel at the bottom of all this, you mark my words.\"\n\n\"A Black Aliss job?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Looks like it,\" said Granny. Then she added, quietly, \"Or someone like her.\"\n\n\"Now there was a witch who knew how stories worked,\" said Nanny. \"She used to be in as many as three of 'em at once.\"\n\nEven Magrat knew about Black Aliss. She was said to have been the greatest witch who ever lived\u2014not exactly bad, but so powerful it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. When it came to sending palaces to sleep for a hundred years or getting princesses to spin straw into Glod,* no one did it better than Black Aliss.\n\n\"I met her once,\" said Nanny, as they climbed the castle's main staircase, which was a cascade of Old Man's Trousers. \"Old Deliria Skibbly took me to see her once, when I was a girl. Of course, she was getting pretty...eccentric by then. Gingerbread houses, that kind of thing.\" She spoke sadly, as one might talk about an elderly relative who'd taken to wearing her underwear outside her clothes.\n\n\"That must have been before those two children shut her up in her own oven?\" said Magrat, untangling her sleeve from a briar.\n\n\"Yeah. Sad, that. I mean, she didn't really ever eat anyone,\" said Nanny. \"Well. Not often. I mean, there was talk, but...\"\n\n\"That's what happens,\" said Granny. \"You get too involved with stories, you get confused. You don't know what's really real and what isn't. And they get you in the end. They send you weird in the head. I don't like stories. They're not real. I don't like things that ain't real.\"\n\nShe pushed open a door.\n\n\"Ah. A chamber,\" she said sourly. \"Could even be a bower.\"\n\n\"Doesn't the stuff grow quickly!\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Part of the time spell,\" said Granny. \"Ah. There she is. Knew there'd be someone somewhere.\"\n\nThere was a figure lying on a bed, in a thicket of rose bushes.\n\n\"And there's the spinning wheel,\" said Nanny, pointing to a shape just visible in a clump of ivy.\n\n\"Don't touch it!\" said Granny.\n\n\"Don't worry, I'll pick it up by the treadle and pitch it out of the window.\"\n\n\"How do you know all this?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"'Cos it's a rural myth,\" said Nanny. \"It's happened lots of times.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax and Magrat looked down at the sleeping figure of a girl of about thirteen, almost silvery under the dust and pollen.\n\n\"Isn't she pretty,\" sighed Magrat, the generous-hearted.\n\nFrom behind them came the crash of a spinning wheel on some distant cobbles, and then Nanny Ogg appeared, brushing her hands.\n\n\"Seen it happen a dozen times,\" she said.\n\n\"No you ain't,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Once, anyway,\" said Nanny, unabashed. \"And I heard about it dozens of times. Everyone has. Rural myth, like I said. Everyone's heard about it happening in their cousin's friend's neighbor's village\u2014\"\n\n\"That's because it does,\" said Granny.\n\nGranny picked up the girl's wrist.\n\n\"She's asleep because she'll have got a\u2014\" Nanny said.\n\nGranny turned.\n\n\"I know, I know. I know, right? I know as well as you. You think I don't know?\" She bent over the limp hand. \"That's fairy godmothering, this is,\" she added, half to herself. \"Always do it impressively. Always meddling, always trying to be in control! Hah! Someone got a bit of poison? Send everyone to sleep for a hundred years! Do it the easy way. All this for one prick. As if that was the end of the world.\" She paused. Nanny Ogg was standing behind her. There was no possible way she could have detected her expression. \"Gytha?\"\n\n\"Yes, Esme?\" said Nanny Ogg innocently.\n\n\"I can feel you grinnin\". You can save the tu'penny-ha'penny psycholology for them as wants it.\"\n\nGranny shut her eyes and muttered a few words.\n\n\"Shall I use my wand?\" said Magrat hesitantly.\n\n\"Don't you dare,\" said Granny, and went back to her muttering.\n\nNanny nodded. \"She's definitely getting a bit of color back,\" she said.\n\nA few minutes later the girl opened her eyes and stared up blearily at Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Time to get up,\" said Granny, in an unusually cheerful voice, \"you're missing the best part of the decade.\"\n\nThe girl tried to focus on Nanny, then on Magrat, and then looked back at Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"You?\" she said.\n\nGranny raised her eyebrows and looked at the other two.\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"You are\u2014still here?\"\n\n\"Still?\" said Granny. \"Never been here before in my life, Miss.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\" the girl looked bewildered. And frightened, Magrat noticed.\n\n\"I'm like that myself in the mornings, dear,\" said Nanny Ogg, taking the girl's other hand and patting it. \"Never at my best till I've had a cup of tea. I expect everyone else'll be waking up any minute. Of course, it'll take 'em a while to clean the rats' nests out of the kettles\u2014Esme?\"\n\nGranny was staring at a dust-covered shape on the wall.\n\n\"Meddling...\" she whispered.\n\n\"What's up, Esme?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax strode across the room and wiped the dust off a huge ornate mirror.\n\n\"Hah!\" she said, and spun around. \"We'll be going now,\" she said.\n\n\"But I thought we were going to have a rest. I mean, it's nearly dawn,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"No sense in outstaying our welcome,\" said Granny, as she left the room.\n\n\"But we haven't even had a...\" Magrat began. She glanced at the mirror. It was a big oval one, in a gilt frame. It looked perfectly normal. It wasn't like Granny Weatherwax to be frightened of her own reflection.\n\n\"She's in one of her moods again,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Come on. No sense in staying here.\" She patted the bewildered princess on the head. \"Cheerio, Miss. A couple of weeks with a broom and an axe and you'll soon have the old place looking like new.\"\n\n\"She looked as if she recognized Granny,\" said Magrat, as they followed the stiff hurrying figure of Esme Weatherwax down the stairs.\n\n\"Well, we know she doesn't, don't we,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Esme has never been in these parts in her life.\"\n\n\"But I still don't see why we have to rush off,\" Magrat persisted. \"I expect people will be jolly grateful that we've broken the spell and everything.\"\n\nThe rest of the palace was waking up. They jogged past guards staring in amazement at their cobwebbed uniforms and the bushes that were growing everywhere. As they crossed the forested courtyard an older man in faded robes staggered out of a doorway and leaned against the wall, trying to get his bearings. Then he saw the accelerating figure of Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"You?\" he shouted, and, \"Guards!\"\n\nNanny Ogg didn't hesitate. She snatched Magrat's elbow and broke into a run, catching up with Granny Weatherwax at the castle gates. A guard who was better at mornings than his colleague staggered forward and made an attempt to bar their way with his pike, but Granny just pushed at it and swiveled him around gently.\n\nThen they were outside and running for the broomsticks leaning against a convenient tree. Granny snatched at hers without stopping and, for once, it fired up on almost the first attempt.\n\nAn arrow whiffled past her hat and stuck in a branch.\n\n\"I don't call that gratitude,\" said Magrat, as the brooms glided up and over the trees.\n\n\"A lot of people are never at their best just after waking up,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Everyone seemed to think they knew you, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny's broomstick jerked in the wind.\n\n\"They didn't!\" she shouted. \"They never saw me before, all right?\"\n\nThey flew on in troubled silence for a while.\n\nThen Magrat, who in Nanny Ogg's opinion had an innocent talent for treading on dangerous ground, said: \"I wonder if we did the right thing? I'm sure it was a job for a handsome prince.\"\n\n\"Hah!\" said Granny, who was riding ahead. \"And what good would that be? Cutting your way through a bit of bramble is how you can tell he's going to be a good husband, is it? That's fairy godmotherly thinking, that is! Goin' around inflicting happy endings on people whether they wants them or not, eh?\"\n\n\"There's nothing wrong with happy endings,\" said Magrat hotly.\n\n\"Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy,\" said Granny, glaring at the sky. \"But you can't make 'em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin' their heads off as soon as they say 'I do', yes? You can't make happiness...\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax stared at the distant city.\n\n\"All you can do,\" she said, \"is make an ending.\"\n\nThey had breakfast in a forest clearing. It was grilled pumpkin. The dwarf bread was brought out for inspection. But it was miraculous, the dwarf bread. No one ever went hungry when they had some dwarf bread to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of things you'd rather eat. Your boots, for example. Mountains. Raw sheep. Your own foot.\n\nThen they tried to get some sleep. At least, Nanny and Magrat did. But all it meant was that they lay awake and listened to Granny Weatherwax muttering under her breath. They'd never seen her so upset.\n\nAfterward, Nanny suggested that they walk for a while. It was a nice day, she said. This was an interesting kind of forest, she said, with lots of new herbs which could do with bein' looked at. Everyone'd feel better for a stroll in the sunshine, she said. It'd improve their tempers.\n\nAnd it was, indeed, a nice forest. After half an hour or so, even Granny Weatherwax was prepared to admit that in certain respects it wasn't totally foreign and shoddy. Magrat wandered off the path occasionally, picking flowers. Nanny even sang a few verses of A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End with no more than a couple of token protests from the other two.\n\nBut there was still something wrong. Nanny Ogg and Magrat could feel something between them and Granny Weatherwax, some sort of mental wall, something important deliberately hidden and unsaid. Witches usually had few secrets from one another, if only because they were all so nosy that there was never any chance to have secrets. It was worrying.\n\nAnd then they turned a corner by a stand of huge oak trees and met the little girl in the red cloak.\n\nShe was skipping along in the middle of the path, singing a song that was simpler and a good deal cleaner than any in Nanny Ogg's repertoire. She didn't see the witches until she was almost on top of them. She stopped, and then smiled innocently.\n\n\"Hello, old women,\" she said.\n\n\"Ahem,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny Weatherwax bent down.\n\n\"What're you doing out in the forest all by yourself, young lady?\"\n\n\"I'm taking this basket of goodies to my granny,\" said the girl.\n\nGranny straightened up, a faraway look in her eyes.\n\n\"Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg urgently.\n\n\"I know. I know,\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat leaned down and set her face in the idiot grimace generally used by adults who'd love to be good with children and don't stand a dog's chance of ever achieving it. \"Er. Tell me, Miss...did your mother tell you to watch out for any bad wolves that might happen to be in the vicinity?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"And your granny...\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I guess she's a bit bedbound at the moment, right?\"\n\n\"That's why I'm taking her this basket of goodies\u2014\" the child began.\n\n\"Thought so.\"\n\n\"Do you know my granny?\" said the child.\n\n\"Ye\u2014ess,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"In a way.\"\n\n\"It happened over Skund way when I was a girl,\" said Nanny Ogg quietly. \"They never even found the gran\u2014\"\n\n\"And where is your granny's cottage, little girl?\" said Granny Weatherwax loudly, nudging Nanny sharply in the ribs.\n\nThe girl pointed up a side track.\n\n\"You're not the wicked witch, are you?\" she said.\n\nNanny Ogg coughed.\n\n\"Me? No. We're\u2014we're\u2014\" Granny began.\n\n\"Fairies,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny Weatherwax's mouth dropped open. Such an explanation would never have occurred to her.\n\n\"Only my mummy warned me about the wicked witch too,\" said the girl. She gave Magrat a sharp look. \"What kind of fairies?\"\n\n\"Er. Flower fairies?\" said Magrat. \"Look, I've got a wand\u2014\"\n\n\"Which ones?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Which flowers?\"\n\n\"Er,\" said Magrat. \"Well. I'm...Fairy Tulip and that's...\" she avoided looking directly at Granny \"...Fairy...Daisy...and this is...\"\n\n\"Fairy Hedgehog,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nThis addition to the supernatural pantheon was given due consideration.\n\n\"You can't be Fairy Hedgehog,\" said the child, after some thought. \"A hedgehog's not a flower.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"'Cos it's got spikes.\"\n\n\"So's holly. And thistles.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"And I've got a wand,\" said Magrat. Only now did she risk a look at Fairy Daisy.\n\n\"We ought to be getting along,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"You just stay here with Fairy Tulip, I think it was, and we'll just go and make sure your granny's all right. All right?\"\n\n\"I bet it's not a real wand,\" said the child, ignoring her and facing Magrat with a child's unerring ability to find a weak link in any chain. \"I bet it can't turn things into things.\"\n\n\"Well\u2014\" Magrat began.\n\n\"I bet,\" said the girl, \"I bet you can't turn that tree stump over there into...into...into a pumpkin. Haha, bet you anything you can't. Bet you a trillion dollars you can't turn that stump into a pumpkin.\"\n\n\"I can see the two of you are going to get along fine,\" said Fairy Hedgehog. \"We won't be long.\"\n\nTwo broomsticks skimmed low above the forest path.\n\n\"Could just be coincidence,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"'T'aint,\" said Granny. \"The child even has a red cloak on!\"\n\n\"I had a red cloak when I was fifteen,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Yes, but your granny lived next door. You didn't have to worry about wolves when you visited her,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Except old Sumpkins the lodger.\"\n\n\"Yes, but that was just coincidence.\"\n\nA trail of blue smoke drifted among the trees ahead of them. Somewhere away to one side there was the sound of a falling tree.\n\n\"Woodcutters!\" said Nanny. \"It's all right if there's woodcutters! One of them rushes in\u2014\"\n\n\"That's only what children get told,\" said Granny, as they sped onward. \"Anyway, that's no good to the grandmother, is it? She's already been et!\"\n\n\"I always hated that story,\" said Nanny. \"No one ever cares what happens to poor defenseless old women.\"\n\nThe path vanished abruptly on the edge of a glade. Hemmed in by the trees was a straggly kitchen garden, in which a few pathetic stalks fought for what little sun there was. In the middle of the garden was what had to be a thatched cottage because no one would build a haystack that badly.\n\nThey leapt off the broomsticks, leaving them to drift to a halt in the bushes, and hammered on the cottage door.\n\n\"We could be too late,\" said Nanny. \"The wolf might\u2014\"\n\nAfter a while there was the muffled sound of someone shuffling across the floor within, and then the door opened a crack. A suspicious eye was visible in the gloom.\n\n\"Yes?\" said a small and quavering voice from somewhere beneath the eye.\n\n\"Are you grandmother?\" Granny Weatherwax demanded.\n\n\"Are you the taxgatherers, dear?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, we're\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014fairies,\" said Fairy Hedgehog quickly.\n\n\"I don't open the door to people I don't know, dear,\" said the voice, and then it took on a slightly petulant tone. \"'Specially people who never does the washing up even after I leaves out a bowl of nearly fresh milk for 'em.\"\n\n\"We'd like to talk to you for a few minutes,\" said Fairy Daisy.\n\n\"Yes? Have you got any identification, dear?\"\n\n\"I know we've got the right grandmother,\" said Fairy Hedgehog. \"There's a family likeness. She's got big ears.\"\n\n\"Look, it's not her that's got the big ears,\" snapped Fairy Daisy. \"It'll be the wolf that's got big ears. That's the whole point. Don't you ever pay attention?\"\n\nThe grandmother watched them with interest. After a lifetime of believing in them she was seeing fairies for the first time, and it was an experience. Granny Weatherwax caught her perplexed expression.\n\n\"Put it like this, ma'am,\" she said, in a despotically reasonable tone of voice, \"how would you like to be eaten alive by a wolf?\"\n\n\"I don't think I would like that, dear, no,\" said the hidden grandmother.\n\n\"The alternative's us,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Lawks. Are you sure?\"\n\n\"On our word as fairies,\" said Fairy Hedgehog.\n\n\"Well. Really? All right. You can come in. But none of your tricks. And mind you do the washing up. You haven't got a pot of gold about you, have you?\"\n\n\"That's pixies, isn't it?\"\n\n\"No, they're the ones in wells. It's goblins she means.\"\n\n\"Don't be daft. They're the ones you get under bridges.\"\n\n\"That's trolls. Everyone knows that's trolls.\"\n\n\"Not us, anyway.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said the grandmother. \"I might have known.\"\n\nMagrat liked to think she was good with children, and worried that she wasn't. She didn't like them very much, and worried about this too. Nanny Ogg seemed to be effortlessly good with children by alternately and randomly giving them either a sweet or a thick ear, while Granny Weatherwax ignored them for most of the time and that seemed to work just as well. Whereas Magrat cared. It didn't seem fair.\n\n\"Bet you a million trillion zillion dollars you can't turn that bush into a pumpkin,\" said the child.\n\n\"But, look, all the others got turned into pumpkins,\" Magrat pointed out.\n\n\"It's bound not to work sooner or later,\" said the child placidly.\n\nMagrat looked helplessly at the wand. She'd tried everything\u2014wishing, sub-vocalizing and even, when she'd thought the other witches were out of earshot, banging it against things and shouting, \"Anything but pumpkins!\"\n\n\"You don't know how to do it really, do you,\" stated the child.\n\n\"Tell me,\" said Magrat, \"you said your mummy knows about the big bad wolf in the woods, didn't you?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"But nevertheless she sent you out by yourself to take those goodies to your granny?\"\n\n\"That's right. Why?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Just thinking. And you owe me a million trillion zillion squillion dollars.\"\n\nThere's a certain freemasonry about grandmothers, with the added benefit that no one has to stand on one leg or recite any oaths in order to join. Once inside the cottage, and with a kettle on the boil, Nanny Ogg was quite at home. Greebo stretched out in front of the meager fire and dozed off as the witches tried to explain.\n\n\"I don't see how a wolf can get in here, dear,\" said the grandmother kindly. \"I mean, they're wolves. They can't open doors.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax twitched aside a rag of curtain and glared out at the clearing.\n\n\"We know,\" she said.\n\nNanny Ogg nodded toward the little bed in an alcove by the fireplace.\n\n\"Is that where you always sleep?\" she said.\n\n\"When I'm feeling poorly, dear. Other times I sleeps in the attic.\"\n\n\"I should get along up there now, if I was you. And take my cat up with you, will you? We don't want him getting in the way.\"\n\n\"Is this the bit where you clean the house and do all the washing for a saucer of milk?\" said the grandmother hopefully.\n\n\"Could be. You never know.\"\n\n\"Funny, dear. I was expecting you to be shorter\u2014\"\n\n\"We get out in the fresh air a lot,\" said Nanny. \"Off you go now.\"\n\nThat left the two of them. Granny Weatherwax looked around the cave-like room. The rushes on the floor were well on the way to composthood. Soot encrusted the cobwebs on the ceiling.\n\nThe only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or, for preference, a match.\n\n\"Funny, really,\" said Nanny, when the old woman had climbed the rickety stairs. \"She's younger'n me. Mind you, I take exercise.\"\n\n\"You never took exercise in your life,\" said Granny Weatherwax, still watching the bushes. \"You never did anything you didn't want to do.\"\n\n\"That's what I mean,\" said Nanny happily. \"Look, Esme, I still say this could all be just\u2014\"\n\n\"It ain't! I can feel the story. Someone's been making stories happen in these parts, I know it.\"\n\n\"And you know who, too. Don't you, Esme?\" said Nanny slyly.\n\nShe saw Granny look around wildly at the grubby walls.\n\n\"I reckon she's too poor to afford a mirror,\" said Nanny. \"I ain't blind, Esme. And I know mirrors and fairy godmothers go together. So what's going on?\"\n\n\"I ain't saying. I don't want to look a fool if I'm wrong. I'm not going to\u2014there's something coming!\"\n\nNanny Ogg pressed her nose against the dirty window.\n\n\"Can't see anything.\"\n\n\"The bushes moved. Get into the bed!\"\n\n\"Me? I thought it was you who was going into the bed!\"\n\n\"Can't imagine why you'd think that.\"\n\n\"No. Come to think of it, neither can I,\" said Nanny wearily. She picked up the floppy mob-cap from the bedpost, put it on, and slid under the patchwork quilt.\n\n\"'Ere, this mattress is stuffed with straw!\"\n\n\"You won't have to lie on it for long.\"\n\n\"It prickles! And I think there's things in it.\"\n\nSomething bumped against the wall of the house. The witches fell silent.\n\nThere was a snuffling noise under the back door.\n\n\"You know,\" whispered Nanny, as they waited, \"the scullery's terrible. There's no firewood. And there's hardly any food. And there's a jug of milk that's practically on the march\u2014\"\n\nGranny sidled quickly across the room to the fireplace, and then back to her station by the front door.\n\nAfter a moment there was a scrabbling at the latch, as if it was being operated by someone who was unfamiliar either with doors or with fingers.\n\nThe door creaked open slowly.\n\nThere was an overwhelming smell of musk and wet fur.\n\nUncertain footsteps tottered across the floor and toward the figure huddling under the bedclothes.\n\nNanny raised the mob-cap's floppy frill just enough to see out.\n\n\"Wotcha,\" she said, and then, \"Oh, blimey, I never realized you had teeth that big\u2014\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax pushed the door shut and stepped forward briskly. The wolf spun around, a paw raised protectively.\n\n\"Nooaaaaaw!\"\n\nGranny hesitated for a second, and then hit it very hard on the head with a cast-iron frying pan.\n\nThe wolf crumpled.\n\nNanny Ogg swung her legs out of the bed.\n\n\"When it happened over Skund way they said it was a werewolf or something, and I thought, no, werewolves aren't like that,\" she said. \"I never thought it was a real wolf. Gave me quite a turn, that.\"\n\n\"Real wolves don't walk on their hind legs and open doors,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"Come on, help me get it outside.\"\n\n\"Took me right back, seeing a great big hairy slathering thing heading toward me,\" said Nanny, picking up one end of the stunned creature. \"Did you ever meet old Sumpkins?\"\n\nIt was, indeed, a normal-looking wolf, except that it was a lot thinner than most. Ribs showed plainly under the skin and the fur was matted. Granny hauled a bucket of cloudy water from the well next to the privy and poured it over its head.\n\nThen she sat down on a tree stump and watched it carefully. A few birds sang, high in the branches.\n\n\"It spoke,\" she said. \"It tried to say 'no'.\"\n\n\"I wondered about that,\" said Nanny. \"Then I thought maybe I was imagining things.\"\n\n\"No point in imagining anything,\" said Granny. \"Things are bad enough as they are.\"\n\nThe wolf groaned. Granny handed the frying pan to Nanny Ogg.\n\nAfter a while she said, \"I think I'm going to have a look inside its head.\"\n\nNanny Ogg shook her head. \"I wouldn't do that, if I was you.\"\n\n\"I'm the one who's me, and I've got to know. Just you stand by with the frying pan.\"\n\nNanny shrugged.\n\nGranny concentrated.\n\nIt is very difficult to read a human mind. Most humans are thinking about so many things at any given moment that it is almost impossible to pick out one stream in the flood.\n\nAnimal minds are different. Far less cluttered. Carnivore minds are easiest of all, especially before meals. Colors don't exist in the mental world, but, if they did, a hungry carnivore mind would be hot and purple and sharp as an arrow. And herbivore minds are simple, too\u2014coiled silver springs, poised for flight.\n\nBut this wasn't any kind of normal mind. It was two minds.\n\nGranny had sometimes picked up the mind of hunters in the forest, when she was sitting quietly of an evening and letting her mind wander. Just occasionally they felt like this, or at least like a faint shadow of this. Just occasionally, when the hunter was about to make a kill, the random streams of thought came together. But this was different. This was the opposite\u2014this was cracked and crippled attempts at cogitation peeling away from the sleek arrowhead of predatory intent. This was a predatory mind trying to think.\n\nNo wonder it was going mad.\n\nShe opened her eyes.\n\nNanny Ogg held the frying pan over her head. Her arm trembled.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"who's there?\"\n\n\"I could do with a glass of water,\" said Granny. Natural caution surfaced through the turmoil of her mind. \"Only not out of that well, mind you.\"\n\nNanny relaxed a little. When a witch started rummaging in someone else's mind, you could never be sure who was coming back. But Granny Weatherwax was the best. Magrat might always be trying to find herself, but Granny didn't even understand the idea of the search. If she couldn't find the way back to her own head, there wasn't a path.\n\n\"There's that milk in the cottage,\" Nanny volunteered.\n\n\"What color was it again?\"\n\n\"Well...still fairly white.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nWhen Nanny Ogg's back was safely turned Granny permitted herself a small shudder.\n\nShe stared at the wolf, wondering what she could do for it. A normal wolf wouldn't enter a cottage, even if it could open the door. Wolves didn't come near humans at all, except if there were a lot of them and it was the end of a very hard winter. And they didn't do that because they were big and bad and wicked, but because they were wolves.\n\nThis wolf was trying to be human.\n\nThere was probably no cure.\n\n\"Here's your milk,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny reached up and took it without looking.\n\n\"Someone made this wolf think it was a person,\" she said. \"They made it think it was a person and then they didn't think anymore about it. It happened a few years ago.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I've...got its memories,\" said Granny. And instincts, too, she thought. She knew it'd be some days before she'd stop wanting to chase sledges over the snow.\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"It's stuck between species. In its head.\"\n\n\"Can we help it?\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny shook her head.\n\n\"It's gone on for too long. It's habit now. And it's starving. It can't go one way, it can't go t'other. It can't act like a wolf, and it can't manage being a human. And it can't go on like it is.\"\n\nShe turned to face Nanny for the first time. Nanny took a step back.\n\n\"You can't imagine how it feels,\" she said. \"Wandering around for years. Not capable of acting human, and not able to be a wolf. You can't imagine how that feels.\"\n\n\"I reckon maybe I can,\" said Nanny. \"In your face. Maybe I can. Who'd do that to a creature?\"\n\n\"I've got my suspicions.\"\n\nThey looked around.\n\nMagrat was approaching, with the child. Beside them walked one of the woodcutters.\n\n\"Hah,\" said Granny. \"Yes. Of course. There's always got to be\"\u2014she spat the words\u2014\"a happy ending.\"\n\nA paw tried to grip her ankle.\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked down into the wolf's face.\n\n\"Preeees,\" it growled. \"Annn enndinggg? Noaaaow?\"\n\nShe knelt down, and took the paw.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said.\n\n\"Yessss!\"\n\nShe stood up again, all authority, and beckoned to the approaching trio.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcutter?\" she said. \"A job for you...\"\n\nThe woodcutter never understood why the wolf laid its head on the stump so readily.\n\nOr why the old woman, the one in whom anger roiled like pearl barley in a bubbling stew, insisted afterward that it be buried properly instead of skinned and thrown in the bushes. She had been very insistent about that.\n\nAnd that was the end of the big bad wolf.\n\nIt was an hour later. Quite a few of the woodcutters had wandered up to the cottage, where there seemed to be a lot of interesting activity going on. Woodcutting is not a job that normally offers much in the way of diversion.\n\nMagrat was washing the floor with as much magical assistance as could be afforded by a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. Even Nanny Ogg, whose desultory interest in the proud role of housewife had faded completely just as soon as her eldest daughter was old enough to hold a duster, was cleaning the walls. The old grandmother, who wasn't entirely in touch with events, was anxiously following both of them around with a saucer of milk. Spiders who had inherited the ceiling for generations were urged gently but firmly out of the door.\n\nAnd Granny Weatherwax was walking around the clearing with the head woodcutter, a barrelchested young man who clearly thought he looked better in his studded leather wristlets than was, in fact, the case.\n\n\"It's been around for years, right?\" he said. \"Always lurking around the edges of villages and that.\"\n\n\"And you never tried talking to it?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Talk to it? It's a wolf, right? You don't talk to wolves. Animals can't talk.\"\n\n\"Hmm. I see. And what about the old woman? There's a lot of you woodcutters. Did you ever, you know, drop in to see her?\"\n\n\"Huh? No fear!\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThe head woodcutter leaned forward conspiratorially.\n\n\"Well, they say she's a witch, right?\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Granny. \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"She's got all the signs, right?\"\n\n\"What signs are those?\"\n\nThe woodcutter was pricked by a slight uneasiness.\n\n\"Well...she's...she lives all by herself in the wood, right?\"\n\n\"Yes...?\"\n\n\"And...and...she's got a hook nose and she's always muttering to herself...\"\n\n\"Yes...?\"\n\n\"And she's got no teeth, right?\"\n\n\"Lawks,\" said Granny. \"I can see where you wouldn't want to be having with the likes of her, right?\"\n\n\"Right!\" said the woodcutter, relieved.\n\n\"Quite likely turn you into just about anything as soon as look at you, right?\" Granny stuck her finger in her ear and twiddled it reflectively.\n\n\"They can do that, you know.\"\n\n\"I bet they can. I bet they can,\" said Granny. \"Makes me glad there's all you big strong lads around. Tch, tch. Hmm. Can I have a look at your chopper, young man?\"\n\nHe handed over his axe. Granny sagged dramatically as she grasped it. There were still traces of wolf blood on the blade.\n\n\"Deary me, it's a big one,\" she said. \"And you're good with this, I expect.\"\n\n\"Won the silver belt two years running at the forest revels,\" said the woodcutter proudly.\n\n\"Two years running? Two years running? Lawks. That is good. That's very good. And here's me hardly able to lift it.\" Granny grasped the axe in one hand and swung it inexpertly. The woodcutter jumped backward as the blade whirred past his face and then buried itself a quarter of an inch deep in a tree.\n\n\"Sorry about that,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"Aren't I a daft old woman! Never was any good with anything technical!\"\n\nHe grinned at her, and tried to pull the axe free.\n\nHe sank to his knees, his face suddenly white.\n\nGranny leaned down until she was level with his ear.\n\n\"You could have seen to the old woman,\" she said quietly. \"You could have talked to the wolf. But you didn't, right?\"\n\nHe tried to speak, but his teeth didn't seem to want to part.\n\n\"I can see you're very sorry about all that,\" she said. \"I can see you're seein' the error of your ways. I bet you can't wait to be up and repairing her cottage for her, and getting the garden back in good order, and seeing she has fresh milk every day and a good supply of wood, right? In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you wasn't generous enough to build her a new cottage, with a proper well an' all. Somewhere near the village so she don't have to live alone, right? You know, I can see the future sometimes and I just know that's what's goin' to happen, right?\"\n\nSweat ran off his face. Now his lungs didn't seem to be operating, either.\n\n\"An' I knows you're goin' to keep your word, and I'm so pleased about it that I'm going to make sure you're especially lucky,\" said Granny, her voice still in the same pleasant monotone. \"I knows it can be a dangerous job, woodchoppin'. People can get hurt. Trees can accidentally fall on 'em, or the top of their chopper can suddenly come off and cut their head open.\" The woodcutter shuddered as Granny went on: \"So what I'm goin' to do is a little spell to make sure that none of this 'appens to you. On account of me bein' so grateful. Because of you helpin' the old lady. Right? Just nod.\"\n\nHe managed to move his head a fraction. Granny Weatherwax smiled.\n\n\"There!\" she said, standing up and brushing a speck of leafmold off her dress. \"You see how sweet life can be, if we all helps one another?\"\n\nThe witches left around lunchtime. By then the old woman's garden was full of people, and the air with the sound of sawing and hammering. News like Granny Weatherwax travels fast. Three woodcutters were digging over the vegetable plot, two more were fighting to clean the chimney, and four of them were halfway down a new well that was being dug with impressive speed.\n\nThe old grandmother, who was still the kind of person who hangs onto one idea until another one dislodges it by force, was running out of saucers to put the milk in.\n\nThe witches sneaked away in all the busyness.\n\n\"There,\" said Magrat, as they strolled down the path, \"it just goes to show how people will pitch in and help, if only someone sets an example. You don't have to bully people all the time, you know.\"\n\nNanny Ogg glanced at Granny.\n\n\"I saw you talking to the head woodcutter,\" she said. \"What was you talking about?\"\n\n\"Sawdust,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Oh yes?\"\n\n\"One of the woodcutters told me,\" said Magrat, \"that there's been other odd things happening in this forest. Animals acting human, he said. There used to be a family of bears living not far away.\"\n\n\"Nothing unusual about a family of bears living together,\" said Nanny. \"They're very convivial animals.\"\n\n\"In a cottage?\"\n\n\"That's unusual.\"\n\n\"That's what I mean,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"You'd definitely feel a bit awkward about going around to borrow a cup of sugar,\" said Nanny.\"I expect the neighbors had something to say about it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Magrat. \"They said 'oink'.\"\n\n\"What'd they say 'oink' for?\"\n\n\"Because they couldn't say anything else. They were pigs.\"\n\n\"We had people like that next door when we lived at\u2014\" Nanny began.\n\n\"I mean pigs. You know. Four legs? Curly tail? What pork is before it's pork? Pigs.\"\n\n\"Can't see anyone letting pigs live in a cottage,\" said Granny.\n\n\"He said they didn't. The pigs built their own. There were three of them. Little pigs.\"\n\n\"What happened to them?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"The wolf ate them. They were the only animals stupid enough to let him get near them, apparently. Nothing was found of them except their spirit level.\"\n\n\"That's a shame.\"\n\n\"The woodcutter says they didn't build very good houses, mind you.\"\n\n\"Well, it's only to be expected. What with the trotters and all,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"He says the roof leaks something dreadful, right over his bed.\"\n\nThe witches walked on in silence.\n\n\"I remember hearing once,\" said Nanny, with the occasional glance at Granny Weatherwax, \"about some ole enchantress in history who lived on an island and turned shipwrecked sailors into pigs.\"\n\n\"That's a terrible thing to do,\" said Magrat, on cue.\n\n\"I suppose it's all according to what you really are, inside,\" said Nanny. \"I mean, look at Greebo here.\" Greebo, curled around her shoulders like a smelly fur, purred. \"He's practically a human.\"\n\n\"You do talk a lot of tosh, Gytha,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"That's 'cos people won't tell me what they really think is going on,\" said Nanny Ogg, grimly.\n\n\"I said I'm not sure,\" said Granny.\n\n\"You looked into the wolf's mind.\"\n\n\"Yes. I did.\"\n\n\"Well, then...\"\n\nGranny sighed. \"Someone's been here before us. Passing through. Someone who knows about the power of stories, and uses 'em. And the stories have...kind of hung around. They do that, when they get fed...\"\n\n\"What'd anyone want to do that for?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Practice,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Practice? What for?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I expect we'll find out presently,\" said Granny gnomically.\n\n\"You ought to tell me what you think,\" said Magrat. \"I am the official godmother around here, you know. I ought to be told things. You've got to tell me things.\"\n\nNanny Ogg went chilly. This was the kind of emotional countryside with which she was, as head Ogg, extremely familiar. That sort of comment at this sort of time was like the tiny sliding of snow off the top branch of a tall tree high in the mountains during the thaw season. It was one end of a process that, without a doubt, would end with a dozen villages being engulfed. Whole branches of the Ogg family had stopped talking to other branches of the Ogg family because of a \"Thank you very much\" in the wrong tones and the wrong place, and this was far worse.\n\n\"Now,\" she said hurriedly, \"why don't we\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't have to explain anything,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"But we're supposed to be three witches,\" said Magrat. \"If you can call us witches,\" she added.\n\n\"What do you mean by that, pray?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Pray?\" thought Nanny. Someone has ended a sentence with \"pray?\" That's like that bit when someone hits someone else with a glove and then throws it on the floor. There's no going back when someone's ended a sentence with \"pray?\" But she tried, anyway.\n\n\"How about a nice\u2014\"\n\nMagrat plunged on with the brave desperation of someone dancing in the light of their burning bridges.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"it seems to me\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Granny.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" Magrat tried again, \"that the only magic we do is all\u2014well, headology. Not what anyone else would call magic. It's just glaring at people and tricking them. Taking advantage of their gullibility. It wasn't what I expected when I set out to become a witch\u2014\"\n\n\"And who says,\" said Granny Weatherwax, slowly and deliberately, \"that you've become a witch now?\"\n\n\"My word, the wind is getting up, perhaps we should\u2014\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"What did you say?\" said Magrat.\n\nNanny Ogg put her hand over her eyes. Asking someone to repeat a phrase you'd not only heard very clearly but were also exceedingly angry about was around Defcon II in the lexicon of squabble.\n\n\"I should have thought my voice was clear enough,\" said Granny. \"I'm very amazed my voice wasn't clear enough. It sounded clear enough to me.\"\n\n\"Looks a bit gusty, why don't we\u2014?\"\n\n\"Well, I should just think I can be smug and bad-tempered and ill-considerate enough to be a witch,\" said Magrat. \"That's all that's required, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Ill-considerate? Me?\"\n\n\"You like people who need help, because when they need help they're weak, and helping them makes you feel strong! What harm would a bit of magic do?\"\n\n\"Because it'd never stop at just a bit, you stupid girl!\"\n\nMagrat backed off, her face flushed. She reached into her bag and pulled out a slim volume, which she flourished like a weapon.\n\n\"Stupid I may be,\" she panted, \"but at least I'm trying to learn things! Do you know the kind of things people can use magic for? Not just illusion and bullying! There's people in this book that can...can...walk on hot coals, and stick their hands in a fire and not get hurt!\"\n\n\"Cheap trickery!\" said Granny.\n\n\"They really can!\"\n\n\"Impossible. No one can do that!\"\n\n\"It shows they can control things! Magic's got to be more than just knowing things and manipulating people!\"\n\n\"Oh? It's all wishing on stars and fairy dust, is it? Making people happier?\"\n\n\"There's got to be some of that! Otherwise what's the good of anything? Anyway...when I went to Desiderata's cottage you were looking for the wand, weren't you?\"\n\n\"I just didn't want it falling into the wrong hands!\"\n\n\"Like any hands but yours, I expect!\"\n\nThey glared at each other.\n\n\"Haven't you got any romance in your soul?\" said Magrat plaintively.\n\n\"No,\" said Granny. \"I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference\u2014\"\n\n\"And always get the young man's name and address,\" said Nanny. \"It worked for me every time. Only joking,\" she said, as they both glared at her.\n\nThe wind was rising, here on the edge of the forest. Bits of grass and leaves whirled through the air.\n\n\"We're going the right way, anyway,\" said Nanny madly, seeking anything that would be a distraction. \"Look. It says 'Genua' on the signpost.\"\n\nIt did indeed. It was an old, worm-eaten signpost right on the edge of the forest. The end of the arm had been carved into the likeness of a pointing finger.\n\n\"A proper road, too,\" Nanny burbled on. The row cooled a bit, simply because both sides were not talking to each other. Not simply not exchanging vocal communication\u2014that's just an absence of speaking. This went right through that and out the other side, into the horrible glowering worlds of Not Talking to One Another.\n\n\"Yellow bricks,\" said Nanny. \"Whoever heard of anyone making a road out of yellow bricks?\"\n\nMagrat and Granny Weatherwax stood looking in opposite directions with their arms folded.\n\n\"Brightens the place up, I suppose,\" said Nanny. On the horizon, Genua sparkled in the middle of some more greenery. In between, the road dipped into a wide valley dotted with little villages. A river snaked through them on the way to the city.\n\nThe wind whipped at their skirts.\n\n\"We'll never fly in this,\" said Nanny, still womanfully trying to make enough conversation for three people.\n\n\"So we'll walk, then, eh?\" she said, and added, because there's a spark of spitefulness even in innocent souls like Nanny Ogg's, \"Singing as we go, how about it?\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's not my place to mind what anyone chooses to do,\" said Granny. \"It's nothing to do with me. I expect some people with wands and big ideas might have something to say.\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said Magrat.\n\nThey set off along the brick road toward the distant city, in single file with Nanny Ogg as a kind of mobile buffer state in the middle.\n\n\"What some people need,\" said Magrat, to the world in general, \"is a bit more heart.\"\n\n\"What some people need,\" said Granny Weatherwax, to the stormy sky, \"is a lot more brain.\"\n\nThen she clutched at her hat to stop the wind from blowing it off.\n\nWhat I need, thought Nanny Ogg fervently, is a drink.\n\nThree minutes later a farmhouse dropped on her head.\n\nBy this time the witches were well spaced out. Granny Weatherwax was striding along in front, Magrat was sulking along at the rear, and Nanny was in the middle.\n\nAs she said afterward, it wasn't even as if she was singing. It was just that one moment there was a small, plump witch, and the next there was the collapsing remains of a wooden farmhouse.\n\nGranny Weatherwax turned and found herself looking at a crumbling, unpainted front door. Magrat nearly walked into a back door of the same gray, bleached wood.\n\nThere was no sound but the crackle of settling timber.\n\n\"Gytha?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Nanny?\" said Magrat.\n\nThey both opened their doors.\n\nIt was a very simple design of house, with two downstairs rooms separated by a front-to-back passageway. In the middle of the passageway, surrounded by shattered and termite-ridden floorboards, under the pointy hat that had been rammed down to her chin, was Nanny Ogg. There was no sign of Greebo.\n\n\"Wha' happened?\" she said. \"Wha' happened?\"\n\n\"A farmhouse dropped on your head,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Oh. One o' them things,\" said Nanny vaguely.\n\nGranny gripped her by the shoulders.\n\n\"Gytha? How many fingers am I holding up?\" she said urgently.\n\n\"Wha' fingers? 'S' all gone dark.\"\n\nMagrat and Granny gripped the brim of Nanny's hat and half lifted, half unscrewed it from her head. She blinked at them.\n\n\"That's the willow reinforcement,\" she said, as the pointy hat creaked back into shape like a resurrecting umbrella. She was swaying gently. \"Stop a hammer blow, a hat with willow reinforcement. All them struts, see. Distributes the force. I shall write to Mr. Vernissage.\"\n\nMagrat, bemused, looked around the little house.\n\n\"It just dropped out of the sky!\" she said.\n\n\"Could have been a big tornado or something somewhere,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Picked it up, see, then the wind drops and down it comes. You get funny things happening in high winds. Remember that big gale we had last year? One of my hens laid the same egg four times.\"\n\n\"She's rambling,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"No I ain't, that's just my normal talking,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny Weatherwax peered into one of the rooms. \"I suppose there wouldn't be any food and drink about the place?\" she said.\n\n\"I think I could force myself to drink some brandy,\" said Nanny quickly.\n\nMagrat peered up the stairs.\n\n\"Coo-ee,\" she called, in the strangled voice of someone who wants to be heard without doing anything so bad-mannered as raise their voice. \"Is there anyone here?\"\n\nNanny, on the other hand, looked under the stairs. Greebo was a cowering ball of fur in a corner. She hauled him out by the scruff of his neck and gave him a slightly bewildered pat. Despite Mr. Vernissage's millinery masterpiece, despite the worm-eaten floor, and despite even the legendary thick skull of the Oggs, she was definitely feeling several twinkles short of a glitter and suffering a slight homesick-tinged dip in her usual sunny nature. People didn't hit you over the head with farmhouses back home.\n\n\"You know, Greebo,\" she said, \"I don't think we're in Lancre.\"\n\n\"I've found some jam,\" said Granny Weatherwax, from the kitchen.\n\nIt didn't take a lot to cheer up Nanny Ogg. \"That's fine,\" she called out. \"It'll go nicely on the dwarf bread.\"\n\nMagrat came into the room.\n\n\"I'm not sure we should be taking other people's provisions,\" she said. \"I mean, this place must belong to someone.\"\n\n\"Oh. Did someone speak, Gytha?\" said Granny Weatherwax archly.\n\nNanny rolled her eyes.\n\n\"I was merely saying, Nanny,\" said Magrat, \"that this isn't our property.\"\n\n\"She says it don't belong to us, Esme,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Tell anyone who wants to know, Gytha, that it's like salvage from a shipwreck,\" said Granny.\n\n\"She says finders keepers, Magrat,\" said Nanny.\n\nSomething flickered past the window. Magrat went and peered out through the grimy pane.\n\n\"That's funny. There's a lot of dwarfs dancing around the house,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, yes?\" said Nanny, opening a cupboard.\n\nGranny stiffened. \"Are they\u2014I means, ask her if they're singing,\" she said.\n\n\"They singing, Magrat?\"\n\n\"I can hear something,\" said Magrat. \"Sounds like 'Dingdong, dingdong.'\"\n\n\"That's a dwarf song all right,\" said Nanny. \"They're the only people who can make a hiho last all day.\"\n\n\"They seem very happy about it,\" said Magrat doubtfully.\n\n\"Probably it was their farmhouse and they're glad to get it back.\"\n\nThere was a hammering on the back door. Magrat opened it. A crowd of brightly dressed and embarrassed dwarfs stepped back hurriedly and then peered up at her.\n\n\"Er,\" said the one who was apparently the leader, \"is...is the old witch dead?\"\n\n\"Which old witch?\" said Magrat.\n\nThe dwarf looked at her for a while with his mouth open. He turned and had a whispered consultation with his colleagues. Then he turned back.\n\n\"How many have you got?\"\n\n\"There's a choice of two,\" said Magrat. She wasn't feeling in a very good mood and wasn't prompted to aid the conversation more than necessary. Uncharacteristic nastiness made her add, \"Free for the asking.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" The dwarf considered this. \"Well, which old witch did the house land on?\"\n\n\"Nanny? No, she's not dead. She's just a bit stunned. But thanks all the same for asking,\" said Magrat. \"That's very kind of you.\"\n\nThis seemed to puzzle the dwarfs. They went into a huddle. There was a lot of sotto voce arguing.\n\nThen the head dwarf turned back to Magrat. He removed his helmet and turned it around and around nervously in his hands.\n\n\"Er,\" he said, \"can we have her boots?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Her boots?\" said the dwarf, blushing. \"Can we have them, please?\"\n\n\"What do you want her boots for?\"\n\nThe dwarf looked at her. Then he turned and went into a huddle with his colleagues again. He turned back to Magrat.\n\n\"We've just got this...feeling...that we ought to have her boots,\" he said.\n\nHe stood there blinking.\n\n\"Well, I'll go and ask,\" said Magrat. \"But I don't think she'll say yes.\"\n\nAs she went to close the door the dwarf twiddled his hat some more.\n\n\"They are ruby-colored, aren't they?\" he said.\n\n\"Well, they're red,\" said Magrat. \"Is red all right?\"\n\n\"They've got to be red.\" All the other dwarfs nodded. \"It's no good if they're not red.\"\n\nMagrat gave him a blank look and shut the door.\n\n\"Nanny,\" she said slowly, when she was back in the kitchen, \"there's some dwarfs outside who want your boots.\"\n\nNanny looked up. She'd found a stale loaf in a cupboard and was industriously chewing. It was amazing what you'd eat if the alternative was dwarf bread.\n\n\"What d'they want 'em for?\" she said.\n\n\"Didn't say. They just said they had a feeling they want your boots.\"\n\n\"That sounds highly suspicious to me,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Old Shaker Wistley over Creel Springs way was a devil for boots,\" said Nanny, putting down the bread-knife. \"Especially black button boots. He used to collect 'em. If he saw you going past in a new pair he had to go and have a lie-down.\"\n\n\"I reckon that's a bit sophisticated for dwarfs,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Maybe they want to drink out of 'em,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"What do you mean, drink out of them?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Ah, well, that's what they do in foreign parts,\" said Nanny. \"They drink fizzy wine out of ladies' boots.\"\n\nThey all looked down at Nanny's boots.\n\nNot even Nanny could imagine why anyone would want to drink out of them, or what they would do afterward.\n\n\"My word. That's even more sophisticated than old Shaker Wistley,\" said Nanny reflectively.\n\n\"They seemed a bit puzzled about it,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I expect they would be. It ain't often people get a feeling they ought to go around pulling a decent witch's boots off. This sounds like another story flapping around. I think,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"that we ought to go and talk to these dwarfs.\"\n\nShe strode out into the passageway and opened the door.\n\n\"Yes?\" she demanded.\n\nThe dwarfs backed away at the sight of her. There was a lot of whispering and elbowing and muttered comments in the nature of \"No, you,\" and \"I asked last time.\" Finally a dwarf was pushed forward. It might have been the original dwarf. It was hard to tell, with dwarfs.\n\n\"Er,\" he said. \"Er. Boots?\"\n\n\"What for?\" said Granny.\n\nThe dwarf scratched its head. \"Damned if I know,\" he said. \"We were just wondering about it ourselves, 's'matterofact. We were just coming off shift in the coal mine half an hour ago, we saw the farmhouse land on...on the witch, and...well...\"\n\n\"You just knew you had to run up and steal her boots?\" said Granny.\n\nThe dwarf's face widened into a relieved grin.\n\n\"That's right!\" he said. \"And sing the Ding-dong song. Only she was supposed to be squashed. No offense meant,\" he added quickly.\n\n\"It's the willow reinforcement,\" said a voice behind Granny. \"Worth its weight in glod.\"\n\nGranny stared for a while, and then smiled.\n\n\"I think you lads ought to come inside,\" she said. \"I've got some questions to ask you.\"\n\nThe dwarfs looked very uncertain.\n\n\"Um,\" said the spokesdwarf.\n\n\"Nervous of going into a house with witches in it?\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\nThe spokesdwarf nodded, and then went red. Magrat and Nanny Ogg exchanged glances behind Granny's back. Something had definitely gone wrong somewhere. In the mountains dwarfs certainly weren't afraid of witches. The problem was to stop them digging up your floor.\n\n\"You've been down from the mountains for some time, I expect,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Very promising seam of coal down here,\" mumbled the spokesdwarf, twiddling his hat.\n\n\"Bet it's a long time since you've had proper dwarf bread, then,\" said Granny.\n\nThe spokesdwarf's eyes misted over.\n\n\"Baked from the finest stone-ground grit, just like mother used to jump up and down on it,\" Granny went on.\n\nA sort of collective sigh went up from the dwarfs.\n\n\"You just can't get it down here,\" said the spokesdwarf, to the ground. \"It's the water, or something. It falls to bits after hardly any years at all.\"\n\n\"They puts flour in it,\" said someone behind him, sourly.\n\n\"It's worse'n that. The baker over in Genua puts dried fruit in it,\" said another dwarf.\n\n\"Well, now,\" said Granny, rubbing her hands together, \"I may be able to help you here. Could be I've got some dwarf bread to spare.\"\n\n\"Nah. Not proper dwarf bread,\" said the spokesdwarf moodily. \"Proper dwarf bread's got to be dropped in rivers and dried out and sat on and left and looked at every day and put away again. You just can't get it down here.\"\n\n\"This could be,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"your lucky day.\"\n\n\"To be frank,\" said Nanny Ogg, \"I think the cat pissed on some of it.\"\n\nThe spokesdwarf looked up, his eyes aglow.\n\n\"Hot damn!\"\n\nDear Jason et everybody,\n\nWhot a life, all kinds of thing goin on, what with talkin wolves and women asleep in castles, I shall have a story or two to tell you when I gets back and no mistake. Also, dont tawk to me about farmhouses, which reminds me, please send somone to Mr. Vernissage over in Slice and present Mrs. Ogg's compluments and what a good hat he makes, he can say \"As Approved by Nanny Ogg,\" it stops 100% of all known farmhouses, also, if you writes to people saying how good their stuff is sometimes you get free stuff, there could be a new hat in this for me so see to it.\n\nLilith stepped out from her room of mirrors. Shadowy images of herself trailed after her, fading.\n\nWitches ought to be squashed when a farmhouse lands on them. Lilith knew that. All squashed, except for their boots sticking out.\n\nSometimes she despaired. People just didn't seem able to play their parts properly.\n\nShe wondered whether there was such a thing as the opposite of a fairy godmother. Most things had their opposite, after all. If so, she wouldn't be a bad fairy godmother, because that's just a good fairy godmother seen from a different viewpoint.\n\nThe opposite would be someone who was poison to stories and, thought Lilith, quite the most evil creature in the world.\n\nWell, here in Genua was one story no one could stop. It had momentum, this one. Try to stop it and it'd absorb you, make you part of its plot. She didn't have to do a thing. The story would do it for her. And she had the comfort of knowing that she couldn't lose. After all, she was the good one.\n\nShe strolled along the battlements and down the stairs to her own room, where the two sisters were waiting. They were good at waiting. They could sit for hours without blinking.\n\nThe Duc refused even to be in the same room as them.\n\nTheir heads turned as she came in.\n\nShe'd never given them voices. It wasn't necessary. It was enough that they were beautiful and could be made to understand.\n\n\"Now you must go to the house,\" she said. \"And this is very important. Listen to me. Some people will be coming to see Ella tomorrow. You must let them do so, do you understand?\"\n\nThey were watching her lips. They watched anything that moved.\n\n\"We shall need them for the story. It won't work properly unless they try to stop it. And afterward...perhaps I will give you voices. You'll like that, won't you?\"\n\nThey looked at one another, and then at her. And then at the cage in the corner of the room.\n\nLilith smiled, and reached in, and took out two white mice.\n\n\"The youngest witch might be just your type,\" she said. \"I shall have to see what I can do with her. And now...open...\"\n\nThe broomsticks drifted through the afternoon air.\n\nFor once, the witches weren't arguing.\n\nThe dwarfs had been a taste of home. It would have done anyone's heart good to see the way they just sat and stared at the dwarf bread, as if consuming it with their eyes, which was the best way to consume dwarf bread. Whatever it was that had driven them to seek ruby-colored boots seemed to wear off under its down-to-earth influence. As Granny said, you could look a long way before you found anything realer than dwarf bread.\n\nThen she'd gone off alone to talk to the head dwarf.\n\nShe wouldn't tell the others what he'd told her, and they didn't feel bold enough to ask. Now she flew a little ahead of them.\n\nOccasionally she'd mutter something like \"Godmothers!\" or \"Practicing!\"\n\nBut even Magrat, who hadn't had as much experience, could feel Genua now, as a barometer feels the air pressure. In Genua, stories came to life. In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true.\n\nRemember some of your dreams?\n\nGenua nestled on the delta of the Vieux river, which was the source of its wealth. And Genua was wealthy. Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government, and therefore sound economics and perfectly all right. And the swamps and lakes back in the delta provided the crawling, swimming and flying ingredients of a cuisine that would have been world famous if, as has already been indicated, people traveled very much.\n\nGenua was rich, lazy and unthreatened, and had once spent quite a lot of time involved in that special kind of civic politics that comes naturally to some city states. For example, once it had been able to afford the largest branch of the Assassins' Guild outside Ankh-Morpork, and its members were so busy that you sometimes had to wait for months.*\n\nBut the Assassins had all left years ago. Some things sicken even jackals.\n\nThe city came as a shock. From a distance, it looked like a complicated white crystal growing out of the greens and browns of the swamp.\n\nCloser to, it resolved into, firstly, an outer ring of smaller buildings, then an inner ring of large, impressive white houses and, finally, at the very center, a palace. It was tall and pretty and multi-turreted, like a toy castle or some kind of confectionery extravaganza. Every slim tower looked designed to hold a captive princess.\n\nMagrat shivered. But then she thought of the wand. A godmother had responsibilities.\n\n\"Reminds me of another one of them Black Aliss stories,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"I remember when she locked up that girl with the long pigtails in a tower just like one of them. Rumplestiltzel or someone.\"\n\n\"But she got out,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Yes, it does you good to let your hair down,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Huh. Rural myths,\" said Granny.\n\nThey drew nearer to the city walls. Then Magrat said, \"There's guards on the gate. Are we going to fly over?\"\n\nGranny stared at the highest tower through narrowed eyes. \"No,\" she said. \"We'll land and walk in. So's not to worry people.\"\n\n\"There's a nice flat green bit just behind those trees,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny walked up and down experimentally. Her boots squeaked and gurgled in watery accusation.\n\n\"Look, I said I'm sorry,\" said Magrat. \"It just looked so flat!\"\n\n\"Water gen'rally does,\" said Nanny, sitting on a tree stump and wringing out her dress.\n\n\"But even you couldn't tell it was water,\" said Magrat. \"It looks so...so grassy with all that weed and stuff floating on it.\"\n\n\"Seems to me the land and the water around here can't decide who is which,\" said Nanny. She looked around at the miasmic landscape.\n\nTrees grew out of the swamp. They had a jagged, foreign look and seemed to be rotting as they grew. Where the water was visible, it was black like ink. Occasionally a few bubbles would eructate to the surface like the ghosts of beans on bath night. And somewhere over in the distance was the river, if it was possible to be that sure in this land of thick water and ground that wobbled when you set foot on it.\n\nShe blinked.\n\n\"That's odd,\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Thought I saw...something running...\" muttered Nanny. \"Over there. Between the trees.\"\n\n\"Must be a duck then, in this place.\"\n\n\"It was bigger'n a duck,\" said Nanny. \"Funny thing is, it looked a bit like a little house.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, running along with smoke coming out of the chimney, I expect,\" said Granny witheringly.\n\nNanny brightened. \"You saw it too?\"\n\nGranny rolled her eyes.\n\n\"Come on,\" she said, \"let's get to the road.\"\n\n\"Er,\" said Magrat, \"how?\"\n\nThey looked at the nominal ground between their reasonably dry refuge and the road. It had a yellowish appearance. There were floating branches and tufts of suspiciously green grass. Nanny pulled a branch off the fallen tree she was sitting on and tossed it a few yards. It struck damply, and sank with the noise of someone trying to get the last bit out of the milkshake.\n\n\"We fly over to it, of course,\" Nanny said.\n\n\"You two can,\" said Granny. \"There's nowhere for me to run and get mine started.\"\n\nIn the end Magrat ferried her across on her broom, Nanny bringing up the rear with Granny's erratic stick in tow.\n\n\"I just 'ope no one saw us, that's all,\" said Granny, when they'd reached the comparative safety of the road.\n\nOther roads joined the swamp causeway as they got nearer to the city. They were crowded, and there was a long line at the gate.\n\nFrom ground level, the city was even more impressive. Against the steam of the swamps it shone like a polished stone. Colored flags flew over the walls.\n\n\"Looks very jolly,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Very clean,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It just looks like that from outside,\" said Granny, who had seen a city before. \"When you get inside it'll be all beggars and noise and gutters full of I don't know what, you mark my words.\"\n\n\"They're turning quite a lot of people away,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"They said on the boat that lots of people come here for Fat Lunchtime,\" said Granny. \"Probably you get lots of people who ain't the right sort.\"\n\nHalf a dozen guards watched them approach.\n\n\"Very smartly turned out,\" said Granny. \"That's what I like to see. Not like at home.\"\n\nThere were only six suits of chain mail in the whole of Lancre, made on the basis of one-size-doesn't-quite-fit-all. Bits of string and wire had to be employed to take in the slack, since in Lancre the role of palace guard was generally taken by any citizen who hadn't got much to do at the moment.\n\nThese guards were all six-footers and, even Granny had to admit, quite impressive in their jolly red-and-blue uniforms. The only other real city guards she'd ever seen were those in Ankh-Morpork. The sight of Ankh-Morpork's city guard made thoughtful people wonder who could possibly attack that was worse. They certainly weren't anything to look at.\n\nTo her amazement, two pikes barred her way as she stepped under the arched gateway.\n\n\"We're not attacking, you know,\" she said.\n\nA corporal gave her a salute.\n\n\"No ma'am,\" he said. \"But we have orders to stop borderline cases.\"\n\n\"Borderline?\" said Nanny. \"What's borderline about us?\"\n\nThe corporal swallowed. Granny Weatherwax's gaze was a hard one to meet.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"you're a bit...grubby.\"\n\nThere was a ringing silence. Granny took a deep breath.\n\n\"We had a bit of an accident in the swamp,\" said Magrat quickly.\n\n\"I'm sure it'll be all right,\" said the corporal wretchedly. \"The captain'll be here directly. Only there's all kinds of trouble if we let the wrong sort in. You'd be amazed at some of the people we get here.\"\n\n\"Can't go letting the wrong sort in,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"We wouldn't want you to let the wrong sort in. I daresay we wouldn't want to come into the kind of city that'd let the wrong sort in, would we, Esme?\"\n\nMagrat kicked her on the ankle.\n\n\"Good thing we're the right sort,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"What's happening, corporal?\"\n\nThe captain of the guard strolled out of a door in the archway and walked over to the witches.\n\n\"These...ladies want to come in, sir,\" said the corporal.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"They're a bit...you know, not one hundred percent clean,\" said the corporal, wilting under Granny's stare. \"And one of them's got messy hair\u2014\"\n\n\"Well!\" snapped Magrat.\n\n\"\u2014and one of them looks like she uses bad language.\"\n\n\"What?\" said Nanny, her grin evaporating. \"I'll tan your hide, you little bugger!\"\n\n\"But, corporal, they have got brooms,\" said the captain. \"It's very hard for cleaning staff to look tidy all the time.\"\n\n\"Cleaning staff?\" said Granny.\n\n\"I'm sure they're as anxious as you are to get tidied up,\" said the captain.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Granny, empowering the words with much the same undertones as are carried by words like \"Charge!\" and \"Kill!\" \"Excuse me, but does this pointy hat I'm wearing mean anything to you?\"\n\nThe soldiers looked at it politely.\n\n\"Can you give me a clue?\" said the captain, eventually.\n\n\"It means\u2014\"\n\n\"We'll just trot along in, if it's all the same to you,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Got a lot of cleaning up to do.\" She flourished her broomstick. \"Come, ladies.\"\n\nShe and Magrat grasped Granny's elbows firmly and propelled her under the archway before her fuse burned out. Granny Weatherwax always held that you ought to count up to ten before losing your temper. No one knew why, because the only effect of this was to build up the pressure and make the ensuing explosion a whole lot worse.\n\nThe witches didn't stop until they were out of sight of the gate.\n\n\"Now, Esme,\" said Nanny soothingly, \"you shouldn't take it personal. And we are a bit mucky, you must admit. They were just doing their job, all right? How about that?\"\n\n\"They treated us as if we was ordinary people,\" said Granny, in a shocked voice.\n\n\"This is foreign parts, Granny,\" said Magrat. \"Anyway, you said the men on the boat didn't recognize the hat, either.\"\n\n\"But then I dint want 'em to,\" said Granny. \"That's different.\"\n\n\"It's just an...an incident, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"They were just stupid soldiers. They don't even know a proper free-form hairstyle when they see it.\"\n\nNanny looked around. Crowds milled past them, almost in silence.\n\n\"And you must admit it's a nice clean city,\" she said.\n\nThey took stock of their surroundings.\n\nIt was certainly the cleanest place they'd ever seen. Even the cobblestones had a polished look.\n\n\"You could eat your tea off the street,\" said Nanny, as they strolled along.\n\n\"Yes, but you'd eat your tea off the street anyway,\" said Granny.\n\n\"I wouldn't eat all of it. Even the gutters are scrubbed. Not a Ronald* in sight, look.\"\n\n\"Gytha!\"\n\n\"Well, you said that in Ankh-Morpork\u2014\"\n\n\"This is somewhere else!\"\n\n\"It's so spotless,\" said Magrat. \"Makes you wish you'd cleaned your sandals.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Nanny Ogg squinted along the street. \"Makes you wish you were a better person, really.\"\n\n\"Why are you two whispering?\" said Granny.\n\nShe followed their gaze. There was a guard standing on the street corner. When he saw them looking at him he touched his helmet and gave them a brief smile.\n\n\"Even the guards are polite,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"And there's so many of them, too,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Amazing, really, needing all these guards in a city where people are so clean and quiet,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Perhaps there's so much niceness to be spread around they need a lot of people to do it,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nThe witches wandered through the packed streets.\n\n\"Nice houses, though,\" said Magrat. \"Very decorative and olde-worlde.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax, who lived in a cottage that was as olde-worlde as it was possible to be without being a lump of metamorphic rock, made no comment.\n\nNanny Ogg's feet started to complain.\n\n\"We ought to find somewhere to stop the night,\" she said. \"We can look for this girl in the morning. We'll all do a lot better for a good night's sleep.\"\n\n\"And a bath,\" said Magrat. \"With soothing herbs.\"\n\n\"Good idea. I could just go a bath too,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"My word, doesn't autumn roll around quickly,\" said Granny sourly.\n\n\"Yeah? When did you last have a bath, Esme?\"\n\n\"What do you mean, last?\"\n\n\"See? Then there's no call to make comments about my ablutions.\"\n\n\"Baths is unhygienic,\" Granny declared. \"You know I've never agreed with baths. Sittin' around in your own dirt like that.\"\n\n\"What do you do, then?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I just washes,\" said Granny. \"All the bits. You know. As and when they becomes available.\"\n\nHowever available they were, and no further information was vouchsafed on this point, they were certainly more available than accommodation in Genua in Fat Lunchtime.\n\nAll the taverns and inns were more than full. Gradually the press of crowds pushed them out of the main streets and into the less fashionable quarters of the city, but still there was no room for the three of them.\n\nGranny Weatherwax had had enough.\n\n\"The very next place we see,\" she said, setting her jaw firmly, \"we're goin' in. What's that inn over there?\"\n\nNanny Ogg peered at the sign.\n\n\"Hotel...No...Va...cancies,\" she muttered, and then brightened up. \"Hotel Nova Cancies,\" she repeated. \"That means 'new, er, Cancies' in foreign,\" she added helpfully.\n\n\"It'll do,\" said Granny.\n\nShe pushed open the door. A round, red-faced man looked up from the desk. He was new to the job and very nervous; the last incumbent had disappeared for not being round and red-faced enough.\n\nGranny didn't waste time.\n\n\"You see this hat?\" she demanded. \"You see this broom?\"\n\nThe man looked from her to the broom, and back again.\n\n\"Yes?\" he said. \"What's that mean?\"\n\n\"Means we want three rooms for the night,\" said Granny, looking smugly at the other two.\n\n\"With sausage,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"And one vegetarian meal,\" said Magrat.\n\nThe man looked at all three of them. Then he went over to the door.\n\n\"You see this door? You see this sign?\" he said.\n\n\"We don't bother about signs,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said the man, \"I give up. What's a pointy hat and a broom really mean?\"\n\n\"That means I'm a witch,\" said Granny.\n\nThe man put his head on one side.\n\n\"Yeah?\" he said. \"Is that another word for daft old woman?\"\n\nDear Jason and everyone, wrote Nanny Ogg, Dyou know, they dont know about witches here, thats how bakcward they are in foreign parts. A man gave Esme some Cheek and she would of lost her Temper so me and Magrat and I got hold of her and rushed her out because if you make someone think they've been turned into something there's always trouble, you remember what happened larst time when afterward you had to go and dig a pond for Mr. Wilkins to live in...\n\nThey had managed to find a table to themselves in a tavern. It was packed with people of all species. The noise was at shouting level and smoke wreathed the air.\n\n\"Will you stop that scribbling, Gytha Ogg. It gets on my nerves,\" snapped Granny.\n\n\"They must have witches here,\" said Magrat. \"Everywhere has witches. You've got to have witches abroad. You find witches everywhere.\"\n\n\"Like cockroaches,\" said Nanny Ogg cheerfully.\n\n\"You should've let me make him believe he was a frog,\" muttered Granny.\n\n\"You can't do that, Esme. You can't go around making people believe they're things just because they've been cheeky and don't know who you are,\" said Gytha. \"Otherwise we'd be up to here in people hopping about.\"\n\nDespite many threats, Granny Weatherwax had never turned anyone into a frog. The way she saw it, there was a technically less cruel but cheaper and much more satisfying thing you could do. You could leave them human and make them think they were a frog, which also provided much innocent entertainment for passers-by.\n\n\"I always felt sorry for Mr. Wilkins,\" said Magrat, staring moodily at the table top. \"It was so sad watching him try to catch flies on his tongue.\"\n\n\"He shouldn't have said what he said,\" said Granny.\n\n\"What, that you were a domineering old busybody?\" said Nanny innocently.\n\n\"I don't mind criticism,\" said Granny. \"You know me. I've never been one to take offense at criticism. No one could say I'm the sort to take offense at criticism\u2014\"\n\n\"Not twice, anyway,\" said Nanny. \"Not without blowing bubbles.\"\n\n\"It's just that I can't stand unfairness,\" said Granny. \"And you stop that grinning! Anyway, I don't see why you're making a fuss about it. It wore off after a couple of days.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Wilkins says he still goes out swimming a lot,\" said Magrat. \"It's given him a whole new interest, she said.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they have a different kind of witch in the city,\" said Magrat hopelessly. \"Perhaps they wear different sort of clothes.\"\n\n\"There's only one kind of witch,\" said Granny. \"And we're it.\"\n\nShe looked around the room. Of course, she thought, if someone was keeping witches out, people wouldn't know about them. Someone who didn't want anyone else meddling here. But she let us in...\n\n\"Oh, well, at least we're in the dry,\" said Nanny. A drinker standing in a crowd behind her threw back his head to laugh and spilled beer down her back.\n\nShe muttered something under her breath.\n\nMagrat saw the man look down to take another swig and stare, wide-eyed, into the mug. Then he dropped it and fought his way out of the room, clutching at his throat.\n\n\"What did you do to his drink?\" she said.\n\n\"You ain't old enough to be tole,\" said Nanny.\n\nAt home, if a witch wanted a table to herself it...just happened. The sight of the pointy hat was enough. People kept a polite distance, occasionally sending free drinks to her. Even Magrat got respect, not particularly because anyone was in awe of her, but because a slight to one witch was a slight to all witches and no one wanted Granny Weatherwax coming around to explain this to them. Here they were being jostled, as if they were ordinary. Only Nanny Ogg's warning hand on Granny Weatherwax's arm was keeping a dozen jovial drinkers from unnatural amphibianhood, and even Nanny's usually very elastic temper was beginning to twang. She always prided herself on being as ordinary as muck, but there was ordinary and there was ordinary. It was like being that Prince Whatsisname, in the nursery story, who liked to wander around his kingdom dressed up as a commoner; she'd always had a shrewd suspicion that the little pervert made sure people knew who he was beforehand, just in case anyone tried to get too common. It was like getting muddy. Getting muddy when you had a nice hot tub to look forward to was fun; getting muddy when all you had to look forward to was more mud was no fun at all. She reached a conclusion.\n\n\"Hey, why don't we have a drink?\" said Nanny Ogg brightly. \"We'd all feel better for a drink.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Granny. \"You caught me with that herbal drink last time. I'm sure there was alcohol in that. I def'nitely felt a bit woozy after the sixth glass. I ain't drinking any more foreign muck.\"\n\n\"You've got to drink something,\" said Magrat soothingly. \"I'm thirsty, anyway.\" She looked vaguely at the crowded bar. \"Perhaps they do some kind of fruit cup, or something.\"\n\n\"Bound to,\" said Nanny Ogg. She stood up, glanced at the bar, and surreptitiously removed a hatpin from her hat. \"Shan't be a moment.\"\n\nThe two of them were left in their own private gloom. Granny sat staring fixedly in front of her.\n\n\"You really shouldn't take it so bad, just because people aren't showing you any respect,\" said Magrat, pouring soothing oil on the internal fires. \"They've hardly ever shown me any respect at all. It's not a problem.\"\n\n\"If you ain't got respect, you ain't got a thing,\" said Granny distantly.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know. I've always managed to get along,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"That's 'cos you're a wet hen, Magrat Garlick,\" said Granny.\n\nThere was a short, hot silence, ringing with the words that shouldn't have escaped and a few grunts of pained surprise from the direction of the bar.\n\nI know she's always thought that, Magrat told herself within the glowing walls of her embarrassment. I just never thought she'd ever say it. And she'll never say sorry, because that's not the kind of thing she does. She just expects people to forget things like that. I was just trying to be friends again. If she ever really has any friends.\n\n\"Here we are then,\" said Nanny Ogg, emerging from the crush with a tray. \"Fruit drinks.\"\n\nShe sat down and looked from one to the other.\n\n\"Made from bananas,\" she said, in the hope of striking a spark of interest from either woman. \"I remember our Shane brought a banana home once. My, we had a good laugh about that. I said to the man, 'What kind of fruit drinks do people drink around here?' and this is what he gave me.Made from bananas. A banana drink. You'll like it. It's what everyone drinks here. It's got bananas in it.\"\n\n\"It's certainly very...strongly flavored,\" said Magrat, sipping hers cautiously. \"Has it got sugar in it too?\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" said Nanny. She looked at Granny's middle-distance frown for a moment, and then picked up her pencil and licked the end professionally.\n\nAnywey one good thing is the drink here is v. cheap theres this one called a Bananana dakry which is basicly Rum with a bananana* in it. I can feel it doin me good. It is v. damp here. I hope we find somewhere to stay tonigt I expect we shal becaus Esme alweys falls on her feet or at any rate on someones feet. I have drawern a picture of a banananana dakry you can see it is empty right down to the bottom. Love, MUM XXXX\n\nIn the end they found a stable. It was, as Nanny Ogg cheerfully commented, probably warmer and more hygienic than any of the inns and there were millions of people in foreign parts who'd give their right arms for such a comfy, dry place to sleep.\n\nThis cut about as much ice as a soap hacksaw.\n\nIt doesn't take much to make witches fall out.\n\nMagrat lay awake, using her sack of clothes as a pillow and listening to the warm soft rain on the roof.\n\nIt's all gone wrong before we've even started, she thought. I don't know why I let them come with me. I'm perfectly capable of doing something by myself for once, but they always treat me as if I was a...a wet hen. I don't see why I should have to put up with her sulking and snapping at me the whole time. What's so special about her, anyway? She hardly ever does anything really magical, whatever Nanny says. She really does just shout a lot and bully people. And as for Nanny, she means well but she has no sense of responsibility. I thought I'd die when she started singing the Hedgehog Song in the inn, I just hope to goodness the people didn't know what the words meant.\n\nI'm the fairy godmother around here. We're not at home now. There's got to be different ways of doing things, in foreign parts.\n\nShe got up at first light. The other two were asleep, although \"asleep\" was too moderate a word for the sounds Granny Weatherwax was making.\n\nMagrat put on her best dress, the green silk one that was unfortunately now a mass of creases. She took out a bundle of tissue paper and slowly unwrapped her occult jewelry; Magrat bought occult jewelry as a sort of distraction from being Magrat. She had three large boxes of the stuff and was still exactly the same person.\n\nShe did her best to remove the straw from her hair. Then she unpacked the magic wand.\n\nShe wished she had a mirror to inspect herself in.\n\n\"I've got the wand,\" she said quietly. \"I don't see why I need any help. Desiderata said I was to tell them not to help.\"\n\nIt crossed her mind to reflect that Desiderata had been very lax on that point. The one thing you could be sure of, if you told Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg not to help, was that they would rush to help if only out of spite. It was quite surprising to Magrat that anyone as clever as Desiderata should have slipped up on that minor point. She'd probably got a psycholology too\u2014whatever that was.\n\nMoving quietly, so as not to wake the other two, she opened the door and stepped lightly into the damp air. Wand at the ready, she was prepared to give the world whatever it wished for.\n\nIt would help if this included pumpkins.\n\nNanny Ogg opened one eye as the door creaked shut.\n\nShe sat up and yawned and scratched herself. She fumbled in her hat and retrieved her pipe. She nudged Granny Weatherwax in the ribs.\n\n\"I ain't asleep,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Magrat's gone off somewhere.\"\n\n\"Hah!\"\n\n\"And I'm going out to get something to eat,\" muttered Nanny. There was no talking to Esme when she was in that kind of mood.\n\nAs she stepped out Greebo dropped lightly off a beam and landed on her shoulder.\n\nNanny Ogg, one of life's great optimists, stepped out to take whatever the future had to offer.\n\nPreferably with rum and bananas in it.\n\nThe house wasn't hard to find. Desiderata had made very exact notes.\n\nMagrat's gaze took in the high white walls and ornate metal balconies. She tried to straighten a few wrinkles in her dress, tugged some recalcitrant bits of hay from her hair, and then marched up the driveway and knocked on the door.\n\nThe knocker broke off in her hand.\n\nLooking around anxiously lest someone should have noted this vandalism, Magrat tried to wedge it back. It fell off, knocking a lump out of the marble step.\n\nFinally she knocked gently with her knuckle. A fine cloud of paint dust lifted off the door and floated down to the ground. That was the only effect.\n\nMagrat considered her next move. She was pretty sure that fairy godmothers weren't supposed to leave a little card pushed under the door saying something like \"Called today but you were out, please contact the depot for a further appointment.\" Anyway, this wasn't the kind of house that got left empty; there would be a score of servants infesting a place like this.\n\nShe crunched over the gravel and peered around the side of the house. Maybe the back door...witches were generally more at home around back doors...\n\n##\n\nNanny Ogg always was. She was heading for the one belonging to the palace. It was easy enough to get into; this wasn't a castle like the ones back home, which expressed very clear ideas about inside and outside and were built to keep the two separate. This was, well, a fairy-tale castle, all icing-sugar battlements and tiny, towering turrets. Anyway, no one took much notice of little old ladies. Little old ladies were by definition harmless, although in a string of villages across several thousand miles of continent this definition was currently being updated.\n\nCastles, in Nanny Ogg's experience, were like swans. They looked as if they were drifting regally through the waters of Time, but in fact there was a hell of a lot of activity going on underneath. There'd be a maze of pantries and kitchens and laundries and stables and breweries\u2014she liked the idea of breweries\u2014and people never noticed another old biddy around the place, eating any spare grub that was lying around.\n\nBesides, you got gossip. Nanny Ogg liked gossip, too.\n\nGranny Weatherwax wandered disconsolately along the clean streets. She wasn't looking for the other two. She was quite certain of that. Of course, she might just happen to bump into them, sort of accidentally, and give them a meaningful look. But she certainly wasn't looking for them.\n\nThere was a crowd at the end of the street. Working on the reasonable assumption that Nanny Ogg might be in the middle of it, Granny Weatherwax drifted over.\n\nNanny wasn't there. But there was a raised platform. And a small man in chains. And some bright-uniformed guards. One of them was holding an axe.\n\nYou did not have to be a great world traveler to understand that the purpose of this tableau was not to give the chained man a signed testimonial and a collection from everyone at the office.\n\nGranny nudged a bystander.\n\n\"What's happening?\"\n\nThe man looked sideways at her.\n\n\"The guards caught him thieving,\" he said.\n\n\"Ah. Well, he looks guilty enough,\" said Granny. People in chains had a tendency to look guilty. \"So what're they going to do to him?\"\n\n\"Teach him a lesson.\"\n\n\"How d'they do that, then?\"\n\n\"See the axe?\"\n\nGranny's eyes hadn't left it the whole time. But now she let her attention rove over the crowd, picking up scraps of thought.\n\nAn ant has an easy mind to read. There's just one stream of big simple thoughts: Carry, Carry, Bite, Get Into The Sandwiches, Carry, Eat. Something like a dog is more complicated\u2014a dog can be thinking several thoughts at the same time. But a human mind is a great sullen lightning-filled cloud of thoughts, all of them occupying a finite amount of brain processing time. Finding whatever the owner thinks they're thinking in the middle of the smog of prejudices, memories, worries, hopes and fears is almost impossible.\n\nBut enough people thinking much the same thing can be heard, and Granny Weatherwax was aware of the fear.\n\n\"Looks like it'll be a lesson he won't forget in a hurry,\" she murmured.\n\n\"I reckon he'll forget it quite quickly,\" said the watcher, and then shuffled away from Granny, in the same way that people move away from lightning rods during a thunderstorm.\n\nAnd at this point Granny picked up the discordant note in the orchestra of thought. In the middle of it were two minds that were not human.\n\nTheir shape was as simple, clean and purposeful as a naked blade. She'd felt minds like that before, and had never cherished the experience.\n\nShe scanned the crowd and found the minds' owners. They were staring unblinkingly at the figures on the platform.\n\nThe watchers were women, or at least currently the same shape as women; taller than she was, slender as sticks, and wearing broad hats with veils that covered their faces. Their dresses shimmered in the sunlight\u2014possibly blue, possibly yellow, possibly green. Possibly patterned. It was impossible to tell. The merest movement changed the colors.\n\nShe couldn't make out their faces.\n\nThere were witches in Genua all right. One witch, anyway.\n\nA sound from the platform made her turn.\n\nAnd she knew why people in Genua were quiet and nice.\n\nThere were countries in foreign parts, Granny had heard, where they chopped off the hands of thieves so that they wouldn't steal again. And she'd never been happy with that idea.\n\nThey didn't do that in Genua. They cut their heads off so they wouldn't think of stealing again.\n\nGranny knew exactly where the witches were in Genua now.\n\nThey were in charge.\n\nMagrat reached the house's back door. It was ajar.\n\nShe pulled herself together again.\n\nShe knocked, in a polite, diffident sort of way.\n\n\"Er\u2014\" she said.\n\nA bowlful of dirty water hit her full in the face. Through the tidal roaring of a pair of ears full of suds, she heard a voice say, \"Gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was standing there.\"\n\nMagrat wiped the water out of her eyes, and tried to focus on the dim figure in front of her. A kind of narrative certainty rose in her mind.\n\n\"Is your name Ella?\" she said.\n\n\"That's right. Who're you?\"\n\nMagrat looked her new-found god-daughter up and down. She was the most attractive young woman Magrat had ever seen\u2014skin as brown as a nut, hair so blond as to be almost white, a combination not totally unusual in such an easygoing city as Genua had once been.\n\nWhat were you supposed to say at a time like this?\n\nShe removed a piece of potato peel from her nose.\n\n\"I'm your fairy godmother,\" she said. \"Funny thing, it sounds silly now I come to tell someone\u2014\"\n\nElla peered at her.\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"Um. Yes. I've got the wand, and everything.\" Magrat waggled the wand, in case this helped. It didn't.\n\nElla put her head on one side.\n\n\"I thought you people were supposed to appear in a shower of glittering little lights and a twinkly noise,\" she said suspiciously.\n\n\"Look, you just get the wand,\" said Magrat desperately. \"You don't get a whole book of instructions.\"\n\nElla gave her another searching look. Then she said, \"I suppose you'd better come in, then. You're just in time. I was making a cup of tea, anyway.\"\n\nThe iridescent women got into an open-topped carriage. Beautiful as they were, Granny noted, they walked awkwardly.\n\nWell, they would. They wouldn't be used to legs.\n\nShe also noticed the way people didn't look at the carriage. It wasn't that they didn't see it. It was simply that they wouldn't let their gaze dwell on it, as if merely recognizing it would lead them into trouble.\n\nAnd she noticed the coach horses. They had better senses than the humans did. They knew what was behind them, and they didn't like it at all.\n\nShe followed them as they trotted, flat-eared and wild-eyed, through the streets. Eventually they were driven into the driveway of a big and dilapidated house near the palace.\n\nGranny lurked by the wall and noted the details. Plaster was dropping off the house walls, and even the knocker had fallen off the door.\n\nGranny Weatherwax did not believe in atmospheres. She did not believe in psychic auras. Being a witch, she'd always thought, depended more on what you didn't believe. But she was prepared to believe that there was something very unpleasant in that house. Not evil. The two not-exactly-women weren't evil, in the same way that a dagger or a sheer cliff isn't evil. Being evil means being able to make choices. But the hand wielding a dagger or pushing a body over a cliff could be evil, and something like that was going on.\n\nShe really wished that she didn't know who was behind it.\n\nPeople like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It's as if there's some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren't averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally sold in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs.*\n\nThey tend to attract one another. Possibly they broadcast inaudible signals indicating that here is someone who could be persuaded to go \"Ooo\" at pictures of other people's grandchildren.\n\nNanny Ogg had found a friend. Her name was Mrs. Pleasant, she was a cook, and she was the first black person Nanny had ever spoken to.* She was also a cook of that very superior type who spends most of the time holding court in a chair in the center of the kitchen, apparently taking very little heed of the activity going on around her.\n\nOccasionally she'd give an order. And they'd only need to be occasionally, because she'd seen to it over the years that people either did things her way or not at all. Once or twice, with some ceremony, she'd get up, taste something, and maybe add a pinch of salt.\n\nSuch people are always ready to chat to any wandering peddlers, herbalists, or little old women with cats on their shoulders. Greebo rode on Nanny's shoulder as though he'd just eaten the parrot.\n\n\"You be a-comin' here for Fat Lunchtime, then?\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\n\"Helping a friend with a bit of business,\" said Nanny. \"My, these biscuits are tasty.\"\n\n\"I means, I see by your eye,\" said Mrs. Pleasant, pushing the plate nearer to her, \"that you are of a magical persuasion.\"\n\n\"Then you sees a lot further than most people in these parts,\" said Nanny. \"Y'know, what'd improve these biscuits no end'd be something to dip 'em in, what d'you think?\"\n\n\"How 'bout something with bananas in it?\"\n\n\"Bananas would be just the thing,\" said Nanny happily. Mrs. Pleasant waved imperiously at one of the maids, who set to work.\n\nNanny sat on her chair, swinging her stumpy legs and looking around the kitchen with interest. A score of cooks were working with the single-mindedness of an artillery platoon laying down a barrage. Huge cakes were being constructed. In the fireplaces whole carcasses of animals were being roasted; turnspit dogs galloped in their treadmills. A huge man with a bald head and a scar right across his face was patiently inserting little sticks into sausages.\n\nNanny hadn't had any breakfast. Greebo had had some breakfast, but this didn't make any difference. They were both undergoing a sort of exquisite culinary torture.\n\nThey both turned, as if hypnotized, to watch two maids stagger by under a tray of canap\u00e9s.\n\n\"I can see you is a very observant woman, Mrs. Ogg,\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\n\"Just a slice,\" said Nanny, without thinking.\n\n\"I also determines,\" Mrs. Pleasant said, after a while, \"that you have a cat of no usual breed upon your shoulder there.\"\n\n\"You're right there.\"\n\n\"I knows I'm right.\"\n\nA brimming glass of yellow foam was slid in front of Nanny. She looked at it reflectively and tried to get back to the matter in hand.\n\n\"So,\" she said, \"where would I go, do you think, to find out about how you do magic in\u2014\"\n\n\"Would you like somethin' to eat?\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\n\"What? My word!\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant rolled her eyes.\n\n\"Not this stuff. I wouldn't eat this stuff,\" she said bitterly.\n\nNanny's face fell.\n\n\"But you cook it,\" she pointed out.\n\n\"Only 'cos I'm told to. The old Baron knew what good food was. This stuff? It's nothing but pork and beef and lamb and rubbish for them that never tasted anything better. The only thing on four legs that's worth eating is alligator. I mean real food.\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant looked around at the kitchen.\n\n\"Sara!\" she shouted.\n\nOne of the sub-cooks turned around.\n\n\"Yes, 'm?\"\n\n\"Me and this lady is just going out. Just you see to everything, okay?\"\n\n\"Yes, 'm.\"\n\nMrs. Pleasant stood up and nodded meaningfully at Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Walls have ears,\" she said.\n\n\"Coo! Do they?\"\n\n\"We goin' to go for a little stroll.\"\n\nThere were, it now seemed to Nanny Ogg, two cities in Genua. There was the white one, all new houses and blue-roofed palaces, and around it and even under it was the old one. The new one might not like the presence of the old one, but it couldn't quite ever do without it. Someone, somewhere, has to do the cooking.\n\nNanny Ogg quite liked cooking, provided there were other people around to do things like chop up the vegetables and wash the dishes afterward. She'd always reckoned that she could do things to a bit of beef that the bullock had never thought of. But now she realized that wasn't cooking. Not compared to cooking in Genua. It was just staying alive as pleasantly as possible. Cooking anywhere outside Genua was just heating up things like bits of animals and birds and fish and vegetables until they went brown.\n\nAnd yet the weird thing was that the cooks in Genua had nothing edible to cook; at least, not what Nanny would have thought of as food. To her mind, food went around on four legs, or possibly one pair of legs and one pair of wings. Or at least it had fins on. The idea of food with more than four legs was an entirely new kettle of fi\u2014of miscellaneous swimming things.\n\nThey didn't have much to cook in Genua. So they cooked everything. Nanny had never heard of prawns or crawfish or lobsters; it just looked to her as though the citizens of Genua dredged the river bottom and boiled whatever came up.\n\nThe point was that a good German cook could more or less take the squeezings of a handful of mud, a few dead leaves and a pinch or two of some unpronounceable herbs and produce a meal to make a gourmet burst into tears of gratitude and swear to be a better person for the rest of their entire life if they could just have one more plateful.\n\nNanny Ogg ambled along as Mrs. Pleasant led her through the market. She peered at cages of snakes, and racks of mysteriously tendrilled herbs. She prodded trays of bivalves. She stopped for a chat to the Nanny Ogg-shaped ladies who ran the little stalls that, for a couple of pennies, dispensed strange chowders and shellfish in a bun. She sampled everything. She was enjoying herself immensely. Genua, city of cooks, had found the appetite it deserved.\n\nShe finished a plate of fish and exchanged a nod and a grin with the little old woman who ran the fish stall.\n\n\"Well, all this is\u2014\" she began, turning to Mrs. Pleasant.\n\nMrs. Pleasant had gone.\n\nSome people would have bustled off to look for her in the crowds, but Nanny Ogg just stood and thought.\n\nI asked about magic, she thought, and she brought me here and left me. Because of them walls with ears in, I expect. So maybe I got to do the rest myself.\n\nShe looked around her. There was a very rough tent a little way from the stalls, right by the river. There was no sign outside it, but there was a pot bubbling gently over a fire. Rough clay bowls were stacked beside the pot. Occasionally someone would step out of the crowd, help themselves to a bowlful of whatever was in the pot, and then throw a handful of coins into the plate in front of the tent.\n\nNanny wandered over and looked into the pot. Things came to the surface and sank again. The general color was brown. Bubbles formed, grew, and burst stickily with an organic \"blop.\" Anything could be happening in that pot. Life could be spontaneously creating.\n\nNanny Ogg would try anything once. Some things she'd try several thousand times.\n\nShe unhooked the ladle, picked up a bowl, and helped herself.\n\nA moment later she pushed aside the tent flap and looked into the blackness of the interior.\n\nA figure was seated cross-legged in the gloom, smoking a pipe.\n\n\"Mind if I step inside?\" said Nanny.\n\nThe figure nodded.\n\nNanny sat down. After a decent interval she pulled out her own pipe.\n\n\"Mrs. Pleasant's a friend of yours, I expect.\"\n\n\"She knows me.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\nFrom outside, there was the occasional clink as customers helped themselves.\n\nBlue smoke coiled from Nanny Ogg's pipe.\n\n\"I don't reckon,\" she said, \"that many people goes away without paying.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nAfter another pause Nanny Ogg said: \"I 'spects some of 'em tries to pay with gold and jewels and scented ungulants and stuff like that?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Amazin'.\"\n\nNanny Ogg sat in silence for a while, listening to the distant noises of the market and summoning her powers.\n\n\"What's it called?\"\n\n\"Gumbo.\"\n\n\"It's good.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"I reckon anyone who could cook like that could do anything\"\u2014Nanny Ogg concentrated\u2014\"Mrs.... Gogol.\"\n\nShe waited.\n\n\"Pretty near, Mrs. Ogg.\"\n\nThe two women stared at one another's shadowy outline, like plotters who had given the sign and countersign and were waiting to see what would happen next.\n\n\"Where I come from, we call it witchcraft,\" said Nanny, under her breath.\n\n\"Where I come from, we call it voodoo,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\nNanny's wrinkled forehead wrinkled still further.\n\n\"Ain't that all messin' with dolls and dead people and stuff?\" she said.\n\n\"Ain't witchcraft all runnin' around with no clothes on and stickin' pins in people?\" said Mrs. Gogol levelly.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Nanny. \"I sees what you mean.\"\n\nShe shifted uneasily. She was a fundamentally honest woman.\n\n\"I got to admit, though...\" she added, \"sometimes...maybe just one pin...\"\n\nMrs. Gogol nodded gravely. \"Okay. Sometimes...maybe just one zombie,\" she said.\n\n\"But only when there ain't no alternative.\"\n\n\"Sure. When there ain't no alternative.\"\n\n\"When...you know...people ain't showing respect, like.\"\n\n\"When the house needs paintin'.\"\n\nNanny grinned, toothily. Mrs. Gogol grinned, outnumbering her in teeth by a factor of thirty.\n\n\"My full name's Gytha Ogg,\" she said. \"People calls me Nanny.\"\n\n\"My full name's Erzulie Gogol,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"People call me Mrs. Gogol.\"\n\n\"The way I saw it,\" said Nanny, \"this is foreign parts, so maybe there's a different kind of magic. Stands to reason. The trees is different, the people is different, the drinks is different and has got banana in 'em, so the magic'd be different too. Then I thought...Gytha, my girl, you're never too old to learn.\"\n\n\"Sure thing.\"\n\n\"There's something wrong with this city. Felt it as soon as we set foot here.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol nodded.\n\nThere was no sound for a while but the occasional puffing of a pipe.\n\nThen there was a clink from outside, followed by a thoughtful pause.\n\nA voice said, \"Gytha Ogg? I know you're in there.\"\n\nThe outline of Mrs. Gogol took its pipe out of its mouth.\n\n\"That's good,\" she said. \"Good sense of taste there.\"\n\nThe tent flap opened.\n\n\"Hallo, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Blessings be on this...tent,\" said Granny Weatherwax, peering into the gloom.\n\n\"This here's Mrs. Gogol,\" said Nanny. \"She's by way of bein' a voodoo lady. That's what witches are in these parts.\"\n\n\"They ain't the only witches in these parts,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Mrs. Gogol was very impressed at you detecting me in here,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"It wasn't hard,\" said Granny. \"Once I'd spotted that Greebo washing himself outside, the rest was all deduction.\"\n\nIn the gloom of the tent Nanny had formed a mental picture of Mrs. Gogol as being old. What she hadn't expected, when the voodoo lady stepped out into the open air, was a handsome middle-aged woman taller than Granny. Mrs. Gogol wore heavy gold earrings, a white blouse and a full red skirt with flounces. Nanny could feel Granny Weatherwax's disapproval. What they said about women with red skirts was even worse than whatever they said about women with red shoes, whatever that was.\n\nMrs. Gogol stopped and raised an arm. There was a flurry of wings.\n\nGreebo, who had been rubbing obsequiously against Nanny's leg, looked up and hissed. The largest and blackest cockerel Nanny had ever seen had settled on Mrs. Gogol's shoulder. It turned on her the most intelligent stare she had ever seen on a bird.\n\n\"My word,\" she said, taken aback. \"That's the biggest cock I've ever seen, and I've seen a few in my time.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol raised one disapproving eyebrow.\n\n\"She never had no proper upbringing,\" said Granny.\n\n\"What with living next to a chicken farm and all, is what I was going to say next,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"This is Legba, a dark and dangerous spirit,\" said Mrs. Gogol. She leaned closer and spoke out of the corner of her mouth. \"Between you and me, he just a big black cockerel. But you know how it is.\"\n\n\"It pays to advertise,\" Nanny agreed. \"This is Greebo. Between you and me, he's a fiend from hell.\"\n\n\"Well, he's a cat,\" said Mrs. Gogol, generously. \"It's only to be expected.\"\n\nDear Jason and everyone,\n\nIsn't it amazing the things what happen when you dont expect it, for example we met Mrs. Gogol who works as a coke by day but is a Voodoo witch, you mustnt beleive all the stuff about black magic, exetra, this is a Blind, shes just like us only different. Its true about the zombies though but its not what you think...\n\nGenua was a strange city, Nanny decided. You got off the main streets, walked along a side road, went through a little gate and suddenly there were trees everywhere, with moss and them llamas hanging from them, and the ground began to wobble underfoot and become swamp. On either side of the track there were dark pools in which, here and there, among the lilies, were the kind of logs the witches had never seen before.\n\n\"Them's bloody big newts,\" she said.\n\n\"They're alligators.\"\n\n\"By gods. They must get good grub.\"\n\n\"Yeah!\"\n\nMrs. Gogol's house itself looked a simple affair of driftwood from the river, roofed with moss and built out over the swamp itself on four stout poles. It was close enough to the center of the city that Nanny could hear street cries and the clip-clop of hooves, but the shack in its little swamp was wreathed in silence.\n\n\"Don't people bother you here?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Not them as I don't want to meet.\" The lily pads moved. A v-shaped ripple drifted across the nearest pool.\n\n\"Self-reliance,\" said Granny approvingly. \"That's always very important.\"\n\nNanny regarded the reptiles with a calculating stare. They tried to match it, and gave up when their eyes started watering.\n\n\"I reckon I could just do with a couple of them at home,\" she said thoughtfully, as they slid away again. \"Our Jason could dig another pond, no problem. What was it you said they et?\"\n\n\"Anything they want to.\"\n\n\"I knows a joke about alligators,\" said Granny, in the tones of one announcing a great and solemn truth.\n\n\"You never!\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I never heard you tell a joke in your whole life!\"\n\n\"Just because I don't tell 'em don't mean I don't know 'em,\" said Granny haughtily. \"It's about this man\u2014\"\n\n\"What man?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"This man went into an inn. Yes. It was an inn. And he saw a sign. The sign said 'We serve every kind of sandwich.' So he said 'Get me an alligator sandwich\u2014and make it quick!'\"\n\nThey looked at her.\n\nNanny Ogg turned to Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"So...you live alone here, then?\" she said brightly. \"Not a living soul around?\"\n\n\"In a manner of speakin',\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"You see, the point is, alligators are\u2014\" Granny began, in a loud voice, and then stopped.\n\nThe shack's door had opened.\n\nThis was another big kitchen.* Once upon a time it had provided employment for half a dozen cooks. Now it was a cave, its far corners shadowy, its hanging saucepans and tureens dulled by dust. The big tables had been pushed to one side and stacked almost ceiling high with ancient crockery; the stoves, which looked big enough to take whole cows and cook for an army, stood cold.\n\nIn the middle of the gray desolation someone had set up a small table by the fireplace. It was on a square of bright carpet. A jam-jar contained flowers that had been arranged by the simple method of grabbing a handful of them and ramming them in. The effect was a little area of slightly soppy brightness in the general gloom.\n\nElla shuffled a few things around desperately and then stood looking at Magrat with a sort of defensively shy smile.\n\n\"Silly of me, really. I expect you're used to this sort of thing,\" she said.\n\n\"Um. Yes. Oh, yes. All the time,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It was just that I expected you to be a bit...older? Apparently you were at my christening?\"\n\n\"Ah. Yes?\" said Magrat. \"Well, you see, the thing is\u2014\"\n\n\"Still, I expect you can look like whatever you want,\" said Ella helpfully.\n\n\"Ah. Yes. Er.\"\n\nElla looked slightly puzzled for a moment, as if trying to work out why\u2014if Magrat could look like whatever she wanted\u2014she'd chosen to look like Magrat.\n\n\"Well, now,\" she said. \"What do we do next?\"\n\n\"You mentioned tea,\" said Magrat, buying time.\n\n\"Oh, sure.\" Ella turned to the fireplace, where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist's fire.*\n\n\"What's your name?\" she said over her shoulder.\n\n\"Magrat,\" said Magrat, sitting.\n\n\"That's a...nice name,\" said Ella, politely. \"Of course, you know mine. Mind you, I spend so much time cooking over this wretched thing now that Mrs. Pleasant calls me Embers. Silly, isn't it.\"\n\nEmberella, thought Magrat. I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.\n\n\"It could use a little work,\" she conceded.\n\n\"I haven't the heart to tell her off, she thinks it sounds jolly,\" she said. \"I think it sounds like something you put up in the rain.\"\n\n\"Oh, I wouldn't say that,\" said Magrat. \"Uh. Who's Mrs. Pleasant?\"\n\n\"She's the cook at the palace. She comes around to cheer me up when they're out...\"\n\nElla spun around, holding the blackened kettle like a weapon.\n\n\"I'm not going to that ball!\" she snapped. \"I'm not going to marry the prince! Do you understand?\"\n\nThe words came out like steel ingots.\n\n\"Right! Right!\" said Magrat, taken aback by their force.\n\n\"He looks slimy. He makes my flesh crawl,\" said Embers darkly. \"They say he's got funny eyes. And everyone knows what he does at night!\"\n\nEveryone bar one, Magrat thought. No one ever tells me things like that.\n\nAloud, she said: \"Well, it shouldn't be too much to arrange. I mean, normally it's marrying princes that's the hard bit.\"\n\n\"Not for me it isn't,\" said Embers. \"It's all been arranged. My other godmother says I've got to do it. She says it's my destiny.\"\n\n\"Other godmother?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Everyone gets two,\" said Ella. \"The good one and the bad one. You know that. Which one are you?\"\n\nMagrat's mind raced.\n\n\"Oh, the good one,\" she said. \"Definitely.\"\n\n\"Funny thing,\" said Ella. \"That's just what the other one said, too.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax sat in her special knees-clenched, elbows-in way that put as little as possible of herself in contact with the outside world.\n\n\"By gor', this is good stuff,\" said Nanny Ogg, polishing her plate with what Granny could only hope was bread. \"You ought to try a drop, Esme.\"\n\n\"Another helping, Mrs. Ogg?\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Don't mind if I do, Mrs. Gogol.\" Nanny nudged Granny in the ribs. \"It's really good, Esme. Just like stew.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol looked at Granny with her head on one side.\n\n\"I think perhaps Mistress Weatherwax isn't worried about the food,\" she said. \"I think Mistress Weatherwax is worried about the service.\"\n\nA shadow loomed over Nanny Ogg. A gray hand took her plate away.\n\nGranny Weatherwax gave a little cough.\n\n\"I've got nothing against dead people,\" she said. \"Some of my best friends are dead. It just don't seem right, though, dead people walking about.\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked up at the figure even now ladling a third helping of mysterious liquid onto her plate.\n\n\"What d' you think about it, Mr. Zombie?\"\n\n\"It's a great life, Mrs. Ogg,\" said the zombie.\n\n\"There. See, Esme? He don't mind. Better than being shut up in a stuffy coffin all day, I'll be bound.\"\n\nGranny looked up at the zombie. He was\u2014or, technically, had been\u2014a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs.\n\n\"What's your name, dead man?\" she said.\n\n\"I am called Saturday.\"\n\n\"Man Saturday, eh?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"No. Just Saturday, Mrs. Ogg. Just Saturday.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked into his eyes. They were more sentient than most eyes she had seen that belonged to people who were, technically, alive.\n\nShe was vaguely aware that there were things you had to do to a dead person to turn them into a zombie, although it was a branch of magic she'd never wanted to investigate. Yet you needed more than just a lot of weird fish innards and foreign roots\u2014the person had to want to come back. They had to have some terrible dream or desire or purpose that would enable them to overcome the grave itself...\n\nSaturday's eyes burned.\n\nShe reached a decision. She held out a hand.\n\n\"Very pleased to meet you, Mister Saturday,\" she said. \"And I'm sure I'd enjoy your lovely stew.\"\n\n\"It's called gumbo,\" said Nanny. \"It's got lady's fingers in it.\"\n\n\"I know well enough that lady's fingers is a kind of plant, thank you very much,\" said Granny. \"I'm not entirely ignorant.\"\n\n\"All right, but make sure you get a helping with snakes' heads in it as well,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"They're the best part.\"\n\n\"What kind of plant is snakes' heads?\"\n\n\"Best if you just eat up, I reckon,\" said Nanny.\n\nThey were sitting on the warped wood veranda around the back of Mrs. Gogol's shack, overlooking the swamp. Mossy beards hung from every branch. Unseen creatures buzzed in the greenery. And everywhere there were v-shaped ripples cutting gently through the water.\n\n\"I expect it's really nice here when the sun's out,\" said Nanny.\n\nSaturday trudged into the shack and returned with a makeshift fishing pole, which he baited and cast over the rail. Then he sort of switched off; no one has more patience than a zombie.\n\nMrs. Gogol leaned back in her rocking-chair and lit her pipe.\n\n\"This used to be a great ole city,\" she said.\n\n\"What happened to it?\" said Nanny.\n\nGreebo was having a lot of trouble with Legba the cockerel.\n\nFor one thing, the bird refused to be terrorized. Greebo could terrorize most things that moved upon the face of the Discworld, even creatures nominally much bigger and tougher than he was. Yet somehow none of his well-tried tactics\u2014the yawn, the stare and above all the slow grin\u2014seemed to work. Legba merely looked down his beak at him, and pretended to scratch at the ground in a way that brought his two-inch spurs into even greater prominence.\n\nThat only left the flying leap. This worked on nearly every creature. Very few animals remained calm in the face of an enraged ball of whirring claws in the face. In the case of this bird, Greebo suspected, it might well result in his becoming a furry kebab.\n\nBut this had to be resolved. Otherwise generations of cats would laugh at him.\n\nCat and bird circled through the swamp, each apparently paying the other no attention whatsoever.\n\nThings gibbered in the trees. Small iridescent birds barreled through the air. Greebo glared up at them. He would sort them out later.\n\nAnd the cockerel had vanished.\n\nGreebo's ears flattened against his head.\n\nThere was still the birdsong and the whine of insects, but they were elsewhere. Here there was silence\u2014hot, dark and oppressive\u2014and trees that were somehow much closer together than he remembered.\n\nGreebo looked around.\n\nHe was in a clearing. Around its sides, hanging from bushes or tied to trees, were things. Bits of ribbon. White bones. Tin pots. Perfectly ordinary things, anywhere else.\n\nAnd in the center of the clearing, something like a scarecrow. An upright pole with a crosspiece, on which someone had put an old black coat. Above the coat, on the tip of the pole, was a top hat. On top of the hat, watching him thoughtfully, was Legba.\n\nA breeze blew through the stifling air, causing the coat to flap gently.\n\nGreebo remembered a day when he'd chased a rat into the village windmill and had suddenly found that what had seemed merely a room with odd furniture in it was a great big machine which would, if he put a paw wrong, crush him utterly.\n\nThe air sizzled gently. He could feel his fur standing on end.\n\nGreebo turned and stalked away haughtily, until he judged himself out of sight, whereupon his legs spun so fast that his paws skidded.\n\nThen he went and grinned at some alligators, but his heart wasn't in it.\n\nIn the clearing, the coat moved gently again and then was still. Somehow, that was worse.\n\nLegba watched. The air grew heavier, just as it does before a storm.\n\n\"This used to be a great old city. A happy place. No one tried to make it happy. It just happened, all by itself,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"That was when the old Baron was alive. But he was murdered.\"\n\n\"Who done it?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Everyone knows it was the Duc,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\nThe witches looked at one another. Royal intrigues were obviously a bit different in foreign parts.\n\n\"Pecked to death, was he?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"A foul deed?\" said Granny.\n\n\"The Duc is a title, not a bird,\" said Mrs. Gogol patiently. \"The Baron was poisoned. It was a terrible night. And, in the morning, the Duc was in the palace. Then there was the matter of the will.\"\n\n\"Don't tell me,\" said Granny. \"I bet there was a will leaving everything to this Duc. I bet the ink was still wet.\"\n\n\"How did you know that?\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Stands to reason,\" said Granny loftily.\n\n\"The Baron had a young daughter,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"She'd be still alive, I reckon,\" said Granny.\n\n\"You surely know a lot of things, lady,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Why'd you think that, then?\"\n\n\"Well...\" said Granny. She was about to say: because I know how the stories work. But Nanny Ogg interrupted.\n\n\"If this Baron was as great as you say, he must have had a lot of friends in the city, right?\" she said.\n\n\"That is so. The people liked him.\"\n\n\"Well, if I was a Duc with no more claim on things than a smudgy will and a little bottle of ink with the cork still out, I'd be lookin' for any chance to make things a bit more official,\" said Nanny. \"Marryin' the real heir'd be favorite. He could thumb his nose at everyone, then. I bet she don't know who she really is, eh?\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"The Duc's got friends, too. Or keepers, maybe. Not people you'd want to cross. They've brought her up, and they don't let her out much.\"\n\nThe witches sat in silence for a while.\n\nGranny thought: no. That's not quite right. That's how it'd appear in a history book. But that's not the story.\n\nThen Granny said, \"'Scuse me, Mrs. Gogol, but where do you come in all this? No offense, but I reckon that out here in the swamp it'd be all the same whoever was doing the rulin'.\"\n\nFor the first time since they'd met her, Mrs. Gogol looked momentarily uneasy.\n\n\"The Baron was...a friend of mine,\" she said.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Granny understandingly.\n\n\"He wasn't keen on zombies, mark you. He said he thought the dead should be allowed their rest. But he never insisted. Whereas this new one...\n\n\"Not keen on the Interestin' Arts?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Oh, I reckon he is,\" said Granny. \"He'd have to be. Not your magic, maybe, but I bet he's got a lot of magic around him.\"\n\n\"Why d'you say that, lady?\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Well,\" said Nanny, \"I can see that you, being a lady o' spirit, wouldn't put up with this if you didn't have to. There's lots of ways to sort matters out, I 'spect. I 'spect, if you dint like someone, their legs might unexpectedly drop off, or they might find mysterious snakes in their boots...\"\n\n\"Alleygators under their bed,\" suggested Granny.\n\n\"Yes. He's got protection,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\n\"Powerful magic.\"\n\n\"More powerful'n you?\" said Granny.\n\nThere was a long and difficult pause.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\n\"For now,\" Mrs. Gogol added.\n\nThere was another pause. No witch ever liked admitting to less than near-absolute power, or even hearing another witch doing so.\n\n\"You're biding your time, I expect,\" said Granny kindly.\n\n\"Wifing your strength,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"It's powerful protection,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\nGranny sat back in her chair. When she spoke next, it was as a person who has certain ideas in their mind and wants to find out what someone else knows.\n\n\"What sort?\" she said. \"Exactly?\"\n\nMrs. Gogol reached into the cushions of her rocking-chair and, after some rummaging, produced a leather bag and a pipe. She lit the pipe and puffed a cloud of bluish smoke into the morning air.\n\n\"You look in mirrors a lot these days, Mistress Weatherwax?\" she said.\n\nGranny's chair tipped backward, almost throwing her off the veranda and into the inky waters. Her hat flew away into the lily pads.\n\nShe had time to see it settle gently on the water. It floated for a moment and then\u2014\n\n\u2014was eaten. A very large alligator snapped its jaws shut and gazed smugly at Granny.\n\nIt was a relief to have something to shout about.\n\n\"My hat! It ate my hat! One of your alleygators ate my hat! It was my hat! Make it give it back!\"\n\nShe snatched a length of creeper off the nearest tree and flailed at the water.\n\nNanny Ogg backed away.\n\n\"You shouldn't do that, Esme! You shouldn't do that!\" she quavered. The alligator backed water.\n\n\"I can hit cheeky lizards if I want!\"\n\n\"Yes, you can, you can,\" said Nanny soothingly, \"but not...with a...snake...\"\n\nGranny held up the creeper for inspection. A medium-sized Three-Banded Coit gave her a frightened look, considered biting her nose for a moment, thought better of it, and then shut its mouth very tightly in the hope she'd get the message. She opened her hand. The snake dropped to the boards and slithered away quickly.\n\nMrs. Gogol hadn't stirred in her chair. Now she half turned. Saturday was still patiently watching his fishing line.\n\n\"Saturday, go and fetch the lady's hat,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, m'm.\"\n\nEven Granny hesitated at that.\n\n\"You can't make him do that!\" she said.\n\n\"But he's dead,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Yes, but it's bad enough being dead without bein' in bits too,\" said Granny. \"Don't you go in there, Mr. Saturday!\"\n\n\"But it was your hat, lady,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Yes, but...\" said Granny, \"...a...hat was all it was. I wouldn't send anyone into any alligators for any hat.\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked horrified.\n\nNo one knew better than Granny Weatherwax that hats were important. They weren't just clothing. Hats defined the head. They defined who you were. No one had ever heard of a wizard without a pointy hat\u2014at least, no wizard worth speaking of. And you certainly never heard of a witch without one. Even Magrat had one, although she hardly ever wore it on account of being a wet hen. That didn't matter too much; it wasn't the wearing of the hats that counted so much as having one to wear. Every trade, every craft had its hat. That's why kings had hats. Take the crown off a king and all you had was someone good at having a weak chin and waving to people. Hats had power. Hats were important. But so were people.\n\nMrs. Gogol took another puff at her pipe.\n\n\"Saturday, go and get my best hat for holidays,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes, Mrs. Gogol.\"\n\nSaturday disappeared into the hut for a moment, and came out with a large and battered box securely wrapped with twine.\n\n\"I can't take that,\" said Granny. \"I can't take your best hat.\"\n\n\"Yes you can,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"I've got another hat. Oh, yes. I've got another hat all right.\"\n\nGranny put the box down carefully.\n\n\"It occurs to me, Mrs. Gogol,\" she said, \"that you ain't everything you seem.\"\n\n\"Oh yes I is, Mistress Weatherwax. I never bin nothing else, just like you.\"\n\n\"You brought us here?\"\n\n\"No. You brought yourselves here. Of your own free will. To help someone, ain't that right? You decided to do it, ain't that right? No one forced you, ain't that right? 'Cept yourselves.\"\n\n\"She's right about all that,\" said Nanny. \"We'd have felt it, if it was magic.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Granny. \"No one forced us, except ourselves. What's your game, Mrs. Gogol?\"\n\n\"I ain't playing no game, Mistress Weatherwax. I just want back what's mine. I want justice. And I wants her stopped.\"\n\n\"Her who?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny's face had frozen into a mask.\n\n\"Her who's behind all this,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"The Duc hasn't got the brains of a prawn, Mrs. Ogg. I mean her. Her with her mirror magic. Her who likes to control. Her who's in charge. Her who's tinkering with destiny. Her that Mistress Weatherwax knows all about.\"\n\nNanny Ogg was lost.\n\n\"What's she talking about, Esme?\" she said.\n\nGranny muttered something.\n\n\"What? Didn't hear you,\" Nanny said.\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked up, her face red with anger.\n\n\"She means my sister, Gytha! Right? Got that? Do you understand? Did you hear? My sister! Want me to repeat it again? Want to know who she's talking about? You want me to write it down? My sister! That's who! My sister!\"\n\n\"They're sisters?\" said Magrat.\n\nHer tea had gone cold.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Ella. \"They look...alike. They keep themselves to themselves most of the time. But I can feel them watching. They're very good at watching.\"\n\n\"And they make you do all the work?\" she said.\n\n\"Well, I only have to cook for myself and the outside staff,\" said Ella. \"And I don't mind the cleaning and the laundry all that much.\"\n\n\"Do they do their own cooking, then?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. They walk around the house at night, after I've gone to bed. Godmother Lilith says I must be kind to them and pity them because they can't talk, and always see that we've got plenty of cheese in the larder.\"\n\n\"They eat nothing but cheese?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said Ella.\n\n\"I should think the rats and mice get it, then, in an old place like this.\"\n\n\"You know, it's a funny thing,\" said Ella, \"but I've never seen a mouse anywhere in this house.\"\n\nMagrat shivered. She felt watched.\n\n\"Why don't you just walk away? I would.\"\n\n\"Where to? Anyway, they always find me. Or they send the coachmen and grooms after me.\"\n\n\"That's horrible!\"\n\n\"I'm sure they think that sooner or later I'll marry anyone to get away from laundry,\" said Ella. \"Not that the Prince's clothes get washed, I expect,\" she added bitterly. \"I expect they get burned after he's worn them.\"\n\n\"What you want to do is make a career of your own,\" said Magrat encouragingly, to keep her spirits up. \"You want to be your own woman. You want to emancipate yourself.\"\n\n\"I don't think I want to do that,\" said Ella, speaking with caution in case it was a sin to offend a fairy godmother.\n\n\"You do really,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Do I?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"You don't have to marry anyone you don't want to.\"\n\nElla sat back.\n\n\"How good are you?\" she said.\n\n\"Er...well...I suppose I\u2014\"\n\n\"The dress arrived yesterday,\" said Ella. \"It's up in the big front room, on a stand so it doesn't get creased. So that it stays perfect. And they've polished up the coach specially. They've hired extra footmen, too.\"\n\n\"Yes, but perhaps\u2014\"\n\n\"I think I'm going to have to marry someone I don't want to,\" said Ella.\n\nGranny Weatherwax strode up and down the driftwood balcony. The whole shack trembled to her stamping. Ripples spread out as it bounced on the water.\n\n\"Of course you don't remember her!\" she shouted. \"Our mam kicked her out when she was thirteen! We was both tiny then! But I remember the rows! I used to hear them when I was in bed! She was wanton!\"\n\n\"You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably.\n\n\"You was, of course,\" she said dismissively. \"But you never used magic for it, did you?\"\n\n\"Din't have to,\" said Nanny happily. \"An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.\"\n\n\"Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,\" said Granny. \"No, she used magic. Not just ordinary magic, neither. Oh, she was willful!\"\n\nNanny Ogg was about to say: What? You mean not compliant and self-effacing like what you is, Esme? But she stopped herself. You didn't juggle matches in a fireworks factory.\n\n\"Young men's fathers used to come around to complain,\" said Granny darkly.\n\n\"They never came around to complain about me,\" said Nanny happily.\n\n\"And always looking at herself in mirrors,\" said Granny. \"Prideful as a cat, she was. Prefer to look in a mirror than out of a window, she would.\"\n\n\"What's her name?\"\n\n\"Lily.\"\n\n\"That's a nice name,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"It isn't what she calls herself now,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"I bet it isn't!\"\n\n\"And she's, like, in charge of the city?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"She was bossy, too!\"\n\n\"What'd she want to be in charge of a city for?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"She's got plans,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"And vain? Really vain!\" said Granny, apparently to the world in general.\n\n\"Did you know she was here?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I had a feelin'! Mirrors!\"\n\n\"Mirror magic isn't bad,\" protested Nanny. \"I've done all kinds of stuff with mirrors. You can have a lot of fun with a mirror.\"\n\n\"She doesn't just use one mirror,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"She uses two.\"\n\n\"Oh. That's different.\"\n\nGranny stared at the surface of the water. Her own face stared back at her from the darkness.\n\nShe hoped it was her own face, anyway.\n\n\"I've felt her watchin' us, the whole way here,\" she said. \"That's where she's happiest, inside mirrors. Inside mirrors, making people into stories.\"\n\nShe prodded the image with a stick. \"She even got a look at me in Desiderata's house, just before Magrat came in. It ain't nice, seeing someone else in your reflection\u2014\"\n\nShe paused. \"Where is Magrat, anyway?\"\n\n\"Out fairy godmothering, I think,\" said Nanny. \"She said she didn't need any help.\"\n\nMagrat was annoyed. She was also frightened, which made her even more annoyed. It was hard for people when Magrat was annoyed. It was like being attacked by damp tissue.\n\n\"You have my personal word on it,\" she said. \"You don't have to go to the ball if you don't want to.\"\n\n\"You won't be able to stop them,\" said Ella darkly. \"I know how things work in this city.\"\n\n\"Look, I said you won't have to go!\" said Magrat.\n\nShe looked thoughtful.\n\n\"There isn't someone else you'd rather marry, is there?\" she said.\n\n\"No. I don't know many people. I don't get much chance.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Magrat. \"That makes it easier. I suggest we get you out of here and\u2014and take you somewhere else.\"\n\n\"There isn't anywhere else. I told you. There's just swamp. I tried once or twice, and they sent the coachmen after me. They weren't unkind. The coachmen, I mean. They're just afraid. Everyone's afraid. Even the Sisters are afraid, I think.\"\n\nMagrat looked around at the shadows.\n\n\"What of?\" she said.\n\n\"They say that people disappear. If they upset the Duc. Something happens to them. Everyone's very polite in Genua,\" said Ella sourly. \"And no one steals and no one raises their voice and everyone stays indoors at night, except when it's Fat Tuesday.\" She sighed. \"Now that's something I'd like to go to. To the carnival. They always make me stay in, though. But I hear it passing through the city and I think: that's what Genua ought to be. Not a few people dancing in palaces, but everyone dancing in the streets.\"\n\nMagrat shook herself. She felt a long way from home.\n\n\"I think perhaps I might need a bit of help with this one,\" she said.\n\n\"You've got a wand,\" said Ella.\n\n\"I think there's times when you need more than a wand,\" said Magrat. She stood up.\n\n\"But I'll tell you this,\" she said. \"I don't like this house. I don't like this city. Emberella?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You won't go to the ball. I'll make sure of that\u2014\"\n\nShe turned around.\n\n\"I told you,\" murmured Ella, looking down. \"You can't even hear them.\"\n\nOne of the sisters was at the top of the steps leading into the kitchen. Her gaze was fixed immovably on Magrat.\n\nThey say that everyone has the attributes of some kind of animal. Magrat possibly had a direct mental link to some small furry creature. She felt the terror of all small rodents in the face of unblinking death. Modulated over the menace of the gaze were all sorts of messages: the uselessness of flight, the stupidity of resistance, the inevitability of oblivion.\n\nShe knew she could do nothing. Her legs weren't under her control. It was as if commands were coming straight down that stare and into her spinal cord. The sense of helplessness was almost peaceful...\n\n\"Blessings be upon this house.\"\n\nThe sister spun around much faster than any human should be able to move.\n\nGranny Weatherwax pushed open the door. \"Oh deary me,\" she thundered, \"and lawks.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Nanny Ogg, crowding through the doorway behind her. \"Lawks too.\"\n\n\"We're just a couple of old beggar women,\" said Granny, striding across the floor.\n\n\"Begging from house to house,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Not coming directly here by any manner o' means.\"\n\nThey each caught one of Magrat's elbows and lifted her off her feet.\n\nGranny turned her head.\n\n\"What about you, Miss?\"\n\nElla shook her head without looking up.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"I mustn't come.\"\n\nGranny's eyes narrowed. \"I suppose not,\" she said. \"We all have our path to walk, or so it is said, although not by me. Come, Gytha.\"\n\n\"We're just off,\" said Nanny Ogg, brightly.\n\nThey turned.\n\nAnother sister appeared in the doorway.\n\n\"Ye gods,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I never saw her move!\"\n\n\"We was just going out,\" said Granny Weatherwax loudly. \"If it's all the same with you, m'lady?\"\n\nShe met the stare head-on.\n\nThe air tingled.\n\nThen Granny Weatherwax said, between gritted teeth, \"When I say run, Gytha\u2014\"\n\n\"I hear you,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny groped behind her and found the teapot Magrat had just used. She weighed it in her hands, keeping the movements slow and gentle.\n\n\"Ready, Gytha?\"\n\n\"Waitin', Esme.\"\n\n\"Run!\"\n\nGranny hurled the teapot high into the air. The heads of both sisters snapped around.\n\nNanny Ogg helped the stumbling Magrat out of the door. Granny slammed it shut as the nearer sister darted forward, mouth open, too late.\n\n\"We're leaving the girl in there!\" shouted Nanny, as they ran down the drive.\n\n\"They're guarding her,\" said Granny. \"They're not going to harm her!\"\n\n\"I ain't seen teeth like those on anyone before!\" said Nanny.\n\n\"That's 'cos they ain't anyone! They're snakes!\"\n\nThey reached the comparative security of the roadway and leaned against the wall.\n\n\"Snakes?\" Nanny wheezed. Magrat opened her eyes.\n\n\"It's Lily's doing,\" said Granny. \"She was good at that kind of thing, I remember.\"\n\n\"Really snakes?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Granny darkly. \"She made friends easily.\"\n\n\"Blimey! I couldn't do that.\"\n\n\"She didn't used to be able to either, for more'n a few seconds. That's what using mirrors does for you.\"\n\n\"I\u2014I\u2014\" Magrat stuttered.\n\n\"You're all right,\" said Nanny. She looked up at Esme Weatherwax.\n\n\"We shouldn't leave the girl, whatever you say. In a house with snakes walking around thinking they're human,\" she said.\n\n\"It's worse than that. They're walking around thinking they're snakes,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Well, whatever. You never do that sort of thing. The worst you ever did was make people a bit confused about what they was.\"\n\n\"That's because I'm the good one,\" said Granny bitterly.\n\nMagrat shuddered.\n\n\"So are we going to get her out?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Not yet. There's going to be a proper time,\" said Granny. \"Can you hear me, Magrat Garlick?\"\n\n\"Yes, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"We've got to go somewhere and talk,\" said Granny. \"About stories.\"\n\n\"What about stories?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Lily is using them,\" said Granny. \"Don't you see that? You can feel it in this whole country. The stories collect round here because here's where they find a way out. She feeds 'em. Look, she don't want your Ella to marry that Duc man just because of politics or something. That's just an...explanation. 'S not a reason. She wants the girl to marry the prince because that's what the story demands.\"\n\n\"What's in it for her?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"In the middle of 'em all, the fairy godmother or the wicked witch...you remember? That's where Lily is putting herself, like...like...\" she paused, trying to find the right word. \"Remember that time last year when the circus thing came to Lancre?\"\n\n\"I remember,\" said Nanny. \"Them girls in the spangly tights and the fellows pourin' whitewash down their trousers. Never saw a elephant, though. They said there'd be elephants and there wasn't any. It had elephants on the posters. I spent a whole tuppence and there wasn't a single ele\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, but what I'm sayin',\" said Granny, as they hurried along the street, \"is there was that man in the middle, you remember. With the mustache and the big hat?\"\n\n\"Him? But he didn't do anything much,\" said Nanny. \"He just stood in the middle of the tent and sometimes he cracked his whip and all the acts just went on around him.\"\n\n\"That's why he was the most important one there,\" said Granny. \"It was the things going on around him that made him important.\"\n\n\"What's Lily feeding the stories?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"People,\" said Granny. She frowned.\n\n\"Stories!\" she said. \"Well, we'll have to see about that...\"\n\nGreen twilight covered Genua. The mists curled up from the swamp.\n\nTorches flared in the streets. In dozens of yards shadowy figures moved, pulling the covers off floats. In the darkness there was a flash of sequins and a jingle of bells.\n\nAll year the people of Genua were nice and quiet. But history has always allowed the downtrodden one night somewhere in any calendar to restore temporarily the balance of the world. It might be called the Feast of Fools, or the King of the Bean. Or even Samedi Nuit Mort, when even those with the most taxing and responsible of duties can kick back and have fun.\n\nMost of them, anyway...\n\nThe coachmen and the footmen were sitting in their shed at one side of the stable yard, eating their dinner and complaining about having to work on Dead Night. They were also engaging in the time-honored rituals that go therewith, which largely consist of finding out what their wives have packed for them today and envying the other men whose wives obviously cared more.\n\nThe head footman raised a crust cautiously.\n\n\"I've got chicken neck and pickle,\" he said. \"Anyone got any cheese?\"\n\nThe second coachman inspected his box. \"It's boiled bacon again,\" he complained. \"She always gives me boiled bacon. She knows I don't like it. She don't even cut the fat off.\"\n\n\"Is it thick white fat?\" said the first coachman.\n\n\"Yeah. Horrible. Is this right for a holiday feast or what?\"\n\n\"I'll swap you a lettuce and tomato.\"\n\n\"Right. What you got, Jimmy?\"\n\nThe underfootman shyly opened his perfect package. There were four sandwiches, crusts cut off. There was a sprig of parsley. There was even a napkin.\n\n\"Smoked salmon and cream cheese,\" he said.\n\n\"And still a bit of the wedding cake,\" said the first coachman. \"Ain't you et that all up yet?\"\n\n\"We have it every night,\" said the underfootman.\n\nThe shed shook with the ensuing laughter. It is a universal fact that any innocent comment made by any recently married young member of any workforce is an instant trigger for coarse merriment among his or her older and more cynical colleagues. This happens even if everyone concerned has nine legs and lives at the bottom of an ocean of ammonia on a huge cold planet. It's just one of those things.\n\n\"You make the most of it,\" said the second coachman gloomily, when they'd settled down again. \"It starts off kisses and cake and them cutting the crusts off, and next thing you know it's down to tongue pie, cold bum and the copper stick.\"\n\n\"The way I see it,\" the first coachman began, \"it's all about the way you\u2014\"\n\nThere was a knocking at the door.\n\nThe underfootman, being the junior member, got up and opened it.\n\n\"It's an old crone,\" he said. \"What do you want, old crone?\"\n\n\"Fancy a drink?\" said Nanny Ogg. She held up a jug over which hung a perceptible haze of evaporating alcohol, and blew a paper squeaker.\n\n\"What?\" said the footman.\n\n\"Shame for you lads to be working. It's a holiday! Whoopee!\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" the senior coachman began, and then he entered the cloud of alcohol. \"Gods! What is that stuff?\"\n\n\"Smells like rum, Mr. Travis.\"\n\nThe senior coachman hesitated. From the streets came music and laughter as the first of the processions got under way. Fireworks popped across the sky. It wasn't a night to be without just a sip of alcohol.\n\n\"What a nice old lady,\" he said.\n\nNanny Ogg waved the jug again. \"Up your eye!\" she said. \"Mud in your bottom!\"\n\nWhat might be called the classical witch comes in two basic varieties, the complicated and the simple, or, to put it another way, the ones that have a room full of regalia and the ones that don't. Magrat was by inclination one of the former sort. For example, take magical knives. She had a complete collection of magical knives, all with the appropriate colored handles and complicated runes all over them.\n\nIt had taken many years under the tutelage of Granny Weatherwax for Magrat to learn that the common kitchen breadknife was better than the most ornate of magic knives. It could do all that the magical knife could do, plus you could also use it to cut bread.\n\nEvery established kitchen has one ancient knife, its handle worn thin, its blade curved like a banana, and so inexplicably sharp that reaching into the drawer at night is like bobbing for apples in a piranha tank.\n\nMagrat had hers stuck in her belt. Currently she was thirty feet above the ground, one hand holding onto her broomstick, the other onto a drainpipe, both legs dangling. Housebreaking ought to be easy, when you had a broomstick. But this did not appear to be the case.\n\nFinally she got both legs around the pipe and a firm grip on a timely gargoyle. She waggled the knife in between the two halves of the window and lifted the latch. After a certain amount of grunting, she was inside, leaning against the wall and panting. Blue lights flashed in front of her eyes, echoing the fireworks that laced the night outside.\n\nGranny had kept on asking her if she was sure she wanted to do this. And she was amazed to find that she was sure. Even if the snake women were already wandering around the house. Being a witch meant going into places you didn't want to go.\n\nShe opened her eyes.\n\nThere was the dress, in the middle of the floor, on a dressmaker's dummy.\n\nA Klatchian Candle burst over Genua. Green and red stars exploded in the velvet darkness, and lit up the gems and silks in front of Magrat.\n\nIt was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.\n\nShe crept forward, her mouth dry.\n\nWarm mists rolled through the swamp.\n\nMrs. Gogol stirred the cauldron.\n\n\"What are they doing?\" said Saturday.\n\n\"Stopping the story,\" she said. \"Or...maybe not...\"\n\nShe stood up.\n\n\"One way or another, it's our time now. Let's go to the clearing.\"\n\nShe looked at Saturday's face.\n\n\"Are you frightened?\"\n\n\"I...know what will happen afterward,\" said the zombie. \"Even if we win.\"\n\n\"We both do. But we've had twelve years.\"\n\n\"Yes. We've had twelve years.\"\n\n\"And Ella will rule the city.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nIn the coachmen's shed Nanny Ogg and the coachmen were getting along, as she put it, like a maison en flamb\u00e9.\n\nThe underfootman smiled vaguely at the wall, and slumped forward.\n\n\"That's youngpipple today,\" said the head coachman, trying to fish his wig out of his mug. \"Can't hold their drin...their drine...stuff...\"\n\n\"Have a hair of the dog, Mr. Travis?\" said Nanny, filling the mug. \"Or scale of the alligator or whatever you call it in these parts.\"\n\n\"Reckon,\" said the senior footman, \"we should be gettin' the coesshe ready, what say?\"\n\n\"Reckon you've got time for one more yet,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Ver' generous,\" said the coachman. \"Ver' generous. Here's lookin' at you, Mrsrsrs Goo...\"\n\nMagrat had dreamed of dresses like this. In the pit of her soul, in the small hours of the night, she'd danced with princes. Not shy, hardworking princes like Verence back home, but real ones, with crystal blue eyes and white teeth. And she'd worn dresses like this. And they had fitted.\n\nShe stared at the ruched sleeves, the embroidered bodice, the fine white lace. It was all a world away from her...well...Nanny Ogg kept calling them \"Magrats,\" but they were trousers, and very practical.\n\nAs if being practical mattered at all.\n\nShe stared for a long time.\n\nThen, with tears streaking her face and changing color as they caught the light of the fireworks, she took the knife and began to cut the dress into very small pieces.\n\nThe senior coachman's head bounced gently off his sandwiches.\n\nNanny Ogg stood up, a little unsteadily. She placed the junior footman's wig under his slumbering head, because she was not an unkind woman. Then she stepped out into the night.\n\nA figure moved near the wall.\n\n\"Magrat?\" hissed Nanny.\n\n\"Nanny?\"\n\n\"Did you see to the dress?\"\n\n\"Have you seen to the footmen?\"\n\n\"Right, then,\" said Granny Weatherwax, stepping out of the shadows. \"Then there's just the coach.\"\n\nShe tiptoed theatrically to the coachhouse and opened the door. It grated loudly on the cobbles.\n\n\"Shsss!\" said Nanny.\n\nThere was a stub of candle and some matches on a ledge. Magrat fumbled the candle alight.\n\nThe coach lit up like a glitter ball.\n\nIt was excessively ornate, as if someone had taken a perfectly ordinary coach and then gone insane with fretwork and gold paint.\n\nGranny Weatherwax walked around it.\n\n\"A bit showy,\" she said.\n\n\"Seems a real shame to smash it up,\" said Nanny sadly. She rolled up her sleeves and then, as an afterthought, tucked the hem of her skirt into her drawers.\n\n\"Bound to be a hammer somewhere around here,\" she said, turning to the benches along the walls.\n\n\"Don't! That'd make too much noise!\" hissed Magrat. \"Hang on a moment...\"\n\nShe pulled the despised wand out of her belt, gripped it tightly, and waved it toward the coach.\n\nThere was a brief inrush of air.\n\n\"Blow me down,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"I never would have thought of that.\"\n\nOn the floor was a large orange pumpkin.\n\n\"It was nothing,\" said Magrat, risking a touch of pride.\n\n\"Hah! That's one coach that'll never roll again,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Hey...can you do that to the horses too?\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat shook her head. \"Um, I think that would be very cruel.\"\n\n\"You're right. You're right,\" said Granny. \"No excuse for cruelty to dumb animals.\"\n\nThe two stallions watched her with equine curiosity as she undid the loose-box gates.\n\n\"Off you go,\" she said. \"Big green fields out there somewhere.\"\n\nShe glanced momentarily at Magrat. \"You have been em-horse-sipated.\"\n\nThis didn't seem to have much effect.\n\nGranny sighed. She climbed up onto the wooden wall that separated the boxes, reached up, grabbed a horse ear in either hand, and gently dragged their heads down level with her mouth.\n\nShe whispered something.\n\nThe stallions turned and looked one another in the eye.\n\nThen they looked down at Granny.\n\nShe grinned at them, and nodded.\n\nThen...\n\nIt is impossible for a horse to go instantly from a standing start to a gallop, but they almost managed it.\n\n\"What on earth did you say to them?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Mystic horseman's word,\" said Granny. \"Passed down to Gytha's Jason, who passed it up to me. Works every time.\"\n\n\"He told you it?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What, all of it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Granny, smugly.\n\nMagrat tucked the wand back into her belt. As she did so, a square of white material fell onto the floor.\n\nWhite gems and silk glimmered in the candlelight as she reached down hurriedly to pick it up, but there wasn't a lot that escaped Granny Weatherwax.\n\nShe sighed.\n\n\"Magrat Garlick...\" she began.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Magrat meekly. \"Yes. I know. I'm a wet hen.\"\n\nNanny patted her gently on the shoulder.\n\n\"Never mind,\" she said. \"We've done a good night's work here. That Ella has about as much chance of being sent to the ball tonight as I have of...of becoming queen.\"\n\n\"No dress, no footmen, no horses and no coach,\" said Granny. \"I'd like to see her get out of that one. Stories? Hah!\"\n\n\"So what're we going to do now?\" said Magrat, as they crept out of the yard.\n\n\"It's Fat Lunchtime!\" said Nanny. \"Hot diggety pig!\" Greebo wandered out of the darkness and rubbed against her legs.\n\n\"I thought Lily was trying to stamp it out,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"May as well try to stamp out a flood,\" said Nanny. \"Kick out a jam!\"\n\n\"I don't agree with dancing in the streets,\" said Granny. \"How much of that rum did you drink?\"\n\n\"Oh, come on, Esme,\" said Nanny. \"They say if you can't have a good time in Genua you're probably dead.\" She thought about Saturday. \"You can probably have a bit of quiet fun even if you are dead, in Genua.\"\n\n\"Hadn't we better stay here, though?\" said Magrat. \"Just to make sure?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax hesitated.\n\n\"What do you think, Esme?\" said Nanny Ogg. \"You think she's going to be sent to the ball in a pumpkin, eh? Get a few mice to pull it, eh? Heheh!\"\n\nA vision of the snake women floated across Granny Weatherwax's mind, and she hesitated. But, after all, it had been a long day. And it was ridiculous, when you came to think about it...\n\n\"Well, all right,\" she said. \"But I'm not going to kick any jam, you understand.\"\n\n\"There's dancing and all sorts,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"And banana drinks, I expect,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It's a million to one chance, yes,\" said Nanny Ogg happily.\n\nLilith de Tempscire smiled at herself in the double mirror.\n\n\"Oh deary me,\" she said. \"No coach, no dress, no horses. What is a poor old godmother to do? Deary me. And probably lawks.\"\n\nShe opened a small leather case, such as a musician might use to carry his very best piccolo.\n\nThere was a wand in there, the twin of the one carried by Magrat. She took it out and gave it a couple of twists, moving the gold and silver rings into a new position.\n\nThe clicking sounded like the nastiest pump-action mechanism.\n\n\"And me with nothing but a pumpkin, too,\" said Lilith.\n\nAnd of course the difference between sapient and non-sapient things was that while it was hard to change the shape of the former it was not actually impossible. It was just a matter of changing a mental channel. Whereas a non-sapient thing like a pumpkin, and it was hard to imagine anything less sapient than a pumpkin, could not be changed by any magic short of sorcery.\n\nUnless its molecules remembered a time when they weren't a pumpkin...\n\nShe laughed, and a billion reflected Liliths laughed with her, all around the curve of the mirror universe.\n\nFat Lunchtime was no longer celebrated in the center of Genua. But in the shanty town around the high white buildings it strutted its dark and torchlit stuff. There were fireworks. There were dancers, and fire-eaters, and feathers, and sequins. The witches, whose idea of homely entertainment was a Morris dance, watched openmouthed from the crowded sidewalk as the parades strutted by.\n\n\"There's dancing skeletons!\" said Nanny, as a score of bony figures whirred down the street.\n\n\"They're not,\" said Magrat. \"They're just men in black tights with bones painted on.\"\n\nSomeone nudged Granny Weatherwax. She looked up into the large, grinning face of a black man. He passed her a stone jug.\n\n\"There you go, honey.\"\n\nGranny took it, hesitated for a moment, and then took a swig. She nudged Magrat and passed on the bottle.\n\n\"Frgtht!! Gizeer!\" she said.\n\n\"What?\" shouted Magrat, above the noise of a marching band.\n\n\"The man wants us to pass it on,\" said Granny.\n\nMagrat looked at the bottle neck. She tried surreptitiously to wipe it on her dress, despite the self-evident fact that germs on it would have burned off long ago. She ventured a brief nip, and then nudged Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Kwizathugner!\" she said, and dabbed at her eyes.\n\nNanny up-ended the bottle. After a while Magrat nudged her again.\n\n\"I think we're meant to pass it on?\" she ventured.\n\nNanny wiped her mouth and passed the now rather lighter jug randomly to a tall figure on her left.\n\n\"Here you go, mister,\" she said.\n\nTHANK YOU.\n\n\"Nice costume you got there. Them bones are painted on really good.\"\n\nNanny turned back to watch a procession of juggling fire-eaters. Then a connection appeared to be made somewhere in the back of her mind. She looked up. The stranger had wandered off.\n\nShe shrugged.\n\n\"What shall we do next?\" she said.\n\nGranny Weatherwax was staring fixedly at a group of ground-zero limbo dancers. A lot of the dances in the parades had this in common: they expressed explicitly what things like maypoles only hinted at. They covered it with sequins, too.\n\n\"You'll never feel safe in the privy again, eh?\" said Nanny Ogg. At her feet Greebo sat primly watching some dancing women wearing nothing but feathers, trying to work out what to do about them.\n\n\"No. I was thinkin' of something else. I was thinkin' about...how stories work. And now...I think I'd like something to eat,\" said Granny weakly. She rallied a bit. \"And I mean some proper food, not somethin' scraped off the bottom of a pond. And I don't want any of this cuisine stuff, neither.\"\n\n\"You ought to be more adventurous, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I ain't against adventure, in moderation,\" said Granny, \"but not when I'm eatin'.\"\n\n\"There's a place back there that does alligator sandwiches,\" said Nanny, turning away from the parade. \"Can you believe that? Alligators in a sandwich?\"\n\n\"That reminds me of a joke,\" said Granny Weatherwax. Something was nagging at her consciousness.\n\nNanny Ogg started to cough, but it didn't work.\n\n\"This man went into an inn,\" said Granny Weatherwax, trying to ignore the rising uneasiness. \"And he saw this sign. And it said 'We serve all kinds of sandwiches.' And it said, 'Get me an alligator sandwich\u2014and I want it right away!\"\n\n\"I don't think alligator sandwiches is very kind to alligators,\" said Magrat, dropping the observation into the leaden pause.\n\n\"I always say a laugh does you good,\" said Nanny.\n\nLilith smiled at the figure of Ella, standing forlornly between the snake women.\n\n\"And such a raggedy dress, too,\" she said. \"And the door to the room was locked. Tut-tut. However can it have happened?\"\n\nElla stared at her feet.\n\nLilith smiled at the sisters. \"Well,\" she said, \"we'll just have to do the best we can with what we've got. Hmm? Fetch me...fetch me two rats and two mice. I know you can always find rats and mice. And bring in the big pumpkin.\"\n\nShe laughed. Not the mad, shrill laughter of the bad fairy who's been defeated, but the rather pleasant laughter of someone who's just seen the joke.\n\nShe looked reflectively at the wand.\n\n\"But first,\" she said, transferring her gaze to Ella's pale face, \"you'd better bring in those naughty men who let themselves get so drunk. That's not respectful. And if you haven't got respect, you haven't got anything.\"\n\nThe clicking of the wand was the only sound in the kitchen.\n\nNanny Ogg poked at the tall drink in front of her.\n\n\"Beats me why they puts an umbrella in it,\" she said, sucking the cocktail cherry off the stick. \"I mean, do they want to stop it getting wet or something?\"\n\nShe grinned at Magrat and Granny, who were both staring gloomily at the passing celebrations.\n\n\"Cheer up,\" she said. \"Never seen such a pair of long faces in all my puff.\"\n\n\"That's neat rum you're drinking,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"You're telling me,\" said Nanny, taking a swig. \"Cheers!\"\n\n\"It was too easy,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"It was only easy 'cos we done it,\" said Nanny. \"You want something done, we're the girls to do it, eh? You show me anyone else who could have nipped in there and done all that in the nick of time, eh? Especially the coach bit.\"\n\n\"It doesn't make a good story,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Oh, bugger stories,\" said Nanny loftily. \"You can always change a story.\"\n\n\"Only at the right places,\" said Granny. \"Anyway, maybe they could get her a new dress and horses and a coach and everything.\"\n\n\"Where? When?\" said Nanny. \"It's a holiday. And there's no time, anyway. They'll be starting the ball at any moment.\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax's fingers drummed on the edge of the caf\u00e9 table.\n\nNanny sighed.\n\n\"Now what?\" she said.\n\n\"It doesn't happen like this,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Listen, Esme, the only kind of magic that'd work right now is wand magic. And Magrat's got the wand.\" Nanny nodded at Magrat. \"Ain't that so, Magrat?\"\n\n\"Um,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Not lost it, have you?\"\n\n\"No, but\u2014\"\n\n\"There you are, then.\"\n\n\"Only...um...Ella said she'd got two godmothers...\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax's hand thumped down on the table. Nanny's drink flew into the air and overturned.\n\n\"That's right!\" roared Granny.\n\n\"That was nearly full. That was a nearly full drink,\" said Nanny reproachfully.\n\n\"Come on!\"\n\n\"Best part of a whole glass of\u2014\"\n\n\"Gytha!\"\n\n\"Did I say I wasn't coming? I was just pointing out\u2014\"\n\n\"Now!\"\n\n\"Can I just ask the man to get me ano\u2014\"\n\n\"Gytha!\"\n\nThe witches were halfway up the street when a coach rattled out of the driveway and trundled away.\n\n\"That can't be it!\" said Magrat. \"We got rid of it!\"\n\n\"We ort to have chopped it up,\" said Nanny. \"There's good eating on a pumpk\u2014\"\n\n\"They've got us,\" said Granny, slowing down to a stop.\n\n\"Can't you get into the minds of the horses?\" said Magrat.\n\nThe witches concentrated.\n\n\"They ain't horses,\" said Nanny. \"They feel like...\"\n\n\"Rats turned into horses,\" said Granny, who was even better at getting into people's minds than she was at getting under their skins. \"They feel like that poor old wolf. Minds like a firework display.\" She winced at the taste of them in her own head.\n\n\"I bet,\" said Granny, thoughtfully, as the coach skidded around the corner, \"I bet I could make the wheels fall right off.\"\n\n\"That's not the way,\" said Magrat. \"Anyway, Ella's in there!\"\n\n\"There may be another way,\" said Nanny. \"I know someone who could get inside them minds right enough.\"\n\n\"Who?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Well, we've still got our brooms,\" said Nanny. \"It should be easy to overtake it, right?\"\n\nThe witches landed in an alleyway a few minutes ahead of the coach.\n\n\"I don't hold with this,\" said Granny. \"It's the sort of thing Lily does. You can't expect me to like this. Think of that wolf!\"\n\nNanny lifted Greebo out of his nest among the bristles.\n\n\"But Greebo's nearly human anyway,\" she said.\n\n\"Hah!\"\n\n\"And it'll only be temp'ry, even with the three of us doing it,\" she said. \"Anyway, it'll be int'resting to see if it works.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it's wrong,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Not for these parts, it seems,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Besides,\" said Magrat virtuously, \"it can't be bad if we're doing it. We're the good ones.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, so we is,\" said Granny, \"and there was me forgetting it for a minute there.\"\n\nNanny stood back. Greebo, aware that something was expected of him, sat up.\n\n\"You must admit we can't think of anything better, Granny,\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny hesitated. But under all the revulsion was the little treacherous flame of fascination with the idea. Besides, she and Greebo had hated one another cordially for years. Almost human, eh? Give him a taste of it, then, and see how he likes it...She felt a bit ashamed of the thought. But not much.\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\nThey concentrated.\n\nAs Lily knew, changing the shape of an object is one of the hardest magics there is. But it's easier if the object is alive. After all, a living thing already knows what shape it is. All you have to do is change its mind.\n\nGreebo yawned and stretched. To his amazement he went on stretching.\n\nThrough the pathways of his feline brain surged a tide of belief. He suddenly believed he was human. He wasn't simply under the impression that he was human; he believed it implicitly. The sheer force of the unshakable belief flowed out into his morphic field, overriding its objections, rewriting the very blueprint of his self.\n\nFresh instructions surged back.\n\nIf he was human, he didn't need all this fur. And he ought to be bigger...\n\nThe witches watched, fascinated.\n\n\"I never thought we'd do it,\" said Granny.\n\n...no points on the ears, the whiskers were too long...\n\n...he needed more muscle, all these bones were the wrong shape, these legs ought to be longer...\n\nAnd then it was finished.\n\nGreebo unfolded himself and stood up, a little unsteadily.\n\nNanny stared, her mouth open.\n\nThen her eyes moved downward.\n\n\"Cor,\" she said.\n\n\"I think,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"that we'd better imagine some clothes on him right now.\"\n\nThat was easy enough. When Greebo had been clothed to her satisfaction Granny nodded and stood back.\n\n\"Magrat, you can open your eyes,\" she said.\n\n\"I hadn't got them closed.\"\n\n\"Well, you should have had.\"\n\nGreebo turned slowly, a faint, lazy smile on his scarred face. As a human, his nose was broken and a black patch covered his bad eye. But the other one glittered like the sins of angels, and his smile was the downfall of saints. Female ones, anyway.\n\nPerhaps it was pheromones, or the way his muscles rippled under his black leather shirt. Greebo broadcast a kind of greasy diabolic sexuality in the megawatt range. Just looking at him was enough to set dark wings fluttering in the crimson night.\n\n\"Uh, Greebo,\" said Nanny.\n\nHe opened his mouth. Incisors glittered.\n\n\"Wrowwwwl,\" he said.\n\n\"Can you understand me?\"\n\n\"Yessss, Nannyyy.\"\n\nNanny Ogg leaned against the wall for support.\n\nThere was the sound of hooves. The coach had turned into the street.\n\n\"Get out there and stop that coach!\"\n\nGreebo grinned again, and darted out of the alley.\n\nNanny fanned herself with her hat.\n\n\"Whoo-eee,\" she said. \"And to think I used to tickle his tummy...No wonder all the lady cats scream at night.\"\n\n\"Gytha!\"\n\n\"Well, you've gone very red, Esme.\"\n\n\"I'm just out of breath,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Funny, that. It's not as if you've been running.\"\n\nThe coach rattled down the street.\n\nThe coachmen and footmen were not at all sure what they were. Their minds oscillated wildly. One moment they were men thinking about cheese and bacon rinds. And the next they were mice wondering why they had trousers on.\n\nAs for the horses...horses are a little insane anyway, and being a rat as well wasn't any help.\n\nSo none of them were in a very stable frame of mind when Greebo stepped out of the shadows and grinned at them.\n\nHe said, \"Wrowwwl.\"\n\nThe horses tried to stop, which is practically impossible with a coach still piling along behind you. The coachmen froze in terror.\n\n\"Wrowwwl?\"\n\nThe coach skidded around and came up broadside against a wall, knocking the coachmen off. Greebo picked one of them up by his collar and bounced him up and down while the maddened horses fought to get out of the shafts.\n\n\"Run awayy, furry toy?\" he suggested.\n\nBehind the frightened eyes man and mouse fought for supremacy. But they needn't have bothered. They would lose either way. As consciousness flickered between the states it saw either a grinning cat or a six-foot, well-muscled, one-eyed grinning bully.\n\nThe coachmouse fainted. Greebo patted him a few times, in case he was going to move...\n\n\"Wake up, little mousy...\"\n\n...and then lost interest.\n\nThe coach door rattled, jammed, and then opened.\n\n\"What's happening?\" said Ella.\n\n\"Wrowwwwl!\"\n\nNanny Ogg's boot hit Greebo on the back of his head.\n\n\"Oh no you don't, my lad,\" she said.\n\n\"Want to,\" said Greebo sulkily.\n\n\"You always do, that's your trouble,\" said Nanny, and smiled at Ella. \"Out you come, dear.\"\n\nGreebo shrugged, and then slunk off, dragging the stunned coachman after him.\n\n\"What's happening?\" complained Ella. \"Oh. Magrat. Did you do this?\"\n\nMagrat allowed herself a moment's shy pride.\n\n\"I said you wouldn't have to go to the ball, didn't I?\"\n\nElla looked around at the disabled coach, and then back to the witches.\n\n\"You ain't got any snake women in there with you, have you?\" said Granny. Magrat gripped the wand.\n\n\"They went on ahead,\" said Ella. Her face clouded as she recalled something.\n\n\"Lilith turned the real coachmen into beetles,\" she whispered. \"I mean, they weren't that bad! She made them get some mice and she made them human and then she said, there's got to be balance, and the sisters dragged in the coachmen and she turned them into beetles and then...she trod on them...\"\n\nShe stopped, horrified.\n\nA firework burst in the sky, but in the street below a bubble of terrible silence hung in the air.\n\n\"Witches don't kill people,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"This is foreign parts,\" muttered Nanny, looking away.\n\n\"I think,\" said Granny Weatherwax, \"that you ought to get right away from here, young lady.\"\n\n\"They just went crack\u2014\"\n\n\"We've got the brooms,\" said Magrat. \"We could all get away.\"\n\n\"She'd send something after you,\" said Ella darkly. \"I know her. Something from out of a mirror.\"\n\n\"So we'd fight it,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"No,\" said Granny. \"Whatever's going to happen's going to happen here. We'll send the young lady off somewhere safe and then...we shall see.\"\n\n\"But if I go away she'll know,\" said Ella. \"She's expecting to see me at the ball right now! And she'll come looking!\"\n\n\"That sounds right, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"You want to face her somewhere you choose. I don't want her lookin' for us on a night like this. I want to see her coming.\"\n\nThere was a fluttering in the darkness above them. A small dark shape glided down and landed on the cobbles. Even in the darkness its eyes gleamed. It stared expectantly at the witches with far too much intelligence for a mere fowl.\n\n\"That's Mrs. Gogol's cockerel,\" said Nanny, \"ain't it?\"\n\n\"Exactly what it is I might never exactly decide,\" said Granny. \"I wish I knew where she stood.\"\n\n\"Good or bad, you mean?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"She's a good cook,\" said Nanny. \"I don't think anyone can cook like she do and be that bad.\"\n\n\"Is she the woman who lives out in the swamp?\" said Ella. \"I've heard all kinds of stories about her.\"\n\n\"She's a bit too ready to turn dead people into zombies,\" said Granny. \"And that's not right.\"\n\n\"Well, we just turned a cat into a person\u2014I mean, a human person\"\u2014Nanny, inveterate cat lover, corrected herself\u2014\"and that's not strictly right either. It's probably a long way from strictly right.\"\n\n\"Yes, but we did it for the right reasons,\" said Granny.\n\n\"We don't know what Mrs. Gogol's reasons are\u2014\"\n\nThere was a growl from the alleyway. Nanny scuttled toward it, and they heard her scolding voice.\n\n\"No! Put him down this minute!\"\n\n\"Mine! Mine!\"\n\nLegba strutted a little way along the street, and then turned and looked expectantly at them.\n\nGranny scratched her chin, and walked a little way away from Magrat and Ella, sizing them up. Then she turned and looked around.\n\n\"Hmm,\" she said. \"Lily is expecting to see you, ain't she?\"\n\n\"She can look out of reflections,\" said Ella nervously.\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Granny again. She stuck her finger in her ear and twiddled it for a moment. \"Well, Magrat, you're the godmother around here. What's the most important thing we have to do?\"\n\nMagrat had never played a card game in her life.\n\n\"Keep Ella safe,\" she said promptly, amazed at Granny suddenly admitting that she was, after all, the one who had been given the wand. \"That's what fairy godmothering is all about.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax frowned.\n\n\"You know,\" she said, \"you two are just about the same size...\"\n\nMagrat's expression of puzzlement lasted for half a second before it was replaced by one of sudden horror.\n\nShe backed away.\n\n\"Someone's got to do it,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Oh, no! No! It wouldn't work! It really wouldn't work! No!\"\n\n\"Magrat Garlick,\" said Granny Weatherwax, triumphantly, \"you shall go to the ball!\"\n\nThe coach cornered on two wheels. Greebo stood on the coachman's box, swaying and grinning madly and cracking the whip. This was even better than his fluffy ball with a bell in it...\n\nInside the coach Magrat was wedged between the two older witches, her head in her hands.\n\n\"But Ella might get lost in the swamp!\"\n\n\"Not with that cockerel leading the way. She'll be safer in Mrs. Gogol's swamp than at the ball, I know that,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Thank you!\"\n\n\"You're welcome,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Everyone'll know I'm not her!\"\n\n\"Not with the mask on they won't,\" said Granny.\n\n\"But my hair's the wrong color!\"\n\n\"I can tint that up a treat, no problem,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I'm the wrong shape!\"\n\n\"We can\u2014\" Granny hesitated. \"Can you, you know, puff yourself out a bit more?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Have you got a spare handkerchief, Gytha?\"\n\n\"I reckon I could tear a bit off my petticoat, Esme.\"\n\n\"Ouch!\"\n\n\"There!\"\n\n\"And these glass shoes don't fit!\"\n\n\"They fit me fine,\" said Nanny. \"I gave 'em a try.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I've got smaller feet than you!\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said Granny. \"You put on a couple of pairs of my socks and they'll fit real snug.\"\n\nBereft of all further excuses, Magrat struck out in sheer desperation.\n\n\"But I don't know how to behave at balls!\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax had to admit that she didn't, either. She raised her eyebrows at Nanny.\n\n\"You used to go dancin' when you were young,\" she said.\n\n\"Well,\" said Nanny Ogg, social tutor, \"what you do is, you tap men with your fan\u2014got your fan?\u2014and say things like 'La, sir!' It helps to giggle, too. And flutter your eyelashes a bit. And pout.\"\n\n\"How am I supposed to pout?\"\n\nNanny Ogg demonstrated.\n\n\"Yuk!\"\n\n\"Don't worry,\" said Granny. \"We'll be there too.\"\n\n\"And that's supposed to make me feel better, is it?\"\n\nNanny reached behind Magrat and grabbed Granny's shoulder. Her lips formed the words: Won't work. She's all to pieces. No confidence.\n\nGranny nodded.\n\n\"Perhaps I ought to do it,\" said Nanny, in a loud voice. \"I'm experienced at balls. I bet if I wore my hair long and wore the mask and them shiny shoes and we hemmed up the dress a foot no one'd know the difference, what do you say?\"\n\nMagrat was so overawed by the sheer fascinating picture of this that she obeyed unthinkingly when Granny Weatherwax said, \"Look at me, Magrat Garlick.\"\n\nThe pumpkin coach entered the palace drive at high speed, scattering horses and pedestrians, and braked by the steps in a shower of gravel.\n\n\"That was fun,\" said Greebo. And then lost interest.\n\nA couple of flunkies bustled forward to open the door, and were nearly thrown back by the sheer force of the arrogance that emanated from within.\n\n\"Hurry up, peasants!\"\n\nMagrat swept out, pushing the major-domo away. She gathered up her skirts and ran up the red carpet. At the top, a footman was unwise enough to ask her for her ticket.\n\n\"You impertinent lackey!\"\n\nThe footman, recognizing instantly the boundless bad manners of the well-bred, backed away quickly.\n\nDown by the coach, Nanny Ogg said, \"You don't think you might have overdone it a little bit?\"\n\n\"I had to,\" said Granny. \"You know what she's like.\"\n\n\"How are we going to get in? We ain't got tickets. And we ain't dressed properly, either.\"\n\n\"Get the broomsticks down off the rack,\" said Granny. \"We're going straight to the top.\"\n\nThey touched down on the battlements of a tower overlooking the palace grounds. The strains of courtly music drifted up from below, and there was the occasional pop and flare of fireworks from the river.\n\nGranny opened a likely-looking door in the tower and descended the circular stairs, which led to a landing.\n\n\"Posh carpet on the floor,\" said Nanny. \"Why's it on the walls too?\"\n\n\"Them's tapestries,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Cor,\" said Nanny. \"You live and learn. Well, I do anyway.\"\n\nGranny stopped with her hand on a doorknob.\n\n\"What do you mean by that?\" she said.\n\n\"Well, I never knew you had a sister.\"\n\n\"We never talked about her.\"\n\n\"It's a shame when families break up like that,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Huh! You said your sister Beryl was a greedy ingrate with the conscience of an oyster.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, but she is my sister.\"\n\nGranny opened the door.\n\n\"Well, well,\" she said.\n\n\"What's up? What's up? Don't just stand there.\" Nanny peered around her and into the room.\n\n\"Coo,\" she said.\n\nMagrat paused in the big, red-velvet anteroom. Strange thoughts fireworked around her head; she hadn't felt like this since the herbal wine. But struggling among them like a tiny prosaic potato in a spray of psychedelic chrysanthemums was an inner voice screaming that she didn't even know how to dance. Apart from in circles.\n\nBut it couldn't be difficult if ordinary people managed it.\n\nThe tiny inner Magrat struggling to keep its balance on the surge of arrogant self-confidence wondered if this was how Granny Weatherwax felt all the time.\n\nShe raised the hem of her dress slightly and looked down at her shoes.\n\nThey couldn't be real glass, or else she'd be hobbling toward some emergency first aid by now. Nor were they transparent. The human foot is a useful organ but is not, except to some people with highly specialized interests, particularly attractive to look at.\n\nThe shoes were mirrors. Dozens of facets caught the light.\n\nTwo mirrors on her feet. Magrat vaguely recalled something about...about a witch never getting caught between two mirrors, wasn't it? Or was it never trust a man with orange eyebrows? Something she'd been taught, back when she'd been an ordinary person. Something...like...a witch should never stand between two mirrors because, because, because the person that walked away might not be the same person. Or something. Like...you were spread out among the images, your whole soul was pulled out thin, and somewhere in the distant images a dark part of you would get out and come looking for you, if you weren't very careful. Or something.\n\nShe overruled the thought. It didn't matter.\n\nShe stepped forward, to where a little knot of other guests were waiting to make their entrance.\n\n\"Lord Henry Gleet and Lady Gleet!\"\n\nThe ballroom wasn't a room at all, but a courtyard open to the soft night air. Steps led down into it. At the far end, another much wider staircase, lined with flickering torches, led up into the palace itself. On the far wall, huge and easily visible, was a clock.\n\n\"The Honorable Douglas Incessant!\"\n\nThe time was a quarter to eight. Magrat had a vague recollection of some old woman shouting something about the time, but...that didn't matter either...\n\n\"Lady Volentia D' Arrangement!\"\n\nShe reached the top of the stairs. The butler who was announcing the arrivals looked her up and down and then, in the manner of one who had been coached carefully all afternoon for this very moment, bellowed:\n\n\"Er...Mysterious and beautiful stranger!\"\n\nSilence spread out from the bottom of the steps like spilled paint. Five hundred heads turned to look at Magrat.\n\nA day before, even the mere thought of having five hundred people staring at her would have melted Magrat like butter in a furnace. But now she stared back, smiled, and raised her chin haughtily.\n\nHer fan snapped open like a gunshot.\n\nThe mysterious and beautiful stranger, daughter of Simplicity Garlick, granddaughter of Araminta Garlick, her self-possession churning so strongly that it was crystalizing out on the sides of her personality...\n\n...stepped out.\n\nA moment later another guest stalked past the butler.\n\nThe butler hesitated. Something about the figure worried him. It kept going in and out of focus. He wasn't entirely certain if there was anyone else there at all.\n\nThen his common sense, which had temporarily gone and hidden behind something, took over. After all, it was Samedi Nuit Mort\u2014people were supposed to dress up and look weird. You were allowed to see people like that.\n\n\"Excuse me, er, sir,\" he said. \"Who shall I say it is?\"\n\nI'M HERE INCOGNITO.\n\nThe butler was sure nothing had been said, but he was also certain that he had heard the words.\n\n\"Um...fine...\" he mumbled. \"Go on in, then...um.\" He brightened. \"Damn good mask, sir.\"\n\nHe watched the dark figure walk down the steps, and leaned against a pillar.\n\nWell, that was about it. He pulled a handkerchief out from his pocket, removed his powdered wig, and wiped his brow. He felt as though he'd just had a narrow escape, and what was even worse was that he didn't know from what.\n\nHe looked cautiously around, and then sidled into the anteroom and took up a position behind a velvet curtain, where he could enjoy a quiet roll-up.\n\nHe nearly swallowed it when another figure loped silently up the red carpet. It was dressed like a pirate that had just raided a ship carrying black leather goods for the discerning customer. One eye had a patch over it. The other gleamed like a malevolent emerald. And no one that big ought to be able to walk that quietly.\n\nThe butler stuck the dog-end behind his ear.\n\n\"Excuse me, milord,\" he said, running after the man and touching him firmly yet respectfully on the arm. \"I shall need to see your tic...your...tic...\"\n\nThe man transferred his gaze to the hand on his arm. The butler let go hurriedly.\n\n\"Wrowwwl?\"\n\n\"Your...ticket...\"\n\nThe man opened his mouth and hissed.\n\n\"Of course,\" said the butler, backing away with the efficient speed of someone who certainly isn't being paid enough to face a needle-toothed maniac in black leather, \"I expect you're one of the Duc's friends, yes?\"\n\n\"Wrowwl.\"\n\n\"No problem...no problem...but Sir has forgotten Sir's mask...\"\n\n\"Wrowwl?\"\n\nThe butler waved frantically to a side table piled high with masks.\n\n\"The Duc requested that everyone here is masked,\" said the butler. \"Er. I wonder if Sir would find something here to his liking?\"\n\nThere's always a few of them, he thought to himself. It says \"Masque\" in big curly letters on the invite, in gold yet, but there's always a few buggers who thinks it means it's from someone called Maskew. This one was quite likely looting towns when he should have been learning to read.\n\nThe greasy man stared at the masks. All the good ones had been taken by earlier arrivals, but that didn't seem to dismay him.\n\nHe pointed.\n\n\"Want that one,\" he said.\n\n\"Er...a...very good choice, my lord. Allow me to help you on\u2014\"\n\n\"Wrowwl!\"\n\nThe butler backed away, clutching at his own arm.\n\nThe man glared at him, then dropped the mask over his head and squinted out through an eyehole at a mirror.\n\nDamn odd, the butler thought. I mean, it's not the kind of mask the men choose. They go for skulls and birds and bulls and stuff like that. Not cats.\n\nThe odd thing was that the mask had just been a pretty ginger cat head when it was on the table. On its wearer it was...still a cat head, only a lot more so, and somehow slightly more feline and a lot nastier than it should have been.\n\n\"Aaalwaaays waanted to bee ginger,\" said the man.\n\n\"On you it looks good, sir,\" trilled the butler.\n\nThe cat-headed man turned his head this way and that, clearly in love with what he was seeing.\n\nGreebo yowled softly and happily to himself and ambled into the ball. He wanted something to eat, someone to fight, and then...well, he'd have to see.\n\nFor wolves and pigs and bears, thinking that they're human is a tragedy. For a cat, it's an experience.\n\nBesides, this new shape was a lot more fun. No one had thrown an old boot at him for over ten minutes.\n\nThe two witches looked around the room.\n\n\"Odd,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Not what I'd expect in, you know, a royal bedroom.\"\n\n\"Is it a royal bedroom?\"\n\n\"There's a crown on the door.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nGranny looked around at the decor.\n\n\"What do you know about royal bedrooms?\" she said, more or less for something to say. \"You've never been in a royal bedroom.\"\n\n\"I might have been,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"You never have!\"\n\n\"Remember young Verence's coronation? We all got invited to the palace?\" said Nanny. \"When I went to have a\u2014to powder my nose I saw the door open, so I went in and had a bit of a bounce up and down.\"\n\n\"That's treason. You can get put in prison for that,\" said Granny severely, and added, \"What was it like?\"\n\n\"Very comfy. Young Magrat doesn't know what she's missing. And it was a lot better than this, I don't mind saying,\" said Nanny.\n\nThe basic color was green. Green walls, green floor. There was a wardrobe and a bedside table. Even a bedside rug, which was green. The light filtered in through a window filled with greenish glass.\n\n\"Like being at the bottom of a pond,\" said Granny. She swatted something. \"And there's flies everywhere!\" She paused, as if thinking very hard, and said, \"Hmm...\"\n\n\"A Duc pond,\" said Nanny.\n\nThere were flies everywhere. They buzzed on the window and zigzagged aimlessly back and forth across the ceiling.\n\n\"Duc pond,\" Nanny repeated, because people who make that kind of joke never let well enough alone, \"like duck\u2014\"\n\n\"I heard,\" said Granny. She flailed at a fat bluebottle.\n\n\"Anyway, you'd think there wouldn't be flies in a royal bedroom,\" muttered Nanny.\n\n\"You'd think there'd be a bed, in fact,\" said Granny.\n\nWhich there wasn't. What there was instead, and what was preying somewhat on their minds, was a big round wooden cover on the floor. It was about six feet across. There were convenient handles.\n\nThey walked around it. Flies rose up and hummed away.\n\n\"I'm thinking of a story,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Nanny Ogg, her tone slightly shriller than usual. \"There was this girl who married this man and he said you can go anywhere you like in the palace but you mustn't open that door and she did and she found he'd murdered all his other...\"\n\nHer voice trailed off.\n\nGranny was staring hard at the cover, and scratching her chin.\n\n\"Put it like this,\" said Nanny, trying to be reasonable against all odds. \"What could we possibly find under there that's worse than we could imagine?\"\n\nThey each took a handle.\n\nFive minutes later Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg stepped outside the Duc's bedroom. Granny closed the door very quietly.\n\nThey stared at one another.\n\n\"Cor,\" said Nanny, her face still pale.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Granny. \"Stories!\"\n\n\"I'd heard about...you know, people like him, but I never believed it. Yuk. I wonder what he looks like.\"\n\n\"You can't tell just by lookin',\" said Granny.\n\n\"It explains the flies, at any rate,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nShe raised a hand to her mouth in horror.\n\n\"And our Magrat's down there with him!\" she said. \"And you know what's going to happen. They're going to meet one another and\u2014\"\n\n\"But there's hundreds of other people,\" said Granny. \"It's hardly what you'd call intimate.\"\n\n\"Yes...but even the thought of him, you know, even touching her...I mean, it'd be like holding a\u2014\"\n\n\"Does Ella count as a princess, d'you think?\" said Granny.\n\n\"What? Oh. Yeah. Probably. For foreign parts. Why?\"\n\n\"Then that means there's more than one story here. Lily's letting several happen all at the same time,\" said Granny. \"Think about it. It's not touching that's the trick. It's kissing.\"\n\n\"We've got to get down there!\" said Nanny. \"We've got to stop it! I mean, you know me, I'm no prude, but...yuk...\"\n\n\"I say! Old woman!\"\n\nThey turned. A small fat woman in a red dress and a towering white wig was peering haughtily at them from behind a fox mask.\n\n\"Yes?\" snapped Granny.\n\n\"Yes, my lady,\" said the fat woman. \"Where are your manners? I demand that you direct me to the powder room this instant! And what do you think you're doing?\"\n\nThis was to Nanny Ogg, who was walking around her and staring critically at her dress.\n\n\"You're a 20, maybe a 22?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"What? What is this impertinence?\"\n\nNanny Ogg rubbed her chin thoughtfully. \"Well, I dunno,\" she said, \"red in a dress has never been me. You haven't got anything in blue, have you?\"\n\nThe choleric woman turned to strike Nanny with her fan, but a skinny hand tapped her on the shoulder.\n\nShe looked up into Granny Weatherwax's face.\n\nAs she passed out dreamily she was aware of a voice, a long way off, saying, \"Well, that's me fitted. But she's never a size 20. And if I had a face like that I'd never wear red...\"\n\nLady Volentia D'Arrangement relaxed in the inner sanctum of the ladies' rest room. She removed her mask and fished an errant beauty spot from the depths of her d\u00e9colletage. Then she reached around and down to try and adjust her bustle, an exercise guaranteed to produce the most ridiculous female gymnastics on every world except those where the panty girdle had been invented.\n\nApart from being as well-adapted a parasite as the oak bracket fungus Lady Volentia D'Arrangement was, by and large, a blameless sort of person. She always attended events for the better class of charity, and made a point of knowing the first names of nearly all her servants\u2014the cleaner ones, at least. And she was, on the whole, kind to animals and even to children if they had been washed and didn't make too much noise. All in all, she didn't deserve what was about to happen to her, which was the fate Mother Nature had in store for any woman in this room on this night who happened to have approximately the same measurements as Granny Weatherwax.\n\nShe was aware of someone coming up beside her.\n\n\"S'cuse me, missus.\"\n\nIt turned out to be a small, repulsive lower-class woman with a big ingratiating smile.\n\n\"What do you want, old woman?\" said Lady Volentia.\n\n\"S'cuse me,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"My friend over there would like a word with you.\"\n\nLady Volentia looked around haughtily into...\n\n...icy, blue-eyed, hypnotic oblivion.\n\n\"What's this thing like an extra bu...hobo?\"\n\n\"It's a bustle, Esme.\"\n\n\"It's damn uncomfortable is what it is. I keep on feeling someone's following me around.\"\n\n\"The white suits you, anyway.\"\n\n\"No it don't. Black's the only color for a proper witch. And this wig is too hot. Who wants a foot of hair on their heads?\"\n\nGranny donned her mask. It was an eagle's face in white feathers stuck with sequins.\n\nNanny adjusted some unmentionable underpinning somewhere beneath her crinoline and straightened up.\n\n\"Cor, look at us,\" she said. \"Them feathers in your hair really look good.\"\n\n\"I've never been vain,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"You know that, Gytha. No one could ever call me vain.\"\n\n\"No, Esme,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nGranny twirled a bit.\n\n\"Are you ready then, Dame Ogg?\" she said.\n\n\"Yes. Let's do it, Lady Weatherwax.\"\n\nThe dance floor was thronged. Decorations hung from every pillar, but they were black and silver, the colors of the festival of Samedi Nuit Mort. An orchestra was playing on a balcony. Dancers whirled. The din was immense.\n\nA waiter with a tray of drinks suddenly found that he was a waiter without a tray of drinks. He looked around, and then down to a small fox under a huge white wig.\n\n\"Bugger off and get us some more,\" said Nanny pleasantly. \"Can you see her, your ladyship?\"\n\n\"There's too many people.\"\n\n\"Well, can you see the Duc?\"\n\n\"How do I know? Everyone's got masks on!\"\n\n\"Hey, is that food over there?\"\n\nMany of the less energetic or more hungry of the Genua nobility were clustered around the long buffet. All they were aware of, apart from sharp digs with a pair of industrious elbows, was an amiable monotone at chest height, on the lines of \"...mind your backs...stand aside there...comin' through.\"\n\nNanny fought her way to the table and nudged a space for Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Cor, what a spread, eh?\" she said. \"Mind you, they have tiny chickens in these parts.\" She grabbed a plate.\n\n\"Them's quails.\"\n\n\"I'll 'ave three. 'Ere, charlie chan!\"\n\nA flunkey stared at her.\n\n\"Got any pickles?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid not, ma'am.\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked along a table which included roast swans, a roasted peacock that probably wouldn't have felt any better about it even if it had known that its tail feathers were going to be stuck back in afterward, and more fruits, boiled lobsters, nuts, cakes, creams and trifles than a hermit's dream.\n\n\"Well, got any relish?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Tomato ketchup?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"And they call this a gormay paradise,\" muttered Nanny, as the band struck up the next dance. She nudged a tall figure helping himself to the lobster. \"Some place, eh?\"\n\nVERY NICE.\n\n\"Good mask you've got there.\"\n\nTHANK YOU.\n\nNanny was spun around by Granny Weatherwax's hand on her shoulder.\n\n\"There's Magrat!\"\n\n\"Where? Where?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Over there...sitting by the potted plants.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. On the chassy longyew,\" said Nanny. \"That's 'sofa' in foreign, you know,\" she added.\n\n\"What's she doing?\"\n\n\"Being attractive to men, I think.\"\n\n\"What, Magrat?\"\n\n\"Yeah. You're really getting good at that hypnotism, ain't you.\"\n\nMagrat fluttered her fan and looked up at the Compte de Yoyo.\n\n\"La, sir,\" she said. \"You may get me another plate of lark's eggs, if you really must.\"\n\n\"Like a shot, dear lady!\" The old man bustled off in the direction of the buffet.\n\nMagrat surveyed her empire of admirers, and then extended a languorous hand toward Captain de Vere of the Palace Guard. He stood to attention.\n\n\"Dear captain,\" she said, \"you may have the pleasure of the next dance.\"\n\n\"Acting like a hussy,\" said Granny disapprovingly.\n\nNanny gave her an odd look.\n\n\"Not really,\" she said. \"Anyway, a bit of hussing never did anyone any harm. At least none of those men look like the Duc. 'Ere, what you doing?\"\n\nThis was to a small bald-headed man who was trying surreptitiously to set up a small easel in front of them.\n\n\"Uh...if you ladies could just hold still for a few minutes,\" he said shyly. \"For the woodcut?\"\n\n\"What woodcut?\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"You know,\" said the man, opening a small penknife. \"Everyone likes to see their woodcut in the broadsheets after a ball like this? 'Lady Thing enjoying a joke with Lord Whatsit,' that sort of thing?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax opened her mouth to reply, but Nanny Ogg laid a gentle hand on her arm. She relaxed a little and sought for something more suitable to say.\n\n\"I knows a joke about alligator sandwiches,\" she volunteered, and shook Nanny's hand away. \"There was a man, and he went into an inn and he said 'Do you sell alligator sandwiches?' and the other man said 'Yes' and he said, 'Then give me an alligator sandwich\u2014and don't be a long time about it!'\"\n\nShe gave him a triumphant look.\n\n\"Yes?\" said the woodcutter, chipping away quickly, \"and then what happened?\"\n\nNanny Ogg dragged Granny away quickly, searching for a distraction.\n\n\"Some people don't know a joke when they hear it,\" said Granny.\n\nAs the band launched into another number Nanny Ogg fumbled in a pocket and found the dance card that belonged to an owner now slumbering peacefully in a distant room.\n\n\"This is,\" she turned the card around, her lips moving wonderingly, \"Sir, Roger the Coverley?\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked around. A plump military man with big whiskers was bowing to her. He looked as though he'd enjoyed quite a few jokes in his time.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You promised me the honor of this dance, m'lady?\"\n\n\"No I didn't.\"\n\nThe man looked puzzled. \"But I assure you, Lady D'Arrangement...your card...my name is Colonel Moutarde...\"\n\nGranny gave him a look of deep suspicion, and then read the dance card attached to her fan.\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Do you know how to dance?\" hissed Nanny.\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Never seen you dance,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny Weatherwax had been on the point of giving the colonel as polite a refusal as she could manage. Now she threw back her shoulders defiantly.\n\n\"A witch can do anything she puts her mind to, Gytha Ogg. Come, Mr. Colonel.\"\n\nNanny watched as the pair disappeared into the throng.\n\n\"'Allo, foxy lady,\" said a voice behind her. She looked around. There was no one there.\n\n\"Down here.\"\n\nShe looked down.\n\nA very small body wearing the uniform of a captain in the palace guard, a powdered wig and an ingratiating smile beamed up at her.\n\n\"My name's Casanunda,\" he said. \"I'm reputed to be the world's greatest lover. What do you think?\"\n\nNanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.\n\n\"You're a dwarf,\" she said.\n\n\"Size isn't important.\"\n\nNanny Ogg considered her position. One colleague known for her shy and retiring nature was currently acting like that whatshername, the heathen queen who was always playing up to men and bathing in asses' milk and stuff, and the other one was acting very odd and dancing with a man even though she didn't know one foot from the other.Nanny Ogg felt she was at least owed a bit of time in which to be her own woman.\n\n\"Can you dance as well?\" she said wearily.\n\n\"Oh yes. How about a date?\"\n\n\"How old do you think I am?\" said Nanny.\n\nCasanunda considered. \"All right, then. How about a prune?\"\n\nNanny sighed, and reached down for his hand. \"Come on.\"\n\nLady Volentia D'Arrangement staggered limply along a passageway, a forlorn thin shape in complicated corsetry and ankle-length underwear.\n\nShe wasn't at all sure what had happened. There had been that frightful woman, and then this feeling of absolute bliss and then...she'd been sitting on the carpet with her dress off. Lady Volentia had been to enough balls in her dull life to know that there were occasions when you woke up in strange rooms with your dress off, but that tended to be later in the evening and at least you had some idea of why you were there...\n\nShe eased her way along, holding onto the wall. Someone was definitely going to get told off about this.\n\nA figure came around a bend in the corridor, idly tossing a turkey leg into the air with one hand and catching it with the other.\n\n\"I say,\" said Lady Volentia, \"I wonder if you would be so good as to\u2014oh...\"\n\nShe looked up at a leather-clad figure with an eye-patch and a grin like a corsair raider.\n\n\"Wroowwwwl!\"\n\n\"Oh. I say!\"\n\nNothing to this dancing, Granny Weatherwax told herself. It's just moving around to music.\n\nIt helped to be able to read her partner's mind. Dancing is instinctive, after you've got past that stage of looking down to see what your feet are doing, and witches are good at reading resonating instincts. There was a slight struggle as the colonel tried to lead, but he soon gave in, partly in the face of Granny Weatherwax's sheer refusal to compromise but mainly because of her boots.\n\nLady D' Arrangement's shoes hadn't fitted. Besides, Granny was attached to her boots. They had complicated iron fixtures, and toecaps like battering rams. When it came to dancing, Granny's boots went exactly wherever they wanted to go.\n\nShe steered her helpless and slightly crippled partner toward Nanny Ogg, who had already cleared quite a space around her. What Granny could achieve with two pounds of hobnailed syncopation Nanny Ogg could achieve merely with her bosom.\n\nIt was a large and experienced bosom, and not one that was subject to restraint. As Nanny Ogg bounced down, it went up; when she gyrated right, it hadn't finished twirling left. In addition, Nanny's feet moved in a complicated jig step regardless of the actual tempo, so that while her body actually progressed at the speed of a waltz her feet were doing something a bit nearer to a hornpipe. The total effect obliged her partner to dance several feet away, and many surrounding couples to stop dancing just to watch in fascination, in case the build-up of harmonic vibrations dropped her into the chandeliers.\n\nGranny and her helpless partner whirled past.\n\n\"Stop showin' off,\" Granny hissed, and disappeared into the throng again.\n\n\"Who's your friend?\" said Casanunda.\n\n\"She's\u2014\" Nanny began.\n\nThere was a blast of trumpets.\n\n\"That was a bit off the beat,\" she said.\n\n\"No, that means the Duc is arriving,\" said Casanunda.\n\nThe band stopped playing. The couples, as one, turned and faced the main staircase.\n\nThere were two figures descending in stately fashion.\n\nMy word, he's a sleek and handsome devil, Nanny told herself. It just goes to show. Esme's right. You can never tell by lookin'.\n\nAnd her...\n\n...that's Lily Weatherwax?\n\nThe woman wasn't masked.\n\nGive or take the odd laughter line and wrinkle, it was Granny Weatherwax to the life.\n\nAlmost...\n\nNanny found she was turning to find the white eagle head in the crowd. All heads were turned to the staircase, but there was one staring as if her gaze was a steel rod.\n\nLily Weatherwax wore white. Until that point it had never occurred to Nanny Ogg that there could be different colors of white. Now she knew better. The white of Lily Weatherwax's dress seemed to radiate; if all the lights went out, she felt, Lily's dress would glow. It had style. It gleamed, and had puffed sleeves and was edged with lace.\n\nAnd Lily Weatherwax looked\u2014Nanny Ogg had to admit it\u2014younger. There was the same bone structure and fine Weatherwax complexion, but it looked...less worn.\n\nIf that's what bein' bad does to you, Nanny thought, I could of done with some of that years ago. The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.\n\nThe eyes were the same, though. Somewhere in the genetics of the Weatherwaxes was a piece of sapphire. Maybe generations of them.\n\nThe Duc was unbelievably handsome. But that was understandable. He was wearing black. Even his eyes wore black.\n\nNanny surfaced, and pushed her way through the throng to Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Esme?\"\n\nShe grabbed Granny's arm.\n\n\"Esme?\"\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\nNanny was aware that the crowd was moving, parting like a sea, between the staircase and the chaise-longue at the far end of the hall.\n\nGranny Weatherwax's knuckles were as white as her dress.\n\n\"Esme? What's happening? What are you doing?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Trying...to...stop...the story,\" said Granny.\n\n\"What's she doing, then?\"\n\n\"Letting...things...happen!\"\n\nThe crowd were pulling back past them. It didn't seem to be a conscious thing. It was just happening that a sort of corridor was forming.\n\nThe Prince walked slowly along it. Behind Lily, faint images hung in the air so that she appeared to be followed by a succession of fading ghosts.\n\nMagrat stood up.\n\nNanny was aware of a rainbow hue in the air. Possibly there was the tweeting of bluebirds.\n\nThe Prince took Magrat by the hand.\n\nNanny glanced up at Lily Weatherwax, who had remained a few steps up from the foot of the stairs and was smiling beneficently.\n\nThen she tried to put a focus on the future.\n\nIt was horribly, easy.\n\nNormally the future is branching off at every turn and it's only possible to have the haziest idea of what is likely to happen, even when you're as temporally sensitive as a witch. But here there were stories coiled around the tree of events, bending it into a new shape.\n\nGranny Weatherwax wouldn't know what a pattern of quantum inevitability was if she found it eating her dinner. If you mentioned the words \"paradigms of space-time\" to her she'd just say \"What?\" But that didn't mean she was ignorant. It just meant that she didn't have any truck with words, especially gibberish. She just knew that there were certain things that happened continually in human history, like three-dimensional clich\u00e9s. Stories.\n\n\"And now we're part of it! And I can't stop it,\" said Granny. \"There's got to be a place where I can stop it, and I can't find it!\"\n\nThe band struck up. It was playing a waltz.\n\nMagrat and the Prince whirled around the dance floor once, never taking their eyes off each other. Then a few couples dared to join them. And then, as if the whole ball was a machine whose spring had been wound up again, the floor was full of dancing couples and the sounds of conversation flowed back into the void.\n\n\"Are you going to introduce me to your friend?\" said Casanunda, from somewhere near Nanny's elbow. People swept past them.\n\n\"It's all got to happen,\" said Granny, ignoring the low-level interruption. \"Everything. The kiss, the clock striking midnight, her running out and losing the glass slipper, everything.\"\n\n\"Ur, yuk,\" said Nanny, leaning on her partner's head. \"I'd rather lick toads.\"\n\n\"She looks just my type,\" said Casanunda, his voice slightly muffled. \"I've always been very attracted to dominant women.\"\n\nThe witches looked at the whirling couple, who were staring into one another's eyes.\n\n\"I could trip them up, no trouble,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"You can't. That's not something that can happen.\"\n\n\"Well, Magrat's sensible...more or less sensible,\" said Nanny. \"Maybe she'll notice something's wrong.\"\n\n\"I'm good at what I do, Gytha Ogg,\" said Granny. \"She won't notice nothing until the clock strikes midnight.\"\n\nThey both turned to look up. It was barely nine.\n\n\"Y'know,\" said Nanny Ogg. \"Clocks don't strike midnight. Seems to me they just strike twelve. I mean, it's just a matter of bongs.\"\n\nThey both looked up at the clock again.\n\nIn the swamp, Legba the black cockerel crowed. He always crowed at sunset.\n\nNanny Ogg pounded up another flight of stairs and leaned against the wall to catch her breath.\n\nIt had to be somewhere around here.\n\n\"Another time you'll learn to keep your mouth shut, Gytha Ogg,\" she muttered.\n\n\"I expect we're leaving the hurly-burly of the ball for an intimate t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate somewhere?\" said Casanunda hopefully, trotting along behind her.\n\nNanny tried to ignore him and ran along a dusty passage. There was a balcony rail on one side, looking down into the ballroom. And there...\n\n...a small wooden door.\n\nShe rammed it open with her elbow. Within, mechanisms whirred in counterpoint to the dancing figures below as if the clock was propelling them, which, in a metaphorical sense, it was.\n\nClockwork, Nanny thought. Once you know about clockwork, you know about everything.\n\nI wish I bloody well knew about clockwork.\n\n\"Very cozy,\" said Casanunda.\n\nShe squeezed through the gap and into the clock space. Cogwheels clicked past her nose.\n\nShe stared at them for a moment.\n\nLawks. All this just to chop Time up into little bits.\n\n\"It might be just the teensiest bit cramped,\" said Casanunda, from somewhere near her armpit. \"But needs must, ma'am. I remember once in Quirm, there was this sedan chair and...\"\n\nLet's see, thought Nanny. This bit is connected to that bit, this one turns, that one turns faster, this spiky bit wobbles backward and forward...\n\nOh, well. Just twist the first thing you can grab, as the High Priest said to the vestal virgin.*\n\nNanny Ogg spat on her hands, gripped the largest cog-wheel, and twisted.\n\nIt carried on turning, pulling her with it.\n\nBlimey. Oh, well...\n\nThen she did what neither Granny Weatherwax nor Magrat would have dreamed of doing in the circumstances. But Nanny Ogg's voyages on the sea of intersexual dalliance had gone rather further than twice around the lighthouse, and she saw nothing demeaning in getting a man to help her.\n\nShe simpered at Casanunda.\n\n\"Things would be a lot more comfortable in our little pie-de-terre if you could just push this little wheel around a bit,\" she said. \"I'm sure you could manage it,\" she added.\n\n\"Oh, no problem, good lady,\" said Casanunda. He reached up with one hand. Dwarfs are immensely strong for their size. The wheel seemed to offer him no resistance at all.\n\nSomewhere in the mechanism something resisted for a moment and then went clonk. Big wheels turned reluctantly. Little wheels screamed on their axles. A small important piece flew out and pinged off Casanunda's small bullet head.\n\nAnd, much faster than nature had ever intended, the hands sped around the face.\n\nA new noise right overhead made Nanny Ogg look up.\n\nHer self-satisfied expression faded. The hammer that struck the hours was swinging slowly backward. It struck Nanny that she was standing right under the bell at the same time as the bell, too, was struck.\n\nBong...\n\n\"Oh, bugger!\"\n\n...bong...\n\n...bong...\n\n...bong...\n\nMist rolled through the swamp. And shadows moved with it, their shapes indistinct on this night when the difference between the living and the dead was only a matter of time.\n\nMrs. Gogol could feel them among the trees. The homeless. The hungry. The silent people. Those forsaken by men and gods. The people of the mists and the mud, whose only strength was somewhere on the other side of weakness, whose beliefs were as rickety and home-made as their homes. And the people from the city\u2014not the ones who lived in the big white houses and went to balls in fine coaches, but the other ones. They were the ones that stories are never about. Stories are not, on the whole, interested in swineherds who remain swineherds and poor and humble shoemakers whose destiny is to die slightly poorer and much humbler.\n\nThese people were the ones who made the magical kingdom work, who cooked its meals and swept its floors and carted its night soil and were its faces in the crowd and whose wishes and dreams, undemanding as they were, were of no consequence. The invisibles.\n\nAnd me out here, she thought. Building traps for gods.\n\nThere are various forms of voodoo in the multiverse, because it's a religion that can be put together from any ingredients that happen to be lying around. And all of them try, in some way, to call down a god into the body of a human being.\n\nThat was stupid, Mrs. Gogol thought. That was dangerous.\n\nMrs. Gogol's voodoo worked the other way about. What was a god? A focus of belief. If people believed, a god began to grow. Feebly at first, but if the swamp taught anything, it taught patience. Anything could be the focus of a god. A handful of feathers with a red ribbon around them, a hat and coat on a couple of sticks...anything. Because when all people had was practically nothing, then anything could be almost everything. And then you fed it, and lulled it, like a goose heading for p\u00e2t\u00e9, and let the power grow very slowly, and when the time was ripe you opened the path...backward. A human could ride the god, rather than the other way around. There would be a price to pay later, but there always was. In Mrs. Gogol's experience, everyone ended up dying.\n\nShe took a pull of rum and handed the jug to Saturday.\n\nSaturday took a mouthful, and passed the jug up to something that might have been a hand.\n\n\"Let it begin,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\nThe dead man picked up three small drums and began to beat out a rhythm, heartbeat fast.\n\nAfter a while something tapped Mrs. Gogol on the shoulder and handed her the jug. It was empty.\n\nMight as well begin...\n\n\"Lady Bon Anna smile on me. Mister Safe Way protect me. Stride Wide Man guide me. Hotaloga Andrews catch me.\n\n\"I stand between the light and the dark, but that no matter, because I am between.\n\n\"Here is rum for you. Tobacco for you. Food for you. A home for you.\n\n\"Now you listen to me good...\"\n\n...bong.\n\nFor Magrat it was like waking from a dream into a dream. She'd been idly dreaming that she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room, and...she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room.\n\nExcept that he wore two circles of smoked glass over his eyes.\n\nAlthough Magrat was soft-hearted, a compulsive daydreamer and, as Granny Weatherwax put it, a wet hen, she wouldn't be a witch if she didn't have certain instincts and the sense to trust them. She reached up and, before his hands could move, tweaked the things away.\n\nMagrat had seen eyes like that before, but never on something walking upright.\n\nHer feet, which a moment before had been moving gracefully across the floor, tripped over themselves.\n\n\"Er...\" she began.\n\nAnd she was aware that his hands, pink and well-manicured, were also cold and damp.\n\nMagrat turned and ran, knocking the couples aside in her madness to get away. Her legs tangled in the dress. The stupid shoes skittered on the floor.\n\nA couple of footmen blocked the stairs to the hall.\n\nMagrat's eyes narrowed. Getting out was what mattered.\n\n\"Hai!\"\n\n\"Ouch!\"\n\nAnd then she ran on, slipping at the top of the stairs. A glass slipper slithered across the marble.\n\n\"How the hell's anyone supposed to move in these things?\" she screamed at the world in general. Hopping frantically on one foot, she wrenched the other shoe off and ran into the night.\n\nThe Prince walked slowly to the top of the steps and picked up the discarded slipper.\n\nHe held it. The light glittered off its facets.\n\nGranny Weatherwax leaned against the wall in the shadows. All stories had a turning point, and it had to be close.\n\nShe was good at getting into other people's minds, but now she had to get into hers. She concentrated. Down deeper...past everyday thoughts and minor concerns, faster, faster...through layers of deep cogitation...deeper...past things sealed off and crusted over, old guilts and congealed regrets, but there was no time for them now...down...and there...the silver thread of the story. She'd been part of it, was part of it, so it had to be a part of her.\n\nIt poured past. She reached out.\n\nShe hated everything that predestined people, that fooled them, that made them slightly less than human.\n\nThe story whipped along like a steel hawser. She gripped it.\n\nHer eyes opened in shock. Then she stepped forward.\n\n\"Excuse me, Your Highness.\"\n\nShe snatched the shoe from the Duc's hands, and raised it over her head.\n\nHer expression of evil satisfaction was terrible to behold.\n\nThen she dropped the shoe.\n\nIt smashed on the stairs.\n\nA thousand glittering fragments scattered across the marble.\n\nCoiled as it was around the length of turtle-shaped space-time known as the Discworld, the story shook. One broken end flapped loose and flailed through the night, trying to find any sequence to feed on...\n\nIn the clearing the trees moved. So did the shadows. Shadows shouldn't be able to move unless the light moves. These did.\n\nThe drumming stopped.\n\nIn the silence there was the occasional sizzle as power crackled across the hanging coat.\n\nSaturday stepped forward. Green sparks flew out to his hands as he gripped the jacket and put it on.\n\nHis body jerked.\n\nErzulie Gogol breathed out.\n\n\"You are here,\" she said. \"You are still yourself. You are exactly yourself.\"\n\nSaturday raised his hands, with his fists clenched. Occasionally an arm or leg would jerk as the power inside him squirrel-caged around in its search for freedom, but she could see that he was riding it.\n\n\"It will become easier,\" she said, more gently now.\n\nSaturday nodded.\n\nWith the power flowing inside him he had, she thought, the fire he'd had when he was alive. He had not been a particularly good man, she knew. Genua had not been a model of civic virtue. But at least he'd never told people that they wanted him to oppress them, and that everything he did was for their own good.\n\nAround the circle, the people of New Genua\u2014the old New Genua\u2014knelt or bowed.\n\nHe hadn't been a kind ruler. But he'd fitted. And when he'd been arbitrary or arrogant or just plain wrong, he'd never suggested that this was justified by anything other than the fact that he was bigger and stronger and occasionally nastier than other people. He'd never suggested that it was because he was better. And he'd never told people they ought to be happy, and imposed a kind of happiness on them. The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.\n\nSaturday nodded again, this time in satisfaction. When he opened his mouth, sparks flashed between his teeth. And when he waded through the swamp, the alligators fought to get out of his way.\n\nIt was quiet in the palace kitchens now. The huge trays of roast meat, the pigs' heads with apples in their mouths, the multilayered trifles had long ago been carried upstairs. There was a clattering from the giant sinks at the far end, where some of the maids were making a start on the washing up.\n\nMrs. Pleasant the cook had made herself a plate of red stripefish in crawfish sauce. She wasn't the finest cook in Genua\u2014no one got near Mrs. Gogol's gumbo, people would almost come back from the dead for a taste of Mrs. Gogol's gumbo\u2014but the comparison was as narrow as that between, say, diamonds and sapphires. She'd done her best to cook up a good banquet, because she had her professional pride, but there wasn't much she felt she was able to do with lumps of meat.\n\nGenuan cooking, like the best cooking everywhere in the multiverse, had been evolved by people who had to make desperate use of ingredients their masters didn't want. No one would even try a bird's nest unless they had to. Only hunger would make a man taste his first alligator. No one would eat a shark's fin if they were allowed to eat the rest of the shark.\n\nShe poured herself a rum and was just picking up the spoon when she felt herself being watched.\n\nA large man in a black leather doublet was staring at her from the doorway, dangling a ginger cat mask from one hand.\n\nIt was a very direct stare. Mrs. Pleasant found herself wishing she'd done something about her hair and was wearing a better dress.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said. \"What d'you want?\"\n\n\"Waaant foood, Miss-uss Pleassunt,\" said Greebo.\n\nShe looked him up and down. There were some odd types in Genua these days. This one must have been a guest at the ball, but there was something very...familiar about him.\n\nGreebo wasn't a happy cat. People had made a fuss just because he'd dragged a roast turkey off the table. Then the skinny female with the teeth had kept simpering at him and saying she'd see him later in the rose garden, which wasn't at all the cat way of doing things, and that'd got him confused, because this wasn't the right kind of body and nor was hers. And there were too many other males around.\n\nThen he'd smelled the kitchen. Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.\n\n\"I seen you somewhere before?\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\nGreebo said nothing. He'd followed his nose to a bowl on one of the big tables.\n\n\"Waaant,\" he demanded.\n\n\"Fish heads?\" said Mrs. Pleasant. They were technically garbage, although what she was planning with some rice and a few special sauces would turn them into the sort of dish kings fight for.\n\n\"Waaant,\" Greebo repeated.\n\nMrs. Pleasant shrugged.\n\n\"You want raw fish heads, man, you take 'em,\" she said.\n\nGreebo lifted the bowl uncertainly. He wasn't too good with fingers. Then he looked around conspiratorially and ducked under the table.\n\nThere were the sounds of keen gurgitation and the bowl being scraped around on the floor.\n\nGreebo emerged.\n\n\"Millluk?\" he suggested.\n\nFascinated, Mrs. Pleasant reached for the milk jug and a cup\u2014\n\n\"Saaaaucerrr,\" Greebo said.\n\n\u2014and a saucer.\n\nGreebo took the saucer, gave it a long hard look, and put it on the floor.\n\nMrs. Pleasant stared.\n\nGreebo finished the milk, licking the remnant off his beard. He felt a lot better now. And there was a big fire over there. He padded over to it, sat down, spat on his paw and made an attempt to clean his ears, which didn't work because inexplicably neither ears nor paw were the right shape, and then curled up as best he could. Which wasn't very well, given that he seemed to have the wrong sort of backbone, too.\n\nAfter a while Mrs. Pleasant heard a low, asthmatic rumble.\n\nGreebo was trying to purr.\n\nHe had the wrong kind of throat.\n\nIn a minute he was going to wake up in a bad temper and want to fight something.\n\nMrs. Pleasant got on with her own supper. Despite the fact that a hulking great man had just eaten a bowl of fish heads and lapped a saucer of milk in front of her, and was now stretched out uncomfortably in front of the fire, she found she didn't feel the least bit afraid. In fact she was fighting down an impulse to scratch his tummy.\n\nMagrat wrenched off the other slipper as she ran down the long red carpet toward the palace gateway and freedom. Just getting away, that was the important thing. From was more urgent than to.\n\nAnd then two figures drifted out of the shadows and faced her. She raised the slipper pathetically as they approached in absolute silence, but even in the twilight she could feel their gaze.\n\nThe crowds parted. Lily Weatherwax glided through, in a rustle of silk.\n\nShe looked Granny up and down, without any expression of surprise.\n\n\"All in white, too,\" she said, dryly. \"My word, aren't you the nice one.\"\n\n\"But I've stopped you,\" said Granny, still panting with the effort. \"I've broken it.\"\n\nLily Weatherwax looked past her. The snake sisters were coming up the steps, holding a limp Magrat between them.\n\n\"Save us all from people who think literally,\" said Lily. \"The damn things come in pairs, you know.\"\n\nShe crossed to Magrat and snatched the second slipper out of her hand.\n\n\"The clock was interesting,\" she said, turning back to Granny. \"I was impressed with the clock. But it's no good, you know. You can't stop this sort of thing. It has the momentum of inevitability. You can't spoil a good story. I should know.\"\n\nShe handed the slipper to the Prince, but without taking her eyes off Granny.\n\n\"It'll fit her,\" she said.\n\nTwo of the courtiers held Magrat's leg as the Prince wrestled the slipper past her protesting toes.\n\n\"There,\" said Lily, still without looking down. \"And do stop trying that hedge-witch hypnotism on me, Esme.\"\n\n\"It fits,\" said the Prince, but in a doubtful tone of voice.\n\n\"Yes, anything would fit,\" said a cheerful voice from somewhere toward the back of the crowd, \"if you were allowed to put two pairs of hairy socks on first.\"\n\nLily looked down. Then she looked at Magrat's mask. She reached out and pulled it off.\n\n\"Ow!\"\n\n\"Wrong girl,\" said Lily. \"But it still doesn't matter, Esme, because it is the right slipper. So all we have to do is find the girl whose foot it fits\u2014\"\n\nThere was a commotion at the back of the crowd. Courtiers parted, revealing Nanny Ogg, oil-covered and hung with spider webs.\n\n\"If it's a five-and-a-half narrow fit, I'm your man,\" she said. \"Just let me get these boots off...\"\n\n\"I wasn't referring to you, old woman,\" said Lily coldly.\n\n\"Oh, yes you was,\" said Nanny. \"We know how this bit goes, see. The Prince goes all around the city with the slipper, trying to find the girl whose foot fits. That's what you was plannin'. So I can save you a bit of trouble, how about it?\"\n\nThere was a flicker of uncertainty in Lily's expression.\n\n\"A girl,\" she said, \"of marriageable age.\"\n\n\"No problem there,\" said Nanny cheerfully.\n\nThe dwarf Casanunda nudged a courtier proudly in the knees.\n\n\"She's a very close personal friend of mine,\" he said proudly.\n\nLily looked at her sister.\n\n\"You're doing this. Don't think I don't know,\" she said.\n\n\"I ain't doing a thing,\" said Granny. \"It's real life happening all by itself.\"\n\nNanny grabbed the slipper out of the Prince's hands and, before anyone else could move, slid it onto her foot.\n\nThen she waggled the foot in the air.\n\nIt was a perfect fit.\n\n\"There!\" she said. \"See? You could have wasted the whole day.\"\n\n\"Especially because there must be hundreds of five-and-a-half\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014narrow fit\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014narrow fit wearers in a city this size,\" Granny went on, \"Unless, of course, you happened to sort of go to the right house right at the start. If you had, you know, a lucky guess?\"\n\n\"But that'd be cheatin',\" said Nanny.\n\nShe nudged the Prince.\n\n\"I'd just like to add,\" she said, \"that I don't mind doin' all the waving and opening things and other royal stuff, but I draw the line at sleepin' in the same bed as sunny jim here.\"\n\n\"Because he doesn't sleep in a bed,\" said Granny.\n\n\"No, he sleeps in a pond,\" said Nanny. \"We had a look. Just a great big indoor pond.\"\n\n\"Because he's a frog,\" said Granny.\n\n\"With flies all over the place in case he wakes up in the night and fancies a snack,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I thought so!\" said Magrat, pulling herself out of the grip of the guards. \"He had clammy hands!\"\n\n\"Lots of men have clammy hands,\" said Nanny. \"But this one's got 'em because he's a frog.\"\n\n\"I'm a prince of blood royal!\" said the Prince.\n\n\"And a frog,\" said Granny.\n\n\"I don't mind,\" said Casanunda, from somewhere down below. \"I enjoy open relationships. If you want to go out with a frog, that's fine by me...\"\n\nLily looked around at the crowd. Then she snapped her fingers.\n\nGranny Weatherwax was aware of a sudden silence.\n\nNanny Ogg looked up at the people on either side of her. She waved a hand in front of a guard's face.\n\n\"Coo,\" she said.\n\n\"You can't do that for long,\" said Granny. \"You can't stop a thousand people for long.\"\n\nLily shrugged. \"They're not important. Whoever will remember who was at the ball? They'll just remember the flight and the slipper and the happy ending.\"\n\n\"I've told you. You can't start it again. And he's a frog. Even you can't keep him in shape the whole day long. He turns back into his old shape at night. He's got a bedroom with a pond in it. He's a frog,\" said Granny flatly.\n\n\"But only inside,\" said Lily.\n\n\"Inside's where it counts,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Outside's quite important, mind,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Lots of people are animals inside. Lots of animals are people inside,\" said Lily. \"Where's the harm?\"\n\n\"He's a frog.\"\n\n\"Especially at night,\" said Nanny. It had occurred to her that a husband who was a man all night and a frog all day might be almost acceptable; you wouldn't get the wage packet, but there'd be less wear and tear on the furniture. She also couldn't put out of her mind certain private speculations about the length of his tongue.\n\n\"And you killed the Baron,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"You think he was a particularly nice man?\" said Lily. \"Besides, he didn't show me any respect. If you've got no respect, you've got nothing.\"\n\nNanny and Magrat found themselves looking at Granny.\n\n\"He's a frog.\"\n\n\"I found him in the swamp,\" said Lily. \"I could tell he was pretty bright. I needed someone...amenable to persuasion. Shouldn't frogs have a chance? He'll be no worse a husband than many. Just one kiss from a princess seals the spell.\"\n\n\"A lot of men are animals,\" said Magrat, who'd picked up the idea from somewhere.\n\n\"Yes. But he's a frog,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Look at it my way,\" said Lily. \"You see this country? It's all swamps and fogs. There's no direction. But I can make this a great city. Not a sprawling place like Ankh-Morpork, but a place that works.\"\n\n\"The girl doesn't want to marry a frog.\"\n\n\"What will that matter in a hundred years' time?\"\n\n\"It matters now.\"\n\nLily threw up her hands. \"What do you want, then? It's your choice. There's me...or there's that woman in the swamp. Light or dark. Fog or sunshine. Dark chaos or happy endings.\"\n\n\"He's a frog, and you killed the old Baron,\" said Granny.\n\n\"You'd have done the same,\" said Lily.\n\n\"No,\" said Granny. \"I'd have thought the same, but I wouldn't have done it.\"\n\n\"What difference does that make, deep down?\"\n\n\"You mean you don't know?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nLily laughed.\n\n\"Look at the three of you,\" she said. \"Bursting with inefficient good intentions. The maiden, the mother and the crone.\"\n\n\"Who are you calling a maiden?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Who are you calling a mother?\" said Magrat.\n\nGranny Weatherwax glowered briefly like the person who has discovered that there is only one straw left and everyone else has drawn a long one.\n\n\"Now, what shall I do with you?\" said Lily. \"I really am against killing people unless it's necessary, but I can't have you running around acting stupidly...\"\n\nShe looked at her fingernails.\n\n\"So I think I shall have you put away somewhere until this has run its course. And then...can you guess what I'm going to do next?\n\n\"I'm going to expect you to escape. Because, after all, I am the good one.\"\n\nElla walked cautiously through the moonlit swamp, following the strutting shape of Legba. She was aware of movement in the water, but nothing emerged\u2014bad news like Legba gets around, even among alligators.\n\nAn orange light appeared in the distance. It turned out to be Mrs. Gogol's shack, or boat, or whatever it was. In the swamp, the difference between the water and the land was practically a matter of choice.\n\n\"Hallo? Is there anyone there?\"\n\n\"Come along in, child. Take a seat. Rest up a little.\"\n\nElla stepped cautiously onto the rocking veranda. Mrs. Gogol was sitting in her chair, a whiteclad raggedy doll in her lap.\n\n\"Magrat said\u2014\"\n\n\"I know all about it. Come to Erzulie.\"\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\n\"I am your\u2014friend, girl.\"\n\nElla moved so as to be ready to run.\n\n\"You're not a godmother of any kind, are you?\"\n\n\"No. No gods. Just a friend. Did anyone follow you?\"\n\n\"I...don't think so.\"\n\n\"It's no matter if they did, girl. No matter if they did. Maybe we ought to move out into the river for a spell, even so. We'll be a lot safer with water all around.\"\n\nThe shack lurched.\n\n\"You better sit down. The feets make it shaky until we get into deep water.\"\n\nElla risked a look, nevertheless.\n\nMrs. Gogol's hut traveled on four large duck feet, which were now rising out of the swamp. They splashed their way through the shallows and, gently, sculled out into the river.\n\nGreebo woke up and stretched.\n\nAnd the wrong sort of arms and legs!\n\nMrs. Pleasant, who had been sitting watching him, put down her glass.\n\n\"What do you want to do now, Mr. Cat?\" she said.\n\nGreebo padded over to the door into the outside world and scratched at it.\n\n\"Waant to go owwwt, Miss-uss Pleas-unt,\" he said.\n\n\"You just have to turn the handle there,\" she said.\n\nGreebo stared at the door handle like someone trying to come to terms with a piece of very advanced technology, and then gave her a pleading look.\n\nShe opened the door for him, stood aside as he slunk out, and then shut it, locked it and leaned against it.\n\n\"Ember's bound to be safe with Mrs. Gogol,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Hah!\" said Granny.\n\n\"I quite liked her,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"I don't trust anyone who drinks rum and smokes a pipe,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Nanny Ogg smokes a pipe and drinks anything,\" Magrat pointed out.\n\n\"Yes, but that's because she's a disgustin' old baggage,\" said Granny, without looking up.\n\nNanny Ogg took her pipe out of her mouth.\n\n\"That's right,\" she said amiably. \"You ain't nothing if you don't maintain an image.\"\n\nGranny looked up from the lock.\n\n\"Can't shift it,\" she said. \"It's octiron, too. Can't magic it open.\"\n\n\"It's daft, locking us up,\" said Nanny. \"I'd have had us killed.\"\n\n\"That's because you're basically good,\" said Magrat. \"The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.\"\n\n\"No, I know why she's done this,\" said Granny, darkly. \"It's so's we'll know we've lost.\"\n\n\"But she said we'd escape,\" said Magrat. \"I don't understand. She must know the good ones always win in the end!\"\n\n\"Only in stories,\" said Granny, examining the door hinges. \"And she thinks she's in charge of the stories. She bends them around herself. She thinks she's the good one.\"\n\n\"Mind you,\" said Magrat, \"I don't like swamps. If it wasn't for the frog and everything, I'd see Lily's point\u2014\"\n\n\"Then you're nothing but a daft godmother,\" snapped Granny, still fiddling with the lock. \"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides, you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.\"\n\n\"But progress\u2014\" Magrat began.\n\n\"Don't you talk to me about progress. Progress just means bad things happen faster. Anyone got another hatpin? This one's useless.\"\n\nNanny, who had Greebo's ability to make herself instantly at home wherever she happened to be, sat down in the corner of the cell.\n\n\"I heard this story once,\" she said, \"where this bloke got locked up for years and years and he learned amazin' stuff about the universe and everythin' from another prisoner who was incredibly clever, and then he escaped and got his revenge.\"\n\n\"What incredibly clever stuff do you know about the universe, Gytha Ogg?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Bugger all,\" said Nanny cheerfully.\n\n\"Then we'd better bloody well escape right now.\"\n\nNanny pulled a scrap of pasteboard out of her hat, found a scrap of pencil up there too, licked the end and thought for a while. Then she wrote:\n\nDear Jason unt so witer (as they say in foreign parts),\n\nWell here's a thing yore ole Mum doin Time in prison again, Im a old lag, youll have to send me a cake with a vial in it and I shall have little arrows on my close just my joke. This is a Sketch of the dunjon. Im putting a X where we are, which is Inside. Magrat is shown wering a posh dress, she has been acting like a Courgette. Also inc. Esme getting fed up becaus she can't get the lock to work but I expect it will all be OK because the good ones win in the end and that's US. And all becaus some girl don't want to marry a Prince who is a Duck who is really a Frog and I cant say I blame her, you don't want descendants who have got Jenes and start off living in a jamjar and then hop about and get squashed...\n\nShe was interrupted by the sound of a mandolin being played quite well, right on the other side of the wall, and a small but determined voice raised in song.\n\n\"\u2014si consuenti d'amoure, ventre dimo tondreturoooo\u2014\"\n\n\"How I hunger my love for the dining room of your warm maceration,\" said Nanny, without looking up.\n\n\"\u2014della della t'ozentro, audri t'dren vontarieeeeee\"\n\n\"The shop, the shop, I have a lozenge, the sky is pink,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny and Magrat looked at one another.\n\n\"\u2014guarunto del tari, bella pore di larientos\u2014\"\n\n\"Rejoice, candlemaker, you have a great big\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't believe any of this,\" said Granny. \"You're making it up.\"\n\n\"Word for word translation,\" said Nanny. \"I can speak foreign like a native, you know that.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Ogg? Is that you, my love?\"\n\nThey all looked up toward the barred window. There was a small face peering in.\n\n\"Casanunda?\" said Nanny.\n\n\"That's me, Mrs. Ogg.\"\n\n\"My love,\" muttered Granny.\n\n\"How did you get up to the window?\" said Nanny, ignoring this.\n\n\"I always know where I can get my hands on a stepladder, Mrs. Ogg.\"\n\n\"I suppose you don't know where you can get your hands on a key?\"\n\n\"Wouldn't do any good. There's too many guards outside your door, Mrs. Ogg. Even for a famous swordsman like me. Her ladyship gave strict orders. No one's to listen to you or look at you, even.\"\n\n\"How come you're in the palace guard, Casanunda?\"\n\n\"Soldier of fortune takes whatever jobs are going, Mrs. Ogg,\" said Casanunda earnestly.\n\n\"But all the rest of 'em are six foot tall and you're\u2014of the shorter persuasion.\"\n\n\"I lied about my height, Mrs. Ogg. I'm a world-famous liar.\"\n\n\"Is that true?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What about you being the world's greatest lover?\"\n\nThere was silence for a while.\n\n\"Well, maybe I'm only No. 2,\" said Casanunda. \"But I try harder.\"\n\n\"Can't you go and find us a file or something, Mr. Casanunda?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I'll see what I can do, Miss.\"\n\nThe face disappeared.\n\n\"Maybe we could get people to visit us and then we could escape in their clothes?\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Now I've gone and stuck the pin in my finger,\" muttered Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"Or maybe we could get Magrat to seduce one of the guards,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"Why don't you?\" said Magrat, as nastily as she could manage.\n\n\"All right. I'm game.\"\n\n\"Shut up, the pair of you,\" said Granny. \"I'm trying to think\u2014\"\n\nThere was another sound at the window.\n\nIt was Legba.\n\nThe black cockerel peered in between the bars for a moment, and then fluttered away.\n\n\"Gives me the creeps, that one,\" said Nanny. \"Can't look at him without thinking wistfully of sage-and-onion and mashed potatoes.\"\n\nHer crinkled face crinkled further.\n\n\"Greebo!\" she said. \"Where'd we leave him?\"\n\n\"Oh, he's only a cat,\" said Granny Weatherwax. \"Cats know how to look after themselves.\"\n\n\"He's really just a big softie\u2014\" Nanny began, before someone started pulling down the wall.\n\nA hole appeared. A gray hand appeared and grasped another stone. There was a strong smell of river mud.\n\nRock crumbled under heavy fingers.\n\n\"Ladies?\" said a resonant voice.\n\n\"Well, Mister Saturday,\" said Nanny, \"as I live and breathe\u2014saving your presence, o'course.\"\n\nSaturday grunted something and walked away.\n\nThere was a hammering on the door and someone started fumbling with keys.\n\n\"We don't want to hang around here,\" said Granny. \"Come on.\"\n\nThey helped one another out through the hole.\n\nSaturday was on the other side of a small courtyard, striding toward the sound of the ball.\n\nAnd there was something behind him, trailing out like the tail of a comet.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Gogol's doing,\" said Granny Weatherwax grimly.\n\nBehind Saturday, widening as it snaked through the palace grounds to the gate, was a stream of deeper darkness in the air. At first sight it seemed to contain shapes, but closer inspection indicated that they weren't shapes at all but a mere suggestion of shapes, forming and reforming. Eyes gleamed momentarily in the swirl. There was the chittering of crickets and the whine of mosquitoes, the smell of moss and the stink of river mud.\n\n\"It's the swamp,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"It's the idea of the swamp,\" said Granny. \"It's what you have to have first, before you have the swamp.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" said Nanny. She shrugged. \"Well, Ella's got away and so have we, so this is the part where we escape, yes? That's what we're supposed to do.\"\n\nNone of them moved.\n\n\"They aren't very nice people in there,\" said Magrat, after a while, \"but they don't deserve alligators.\"\n\n\"You witches stand right there,\" said a voice behind them. Half a dozen guards were crowded around the hole in the wall.\n\n\"Life's certainly busier in the city,\" said Nanny, pulling another hatpin from her hat.\n\n\"They've got crossbows,\" warned Magrat. \"There's not much you can do against crossbows. Projectile weapons is Lesson Seven and I haven't had that yet.\"\n\n\"They can't pull triggers if they think they've got flippers,\" said Granny menacingly.\n\n\"Now,\" said Nanny, \"let's not have any of that, eh? Everyone knows the good ones always win specially when they're outnumbered.\"\n\nThe guards emerged.\n\nAs they did so a tall black shape dropped noiselessly from the wall behind them.\n\n\"There,\" said Nanny, \"I said he wouldn't go far from his mummy, didn't I?\"\n\nOne or two of the guards realized that she was staring proudly past them, and turned.\n\nAs far as they were concerned, they confronted a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of black hair, an eyepatch and a very wide grin.\n\nHe stood with his arms casually folded.\n\nHe waited until he had their full attention, and then Greebo let his lips part slowly.\n\nSeveral of the men took a step backward then.\n\nOne of them said, \"Why worry? It's not as if he's got a weap\u2014\"\n\nGreebo raised one hand.\n\nClaws make no noise as they slide out, but they ought to. They ought to make a noise like \"tzing.\"\n\nGreebo's grin widened.\n\nAh! These still worked...\n\nOne of the men was bright enough to raise his crossbow but stupid enough to do it with Nanny Ogg standing behind him with a hatpin. Her hand moved so swiftly that any wisdom-seeking saffron-clad youth would have started the Way of Mrs. Ogg there and then. The man screamed and dropped the bow.\n\n\"Wrowwwl...\"\n\nGreebo leapt.\n\nCats are like witches. They don't fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There's no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won't know they've lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.\n\nCats do not, of course, rationalize this far. They just like to send someone limping off minus a tail and a few square inches of fur.\n\nGreebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordsmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordsmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.\n\nThe witches watched with interest.\n\n\"I think we can leave him now,\" said Nanny. \"I think he's having fun.\"\n\nThey hurried toward the hall.\n\nThe orchestra was in the middle of a complicated number when the lead violinist happened to glance toward the door, and then dropped his bow. The cellist turned to see what had caused this, followed his colleague's fixed stare, and in a moment of confusion tried to play his instrument backward.\n\nIn a succession of squeaks and flats, the orchestra stopped playing. The dancers continued for a while out of sheer momentum, and then stopped and milled about in confusion. And then, one by one, they too looked up.\n\nSaturday stood at the top of the steps.\n\nIn the silence came the drumming, making the music that had gone before seem as insignificant as the chittering of crickets. This was the real blood music; every other music that had ever been written was merely a pitiful attempt to sing along.\n\nIt poured into the room, and with it came the heat and the warm, vegetable smell of the swamp. There was a suggestion of alligator in the air\u2014not the presence of them, but the promise.\n\nThe drumming grew louder. There were complex counter-rhythms, much more felt than heard.\n\nSaturday brushed a speck of dust off the shoulder of his ancient coat, and reached out an arm.\n\nThe tall hat appeared in his hand.\n\nHe reached out his other hand.\n\nThe black cane with the silver top whirred out of the empty air and was snatched up triumphantly.\n\nHe put the hat on his head. He twirled the cane.\n\nThe drums rolled. Except that...maybe it wasn't drums now, maybe it was a beat in the floor itself, or in the walls, or in the air. It was fast and hot and people in the hall found their feet moving of their own accord, because the drumming seemed to reach the toes via the hindbrain without ever passing near the ears.\n\nSaturday's feet moved too. They beat out their own staccato rhythms on the marble floor.\n\nHe danced down the steps.\n\nHe whirled. He leapt. The tails of his coat whipped through the air. And then he landed at the foot of the step, his feet striking the ground like the thud of doom.\n\nAnd only now was there a stirring.\n\nThere was a croak from the Prince.\n\n\"It can't be him! He's dead! Guards! Kill him!\"\n\nHe looked around madly at the guards by the stairs.\n\nThe guard captain went pale.\n\n\"I, uh, again? I mean, I don't think...\" he began.\n\n\"Do it now!\"\n\nThe captain raised his crossbow nervously. The point of the bolt wove figures-of-eight in front of his eyes.\n\n\"I said do it!\"\n\nThe bow twanged.\n\nThere was a thud.\n\nSaturday looked down at the feathers buried in his chest, and then grinned and raised his cane.\n\nThe captain looked up with the certain terror of death in his face. He dropped his bow and turned to run, and managed two steps before he toppled forward.\n\n\"No,\" said a voice behind the Prince. \"This is how you kill a dead man.\"\n\nLily Weatherwax stepped forward, her face white with fury.\n\n\"You don't belong here anymore,\" she hissed. \"You're not part of the story.\"\n\nShe raised a hand.\n\nBehind her, the ghost images suddenly focused on her, so that she became more iridescent. Silver fire leapt across the room.\n\nBaron Saturday thrust out his cane. The magic struck, and coursed down him to earth, leaving little silver trails that crackled for a while and then winked out.\n\n\"No, ma'am,\" he said, \"there ain't no way to kill a dead man.\"\n\nThe three witches watched from the doorway.\n\n\"I felt that,\" said Nanny. \"It should have blown him to bits!\"\n\n\"Blown what to bits?\" said Granny. \"The swamp? The river? The world? He's all of them! Ooh, she's a clever one, that Mrs. Gogol!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Magrat. \"What do you mean, all of them?\"\n\nLily backed away. She raised her hand again and sent another fireball toward the Baron. It hit his hat and burst off it like a firework.\n\n\"Stupid, stupid!\" muttered Granny. \"She's seen it doesn't work and she's still trying it!\"\n\n\"I thought you weren't on her side,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I ain't! But I don't like to see people being stupid. That kind of stuff's no use, Magrat Garlick, even you can...oh, no, surely not again...\"\n\nThe Baron laughed as a third attempt earthed itself harmlessly. Then he raised his cane. Two courtiers tumbled forward.\n\nLily Weatherwax, still backing away, came up against the foot of the main staircase.\n\nThe Baron strolled forward.\n\n\"You want to try anything else, lady?\" he said.\n\nLily raised both hands.\n\nAll three witches felt it\u2014the terrible suction as she tried to concentrate all the power in the vicinity.\n\nOutside, the one guard remaining upright found that he was no longer fighting a man but merely an enraged tomcat, although this was no consolation. It just meant that Greebo had an extra pair of claws.\n\nThe Prince screamed.\n\nIt was a long, descending scream, and ended in a croak, somewhere around ground level.\n\nBaron Saturday took one heavy, deliberate step forward, and there was no more croak.\n\nThe drums stopped abruptly.\n\nAnd then there was a real silence, broken only by the swish of Lily's dress as she fled up the stairs.\n\nA voice behind the witches said, \"Thank you, ladies. Could you step aside, please?\"\n\nThey looked around. Mrs. Gogol was there, holding Embers by the hand. She had a fat, gaily-embroidered bag over her shoulder.\n\nAll three watched as the voodoo woman led the girl down into the hall and through the silent crowds.\n\n\"That's not right either,\" said Granny under her breath.\n\n\"What?\" said Magrat. \"What?\"\n\nBaron Saturday thumped his stick on the floor.\n\n\"You know me,\" he said. \"You all know me. You know I was killed. And now here I am. I was murdered and what did you do\u2014?\"\n\n\"How much did you do, Mrs. Gogol?\" muttered Granny. \"No, we ain't having this.\"\n\n\"Ssh, I can't hear what he's saying,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"He's telling them they can have him ruling them again, or Embers,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"They'll have Mrs. Gogol,\" muttered Granny. \"She'll be one o' them eminences greases.\"\n\n\"Well, she's not too bad,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"In the swamp she's not too bad,\" said Granny. \"With someone to balance her up she's not too bad. But Mrs. Gogol tellin' a whole city what to do...that's not right. Magic's far too important to be used for rulin' people. Anyway, Lily only had people killed\u2014Mrs. Gogol'd set 'em to choppin' wood and doin' chores afterward. I reckon, after you've had a busy life, you ort to be able to relax a bit when you're dead.\"\n\n\"Lie back and enjoy it, sort of thing,\" said Nanny.\n\nGranny looked down at the white dress.\n\n\"I wish I had my old clothes on,\" she said. \"Black's the proper color for a witch.\"\n\nShe strode down the steps, and then cupped her hands around her mouth.\n\n\"Coo-ee! Mrs. Gogol!\"\n\nBaron Saturday stopped speaking. Mrs. Gogol nodded at Granny.\n\n\"Yes, Miss Weatherwax?\"\n\n\"Mistress,\" snapped Granny, and then softened her voice again.\n\n\"This ain't right, you know. She's the one who ought to rule, fair enough. And you used magic to help her this far, and that's all right. But it stops right here. It's up to her what happens next. You can't make things right by magic. You can only stop making them wrong.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol pulled herself up to her full, impressive height. \"Who's you to say what I can and can't do here?\"\n\n\"We're her godmothers,\" said Granny.\n\n\"That's right,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"We've got a wand, too,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"We're the other kind,\" said Granny. \"We're the kind that gives people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.\"\n\nAmong the fascinated crowd several pairs of lips moved as people worked this out.\n\n\"Then you've done your godmothering,\" said Mrs. Gogol, who thought faster than most. \"You did it very well.\"\n\n\"You didn't listen,\" said Granny. \"There's all sorts of things to godmotherin'. She might be quite good at ruling. She might be bad at it. But she's got to find out for herself. With no interference from anyone.\"\n\n\"What if I say no?\"\n\n\"Then I expect we'll just have to go on godmotherin',\" said Granny.\n\n\"Do you know how long I worked to win?\" said Mrs. Gogol, haughtily. \"Do you know what I lost?\"\n\n\"And now you've won, and there's the end of it,\" said Granny.\n\n\"Are you looking to challenge me, Mistress Weatherwax?\"\n\nGranny hesitated, and then straightened her shoulders. Her arms moved away from her sides, almost imperceptibly. Nanny and Magrat moved away slightly.\n\n\"If that's what you want.\"\n\n\"My voodoo against your...headology?\"\n\n\"If you like.\"\n\n\"And what's the stake?\"\n\n\"No more magic in the affairs of Genua,\" said Granny. \"No more stories. No more godmothers. Just people, deciding for themselves. For good or bad. Right or wrong.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"And you leave Lily Weatherwax to me.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol's intake of breath was heard around the hall.\n\n\"Never!\"\n\n\"Hmm?\" said Granny. \"You don't think you're going to lose, do you?\"\n\n\"I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"That's good,\" said Granny. \"I don't want you to hurt me either.\"\n\n\"I don't want there to be any fighting,\" said Ella.\n\nThey all looked at her.\n\n\"She's the ruler now, ain't she?\" said Granny. \"We've got to listen to what she says.\"\n\n\"I'll keep out of the city,\" said Mrs. Gogol, ignoring her, \"but Lilith is mine.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nMrs. Gogol reached into her bag, and flourished the raggedy doll.\n\n\"See this?\"\n\n\"Yes. I do,\" said Granny.\n\n\"It was going to be her. Don't let it be you.\"\n\n\"Sorry, Mrs. Gogol,\" said Granny firmly, \"but I see my duty plain.\"\n\n\"You're a clever woman, Mistress Weatherwax. But you're a long way from home.\"\n\nGranny shrugged. Mrs. Gogol held up the doll by its waist. It had sapphire blue eyes.\n\n\"You know about magic with mirrors? This is my kind of mirror, Mistress Weatherwax. I can make it be you. And then I can make it suffer. Don't make me do that. Please.\"\n\n\"Please yourself, Mrs. Gogol. But I'll deal with Lily.\"\n\n\"I should box a bit clever if I was you, Esme,\" muttered Nanny Ogg. \"She's good at this sort of thing.\"\n\n\"I think she could be very ruthless,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I've got nothing but the greatest respect for Mrs. Gogol,\" said Granny. \"A fine woman. But talks a bit too much. If I was her, I'd have had a couple of big nails right through that thing by now.\"\n\n\"You would, too,\" said Nanny. \"It's a good thing you're good, ain't it.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Granny, raising her voice again. \"I'm going to find my sister, Mrs. Gogol. This is family.\"\n\nShe walked steadfastly toward the stairs.\n\nMagrat took out the wand.\n\n\"If she does anything bad to Granny, she's going to go through the rest of her life bright orange and round, with seeds in,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't think Esme would like it if you did something like that,\" said Nanny. \"Don't worry. She doesn't believe all that stuff about pins and dolls.\"\n\n\"She doesn't believe anything. But that doesn't matter!\" said Magrat. \"Mrs. Gogol does! It's her power! It's what she thinks that matters.\"\n\n\"Don't you reckon Esme knows that too?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax reached the foot of the stairs.\n\n\"Mistress Weatherwax!\"\n\nGranny turned.\n\nMrs. Gogol had a long sliver of wood in her hand. Shaking her head desperately, she jabbed it into the doll's foot.\n\nEveryone saw Esme Weatherwax wince.\n\nAnother sliver was thrust into a raggedy arm.\n\nSlowly, Granny raised her other hand and shuddered when she touched her sleeve. Then, limping slightly, she continued to climb the stairs.\n\n\"I can do the heart next, Mistress Weatherwax!\" shouted Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"I'm sure you can. You're good at it. You know you're good at it,\" said Granny, without looking around.\n\nMrs. Gogol stuck another sliver into a leg. Granny sagged, and clutched at the banister. Beside her, one of the big torches flamed.\n\n\"Next time!\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Right? Next time. I can do it!\"\n\nGranny turned around.\n\nShe looked at the hundreds of upturned faces.\n\nWhen she spoke, her voice was so quiet that they had to strain to hear.\n\n\"I know you can too, Mrs. Gogol. You really believe. Just remind me again\u2014we're playin' for Lily, right? And for the city?\"\n\n\"What does that matter now?\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Ain't you going to give in?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax thrust a little finger into her ear and wiggled it thoughtfully.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"No, I don't reckon that's what I do now. Are you watchin', Mrs. Gogol? Are you watchin' real close?\"\n\nHer gaze traveled the room and rested for just a fraction of a second on Magrat.\n\nThen she reached over, carefully, and thrust her arm up to the elbow into the burning torch.\n\nAnd the doll in Erzulie Gogol's hands burst into flame.\n\nIt went on blazing even after the witch had screamed and dropped it onto the floor. It went on burning until Nanny Ogg ambled over with a jug of fruit juice from the buffet, whistling between her teeth, and put it out.\n\nGranny withdrew her hand. It was unscathed.\n\n\"That's headology,\" she said. \"It's the only thing that matters. Everything else is just messin' about. Hope I didn't hurt you, Mrs. Gogol.\"\n\nShe went on up the stairs.\n\nMrs. Gogol kept on staring at the damp ashes. Nanny Ogg patted her companionably on the shoulder.\n\n\"How did she do that?\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\n\"She didn't. She let you do it,\" said Nanny. \"You got to watch yourself around Esme Weatherwax. I'd like to see one of them Zen buggers come up against her one day.\"\n\n\"And she's the good one?\" said Baron Saturday.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Nanny. \"Funny how things work out, really.\"\n\nShe looked thoughtfully at the empty fruit juice jug in her hand.\n\n\"What this needs,\" she said, in the manner of one reaching a conclusion after much careful consideration, \"is some bananas and rum and stuff in it\u2014\"\n\nMagrat grabbed her dress as Nanny strode determinedly dak'rywards.\n\n\"Not now,\" she said. \"We'd better get after Granny! She might need us!\"\n\n\"Shouldn't think so for one minute,\" said Nanny. \"I wouldn't like to be in Lily's shoes when Esme catches up with her.\"\n\n\"But I've never seen Granny so agitated,\" said Magrat. \"Anything could happen.\"\n\n\"Good job if it does,\" said Nanny. She nodded meaningfully at a flunkey who, being quick on the uptake, leapt to attention.\n\n\"But she might do something\u2014dreadful.\"\n\n\"Good. She's always wanted to,\" said Nanny. \"Another banana dak'ry, mahatma coat, chop-chop.\"\n\n\"No. It wouldn't be a good idea,\" Magrat persisted.\n\n\"Oh, all right,\" said Nanny. She handed the empty jug to Baron Saturday, who took it in a kind of hypnotic daze.\n\n\"We're just going to sort things out,\" she said. \"Sorry about this. On with the motley...if anyone's got any left.\"\n\nWhen the witches had gone Mrs. Gogol reached down and picked up the damp remains of the doll.\n\nOne or two people coughed.\n\n\"Is that it?\" said the Baron. \"After twelve years?\"\n\n\"The Prince is dead,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Such as he was.\"\n\n\"But you promised that I would be revenged on her,\" the Baron said.\n\n\"I think there will be revenge,\" said Mrs. Gogol. She tossed the doll onto the floor. \"Lilith has been fighting me for twelve years and she never got through. This one didn't even have to sweat. So I think there will be revenge.\"\n\n\"You don't have to keep your word!\"\n\n\"I do. I've got to keep something.\" Mrs. Gogol put her arm around Ella's shoulder.\n\n\"This is it, girl,\" she said. \"Your palace. Your city. There isn't a person here who will deny it.\"\n\nShe glared at the guests. One or two of them stepped backward.\n\nElla looked up at Saturday.\n\n\"I feel I should know you,\" she said. She turned to Mrs. Gogol. \"And you,\" she added. \"I've seen you both...before. A long time ago?\"\n\nBaron Saturday opened his mouth to speak. Mrs. Gogol held up her hand.\n\n\"We promised,\" she said. \"No interference.\"\n\n\"Not from us?\"\n\n\"Not even from us.\" She turned back to Ella. \"We're just people.\"\n\n\"You mean...\" said Ella, \"I've slaved in a kitchen for years...and now...I'm supposed to rule the city? Just like that?\"\n\n\"That's how it goes.\"\n\nElla looked down, deep in thought.\n\n\"And anything I say people have to do?\" she said innocently.\n\nThere were a few nervous coughs from the crowd.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs. Gogol.\n\nElla stood looking down at the floor, idly biting a thumbnail. Then she looked up.\n\n\"Then the first thing that's going to happen is the end of the ball. Right now! I'm going to find the carnival. I've always wanted to dance in the carnival.\" She looked around at the worried faces. \"It's not compulsory for anyone else to come,\" she added.\n\nThe nobles of Genua had enough experience to know what it means when a ruler says something is not compulsory.\n\nWithin minutes the hall was empty, except for three figures.\n\n\"But...but...I wanted revenge,\" said the Baron. \"I wanted death. I wanted our daughter in power.\"\n\nTWO OUT OF THREE ISN'T BAD.\n\nMrs. Gogol and the Baron turned around. Death put down his drink and stepped forward.\n\nBaron Saturday straightened up.\n\n\"I am ready to go with you,\" he said.\n\nDeath shrugged. Ready or not, he seemed to indicate, was all the same to him.\n\n\"But I held you off,\" the Baron added. \"For twelve years!\" He put his arm around Erzulie's shoulders. \"When they killed me and threw me in the river, we stole life from you!\"\n\nYOU STOPPED LIVING. YOU NEVER DIED. I DID NOT COME FOR YOU THEN.\n\n\"You didn't?\"\n\nI HAD AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOU TONIGHT.\n\nThe Baron handed his cane to Mrs. Gogol. He removed the tall black hat. He shrugged off the coat.\n\nPower crackled in its folds.\n\n\"No more Baron Saturday,\" he said.\n\nPERHAPS. IT'S A NICE HAT.\n\nThe Baron turned to Erzulie.\n\n\"I think I have to go.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What will you do?\"\n\nThe voodoo woman looked down at the hat in her hands.\n\n\"I will go back to the swamp,\" she said.\n\n\"You could stay here. I don't trust that foreign witch.\"\n\n\"I do. So I will go back to the swamp. Because some stories have to end. Whatever Ella becomes, she'll have to make it herself.\"\n\nIt was a short walk to the brown, heavy waters of the river.\n\nThe Baron paused at the edge.\n\n\"Will she live happily ever after?\" he said.\n\nNOT FOREVER. BUT PERHAPS FOR LONG ENOUGH.\n\nAnd so stories end.\n\nThe wicked witch is defeated, the ragged princess comes into her own, the kingdom is restored. Happy days are here again. Happy ever after. Which means that life stops here.\n\nStories want to end. They don't care what happens next...\n\nNanny Ogg panted along a corridor.\n\n\"Never seen Esme like that before,\" she said.\"She's in a very funny mood. She could be a danger to herself.\"\n\n\"She's a danger to everyone else,\" said Magrat. \"She\u2014\"\n\nThe snake women stepped out into the passageway ahead of them.\n\n\"Look at it like this,\" said Nanny, under her breath, \"what can they do to us?\"\n\n\"I can't stand snakes,\" said Magrat quietly.\n\n\"They've got those teeth, of course,\" said Nanny, as if conducting a seminar. \"More like fangs, really. Come on, girl. Let's see if we can find another way.\"\n\n\"I hate them.\"\n\nNanny tugged at Magrat, who did not move.\n\n\"Come on!\"\n\n\"I really hate them.\"\n\n\"You'll be able to hate them even better from a long way off!\"\n\nThe sisters were nearly on them. They didn't walk, they glided. Perhaps Lily wasn't concentrating now, because they were more snake-like than ever. Nanny thought she could see scale patterns under the skin. The jawline was all wrong.\n\n\"Magrat!\"\n\nOne of the sisters reached out. Magrat shuddered.\n\nThe snake sister opened its mouth.\n\nThen Magrat looked up and, almost dreamily, punched it so hard that it was carried several feet along the passage.\n\nIt wasn't a blow that featured in any Way or Path. No one ever drew this one as a diagram or practiced it in front of a mirror with a bandage tied around their head. It was straight out of the lexicon of inherited, terrified survival reflexes.\n\n\"Use the wand!\" shouted Nanny, darting forward. \"Don't ninj at them! Use the wand! That's what it's for!\"\n\nThe other snake instinctively turned to follow the movement, which is why instinct is not always the keynote to survival, because Magrat clubbed it on the back of the head. With the wand.\n\nIt sagged, losing shape as it fell.\n\nThe trouble with witches is that they'll never run away from things they really hate.\n\nAnd the trouble with small furry animals in a corner is that, just occasionally, one of them's a mongoose.\n\nGranny Weatherwax had always wondered: what was supposed to be so special about a full moon? It was only a big circle of light. And the dark of the moon was only darkness.\n\nBut halfway between the two, when the moon was between the worlds of light and dark, when even the moon lived on the edge...maybe then a witch could believe in the moon.\n\nNow a half-moon sailed above the mists of the swamp.\n\nLily's nest of mirrors reflected the cold light, as they reflected everything else. Leaning against the wall were the three broomsticks.\n\nGranny picked up hers. She wasn't wearing the right color and she wasn't wearing a hat; she needed something she was at home with.\n\nNothing moved.\n\n\"Lily?\" said Granny softly.\n\nHer own image looked out at her from the mirrors.\n\n\"It can all stop now,\" said Granny. \"You could take my stick and I'll take Magrat's. She can always share with Gytha. And Mrs. Gogol won't come after you. I've fixed that. And we could do with more witches back home. And no more godmothering. No more getting people killed so their daughters are ready to be in a story. I know that's why you did it. Come on home. It's an offer you can't refuse.\"\n\nThe mirror slid back noiselessly.\n\n\"You're trying to be kind to me?\" said Lily.\n\n\"Don't think it don't take a lot of effort,\" said Granny in a more normal voice.\n\nLily's dress rustled in the darkness as she stepped out.\n\n\"So,\" she said, \"you beat the swamp woman.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"But you're here instead of her.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nLily took the stick out of Granny's hands, and inspected it.\n\n\"Never used one of these things,\" she said. \"You just sit on it and away you go?\"\n\n\"With this one you have to be running quite fast before it takes off,\" said Granny, \"but that's the general idea, yes.\"\n\n\"Hmm. Do you know the symbology of the broomstick?\" said Lily.\n\n\"Is it anything to do with maypoles and folksongs and suchlike?\" said Granny.\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"Then I don't want to hear about it.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lily. \"I imagine you don't.\"\n\nShe handed the stick back.\n\n\"I'm staying here,\" she said. \"Mrs. Gogol may have come up with a new trick, but that doesn't mean she has won.\"\n\n\"No. Things have come to an end, see,\" said Granny. \"That's how it works when you turn the world into stories. You should never have done that. You shouldn't turn the world into stories. You shouldn't treat people like they was characters, like they was things. But if you do, then you've got to know when the story ends.\"\n\n\"You've got to put on your red-hot shoes and dance the night away?\" said Lily.\n\n\"Somethin' like that, yes.\"\n\n\"While everyone else lives happily ever after?\"\n\n\"I don't know about that,\" said Granny. \"That's up to them. What I'm sayin' is, you're not allowed to go around one more time. You've lost.\"\n\n\"You know a Weatherwax never loses,\" said Lily.\n\n\"One of 'em learns tonight,\" said Granny.\n\n\"But we're outside the stories,\" said Lily. \"Me because I...am the medium through which they happen, and you because you fight them. We're the ones in the middle. The free ones\u2014\"\n\nThere was a sound behind them. The faces of Magrat and Nanny Ogg appeared over the top of the stairwell.\n\n\"You need any help, Esme?\" said Nanny cautiously.\n\nLily laughed.\n\n\"Here's your little snakes, Esme.\"\n\n\"You know,\" she added, \"you're really just like me. Don't you know that? There isn't a thought that's gone through my head that you haven't thought, too. There isn't a deed I've done that you haven't contemplated. But you never found the courage. That's the difference between people like me and people like you. We have the courage to do what you only dream of.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Granny. \"Is that what you think? You think I dream?\"\n\nLily moved a finger. Magrat floated up out of the stairwell, struggling. She waved her wand frantically.\n\n\"That's what I like to see,\" said Lily. \"People wishing. I never wished for anything in my life. I always made things happen. So much more rewarding.\"\n\nMagrat gritted her teeth.\n\n\"I'm sure I wouldn't look good as a pumpkin, dear,\" said Lily. She waved a hand airily. Magrat rose.\n\n\"You'd be surprised at the things I can do,\" said Lily dreamily, as the younger witch drifted smoothly over the flagstones. \"You should have tried mirrors yourself, Esme. It does wonders for a soul. I only let the swamp woman survive because her hate was invigorating. I do like being hated, you know. And you do know. It's a kind of respect. It shows you're having an effect. It's like a cold bath on a hot day. When stupid people find themselves powerless, when they fume in their futility, when they're beaten and they've got nothing but that yawning in the acid pit of their stomachs\u2014well, to be honest, it's like a prayer. And the stories...to ride on stories...to borrow the strength of them...the comfort of them...to be in the hidden center of them...Can you understand that? The sheer pleasure of seeing the patterns repeat themselves? I've always loved a pattern. Incidentally, if the Ogg woman continues to try to sneak up behind me I shall really let your young friend drift out over the courtyard and then, Esme, I might just lose interest.\"\n\n\"I was just walkin' about,\" said Nanny. \"No law against it.\"\n\n\"You changed the story your way, and now I'm going to do it mine,\" said Lily. \"And once again...all you have to do is go. Just go away. What happens here doesn't matter. It's a city far away of which you know little. I'm not totally certain I could out-trick you,\" she added, \"but these two...they haven't got the right stuff in them. I could make jam of them. I hope you know that. So tonight, I suggest, a Weatherwax learns to lose?\"\n\nGranny stood silent for a while, leaning on her useless broom.\n\n\"All right. Put her down,\" she said. \"And then I'll say you've won.\"\n\n\"I wish I could believe that,\" said Lily. \"Oh...but you're the nice one, aren't you? You have to keep your word.\"\n\n\"Watch me,\" said Granny. She walked to the parapet and looked down. The two-faced moon was still bright enough to illuminate the billowing fogs that surrounded the palace like a sea.\n\n\"Magrat? Gytha?\" she said. \"Sorry about this. You've won, Lily. There ain't nothing I can do.\"\n\nShe jumped.\n\nNanny Ogg rushed forward and stared over the edge, just in time to see a dim figure vanish in the mists.\n\nAll three figures left on the tower took a deep breath.\n\n\"It's a trick,\" said Lily, \"to get me off guard.\"\n\n\"It isn't!\" screamed Magrat, dropping to the stones.\n\n\"She had her broomstick,\" said Lily.\n\n\"It don't work! It won't start!\" shouted Nanny. \"Right,\" she said, menacingly, striding toward the slim shape of Lily. \"We'll soon wipe that smug look off your face\u2014\"\n\nShe halted as silver pain shot through her body.\n\nLily laughed.\n\n\"It's true, then?\" she said. \"Yes. I can see it in your faces. Esme was bright enough to know she couldn't win. Don't be stupid. And don't point that silly wand at me, Miss Garlick. Old Desiderata would have defeated me long ago if she could. People have no understanding.\"\n\n\"We ought to go down there,\" said Magrat. \"She might be lying there\u2014\"\n\n\"That's it. Be good. It's what you're good at,\" said Lily, as they ran to the stairwell.\n\n\"But we'll be back,\" snarled Nanny Ogg. \"Even if we have to live in the swamp with Mrs. Gogol and eat snakes' heads!\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Lily, arching an eyebrow. \"That's what I said. One needs people like you around. Otherwise one is never quite sure one is still working. It's a way of keeping score.\"\n\nShe watched them disappear down the steps.\n\nA wind blew over the tower. Lily gathered up her skirts and walked to the end, where she could see the shreds of mist streaming over the rooftops far below. There were the faint strains of music from the distant carnival dance as it wound its way through the streets.\n\nIt would soon be midnight. Proper midnight, not some cut-price version caused by an old woman crawling around in a clock.\n\nLily tried to see through the murk to the bottom of the tower.\n\n\"Really, Esme,\" she murmured, \"you did take losing hard.\"\n\nNanny reached out and restrained Magrat as they ran down the spiral stairs.\n\n\"Slow down a bit, I should,\" she said.\n\n\"But she could be hurt\u2014!\"\n\n\"So could you, if you trip. Anyway,\" said Nanny, \"I don't reckon Esme is lyin' in a crumpled heap somewhere. That's not the way she'd go. I reckon she did it just to make sure Lily forgot about us and wouldn't try anything on us. I reckon she thought we were\u2014what was that Tsortean bloke who could only be wounded if you hit 'im in the right place? No one ever beat 'im until they found out about it. His knee, I think it was. We're her Tsortean knee, right?\"\n\n\"But we know you have to run really fast to get her broomstick going!\" shouted Magrat.\n\n\"Yeah, I know,\" said Nanny. \"That's what I thought. And now I'm thinking...how fast do you go when you're dropping? I mean, straight down?\"\n\n\"I...don't know,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I reckon Esme thought it was worth findin' out,\" said Nanny. \"That's what I reckon.\"\n\nA figure appeared around the bend in the stairs, plodding upward. They stood aside politely to let it pass.\n\n\"Wish I could remember what bit of him you had to hit,\" Nanny said. \"That's going to be nagging at me all night, now.\"\n\nTHE HEEL.\n\n\"Right? Oh, thanks.\"\n\nANY TIME.\n\nThe figure continued onward and upward.\n\n\"He had a good mask on, didn't he,\" said Magrat, eventually.\n\nShe and Nanny sought confirmation in each other's face.\n\nMagrat went pale. She looked up the stairs.\n\n\"I think we should run back up and\u2014\" she began.\n\nNanny Ogg was much older. \"I think we should walk,\" she said.\n\nLady Volentia D'Arrangement sat in the rose garden under the big tower and blew her nose.\n\nShe'd been waiting for half an hour and she'd had enough.\n\nShe'd hoped for a romantic t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate: he'd seemed such a nice man, sort of eager and shy at the same time. Instead, she'd nearly been hit on the head when an old woman on a broom and wearing what looked, as far as she could see through the blur of speed, like Lady Volentia's own dress, had screamed down out of the mist. Her boots had plowed through the roses before the curve of her flight took her up again.\n\nAnd some filthy smelly tomcat kept brushing up against her legs.\n\nAnd it had started off as such a nice evening...\n\n\"'ullo, your Ladyship?\"\n\nShe looked around at the bushes.\n\n\"My name's Casanunda,\" said a hopeful voice.\n\nLily Weatherwax turned when she heard the tinkle of glass from within the maze of mirrors.\n\nHer brow wrinkled. She ran across the flagstones and opened the door into the mirror world.\n\nThere was no sound but the rustle of her dress and the soft hiss of her own breathing. She glided into the place between the mirrors.\n\nHer myriad selves looked back at her approvingly. She relaxed.\n\nThen her foot struck something. She looked down and saw on the flagstones, black in the moonlight, a broomstick lying in shards of broken glass.\n\nHer horrified gaze rose to meet a reflection.\n\nIt glared back at her.\n\n\"Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?\"\n\nLilith backed away, her mouth opening and shutting.\n\nGranny Weatherwax stepped through the empty frame. Lily looked down, beyond her avenging sister.\n\n\"You broke my mirror!\"\n\n\"Was this what it was all for, then?\" said Granny. \"Playin' little queens in some damp city? Serving stories? What sort of power is that?\"\n\n\"You don't understand...you've broken the mirror...\"\n\n\"They say you shouldn't do it,\" said Granny. \"But I reckoned: what's another seven years' bad luck?\"\n\nImage after image shatters, all the way around the great curve of the mirror world, the crack flying out faster than light...\n\n\"You have to break both to be safe...you've upset the balance...\"\n\n\"Hah! I did?\" Granny stepped forward, her eyes two sapphires of bitterness. \"I'm goin' to give you the hidin' our Mam never gave you, Lily Weatherwax. Not with magic, not with headology, not with a stick like our Dad had, aye, and used a fair bit as I recall\u2014but with skin. And not because you was the bad one. Not because you meddled with stories. Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop'ly, after you went I had to be the good one. You had all the fun. An' there's no way I can make you pay for that, Lily, but I'm surely goin' to give it a try...\"\n\n\"But...I...I...I'm the good one,\" Lily murmured, her face pale with shock. \"I'm the good one. I can't lose. I'm the godmother. You're the wicked witch...and you've broken the mirror...\"\n\n...moving like a comet, the crack in the mirrors reaches its furthest point and curves back, speeding down the countless worlds...\n\n\"You've got to help me put...the images must be balanced...\" Lily murmured faintly, backing up against the remaining glass.\n\n\"Good? Good? Feeding people to stories? Twisting people's lives? That's good, is it?\" said Granny. \"You mean you didn't even have fun? If I'd been as bad as you, I'd have been a whole lot worse. Better at it than you've ever dreamed of.\"\n\nShe drew back her hand.\n\n...the crack returned toward its point of origin, carrying with it the fleeing reflections of all the mirrors...\n\nHer eyes widened.\n\nThe glass smashed and crazed behind Lily Weatherwax.\n\nAnd in the mirror, the image of Lily Weatherwax turned around, smiled beatifically, and reached out of the frame to take Lily Weatherwax into its arms.\n\n\"Lily!\"\n\nAll the mirrors shattered, exploding outward in a thousand pieces from the top of the tower so that, just for a moment, it was wreathed in twinkling fairy dust.\n\nNanny Ogg and Magrat came up onto the roof like avenging angels after a period of lax celestial quality control.\n\nThey stopped.\n\nWhere the maze of mirrors had been were empty frames. Glass shards covered the floor and, lying on them, was a figure in a white dress.\n\nNanny pushed Magrat behind her and crunched forward cautiously. She prodded the figure with the toe of her boot.\n\n\"Let's throw her off the tower,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"All right,\" said Nanny. \"Do it, then.\"\n\nMagrat hesitated. \"Well,\" she said, \"when I said let's throw her off the tower, I didn't mean me personally throwing her off, I meant that if there was any justice she ought to be thrown off\u2014\"\n\n\"Then I shouldn't say any more on that score, if I was you,\" said Nanny, kneeling carefully on the crunching shards. \"Besides, I was right. This is Esme. I'd know that face anywhere. Take off your petticoat.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Look at her arms, girl!\"\n\nMagrat stared. Then she raised her hands to her mouth.\n\n\"What has she been doing?\"\n\n\"Trying to reach straight through glass, by the looks of it,\" said Nanny. \"Now get it off and help me tear it into strips and then go and find Mrs. Gogol and see if she's got any ointments and can help us, and tell her if she can't she'd better be a long way away by morning.\" Nanny felt Granny Weatherwax's wrist. \"Maybe Lily Weatherwax could make jam of us but I'm damn sure I could knock Mrs. Gogol's eye out with the fender if it came to it.\"\n\nNanny removed her patent indestructible hat and fished around inside the point. She pulled out a velvet cloth and unwrapped it, revealing a little cache of needles and a spool of thread.\n\nShe licked a thread and held a needle against the moon, squinting.\n\n\"Oh, Esme, Esme,\" she said, as she bent to her sewing, \"you do take winning hard.\"\n\nLily Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world.\n\n\"Where am I?\"\n\nINSIDE THE MIRROR.\n\n\"Am I dead?\"\n\nTHE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES.\n\nLily turned, and a billion figures turned with her.\n\n\"When can I get out?\"\n\nWHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT'S REAL.\n\nLily Weatherwax ran on through the endless reflections.\n\nA good cook is always the first one into the kitchen every morning and the last one to go home at night.\n\nMrs. Pleasant damped down the fires. She did a quick inventory of the silverware and counted the tureens. She\u2014\n\nShe was aware of being stared at.\n\nThere was a cat in the doorway. It was big and gray. One eye was an evil yellow-green, the other one pearly white. What remained of its ears looked like the edge of a stamp. Nevertheless, it had a certain swagger, and generated an I-can-beat-you-with-one-paw feel that was strangely familiar.\n\nMrs. Pleasant stared at it for a while. She was a close personal friend of Mrs. Gogol and knew that shape is merely a matter of deeply-ingrained personal habit, and if you're a resident of Genua around Samedi Nuit Mort you learn to trust your judgment rather more than you trust your senses.\n\n\"Well now,\" she said, with barely a trace of a tremor in her voice, \"I expect you'd like some more fish legs, I mean heads, how about that?\"\n\nGreebo stretched and arched his back.\n\n\"And there's some milk in the coolroom,\" said Mrs. Pleasant.\n\nGreebo yawned happily.\n\nThen he scratched his ear with his back leg. Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.\n\nIt was a day later.\n\n\"Mrs. Gogol's healing ointment really seems to work,\" said Magrat. She held up a jar that was half-full of something pale green and strangely gritty and had a subtle smell which, you could quite possibly believe, occupied the whole world.\n\n\"It's got snakes' heads in it,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Don't you try to upset me,\" said Magrat. \"I know the Snake's Head is a kind of flower. A fritillary, I think. It's amazing what you can do with flowers, you know.\"\n\nNanny Ogg, who had in fact spent an instructive if gruesome half-hour watching Mrs. Gogol make the stuff, hadn't the heart to say so.\n\n\"That's right,\" she said. \"Flowers. No getting anything past you, I can see that.\"\n\nMagrat yawned.\n\nThey had been given the run of the palace, although no one felt like running anywhere. Granny had been installed in the next room.\n\n\"Go and get some sleep,\" said Nanny. \"I'll go and take over from Mrs. Gogol in a moment.\"\n\n\"But Nanny...Gytha...\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"All that...stuff...she was saying, when we were traveling. It was so...so cold. Wasn't it? Not wishing for things, not using magic to help people, not being able to do that fire thing\u2014and then she went and did all those things! What am I supposed to make of that?\"\n\n\"Ah, well,\" said Nanny. \"It's all according to the general and the specific, right?\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\" Magrat lay down on the bed.\n\n\"Means when Esme uses words like 'Everyone' and 'No one' she doesn't include herself.\"\n\n\"You know...when you think about it...that's terrible.\"\n\n\"That's witchcraft. Up at the sharp end. And now...get some sleep.\"\n\nMagrat was too tired to object. She stretched out and was soon snoring in a genteel sort of way.\n\nNanny sat and smoked her pipe for a while, staring at the wall.\n\nThen she got up and pushed open the door.\n\nMrs. Gogol looked up from her stool by the bed.\n\n\"You go and get some sleep too,\" said Nanny. \"I'll take over for a spell.\"\n\n\"There's something not right,\" said Mrs. Gogol. \"Her hands are fine. She just won't wake up.\"\n\n\"It's all in the mind, with Esme,\" said Nanny.\n\n\"I could make some new gods and get everyone to believe in 'em real good. How about that?\" said Mrs. Gogol. Nanny shook her head.\n\n\"I shouldn't think Esme'd want that. She's not keen on gods. She thinks they're a waste of space.\"\n\n\"I could cook up some gumbo, then. People'll come a long way to taste that.\"\n\n\"It might be worth a try,\" Nanny conceded. \"Every little helps, I always say. Why not see to it? Leave the rum here.\"\n\nAfter the voodoo lady had gone Nanny smoked her pipe some more and drank a little rum in a thoughtful sort of way, looking at the figure on the bed.\n\nThen she bent down close to Granny Weatherwax's ear, and whispered:\n\n\"You ain't going to lose, are you?\"\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world.\n\n\"Where am I?\"\n\nINSIDE THE MIRROR.\n\n\"Am I dead?\"\n\nTHE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES.\n\nEsme turned, and a billion figures turned with her.\n\n\"When can I get out?\"\n\nWHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT'S REAL.\n\n\"Is this a trick question?\"\n\nNo.\n\nGranny looked down at herself.\n\n\"This one,\" she said.\n\nAnd stories just want happy endings. They don't give a damn who they're for.\n\nDear Jason eksetra,\n\nWell so much for Genua but I learned about Mrs. Gogol's zombie medicin and she gave me the told me how to make banananana dakry and gave me a thing call a banjo youll be amazed and all in all is a decent soul I reckon if you keeps her where you can see her. It looks like we got Esme back but I don't know shes actin funny and quiet not like herself normally so Im keepin an Eye on her just in case Lily puled a farst one in the mirror. But I think shes geting better because when she woke up she arsked Magrat for a look at the wand and then she kind of twidled and twisted them rings on it and turned the po into a bunch of flowers and Magrat said she could never make the wand do that and Esme said no because, she wasted time wishing for thinges instead of working out how to make them happen. What I say is, what a good job Esme never got a wand when she was young, Lily would have bin a Picnic by comparisen. Enclosed is a picture of the cemtry here you can see folks are buried in boxes above ground the soil being so wet because you dont want to be dead and drownded at the same time, they say travelin brordens the mind, I reckon I could pull mine out my ears now and knot it under my chin, all the best, MUM.\n\nIn the swamp Mrs. Gogol the voodoo witch draped the tail coat over its crude stand, stuck the hat on the top of the pole and fastened the cane to one end of the crosspiece with a bit of twine.\n\nShe stood back.\n\nThere was a fluttering of wings. Legba dropped out of the sky and perched on the hat. Then he crowed. Usually he only crowed at nightfall, because he was a bird of power, but for once he was inclined to acknowledge the new day.\n\nIt was said afterward that, every year on Samedi Nuit Mort, when the carnival was at its height and the drums were loudest and the rum was nearly all gone, a man in a tail coat and a top hat and with the energy of a demon would appear out of nowhere and lead the dance.\n\nAfter all, even stories have to start somewhere.\n\nThere was a splash, and then the waters of the river closed again.\n\nMagrat walked away.\n\nThe wand settled into the rich mud, where it was touched only by the feet of the occasional passing crawfish, who don't have fairy godmothers and aren't allowed to wish for anything. It sank down over the months and passed, as most things do, out of history. Which was all anyone could wish for.\n\nThe three broomsticks rose over Genua, with the mists that curled toward the dawn.\n\nThe witches looked down at the green swamps around the city. Genua dozed. The days after Fat Lunchtime were always quiet, as people slept it off. Currently they included Greebo, curled up in his place among the bristles. Leaving Mrs. Pleasant had been a real wrench.\n\n\"Well, so much for la douche vita,\" said Nanny philosophically.\n\n\"We never said goodbye to Mrs. Gogol,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"I reckon she knows we're going right enough,\" said Nanny. \"Very knowin' woman, Mrs. Gogol.\"\n\n\"But can we trust her to keep her word?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Granny Weatherwax.\n\n\"She's very honest, in her way,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Well, there's that,\" Granny conceded. \"Also, I said I might come back.\"\n\nMagrat looked across at Granny's broomstick. A large round box was among the baggage strapped to the bristles.\n\n\"You never tried on that hat she gave you,\" she said.\n\n\"I had a look at it,\" said Granny coldly. \"It don't fit.\"\n\n\"I reckon Mrs. Gogol wouldn't give anyone a hat that didn't fit,\" said Nanny. \"Let's have a look, eh?\"\n\nGranny sniffed, and undid the lid of the box. Balls of tissue paper tumbled down toward the mists as she lifted the hat out.\n\nMagrat and Nanny Ogg stared at it.\n\nThey were of course used to the concept of fruit on a hat\u2014Nanny Ogg herself had a black straw hat with wax cherries on for special family feuding occasions. But this one had rather more than just cherries. About the only fruit not on it somewhere was a melon.\n\n\"It's definitely very...foreign,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Go on,\" said Nanny. \"Try it on.\"\n\nGranny did so, a bit sheepishly, increasing her apparent height by two feet, most of which was pineapple.\n\n\"Very colorful. Very...stylish,\" said Nanny. \"Not everyone could wear a hat like that.\"\n\n\"The pomegranates suit you,\" said Magrat.\n\n\"And the lemons,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\n\"Eh. You two ain't laughing at me, are you?\" said Granny Weatherwax suspiciously.\n\n\"Would you like to have a look?\" said Magrat. \"I have a mirror somewhere...\"\n\nThe silence descended like an axe. Magrat went red. Nanny Ogg glared at her.\n\nThey watched Granny carefully.\n\n\"Ye-ess,\" she said, after what seemed a long time, \"I think I should look in a mirror.\"\n\nMagrat unfroze, fumbled in her pockets and produced a small, wooden-framed hand-mirror. She passed it across.\n\nGranny Weatherwax looked at her reflection. Nanny Ogg surreptitiously maneuverd her broomstick a bit closer.\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Granny, after a while.\n\n\"It's the way the grapes hang over your ear,\" said Nanny, encouragingly. \"You know, that's a hat of authority if ever I saw one.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\"\n\n\"Don't you think?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Well,\" said Granny, grudgingly, \"maybe it's fine for foreign parts. Where I ain't going to be seen by anyone as knows me. No one important, anyway.\"\n\n\"And when we get home you can always eat it,\" said Nanny Ogg.\n\nThey relaxed. There was a feeling of a hill climbed, a dangerous valley negotiated.\n\nMagrat looked down at the brown river and the suspicious logs on its sandbanks.\n\n\"What I want to know is,\" she said, \"was Mrs. Gogol really good or bad? I mean, dead people and alligators and everything...\"\n\nGranny looked at the rising sun, poking through the mists.\n\n\"Good and bad is tricky,\" she said. \"I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face.\n\n\"You know,\" she added, \"I truly believe I can see the edge from here.\"\n\n\"Funny thing,\" said Nanny, \"they say that in some foreign parts you get elephants. You know, I've always wanted to see an elephant. And there's a place in Klatch or somewhere where people climb up ropes and disappear.\"\n\n\"What for?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Search me. There's prob'ly some cunnin' foreign reason.\"\n\n\"In one of Desiderata's books,\" said Magrat, \"she says that there's a very interesting thing about seeing elephants. She says that on the Sto plains, when people say they're going to see the elephant, it means they're simply going on a journey because they're fed up with staying in the same place.\"\n\n\"It's not staying in the same place that's the problem,\" said Nanny, \"it's not letting your mind wander.\"\n\n\"I'd like to go up toward the Hub,\" said Magrat. \"To see the ancient temples such as are described in Chapter One of The Way of the Scorpion.\"\n\n\"And they'd teach you anything you don't know already, would they?\" said Nanny, with unusual sharpness.\n\nMagrat glanced at Granny.\n\n\"Probably not,\" she said meekly.\n\n\"Well,\" said Nanny. \"What's it to be, Esme? Are we going home? Or are we off to see the elephant?\"\n\nGranny's broomstick turned gently in the breeze.\n\n\"You're a disgustin' old baggage, Gytha Ogg,\" said Granny.\n\n\"That's me,\" said Nanny cheerfully.\n\n\"And, Magrat Garlick\u2014\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Magrat, overwhelmed with relief, \"I'm a wet hen.\"\n\nGranny looked back toward the Hub, and the high mountains. Somewhere back there was an old cottage with the key hanging in the privy. All sorts of things were probably going on. The whole kingdom was probably going to rack and ruin without her around to keep people on the right track. It was her job. There was no telling what stupidities people would get up to if she wasn't there...\n\nNanny kicked her red boots together idly.\n\n\"Well, I suppose there's no place like home,\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. \"No. There's a billion places like home. But only one of 'em's where you live.\"\n\n\"So we're going back?\" said Magrat.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nBut they went the long way, and saw the elephant.\n\n*Like finding that bloody butterfly whose flapping wings cause all these storms we've been having lately and getting it to stop.\n\n*And people are wrong about urban myths. Logic and reason say that these are fictional creations, retold again and again by people who are hungry for evidence of weird coincidence, natural justice and so on. They aren't. They keep on happening all the time, everywhere, as the stories bounce back and forth across the universe. At any one time hundreds of dead grandmothers\n\n*are being whisked away on the roof-racks of stolen cars and loyal alsatians are choking on the fingers of midnight burglars. And they're not confined to any one world. Hundreds of female Mercurian jivpts turn four tiny eyes on their rescuers and say, \"My brood-husband will be livid\u2014it was his travel module.\" Urban myths are alive.\n\n*Considered backward, that is, by people who wear more clothes than they do.\n\n*Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy seraph of Al-Ybi was once cursed by a badly-educated deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Ybi are renowned for being unusually short and bad-tempered.\n\n*Which explains a lot about witches.\n\n*Desiderata had sent a note via Old Mother Dismass asking to be excused on account of being dead. Second sight enables you to keep a very tight rein on your social engagements.\n\n*Nanny Ogg didn't know what a coquette was, although she could probably hazard a guess.\n\n*Hence, for example, the Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite, very popular among young people who live in the hidden valleys above the snowline in the high Ramtops. Disdaining the utterances of their own saffron-clad, prayer-wheel-spinning elders, they occasionally travel all the way to No. 3 Quirm Street in flat and foggy Ankh-Morpork, to seek wisdom at the feet of Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite, a seamstress. No one knows the reason for this, apart from the aforesaid attractiveness of distant wisdom, since they can't understand a word she says or, more usually, screams at them. Many a bald young monk returns to his high fastness to meditate on the strange mantra vouchsafed to him, such as \"Push off, you!\" and \"If I see one more of you little orange devils peering in at me he'll feel the edge of my hand, all right?\" and \"Why are you buggers all coming around here staring at my feet?\" They have even developed a special branch of martial arts based on their experiences, where they shout incomprehensibly at one another and then hit their opponent with a broom.\n\n*Granny Weatherwax had once pressed him about this, and since there are no secrets from a witch, he'd shyly replied, \"Well, ma'am, what happens is, I gets hold of 'un and smacks 'un between the eyes with hammer before 'un knows what's 'appening, and then I whispers in his ear, I sez, 'Cross me, you bugger, and I'll have thy goolies on t'anvil, thou knows I can.'\"\n\n*Many of the more traditional dwarf tribes have no female pronouns, like \"she\" or \"her.\" It follows that the courtship of dwarfs is an incredibly tactful affair.\n\n*Well, not often. Not on a daily basis, anyway. At least, not everywhere. But probably in some cold countries people say, \"Hey, those eskimos! What a people! Fifty words for snow! Can you believe that? Amazing!\" quite a lot.\n\n*Of course, lots of dwarfs, trolls, native people, trappers, hunters and the merely badly lost had discovered it on an almost daily basis for thousands of years. But they weren't explorers and didn't count.\n\n*Nanny Ogg sent a number of cards home to her family, not a single one of which got back before she did. This is traditional, and happens everywhere in the universe.\n\n*Something about Nanny Ogg rubbed off on people\n\n*The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.\n\n*Black Aliss wasn't very good with words either. They had to give her quite a lot of money to go away and not make a scene.\n\n*Whereas in Ankh-Morpork, business was often so slow that some of the more go-ahead Guild members put adverts in shop windows offering deals like \"Stab two, poison one free.\"\n\n*Ronald the Third of Lancre, believed to be an extremely upleasant monarch, was remembered by posterity only in this obscure bit of rhyming slang.\n\n*Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling \"banana,\" but didn't know how you stopped.\n\n*Always in front of you in any queue, for a start.\n\n*Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because\u2014what with trolls and dwarfs and so on\u2014speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.\n\n*As Desiderata said, fairy godmothers tend to get heavily involved with kitchens.\n\n*Two logs and hope.\n\n*This is the last line of a Discworld joke lost, alas, to posterity.\n\n## About the Author\n\nTerry Pratchett is one of the most popular living authors in the world. His first story was published when he was thirteen, and his first full-length book when he was twenty. He worked as a journalist to support the writing habit, but gave up the day job when the success of his books meant that it was costing him money to go to work.\n\nPratchett's acclaimed novels are bestsellers in the U.S. and the United Kingdom and have sold more than twenty-three million copies worldwide. He lives in England, where he writes all the time. (It's his hobby, as well.)\n\nVisit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.\n\n## CRITICS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE POND ARE STARK RAVING MAD FOR TERRY PRATCHETT!\n\n\"Terry Pratchett is Britain's best-selling living novelist.... What's remarkable about him is that he is also first-rate, and in a better-ordered world he would be acclaimed as a great writer rather than a merely successful one.... Pratchett has two secret weapons up his sleeve\u2014a terrific sense of humor and a most appealing personality.\"\n\nSunday Telegraph (London)\n\n\"Philosophical humor of the highest order.\"\n\nKirkus Reviews\n\n\"One of the reasons for Pratchett's skyrocketing popularity (he has sold more than twenty million copies of his novels worldwide) is his use of multiple layers of satire. You can never pick up all the jokes he makes in one reading. And while you don't need to have read any previous Discworld novels to appreciate a new one, he frequently weaves in elements from other stories to add dimension to the Discworld universe.\"\n\nDenver Post\n\n\"Engaging, surreal satire...nothing short of magical.\"\n\nChicago Tribune\n\n\"Slyly comic.\"\n\nHouston Chronicle\n\n\"Unadulterated fun...witty, frequently hilarious.\"\n\nSan Francisco Tribune\n\n\"Superb popular entertainment.\"\n\nWashington Post Book World\n\n\"Think J. R. R. Tolkien with a sharper, more satiric edge.\"\n\nHouston Chronicle\n\n\"Trying to summarize the plot of a Pratchett novel is like describing Hamlet as a play about a troubled guy with an Oedipus complex and a murderous uncle. Pratchett isn't Shakespeare\u2014for one thing, he's funnier\u2014but his books are richly textured and far more complex than they appear at first...Consider yourself grabbed by the collar, with me shouting, 'You've got to read this book!'\"\n\nBarbara Mertz\n\n\"Discworld takes the classic funny universe through its logical, and comic, evolution.\"\n\nCleveland Plain Dealer\n\n\"Truly original...Discworld is more complicated and satisfactory than Oz...has the energy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the inventiveness of Alice in Wonderland...Brilliant!\"\n\nA. S. Byatt\n\n## OTHER BOOKS BY TERRY PRATCHETT\n\nThe Carpet People\n\nThe Dark Side of the Sun\n\nStrata \u2022 Truckers\n\nDiggers \u2022 Wings\n\nOnly You Can Save Mankind\n\nJohnny and the Dead \u2022 Johnny and the Bomb\n\nThe Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jollife)\n\nGood Omens (with Neil Gaiman)\n\nTHE DISCWORLD\u00ae SERIES:\n\nThud! \u2022 Going Postal\n\nMonstrous Regiment \u2022 Night Watch\n\nThe Last Hero \u2022 The Truth \u2022 Thief of Time\n\nThe Fifth Elephant \u2022 Carpe Jugulum\n\nThe Last Continent \u2022 Jingo\n\nHogfather \u2022 Feet of Clay \u2022 Maskerade\n\nInteresting Times \u2022 Soul Music \u2022 Men at Arms\n\nLords and Ladies \u2022 Small Gods\n\nWitches Abroad \u2022 Reaper Man\n\nMoving Pictures \u2022 Eric (with Josh Kirby)\n\nGuards! Guards! \u2022 Pyramids\n\nWyrd Sisters \u2022 Sourcery \u2022 Mort \u2022 Equal Rites\n\nThe Light Fantastic \u2022 The Color of Magic\n\nThe Art of Discworld (with Paul Kidby)\n\nMort: A Discworld Big Comic (with Graham Higgins)\n\nThe Streets of Ankh-Morpork (with Stephen Briggs)\n\nThe Discworld Companion (with Stephen Briggs)\n\nThe Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs)\n\nThe Pratchett Portfolio (with Paul Kidby)\n\n## Copyright\n\nThis book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.\n\nWITCHES ABROAD. Copyright \u00a9 1991 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.\n\nEPub Edition \u00a9 APRIL 2007 ISBN: 9780061809729\n\n06 07 08 09 10\n\n## About the Publisher\n\nAustralia\n\nHarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.\n\n25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)\n\nPymble, NSW 2073, Australia\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au\n\nCanada\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.\n\n55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900\n\nToronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.ca\n\nNew Zealand\n\nHarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited\n\nP.O. Box 1\n\nAuckland, New Zealand\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.\n\n77-85 Fulham Palace Road\n\nLondon, W6 8JB, UK\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk\n\nUnited States\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Inc.\n\n10 East 53rd Street\n\nNew York, NY 10022\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\nThe Southern  \nHospitality Myth\n\n**SERIES EDITORS**\n\nJon Smith, Simon Fraser University\n\nRich\u00e9 Richardson, Cornell University\n\n**ADVISORY BOARD**\n\nHouston A. Baker Jr., Vanderbilt University\n\nLeigh Anne Duck, The University of Mississippi\n\nJennifer Greeson, The University of Virginia\n\nTrudier Harris, The University of Alabama\n\nJohn T. Matthews, Boston University\n\nTara McPherson, The University of Southern California\n\nClaudia Milian, Duke University\n\n# The Southern  \nHospitality Myth\n\nETHICS, POLITICS,  \nRACE, AND AMERICAN MEMORY\n\nAnthony Szczesiul\n\n_This publication is made possible in part through a grant from the Bradley Hale Fund for Southern Studies._\n\n\u00a9 2017 by the University of Georgia Press  \nAthens, Georgia 30602  \nwww.ugapress.org  \nAll rights reserved  \nSet in 10\/13 Kepler by Graphic Composition, Inc.  \nPrinted digitally\n\nMost University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nNames: Szczesiul, Anthony, author.\n\nTitle: The Southern hospitality myth : ethics, politics, race, and American memory \/ Anthony Szczesiul.\n\nDescription: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, 2017. | Series: The new Southern studies series | Includes bibliographical references and index.\n\nIdentifiers: LCCN 2016049005| ISBN 9780820332765 (hard bound : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780820350738 (e-book)\n\nSubjects: LCSH: Southern States\u2014Social life and customs\u20141775\u20131865. | Hospitality\u2014Southern States\u2014History. | Hospitality\u2014Moral and ethical aspects\u2014Southern States\u2014History. | Southern States\u2014Moral conditions. | Racism\u2014Southern States\u2014History. | Southern States\u2014Public opinion\u2014History. | Regionalism\u2014United States\u2014History. | Memory\u2014Political aspects\u2014United States\u2014History. | Memory\u2014Moral and ethical aspects\u2014United States\u2014History. | Public opinion\u2014United States\u2014History.\n\nClassification: LCC F213 .S96 2017 | DDC 305.800975\u2014DC23\n\nLC record available at <https:\/\/lccn.loc.gov\/2016049005>\nFor Stacy\n\n## CONTENTS | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\n---|---\n\nINTRODUCTION | What Can One Mean by Southern Hospitality?\n\nCHAPTER ONE | A Virginian Praises \"Yankee Hospitality\": Rethinking the Historicity of Antebellum Southern Hospitality\n\nCHAPTER TWO | The Amphytrion and St. Paul; the Planter and the Reformer: Discourses of Hospitality in Antebellum America\n\nCHAPTER THREE | Making Hospitality a Crime: The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850\n\nCHAPTER FOUR | Southern Hospitality in a Transnational Context: The Geopolitical Logic of the South's Sovereign Hospitality\n\nCHAPTER FIVE | Reconstructing Southern Hospitality in the Postbellum World: Reconciliation, Commemoration, and Commodification\n\nCHAPTER SIX | The Modern Proliferation of the Southern Hospitality Myth: Repetition, Revision, and Reappropriation\n\nEPILOGUE | New Strangers of the Contemporary South\n\n|\n\nNOTES\n\n|\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n|\n\nINDEX\n\n## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nThis book has taken far too long to complete, and given the length of time devoted to the research and writing process (well over a decade), I have incurred a very long list of debts. The origins of this project lie in some lively class discussions that took place in one of my southern literature courses over a decade ago, so my first debt of gratitude goes to my past and present students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who not only inspired this project, but who also inspire me every day with their earnest curiosity and general goodwill. I feel lucky to go to my job every day. As I initially explored this subject before the archival research began, Michael Pierson of the UMass Lowell History Department was an important resource of information. At this early stage, I also benefitted from several long, meandering conversations about the project with my colleagues Julie Nash and Todd Avery and my good friends Gavin Sturges and Jake Bridge. Their thoughtful and generous interactions gave me the confidence to move forward and proved invaluable over the years of my research and writing. Early research was conducted at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, and my friends Keen and Nancy Butterworth put me up for a good part of a summer in their home in Columbia.\n\nThis project simply would not have been possible had I not lived in close proximity to one of America's great archives: the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. What originally began as a more traditional literary studies project evolved into this current form largely through my time spent at the AAS, and through the many forms of collegial assistance I received there. In addition to many (generally happy) days spent in the reading room at AAS, I took advantage of two of their Summer Seminars in the History of the Book (first with Phil Gura and later with Lloyd Pratt and Jeannine DeLombard), and I also received a Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship in the summer of 2005. Each of these experiences provided amazing opportunities for collegial interaction with fellows, seminar participants, and the incredible librarians and support staff at AAS. I would list every seminar participant and fellow and librarian if I could, but the list would be too long, and I would surely miss somebody. Special mention does go, however, to Camille Dungy and Kathryn Koo, both of whom were on concurrent fellowships with me in the summer of 2005. Our daily conversations over lunch certainly influenced the direction this project took in the years that followed.\n\nThe Society for the Study of Southern Literature has provided one of the main forums through which I have received feedback and developed my thinking on this subject over the years, particularly at the society's biennial conferences. I am grateful for the collegial community that SSSL provides, and the responses I received at the conferences always rejuvenated my interest in this project when it was flagging or even failing. Special thanks to Cole Hutchinson, Michael Bibler, Leigh Anne Duck, Jennifer Greeson, Julia Eichelberger, Daniel Cross Turner, Tom Haddox, Michael Kreyling, Jack Matthews, and Lisa Hinrichsen, all of whom offered meaningful encouragement or particularly thoughtful responses to my work at key moments. Thanks also to Kathleen Diffley, who provided significant feedback on a section of chapter 5 that first appeared in her edited essay collection, _Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873\u20131894_ (University Press of Mississippi, 2011). Portions of chapter 1 and chapter 6 were first published in an earlier form in a special issue of the _European Journal of American Culture_ in 2007. Thanks to the press and to the journal for permission to reprint this earlier work. Sincere thanks also go to the many artists who provided permission to include their works in my study: Pierre Bellocq, Fran DiGiacomo, Karen Dupre, Larry Dyke, Britt Ehringer, Kevin Liang, and Frank Tarpley.\n\nThe University of Georgia Press has been both encouraging and patient in its support of this project. Thanks to Nancy Grayson for expressing an early interest in my work and to Walter Biggins for seeing the manuscript across the finish line. Thanks also to the series editors, Jon Smith and Rich\u00e9 Richardson, for having the faith that this would be a worthwhile addition to the series, and to Jon and Scott Romine, who served as the (formerly) anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. Their meticulous and thoughtful feedback truly helped me to find my way when I was still quite lost. Thanks also to John Joerschke and Thomas Roche of the press, who served as project editors, and to Barbara Wojhoski, who copyedited the manuscript.\n\nI have received many forms of support at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, including a semester sabbatical and research and travel funding to support my work. Deborah Friedman and Rose Paton of University Libraries have always been especially helpful to me during this long process. As a faculty member and department chair, I have been fortunate to work under two outstanding deans: the late Nina Coppens and Luis Falc\u00f3n. Luis has been especially supportive and encouraging as I have neared the completion of this project. This book was especially difficult to complete while I have been serving as the English department chair, and I am forever thankful to my colleague and friend Bridget Marshall, who, with the support of Luis, agreed to step in as interim chair for a semester so that I could complete the manuscript (what Bridget got out of this in exchange was the prescient knowledge that she will never again agree to be chair). Many thanks also to Jacky Ledoux, whose remarkable efficiency and contagious laugh make my work as chair more manageable. I am very lucky to work in a vibrant and collegial department, and I appreciate the way that so many of my colleagues have provided encouragement as I have worked to complete this book. Special thanks go to Mike Millner, who generously read and discussed draft chapters with me and who always had an uncanny knack for asking just the right question to keep me moving forward, and to Sue Kim, who carefully read the manuscript prior to my initial submission to the press. Many thanks also to my dear friends and colleagues Julie Nash and Paula Haines, who have always been invaluable sources of emotional support along the way.\n\nFinally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their constant faith that this would get done. I am blessed with parents who have provided nothing but constant love and support throughout my life, and brothers and sisters who have always offered their encouragement. My sister Karen deserves special mention for providing much-needed moral support and for serving as a trusted reader at various stages of the writing process. My greatest debt of all is owed to Stacy, who, unlike me, never doubted that this would be completed, and to our wonderful daughters, Adelaide, Zoe, and Emma, who always manage to put things in proper perspective for me. I am lucky to go home to them every day (but even more so now that this is done).\nThe Southern  \nHospitality Myth\n\n## INTRODUCTION\n\n## What Can One Mean by  \nSouthern Hospitality?\n\nThe southerner is indeed hospitable to this day, loving nothing more than to entertain family and friends with the best food and drink he can afford. The automobile and the telephone make visiting far simpler than in the early times; normally only guests who have traveled great distances stay overnight, and the length of such visits is limited by the construction of the modern home. But if the circumstances of southern hospitality have changed, the spirit remains the same.\n\n\u2014 _Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ ,  \nCharles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds.\n\nWe do not yet know what hospitality is.\n\n\u2014Jacques Derrida, \"Hostipitality\"\n\nHow important is \"southern hospitality\" to \"your definition of today's South?\" So asked question 82 of the spring 1995 edition of the Southern Focus Poll conducted by John Shelton Reed and the Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Reed and the Odum Institute ran the Southern Focus Poll from 1992 to 2001, interviewing by phone thousands of southerners and nonsoutherners, seeking their responses on a wide range of political, economic, social, and cultural issues, as well as their sense of regional identity and cultural characteristics. Question 82 was one of a series of eight questions from the spring 1995 poll that were described as being \"about the South in general,\" and the overall response to it was unique both for the high degree of importance respondents placed on southern hospitality and for the remarkable similarity in the responses from southerners and nonsoutherners. Of the 917 southerners polled, 73.7 percent rated southern hospitality \"very important\" to their \"definition of today's South,\" and another 17.8 percent rated it \"somewhat important.\" Of the 506 nonsoutherners polled, 67.9 percent rated it \"very important,\" and 21.6 percent rated it \"somewhat important.\" Overall, 91.5 percent of southerners and 89.5 percent of nonsoutherners placed some degree of importance on southern hospitality in their \"definition of today's South.\" But what, exactly, does this poll reveal about the definition of the South, about the behavior of southerners, about southern culture? Does it confirm that hospitality is a traditional and integral element of southern cultural heritage, or does it simply tell us that the phrase \"southern hospitality\" has a high rate of recognition among Americans, whether they are southern or not? Hospitality has indeed been associated with the South for well over two centuries, but how did we get from the origins of southern hospitality\u2014what historically were a limited set of antebellum planters' social practices in a slave economy\u2014to what was, at the close of the twentieth century, an apparently surveyable regional trait? Moreover, how and why have we taken something as particular as the social habit of hospitality\u2014which is exercised among individuals and inevitably must be infinitely varied in its particular practices\u2014and so generalized it as to assign it to an entire region of the country? Why have we chosen to remember and valorize this particular aspect of the South? And what of the fundamental ethical questions that underlie the concept of hospitality\u2014how do these figure into our estimations of hospitality as a cultural trait of the American South, particularly in light of the South's historical legacy of slavery and segregation? These are some of the questions that initially motivated this study, and I set out to answer them in the chapters that follow.\n\nHistorians have offered a variety of explanations of the origins and cultural practices of hospitality in the antebellum South. Economic historians have at times portrayed southern hospitality as evidence of conspicuous consumption and competition among wealthy planters. Cultural historians have treated it peripherally as symptomatic of the southern code of honor and have pointed to circumstances such as the large distances between plantations, the dearth of public inns, and the relative lack of public welfare, all of which resulted in more pressure on the plantation home. Though historians differ on the origins and early practices of hospitality in the antebellum South, they generally agree that the mythic dimensions of southern hospitality eventually outran its practices. In _The Transformation of Virginia_ , for example, Rhys Isaac goes so far as to claim that the social reality on which the myth was based went out of fashion as early as 1800. Still, the myth of southern hospitality persisted even as social and political conditions underwent the drastic transformations of slavery, sectionalism, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the long struggle for civil rights. Indeed, this myth of southern hospitality has been an essential, foundational narrative within the larger national project of southern exceptionalism\u2014the persistent belief that the South is a distinct, unique, and separate culture within the larger United States. This notion of an exceptional South has been a basic belief in American culture for well over two centuries, and it has served as the very assumption that motivated the scholarly fields of southern literary, historical, and cultural studies from their inceptions through most of the twentieth century.\n\nSince roughly the turn of the twenty-first century, however, scholars have increasingly questioned or abandoned the assumption of southern exceptionalism, seeing it as a historically constructed concept rather than a natural essence. Instead of trying to understand and define what the South and southern culture supposedly are, they have asked questions such as What are the motivations behind this constructed belief in the exceptional South? How was this idea of the South created, and how has it evolved and been deployed over time? What sorts of \"ideological functionings\" or cultural work has it performed, both within the region and the nation? And with what consequences? For example, in the field of literary studies Michael Kreyling has deftly exposed the conservative politics that motivated the modern invention of the southern literary canon and its corresponding discipline of southern literary studies. Considering the South in broader national contexts, Tara McPherson, Leigh Anne Duck, and Jennifer Greeson have all demonstrated ways in which the concept of the South has been central to the national imaginary, and they have argued that southern exceptionalism and American exceptionalism have been mutually constituted since the nation's founding. McPherson, Duck, and Greeson have respectively described the South as \"a fiction,\" \"the nation's region,\" and an \"internal other,\" a site for repressed fears as well as for \"projective fantasies\" within the national imaginary. Alternatively, historian Grace Elizabeth Hale has shown how the South's emerging cultural logic of segregation became the model for the simultaneous construction of a national white identity in the modern consumer marketplace. Recent essay collections have taken interdisciplinary approaches to the imagined South and its very real consequences and have attempted to explode this myth of southern exceptionalism altogether. In his introduction to _Creating and Consuming the American South_ , for example, Martyn Bone explains that the collection's goal is to \"reorient our attention to the ways in which ideas and stories about 'the South' and 'southerners' have social and material effects that register on various local, regional, national, and transnational scales.\" A few years earlier, the title of another essay collection, _The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism_ , clearly announced an intention to tackle head-on the belief in southern exceptionalism; editors Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino bluntly explain in their introduction that \"the notion of the exceptional South has served as a myth, one that has persistently distorted our understanding of American history.\" The essays in this groundbreaking volume repeatedly show that these distortions have been greatest and most consequential in how we view America's complex racial history. Regarding that history, Lassiter and Crespino explain that their goal in dismantling southern exceptionalism \"is not to absolve the South but to implicate the nation.\" They rightly conclude that \"discarding the framework of southern exceptionalism is a necessary step in overcoming the mythology of American exceptionalism, transforming the American Dilemma [of racial injustice] into a truly national ordeal, and traversing regional boundaries to rewrite the American past on its own terms and in full historical perspective.\" In this same spirit I set out in this study to deconstruct what is perhaps the most persistent and ubiquitous myth of southern exceptionalism (southern hospitality), to show how this discursive formation of southern hospitality first emerged and how it has historically functioned within our national imaginary, and to push the topic of national cultural memory regarding the American South beyond the more transitory realm of politics and toward an abiding realm of ethical consideration.\n\nWhile historians have provided various explanations of the antebellum practices that gave rise to the southern hospitality myth, no one has yet addressed the persistent appeal and evolving meanings of the myth itself. Instead, for the past two centuries southern hospitality more often than not has been unquestioningly accepted as an essential and natural cultural attribute of the South. The first epigraph, drawn from the _Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ , provides a concise example of this tendency as well as some of the problems that go along with it. While the editors of the _Encyclopedia_ \u2014a serious academic work published by the University of North Carolina Press\u2014rightly include the discussion of southern hospitality in a section of the _Encyclopedia_ devoted to the \"Mythic South,\" the tone of the entry suggests more interest in justifying the reality of southern hospitality than in exploring or explaining its status as a cultural myth. Indeed, the passage reflects the way that many academics devoted to the study of the South have been invested in maintaining and justifying a sense of regional distinctiveness and exceptionalism. The author of the entry emphasizes the historical origins and \"intensely real\" quality of southern hospitality, and he concludes that \"if the circumstances of southern hospitality have changed\" from the antebellum period to the present, \"the spirit remains the same.\" He creates a narrative of continuous development, rhetorically linking the antebellum South with the contemporary South, the historical origins of southern hospitality with the contemporary \"spirit\" of southern hospitality. Southern hospitality becomes a common denominator of both the past and the present, an unchanging cultural attribute that has somehow survived the social, political, economic, and cultural upheavals that have occurred in the South over the past two centuries.\n\nThis way of portraying southern culture as an unchanging essence is precisely the sort of rhetorical turn that interests Immanuel Wallerstein in his essay \"What Can One Mean by Southern Culture?\" Wallerstein, a sociologist and leading figure of World Systems Theory, makes an important and revealing disclaimer early in the essay, noting that he is concerned \"not . . . with what this culture [of the South] is supposed to be, but [with] whether and in what sense it is meaningful to suggest that it exists.\" Wallerstein is particularly interested in the ways in which scholars who have written about the South have used the concept of \"culture\" in their work; the most prevalent habit is to see (southern) \"culture as a description of a set of traits, culture as 'tradition.' By culture in this sense is meant some summum of institutions and ideas\/values that is thought to be long-existing and highly-resistant to change.\" Other prominent tendencies include seeing southern culture as a binary counterpoint to the North or as a virtue to be defended against threats such as change and modernization. After considering several examples from cultural historians whose approaches illustrate these various tendencies, Wallerstein concludes that \"for all these writers, culture . . . turns out to be less an analytic concept or analytic construct than a rhetorical flag around which one rallies, a weapon in the larger political battles.\" As for the tendency to see the South and its culture as \"solid\" or \"unchanging,\" Wallerstein rightly reminds us of the diversity, constant change, and fluidity of historical reality, particularly when we shift our attention to smaller, more local scales of affiliation:\n\nAs soon as we allot \"cultures\" to entities within entities, there is no logical end. The West has a culture, the United States has a culture, the South has a culture, Georgia has a culture, and I suppose Atlanta has a culture. In addition, blacks and whites in Georgia\/the South\/the United States have distinct cultures. And so on. Why not each community, each kin network, each household? And why not each generation of each group? The answer is there is no reason why not, and people do speak of culture at these levels. Can we then assume each of these cultures represents some kind of enduring set of behaviors and values that is resistant to change? We can if we want to, but where does that get us?\n\nAs soon as we look closely at the smaller-scale entities, we become very conscious of how constantly changing are the sets of practices and values of small groups\u2014within an individual's lifetime, not to speak of over longer periods. . . . Furthermore, we know that even if group values remain constant over any period of time, we can never assume that all individuals in that group either affirm those values or engage in behavior consonant with them. At most, the statement of group values is a statistical mean of specific ways of behaving and professed beliefs with a presumable low standard deviation. As to this presumption, we have in practice virtually zero hard evidence. Perhaps the standard deviation varies from group to group, from time to time. Perhaps? All too probably.\n\nGiven this diversity of human experience at the local level, Wallerstein asserts that it is probably \"far more defensible intellectually to assume that variability is the norm and that continuities\" are exceptional. If we consider all the change that occurs on this micro-level as Wallerstein describes it, how is it possible to speak of the constancy of the South as a culture? More particularly for this study, how is it possible to think of hospitality as a cultural trait of the entire South, if we consider the diversity of these individual practices, habits, and conceptions that occur at any given moment, let alone over time? According to Wallerstein,\n\nIt has been possible because groups, in seeking to pursue their interests, will be able to do so insofar as they can persuade their \"members\" to act in some unified fashion. And a crucial mode of persuading these individuals, who in fact hold multiple group memberships (and hence, . . . are individuals of divergent interests), is to persuade these individuals that the desired behavior is normal, \"traditional,\" hallowed by time and therefore expected in the present. The recreation of an ever-varying tradition requires the spread of the belief that no change has in fact occurred.\n\nIt should be noted that Wallerstein's description of the power of persuasion involved in creating group identities begins a shift away from a simple consideration of the social practices that supposedly constitute group identities and toward the various discursive methods\u2014narratives, images, rhetorics, fictions\u2014used to persuade individuals that they are participating in such a supposedly unchanging tradition. The \"belief that no change has in fact occurred\" is the implicit assumption of the _Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ 's entry on southern hospitality and of most utterances of the phrase \"southern hospitality.\" To speak of southern hospitality is always to gesture to the past, to link the present to the past in an ongoing, seemingly unchanging tradition. In this way the discourse of southern hospitality forms a pervasive habit of cultural memory and serves as part of a broader persuasive appeal that \"the South\" exists as a distinct region and meaningful cultural category.\n\nLike Wallerstein in \"What Can One Mean by Southern Culture?\" I am not especially concerned in this study with what southern hospitality \"is supposed to be\"; rather my interest is \"whether and in what sense it is meaningful to suggest that it exists.\" In other words, I am interested not in defining the practices that supposedly constitute southern hospitality but rather in how southern hospitality has functioned in the national imaginary, both as a form of persuasion and as a meaning-making story that has been told about the South for more than two centuries. More specifically, I approach southern hospitality as a discourse, a system of representations and narratives through which southerners and nonsoutherners alike have defined, understood, interpreted, and collectively remembered the South. This discourse includes language, narratives, and images, in addition to social practices. Indeed, even when we think we are speaking about southern hospitality as actual social practices (whether of antebellum planters or of contemporary readers of _Southern Living_ magazine), these practices achieve their meaning\u2014their _recognitionas_ \"southern hospitality\"\u2014only in relation to this broader discursive system of southern hospitality and its long history of repetition and citation, for nothing can have meaning outside discourse.\n\n_The Southern Hospitality Myth_ explores the cultural work that this discourse has performed in the national imaginary for the past two centuries. More specifically, I argue that this myth has served as a master discourse about race in America, consistently encoding American racial ideologies in a regressive manner. Rather than promoting an ethics of universal welcome, the discourse of southern hospitality has expressed a retrograde politics of exclusion. First against the backdrop of sectional strife and later in the wake of the fratricidal Civil War, the southern hospitality myth has been used to create and promote a sense of transregional white community, solidarity, and privilege. It has done so by naturalizing and extending the racial hierarchies of slavery and segregation and by consistently portraying black Americans as either an invisible or an alien population, incapable of being assimilated into mainstream American culture. Historically considered, then, southern hospitality has functioned primarily as a white mythology, produced by whites, directed to a white audience, and invested in the project of maintaining white status and privilege. Only in the wake of the civil rights movement and the subsequent return of many African Americans to the South has this myth slowly, fitfully begun to be renovated in potentially more inclusive ways. The exclusionary patterns of the past, however, still persist.\n\nForegrounding the historical gap between the ethical ideal of hospitality and the restrictive politics of southern hospitality, I examine a range of texts and forms (travel writing, fiction, conduct and etiquette books, sermons, political discourse, travel and tourism literature, advertisements, film, cookbooks, and lifestyle magazines, among others) to show that while the discourse of southern hospitality has been constantly adapted to suit changing conditions and needs, its underlying racial meaning remained constant. While the southern hospitality myth has been an important vehicle for self-definition among southerners over the past two centuries, it has simultaneously provided one of the main tropes through which nonsoutherners have imagined their relationship with the region. Faced with a series of real, national conflicts and traumas associated with the South\u2014slavery, sectionalism, secession, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the long struggle for civil rights\u2014Americans have consistently relied on the discourse of southern hospitality to help them connect, in their imaginations at least, the region to the nation, and the South of the past to the South of the present. As a system of representation, the discourse of southern hospitality forms an axis around which numerous perceptions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century southern culture have revolved: ideas of home and community; relations with outsiders and strangers; the sense of a distinct regional identity and regional pride; the image of an agrarian lifestyle of leisure; the rise of travel, tourism, and hospitality industries in the postbellum and modern South; and social hierarchies of class, gender, and\u2014most subtly and yet most ubiquitously\u2014race. Southern hospitality has functioned as a free-floating nostalgic image, an effective commercial concept, and a consumer commodity. To northerners faced with the pressures of industrialization and modernization both before and after the Civil War, it provided a nostalgic image of a simpler, better time and a regional ideal upon which to hang the hopes of regional reconciliation in spite of sectional political tension and fratricidal war. To southerners, it has consistently stood as an image of regional pride, exceptionalism, and superiority. To nonsoutherners and southerners alike, the discourse of southern hospitality has provided an adaptable means for imagining amicable political and social relations between the region and the nation, despite the injustices of slavery and segregation. Slavery and segregation are absolutely antithetical to the ethics of hospitality, yet southern hospitality has generally been a basic assumption in the national imaginary for the past two centuries. The persistence and proliferation of the southern hospitality myth can be seen as a corollary of the nation's centuries-long failure to fulfill its original promise of an inclusive, democratic republic. Indeed, as a particularly subtle yet tenacious form of cultural memory, it has both enabled and ameliorated this failure.\n\nTo briefly introduce the racial politics underpinning the discourse of southern hospitality, I would like to consider a _Life_ magazine cartoon from a special \"Dixie\" issue published in 1925 (figure 1). The title of the cartoon is \"That Southern Hospitality,\" and it provides something of a paradigmatic image for this study, illustrating the fraught ethical and political dimensions within the discourse of southern hospitality, as well as the politics of collective memory. The focal point of the cartoon is the two figures standing in the foreground, both of whom are white: an older southern gentleman is speaking to a younger man, a guest who has apparently just arrived for an overnight visit. The two seem to be looking out a window, with the young man gazing over the older man's shoulder. In the caption, the older southerner tells the guest, \"I've given you, sah, the guest chamber overlooking where the mint bed used to be.\" Perhaps in the past the mint juleps flowed freely but no more. The hospitality exchange taking place in this image is marked by nostalgia and a palpable sense of declension: the older generation is speaking to the younger generation, and the man's words carry a subtle reminder of how things used to be but unfortunately no longer are. The suggested exchange between the figures in the cartoon's foreground conveys a reverence and longing for the idealized image of the Old South, but the third figure in the cartoon\u2014an African American servant standing behind the two men\u2014both complicates and confirms this meaning. The black servant appears to be dropping off the guest's luggage and overhearing the conversation, seemingly unnoticed\u2014or at least unacknowledged\u2014by the two central figures. Despite the servant's background role, his presence truly confirms the picture's meaning. His position in this background service role\u2014excluded and unacknowledged\u2014confirms the identity of the main figures: their social standing, their superiority, their community of belonging, in short, their whiteness. In the social practices of antebellum southern hospitality, the slave was perpetually present and perpetually unacknowledged and excluded, both relied on for service and reviled for supposed racial inferiority. This racism cannot be separated from the antebellum social practices of southern hospitality; indeed, it was the labor of the slave that provided the master the leisure to be so hospitable. Consider, for example, Thomas Jefferson's architectural design at Monticello and particularly his creation of a complex system of dumbwaiters designed to entirely conceal the toiling of dozens of slaves as he and his guests dined on the fruits of their unseen labor. Likewise, for much of the history of the discourse of southern hospitality, the black slave, servant, or citizen has been perpetually present and perpetually excluded. This constructed status as perpetual outsider has similarly been used to confirm the solidarity, superiority, and community of white American identity.\n\nFIGURE 1. \"That Southern Hospitality.\" Cartoon from January 15, 1925, issue of _Life_ magazine.\n\nWhile southern hospitality\u2014the hospitality of slavery and segregation\u2014has generally been lauded and memorialized in American culture, many instances when the southern hospitality myth has been contested have been forgotten, as have the many voices of reformers, antislavery advocates, abolitionists, and African Americans who have proposed more progressive visions of hospitality as a possible model for a more inclusive republic. As a study devoted to interpreting the cultural significance of the southern hospitality myth in the national imaginary, this book attempts to recover some of these debates and alternative discourses and thereby provide a fuller historical perspective. By considering both the political and the ethical dimensions surrounding this discourse of southern hospitality, we can better understand the persistence of its appeal in the past and also begin to imagine how it may be shaped in the future, for as an ethical question, hospitality is as relevant today as it was in the past.\n\nTo counter the common practice of viewing southern hospitality as a natural and essential cultural attribute of the South, I would like to consider Richard Gray's comments on regional identification and southern self-fashioning, for his comments provide a useful starting point for the consideration of southern hospitality _as discourse_. As Gray writes in the foreword to _South to a New Place: Region, Literature, Culture_ , \"The South has customarily defined itself against a kind of photographic negative, a reverse image of itself with which it has existed in a mutually determining, reciprocally defining relationship. The South _is_ what the North _is not_ , just as the _North_ is what the _South_ is not.\" Gray goes on to explain that while such acts of southern self-fashioning are not \"fake,\" they are \"fictive\" in the sense of being imaginatively created and sustained. First, they are fictive because \"they involve a reading of existence as essence\" and \"form a notion of a cultural 'type' based on a real specificity but divorced from history.\" Second, they are fictive in that they deny the real diversity of southern cultures by positing one South that is \"stamped with an inalienable, nonevolutive character.\" But as Gray reminds us, \"readings of the South are just that, readings\u2014of its past, present, and possible futures, the plurality of its cultures; for better or worse, [these readings] . . . involve a figuring and, in the purest sense of the word, a _simplifying_ of history.\"\n\nGray's comments, like Wallerstein's cited earlier, provide a useful framework for rethinking southern hospitality more broadly as a set of discursive practices rather than just as social practices. Clearly any utterance of the phrase \"southern hospitality\" implicitly signifies its opposite: northern reserve, aloofness, or haughtiness\u2014a general lack of hospitality. Moreover, while southern hospitality may have first existed _in_ history as social habits of the antebellum planter classes, it also exists as discourse \"divorced from\" this specific history, as a meaning-making story told about the South and southerners. Such discursive practices are essential to southern self-fashioning, which Gray concisely describes as the interplay of speech acts and communal ritual: \"Southern self-fashioning . . . has surely not altered since the invention of the South. It is a matter of language and communal ritual, the human habit of positioning the self with the help of the word and others, giving a local habitation and a name to things to secure their and our identity, and establishing a connection or kinship with other people that is also an anchorage, a validation of oneself.\" But a long view of southern hospitality shows that in the give-and-take between speech acts and social rituals described here by Gray, language can eventually trump practice. Perhaps \"southern hospitality\" initially came into being as a reflection of actual social practices associated with the antebellum planter classes, but over its long history of iterations the phrase became unmoored and increasingly removed from these restricted antebellum origins\u2014so much so that the utterance of \"southern hospitality\" is like a performative speech act: it is the _expression_ of \"southern hospitality\" that _creates_ southern hospitality.\n\nNew research tools available through digitized databases allow us to begin to quantify and consequently visualize these historical trends in the usage of the phrase \"southern hospitality.\" Consider the graph in figure 2, which shows the frequency of the use of \"southern hospitality\" between 1700 and 2000 in over 5,195,769 digitized books available on Google Books. While this data is hardly definitive, it is nonetheless highly suggestive. Notice that the first usages of \"southern hospitality\" occur in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century; I should add that nearly all of these are from a passage in Sir Walter Scott's novel _Rob Roy_ and do not refer to the American South at all. While cultural historians often locate the origins of the social practices that came to be identified as southern hospitality in the 1700s and the colonial era, writers of that period were more likely to refer more specifically to the hospitality of Virginians, Carolinians, Georgians, and the like. In contrast, this graph shows that the earliest uses of \"southern hospitality\" in American culture actually occurred in the mid-1820s, and it only seemed to become a common expression between the 1830s and the 1860s. This does not mean that southerners were exceptionally hospitable during these decades; rather, this was a period of increasing political tension and animosity between the South and the North over slavery. In other words, the discourse of southern hospitality was not simply an emergent linguistic reflection of pleasant social practices; instead, it emerged as a mode of persuasion in the sectional crisis over slavery. As political tension increased between the North and the South, residents of southern states increasingly imagined and defined themselves as \"the South,\" as members of a distinct, separate, and superior culture in opposition to the North. As a phrase repeated again and again, \"southern hospitality\" became a form of shorthand in the national imaginary for a host of attributes and associations identified with \"southern culture,\" foundational among these being the South's racialized cultural hierarchy. My claim here that southern hospitality emerged and proliferated as a discourse during this period of sectional crisis is very much in line with Trish Loughran's thesis in _The Republic in Print: Print Culture in the Age of U.S. Nation Building, 1770\u20131870_. As Loughran shows, only in the 1830s and 1840s did a \"'national' print culture\" emerge in America. But rather than enhancing national identity, this development led to \"profound cultural fragmentation\" as Americans recognized their deep regional divisions, particularly over slavery. According to Loughran, the \"more connected regions appeared to be (in print), the more regionalized (rather than nationalized) their identities became.\" The discourse of southern hospitality is unique in that it both embodied _and_ alleviated this paradox of regional and national identity, emphasizing regional distinctiveness while simultaneously promising (to white Americans, at least) an imagined sense of welcome and connection to the South.\n\nFIGURE 2. Google Ngram Viewer graph illustrating the frequency of the use of \"southern hospitality\" between 1700 and 2000 in over five million digitized books available on Google Books.\n\nTo return to figure 2, also notice that the frequency of usage of \"southern hospitality\" drops off sharply during the Civil War (1861\u201365) and Reconstruction (1865\u201377), but that it increases quite steadily as the Civil War recedes in the distance and a nostalgia industry surrounding the Old South emerges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reaching a peak in the Depression era of the 1930s, when a novel and film like _Gone with the Wind_ (1936, adapted to film in 1939) could capture the American imagination with its romantic depiction of the patriarchal and agrarian Old South. Another sharp drop in usage coincides roughly with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s (perhaps no surprise here). In the last two decades of the twentieth century, these struggles over racial equality receded in the distance, and like a century earlier, we see another steady increase in usage. It's worth noting that this latter rise seems to occur even as the definition of the South and of southerners has become increasingly fluid and elusive in an era of globalization, the incessant cultural reproduction of late capitalism, and ever-shifting population demographics, as Martyn Bone and Scott Romine, among others, have described.\n\nToday we recognize southern hospitality not from having experienced it so much as from having heard about it repeatedly in this long history of repetition and citation, and in most instances, this discourse today seems entirely emptied of any real meaning or higher ethical or moral significance. To illustrate, I would like to briefly consider a series of contemporary paintings, all of which share the same title: \"Southern Hospitality.\" The fact that there are numerous contemporary paintings with this title (more than I discuss here) might seem at first to confirm the sense of southern hospitality's naturalness: it is just one of those things that goes without saying when people think of the South. But what, if anything, do these images really convey about southern culture? Do they help us define the South any better than, say, the Southern Focus Poll that I cited earlier? In turning to these paintings I want to emphasize that I am not in any way criticizing the individual artists for the possible meanings of their works; rather, I approach their work simply as visual reflections of the way American culture has memorialized southern hospitality.\n\nSeveral of these paintings are still lifes. Fran DiGiacomo's richly detailed and traditional still life \"Southern Hospitality\" (figure 3), for example, conveys a sense of formal elegance, featuring magnolia blooms pouring out of a low-set vase onto a marble tabletop that is partially covered in a richly textured crimson fabric. Other still-life paintings of southern hospitality convey a similar sense of elegance and refinement. For example, Eddie Glass's \"Southern Hospitality\" chooses as its subject the proverbial pineapple\u2014longtime symbol of hospitality\u2014presiding in this instance over an elegant centerpiece of a formal dining table with two wineglasses. Cherrie Nute's version of southern hospitality lacks a pineapple, but it has grapes, apples, peaches, and pears set amid fine china, rich fabrics, and flowers. In contrast to these more lavish depictions, Frank Tarpley's \"Southern Hospitality\" (figure 4) focuses on a simpler-looking table setting: peaches and grapes surround a silver teapot sitting on a more modest table linen. Alternatively, artist Kevin Liang's depiction of \"Southern Hospitality\" (figure 5) broadens the perspective beyond the narrow parameters of still-life painting; instead it features a welcoming sunroom or living room well lit by a bank of windows. The room's eclectic style conveys a sense of casual elegance: a formal fireplace, gilt-framed landscape painting, and Queen Anne end table contrast with other, more casual furnishings such as soft throw pillows and a wicker chair. On the end table in the foreground lie freshly cut flowers, a plate of fruit, and two glasses filled with red wine, ready to be enjoyed. Given their shared titles, each of these paintings purports to be conveying something about southern culture, but what, specifically, makes them \"southern\" other than the shared proclamations of their titles? Pineapples have long been symbolic of hospitality beyond the South, magnolias and peaches grow in other regions of the country, and the painting by Kevin Liang could be just about anywhere, so long as the income level of the homeowners could support such a lifestyle. Still, prints of these paintings are available for purchase at several online sites, so there is a market for them under their regional titles. For some consumers, then, these images might provide a means for what Richard Gray describes as \"southern self-fashioning,\" providing \"an anchorage,\" \"a connection or kinship,\" or a \"validation of oneself.\"\n\nFIGURE 3. Fran DiGiacomo, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 1998, oil, 24 \u00d7 36 in. Courtesy of the artist.\n\nFIGURE 4. Frank H. Tarpley, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 1999, oil, 16 \u00d7 20 in. Courtesy of the artist (www.georgiasunrise.com).\n\nFIGURE 5. Kevin Liang, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 1995, oil, 30 \u00d7 50 in. Courtesy of the artist.\n\nFIGURE 6. Karen Dupre, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 2002, gicl\u00e9e print on paper, 24 \u00d7 30 in. Courtesy of Phoenix Art Group.\n\nFurther broadening the perspective, both Karen Dupre's and Larry Dyke's paintings titled \"Southern Hospitality\" shift to the more obviously iconic southern image of the plantation home. Dupre's representation of southern hospitality (figure 6) focuses on the plantation home from a distance; the perspective is that of a visitor approaching the gateposts that mark the entrance to the plantation grounds. The home features iconic white pillars, and two empty chairs sit on the lawn just to the right of the portico. While this image may be more recognizably southern than the previously discussed paintings, print versions of this painting available online include a title banner running across the bottom that may create a moment of cognitive dissonance in the viewer. The banner includes the artist's name and the title in elaborately scrolled lettering that seems to fit the subject well, but in the center of the title banner and in a modern typeface that offsets the elaborate scrolls appear the words \"Phoenix Art Group,\" referring to a studio and gallery in Arizona. Apparently southern hospitality has spread further into the West, or perhaps this is more evidence of the \"southernization\" of America discussed by John Egerton and others.\n\nFIGURE 7. Larry Dyke, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 2005, oil, 20 \u00d7 40 in. Courtesy of Somerset Fine Art (www.somersetfineart.com).\n\nLarry Dyke's \"Southern Hospitality\" (figure 7) presents what most would agree is a quintessentially southern scene: live oaks and blooming azaleas abound in the foreground, and the white-pillared edifice of the plantation mansion sits off in the distance. In contrast to Dupre's painting, however, the perspective is somewhat askance. We see the home not as a typical visitor might, approaching up the drive leading to it, but from the side of the mansion, peering at it from a distance through the trees and azaleas. Perhaps the perspective is that of a welcome guest out for a stroll on the plantation grounds, but given the slightly voyeuristic quality of the perspective, it could just as well be that of an uninvited visitor lurking among the azaleas. Or shifting perspectives more dramatically, what happens if we imagine the viewpoint as that of a slave approaching the \"big house\" from the more mundane slave quarters that would have surrounded the plantation home? After all, the historical time frame for this image of the iconic plantation home is ambiguous. When we view this painting, we might, on the one hand, imagine that we are looking at an antebellum mansion as it existed before the Civil War, or we might, on the other hand, imagine that the painting represents a southern mansion in the contemporary moment that has apparently survived the vicissitudes of history. In other words, associating southern hospitality with this image of the plantation home raises important though neglected questions regarding southern hospitality's work as a form of cultural memory. In memorializing southern hospitality through such an image, what is it that we are actually choosing to remember, and what are we choosing to forget? Looking to the past, can we imagine ourselves as guests of a hospitality based on slave labor? For that matter, can an owner of slaves ever be said to be hospitable at all? As I will discuss later, just as an ethics is involved in hospitality, so too is an ethics involved in how we choose to remember the past.\n\nOverall, these contemporary pictorial iterations of \"southern hospitality\" seem disconnected from both the historically real and the ethically ideal. Pineapples, magnolias, white-pillared plantation homes: these are jaded repetitions, empty echoes, gestures toward an incomplete vision of the past. And yet \"southern hospitality\" in the present moment is still open to the possibility of resignification, to the construction of new meanings. As an example, take yet another contemporary painting titled \"Southern Hospitality,\" this by California artist Britt Ehringer (figure 8). In contrast to the straightforward representational nature of the other paintings, this oil challenges viewers through a collage-like construction, as a range of competing images are both juxtaposed with and superimposed on one another. While the initial impression is chaotic and confusing, the underlying formal structure of the painting\u2014a large central section framed by two narrower fields on the sides\u2014subtly calls to mind a triptych, a form traditionally used for religious iconography. Given what can sometimes seem like a religious reverence for the past in the South\u2014the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the cult of the Lost Cause, and so on\u2014the use of such a formal structure for this subject would be appropriate. Indeed, in the central field of the painting, in the background, is a Civil War battle scene, with Confederate cavalry engaging Union forces and wounded Confederates lying in the foreground. Though this image takes up the largest section of the painting, it is indistinct at first glance, for it is upside down, and another image is superimposed over it: a yellow-throated warbler in a mason jar. The captive bird\u2014whose summer breeding range extends across the states of the former Confederacy\u2014literally dwarfs the soldiers who are engaged in their life-or-death struggles of the historical past. Alongside this central frame, the narrower fields on the left and right depict contrasting views of women. The figure on the left presents the woman as sexual object: she wears black lingerie and strikes a provocative pose, returning the gaze of the viewer. A ribbon of color that flows across the entire painting covers her mouth. Just above her appears another, smaller female figure who is nude and seems to be standing on a stage before a curtain, effectively underscoring this idea of the objectified female form. In contrast to these sexualized figures, the woman who appears on the opposite side of the painting represents a restrictive, traditional feminine propriety: at first glance she looks like a 1950s housewife, but closer scrutiny reveals Japanese ideograms on her dress. A voice bubble appears above her, but there are no words in the bubble, only a labyrinthine pattern in two shades of pink. In contrast to the \"Southern Hospitality\" paintings considered heretofore, Ehringer's painting disrupts our assumptions and expectations, creating space for us to momentarily question and possibly reconsider such received cultural myths. History in this version of \"Southern Hospitality\" literally is turned on its head, while nature in turn is constrained by suffocating human constructions. Ehringer's painting deconstructs the myth of southern hospitality with an ethical edge that questions the negative effects of such myths, particularly, in this case, on women. According to Ehringer's version, women performing the myth of southern hospitality are on stage and on display; they are either silenced or reduced to speaking in little more than meaningless pink patterns, a critical reading of southern hospitality that parallels Tara McPherson's comments on the performative quality of southern hospitality in _Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender and Nostalgia in the Imagined South_.\n\nFIGURE 8. Britt Ehringer, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 2005, oil on canvas, 76 \u00d7 58.5 in. Courtesy of the artist.\n\nEhringer's portrayal of southern hospitality offers a stunning contrast to the other contemporary paintings that I have discussed. It almost seems a direct response to them. Perhaps the most telling point of contrast is that Ehringer's \"Southern Hospitality\" is the only one to include human figures. In the other paintings we see objects, empty rooms, and vacant landscapes\u2014lawn chairs and sofas with no one to sit on them, food and wine with no one to partake of them. If we think of hospitality as an exchange between a host and a guest or a host and a stranger, this consistent lack of human figures in these paintings celebrating southern hospitality seems particularly curious: it is as if we cannot even begin to imagine what southern hospitality might actually look like; perhaps even more so, we cannot begin to imagine what ethical obligations it might entail. These empty images seem a subtle confirmation of Jacques Derrida's statement: \"We do not yet know what hospitality is.\" Derrida's point is that true hospitality is an ethical ideal that we can only strive _toward_ but never fully realize. My own approach to the discourse of southern hospitality is deeply indebted to Derrida's philosophical meditations on hospitality, a subject that took up much of his critical attention as he increasingly saw it as the most fundamental of ethical questions. In particular, I use the distinction Derrida draws between the ethics and the politics of hospitality as a heuristic, a way of framing and comparing a variety of historical moments in the long arc of the myth's history.\n\nToday, whether we are speaking of the South or not, we have largely lost sight of hospitality as either a moral imperative or an ethical question, a fact that belies its rich heritage in Western culture. Derrida, in contrast, came to see the question of hospitality as the most fundamental category of ethics: \"Hospitality is not merely one ethics among others, but the ethics par excellence.\" Philosophically considered, hospitality is central to questions of identity, for the site of hospitality is always the threshold between difference, the site at which boundaries are _both_ crossed _and_ maintained. Hospitality, in other words, can both confirm and challenge identity. As Derrida describes it, hospitality is a \"paradoxical law\" that defines the \"sometimes ungraspable differences between the foreigner and the absolute other,\" between those who can be welcomed, even conditionally, and those who, for whatever reason, never can be. Hospitality, then, can never be completely separated from its opposite, hostility; in fact, the two words share an etymological origin in the Latin word _hostis_ , which can variously mean stranger, foreigner, alien, guest, or enemy. As Derrida explains, \"hospitality\" is \"a word which carries its own contradiction incorporated into it, a Latin word which allows itself to be parasitized by its opposite, 'hostility,' the undesirable guest . . . which it harbors as the self-contradiction in its own body.\" This etymological self-contradiction is emblematic of the aporia Derrida outlines in the concept of hospitality itself. In outlining this paradox, he draws on a philosophical tradition going back through Emmanuel Levinas to Immanuel Kant. Drawing from Kant in particular, Derrida emphasizes that hospitality is a universal right, but by this he means the right _to_ hospitality: the right of the stranger not to be treated with hostility when entering the lands of another. Derrida privileges this right of the guest, raising the guest to equal status with the host; in this regard, it is worth noting that the French language uses the same term to designate both \"guest\" and \"host\": _h\u00f4te_. With this idea of hospitality as universal right in place, Derrida goes on to distinguish between the infinite \"ethics of hospitality,\" which dictate the welcoming of all equally, and the \"politics of hospitality,\" which involve the way we define the threshold and negotiate borders between ourselves and those we deem foreign or strange. In short, the politics of hospitality is about determining who belongs and, perhaps more importantly, who does not. Such exclusionary acts are transgressions against the universal right to hospitality; while seeming welcoming, they are simultaneously acts of mastery, power, and even violence. For in order for hospitality to exist between a host and a guest, the host must maintain the sense of authority and mastery in his or her own place. The gift of hospitality, then, is never absolute but always limited. Says Derrida,\n\nThere is almost an axiom of self-limitation or self-contradiction in the law of hospitality. As a reaffirmation of mastery and being oneself in one's own home, from the outset hospitality limits itself at its very beginning, it remains forever on the threshold of itself. . . . It governs the threshold\u2014and hence it forbids in some way even what it seems to allow to cross the threshold. . . . It becomes the threshold. . . .\n\nTo take up the figure of the door, for there to be hospitality, there must be a door. But if there is a door, there is no longer hospitality. . . . As soon as there are a door and windows, it means someone has the key to them and consequently controls the conditions of hospitality. . . . Hospitality thus becomes the threshold or the door.\n\nI must emphasize that the point of Derrida's deconstruction of hospitality is not to simply and cynically argue that hospitality is impossible; rather, it is a call to _do_ the seemingly impossible. Derrida goes on to draw an important distinction between \"the hospitality of invitation\" and \"the hospitality of visitation.\" The hospitality of invitation, synonymous with the politics of hospitality, is exclusive and confirms our comfortable self-identity, our sovereignty, our mastery of our own space. In contrast, the hospitality of visitation, synonymous with the absolute ethic of welcoming all equally, carries an inherent sense of risk that can challenge this sense of sovereignty and self-possession. To move from one to the other we must be willing to give up control of the threshold, to allow the stranger\u2014whoever or whatever that may be\u2014to have access to it. Obviously, this carries great risk, threatening our own sense of mastery and possibly our self-identity, even our safety, but this is precisely Derrida's point: \"Pure, unconditional or infinite hospitality cannot and must not be anything else but an acceptance of risk. If I am sure that the newcomer that I welcome is perfectly harmless, innocent, that (s)he will be beneficial to me . . . it is not hospitality. When I open my door, I must be ready to take the greatest of risks.\" Such an unconditional ethic of welcome has never animated the southern hospitality myth, but the inherent risk involved in such true, unconditional hospitality was poignantly and tragically illustrated in the South on June 17, 2015, when members of the historically black \"Mother Emanuel\" AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, opened their doors to a young white supremacist. Given the long history of this black church in the South, given the fraught history of racial discrimination and violence in the nation, and given the church members' probable own life experiences (some were elderly and had lived under Jim Crow segregation), self-interest may have dictated caution when facing an unknown white man, but in accordance with the \"hospitality of visitation\" described above, they unconditionally welcomed this stranger in and invited him to participate in their scheduled Bible study, which he did for nearly an hour before pulling a gun and shooting to death nine church members: Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, and the Reverend Clementa C. Pinkney, the church's pastor who also served as a South Carolina state senator.\n\nHow many of us are willing to open ourselves up and accept such risk? With such an unconditional ethical standard in mind, it is no wonder that Derrida repeatedly says, \"We do not yet know what hospitality is.\" Derrida's analysis invites us to move beyond the limitations he describes as the politics of hospitality and to think more expansively about hospitality as an ethical ideal, as _the_ ethical ideal. From this perspective, true hospitality is not about confirming our comfortable assumptions and reaffirming our self-identity; it is about opening ourselves to difference. It is also about opening ourselves to both the challenges and the possibilities of the future, for Derrida's vision of pure hospitality is oriented toward the future and _not_ the past. Indeed, when the church members at Mother Emanuel opened their doors, they were accepting the possibilities of the future over the traumas of the past, which might have dictated suspicion or fear. As Derrida explains, \"Hospitality can only take place beyond hospitality, in deciding to let it come, overcoming the hospitality that paralyzes itself on the threshold which it is. . . . In this sense, hospitality is always to come . . . , but a 'to come' that does not and will never present itself as such, in the present and a future . . . that does not have a horizon, a futurity\u2014a future without horizon.\"\n\nGiven this progressive and future-oriented concept of the ethics of hospitality as outlined by Derrida, what can we say about the discourse of southern hospitality, a narrative form of cultural memory that is so oriented toward and invested in the past and in maintaining a sense of \"tradition\"? This question provides a second ethical dimension to consider when we reflect on the discourse of southern hospitality, for just as there is an ethics of hospitality, so too is there an ethics of memory. As the philosopher Paul Ricoeur argues, memory, whether individual or collective, is not simply a passive form of knowledge or experience; rather, it is an action, a way of \" _doing_ things.\" Consequently, we can speak of the ethics of memory, of both the \"use\" and the \"abuses of memory.\" As Ricoeur explains, we use narratives to create an identity, whether individual or collective, that seems stable and continuous amid the flux of time. The construction of such narratives necessarily involves \"eliminating\" or \"dropping\" some details and events as others are foregrounded \"according to the kind of plot we intend to build.\" Narratives of collective identity, then, are simultaneously acts of remembering _and_ forgetting. While this process is necessary for the creation of collective identities, it is also open to abuses, particularly when the past in question includes collective traumas and humiliations. These wounds of the past can have a profound effect, resulting in abuses of collective memory; in the face of past traumas, many groups and cultures block or manipulate memory as they construct a shared cultural identity, selectively remembering some events or details of the historical past while repressing others, allowing them to be forgotten.\n\nThe American South certainly has more than its fair share of traumas and humiliations in its collective memory, many of which are linked to the region's fraught racial history: the trauma of slavery, the humiliation of defeat in the Civil War, a legacy of sectional animosity and suspicion, the failures of Reconstruction, the daily humiliations suffered under Jim Crow segregation, the often violent struggles of the long civil rights movement, and countless episodes of racial violence that have taken place since the first Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Obviously, these wounds of the past are experienced in very different ways by different populations, black and white: what was victory for one group was bitter loss for the other, what was a moment of hope for one group was a moment of humiliation for the other, what brought pride to one group brought shame to the other. It is in just such a situation of competing, conflicting historical experiences that collective memory is perhaps most open to abuses, to the privileging and valorizing of some details of the past and the repression of others. This is certainly the case when we take a historical view of the discourse of southern hospitality, a form of cultural production and collective memory that is about both remembering and forgetting, a form that has been both used and abused. Since the Civil War and through segregation, the discourse of southern hospitality has largely been used to connect the postbellum South with the antebellum South in a way that reveres the patriarchal power structure and aristocratic sensibilities of the Old South, while forgetting that the historical origins of southern hospitality (its founding events) lie in an economy of slave labor. Indeed, the legendary hospitality of antebellum planters\u2014the \"origins\" of the myth\u2014was only possible through slaves, whose labors provided their masters both the wealth and the leisure to entertain their guests so freely. Since the Civil War, Americans have largely chosen to forget this basic historical fact. The empty repetitions of \"southern hospitality\" in the paintings discussed earlier\u2014particularly the uninhabited plantation scenes\u2014are perhaps symptomatic of this forgetfulness, a result of repression and the consequent compulsion to repeat.\n\nBut keeping in mind the appropriate work of memory, Paul Ricoeur notes that narratives of the past can also be sites of healing \"because it is always possible to tell in another way. This exercise of memory is here an exercise in _telling otherwise_. . . . It is very important to remember that what is considered a founding event in our collective memory may be a wound in the memory of the other.\" This observation takes us to what Ricoeur defines as the \"ethico-political level\" of collective memory and the \"duty to remember.\" For Ricoeur, the duty to remember \"consists not only in having a deep concern for the past, but in transmitting the meaning of past events to the next generation. The duty, therefore, is one which concerns the future; it is an imperative directed towards the future, which is exactly the opposite side of the traumatic character of the humiliations and wounds of history. It is a duty, thus, to tell.\" Tracing the discourse of southern hospitality through its evolving contexts from the beginnings of the sectional crisis up to the present, _The Southern Hospitality Myth_ is an attempt at \"telling otherwise,\" an effort to reconnect traces of the past that have largely been forgotten in American collective memory.\n\nThe chapters of this study are arranged chronologically and begin with the period of American history when the discourse of \"southern hospitality\" was being invented: in the 1820s and 1830s and against the backdrop of the rising sectional crisis that continued to the Civil War. In the first two chapters, I engage the historiography of the social practices that gave rise to the discourse of southern hospitality, but in contrast to the prevailing historiography, I complicate our regionalist understanding of hospitality by placing southern hospitality in a national context, by linking southern hospitality more directly to slavery, and by raising fundamental ethical questions about what actually constitutes hospitality. Hospitality was in fact a national concern, and there were widely diverse opinions among antebellum Americans regarding the moral, social, economic, and political dimensions of hospitality. Relying on a variety of texts (travel literature, etiquette books, sermons, religious texts, reform literature, fiction, poetry, and essays), I show that the discourse of southern hospitality emerged as Americans were already debating competing ideas of hospitality in the domestic sphere and amid a changing economy and culture. While most texts of the period point to the Christian spirit as the basis for true politeness in manners, they nonetheless reveal different views of what constitutes \"true\" hospitality. Many texts articulate an elitist, class-conscious sense of hospitality that emphasizes taste, refinement, and display, while others advocate a more \"republican\" approach that emphasizes simplicity, equality, and openness. In these early chapters I also rely on controversial literature on slavery to show that the discourse of southern hospitality emerged in conjunction with \"abolition hospitality,\" a self-conscious counterdiscourse espoused by abolitionists and progressive reformers of the period, a historical fact that has been lost to our collective memory as Americans and which I attempt to restore for our consideration. These reform-minded Americans developed radical ideas of hospitality, viewing it less as a pleasant social ritual and more as a moral imperative and a catalyst to social change. To understand the regressive racial appeal of the discourse of southern hospitality during the antebellum period and in debates on slavery, it is important to understand these alternative discourses as well.\n\nChapters 3 and  also focus on the period of antebellum sectional crisis, with an emphasis on the 1850s, but here I go beyond the local and domestic considerations of the first two chapters to consider legal, political, and ethical dimensions of hospitality in both national and global contexts. In particular, the chapters focus on contentious national debates surrounding, first, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which made it a federal crime to extend hospitality to runaway slaves; second, the antebellum Negro Seamen Acts, by which free foreign sailors of color were routinely imprisoned upon entering southern ports; and third, the nation's 1851 reception of Louis Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian revolutionary who was initially welcomed as the \"guest of the nation\" but who eventually received a hostile reception from both the South and northern abolitionists. Historians have examined all three of these episodes, to varying degrees, yet they have not fully considered how these conflicts raised important ethical questions around hospitality, which I argue was a particularly important frame of reference for antebellum Americans, both North and South. All three of these national debates remind us that hospitality entails much more than mere sociability carried out within the domestic sphere of individuals or the ethical and moral obligations between individuals and strangers; the question of hospitality also extends into the realms of international law and universal human rights. As Seyla Benhabib concisely explains, hospitality encompasses \"all human rights claims which are crossborder in scope.\" Drawing on sources such as antislavery almanacs, tracts, newspapers, sermons, newspaper editorials, poems, fiction, and the Congressional Record, these chapters show that the discourse of hospitality was used in competing ways by southerners and antislavery northerners to navigate boundaries within and between the region and the nation, and between the region and the international world, but it was also an important discourse for defining \"foreignness\" more generally, both within the South (in the form of the slave) and without.\n\nChapters 5 and  shift to the post\u2013Civil War era, focusing on how the discourse of southern hospitality continued to evolve, even though the Civil War had made defunct the entire social order that supposedly embodied southern hospitality. Chapter 5 considers how the discourse of southern hospitality assumed new meanings, met new needs, and expressed new desires and anxieties in the postbellum era of Reconstruction and early segregation culture. While the myth of southern hospitality was vigorously contested in the antebellum period, it was now increasingly and uncritically accepted throughout the nation. In the postwar context of reconciliation and national unity, earlier national debates over the nature, obligations, and limitations of hospitality yielded to a growing national assumption that the South was the home of hospitality. In the emerging consumer culture, southern hospitality evolved into a free-floating nostalgic image, an effective commercial concept, and a consumer commodity. In all these areas, the ethical dimensions of hospitality were lost as the discourse of southern hospitality increasingly functioned (implicitly or explicitly) as an exclusionary white myth that appealed to and was sustained by northerners as much as southerners. I draw here on Lost Cause literature, plantation fiction, Civil War commemoration, the literature of a burgeoning travel and tourism industry, and texts promoting northern and foreign emigration to the South. These texts reinforce the myth of southern hospitality while simultaneously reminding readers of the \"foreignness\" of the African American population. There were, however, alternative views to this trend\u2014though few and far between. I begin the chapter by considering works of fiction by women writers who counter this trend by tentatively reimagining hospitality during Reconstruction as a potential step toward a racially inclusive democracy, and I conclude it by turning to critiques of southern hospitality by African American writers at the turn of the twentieth century, with a specific emphasis on Charles W. Chesnutt.\n\nIn the twentieth century, popular culture and mass marketing allowed for the dramatic proliferation of the myth of southern hospitality, allowing the myth to reach a greater audience than ever before. I begin chapter 6 with a contextualized reading of the 1964 film and pop culture classic _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ From there, I examine how southern hospitality has been used in the overall \"branding\" of the South and its economic endeavors, focusing first on the development of the South's hospitality and tourism industries in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century and then on the more recent emergence of lifestyle industries around the South, most particularly with the example of _Southern Living_ magazine. The history of the southern hospitality myth in the twentieth century could easily be the subject of a book, whether concentrating on pop culture, literature, or African American reappropriations of the myth post\u2013civil rights. I conclude my study by focusing on these particular areas\u2014tourism and lifestyle\u2014because they have been major generators of economic wealth for the South and for some southerners in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The tensions between the ethics and the politics of hospitality in the South continue even after the civil rights movement, and I use the ethical lens of hospitality to examine more recent controversies such as the NAACP boycott of the South Carolina hospitality and tourism industries over the flying of the Confederate flag atop the statehouse and the dramatic fall of celebrity chef Paula Deen. Finally, in the epilogue, I consider the contentious debate over Alabama's anti-immigration law, HB56. I ask whether southern hospitality remains an adaptable discourse, one that can potentially be renovated to provide a meaningful ethical lens with which to approach such challenges that go hand in hand with globalization.\n\nAlthough the chapters of this study are arranged chronologically, my goal is not to provide a comprehensive historical survey of the discourse of southern hospitality; in light of its pervasiveness in American cultural history, that would be impossible. Instead, I am most interested in turning to the past as a way of recovering competing discourses on southern hospitality that, taken together, foreground the ethical dilemmas and paradoxes that surround this discourse at particular historical moments. This recovery effort is driven by the conviction that the ethical dilemmas surrounding the question of hospitality are not confined to the past. As the contemporary South and the nation as a whole are faced with the economic, political, social, and regional effects of globalization, the question of the South's or the nation's hospitality is potentially more urgent than ever before. In the context of globalization, philosophers such as Seyla Benhabib and Kwame Anthony Appiah have called for a new cosmopolitan ethics to guide us into the future, and the concept of hospitality is central to these efforts. As we transition toward a global society and face calls for cosmopolitan human rights, Benhabib describes how states are \"caught between _sovereignty_ and _hospitality_ , between the prerogative to choose to be a party to cosmopolitan norms and human rights treaties, and the obligation to extend recognition of these human rights to all.\" The question I pose in my epilogue is, can the regional ideal of southern hospitality serve as a meaningful frame of reference for a South and for southerners faced with the demands and pressures of globalization? In other words, can southern hospitality develop from a discursive practice that gestures toward an incomplete vision of the past into a discursive practice oriented toward the challenges of the future, one that calls for an ethical response to the foreigner, the stranger, and the risk of the unknown?\n\n## CHAPTER ONE\n\n## A Virginian Praises  \n\"Yankee Hospitality\"\n\n_Rethinking the Historicity of  \nAntebellum Southern Hospitality_\n\nIn the early years of the sectional crisis between the northern and southern states, a southerner could still praise the hospitality of northerners and even suggest that \"Yankee hospitality,\" though admittedly different, was possibly more sincere and meaningful than the hospitality of the South. Lucian Minor's \"Letters from New England\" were published in the first volume of the _Southern Literary Messenger_ , appearing in five installments between November 1834 and April 1835. His second letter opens with the following extended comparison between \"Yankee hospitality\" and \"good old Virginia hospitality\":\n\nOf _Yankee hospitality_ (curl not your lip sardonically\u2014you, or any other Buckskin,)\u2014of _Yankee hospitality_ there is a great deal, _in their way_ \u2014i.e. according to the condition and circumstances of society. Not a little more can be said of Virginia hospitality. Set one of our large farmowners down upon a hundred, instead of a thousand, acres; let him, and his sons, cultivate it themselves; feed the cattle; rub down and feed the horses; milk the cows; cut wood and make fires; let his wife and daughters alone tend the garden; wash, iron, cook, make clothes, make the beds, and clean up the house; let him have but ten acres of wood land, in a climate where snow lies three, and frost comes for seven, months a year; surround him with a dense population\u201480, instead of 19, to the square mile; bring strangers, constantly, in flocks to his neighborhood; place a cheap and comfortable inn but a mile or two off; give him a ready and near market for his garden stuffs, as well as for his grain and tobacco\u2014and ask yourself, if he could, or would, practice our \"good old Virginia hospitality?\" To us, who enjoy the credit and the pleasure of entertaining a guest, while the drudgery devolves upon our slaves; the larger scale (wastefully large) of our daily _rations_ , too, making the presence of one or more additional mouths absolutely unfelt;\u2014hospitality is a cheap, easy, and delightful virtue. But put us in place of the yankees, in the foregoing respects, and any man of sense and candor must perceive that we could not excel them.\n\nWhile I am attracted to the sheer anecdotal novelty provided by an antebellum southerner praising the hospitality of the North, I begin this chapter with Lucian Minor for more substantive reasons. On the one hand, Minor's comments on the unique material and social circumstances of southern hospitality confirm many of the main assertions that cultural historians have made about the origins of the social practices that came to be identified as \"southern hospitality,\" so his portrayal of southern hospitality provides a convenient opportunity to review what historians have had to say about the material circumstances, complex motivations, and cultural meanings of these practices. On the other hand, Minor's comparative comments on northern and southern hospitality can also complicate our understanding of southern hospitality in important ways. First, the opening lines of his essay, in which he anticipates his readers' incredulous response to the mere suggestion of northern hospitality, suggest the already-legendary status of the hospitality of southerners, its importance as a defining trait of \"the South.\" Indeed, he later refers to hospitality as \"our most prominent virtue\" and admits that allowing northerners to be compared with southerners in this regard amounts to \"audacious heresy.\" But considering Minor's comments on hospitality in light of the overall context to \"Letters from New England\" also shows that southern hospitality was an adaptable discourse, a well-recognized story that allowed northerners and southerners to imagine an amicable interregional social union in spite of, or instead of, sectional political animosity. As I discuss later, this discourse of southern hospitality was both a symptom of and, often, a proposed remedy to sectional suspicion and animosity. Second, Minor unsettles our regionalist understanding of hospitality by placing southern hospitality in a national context, reminding us that hospitality was an important subject throughout antebellum America and not just in the South. Antebellum discourses of hospitality were multiple, wide-ranging, and mobile, sliding along shifting boundaries that defined the stranger or foreigner and along lines of region, race, and class. Discourse on _southern_ hospitality was only one strand of discourse among many. To understand how antebellum Americans imagined and understood southern hospitality, it is essential to consider it amid these broader, more disparate discourses on hospitality, a topic I take up in chapter 2. Finally, by linking southern hospitality directly to slavery, Minor implicitly\u2014though no doubt, unintentionally\u2014raises fundamental ethical questions about what actually constitutes hospitality. For if antebellum southern hospitality is\u2014in Minor's words\u2014an \"easy virtue,\" one that is contingent on slave labor, is it a virtue at all?\n\nLucian Minor was a graduate of the College of William and Mary, a Virginia commonwealth attorney, and a public southern intellectual from the 1830s until his death in 1858. In 1833 he had been Thomas Willis White's first choice for the editor's position at the fledgling _Southern Literary Messenger_ , a magazine whose expressed hope was to establish for the South its \"just rights\" and \"proper representation in the republic of letters.\" When Minor refused White's offer to head the _Messenger_ for eight hundred dollars a year\u2014a decent salary at the time\u2014White offered the position to the struggling Edgar Allan Poe at a much lower rate of ten dollars per week. Still, Minor maintained close ties with White and the _Southern Literary Messenger_ , and he would be one of its \"best and most frequent contributors\" in the years that followed. As can be gleaned from his five \"Letters from New England,\" Minor could in many ways be classified as a progressive southern intellectual of the period, and his often-approving observations of New England range through topics such as public education, local government, architecture, the judicial system, agriculture, public lyceums and lectures, and the treatment of women, among other things. He states that his goal in writing the letters is to \"draw . . . [southern] attention to some traits of Yankee life which we may advantageously copy,\" and to \"disabuse\" southerners \"of a few of the prejudices, which ignorance and misrepresentation have fostered against our northern brethren.\" In his other writings, Minor was known to advocate public education reform, prison reform, and temperance. Though he certainly opposed the abolition of slavery (in his first letter he rails against \"Garrison, and his will-o'-the-wisp, the _Liberator_ \"), he did write approvingly of the colonization of Liberia by former American slaves in an 1836 essay written for the _Southern Literary Messenger_.\n\nBy the time Minor wrote his \"Letters from New England,\" the hospitality of southerners had already achieved legendary status in American culture, having been celebrated by travelers to and citizens of the South for well over a century. As early as 1705, for example, Robert Beverly in his _History of Virginia_ offered this description: \"A stranger has no more to do, but to inquire upon the road, where any Gentlemen or good House-keeper Lives, and there he may depend upon being received with Hospitality. This good Nature is so general . . . that the Gentry when they go abroad, order their Principal Servant to entertain all Visitors. . . . And the Poor planters, who have but one bed will very often sit up, or lie upon a Form or Couch all Night, to make room for a weary Traveller.\" According to Rhys Isaac in _The Transformation of Virginia_ , many of the early social practices on which the legends of southern hospitality were based\u2014particularly the \"open-house customs\" that conjured up legends of planters actively seeking out strangers to entertain\u2014went out of fashion as early as 1800. Even so, hospitality was consistently identified by southerners and nonsoutherners alike as a distinguishing social characteristic of the wealthier planter classes and, increasingly in the 1800s, as a defining trait of the South more generally.\n\nStill, by portraying \"Virginia hospitality\" as a circumstance of the unique environmental and social circumstances of the South, Minor attempts to dispel some of the legendary aura surrounding southern hospitality, as well as the reciprocal stereotype that northerners are inhospitable. In doing so, he perhaps hoped to create a common ground of benevolence and goodwill between northerners and southerners. At the same time, his analysis also confirms many of the assertions that cultural historians of the antebellum South have made about the origins and social practices of southern hospitality\u2014as well as their complex cultural meanings. For example, Minor cites the denser population patterns in the North as well as the common availability of inns for travelers as reasons why hospitality is not so readily associated with the North. Historians have similarly argued that the southern practices of hospitality were in part the consequence of the distances between and general isolation of plantations. If one made the effort to travel a great distance to visit, it seems logical that one was more likely to stay for a while. The South also had far fewer public inns than the North, so some instances of southern hospitality were the result of necessity; in these cases, strangers were often expected to pay for services rendered. At the same time, having strangers visit could provide a personal benefit to slave owners living in relative isolation, alleviating what some of them described in diaries and letters as the numbing boredom of a life without work. Entertaining strangers and learning news from travelers could alleviate the ennui of plantation life. Hence we have the accounts of planters sending their slaves to nearby inns to invite any guests to dine at their plantation, as well as the apocryphal anecdotes of planters forcing their hospitality on strangers at gunpoint.\n\n### Hospitality between Men of Honor\n\nAccording to Bertram Wyatt-Brown, many of the social practices of hospitality in the antebellum South were primarily \"family-centered,\" and this can be tied to the unique social conditions of the South, relative to the North (notice how Wyatt-Brown's reference to \"Yankeefied\" traits in the following quote relies on the very sort of regional stereotypes that Minor's essay attempts to dispel):\n\nThe planter of means was obliged to share the good fortune with less well-fixed kinfolk or be severely criticized for Yankeefied tightfistedness. When no other agency existed to care for the weak, the family was the first and often sole resort. Northerners likewise felt obliged to lend the helping hand, and did so with no less and no more willingness than Southerners. However, there was, one may speculate, a sense of deeper obligation in the South, if only because the slave holding states were slow to find public means to house the dependent and indigent\u2014asylums, hospitals, poorhouses, or rooming houses. Moreover, it was much more dignified for a widowed distant cousin . . . to accept an invitation for a visit that lasted over a year than to request a handout.\n\nBut benevolence surely was not the primary impulse behind the polymorphous social practices that gave rise to the legendary southern hospitality of the antebellum South. Steven M. Stowe argues, for example, that many of the rituals of planter society in the Old South were an important way of establishing \"legitimacy and dominance[,] . . . the knot that the planters had to keep tight if they were to survive, and, as they steadily came to understand by the 1830s, if their survival was to have the strength of tradition.\" With the intensifying political climate and the changing economic and social conditions that emerged during the sectional crisis, such rituals became more and more attractive to \"an increasingly embattled elite.\" As Stowe concisely explains, \"There were . . . advantages in a slave society to one's appearing larger-than-life and smoothly in charge.\" In other words, it was important to the elite planters that they had the opportunity to exhibit their power, privilege, and mastery, for mastery was, \"after all, the final measure of things\" in this particular social order. Inviting guests and strangers into one's home provided just such opportunities to display one's self.\n\nThese practices of hospitality among antebellum southern planters were also deeply embedded within the complex social codes and rituals of southern honor. Many social exchanges of hospitality in the antebellum South\u2014ranging from buying drinks and extending and accepting invitations to meals and entertainments to offering assistance to gentlemen in need\u2014took place among men of honor seeking to establish their place in a hierarchical social order ; consequently these exchanges could be fraught with a deep sense of competition, coercion, and potentially insulting meanings. As Wyatt-Brown explains, \"Hospitality could not be divorced from honor, nor honor separated from the coercions of public opinion. . . . In all the coercions and obligations that surrounded the custom of hospitality there ran an undercurrent of deep mistrust, anxiety, and personal competition.\" Kenneth Greenburg similarly approaches southern hospitality through the cultural lens of southern honor, arguing that the rites of hospitality provided an essential form of gift exchange among men of honor. According to Greenburg, gift exchanges\u2014rather than, say, market transactions\u2014were the most meaningful interactions among members of the wealthy planter class, helping to create a sense of community and belonging. This explanation is very much in line with Marcel Mauss's seminal work _The Gift: The Form and Function for Exchange in Archaic Societies_. According to Mauss's comparative analysis, the most important social aspect of a gift is the sense of indebtedness and obligation it creates in the recipient, an important means of creating a sense of solidarity and community. While gifts such as hospitality may seem \"voluntary, in reality they are given and reciprocated obligatorily.\"\n\nAccording to Greenburg, in the patriarchal world of southern honor, even the relationship between a master and his slaves was imagined in these terms, with the \"benevolent\" master providing the slave the \"gifts\" of security, a home, and all the necessities of life; in fact, to be a master in the cultural economy of slavery was to be a giver of gifts: \"Gifts flowed in only one direction in the master-slave relationship. Men of honor, on the other hand, both gave and received gifts. To be immersed in a system of reciprocal gift giving was to be part of a community of free men. In fact, gift exchange was one of the defining features of that community.\" While a community of gift givers may sound pleasant on the surface, southerners often viewed gifts with suspicion. Certainly there is a coercive aspect in the giving of any gift because the recipient of the gift feels obliged to reciprocate. And among men of honor in the antebellum South, one had to have the means to reciprocate in style if one wanted to maintain one's status. In light of the insights of both Wyatt-Brown and Greenburg, it is no wonder, perhaps, that some economic historians have described the practices of hospitality among wealthy planters in terms of conspicuous consumption. Whatever terms we use to describe the phenomena, without doubt the public display of personal wealth\u2014whether through a home and its furnishings or the ritualized practices that occurred within\u2014played an important role in defining one's place in the social order of wealthy southern planters. Or, as Rhys Isaac explains, \"the stress on hospitality arose from and contributed to the sacred importance attached to the house. A man's homeplace\u2014his plantation and house\u2014were special extensions of the self.\"\n\nA fascinating and particularly disturbing example of this logic may be found in the diaries of James Henry Hammond, the South Carolina politician, virulent supporter of states' rights, and uncompromising defender of slavery based on white supremacy. In a long diary entry dated December 9, 1846, Hammond momentarily enters into a diatribe against his brother-in-law (Wade Hampton) and his political enemies, and his invective reveals the deep sense of competition that could often be the primary impulse behind hospitality: \"The truth is he [Hampton] felt, and so did all his set, Manning, Preston, etc., my great superiority over them, and they could not ordinarily brook it. He threw away $30,000 to make his house . . . finer than mine. And he was galled, all of them were, that, besides every thing else, I beat them in _their own line_ , furniture, balls, and dinner parties. All were exceedingly jealous of me. . . . Manning could not conceal it. He built his fine house in Clarendon to beat me.\" The passage indicates the potentially competitive undercurrent of hospitality among wealthy southerners, but the entire context of this particular diary entry makes the solace Hammond takes in his hospitable displays of wealth especially disturbing. For the majority of Hammond's diary entry on December 9 is devoted to the circumstances surrounding his serial molestations of his four nieces (Wade Hampton's daughters), and the fact that his transgressions have recently become known to the Hampton family. As Hammond ponders the appropriate course of action, it becomes apparent that he can live quite comfortably with his guilty conscience\u2014indeed, he often seems to feel justified in his appalling behavior ; what he cannot abide is losing his place in the social order:\n\nNotwithstanding my letter to Hampton and my announcement of my intention to leave Columbia their low and cowardly malignity led them to seek a most pitiful revenge. Their desire was to black ball me and to mortify me and mine by keeping us out of Society and all respectable persons from coming to our House. . . . I was careful in selecting guests at my dinner parties and they were well attended. Our Ball [went] brilliantly, tho' I knew they endeavoured to keep many from attending.\n\nThough Hammond obviously represents an extreme example, his diary entries show that appearances were what mattered most to men of honor. Or as Kenneth Greenburg concisely puts it, \"Southern men of honor were 'superficial.' They were concerned, to a degree we would consider unusual, with the surface of things\u2014with the world of appearances.\"\n\nLucian Minor, in contrasting northern and southern hospitality, laments just this sort of superficial, profligate, and self-aggrandizing display of hospitality suggested by the example of Hammond. His second letter from New England goes on to relate several anecdotal personal experiences from his travels as evidence of New England hospitality, and he draws the following comparative conclusions:\n\nThe result of all my observation is, that the New Englanders have in their hearts as much of the _original material_ of hospitality as we have; that, considering the sacrifices it costs them, and the circumstances which modify its application, they _actually use_ as much of that material as we do; and that, although their mode of using it is less _amiable_ than ours, it is more _rational_ , more _salutary_ \u2014better for the guest, better for the host, better for society. And most gladly would I see my countrymen and countrywomen exchange the ruinous profusion; which, to earn, or preserve, a vainglorious name, pampers and stupefies themselves and impoverishes their country, for the discriminating and judicious hospitality of New England: retaining only those freer and more captivating traits of their own, which are warranted by our sparser settlements, our ampler fields, and our different social organization.\n\nAs both Minor's comments and the historiography I have been reviewing suggest, the social practices of hospitality\u2014in all their complexities and contradictions\u2014formed an important element in both the daily lives of individuals in the antebellum South and their self-perception. At the same time, though, we should remember that the social practices I have been discussing were confined to a very small part of the southern population as a whole, namely, the wealthiest slaveholding population. Still, by the time of Minor's writing, there was an increasing tendency to identify hospitality as a defining characteristic of the entire region of the South and southerners more generally. This tendency was perhaps as much a result of increasing sectional tensions between the regions as it was a reflection of the social practices themselves. As political tension grew between the North and the South, southerners increasingly defined themselves as members of a distinct culture in opposition to the North; in this regard, it is worth noting that the term \"southern hospitality\" became common parlance only in the 1820s and 1830s, decades in which sectional tensions between the North and South were on the rise. Prior to this period, writers were more likely to refer more specifically\u2014as Lucian Minor still did\u2014to the hospitality of Virginians, Carolinians, Georgians, and the like.\n\n### Hospitality among Sovereign Regions\n\nAmong the earliest uses of \"southern hospitality\" that I have found in print occurs in an 1826 travel sketch by A. Foster initially printed in the _Repository & Observer_, a New Hampshire newspaper, and reprinted in the _Western Recorder_ magazine. The early publication of the sketch provides a convenient instance for reflecting on the important relationship that developed between the circumscribed hospitality exchanges carried out by the antebellum planter class and the emerging discursive practices that these exchanges generated in the national imaginary. In the short sketch, titled \"Visit to a Southern Plantation,\" Foster recounts his few days' visit with \"one of the wealthiest of the wealthy southern planters\" residing along the Savannah River in South Carolina. He describes the plantation mansion as having an air of \"aristocratical independence,\" surrounded as it is by nearly a thousand acres of corn and cotton, and the humbler cabins that house at least a hundred \"servants\" (Foster never uses the word \"slave\"). Following his description of the plantation itself, he offers the following assessment of southern hospitality (notice that the opening line implies a comparison with the hospitality of New England):\n\nThe hospitality of South Carolina is proverbial in New-England, and it is not overrated. A _visit_ , in the language of the country, is a stay of two or three days, or a month if you choose. Neither the gentleman nor the lady of the house feel themselves under any _obligation_ to entertain a visitor with conversation, or with invitations to partake of the hospitality of the house. Every thing is at your command. The wine is upon the sideboard, the povisions [ _sic_ ] upon the table at the regular hour, the servants are on hand to supply you with whatever you wish, and there is your chamber for retirement. Every member of the family attend to their regular duties, as though you had not been there. These, however, are not so numerous, as not to allow you sufficient time for conversation. Thus relieved from all ceremony and all restraint, the host and guest are placed on equal terms; under equal obligation to entertain each other with conversation; under equal obligations to perform the common civilities of the dining table. This is the secret of southern hospitality and politeness, and certainly it is altogether the most genteel and agreeable mode of entertaining company.\n\nIn the sketch certain qualities emerge that have been noted and will continue to be repeated about southern hospitality: that it is generous, elegant, and aristocratic, while also seeming less formal and more spontaneous than the social practices of the North. One can imagine that many northerners would find a depiction such as Foster's appealing. It is, in short, an aristocratic fantasy come true: \"Every thing is at your command.\" Every \"thing\" in this case of course includes the human chattel belonging to the master of the house, here put at the disposal of the guest. During the visit, the guest becomes like a slave owner. One can imagine that southern hospitality held a certain seductive power for some visitors, creating a bond of equality between guest and host as privileged members of the white race. Of course, as noted earlier, this gift of hospitality also carries a sense of reciprocal obligation for the guest, and we can sense this obligation in Foster's refusal to use the term \"slave,\" perhaps out of respect to his southern host. After all, one would not want to come across as an ungrateful guest. Moreover, even his decision to write of and publicize his amiable encounter with a southern slave owner is a sort of reciprocal gift. The overall result of this hospitality exchange is seen in Foster's conclusion: \"On taking our leave in the afternoon, there were many expressions of good will on either side, and a warm invitation on the part of the family to repeat the visit.\"\n\nConsidered through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's theories on the forms of capital (economic, social, cultural), the rituals of hospitality exercised by the antebellum planter class can be seen as an embodied form of social and cultural capital, a reproductive and legitimating strategy that enhanced and extended its own power and influence. In short, the plantation owner who hosted A. Foster in 1826 was investing in his own social capital, and by extension, the social and cultural capital of the entire slaveholding elite. As Bourdieu explains, social capital is the result of a production process:\n\nThe existence of a network of connections is not a natural given, or even a social given. . . . It is . . . the product of investment strategies, individual or collective, consciously or unconsciously aimed at establishing or reproducing social relationships that are directly usable in the short or long term. . . . This is done through the alchemy of _consecration_ , the symbolic constitution produced by social institution (institution as a relative\u2014brother, sister, cousin, etc.\u2014or as a knight, an heir, an elder, etc.) and endlessly reproduced in and through the exchange (of gifts, words, women, etc.) which it encourages and which presupposes and produces mutual knowledge and recognition. . . . The reproduction of social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed.\n\nThis sense of recognition here extends to the visitor or guest from the North who experiences the ritual practices of southern hospitality. The goodwill and mutual recognition, however, are not limited in this case to A. Foster himself; as was increasingly the case, the hospitable exchange has been recorded and shared with thousands of northern readers, who in turn can imagine their own visit to an aristocratic plantation and the warm hospitality and leisure that such a visit would presumably entail. The amount of social capital an individual possesses depends, according to Bourdieu, \"on the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected.\" This is an important thing to keep in mind when we consider the relationship between the limited social practices of the antebellum planters and the extensive cultural myth that these circumscribed practices generated in print and by word of mouth. The myth of southern hospitality exerted a \"multiplier effect\"\u2014to borrow Bourdieu's term\u2014on these limited social exchanges, essentially creating a larger field or connection network for interpreting them, while simultaneously imbuing \"southern hospitality\" with deeper symbolic value in the national imaginary. Indeed, these original social practices were an investment that paid off _for generations_ of white southerners, as the following chapters will show.\n\nSo even if the emergence of the discourse of southern hospitality was in some ways a result of increasing sectional division, it could nonetheless palliate these same divisions. As an adaptable discourse about the South, southern hospitality provided southerners _and_ northerners alike with a way of reimagining interregional social and political relationships in the face of growing sectional tension. Many northerners who traveled south and visited planters recorded very favorable impressions of the hospitality of benevolent southerners, and their stories of gracious southern hospitality would have appealed to many northern readers. Arousing such benevolent feelings between northerners and southerners could also prove useful in this time of heightened sectional political tensions. Lucian Minor's essay again provides a case in point. In the years immediately preceding Minor's \"Letters from New England,\" sectional suspicions and animosities had been intensifying. In 1833 the country emerged unscathed from the nullification crisis that pitted the state of South Carolina against the Union, and in 1831 and 1832, William Lloyd Garrison established _The Liberator_ and founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, respectively. Also Nat Turner's bloody but ultimately unsuccessful slave rebellion, which many southerners believed was precipitated by abolitionist influence on the slave population, occurred in 1831. Evidence of such sectional suspicions emerges near the end of Lucian Minor's first letter from New England, when he pointedly attacks Garrisonian abolitionism. He begins by assuring his readers that \" _abolition_ , if not dead here, is too desperately feeble to give us an hour's uneasiness.\" Still, the amount of print he devotes to the subject at the end of this letter\u2014not to mention the shift in tone accompanying it\u2014indicates that he may have felt more uneasy than he let on. Whatever the case, he informs his readers that most \"intelligent men\" in the North view Garrison as a \"miserable fanatic\" and a \"contemptible poor creature.\" After relating a few anecdotes illustrative of abolitionism's lack of popular support, he offers the following summation of New England attitudes on slavery:\n\nI find almost every New Englander readily assenting to the positions,\u2014That two millions of slaves could never be turned loose amongst us and live, while _we_ lived: that the existence of the two _castes_ in the same country, in a state of freedom and equality, is morally impossible: that emancipation, without removal, therefore, is utterly chimerical; that, unjustifiable as slavery is in the abstract, rights of property in slaves have been acquired, which, sanctioned as they are by the constitution, cannot be violated without an outrage, destructive at once of our social compact: that, let slavery be ever so wrong, abolition ever so just and easy, it is a matter which concerns _us alone_ ; and as to which, we are so sensitively jealous of extraneous interposition, that every agitation of the subject in other states is calculated to weaken our attachment to them, and bind faster the chains of slavery.\n\nThis passage from the conclusion of Minor's first letter is the most overtly political moment in all five of his letters, and considering the more strident, even hectoring, tone he assumes here, it is perhaps understandable that he begins his second letter on more amicable, salutary terms, praising his northern hosts for the hospitable reception he has experienced in his travels. Moreover, his comments on slavery intersect with the concept of hospitality in two important ways. First, we should remember that the politics of hospitality is concerned with how we define the stranger or foreigner\u2014and how we consequently treat them. Minor here portrays slaves as a foreign population living in our midst, a population of strangers who can never be welcomed into society as equals. When he says that \" _we_ \" could not live with freed slaves as equals, he includes white northerners as well. Similarly, his conclusions regarding southern and northern hospitality in his second letter remind northern readers that they have more in common with southern slave owners than with southern slaves. Second, the discourse of southern hospitality also asserts regional boundaries by maintaining the sovereignty of the southern master. Hospitality and sovereignty are inextricably linked concepts, and both were important terms in the self-definition of antebellum southerners. To have hospitality, you must have a host, and to be a host implies a sense of mastery of your space. Accordingly, even as Minor reminds his readers of the South's famed hospitality, he also declares that slavery is \"a matter which concerns _us alone_.\" Minor's letters show how the discourse of southern hospitality provided a way of extending a hand of friendship to sympathetic northerners while subtly affirming southern sovereignty, exceptionalism, and superiority. Minor praises his northern brethren for their hospitality as a way of dispelling sectional prejudices and creating a common ground of benevolence and goodwill in their place. This, indeed, seems the overall goal of his series of letters. \"The perpetuity of our union,\" according to Minor, depends on \"more frequent intercourse\" between the sections and the consequent \"expurgation\" of \"long cherished prejudices\"; or, as he concisely puts it in the conclusion of his fifth and final letter, \" _The North and South need only know each other better to love each other more_.\"\n\n### Complicity, Slavery, and Southern Hospitality\n\nNot all Americans, however, were sympathetic to such characterizations of southern hospitality; many in fact argued passionately that southern social practices simply could not even be called \"hospitality.\" If antebellum southern hospitality is\u2014in Minor's words\u2014a \"cheap\" and \"easy virtue,\" one that is contingent on slave labor, is it a virtue at all? This is just the sort of question abolitionists routinely asked in the decades leading up to the Civil War. For example, the same year that Minor's \"Letters from New England\" were published in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ , George Bourne offered this assessment of southern hospitality in his _Picture of Slavery in the United States of America_ :\n\nWe frequently hear of liberality and kindness developed by slave-holders, but it is toward their own associates; and obviously more for show or fame, or from the force of example, than from principle; because they are not manifested in the proper form, and in favour of the legitimate objects.\n\nSlave-holders are often eulogized for their hospitality; and the fact implied is true, if by hospitality is intended a willingness to feast with those who are of similar character, habits, and principles. \"They make dinners and suppers, and call their friends, their brethren, their kinsmen, and their rich neighbors, who bid them again, and make recompense to them,\"\u2014but who ever heard of a slavedriver's obedience to the Lord's admonition, Luke 14:12\u201314, to \"make a feast, and call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind\" enslaved descendants of the kidnapped Africans, who till his lands, and honestly can claim the reward of their unintermitting fatigue and toil? It is manifestly impossible, that genuine religious, moral, or even merely human sensibility can exist in the same heart where the arrogance of slavery reigns.\n\nBourne reminds readers of the biblical injunction of hospitality and, with this in mind, argues that the sociable habits of southern planters do not really constitute hospitality.\n\nAlso in the same year and in a fashion parallel to Minor's \"Letters from New England,\" an anonymous writer (going by \"X Y Z\") wrote a series of \"Letters from the Southwest\" (from Mississippi) that were published in the _American Anti-Slavery Reporter_. At the end of his third letter, from March 1834, the writer gives a lengthy account of and reflection on the hospitality he received when recently dining at a plantation home; his initial description of the dinner accords with similar reports in many travel narratives of the day:\n\nOn the next day I was invited to a dinner party. And as it was rather late when I arrived, the dinner was already upon the table. So sumptuously was the table spread that I cannot stop to give any particular description, in short half the world seemed to have been plundered and heaped up before us. Various kinds of soup began the feast. Then came a dozen kinds of meats, and from the turkey down to the pigeon. After we had wandered over these numerous dainties\u2014then appeared the dessert of sweetmeats, nuts, and almost every variety of West India fruits. After all came the Champaigne with many other species of wines. Such is the hospitality that turns the heads and hearts of so many grateful strangers. Few I believe have in the term of four years experienced more of southern hospitality than I have. And I truly appreciate the kindness of these generous men.\n\nHad the narrative ended here, it would have read much like scores of other travel accounts of the South, such as that cited earlier by A. Foster, in which visitors are amazed at the lavish abundance and generous spirit of the hospitality of the southern planter. But it does not end with this reflection on the generous planter class. Instead, like George Bourne, the writer cannot help but reflect on the role of the slave in the festivities:\n\nBut my gratitude [to these planters] ought never to be weighed against truth and justice. I never sit down to these tables, without reflecting, that all these good things have been purchased at the expense of the groans and blood of human beings. While we eat and drink, the slave bleeds. While we are fanned by cool breezes in the pleasant galleries; the slave is wasting his life under an intense sun, or writhing under the merciless lash. While our eyes are delighted with elegant furniture and rich clothing, the slave is in rags, exposed to fevers, and raising his weary eyes to the slowly moving sun,\u2014longing for the night, that he may lose in the forgetfulness of sleep, the remembrance of wrongs that will soon end his days. O give me rough and barren New-England and poverty with it, rather than wealth and luxury at such a price.\n\nIn contrast to the account written by A. Foster, which ends with a sense of equality and bonds of goodwill and sympathy between the guest and the slave-owner host, this passage attempts to redirect the reader's attention away from the slave owner's lavish hospitality and toward the toiling of the slave that makes such hospitable exchanges possible. The passage returns us to the idea that southern hospitality is a form of social and cultural capital that is fungible, or exchangeable in economic terms. While such pleasant social exchanges may seem on the surface like gratuitous wastage lavished on the guest, someone ultimately has to pay. Bourdieu describes the conversions that take place among economic, social, and cultural capital as acting in accordance with \"the principle of the conservation of energy\":\n\nProfits in one area [social, cultural, economic] are necessarily paid for by costs in another (so that a concept like wastage has no meaning in a general science of the economy of practices). The universal equivalent, the measure of all equivalences, is nothing other than labor-time (in the widest sense); and the conservation of social energy through all its conversions is verified if, in each case, one takes into account both the labor-time accumulated in the form of capital and the labor-time needed to transform it from one type into another.\n\nIn their critiques of southern hospitality, antislavery advocates often tried to remind readers of the forced and unpaid \"labor-time\" that was required to produce this peculiar form of social capital. For example, consider figure 9, an illustration from _The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1839_ , which almost seems like a pictorial representation of the passage just cited from \"Letters from the Southwest.\" The image depicts two elegantly dressed couples dining at a well-appointed table. As one young slave girl approaches from the left with a serving dish, another stands near the window and fans the diners. Outside the window and behind this scene of domestic elegance we can see the horrors of slavery unfolding: an overseer whips a naked black figure tied to a tree as other slaves toil in the fields. Under the headline, \"SOUTHERN ARGUMENTS TO STOP THE MOUTHS OF NORTHERN GUESTS,\" the caption reads, \"A northern man goes south, sits at a table loaded from the slave's unpaid toil,\u2014who eats his corn bread in the sun,\u2014marries a slaveholder, and then\u2014finds out that slavery is a divine institution, and defends it in southern and _northern_ pulpits, religious newspapers, &c. For examples,\u2014consult memory or observation.\" From this perspective, the social practices of southern hospitality are nothing more than performative propaganda designed to enlist northerners in the cause of slavery. This charge was made repeatedly by abolitionists from the 1830s up until the Civil War.\n\nFIGURE 9. \"SOUTHERN ARGUMENTS TO STOP THE MOUTHS OF NORTHERN GUESTS,\" _The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for_ 1839 (New York: S. W. Benedict; Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838), 23. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nFor example, an 1840 article in the _Liberator_ (excerpted from a longer article in the _New York Evangelist_ ) opens with the assertion that \"there are multitudes of families in New England, who have sons and daughters, brothers or sisters, cousins, &c. at the South, whom Southern hospitality, avarice, or lust of power has won over to the system; and these, either writing home, or spending their summers among their friends, persuade them that the slaves are well treated, and that slavery is not so bad a thing, after all.\" To abolitionists and others opposed to slavery on moral grounds, this seductive power of southern hospitality\u2014its ability to transform one into a supporter of the system of slavery\u2014could literally cloud moral judgment and imperil the soul. In a report prepared by the \"Committee on Slavery\" and adopted by the Methodist Anti-Slavery Convention in 1837, the committee, after noting how many northerners become slaveholders after settling in the South, admits, \"We fear that even ourselves would be unable to retain our convictions of the claims of moral justice in the midst of southern hospitality.\" And if individuals could be swayed from their moral convictions by the social practices of southern hospitality, could the proliferating discourse on southern hospitality in the world of print be just as damaging?\n\nRather than being accepted, then, as a natural and essential cultural attribute of the South, the South's claim of hospitality was openly debated and contested on ethical grounds during these decades of intensifying sectional crisis. Narrative accounts and images of southern hospitality routinely appeared in travel narratives, almanacs, pamphlets, and fiction. While southerners and sympathetic northerners typically portrayed southern hospitality as evidence of southerners' gracious civility and natural refinement, abolitionists and opponents of slavery vigorously questioned if southern social practices could be called \"hospitality\" at all. Indeed, arguments evolved emphasizing the complicity of the guest who is the recipient of southern hospitality. An example is seen in Louisa Jane Whiting Barker's \"Influence of Slavery upon the White Population, by a Former Resident of Slave States,\" an American Anti-Slavery Society tract of 1855. Acknowledging that \"the south is proverbial for its hospitality, kindness, and generosity,\" Barker reminds her readers that in the case of slave owners,\n\nit must be remembered that hospitality _costs_ nothing. Guests . . . are feasted on the proceeds of the labor of the slave, . . . and why should not stolen wealth be lavishly bestowed? But one cannot infer, from the master's generosity toward the guest a similar one toward the slave. It were as wise to infer that the highway robber would show the same \"honor\" towards the traveller who chanced to fall in his power, as to his companions in crime, with whom he shares the spoils. I have attended a Christmas party where the table groaned under the weight of luxuries, and piles of wood blazed high on the hearth (for the day was bitter cold,) and the little boy who opened the gate to admit our carriage was bareheaded, barefooted, and had nothing but the remains of a cotton shirt to cover him. This was on the estate of one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina.\n\nAs in the illustration from the _Anti-Slavery Almanac_ , Barker implicates the recipients of southern hospitality, making them equal partners in the crime of slavery. While some readers\u2014both of Barker's time and of today\u2014may be inclined to dismiss such abolitionist responses to southern social practices as propaganda, doing so would deny both the important ethical questions these texts raise and the very historicity of antebellum discourses on hospitality, southern and otherwise. It is important to note that in these debates over southern hospitality, both sides basically agree on the reality of the social practices being described. The passages from George Bourne and Louisa Barker, along with the almanac illustration, all acknowledge that southerners are sociable and their habits of entertaining are elegant and luxurious. On the other side, Lucian Minor admits that southerners are able to enjoy hospitality so much because \"the drudgery devolves upon [their] slaves\" and also complains that some southerners are too fond of show, points underscored in the antislavery texts. Unlike the debates that took place in print over the reality of scenes of torture and cruelty on plantations (consider, for example, the response to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ from Stowe's contemporaries), the debate over southern hospitality was not about whether these social practices existed as reported; instead it hinged on whether these practices could be called hospitality at all. If we acknowledge hospitality as an ethical ideal, can a slave owner _ever_ claim to be hospitable? And what of guests of that hospitality\u2014are they implicated in the system of slavery by partaking of the master's generosity? And what if, like Louisa Barker, they partake of that hospitality only to write negatively of it after the fact\u2014does their greater sympathy for the black slave make them bad or ungrateful guests? Southerners certainly felt so. In fact, a common criticism of antislavery northerners was that they abused the hospitality of southerners, a charge made so frequently that the abolitionist James Redpath, in his travels throughout the South to interview slaves, determined that he would not take any outright gift from a slave owner: \"I had so often seen anti-slavery travellers accused of abusing hospitality, that, when I went South, I resolved to partake of none. I never even took a cigar from a slaveholder without seizing the earliest opportunity of returning it, or giving him its equivalent in some form.\" Redpath's comments here suggest the degree of importance that both northerners and southerners and pro- and antislavery advocates placed on the concept of hospitality as it related to the South and the obligations it might entail.\n\n### Historiographies of Southern Hospitality\n\nDespite the importance that many antebellum Americans placed on debates over the ethics of southern hospitality, these ethical questions surrounding southern hospitality have largely been lost to us over time as southern hospitality has passed into the realm of regional or, more accurately, national mythology. Cultural historians have gone a long way in explaining the origins of these practices of hospitality, what they meant to southerners, and how they figured within the complex code of southern honor, but they have not adequately considered the ethical questions raised in antislavery texts. These texts ask legitimate ethical questions that are relevant today since southern hospitality is still widely accepted as a unique quality of the region, and a thriving nostalgia industry still valorizes the culture of the Old South. As is often the case, certain historical narratives are privileged and become the norm, while other, alternative narratives are relegated to footnotes or forgotten entirely.\n\nAn instructive example of this is seen in Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's _The Mind of the Master Class_ , a massive study of the intellectual and religious world of the aristocratic planter class. More specifically, in the chapter titled \"The Bonds of Slavery,\" the Genoveses spend numerous pages outlining \"southern distinctiveness\" and defining the main cultural differences between antebellum southerners and northerners. Throughout, they quote heavily from historical sources to illustrate their claims, and not surprisingly, they laud the hospitality of southerners on several occasions. Interestingly, rather than directly addressing abolitionist and antislavery critiques of southerners, the Genoveses spend several paragraphs citing examples of antislavery northerners praising the character of these aristocratic southern planters, including the example of abolitionist James Redpath, whom I just cited. The Genoveses introduce Redpath as \"a South-hating abolitionist\" who \"admitted to being surprised by the slaveholders of Savannah: 'I saw so much that was noble, generous, and admirable in their characters.'\" From both the narrative arc of their chapter on southern character and their use of Redpath in this quote, the Genoveses make it seem as though southerners were so noble, hospitable, generous, and friendly that even their critics were swayed to their side. But they take this quote from James Redpath in particular out of context. Redpath's point is not that his hatred of southerners is transformed into admiration; rather, it is transformed into pity. The question of the rights of the slave always remains front and center in his consideration of the southern elite. Here is the quote cited by the Genoveses in a broader context:\n\nMy opinion of the slaveholders, and my feelings toward them, were greatly modified during my residence in Savannah. I saw so much that was noble, generous and admirable in their characters; I saw so many demoralizing pro-slavery influences\u2014various, attractive, resistless\u2014brought to bear on their intellects from cradle to tomb, that from hating I began to pity them. It is not at all surprising that the people of the South are so indifferent to the rights of the African race. For, as far as the negro is concerned, the press, the pulpit, the bench, the bar, and the stump, conspire with a unity of purpose and pertinacity of zeal, which is no less lamentable than extraordinary, to eradicate every sentiment of justice and brotherhood from their hearts. They sincerely believe Wrong to be Right, and act on that unhappy conviction.\n\nIf there is no sense of justice and brotherhood, can there indeed be hospitality among the southern elite? Not from Redpath's perspective. Interestingly, his analysis of the various forces that shape southern ideology anticipates Louis Althusser's formulation of Repressive and Ideological State Apparatuses.\n\nImportantly, Redpath elsewhere pointedly contrasts \"White and Negro Hospitality\" in the South, and the slaves and free blacks come out on top in Redpath's accounting:\n\nTravelling afoot, and looking rather seedy, I did not see any of that celebrated hospitality for which the Southerners are perpetually praising themselves. They are very hospitable to strangers who come to them well introduced\u2014who don't need hospitality, in fact; but they are very much the reverse when a stranger presents himself under other and unfavorable circumstances. The richer class of planters are especially inhospitable. The negroes are the hospitable class of the South.\n\nRedpath here draws contrasts not only between white masters and black slaves but also between entirely different concepts of hospitality itself: between an elitist, aristocratic hospitality, which from Redpath's point of view is no hospitality, and a more democratic, universal hospitality. In drawing this contrast, he places southern hospitality amid broader discourses of hospitality that were coursing through American culture in the antebellum period, a subject I take up in chapter 2. To illustrate his claim regarding the hospitality of the slaves and the inhospitality of the masters, Redpath goes on to recount being lost at night and desperately seeking shelter as a storm approached. He was turned away from a planter's home, only to be taken in at a small \"negro hut\" that slept six in its one room.\n\nThe picture of the \"master class\" drawn by Redpath is quite unlike the picture created by the Genoveses in _The Mind of the Master Class_. In addition to taking Redpath's comments out of context in the example I just cited, they also fail to question southern hospitality in their depiction of the planter classes of the antebellum South. Certainly there are few scholars with the Genoveses' accumulated knowledge regarding the antebellum South, but their depiction of southern hospitality in _The Mind of the Master Class_ is remarkably one-sided and overly celebratory, eliding the important ethical questions raised by antebellum critics of slavery such as James Redpath. If anything, their depiction naturalizes the myth of southern hospitality, making it something unquestioned, something that goes without saying when we talk about the South. What is especially interesting in this regard is that early in his career, Eugene Genovese's Marxist approach to the culture of slavery led him to interpret southern hospitality as an irrational form of conspicuous consumption among the elite planters, but as he shifted later in his career to a conservative and traditionalist perspective, he came to celebrate the antebellum southern elite, and the supposed continuity of \"the southern tradition.\" The Genoveses write in their prologue to _The Mind of the Master Class_ , \"We do not disguise . . . our respect for the slaveholders who constituted the hegemonic master class of the Old South. Nor do we disguise our admiration for much in their character and achievements.\"\n\nAs Paul Ricoeur argues, the creation of historical narratives requires a certain amount of forgetting. The Genoveses' goal is to present the mind of the master class that they admire, believing that these historical figures of the past have much to teach us today. In doing so, they privilege some narratives and neglect or forget others, and in the case of their depiction of southern hospitality, it is the mind of the master class that has prevailed. Such a depiction of antebellum southern culture would seem to confirm the origins of what many today see as an unchanging southern tradition. But in this study, I hope to offer a more complete picture of the history of southern hospitality, one that is open to the ethical dimensions and debates that have surrounded this story about the South for nearly two centuries. For when it comes to southern hospitality, as many of these sources I have cited in this chapter suggest, there are other forgotten histories and voices, and these too have much to teach us today.\n\n## CHAPTER TWO\n\n## The Amphytrion and St. Paul;  \nthe Planter and the Reformer\n\n_Discourses of Hospitality in Antebellum America_\n\nWhile the Virginian Lucian Minor could praise \"Yankee hospitality\" during the early years of the sectional crisis in the 1830s, by the 1850s sectional tensions had caused regional prejudices, stereotypes, and suspicions to harden to such an extent that such praise would have seemed impossible. The language of \"southern hospitality\" emerged in the 1830s amid the growing sectional crisis that began to consume American culture, and it would only proliferate as the crisis intensified in the decades leading up to the Civil War. As Americans became preoccupied by the political and moral questions of slavery, they also defined, discussed, and debated what they had increasingly come to see as the unique attributes of distinctly different northern and southern civilizations. Southern hospitality emerged as a persuasive pro-southern and pro-slavery story in these debates. The role slavery played in the emergence of \"southern hospitality\" cannot be underestimated. In a material sense, slave labor made possible the social habits that came to be known in the 1830s as \"southern hospitality,\" but in a broader cultural sense, the growing crisis over slavery likewise caused this emergent discourse on the South to proliferate through American culture from the 1830s to the Civil War. Against abolitionist attacks, the discourse of southern hospitality provided an affirmation and a defense of southern exceptionalism, as well as a subtle way of persuading nonsoutherners to both admire and identify with southerners and their cause. To understand the basis of this persuasive appeal, we should recognize the various and complex ways in which Americans thought about hospitality in this period. Theories of hospitality evolved dramatically over the course of the nineteenth century amid changing economic and social landscapes, and Americans consequently were forced to navigate competing and even contradictory discourses of hospitality. These discourses on hospitality permeated American culture at the time when the notion of \"southern hospitality\" was emerging. In this chapter, I will review a range of materials\u2014essays, etiquette books, sermons, and fiction\u2014to map out some different strands of antebellum discourse on hospitality, to place the discourse of southern hospitality on this map, and to show how a strong counterdiscourse to southern hospitality, namely, \"abolition hospitality,\" also emerged during this period.\n\nFirst, though, I would like to consider a short story published in _Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book_ in 1853 because it provides a telling comparison of prevailing stereotypes of northern and southern hospitality that had hardened by midcentury. The story focuses on what happens to a family of aristocratic and hospitable southerners who are suddenly forced to seek out the miserly hospitality of their Ohio relations. Sardonically titled \"Modern Hospitality,\" the story portrays southern hospitality as a noble virtue that is sadly vanishing in \"modern\" America. Little is known regarding Mrs. P. W. B. Carothers, the author of this chauvinistically pro-southern story, other than the fact that she was a resident of northern Illinois, where she briefly served as assistant editor of the Lockport, Illinois, newspaper. Perhaps she was a transplanted southerner, or perhaps she was a northerner who held pro-southern, pro-slavery political beliefs. Whatever the case, she was one of the thousands of women who subscribed to and contributed to _Godey's_ , and her story laments the changing practices of hospitality in America, particularly by providing a scathing critique of the hospitality of northerners, relative to southerners. \"Modern Hospitality\" details the changing fortunes of the Beverlys, a declining aristocratic family of Maryland planters, whose patriarch, \"Colonel Beverly[,] was one of a remnant fast fading from [the] land . . . an 'old-school aristocrat.'\" Importantly, it is the colonel's aristocratic, openhanded hospitality, combined with his wife's failure to understand that their fortunes are diminishing, that ultimately drives the family to financial ruin. Colonel Beverly repeatedly warns his wife of their dwindling resources, but she fails to heed these warnings. Carothers's description of Mrs. Beverly's hospitality bridges two competing discourses of hospitality that were most prevalent in American culture at the time: one emphasizing conspicuous consumption and another privileging Christian benevolence: \"She was exceedingly fond of show, and no representations or persuasion could induce her to relinquish or alter her luxurious style of living. Accustomed to believe hospitality a virtue, she rarely went abroad, but took special pride in entertaining company at home. And to her credit be it remembered, that the poor and wayfaring man were treated as kindly as he whose rank was known, and all his wants as beneficently supplied\" (121). Without the last sentence, a reader might perhaps be inclined to dismiss Mrs. Beverly as a vain and selfish fool, but Carothers manages to shroud her ostentatious and prideful display in the mantle of Christian benevolence. Her habits are not so much the result of pride as they are the result of a Christian virtue taken to excess; hospitality to the poor traveler is a matter of noblesse oblige. The primarily female, bourgeois audience of _Godey's_ is expected to empathize with the plight of Mrs. Beverly and her daughters, Gertrude and Cecilia, even though their excessive habits bring about the ruin of the family.\n\nUpon the colonel's death, the Beverly women are forced to throw themselves at the feet of their cousin Hebe and her husband, Dr. Steele, residents of Ohio. The visit is not so much an encounter with extended family as it is a clash of two worlds\u2014the modern and the archaic, the northern and the southern. The Beverly women are utterly flummoxed by the modern ways of Hebe: she keeps no servants, calling them \"wasteful and troublesome,\" and extends no form of social hospitality to friends, calling it a \"foolish\" extravagance. Stunned by their frigid initial reception, Gertrude makes an allusion to \"the kind, old-fashioned hospitality of her father, that placed all his guests at ease, and that . . . aided the wayfarer and entertained the traveller\" (123). Hebe can only respond with ridicule. She calls it \"ostentation in its worst form, because it spent on strangers what would minister to the comforts of a family\"; she even \"coarsely\" suggests \"that they were living illustrations of the truth of her assertion\" (123). Hebe is the true villain in the story, as Carothers makes it clear that her stingy hospitality was \"from will, not from want of means\" (123). Hebe and Dr. Steele grudgingly allow the women to stay, but Hebe puts them to work cooking, cleaning, knitting, and caring for her baby. The Steeles become such tyrants that, in an interesting reversal, the Beverly women are reduced to a state not unlike their former slaves: \"Their cousin's cottage had thus become their prison, from whence all society or amusement was banished, and where continual labor and confinement during the warm summer months was telling sadly on the health of these high-bred, delicate women\" (125).\n\nLuckily for the Beverly women, they are saved by the sudden appearance of two former suitors who had years earlier courted the daughters. Finally, in a just turn worthy of Grimms' fairy tales, the Steeles suffer a reversal of fortune and are forced to seek out the hospitality of Gertrude and her beau. Even so, we are told in the story's closing lines that \"Hebe never learned, not even from Gertrude's graceful example, to practice the kindly rites of hospitality, that ancient virtue that yielded, even to foe, 'Rest and a guide, and food and fire'\" (128).\n\nThe story's characters hail from Ohio, a free state, and Maryland, a slave state, and they embody easily recognizable and prevailing antebellum stereotypes of northern and southern social traits: Hebe is cold, aloof, miserly, and utilitarian; the Beverlys are warm, sociable, refined, and generous. Hebe's \"modern hospitality\" is no hospitality at all, presumably leaving readers nostalgic for the good old southern hospitality of legend. While it is easy today to recognize a certain nostalgia for the \"Old South\" in many contemporary iterations of southern hospitality, this short story shows that antebellum Americans could already project their nostalgia onto the South while the \"Old South\" was still in existence. This discourse of southern hospitality provided an appealing fantasy and a traditionalist alternative to the accelerating, increasingly modern, consumer culture Americans faced in their daily lives. What is particularly noteworthy in this story is the way the Christian ethos of hospitality is transferred to the aristocratic southerners, in direct contrast to the abolitionist texts cited in the previous chapter.\n\nThe fact that this story was published in _Godey's_ in 1853 raises intriguing questions about audience and reception. _Godey's_ was the most popular and influential women's magazine of the period, with a national readership of 150,000 by the time of the Civil War. The magazine emphasized gentility, refinement, and tasteful domesticity, and while this message was aimed primarily at women of leisure, it could also be enjoyed by members of the working classes who aspired to that lifestyle. Importantly, the magazine avoided politics and conflict at all cost, instead viewing itself as a unifying force in the country. At the time \"Modern Hospitality\" was published, however, sectional animosities in the nation had reached a fever pitch following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This law made hospitality to a runaway slave a federal crime and prompted Harriet Beecher Stowe to publish _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in 1852. The context of this story suggests the persuasive logic and political underpinnings of the discourse of southern hospitality in the antebellum period, but how would _Godey's_ national readership have responded to such a comparative portrait of southern hospitality and its antithetical counterpart, northern hospitality?\n\n### Sacred and Secular Models of Hospitality in Antebellum America\n\nToday we generally give little thought to hospitality as an ethical, moral, or religious question, let alone as a social practice with a long history of cultural meanings; instead, the term \"hospitality\" is generally considered a commodity or industry (as in the hospitality and tourism industry). As Tracy McNulty ruminates, \"In some ways hospitality [today] seems to have barely survived its separation from the religious sphere, as seen by the disproportion between the enormous significance of hospitality in ancient times and up through the Enlightenment, and its present archaic, or even quaint, signification.\" In contrast to today, Americans of the nineteenth century thought about hospitality obsessively and in ways that may seem foreign and perhaps excessive to us today. The question of hospitality was, for them, foregrounded in daily social rituals while also occupying a central place in their moral and religious worldviews. At the same time, their culture was changing in ways that produced often-competing claims on their sense of appropriate habits and attitudes of hospitality. On the one hand, they had inherited both the classical and the biblical traditions of hospitality, and they were not so far removed from Continental customs and manners. On the other hand, they believed in their status as a new, democratic republic and a hospitable asylum for immigrants, and they often self-consciously sought to define themselves against the customs of the Old World. Against the backdrop of accelerating consumerism and increasing class fluidity, both of which put unique pressures on traditional conceptions of hospitality, nineteenth-century Americans negotiated a variety of competing impulses concerning questions of hospitality. They were living through the very changes that Tracy McNulty describes: the slow separation of hospitality from its religious sphere in the context of rising economic interests and consumer impulses. The discourse of southern hospitality that emerged amid this changing cultural landscape was particularly well suited to the emerging, consumer-oriented, cultural demands.\n\nA brief survey of topics covered in chapter 11 of Julia McNair Wright's _The Complete Home_ , published late in the century just after Reconstruction, suggests the contradictory quality of these obsessions over hospitality as a moral obligation, an important daily social ritual, and a growing form of consumerism. Titled \"Hospitality in the Home,\" the chapter refers to hospitality as \"the queen of social virtues\" and lists _more than thirty_ subheadings. From this list of topics, we can sense that Americans in the latter part of the century still saw hospitality as an important yet increasingly fraught subject:\n\nHOSPITALITY IN THE HOME\u2014A garden of roses\u2014The queen of social virtues\u2014Varieties of hospitality\u2014Ostentatious hospitality\u2014Spasmodic\u2014Nervous\u2014Mrs. Smalley's hospitality\u2014Common-sense hospitality\u2014Hospitality without apology\u2014Biblical hospitality\u2014Selfish hospitality\u2014Excessive hospitality\u2014Elegant hospitality\u2014The right kind of hospitality\u2014A sewing society discussion\u2014What our minister said\u2014Bible instances\u2014Plainness in hospitality\u2014Manners of guests\u2014As good as a sermon\u2014A home view of hospitality\u2014A guest-room\u2014The mother's room\u2014Abuse of hospitality\u2014Good Samaritan deeds\u2014The poor\u2014A remarkable instance\u2014Valuable thoughts\u2014Decrease of hospitality\u2014Old-time manners\u2014A singular incident\u2014Choicest form of rural hospitality.\n\nThis rangy list of topics shows that Americans of the period saw hospitality as a practical concern involving daily social circumstances and choices, but they also considered these day-to-day rituals and interactions against the backdrop of broader ethical ideals (particularly through the Christian tradition): how does one guard against \"selfish\" motivations and \"ostentatious\" display in order to preserve the Christian spirit of hospitality? Even so, they sensed that hospitality's traditional role was diminishing in an increasingly secular and consumer-oriented culture. They lamented the \"Decrease of hospitality\" and the loss of \"Old-time manners.\" Etiquette books from the period in particular reveal that in the contexts of rising consumerism, growing class fluidity, and the gradual cultural shift from a religious to a secular worldview, Americans espoused competing notions of manners and hospitality, what I would term aristocratic and republican. The former, more secular view, to which southern hospitality was aligned, emphasized refinement, display, and consumption and was essentially antidemocratic; exclusivity is in fact the essence of its appeal. The latter, republican model drew more on Christianity as its basis to offer a more democratic, inclusive, and potentially progressive alternative. In other words, the tension described by Derrida between the politics and the ethics of hospitality was a keenly felt, lived experience for antebellum Americans.\n\nTwo essays published within a year of the appearance of Lucian Minor's comparative discussion of northern and southern hospitality in \"Letters from New England\" provide a useful starting point for thinking about these aristocratic and republican models of hospitality because they offer what in many ways are two extreme, antithetical poles of the discourse: the secular and the sacred, the politics and the ethics, the sensibility of the amphytrion and the morality of St. Paul. The first of these essays, titled \"The Science of Hospitality,\" was published in 1833 under the pseudonym \"Hermes\" in the _New-York Mirror_ , a popular weekly newspaper \"Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts.\" The exact identity of this essay's author is not known, but Hermes also published in the same year several romantic historical fictions and sketches in the _New-York Mirror_ and the _Philadelphia Album and Ladies' Literary Portfolio_. In \"The Science of Hospitality,\" the author draws on the classical and Old World traditions of hospitality to emphasize consumption, taste, refinement, and aristocratic exclusivity. He claims that he was inspired to write about hospitality by his \"perusal\" of a recently published French work titled _Devoirs de l'Amphytrion_ , which he translates as the \"Science of Hospitality.\" Citing Moli\u00e8re's play _Amphytrion_ for the \"fashionable title of the host,\" the essay traces a concise history of the \"science of hospitality\" from antiquity through contemporary genteel society. Hermes emphasizes hospitality as both a classical tradition and an Old World, aristocratic privilege, but never as a moral imperative or ethical ideal. Instead, the essential principles of the science put forth are luxury, indulgence, refinement, and display. The author contends that it was the ancients who truly understood the science of hospitality, for they were concerned with the entire sensual experience of entertaining, developing over time an increasingly complex code of manners: \"Manner, elegance, and taste in arrangement had for them an engrossing charm, and every thing that could delight the ear or eye, was joined to the gratification of the palate. . . . As luxury increased, new and indispensable ceremonial rules were introduced for the conduct of the guest and host.\" Those who failed in the proper exercise of the rules \"lost caste.\" Such elaborate, extravagant, and exclusive practices represent the pinnacle of hospitality for Hermes; contemporary fashionable society pales in comparison with the extravagance of this past. In turning to the present, the author turns his attention to the proper conduct of the amphytrion, or host, in contemporary society. The ultimate goal of the host is to \"secure the greatest amount of personal comfort to all, and render a man as much at ease and as well served in a party of a hundred, as though he were sitting alone at the table.\" Rather than treat all guests equally, however, the amphytrion must draw proper distinctions among his guests. Hermes laments the \"abominable fashion\" of certain hosts who merely pass plates around the table \"indiscriminately,\" an act that will inevitably \"destroy all convivial delight\" at the table, breeding resentment in its place. In contrast, the properly discriminating host ranks his guests according to both their social standing and their appetites. For Hermes, hospitality is not an ethical ideal so much as an idealized form of consumption that also reinforces social hierarchies. While he concedes that the complete code of table manners contained in the French text he perused \"may appear ridiculous to the uninitiated, and those who imagine the operation of eating the sole object of dinner,\" they are nonetheless essential to \"the finished gentleman.\" Of those who would question the importance of such manners, he concludes, \"Such incorrigibles we leave to be the Hectors of boarding-houses and steamboats, and to bring our national habits into disrepute with . . . discerning travellers.\" Overall, the vision of hospitality promoted by Hermes is secular, Continental, aristocratic, and\u2014as indicated in this final quote\u2014ultimately suspicious of the social fluidity of American democracy in the nineteenth century. One can imagine that readers who agreed with the author of this essay would likewise be inclined to look favorably on legends of southern planters' elegant and aristocratic hospitality.\n\nHow different is the vision of hospitality put forth in the essay \"On Hospitality,\" published in the Quaker magazine the _Friend_ in January 1834. Despite Hermes's secular emphases, many Americans in the antebellum period thought of hospitality first and foremost as a biblical injunction, and this second essay portrays hospitality as a Christian ideal with profound and potentially far-reaching social consequences. The exact identity of the author, who published under the initials C.C.O., is not known, but he or she also published a handful of devotional poems and essays in the _Friend_ between August 1833 and February 1834, including an essay advocating for female preaching and ministry. C.C.O.'s essay \"On Hospitality\" shows that the ideal of Christian hospitality, in its purest form, stood as a powerful counterdiscourse to conspicuous consumption and the sort of writings on hospitality that emphasize luxury and refinement. The epigraph for the essay, for example, implies nothing less than an alternative definition of \"luxury,\" urging the reader, \"Press thou the bashful stranger to his food, \/ And learn the _luxury_ of _doing good_.\" Readers are challenged to resist the physical temptations of a consumer society, for these, according to the author, are nothing but false luxuries when compared to the true luxury that arises from exercising the Christian spirit of hospitality. C.C.O. cites the apostle Paul's attention to the \"social duties of life,\" claiming that Paul understood \"that they might be used as instruments of great power in the advancement of Christianity.\" This \"rich repast\" of Christian hospitality\u2014which is \"pure and blameless\"\u2014is \"totally unknown to those who court the false joys of folly and sensuality.\"\n\nAn open attitude toward the stranger is central to this pure Christian ethic of hospitality, and as is often the case in such Christian discourse on hospitality, the author cites Paul's injunction, \"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers\u2014for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.\" As an example, C.C.O. cites the story of Lot's hospitality to the angels sent to destroy Sodom. As a reward for his hospitality to these strangers, Lot was spared from the destruction of the city. Opening oneself to the stranger and treating the stranger as an equal member in the body of Christian fellowship heighten mutual feelings of benevolence and love, which in turn can advance God's work in the world. The author in the conclusion again cautions readers to be wary of the worldly distractions that are commonly mistaken for hospitality. Unlike the \"Science of Hospitality\" and its emphasis on elegant display and the drawing of social distinctions, the ideal Christian ethic of hospitality is about simplicity, justice, equality, and, ultimately, the very erasure of such social distinctions:\n\nIts demands upon us are in all cases limited by the strictest laws of justice. It does not ask robbery for its promotion\u2014and sickens at the thought of being supported by the dues that belong to others. It aims to be associated with prudence\u2014and there is no mansion which it loves to inhabit more than that wherein moderation and temperance reside. It consists more in feeling than in the display of equipage, and sideboards loaded with gold and silver. Cordiality is the welcome which it most desires\u2014and the hand held out with this sentiment, is always esteemed and reciprocated, whether it be the rough one of humble labour, or the more delicate one of titled distinction.\n\nThe social rites of hospitality, when carried out lavishly, are not praiseworthy, particularly when they are supported by \"robbery\" or the \"dues that belong to others,\" as in the case of the slave labor that made southern practices of hospitality possible. The author here extends the philosophical exchange of hospitality beyond that of a simple guest-host relationship to larger questions of power. The concern of hospitality, in other words, shifts from a concern with _rites_ to one with _rights_. In contrast to \"The Science of Hospitality\" 's description of the way the rites of hospitality assert class boundaries and social hierarchies\u2014what Derrida would call the politics of hospitality\u2014this essay instead proposes hospitality as an ethical ideal that erases those very boundaries: the common laborer is placed on equal footing with the titled gentleman. In these two essays, then, we see two opposite poles in the antebellum discourses of hospitality: put simply, one expresses an exclusionary politics of hospitality, and the other strives toward an infinite ethics of hospitality.\n\nPhilosophically considered, though, this progressive and infinite ethical ideal is never attained; instead, hospitality in this form is a horizon that is always opening before us and challenging us, always presenting strangers in new forms\u2014and with new rights claims. Even in the Quaker essay \"On Hospitality,\" the distinction between politics and ethics, between rites and rights, becomes blurred to a certain extent, particularly if we recall the full details of the story of Lot entertaining the strangers, who were in fact angels sent to destroy Sodom. More specifically, the author here does not mention one particularly troubling detail from the story: that when a mob of Sodomites threatened the strangers who were Lot's \"sacred guests,\" he offered his virgin daughters to the mob in their stead. Reflecting on this aspect of the story, Mireille Rosello finds it problematic \"that hospitality should be presented as a law that can be in contradiction with another law (a woman's honor) or that a woman's honor cannot be included in a definition of hospitality.\" As Rosello asks, \"Is the ultimate lesson, then, that women can never be guests, that they can never be hosts?\" Even this oft-cited biblical example illustrates a politics of hospitality in which the rights of the stranger outweigh the rights of certain individuals within the household; Lot's choice makes all women strangers in a patriarchal world. It is not too difficult to make the leap from the exclusionary gender politics of this biblical scene to the exclusionary racial (and gender) politics in the southern plantation home, with white southerners and their guests being served by slaves who could never be considered guests. Overall, the story of Lot again shows the ways that hospitality defines the boundaries between the stranger who can be welcomed as a \"sacred guest\" and the absolute other or alien who has no rights, even as an inhabitant of the household.\n\n### Hospitality as Etiquette\n\nEtiquette books were essential to codifying domestic habits during the antebellum period when southern hospitality was developing as a recognized discourse in the national imaginary, and these texts provide useful reminders that hospitality was an essential social ritual of the day-to-day life of many Americans. They also reveal the pressures Americans faced as they tried to determine the obligations and demands of hospitality in an altering cultural landscape. The etiquette books and domestic manuals I now turn to were directed toward a national rather than a specifically regional readership, and they generally sought to efface regional distinctiveness in favor of promoting national identity. Generally speaking, etiquette rules for the middle and upper classes in the North were likewise the etiquette rules for the middle and upper classes of the South. In fact, it was primarily women from the North who promoted and disseminated an understanding of etiquette in the South.\n\nHospitality is a central principle in these etiquette books, both the broad moral concept of hospitality and the minute particulars of being both a guest and a host. For example, Florence Hartley's _The Ladies Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness_ devotes ten of the book's twenty-six chapters to the etiquette guidelines for being either a \"hostess\" or a \"guest.\" Visiting, entertaining, and dining were essential to ideas of social order, so in most social interactions among the middle and upper classes, one was usually obliged to assume one of the two roles and play it by the rules. At the same time, however, Hartley claims that the basis for these etiquette rules can be traced to Christian principles. In the introduction, she asserts,\n\nIn preparing a book of etiquette for ladies, I would lay down as the first rule, \"Do unto others as you would others should do to you.\" You can never be rude if you bear the rule always in mind, for what lady likes to be treated rudely? True Christian politeness will always be the result of an unselfish regard for the feelings of others, and though you may err in the ceremonious points of etiquette, you will never be impolite. Politeness, founded upon such a rule, becomes the expression, in graceful manner, of social virtues. The spirit of politeness consists in a certain attention to forms and ceremonies, which are meant both to please others and ourselves, and to make others pleased with us.\n\nHartley's explanation seems to have it both ways: on the one hand, politeness is a transcendent Christian principle, and on the other hand, politeness is attention to historically and culturally situated \"forms and ceremonies,\" such as leaving an appropriate card when calling on acquaintances or using the correct utensil at the appropriate moment when dining. Like many texts of the period, Hartley navigates the inherent tension between the ethics and the politics of hospitality.\n\nMany etiquette books of the period contrast the old, aristocratic customs of the Old World and the unique needs of the young American nation. _The Art of Good Behavior_ , for example, claims to be fulfilling the need to teach manners to all the upwardly mobile Americans who were inevitably finding themselves entering into higher social realms. The book's subtitle claims it to be \"A complete guide for Ladies and Gentlemen, particularly those who have not enjoyed the advantages of fashionable life.\" This more democratic book of manners boldly proclaims, \"In this free land, there are no political distinctions, and the only social ones depend upon character and manners. We have no privileged classes, no titled nobility, and every man has the right, and should have the ambition to be a gentleman\u2014certainly every woman should have the manners of a lady.\" Notice the contradiction here: in this democratic country manners should be for all, and in this same democratic country the only \"social\" distinctions are based on these very manners.\n\nEven though some texts profess to be filling this democratic need, they can at times reveal anxiety about perhaps too much democracy, showing the same sensitivity to the perception that Americans are rude and unrefined and calling to mind the \"Hectors of the boarding houses\" lamented by the author of \"The Science of Hospitality.\" Americans prided themselves on democratic principles, but in an emerging consumer culture, status and lifestyle could potentially be purchased. An example of this contradiction may be found in _The Art of Pleasing; or the American Lady and Gentleman's Book of Etiquette_. Again, the discussion of manners and etiquette is placed in a uniquely American context. America is a new land that cannot rely on the jaded forms of the Old World: \"The want of a book adapted to the requirements of THE PEOPLE has been one great obstacle to the study of THE ART OF PLEASING; as almost, if not all the works offered have been republications of foreign books adapted to the atmosphere of courts and palaces, and filled with forms and ceremonies useless and ridiculous as applied to this land of liberty and equality.\" The author boldly promises that this book \"will prove equally acceptable to the laborer, the mechanic, the clerk, the merchant, and the man of wealth, leisure, and refinement.\" Interestingly enough, despite the author's claim that too many etiquette books are simply republications of foreign titles not suited to American democracy, when discussing hospitality in the home, sections of the text are plagiarized from Baroness de Calabrella's _The Ladies' Science of Etiquette, by an English Lady of Rank_ , first published in 1844, and republished in a variety of forms over the next two decades. The baroness's text emphasizes genteel refinement and the importance of appearances, and _The Art of Pleasing_ 's discussion of hospitality lifts entire passages from her earlier work, including a discussion of hospitality that privileges elegance, refinement, and the material accoutrements of entertaining over any notion that hospitality has an ethical dimension. Indeed, the hierarchy of hospitable behavior expressed in the text is contingent on material wealth.\n\nStill, _The Art of Pleasing_ in the end puts forth a much simpler, more democratic approach to hospitality than the baroness does. In a chapter titled \"Etiquette of the Dinner Table,\" for example, the author warns against ostentatious display: \"Too great a display of plate, or too dazzling a show of crystal, unless upon some particular occasion, is in bad taste. Simplicity is the soul of good breeding, . . . and to put your visitor on a footing with yourself, is the best compliment you can pay him . . . let the table be set out tastefully, but not ostentatiously; in a manner suitable to your station, but not, as it were, to exhibit your pride and wealth, more than your hospitality and social feeling.\" In contrast to Baroness de Calabrella, the emphasis here is on the benevolent spirit and feeling that lie behind hospitality rather than the material contexts in which its rituals are enacted. To further emphasize the point, the author concludes by claiming, \"The greatest hospitality is generally to be found among persons of small income; who are content to live according to their means, and never give any great dinners; for nothing can be further from true hospitality, than the spirit in which such entertainments are usually given.\" An 1846 essay in _Godey's_ titled \"A Chapter on Hospitality,\" by Mrs. C. M. Kirkland, makes similar points, warning against \"ostentatious hospitality\" and claiming that \"the poor\u2014and children\u2014understand hospitality after the pure model of Christ and his apostles.\" Kirkland laments the growing commodification of hospitality as well as the increasing emphasis on social display, which she sees as a false, Old World influence: \"We have attempted to dignify our simple republicanism by far-away, melancholy imitations of the Old World; but the incongruity between these forms and the true spirit of our institutions is such, that all we gain is a bald emptiness, gilded over with vulgar show. . . . When shall we look at the spirit rather than the semblance of things\u2014when give up the shadow for the substance?\"\n\nCatharine Beecher's _Treatise on Domestic Economy_ , published first in 1841 (and later expanded with Harriet Beecher Stowe as _The American Woman's Home_ ), provides a unique interpretation of hospitality as a Christian imperative with an important role in America's uniquely democratic social order. She first cites hospitality as a Christian obligation: \"There is no social duty which the Supreme Law-giver more strenuously urges than hospitality and kindness to strangers, who are classed with the widow and the fatherless as the special objects of Divine tenderness.\" She immediately clarifies, however, that this Christian principle is especially important in America in light of its migratory populations and fluid economic order. But while the other texts I've discussed talk of the need for manners for upwardly mobile citizens, Beecher focuses on the _downwardly_ mobile members of the population, those who find themselves strangers to American prosperity:\n\nThere are some reasons, why this duty [of hospitality] peculiarly demands attention from the American people.\n\nReverses of fortune, in this land, are so frequent and unexpected, and the habits of the people are so migratory, that there are very many in every part of the Country, who, having seen all their temporal plans and hopes crushed, are now pining among strangers, bereft of wonted comforts, without friends, and without the sympathy and society, so needful to wounded spirits. Such, too frequently, sojourn long and lonely, with no comforter but Him who \"knoweth the heart of a stranger.\"\n\nBeecher consequently encourages her readers to pay special and immediate attention to \"new-comers\" who enter their communities, and she also extends this principle of hospitality to the stranger to social gatherings, saying that in these instances \"the claims of the stranger are too apt to be forgotten; especially, in cases where there are no peculiar attractions of personal appearance, or talents, or high standing.\" Instead of being overlooked, such an individual \"should be treated with attention, _because he is a stranger_ ; and when communities learn to act more from principle, and less from selfish impulse, on this subject, the sacred claims of the stranger will be less frequently forgotten.\" Such a sentiment brings us back to the ethical ideal of hospitality espoused in the Quaker essay \"On Hospitality.\"\n\nOverall, these etiquette books and essays on hospitality show Americans negotiating among competing traditions and discourses of hospitality. In the accelerating consumer marketplace, the subject of hospitality would only grow increasingly complicated over the course of the nineteenth century. Still, while general discourses on hospitality became more disparate and dissimilar, the discourse of southern hospitality became both more clearly defined and diffusive, helping to codify the sense of regional difference and distinctiveness between the North and the South. The aristocratic image of southern hospitality had the capacity to appeal to both southerners and nonsoutherners, but this image of southern hospitality was also the most difficult to reconcile with other prevailing discourses on hospitality of the antebellum period, namely, the Christian and the \"republican\" views outlined above.\n\n### Making a Case for Southern Hospitality: C. H. Wiley's _Roanoke_\n\nAntebellum southerners probably felt no contradiction when defining themselves as Christian in their morality, republican in their political philosophy, and aristocratic in their manners, yet the irony could be noticeable to outsiders. When the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray toured the United States in the 1850s, he noted the paradox of having an aristocratic Virginia hostess lecture him on \"republican simplicity.\" He \"threw himself back in his chair, gazed at the beautiful artistic frescoes on the ceiling, worthy of a royal palace, and with arms extended exclaimed, 'Oh! Mrs. Stanard, I do admire this republican simplicity.'\" As an outsider, Thackeray could see the incongruity of the situation, but Mrs. Stanard of Richmond probably really believed in the ideals of republican simplicity, just as she probably believed that the Bible mandated the existence of slavery, and that entertaining an illustrious English author was a chance to show him the truth behind southerners' legendary hospitality.\n\nAs Michael O'Brien has meticulously argued in _Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810\u20131860_ , southerners lived amid contradictions in a fluid world where \"little settled into coherence\"; as O'Brien explains it, \"in the early nineteenth century, Southerners were national, postcolonial, and imperial, all at once, and partly invented their culture in the tense encounters among these conditions.\" They were national in that they had helped to create the United States through revolution and had provided a significant amount of its early political leadership. They were postcolonial in that, more so than in the North, their intellectual traditions were still conditioned by the Old World, even though they had thrown off the political authority of that world. They were imperial in that they ambitiously pursued an expansionist plan to \"make an empire of liberty and slavery.\" It was largely through these efforts that the disparate southern states came to be known collectively as \"the South.\" According to O'Brien, these three conditions of the South \"mingled unstably,\" producing, on the one hand, \"doubt\" and \"cultural anxiety,\" and on the other hand, a sense of \"mastery, \"moral sanction,\" and \"certainty.\" These lived conflicts and contradictions in antebellum southern identity can be seen in the way they imagined what, alongside the concept of honor, was perhaps their most boasted regional characteristic: their hospitality. As was the case with all Americans, southerners inherited a variety of traditions and discourses of hospitality. They, like other Americans, saw hospitality as both a Christian moral imperative and a pleasing social ritual; more than other Americans, they also saw it as a manifestation of an inherently aristocratic, hierarchical social order. To some outsiders, this aristocratic tradition of southern hospitality might seem to conflict with both republican idealism and Christian morality, but southerners did not necessarily recognize such conflict.\n\nCalvin Henderson Wiley's 1849 historical romance, _Roanoke, or, Where Is Utopia?_ , provides an instructive example of the contortions necessary to reconcile southern aristocratic ideals of hospitality with, on the one hand, a Christian ethic of hospitality and, on the other, republican principles of equality. _Roanoke_ is a hyperbolic celebration of southern cultural exceptionalism, or, as Wiley terms it, the region's \"ancestral virtues\" (12). Wiley's novel was republished several times and under different titles between 1849 and 1866. A native of North Carolina, Wiley was a lawyer, editor, and author who also served as superintendent of common schools for the state of North Carolina from 1853 to 1865. Over the course of his career in education, he earned a reputation as one of the most important advocates for educational reform in the South, described variously as \"the missionary of popular education in North Carolina\" and the \"Horace Mann of the South.\"\n\nSet in coastal North Carolina in the days leading up to the American Revolution, _Roanoke_ attempts to construct an origin myth of regional identity that is both deeply patriotic and chauvinistically southern. Not surprisingly, then, the question of hospitality figures prominently in the book, but Wiley's portrayal of it as it pertains to southern identity is often conflicted and at times contradictory. The text shifts from first asserting that hospitality is a moral obligation to the stranger, to then railing against the exclusionary practices and politics of an aristocratic hospitality, to finally reasserting the seeming naturalness of such aristocratic hierarchies and practices.\n\nThe \"Utopia\" of Wiley's title refers both to the novel's idealized heroine and the setting of its opening chapters: a primitive coastal community along the Outer Banks, whose citizens engage in the commercial servicing\u2014and occasional plundering\u2014of shipwrecks, as well as in a ritualized form of wife swapping that, in a scene that oddly echoes auction scenes in antislavery literature, threatens to separate the young white heroine, Utopia, from her mother. Set in the days leading up to the American Revolution, the novel's early chapters detail how the hero, Walter Tucker, a proud young woodsman from the interior, arrives in the settlement of Utopia with his father, Dan Tucker, a rustic known for his prowess as a fiddler. Dan has brought Walter to Utopia to seek employment, but Walter, feeling himself to be above the primitive Utopians, sullenly resists the prospect of living among them. Despite the Utopians' apparent backwardness and simplicity, however, we are told that they \"were profusely generous and hospitable\" to strangers and particularly to anyone unlucky enough to suffer a shipwreck off the Outer Banks. The early chapters of the novel foreground and celebrate the simple hospitality of these Utopians, most notably in the chapter titled \"Utopian Hospitality,\" where they willingly open their hearts to strangers in need, in this case the English victims of a shipwreck that suddenly appears off the coast: \"The passengers . . . found, to their surprise, that they were among a kind and considerate people, who ministered to their wants with a tact and delicacy not to be expected in a race so rude. . . . All seemed to feel for and sympathize with the forlorn and suffering strangers\" (27\u201328). The \"utopian\" hospitality that Wiley initially celebrates is not the aristocratic hospitality of the planter classes, whose social practices generated the legends of the South's hospitality; rather, it is the simple hospitality of these rustic Utopians. Though the legends of southern hospitality were initially generated by the practices of aristocratic planters, as it became a generally accepted and celebrated cultural trait of the South, all white southerners could be identified with it, including, in this case, the unrefined, wife-swapping, shipwreck-scavenging Utopians.\n\nAs the novel unfolds, Wiley draws a pointed contrast between this simple hospitality of the Utopians and the social practices of the elite, aristocratic society of New Bern, the capital of the colony, where much of the novel's action takes place. Most of the novel seems an outright attack on such aristocratic and exclusive social orders. The young hero, Walter Tucker, aspires to be accepted in these exclusive social circles, but due to his common origins, he seems to have little hope of achieving this goal, a fact made all the more painful by his developing love interest, Alice Bladen, a member of the English aristocracy and survivor of the shipwreck at Utopia. Walter Tucker pines away for Alice for much of the novel but finds himself lost between two worlds: the rustic, backwoods way of life of his father and the Utopians, and the aristocratic circles to which he aspires, particularly among the social elites of New Bern.\n\nPossessing a strong sense of honor, courage, and pride, Walter feels he is above the Utopians and likewise is often ashamed of his own father, both for his father's uncouth manners and for the company he keeps. Dan Tucker is often accompanied by Zip Coon, a fiddling companion who hails from Virginia. Walter faces constant embarrassment because of the uncouth behavior of the two fiddlers. Conversely, he repeatedly feels slighted and shunned by his social betters, and he consequently rails against the arbitrary power of the caste system on several occasions. His diatribes against this aristocratic social order fit the democratic spirit of the novel's setting in the days leading up to the revolution, but they seem to run against the aristocratic sensibilities of elite southern culture (not to mention against the discourse and logic of slavery). For example, Walter lectures Utopia on the arbitrary power of the aristocratic classes of New Bern:\n\nNow I'll tell you my notions of the world. Some men, by fraud, and violence, and meanness, make fortunes and get into power ; then they make laws, and make themselves titles, and are called the higher ranks. When they get into these ranks they become separated, in heart, and soul, and feeling, from those who are just like them, only in a lower rank; they think themselves a superior race, and they talk about their blood as if it were not all descended from Adam, and as if they did not rise from the common people. . . . They look on us as made for them; and when they condescend to speak kindly to us, they expect to make use of us just as we make use of horses and cattle, and feed them and use them kindly. (76)\n\nWalter seems here to have learned the lesson that Thomas Sutpen learns when sent to the back door in Faulkner's _Absalom, Absalom!_ : power is for whoever will take it, and once taken, it is to be maintained by whatever means necessary. Unlike Sutpen, who cynically and unscrupulously seeks to attain and hold power, however, Walter believes honor is real and not merely superficial; he still hopes to _earn_ his place among the social elite. When he feels that he has been insulted by Alice Bladen, whom he loves from afar, he embarks on a series of heroic adventures against the backdrop of the impending revolution, determined to earn a place at the table of power and in the highest circles of society.\n\nThe novel's plot often hinges on a politics of hospitality, as Walter repeatedly feels snubbed by both the New Bern social elite and, later, the leaders of the revolutionary movement. A good example occurs after he saves the life of Frank Hooper, a frail, bookish young gentleman whom Walter finds wandering the depths of the Dismal Swamp. Walter and Frank quickly form an unusually intense, platonic bond, but when Walter manages to bring Frank to Rock Castle, home of Cornelius Harnett and unofficial headquarters of the rebellion leadership of Harnett and Colonel Ashe, Walter bristles at what he senses to be the unequal treatment offered to him and Frank Hooper. Frank, still recovering from his experiences in the swamp, is offered a bed, while Walter is not.\n\nHis cheek flushed as he saw that he was not treated as the equal of Frank Hooper; and his proud heart swelled and throbbed against his bosom as if determined to force its way from its prison. . . .\n\n\"You might kneel and kiss my hand,\" thought Walter, \"but not even this would be sufficient, as long as you treat another and my equal as if I were only his dog or his slave. . . . May I be cursed if I ever sleep upon the bed or break the bread of a house where I'm regarded as an inferior,\" said the young hero to himself as he noiselessly opened the door and walked out, for what purposes he hardly knew, except that of escaping from the roof of one of those aristocrats whom he so much disliked. (112)\n\nRemarkably, after rejecting the hospitality of Harnett and Ashe because of this snub, Walter immediately accepts the hospitality of one of the slaves on the estate. This action can be interpreted, on the one hand, as his ultimate rejection of these aristocrats, or, on the other, as an unconscious projection of his own debased self-perception. Whatever the case, after spending the night in the slave quarters, he returns to Rock Castle and leaves a small sum of money for Colonel Ashe and Harnett to cover the previous evening's meal. Though his pride will not allow him to accept the charity of these aristocrats, he is willing to accept the hospitality of a slave. Still, Wiley's novel is in no way progressive in its racial politics.\n\nWalter's diatribes against the aristocracy and his apparent belief in the natural rights of man make him naturally sympathetic to the revolutionary fever sweeping the colonies, and he does, indeed, take part in the revolution and become a hero at the Battle of Moore's Creek. But he still hopes to enter elite society through his actions. His military heroics seem for a moment to earn him the respect he has been seeking throughout the novel, but once again he is embarrassed by the antics of his father and Zip Coon, who put on a rollicking performance following the military victory. Their behavior seems to resign Walter to his fate and his plebian caste; he is \"mortified beyond expression\" and \"instantly . . . [bids] Alice Bladen and aristocratic society a mental farewell for ever\" (134).\n\nThe concluding chapters, however, veer away from this seeming critique of aristocratic society by providing a natural explanation for Walter's aristocratic desires: he is, in reality, an aristocrat. You might say he is the _original_ American aristocrat. Walter, it is revealed, is descended from the sole survivor of the \"Lost Colony\" of Roanoke. This survivor \"was a natural son of Sir Walter Raleigh, . . . a brave and sprightly lad\" who had been taken in by the Roanoke tribe and married Chief Manteo's daughter. Dan Tucker, then, is not Walter's real father ; rather, Dan had been given the charge of raising Walter, the last surviving member of this royal bloodline, until the latter had \"proved himself worthy of his name . . . WALTER ROANOKE, the descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, and of Manteo, the Lord of Roanoke\" (137). Further, it is revealed that Frank Hooper, whom Walter has loved in a platonic sense, is in fact Alice Bladen in disguise. She has been in love with Walter from the beginning, and only Walter's wounded ego has prevented him from seeing it, prompting her to take great risks in pursuing him on his exploits. Wife swapping, miscegenation, cross-dressing, a slave revolt, a revolution, a changeling prince, and a seemingly homoerotic attraction that turns into the heterosexual \"natural\" attraction between two aristocrats\u2014this historical romance has it all. Following these contortions of plot, Walter and Alice, natural aristocrats of the Old and the New Worlds, are free to marry and propagate in the new nation founded by revolution. The novel's conclusion is unique in that it forces a synthesis of the conflicting strands of southern identity outlined by Michael O'Brien. Walter is an Old World (and New World) aristocrat, a patriot, and a revolutionary all in one; he has earned his place through his actions, yet in retrospect, his noble bloodline seems to be the first cause of those actions. He is simply acting according to the dictates of his white (and native), aristocratic bloodlines. Interestingly, the simple hospitality of the Utopians celebrated in the novel's opening pages disappears by the novel's conclusion, and Utopia herself, who has embodied Christian principles and whom \"all met . . . as if she were the guest of all mankind,\" is brutally murdered by a dissipated and guilt-ridden Robert Bladen, Alice's brother. Walter, to whom Utopia had displayed an attraction, is left with his rightful partner, the English aristocrat Alice.\n\nTaken together, P. W. B. Carothers's short story \"Modern Hospitality,\" with which I began this chapter, and Calvin Henderson Wiley's novel _Roanoke_ both attempt to reconcile the well-known, aristocratic images of southern hospitality with the other prevailing discourses of hospitality in American culture at that time\u2014namely, those that articulate Christian and \"republican\" ideals of hospitality. Many Americans, southerners and nonsoutherners, found images of refined, aristocratic southern planters lavishly entertaining strangers and friends alike both attractive and appealing. But not all readers of the period would have necessarily subscribed to the nostalgic valorization of aristocratic hospitality and social practices\u2014southern or otherwise\u2014seen in Carothers's short story or Wiley's novel. An anonymous poem published in _Godey's_ in 1847 provides an alternative to such aristocratic characterizations of hospitality, calling instead for a more egalitarian ideal of hospitality. Titled \"Hospitality of the Olden Time,\" the poem appears with an accompanying illustration on the facing page. The illustration (see figure 10) seems fitting for the pages of Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_ or _Lady of the Lake_ or any other medieval romance. It centers on a medieval noblewoman who has just returned from a hunt. Dogs repose in the foreground of the scene, as servants tend to the horses. Wearing a quiver of arrows on her back, the lady sits sidesaddle on her horse and is receiving a libation in a goblet from her cavalier, in celebration of a successful hunt. The text of the poem is a direct commentary on the illustration. The first stanza reinforces its romantic images, noting that the \"fashions\" and \"hospitality\" of the \"olden time\" seem to us \"a precious wonder\" now and describing how the \"fairest lady\" and \"her cavalier\" went \"a-hunting and a-hawking\" \"through the merry wood.\" Over the next two stanzas, however, the attitude toward this subject changes from the seeming praise of the first stanza to a tone of indictment that portrays the woman on a pedestal at the center of a violent social order. The romantic picture of the past is dismantled, and in the fourth and final stanza the author dismisses this so-called hospitality of old in favor of the possibility of \"true hospitality\" in the present and the future:\n\nFIGURE 10. \"Hospitality of the Olden Time,\" _Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book_ , March 1847, 126. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nWell let them laud those \"olden times;\" I frankly must avow  \nI cannot join the strain; I think the better times are _now_ ;  \nAnd that the best are still to come, and in the future see,  \nWhat ne'er has been, the triumph of true hospitality\u2014  \nWhen \"strangers\" shall, like brothers, meet a welcome everywhere\u2014  \nBut the theme requires a folio, and I've but a line to spare\u2014  \nSo let your noblest fancies aid the falterings of my pen,  \nAnd your dream of angels now will show what WOMAN will be then\n\nThough this anonymous poet could only \"spare a line,\" other Americans in the antebellum period did indeed produce what would amount to much more than a folio dedicated to this theme of true hospitality\u2014an ethical ideal here oriented toward the future instead of the past and in which all strangers are transformed into \"brothers\" and \"sisters\" or, as the last line suggests, \"angels unawares.\" As these Americans pushed the ethical horizon of hospitality by expanding the definition of the stranger, hospitality was redefined as both a liberal state of mind\u2014\"mental hospitality\"\u2014and a means of progressive reform and social change.\n\n### \"Mental Hospitality\" and Progressive Social Change\n\nVersions of the progressive idea of \"mental hospitality\" were disseminated through sermons preached from the pulpit by liberals and circulated by reformers in print. This particular discourse of hospitality was closely tied to the antislavery movement; indeed, as the sectional crisis deepened, it developed into a coherent and effective counterdiscourse to prevailing ideas of southern hospitality, particularly as it became linked to the plight of the fugitive slave. An 1833 sermon by William Fox titled \"Mental Hospitality\" provides an early example of the progressive potential of this discourse. Fox was a leading English Unitarian and advocate of radical reforms; his sermons were published and circulated in America as well as Britain, and he was a known proponent of abolition. This particular sermon was included in an 1833 Boston edition of his sermons titled _Christian Morality_ ; excerpts of the sermon were also published in the _Christian Register_ , a Unitarian magazine, in 1834. Fox begins with a passage from Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 13:2 (King James Version): \"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.\" He goes on to explain that even though the old, biblical ways of hospitality are obsolete in today's society, we must still be mindful of this biblical injunction. More specifically, if we believe in a world of continuing progress toward God's truth, then we must be hospitable _in mind_ , for God's truth must always appear in the form of the stranger. Fox writes:\n\nWell would it have been for the Jewish nation, when Christ came to them . . . in a character which was, to their prejudices and hearts, _a stranger_ , if they had entertained the consideration of his claims and doctrines, instead of at once rejecting him as an impostor. . . . The lesson is a warning against what we may term mental inhospitality. It admonishes us never hastily to refuse a tenet merely because it is a stranger to our previous notions. Had they received him, he would have been to them the angel of the covenant. . . . How much is the progress of truth delayed in the world, by this summary mode of shutting the door of conviction against doctrines, because they are thought strange? When creeds have become corrupt, truth must have become strange.\n\nThe phrase \"mental hospitality\" subtly links thought to action and moral and ethical ideals to the social sphere. The sort of mental hospitality that Fox calls for has real social and political consequences, bringing strangers together for the common cause of justice: combining with \"personal strangers\" can ultimately lead to \"that cooperation of knowledge, zeal, and benevolence, by which liberty is gained for slaves, and restrictions on human rights are obliterated, and unjust laws are repealed, or just ones enacted, or religious information diffused over the face of the country.\" Mental hospitality, then, is an essential aspect of progressive social change, particularly extending human rights, as in the abolitionists' efforts to end slavery.\n\nA more expansive and eloquent case for mental hospitality is made in an 1859 sermon delivered by the Unitarian preacher Octavius Brooks Frothingham and published in the _Christian Inquirer_. Titled \"Christian Hospitality,\" the sermon yet again begins by citing the same passage from Paul's Letter to the Hebrews. Frothingham laments the fact that thinking of hospitality merely as social ritual has caused us to \"become reserved, exclusive, distant, slow in our sympathies, narrow in our prejudices, and niggardly in our ways.\" He goes on to explain that we cannot \"revive the ancient virtue of hospitality\" because \"we cannot recall the state of society to which it belonged.\" Nonetheless, \"hospitality itself cannot be obsolete.\" It is a timeless virtue and to truly exercise the spirit of hospitality we must \"enlarge its sphere\": \"The duty of hospitality requires us not to open our houses to any belated wanderer who may chance to pass, but to open our _minds_ to the thoughts that come to us with unfamiliar aspect, and ask admittance to our consideration.\" Without a \"large and generous\" mental hospitality, \"it is impossible for a human intellect to live\" in this world full of \" _dead_ truths that lie in men's understandings, like venerable rubbish in houses.\" But opening one's self to new, living truths is difficult, for they will always seem to pose a threat to our comfort: \"New ideas almost always look hungry and wild. We know not whence they come, we know not whither they go, nor what their intents may be. We think it safer to let them slide by. And yet, if angelic truths are ever to visit us, they must visit us as _strangers_ ; for certainly no one will be so insane as to imagine that he has them all as perpetual inmates of his house.\" As Frothingham goes on to describe these potential strangers, he emphasizes the inherent risk that true hospitality poses to our comfortable self-satisfaction. Indeed, the manner in which he portrays hospitality as risk is remarkably similar to the way Jacques Derrida describes it. Consider how Frothingham challenges the comfort of his listeners, powerfully asserting that\n\nGod's angels rarely look like angels when they accost us. They come in the awful shapes of duty, in the sad guise of renunciation. They come robed in the black drapery of mourning, and clad in the iron armor of law. They look like enemies; they look like errors, and misfortunes, and sorrows, and deaths. They look like faded hopes, and crippled beliefs; they look like gaunt infidelities and sly secrets. If they looked otherwise, where would be the merit in opening the door and taking them in?\n\nWho in his or her right mind would welcome such strangers? How far we have come from the pleasures of the amphytrion discussed earlier in the chapter. In contrast to the pleasant rituals and self-indulgence of the amphytrion, here we are faced with seemingly impossible social duties and moral obligations. But this is indeed the \"impossible\" that must be done if we are to have true hospitality. We must be willing to put ourselves at risk in the open encounter with the stranger. To illustrate this point, Frothingham immediately follows with his personal testimonial, and significantly, it involves his transformation on the issues of race and slavery. He describes how as a \"conservative and dainty youth\" he first encountered William Ellery Channing's writings on the Christian duty to oppose slavery. Frothingham describes how he initially did not want to accept this \"stranger\":\n\nI did not like its appearance. It looked vulgar, low and ridiculous; its robes were covered with the dirt heaped on it by respectable people; its aspect was lean and rapid, like that of a fanatic; its history was obscure; it was friendless and an outcast; I expected to hear from its lips nothing but vituperation and blasphemy. At length I went down and opened the door\u2014rather it came in, as the door stood ajar, and seated itself in my parlor\u2014and O what a gracious figure I found it then to be! How this stranger enriched my heart! How he enlarged my conscience! What insight he gave me into the meaning of the gospel! What knowledge of Christ\n\nNotice how Frothingham's imagery suggests surrendering control over the threshold. He does not exactly invite the stranger in; instead, the door, left open, allows the stranger to enter both uninvited and unannounced. Rather than guarding the door against ideas that may challenge our assumptions, we should be open to entertaining these ideas. This is similar to what Derrida describes as moving beyond the \"hospitality of invitation\" and toward \"the hospitality of visitation\" in which the host surrenders the threshold to the stranger, allowing the stranger to come as he or she will. The hospitality of invitation, synonymous with the politics of hospitality, is exclusive and confirms our comfortable self-identity, our sovereignty, our mastery of our own space. In contrast, the hospitality of visitation, synonymous with the absolute ethic of welcoming all equally, carries a sense of risk that can challenge this sense of sovereignty and self-possession.\n\nThese liberal Christian reformers I have cited articulate a concept of hospitality very much in line with that outlined by Jacques Derrida, and they did so in an effort to effect progressive social change. So important is this idea of mental hospitality that Frothingham goes on to characterize it as the very essence of his progressive Christian faith: \"If I were to characterize by one word the true genius of Liberal Christianity, that word would be _hospitality_.\"\n\n### \"Abolition Hospitality\" and the Example of J. G. Whittier's Cosmopolitanism\n\nFor many Americans of the antebellum period, these lofty meditations on hospitality were not simply ethereal speculations; rather, they were ethical ideals with political contexts and consequences, and they formed a powerful counterdiscourse to the prevailing attitudes and discourse of southern hospitality, as succinctly illustrated in a short column published in William Lloyd Garrison's antislavery paper, the _Liberator_ , in 1837. The column bears the bold headline \"ABOLITION HOSPITALITY\" and appeared the week before the Fourth Annual Meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, to be held in Boston that May. It urged Boston residents to open their doors to the many convention delegates who would be arriving from the numerous antislavery societies scattered around New England. Given the newspaper's oppositional stance toward slavery and all things southern, the title can be read as a self-conscious response to the slave owners' well-known boasts of southern hospitality. Given that Americans by this time were increasingly thinking of \"North\" and \"South\" and \"abolition\" and \"slavery\" as opposing cultural terms, the phrase \"abolition hospitality\" implicitly transforms its opposite, \"southern hospitality,\" into \"slavery hospitality.\" The column begins by citing the familiar passage of Paul's Letter to the Hebrews; here, however, the injunction takes on a decidedly political prospect:\n\nTo be \"given to hospitality\" is an apostolic injunction, repeated on many occasions. \"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,\" says Paul; \"for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.\" And in the very next verse he adds\u2014\"Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.\" It seems, therefore, that there is a close affinity between sympathy for the oppressed and a hospitable reception of those who plead their cause in the face of a gainsaying generation. If we obey the first injunction, by entertaining abolition strangers, we shall be likely to fulfill the second, by a lively remembrance of the woes and sufferings of the slave.\n\nMany delegates will doubtless attend the N.E. Anti-Slavery convention next week: some will come from a great distance, at considerable expense, and others will be embarrassed in their circumstances. It is very desirable, therefore, that as many of them should be as kindly entertained as possible, without charge. All who are able and willing to accommodate one or more of them, for a few days, are requested to leave their names and place of residence at 25, Cornhill, as early as convenient. The plainer the fare the better.\n\nThis call for hospitality among Boston residents, based again on Scripture, broadens the act of hospitality in a revealing and important way. The crucial exchange here is not the material exchange of hospitality between the host and the guest; rather, it is what ultimately results from this exchange: the imagined, empathetic opening of the self to the ultimate strangers (slaves). By universal right, these slaves should have places at the table, but due to unjust laws, they are held in bondage. This exchange, then, is not about self-indulgence and pleasure (\"The plainer the fare the better\"); it is about altering one's mind and heart and instilling a greater sense of personal responsibility for the oppressed stranger. While the particular exchanges of hospitality between Boston residents and these \"abolition strangers\" must still be carried out within and consequently limited by the material rites of hospitality, the imagined, expansive sense of mental hospitality that informs them strains toward the absolute ethical law of universal hospitality, which exists beyond the realm of fallible human laws. Perhaps the hosts and the guests involved in these exchanges imagined them as rehearsals for the future arrival of the oppressed strangers, those held in slavery who nonetheless could quite literally appear at the door in the forms of fugitive slaves, whom abolitionists recognized as fellow citizens, if not of the nation then of the world.\n\nIndeed, under the banner of every issue of the _Liberator_ , in which \"Abolition Hospitality\" appeared, ran the decidedly cosmopolitan motto, \"Our Country Is the World\u2014Our Countrymen Are All Mankind.\" This idea of being a citizen of the world calls to mind Immanuel Kant's cosmopolitan theories of world citizenship outlined in _Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch_ , an essay that proposes the right of \"universal hospitality.\" In _Perpetual Peace_ , Kant outlines a series of six \"preliminary\" and three \"definitive\" articles necessary for the achievement of perpetual peace among the nations of the world. The third definitive article goes to the question of hospitality and marks a seminal moment in philosophical thinking about the ethics of hospitality. Kant's third definitive article reads, \"The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality.\" Significantly, Kant maintains that hospitality is not a matter of a host's \"philanthropy\" toward a guest; instead, it is the inherent \"right\" of the stranger : \"Hospitality means the right of the stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another.\" Kant considers this a natural right that all humans have \"by virtue of their common ownership of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth.\"\n\nThe Quaker poet, abolitionist, and reformer John Greenleaf Whittier's 1845 book, _The Stranger in Lowell_ , provides an interesting example of the overarching ethics of mental hospitality and cosmopolitanism. This modest volume is composed of sketches and reflections on the industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts, written during a \"brief sojourn\" in the city that brought the Industrial Revolution to America. In many ways, Whittier's text is the thematic and regional antithesis of Calvin Henderson Wiley's chauvinistically southern novel _Roanoke_ , published a few years later. The industrial laborers of Lowell and the slave laborers of southern plantations were inextricably linked through the raw material of cotton, grown and harvested by southern slaves and transformed into durable goods by northern factory workers, and the debate over slavery often focused on comparative discussions of the plight of northern factory operatives and southern slaves. As a progressive, reform-minded abolitionist, Whittier in _The Stranger in Lowell_ celebrates a unique form of liberal hospitality, one far removed from the aristocratic myth of southern hospitality. The title itself suggests the overall theme of the stranger\u2014and the intertwined theme of hospitality that always accompanies the boundaries through which the stranger is defined. While, on the one hand, Whittier is a stranger visiting Lowell, the city of Lowell itself becomes a broader metaphor of all that is new\u2014and consequently foreign and strange\u2014in this period of radical change in American culture. As Whittier writes in the opening chapter describing his first impressions of the city, \"A stranger, in view of all this wonderful change, feels himself as it were thrust forward into a new century; he seems treading on the outer circle of the millennium of steam engines and cotton mills. Work is here the Patron Saint. Every thing bears his image and superscription. Here is no place for that respectable class of citizens called gentlemen, and their much vilified brethren, familiarly known as loafers\"(9\u201310). In addition to seeing Lowell as a precursor to a new industrial millennium, Whittier also considers it a precursor to a new social millennium. Rather than focusing on the figures of \"respectable\" society cited above, Whittier devotes chapters throughout the book to the often-marginalized outsiders of society, writing in an open-minded and progressive manner on recent immigrants (\"The Heart of a Stranger\"), laboring women (\"The Factory Girls\"), former slaves (\"The Black Man\"), followers of unconventional religious sects (\"A Mormon Conventicle,\" \"Father Miller,\" and \"Swedenborg\"), and even Yankee vagrants (\"The Yankee Zincali\").\n\nFor example, in the second chapter, titled \"The Heart of the Stranger,\" Whittier describes the range of immigrants who make up Lowell's population (Scotch, German, Swiss, Irish, Polish, Jewish), and his thoughts on immigrants at several points allude to scriptural injunctions on hospitality. Reflecting on the city's many Irish immigrants, he exclaims, \"It is no light thing to abandon one's own country and household gods. Touching and beautiful was the injunction of the prophet of the Hebrews: 'Ye shall not oppress the stranger, _for ye know the heart of the stranger_ , seeing that ye were strangers in the land of Egypt'\" (17). Whittier is writing in a moment of widespread suspicion and animosity toward foreign immigrants in America, especially toward the Irish and Catholics, but he rejects the growing nativist and xenophobic sentiments of the day, saying, \"[I am] no friend of that narrow spirit of mingled national vanity and religious intolerance, which, under the specious pretext of preserving our institutions from foreign contamination, has made its appearance among us. I reverence man, as man. Be he Irish or Spanish, black or white, he is my brother man\" (18). Similarly, Whittier claims to have \"no prejudices against other nations,\" and he dismisses the \"blustering shampatriotism\" he finds rampant in American society. Our common humanity, according to Whittier and like-minded progressives, must be placed before our national or even personal identity. According to them, our country is, indeed, the world.\n\nIn the chapter titled \"The Yankee Zincali,\" Whittier's liberal theories of hospitality are put to the test in the form of a duplicitous beggar, and through this chapter, he engages a common theme in antebellum discourse on charity and benevolence. In a democracy supposedly based on the doctrine of self-reliance, Americans struggled to define appropriate boundaries and practices of charity. How could one separate the worthy from the unworthy poor? A fear of duplicity led many etiquette books to instruct their readers to never give alms to beggars, suggesting that it promotes more social ill than it relieves. Whittier suggests otherwise. The main action of the chapter details a potential moment of hospitality that doesn't quite come to fruition\u2014or so it seems at first. Whittier recounts how on a dreary, rainy autumn afternoon he was aroused from a melancholy reverie on the weather by an unexpected knock at his door. Given the gloominess of his thoughts, he exclaims that he is inclined to \"welcome any body, just now,\" but when he throws open the door, his eyes are met by a \"shambling\" and \"ragged\" stranger who puts on a \"dumb show of misery quite touching\" and hands Whittier an official-looking document that identifies the bearer as a \"survivor of shipwreck and disaster\" who is \"sorely in want of the alms of all charitable Christian persons\" (63). Whittier is immediately suspicious, and his reflections concisely convey the anxieties and contradictions in antebellum discourse on charity, benevolence, and self-reliance:\n\nHere commences a struggle. . . . \"Give,\" said Benevolence, as with some difficulty I fish up a small coin from the depths of my pocket. \"Not a cent,\" says selfish Prudence, and I drop it from my fingers. \"Think,\" says the good angel, \"of the poor stranger in a strange land, . . . thrown half-naked and helpless on our shores, ignorant of our language, and unable to find employment suited to his capacity.\" \"A vile imposter!\" replies the left hand sentinel. \"His paper, purchased from one of those ready writers in New York, who manufacture beggar-credentials at the low price of one dollar per copy, with earthquakes, fires, or shipwrecks, to suit customers.\" (63\u201364)\n\nThe internal debate results in a \"confusion of tongues,\" but Whittier is afforded a way out of the impasse when he realizes that the stranger is perhaps not a stranger after all. He has seen the face many times before in different guises: as a \"travelling preacher\" exhorting a crowd of young boys, as a \"poor Penobscott Indian, who had lost the use of his hands,\" as a \"forlorn father of six small children\" who had been \"crippled,\" and as a \"down-east unfortunate . . . whose hand shook so pitifully when held out to receive . . . [his] poor gift\" (64). Indeed, Whittier realizes that he knows this beggar by name as one \"Stephen Leathers of Barrington.\" He decides to \"conjure him into his own likeness\" by addressing him by name. The game up, Leathers admits his identity, claiming that he thought he recognized Whittier as well. Following a brief exchange of pleasantries, he takes his leave, supposedly to find a more willing dupe.\n\nRather than taking this visit of the duplicitous beggar\u2014this \"ragged Proteus,\" as Whittier calls him\u2014as evidence of the dangers of indiscriminate charity and hospitality, Whittier says he \"cannot be angry with such a fellow\": \"He has gone; and knave as he is, I can hardly help exclaiming, 'Luck go with his!' He has broken in upon the sombre train of my thoughts, and called up before me pleasant and grateful recollections.\" The visitation of this protean stranger has blessed Whittier unawares, calling up memories of his boyhood home and the many such \"wandering beggars\" and \"old stragglers\" whose unannounced visits broke the \"monotonous quietude of [his family's] farm-life\" (66). Whittier recalls that his mother developed quite a reputation for her open hospitality among these \"wandering tests of benevolence,\" although many were what respectable society no doubt would consider worthless drunks and lazy ne'er-do-wells. As Whittier relates, \"It was not often that . . . my mother's prudence got the better of her charity\" (71). As he recalls, such was the case despite the sense of risk inherent in these encounters with strangers, for their farmhouse was isolated in a valley with no neighbor in sight.\n\nHis mother's reputation for generous and open-hearted hospitality notwithstanding, there was a \"tribe of lazy strollers . . . whose low vices had placed them beyond even the pale of her benevolence\" (71). These shiftless wanderers hailed from Barrington, New Hampshire, and the stranger who showed up at Whittier's door was one of them. Whittier recalls, \"They came to us in all shapes and with all appearances save their true one, with most miserable stories of mishap and sickness. . . . It was particularly vexatious to discover, when too late, that our sympathies and charities had been expended upon such graceless vagabonds as the 'Barrington Beggars'\" (71\u201372). Rather than simply dismiss the likes of the Barrington Beggars, as period literature on charity was wont to do, Whittier inquires after them, believing that \"no phase of our common humanity is altogether unworthy of investigation.\" He describes how a few summers before he had decided to return, \"once for all, their numerous visits\" and pay a visit to the gypsy-like community near Barrington. He finds the small settlement in the midst of a \"desolate region\": \"Unfenced, unguarded, open to all comers and goers, stood the city of the beggars\u2014no wall or paling between the ragged cabins, to remind one of the jealous distinctions of property. The great idea of its founders seemed visible in its unappropriated freedom. Was not the whole round world their own, and should they haggle about boundaries and title-deeds? . . . That comfortable philosophy which modern Transcendentalism has but dimly shadowed forth . . . \u2014which gives all to each and each to all\u2014is the real life of this city of Unwork\" (73\u201374). The members of this community are the absolute strangers to all that Lowell, the city of work and the new era of industry, represents. Yet Whittier is even willing to entertain these ne'er-do-wells. Indeed, it was the duplicitous beggar, the protean stranger standing at Whittier's door, who inspired his reminiscences of his family's hospitality, and for this, he feels grateful: \"When again the shadows of the outward world fall upon the spirit, may I not lack a good angel to remind me of its solace, even if he comes in the shape of a Barrington beggar\" (74).\n\nThrough its protean manifestations of the stranger in antebellum culture\u2014laboring women, liberated slaves, members of alternative religious sects, immigrants, and even con men and ne'er-do-wells who seem to exist outside of the American myth of progress\u2014Whittier challenges his contemporary readers, prompting them to examine their prejudices and expand their sense of mental hospitality. He pushes them to question and rethink their categorical views on women, Christian faith, class, ethnicity, and race. As an abolitionist and activist, his expansive, cosmopolitan vision of hospitality stands in opposition to the discourse of southern hospitality that permeated American culture at the time. This counterdiscourse found in the documents of history\u2014in poems, newspapers, sermons, essays, and antislavery publications\u2014raises important questions about southern hospitality and the motivations behind American cultural memory. Why has the myth of southern hospitality been memorialized in American culture, while this alternative discourse of hospitality from the same period has been forgotten (even and especially among the work of historians of the South who have attempted to understand southern hospitality)? Why have we remembered a form of hospitality that is aristocratic, undemocratic, and that is sustained by slave labor, and generally forgotten those who imagined hospitality as nothing less than an extension of America's democratic principles of individual rights and justice? The answers to these questions revolve largely around the fraught and traumatic American history of slavery and segregation, as we will see in the chapters that follow.\n\n## CHAPTER THREE\n\n## Making Hospitality a Crime\n\n_The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850_\n\nIn the early 1850s, Americans North and South entered into a bitter, protracted debate over the relationship between hospitality and slavery. This debate\u2014carried out in the halls of Congress, in newspapers and magazines, in sermons and denominational papers, in poems and novels, and in the domestic space of American households\u2014was sparked by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the most controversial provision of the set of legislative acts known collectively as the Compromise of 1850. The compromise, ushered through Congress largely through the efforts of Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky, Stephen Douglass of Illinois, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, was designed to put an end to decades of sectional strife over slavery. Instead of ending sectional tension, however, the compromise's most controversial provision, the new Fugitive Slave Law, only added fuel to the fire, fundamentally transforming the landscape of antislavery politics in American culture. Southerners deemed the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law necessary because the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 had become entirely ineffectual due to non-enforcement, the passage of personal liberty laws in northern states, and the efforts of the Underground Railroad. The 1850 law contained several provisions that favored the slaveholders. It made it more difficult for alleged fugitives to prove possible claims of being free men and women, and it also seemed to provide financial incentives for officials to arrest and return fugitives (officials received ten dollars for every fugitive slave returned South and five dollars for cases where the alleged fugitive could prove he was indeed a free citizen). The law also required citizens to assist federal officers in capturing fugitives and, perhaps most galling to opponents of slavery, forbade Americans from offering any form of assistance to those fleeing from slavery. In other words, the act of extending hospitality to a runaway slave was now a federal crime, punishable with excessive fines and imprisonment.\n\nBecause it involved the obligations and limitations of hospitality, the debate over the Fugitive Slave Law was also, by necessity, a complex debate over differences of race, class, region, and the very nature of American identity. Religious arguments for and against the law, for example, were based largely on competing ideas of community. While all Christian Americans would have agreed with the scriptural injunction to \"love thy neighbor as thyself,\" the new reality of the Fugitive Slave Law forced them to ask, \"And who is my neighbor?\" Both the ambiguity and the implications of this question are seen in a scriptural passage that was repeatedly cited by both pro- and antislavery advocates to support their positions on the Fugitive Slave Law : Paul's Letter to Philemon. One of the shortest epistles in the New Testament, it was among the most often cited passages in debates over the Fugitive Slave Law. In the epistle Paul writes to Philemon, a fellow Christian, from prison, where he has come to know Philemon's runaway slave, Onesimus, whose name translates as \"useful.\" Though Onesimus is no longer useful to Philemon as a runaway, he has become useful to Paul as a convert to Christianity. In fact, Paul has grown exceedingly fond of Onesimus, referring to him as \"my child Onesimus whom I have begotten in my imprisonment,\" a reference to his conversion to the faith under Paul's spiritual guidance. Though Paul would like to keep Onesimus with him, he sends him back to Philemon with this letter, advising Philemon to receive him \"no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to [Paul], but how much more to [Philemon], both in the flesh and in the Lord\" (1:16 New American Standard Bible). One can see why both sides of the debate cited this biblical passage. On the one hand, Paul instructs Philemon to receive Onesimus as more than a slave, as a brother in Christ. On the other hand, Paul's actions seem to uphold the legal and social status quo of slavery. Seeming to both acknowledge the institution of slavery and uphold the law of rendition, he has sent a fugitive back to his master. Paul even goes so far as to offer to compensate Philemon for any wrong committed by Onesimus before he ran away.\n\nHere, then, lies the crux of the debate over the Fugitive Slave Law\u2014who has the better claim of being a neighbor: Philemon or Onesimus, slave owner or slave, the white southerner or his human chattel? Those opposed to slavery viewed the runaway slave first and foremost as a Christian neighbor in need but also in many cases as a fellow citizen, discursively expanding the boundaries of American identity to include blacks, both slave and free. In contrast, supporters of slavery felt their allegiances must lie with the slave owners, with whom they shared a common racial, cultural, and national heritage. The two sides of the debate consequently articulated radically different theories of hospitality and consistently posed two fundamentally different questions to the American public. Opponents of slavery envisioned hospitality as an element of \"higher law,\" an ethical imperative that superseded one's obligations to what they believed was a perverse and immoral human law. In contrast and in direct response, supporters of slavery articulated a restrictive and exclusionary politics of hospitality, portraying blacks as an alien presence unworthy of the hospitality of white Americans while emphasizing white cultural solidarity. While opponents of slavery repeatedly asked Americans, \"Could you really turn a runaway slave from your door without providing any assistance?\" supporters of slavery essentially shifted the question from the threshold of the home to the domestic social space itself, asking, \"Could you really sit down at the table, as a social equal, with the African, whether slave or free?\" Contrasting the two sides of this national debate over the Fugitive Slave Law exposes the stark logic and subtle cultural meanings behind antebellum southerners' claims of being a uniquely hospitable people. It also exposes why so many nonsoutherners in this period found the discourse of southern hospitality so appealing: as a form of persuasion, it allowed them to imagine amicable social and political relationships with white southerners in the face of sectional tensions over the Compromise of 1850, all at the expense of black claims of freedom and equality. While historians and literary scholars have written extensively on the compromise and the Fugitive Slave Law, it has not been considered through the ethical lens of hospitality, a perspective that was lived and felt by many antebellum Americans, as my previous chapter indicated.\n\n### Hospitality as \"Higher Law\": Antislavery Response to the Fugitive Slave Law\n\nWhile Americans in the antebellum period negotiated among a variety of competing and often contradictory discourses of hospitality, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 suddenly cast the subject of hospitality in a new light, prodding them to fully confront, perhaps as never before, the implications of hospitality as both an ethical ideal and a subject of legal, political, and moral conflict. In the debate over the Fugitive Slave Law, Americans were repeatedly confronted with arguments portraying hospitality as a higher law beyond social, institutional, or governmental law, a tendency that emerged early in the debate, before the Fugitive Slave Law was even passed. In his famous \"Higher Law\" speech delivered during the Senate debate over the compromise bill, New York senator William Seward, commenting on the pending provisions of the new Fugitive Slave Law, pointedly remarked, \"Your constitution and laws convert hospitality to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime, but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue.\" According to Seward, the new rendition provisions were a violation of both the \"law of nations\" and \"the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen.\" He believed that the law would be doomed to fail, for it was such an affront to the \"moral convictions\" of citizens that they would find it impossible to obey. As he famously concluded later in his address, \"There is a higher law than the Constitution.\"\n\nDespite Seward's objections, many Americans initially welcomed the 1850 compromise. They hoped that it would end once and for all decades of sectional agitation and conflict over slavery. Such hope proved utterly chimerical, as moral anxiety and agitation over the provisions of the new Fugitive Slave Law quickly reached a fever pitch, galvanizing the abolitionist movement. Historians have noted that this law provided abolitionists with a new avenue for propaganda against slavery. While this may be the case, it also allowed them to confront Americans with profound ethical questions regarding American democratic identity. References to the Fugitive Slave Law\u2014in articles, poems, letters, and editorials\u2014pervaded the pages of the _Liberator_ throughout 1850 and the years that immediately followed. Throughout this anti\u2013Fugitive Slave Law discourse, extending hospitality to the fugitive slave was portrayed foremost as the fulfillment of a basic Christian principle and, more subtly, as the fulfillment of a more democratic, inclusive republic; again and again, readers were essentially posed the question that concludes the poem, \"The Fugitive Slave to the Christian\":\n\nI seek a home where man is man,\n\nIf such there be upon this earth,\n\nTo draw my kindred, if I can,\n\nAround its free, though humble hearth.\n\nThe hounds are baying on my track!\n\nO Christian! will you send me back?\n\nThe poem, published in the _Liberator_ , trades on the Christian imperative of hospitality\u2014directly appealing to the reader as a Christian\u2014but it also subtly pushes the traditional boundaries of American identity: the \"home where man is man\" implies, on the one hand, the homes of individual readers who share this Christian belief and, on the other hand, the domestic space of a nation founded on the principle that \"all men are created equal.\" As potential recipients of hospitality, runaway slaves become potential compatriots in the American domestic household.\n\n_Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law_ (figure 11), a political broadside by Theodor Kaufman printed in 1850, makes this connection between biblical imperative and American dream more explicit. In the illustration, four runaways in the foreground are being shot in the back as they emerge from a cornfield. Two are succumbing to bullet wounds, while the others recoil in horror. In the background stands a party of well-dressed men preparing to fire another round. At the bottom of the cartoon, on either side of the title, are two quotes, one from the Bible and one from the Declaration of Independence. The biblical quote is from Deuteronomy (23:15\u201316): \"Thou shalt not deliver unto the master his servant which has escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee. Even among you in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best. Thou shalt not oppress him.\" The second quote reads, \"We hold that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.\" The juxtaposed quotes characterize the Fugitive Slave Law as a violation of both the Bible and the Declaration, but the use of the latter implies that African slaves should be assimilated into the American body politic as free and equal citizens.\n\nFIGURE 11. _Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law_ , political broadside by Theodor Kaufman, 1850. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nThe Fugitive Slave Law also prompted Americans to simultaneously think about the threshold of their own domestic spaces in legal, political, moral, and ethical terms. Particularly for many women involved in the abolitionist cause, the plight of the fugitive transformed their own feminine and domestic identities into an avenue of special authority: the domestic space of the household was suddenly a political space as a potential asylum for the oppressed. Indeed, the family's domestic space and the individual's conviction that it would be open to any fugitive slave in need could be imagined as the only stay against the juggernaut of American slavery, as may be gleaned from the cover illustration of the _Liberty Almanac for 1852_ (figure 12). The illustration, which the almanac advertised could also be purchased and proclaimed \"should be hung up in every place of public resort, and be in the possession of every family in the country,\" is a damning allegory of the \"iniquitous Fugitive Slave Law.\" The caption reads \"NO HIGHER LAW,\" and the illustration is dominated by a figure who, according to the almanac's detailed interpretation, is \"the personification of AMERICAN SLAVERY\": a tyrant seated upon his throne, holding aloft a whip and shackle in his right hand, while before him a minister and a senator (the second figure from the right is clearly Daniel Webster) stand ready to do his bidding. Behind the senator \"stands a figure representing Liberty . . . with a desponding expression,\" and further in the background, the Statue of Liberty falls from its pedestal. In the left foreground, a runaway slave struggles against a pack of slave catcher's dogs as his wife and children escape in the distance. The _only_ countervailing element in this picture is in the upper left corner : before a modest-looking home, a woman extends her arms in a gesture of welcome to the mother and two children, providing \"an asylum in her dwelling.\" The image suggests that the only way to circumvent the perverse and destructive power of the Fugitive Slave Law is for individual households to act in accordance with the higher law of hospitality by providing a safe haven to fugitives. The allegorical illustration appeals to a range of ideals: patriotism, Christian principles, the sanctity of family and domestic space, and the higher moral imperative of hospitality. It also contends that actions that occur in individual, gendered, domestic spaces could in fact disrupt the unjust authoritative laws of the national domestic space.\n\nIf the crisis over the new law galvanized abolitionists, it also forced moderate Americans to reexamine their assumptions regarding slavery. Prior to the passage of the law, moderates on the slavery issue might be against the idea of slavery in an abstract sense or lament its existence from a safe distance without having to commit themselves to its abolition. Now, however, every American home was essentially touched by slavery, as the national law superseded the right of the host to govern the threshold of his or her domestic space. To many, it seemed that slavery had suddenly become the law of the North as well as the South. As Ralph Waldo Emerson reflected, \"I have lived all my life without suffering any known inconvenience from American Slavery. I never saw it; I never heard the whip; I never felt the check on my free speech and action, until the other day, when Mr. Webster, by his personal influence, brought the Fugitive Slave Law on the country.\"\n\nNow Americans were faced with the very real question of whether they would obey a law that many found to be utterly repugnant to their moral and ethical sensibilities: could they turn someone in need away from their door? As Gregg D. Crane explains, the Fugitive Slave Law \"created a searing moral crisis for Northerners imagining the moment when the shivering fugitive might appear at their door seeking comfort and aid. . . . That the barest sketch of the decent citizen forbidden by law from aiding the shivering fugitive could so powerfully reveal the moral nullity of the Fugitive Slave Law, in effect, created a special role for the literary rendering of this jurisprudential crisis.\" Such literary renderings of the plight of the fugitive slave appear well beyond the radical abolitionist press, surfacing in everything from poems to sermons to novels, and these representations created bonds of community and common purpose among the growing number of antislavery Americans. For example, Walt Whitman included the following brief, though pointed, vignette in his first edition of _Leaves of Grass_ (1855) in the poem that came to be known as \"Song of Myself\":\n\nFIGURE 12. \"No Higher Law,\" _Liberty Almanac for_ 1852 (published by the American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1851).  \nCourtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nThe runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,\n\nI heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,\n\nThrough the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsey and weak,\n\nAnd went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,\n\nAnd brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,\n\nAnd gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,\n\nAnd remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,\n\nAnd remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;\n\nHe staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,\n\nI had him sit next me at table . . . my firelock leaned in the corner.\n\nThe passage suggests that the narrator holds a liberal position as an opponent of the Fugitive Slave Law. He is already a lawbreaker for taking in the runaway, and the rifle in the corner indicates his willingness to defend the runaway\u2014with deadly force if necessary\u2014against his pursuers. What is more striking, though, is Whitman's emphasis on the physical intimacy established between the white speaker and the black fugitive. Whitman highlights the bodily contact involved in bathing and dressing wounds, and the social intimacy of dining at the same table and sleeping in adjoining rooms, not for a night but for a week. Such a suggestion of intimacy would have pushed the boundaries of the imagination for many of Whitman's readers, but this is precisely the goal of much of the discourse protesting the Fugitive Slave Law : to provoke readers to consider that runaway slaves are worthy recipients of hospitality, both in their individual households and, by extension, in the broader domestic space of the nation. With their recurring themes of simple, humble Christian hospitality offered to the slave, these antirendition narratives and images offered a meaningful counterdiscourse to prevailing images of southern hospitality, wherein slaves featured as mere accoutrements to hospitable exchanges among white Americans. In the antirendition literature, the case is made again and again that fugitive slaves are appropriate _subjects_ of white Americans' hospitality, prompting them to consider the possibility of a racially integrated national household.\n\nCharles Beecher's 1851 sermon titled \"The Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws: A Sermon on the Fugitive Slave Law,\" for example, figuratively places a fugitive slave at the door of every member of his congregation, creating a melodramatic scene designed to maximize the contradiction between the law of the land and the law of God. Beecher relies heavily on the power of sentiment as he attempts to conjure up the palpable image of a fugitive slave and place her before his audience and readers. He asks his congregants to imagine themselves in the comfort of their own warm homes during a driving, nighttime blizzard. Moreover, he asks them to imagine that it is \"a Sabbath evening\" and they \"have just come from the communion table, with the taste of the bread and the touch of the wine upon [their] lips. The memory of Jesus thrills yet within [their] soul[s].\" At this moment of comfort and moral certitude, Beecher asks his congregation to further imagine \"a faint low cry,\" a \"faint footstep,\" \"a timid hand\" knocking at the door, and this figure standing at the threshold: \"Feeble with hunger, ragged, with naked feet, pressing to her bosom a pining infant, a mother totters before you, just sinking to the earth. 'For the love of Jesus,' she cries, 'grant me a hiding place from my pursuers! Grant me a morsel of food! Save me, save my child, from a fate worse than death!'\"\n\nAs is often the case in texts arguing against the Fugitive Slave Law, Beecher goes on to use a variety of descriptive and rhetorical strategies to diminish the distance between black slaves and free white citizens, pointing out that the runaway slave in this case is a fellow Christian who has likewise \"tasted the sacred bread and wine\" and is likewise an \"heir of heaven.\" Moreover, she flees \"from a master and from a system that would sink her to the depths of shame and licentious degradation.\" Having emotionally pulled his listeners in with this melodramatic scene, Beecher concisely reminds the congregation what obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law requires: \"You must shut your door in her face, or you must take her captive, and shut her up until the hounds of officers can come up.\" He employs repetition to rhetorically embody the relentless power of the Fugitive Slave Law as it undermines all aspects of Christian hospitality and charity:\n\nThis is obedience; and if you do not do this you are a law-breaker. If you give her a crust of bread, you break the law. If you give her a shawl, a cloak; if you let her warm herself by your fire an hour, and depart, you break the law. If you give her a night's rest, and let her go, you break the law. If you show her any kindness, any mercy, if you treat her as Christ treated you, if you do to her as you would wish to be done by, you have broken the law.\n\nGiven the demands of hospitality among fellow Christians, Beecher preaches no patience for gradual change through legislative means; instead, he urges his congregation to acts of civil disobedience, to break the law the first chance they get: \"In conclusion, therefore, my application of the subject is\u2014DISOBEY THIS LAW. If you have ever dreamed of obeying it, repent before God, and ask his forgiveness. I counsel no violence. . . . I speak as the minister of the Prince of Peace. . . . But if a fugitive claim your help on his journey, break the law and give it to him. . . . Feed him, clothe him, harbor him, by day and by night, and conceal him from his pursuers, and from the officers of the law.\"\n\nKazlitt Arvine challenged his congregation in a more elaborate manner in his sermon titled \"Our Duty to the Fugitive Slave.\" For example, instead of simply placing the fugitive slave at his audience's door, at one point he creates a complex scenario that places the members of his congregation in the position of the fugitive slaves themselves, as white settlers fleeing Indians who have taken them captive. Like Beecher, Arvine reminds his audience that many slaves are \"our Christian brethren.\" But he goes even further, asserting that the fugitive slave is more than just a fellow Christian; he is Christ himself: \"It is Jesus Christ, in the person of that poor disciple, that appeals to you for aid. Though he be the 'least' of all Christ's 'brethren,' though ignorance degrades and want afflicts him, and though frightful scars may seam his coarse, dark visage, yet he is loved by God.\" Arvine appeals to his listeners to look at the crisis over the Fugitive Slave Law as a unique opportunity to show one's love for Jesus Christ, and to carry out the simple dictates of the Gospels. Conversely, he warns that shutting the door on the runaway slave would be shutting the door on the \"Saviour himself.\"\n\nThe most famous literary rendering of the fugitive slave's plight is, of course, Harriet Beecher Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , published in 1852. Even as Congress was preparing to pass the law in August 1850, Stowe published \"The Freeman's Dream\" in the _National Era_. Subtitled \"A Parable,\" this short sketch describes a prosperous, \"thankful\" farmer who is suddenly faced with the dilemma of choosing between human law and higher law. He turns away a family of struggling fugitive slaves, only to see them captured shortly thereafter. Following the scene, he has an apocalyptic dream in which he himself is turned away from the gates of heaven on judgment day: \"An awful voice pierced his soul, saying 'depart from me ye accursed! For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.'\" Here the image of the family of fugitive slaves appears before the farmer, upon which the farmer awakens, \"terrified\" over the state of his soul. Stowe concludes by chastising those who \"seem to think that there is no standard of right and wrong higher than an act of Congress\"; she reminds readers that God's laws \"are above human laws which come in conflict with them; and that though heaven and earth pass away, His word shall not pass away.\" Stowe develops this idea in much greater detail in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Gregg Crane concisely describes Stowe's purpose in writing the novel: to \"place a fugitive at the door of every reader, challenging the reader to choose between lower and higher law.\"\n\nStowe most pointedly illustrates this conflict between human law and higher law in the ninth chapter, particularly in the argument between Senator John Bird and his wife, Mary. The senator has returned home from the state capital, where he has recently helped pass legislation supporting the Fugitive Slave Law. He desires \"a little comfort at home\" following the \"tiresome business\" of \"legislating,\" but he suddenly finds himself in an argument with his wife, who is upset by news of the law's passage and mortified by her husband's role in passing it. As the argument reaches an impasse between John's appeals to \"great public interests\" and Mary's appeal to the higher law of Christian hospitality, she finally demands, \"I put it to you, John,\u2014would _you_ now turn away a poor, shivering, hungry creature from your door, because he was a runaway? _Would_ you, now?\" When John answers that he would, even though it would be \"a very painful duty,\" Mary claims that she knows his heart better than he knows himself: \"I know _you_ well enough John. You don't believe it's right any more than I do; and you wouldn't do it any sooner than I.\"\n\nRemarkably, the senator has a chance to follow through on this \"painful duty\" that very night, when the runaway slave Eliza shows up, with her child, at the Birds' door, following her harrowing journey across the icy Ohio River. Faced with the living presence of the fugitive, the senator finds that he must follow his heart and the higher law of hospitality. He breaks the Fugitive Slave Law that he had helped to author. The senator encourages his wife to provide Eliza and her child with clothing, including garments worn by the Birds' recently deceased son. While the sudden visit of the fugitive immediately following the couple's debate may seem to be pushing the boundaries of verisimilitude, it in fact seems drawn from an incident in Stowe's own life, which she described in a letter to her sister Catharine Beecher. In the letter, written not long after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Stowe recounts an argument she had with her neighbor, the Reverend Thomas Upham, who counseled obedience to the law. Stowe describes it as \"that sort of an argument that consists in both sides saying over & over just what they said before.\" Frustrated by the impasse, Stowe finally asked Upham the very question that Mary Bird puts to her husband, would he obey the law if a fugitive appeared at his door? To this, the reverend's wife \"laughed\" while the reverend \"hemmed and hawed,\" but according to Stowe, the Uphams' young daughter burst out, 'I wouldn't I know.'\" The very next day, Reverend Upham's hospitality would in fact be tested by the visit of a fugitive slave, and like Senator Bird in the novel, he would choose to abide by the higher law of hospitality rather than by the law of men that forbade it.\n\nThe Upham anecdote from Stowe's life, like the chapter from the novel, illustrates William Seward's contention that there would be \"no public conscience\" to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law in practice. As Senator Bird finds himself taking an increasingly active role in Eliza's escape, Stowe offers a final reflection on the conflict between political duty and the higher law of hospitality, and in doing so, she engages her potential southern readers as well:\n\nAnd so, as our poor senator was not stone or steel,\u2014as he was a man, and a downright noble-hearted one, too,\u2014he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case for his patriotism. And you need not exult over him, good brother of the Southern States; for we have some inklings that many of you, under similar circumstances, would not do much better. We have reason to know, in Kentucky, as in Mississippi, are noble and generous hearts, to whom never was tale of suffering told in vain. Ah, good brother! Is it fair for you to expect of us services which your own brave, honorable heart would not allow you to render, were you in our place?\n\nStowe's emotional appeal here is especially effective due to the central place hospitality holds in the overlapping antebellum discourses of domesticity and Christianity, but in her direct appeal to her southern readers, she also subtly engages the discourse of southern hospitality as well, using the South's proud reputation for hospitality to her advantage. Her closing appeal turns on the Golden Rule of loving your neighbor as yourself: she essentially asks southerners, would you want your right to exercise your famous hospitality to be infringed upon or compromised in any way? Would you be able to turn away a stranger in need if the law forbade it? Rather than putting the hypothetical southern reader in the position of the supplicant fugitive, she focuses the attention on the rights of the host. Southerners accused northerners of violating the Golden Rule by not respecting slave owners' rights to property, and Stowe here cleverly counters that southerners are violating the Golden Rule by not allowing northerners to exercise the sacred right of hospitality.\n\n### \"I Dwell among Mine Own People\":  \nSouthern Hospitality and Transregional White Identity\n\nDespite Stowe's appeals to southern readers, anti- and pro-slavery advocates generally operated under different assumptions when it came to the question of hospitality. If abolitionists and antirenditionists sought to persuade people that slaves were their Christian neighbors, pro-slavery and pro-rendition writers sought to persuade them that their true allegiance was with the white southern slave owner, and that runaway slaves were ultimately unworthy of their hospitality. For example, sermons that supported and counseled obedience to the Fugitive Slave Law (there were many) tended to avoid the plight of the slave altogether, instead emphasizing the unique political compact that existed between northerners and southerners, one that resulted in a sacred community of shared racial, political, and cultural heritage. For example, in a sermon delivered in New York on Thanksgiving Day, 1851, a year after the Fugitive Slave Law had been enacted, John C. Lord begins with a passage from Matthew (including, \"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God, the things that are God's\"), and goes on to depict the Constitution as ordained by God, a covenant that binds northerners and southerners together as brethren. Lord gives thanks for the legislative compromise that contained the Fugitive Slave Law, which he says has led to \"the preservation of public tranquility, the adjustment of sectional difficulties, and the continuance of the bonds of [the] union, amid excitements which threatened its integrity.\" In his conclusion, he again notes the shared communal heritage and values of northerners and southerners: \"I would appeal to the North and the South, by their common ancestry, by the august memories of the revolutionary struggle, by the bones of their fathers which lie mingled together . . . by the farewell counsels of the immortal Washington, to lay aside their animosities and to remember that they are brethren. I would remind them that the Union has given us blessings which we enjoy . . . [and] I would warn them of that abyss of ruin which fanaticism and treason are opening beneath them.\" Like many other pro-rendition sermons of the period, as Lord appeals to patriotic duty and the sanctity of the union, he also portrays those who would disobey the law and take in the fugitive slave as fanatics with misplaced allegiances. This emphasis on a shared community of northerners and southerners is perhaps what prompted the Reverend Jonathan Stearns to base his pro-rendition sermon not on any of the numerous biblical passages dealing with slavery, but on 2 Kings 4:13: \"I dwell among mine own people\" (King James Version).\n\nIn this same vein many Americans, North and South, invoked the discourse of southern hospitality during the crisis over the Fugitive Slave Law. They imagined southern hospitality to be a social practice that could cement the fraternal bonds between the North and the South. Just as literary renderings of the supplicant fugitive slave could mobilize Americans to favor abolition, renderings of gracious southern hospitality could rally them to defend slavery. Southern hospitality provided a way of reminding white Americans where their allegiances ought to lie. Even if one couldn't travel to the South and experience the hospitality of southerners firsthand, one could still read about it and imagine a national community based on the bonds of social manners and graces and on a shared racial and cultural heritage. Several of the pro-slavery texts written in the 1850s in response to the Fugitive Slave Law and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ provide good examples of the persuasive nature of southern hospitality and the essential logic of its appeal. In contrast to the absolute ethics of hospitality articulated in the antislavery texts just discussed, these pro-slavery texts express a politics of hospitality and a desire for exclusionary, discriminating boundaries that preserve hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Accordingly, these pro-southern texts emphasized characteristics such as gentility, refinement, benevolence, and civility; they portrayed abolitionists as ill-mannered, discourteous fanatics whose open-door policies toward fugitive slaves would inevitably lead to chaos in the form of racial amalgamation.\n\nMartha Haines Butt's 1853 novel, _Anti-Fanaticism: A Tale of the South_ , for example, sets out to correct the false impressions of the South created by \"Mrs. Stowe and other fanatics,\" as she explains in the novel's preface, where she describes the \"warm sympathy, glowing hospitality, and . . . generous welcome, which makes the visitor at once feel at home under a Southern roof, and which assures him that the bosom warmed by such feelings cannot be the resting-place of cruelty and oppression.\" To accentuate this point, the author in the first chapter\u2014titled \"Southern Hospitality\"\u2014creates an imagined encounter between a northern stranger, Mr. I\u2014\u2014, and a wealthy southern planter. Other than introducing the southern planter as one of the main characters, the chapter has little to do with the rest of the novel's action. It does, however, establish the main motif expressed in the chapter's title: if northerners could visit the South and experience its hospitality, they would come to a true and just appreciation of the southern way of life. In the scene a wealthy planter encounters a traveler from the North. Sensing the traveler's weariness and knowing there is no inn nearby, he invites the stranger to spend the night at his plantation mansion. The northern traveler also happens to be an abolitionist, but the exchange forces him to reflect on his misapprehensions regarding the character of southerners: \"He felt deeply the kindness and hospitality of the South, and could not refrain from contrasting it with his northern home. 'Who,' thought he, 'would be kind enough at the North to invite a stranger, one of whom he knew nothing, to share his home?'\" Ironically, many northerners were indeed opening their doors to complete strangers in the forms of runaway slaves, but as I illustrate below, southerners would not consider that a form of hospitality. In any case, the brief stay with the planter here quickly provides the stranger with concrete evidence of the blessings offered by the benevolent system of slavery: happy slaves serenading the master, a lavish meal prepared and served by slaves that featured \"every delicacy the heart could wish,\" and a conversation with a contented house slave named Rufus, who scoffs at the idea of freedom in a dialect that makes him seem an absolute alien to the refined world of the white characters and readers: \"'Caze den nobody would care for Rufus den\u2014and when I be sick, no missus would be dar to tend poor Rufus. No! no! massa, me neber leab de souf in de world!\" The northerner is forced to conclude \"that the slaves at the South were certainly far happier than they had been represented to be.\"\n\nHaving received the hospitality of the South, the traveler from the North later feels obligated to reciprocate the gift, specifically by defending slavery when he finds himself in a stagecoach full of northern abolitionists, telling them that the southerners \"have only proved to [him], by their hospitality, and kind treatment to their slaves, that [he] was laboring under a wrong impression altogether.\" Though this is a fantastically simple scene, it nonetheless illustrates the persuasive logic of southern hospitality from a southern point of view. Part of Butt's goal is to encourage southerners to entertain northerners with their proverbial southern hospitality and thereby sway public opinion in favor of the South. Many northerners did travel South\u2014often for reasons of health\u2014and many of them did in fact return to the North extolling the system of slavery in a manner that makes Mr. I\u2014\u2014's conversion seem, if not realistic, then at least plausible.\n\nAbolitionists both derided and feared this persuasive power of southern hospitality and often felt compelled to attack it directly. The Reverend Philo Tower, for example, devotes an entire chapter in his 1856 book _Slavery Unmasked_ to the phenomenon of northerners traveling south and being entertained by southerners. After arguing that the southern planters' penchant for hospitality is essentially selfish\u2014the necessary consequence of a life of leisure and boredom\u2014Tower offers a detailed analysis of the mixed motives and mutually beneficial exchanges between southern planters and northern tourists, whether they be \"invalids,\" \"pleasure seekers,\" or \"business men.\" Masters offer their gracious hospitality to northern visitors, and these tourists, \"on arriving North, . . . make a good plea for the _dark institution_ by way of extolling the hospitality of the Masters.\" These visitors, according to Tower, see only those scenes that the planters want them to see, and he concludes that the planters' expenditures on hospitality are simply a calculated investment, one that brings many \"good returns\" in the form of political allegiances on the slavery question. One of the northerners whom Tower singles out for attack is the Reverend Nehemiah Adams, author of a travel narrative titled _A South-Side View of Slavery; or, Three Months at the South_ , a conciliatory and decidedly pro-southern justification of slavery. Adams was a leading Congregationalist minister in Boston and, for much of his career, a professed opponent of slavery. In 1853, however, he traveled for three months to Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia for his health and, while there, he began writing what would become _A South-Side View_.\n\nBut for those who could not travel South, written accounts of the South and slavery\u2014particularly fiction and travel writing\u2014could provide positive images for northerners to consider, and many texts written about the South in this period often dwell in great detail on moments of interregional hospitality, as seen in the opening passages from _Anti-Fanaticism_ cited above. Such domestic scenes of hospitality\u2014of families, friends, and visitors around the table or the hearth\u2014may do little to advance the plot, but they do create recognizable spaces for like-minded Americans to imagine their own social and cultural engagement with the South, southerners, and slavery. For example, fully half of the eighth chapter in Mary Henderson Eastman's _Aunt Phillis's Cabin; or, Southern Life as It Is_ , is devoted to a detailed description of a dinner party at the plantation mansion of Exeter. Eastman's novel was written as a direct response to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and was published by Philadelphiabased Lippincott, Grambo & Co., which published many pro-slavery texts, including the novel _Anti-Fanaticism_. Eastman's dinner-party scene includes guests from the North and England, a situation that provides opportunities for outside perspectives on slavery to be expressed and, if needed, corrected.\n\nThis dinner-party scene is a set piece designed to emphasize white communal bonds, particularly by pointing to the country's shared history of white cultural elevation and refinement alongside black slavery. From Eastman's perspective, the spirit of the founding fathers lives on in slavery. She opens her scene by describing in detail the conscientious efforts of the two slave waiters, Mark and Bacchus, as they prepare the sideboard and tables and create the appropriate atmosphere for the host and his guests. As the meal progresses, the reader is exposed to different conversations from around the table: gentlemen discuss the founding fathers and the current state of affairs in America, an elderly southern lady offers personal reminiscences of General Washington, and this anecdote in turn results in a series of toasts to the father of the country. Immediately following these patriotic toasts, the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law is brought up by one of the southerners, who puts the subject before a guest from the North, Mr. Perkins (\"as you are not an Abolitionist, I suppose it will not be uncourteous to discuss the subject before you\"). The southerner reminds Mr. Perkins of New England's own slaveholding past, which prompts some amiable joking about the probable severity of Puritan slave owners. Other threads of conversation follow, including discussions comparing the treatment of Irish laborers and free blacks in the North and comparing the plight of English factory workers to that of southern slaves, a recurring trope in pro-slavery literature of the period. One of the guests concludes, \"If I must see slavery, let me see it in its best form, as it exists in our southern country.\" Mr. Perkins, the resident of Connecticut (and a stand-in for the northern reader), agrees, noting: \"I am glad I am not a slave-holder, for . . . I should be knocking brains out from morning till night, that is if there are brains under all that mass of wool. Why, they are so slow, and inactive\u2014I should be stumbling over them all the time; though from the specimens I have seen in your house, sir, I should say they made most agreeable servants.\"\n\nIn this hospitable exchange of opinions, Eastman makes it acceptable for northerners to express their antipathy toward blacks, which is, for her and her ideal reader, the appropriate response. When Mr. Perkins goes on to express some misconceptions about the role of the overseer on the plantation, one of the southerners in attendance suggests an extended stay in the South, and the experience of a unique brand of southern hospitality, as a means of correcting his views: \"Stay a little while with us. . . . You will not find us so bad as you think. We may roast a negro now and then, when we have a barbecue, but that will be our way of showing you hospitality. You must remember we are only 'poor heathenish Southerners,' according to the best received opinions of some who live with you in New England.\" Eastman here directly engages the attacks of abolitionists who reported that slave punishments included such atrocities as being burned alive. For example, Theodore Dwight Weld's _American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses_ includes several such accounts, and some of these incidents can be verified through other historical sources. Eastman's dialogue, however, transforms such charges of barbarism into the fantasies of fanatical abolitionists. These charges now also become fodder for jokes at a dinner table by people in the know, including the northern and English guests. Perkins, the northerner, has admitted his own violent disgust toward blacks, and he can now join the company in laughing over the humorous idea of roasting a slave alive as an act of southern hospitality. Like the traveler from the North in _Anti-Fanaticism_ , Mr. Perkins is being converted to the right attitudes on slavery through the social practices of southern hospitality, and presumably, some of Eastman's readers are also being convinced by this literary rendering of the South's unique tradition of hospitality.\n\nLike Eastman's novel, Caroline Lee Hentz's 1854 novel, _The Planter's Northern Bride_ , was written as a direct response to Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Hentz's novel details the budding romance between Eulalia Hastings, a simple and chaste village maiden from New England who happens to be the daughter of a firebrand abolitionist, and Russell Moreland, an aristocratic southern planter who is traveling in the North as he tries to recover from the emotional pain inflicted upon him by his first wife, the bewitching, exotic, and inconstant Claudia. Eula and Moreland must overcome her father's prejudices in order to pursue their romance in marriage, but even after they succeed, they will face new challenges in the South, particularly at the hands of the novel's villains, Claudia and Brainard. In contrasting this pro-slavery novel with Stowe's text, it is worth keeping in mind that they were all aimed at roughly the same audience: white, middle- and upper-class Americans, especially women. A close reading of Hentz's novel and its representations of hospitality provides a more thorough and subtle picture of the nature of southern hospitality's appeal in antebellum America. While Stowe's novel assumes an ethics of hospitality that welcomes all equally, Hentz's book advocates a restrictive politics of hospitality emphasizing natural refinement and privilege to create a transregional feminine identity based on a hierarchy of supposedly natural racial _and_ class identities. Hentz's novel exposes the decidedly antidemocratic and exclusionary sensibilities that motivated the discourse of southern hospitality in the antebellum period. The numerous rites, exchanges, and violations of hospitality described in the novel form a particularly meaningful subtext, helping to define characters' moral identities for Hentz's contemporary readers and creating the climactic crisis of the novel's plot.\n\nEarly in the novel, for example, when we first hear of the heroine's abolitionist father, Squire Hastings, we are informed of his inappropriate practice of extending hospitality across the color line, particularly to a fugitive slave. Moreland, the ideal southern gentleman and plantation owner, is visiting the North, where he immediately falls in love with the pure, angelic Eulalia Hastings after seeing her in church. He inquires about her and her family and is disappointed to hear of her father's prejudices against the South and slaveholders. He is warned by his friend, a local architect, \"You must not feel slighted if he invites your . . . slave . . . to come and break bread with him, without extending towards you the rites of hospitality.\" Moreland is incredulous at the thought but is told of a past incident in which Hastings took in a runaway slave, which his informant describes as \"one of the most repulsive objects I ever saw, \u2014gigantic in stature, black as ebony, with coarse and brutal features, and manners corresponding to his appearance\" (41). Yet Hastings, we are told, \"gave him a seat in his carriage, brought him home, introduced him to his family, gave him a seat at table between his wife and eldest daughter, put him in the best bedroom, and appeared to feel himself honoured by having such a guest\" (41). The thought of such liberal hospitality is repugnant to Hentz, and presumably to her implied readers as well, who are meant to identify with Eula Hastings, the novel's heroine. Pondering the incident, Moreland asks, \"'But Miss Hastings, surely this must have been very repugnant to her feelings; she could not willingly submit to such an infliction.' He said this with a shudder of inexpressible loathing, as he looked on the delicate, graceful figure walking before him, and imagined it placed in such close juxtaposition with the rough, gigantic negro\" (41). For Hentz, such liberal experiments are doomed to failure: we are further informed that Eula \"happened to fall sick immediately after his arrival.\" Shortly thereafter, the runaway slave became \"insolent\" and unruly, so much so that \"his host was at last compelled to turn him out of the house. Since then, he has had a double bolt fastened to his doors; and his dreams . . . are haunted by black spectres, armed and equipped for murder and robbery\" (42). Later in the novel, Moreland and Hastings discuss this very incident, with Moreland admonishing Hastings, \"I have heard the history of your hospitality to that vagabond. . . . I am sorry your hospitality was degraded so low. I do not wonder that Eulalia shrunk with horror . . . that her intuitive delicacy and purity felt the contamination and withered under its influence\" (165). According to Moreland's\u2014and Hentz's\u2014perspective, racial antipathy is natural, and one's hospitality can be \"degraded\" if given too freely or to the wrong people. In this case, a fugitive slave is the worst possible recipient of one's charity or hospitality. As discussed in chapter 2, etiquette and advice literature of the antebellum period often cautioned readers to be wary of the figure of the duplicitous beggar. Americans were warned that providing support for such unworthy poor would do more harm than good. In this passage, Hentz transforms the figure of the fugitive slave into just such a duplicitous beggar. Hastings mistakenly takes in this unworthy supplicant and pays the price. The fugitive's transformation into an insolent and unruly guest fills Hastings with nightmarish dread and causes his pure, delicate daughter to whither away under the specter of miscegenation. The novel warns that fugitive slaves will become parasitical guests who overstay their welcome and create a growing burden for their hosts, a subtle caution to Americans concerned about the possibility of slavery's abolition and the consequent reality of having to absorb a population of former slaves into the social and economic order.\n\nIn addition to trading on fears regarding racial amalgamation, Hentz's novel also speaks to contemporary fears concerning class fluidity, both of which are expressed through the novel's politics of hospitality. The two villains in the novel\u2014Moreland's first wife, Claudia, and Brainard, the itinerant preacher taken in by Moreland who turns out to be an abolitionist conspirator\u2014violate the laws of hospitality as defined by Hentz, both by their actions and, perhaps more importantly, by their lower-class origins. Both of these characters violate social rites in ways that Hentz's readership would have easily recognized, but the author also implies that these social violations may be traced to their lower-class backgrounds. Claudia, we are told, was born of Italian parents who lived a \"gipsy life\" as \"itinerant minstrels\" (373). She is rescued by a wealthy southern matron who, pitying her, purchases her from her parents and raises her as a lady. Similarly, Brainard was born of \"obscure and indigent parents\" and was early on incarcerated for theft. A \"benevolent gentleman\" takes pity on him, rescues him, and gives him all the benefits of a more respectable upbringing, including a college education. Hentz makes it clear, however, that these characters cannot overcome their lowly origins. Reflecting on Claudia, Hentz asserts, \"Evil qualities, like physical diseases, are often hereditary, and descend, like the leprosy, a clinging, withering curse, ineradicable and incurable. The taint was in Claudia's blood. Education, precept and example kept down, for a while, her natural propensities, but when circumstances favoured their growth, they displayed a rankness and luxuriance that could proceed only from the strongest vitality. . . . Let the man who, infatuated by passion, is about to marry a woman taken originally from the dregs of social life, beware, lest he entail upon his offspring the awful judgment pronounced by a jealous God\" (377). Hentz offers a similar assessment of Brainard. He is given the advantages of a stable upbringing and college education, \"but the dark spot, for a time concealed, but never effaced, began to spread\" (459). In short, the danger presented by both Claudia and Brainard is that they are not what they appear to be. While Brainard quite literally is in disguise as a preacher, the deeper implications surrounding both of these characters involve questions of class identity and upward mobility. Through the (misplaced) charitable acts of others, both of these characters have been provided ways of escaping the lowly class origins of their birth, but like Hastings's taking in the runaway slave, these charitable acts prove disastrous.\n\nThe message is quite clear : Hentz sees class distinctions as rigidly as she sees racial distinctions. There can be no equal social intercourse between blacks and whites or between the upper and the lower classes. Hentz's characterizations emphasize natural refinement and privilege in order to create a transregional feminine identity based on a hierarchy of supposedly natural racial _and_ class identities. As Hentz states elsewhere in the novel, \"God has not made all men equal. . . . Inequality is one of Nature's laws. . . . It . . . always will be felt, in spite of the dreams of the enthusiast or the efforts of the reformer\" (305). This desire to make fixed castes of more fluid classes is seen in the numerous comparative representations of northern laborers and southern slaves in the novel but perhaps most notably in the character of Betsy Jones, the Hastings family servant. Betsy, we are told, \"had none of the false pride which is often found in her class. She had no _ambition_ to put herself upon a perfect equality with her employers. She did not care about sitting down with them at meal time, nor did she disdain the summons of a tinkling bell. . . . She had a just appreciation of herself\" (66, emphasis in original). Betsy understands that her eternal role is to serve at the table, not to be served. Later, we are told that Betsy \"was an uncommon instance of unchanging devotion to one family, in the midst of general fluctuation. . . . It is not often you find, among Northern servants, one who remains, as she had done, a fixture in the household, identified with the best interests of the family, and participating heartily in all its joys and sorrows\" (548). How like a slave Betsy is, indeed, how like the paternalistic myth of the happy household of slavery transplanted to a northern setting! Advice literature of the day often lamented the difficulties women in the North faced in trying to find and keep reliable servants, and Hentz's portrayal of Betsy trades on the related fears and desires of her middle- and upper-class female readers. The novel suggests that every middle-class lady wants to be\u2014and should be\u2014an aristocratic lady, and that every American woman, North and South, would really rather have slaves than servants, or at least servants who acted like slaves. As we are told early in the novel, Eula's \"exquisite sense of refinement\" is rarely gratified in her New England village, but it is once she moves to her southern plantation home (56). Moreland provides Eula the life she deserves, and the slaves she deserves. She finally is given the appropriate environment in which to express her natural refinement. The rites of hospitality are a meaningful expression of this refinement, and considering the particular politics of southern hospitality advocated in Hentz's novel and in other pro-slavery texts, we begin to see that the degree to which the South boasted of its hospitality in the past was proportionate to the degree of subjugation existing in its social order.\n\nOverall, contrasting these anti- and pro-slavery responses to the controversy surrounding the Fugitive Slave Law shows that the discourse of southern hospitality provided southerners with a complex yet crucial way of imagining boundaries between foreigners or strangers from without (from whom the South often felt itself under attack) and the wholly other population of slaves that existed within (upon whose labor the aristocratic status of white southern planters depended and by whom they always felt threatened). In contrast to the progressive conceptions of hospitality articulated in antirendition texts, the politics of hospitality expressed in pro-slavery texts involve establishing and maintaining differences, as the discourse of hospitality and generosity effectively displaces the discourse of black rights as a way of maintaining the white, wealthy patriarchal order.\n\n### The Fugitives Respond: William Wells Brown and Frederick  \nDouglass on Southern Hospitality and American Hostility\n\nFor most of its long history, the discourse of southern hospitality has functioned as just this sort of white exclusionary myth, produced by whites, directed to whites, and hostile to blacks (from subtly to blatantly so). The very persistence and proliferation of the myth in American culture indicates that throughout its long history, white Americans have generally been ready and willing consumers of this exclusionary racial message. In other words, the long persistence of the southern hospitality myth is to some extent a corollary of the broader persistence of American racism more generally. Writing in the wake of the national debate over the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, the African American abolitionists and activists Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown both offered critical interventions into the national debate over fugitive slaves and hospitality. Due to their notoriety as celebrated abolitionist activists who happened to also be fugitive slaves, both men were forced to travel abroad to be safe after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. Both authors wrote about these experiences overseas in texts published in 1855: Douglass's _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , which included significant revisions to and expansions of his original 1845 _Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave_ , and Brown's _The American Fugitive in Europe: Sketches of Places and People Abroad_ , which was a revised and expanded American edition of his 1852 travelogue, _Three Years in Europe_. While both Douglass and Brown echo the codified attacks on southern hospitality and the alternative themes of abolition hospitality discussed earlier, they also draw from their personal experiences traveling abroad to offer powerful attacks on American racism more generally. For both Brown and Douglass, southern hospitality was certainly a sham, but they also remind readers that the antebellum North was hardly a land of pervasive hospitality for free black Americans and would-be citizens.\n\nIn publishing these 1855 texts, both Douglass and Brown drew on and made revisions to earlier slave narratives they had published in 1845 and 1847, respectively. Some of these revisions confirm the degree to which antislavery response to southern hospitality had been codified by midcentury and also indicate the degree to which hospitality was a critical discourse in the debate over the Fugitive Slave Law. Both authors revised aspects of their earlier writings to foreground the question of both slaveholder and abolition hospitality in ways that their earlier narratives had not. In _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , for example, Douglass adds a new, extended description and analysis of southern hospitality as practiced on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, as well as a section on the religious hypocrisy of Master Auld's hospitality. These new sections that Douglass added to his 1855 text echo recognizable lines of abolitionist attacks that had become codified around southern hospitality in the decades of sectional conflict over slavery: he highlights the hypocrisy of slaveowner hospitality, underscores the slave labor and degradation that must pay for it (offering the perspective of the \"big house\" from the slave toiling in the field), and portrays southern hospitality as a propaganda tool. In contrast to Douglass's narrative, some of the revisions made in William Wells Brown's 1855 work also offer a corrective to the discourse of \"abolition hospitality.\" Brown celebrates the spirit of hospitality practiced by abolitionists in both his 1847 slave narrative and in his 1855 publication, _The American Fugitive in Europe_. In the latter text, however, he makes subtle yet meaningful changes to his narration of the hospitality exchange that resulted in his successful escape from slavery, and these changes work to alter the reader's perspective on the fugitive.\n\nThe theme of abolition hospitality figures prominently in Brown's 1847 narrative: a climactic moment in Brown's successful escape involves the hospitality he receives from the Quaker abolitionist Wells Brown, who takes the desperate fugitive in, provides for him, and sets him successfully on the path to freedom. This hospitality exchange is a formative moment in Brown's story: he consequently takes his host's name for his new identity as a free man and also dedicates his 1847 narrative to Wells Brown, invoking the biblical injunction to provide hospitality to those in need: \"THIRTEEN years ago, I came to your door, a weary fugitive from chains and stripes. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you fed me. Naked was I, and you clothed me. Even a name by which to be known among men, slavery had denied me.\" But if we compare the way the scene of Wells Brown's hospitality is told in the 1847 narrative with its narration in the 1855 text, we can see subtle but important changes that direct the reader toward a different interpretation of the fugitive slave. These changes reflect Brown's awareness that the discourse of hospitality, while pertinent to the plight of the fugitive slave, could potentially cloud the question of black rights, rendering fugitives only objects of pity and charity for the white reader rather than subjects worthy of respect, social equality, and full citizenship. For example, the tone and details of the 1847 narrative dwell much more on Brown's anxiety and awkwardness at finding himself sharing a social space with his white hosts, not unlike the depiction of the runaway slave in Whitman's \"Song of Myself\" (with \"his revolving eyes and his awkwardness\") mentioned earlier. Upon arriving at the Quaker's home, Brown emphasizes his timidity and embarrassment, noting, \"It was some time before I could be induced to enter it\"; he also explains, \"I was not . . . prepared to receive their hospitalities,\" for they were \"too kind\": \"I had never had a white man to treat me as an equal, and the idea of a white lady waiting on me at the table was still worse!\" Brown even adds a slight element of humor as he describes his uncertain response to being provided a strong herbal tea by his hostess, who happens to be a practitioner of the Thomsonian system of botanical remedies popular in antebellum America. Overall, these details and sentiments make the fugitive an appropriate case for charity, but in doing so, they also run the risk of increasing the distance between whites and blacks, making the black figure an object to be pitied more than respected.\n\nIn contrast, Brown in the 1855 edition of _The American Fugitive_ deleted all those lines just cited, as well as the element of humor. This, combined with the new third-person voice, results in a simpler, more direct treatment of the scene and arguably a more dignified representation of the black fugitive for the largely white readership to consider:\n\nHe soon found that he was under the shed of a Quaker, and a Quaker of the George Fox stamp. He had heard of Quakers and their kindness; but was not prepared to meet with such hospitality as now greeted him. He saw nothing but kind looks, and heard nothing but tender words. He began to feel the pulsations of a new existence. White men always scorned him, but now a white benevolent woman felt glad to wait on him; it was a revolution in his experience. The table was loaded with good things, but he could not eat. If he were allowed the privilege of sitting in the kitchen, he thought he could do justice to the viands. The surprise being over, his appetite soon returned.\n\n\"I have frequently been asked,\" says William, \"how I felt upon finding myself regarded as a man by a white family; especially having just run away from one. I cannot say that I have ever answered the question yet.\"\n\nThis revised scene downplays to some degree the sense of awkwardness and embarrassment in the 1847 narrative. While the earlier depiction of the slave's discomfort and social anxiety enhances the sense of white benevolence and charity for someone who may be perceived as a lesser being, the revised version makes it clearer that Brown deserves the equal treatment he is receiving as a natural right. Newly added phrases naturalize the sense of hospitality as an inherent right shared among equals rather than experienced as a gift bestowed by superiors; this is a \"new existence,\" but an inherently just existence, a social \"revolution\" of natural equality. The closing lines, when Brown is asked to reflect on white hospitality, indicate that this revolution is still unfinished. Overall, these revisions reflect Brown's awareness that a strain of paternalistic benevolence in white abolitionism could too easily find itself aligned with assumptions of essential racial inferiority. The discourse of hospitality can sometimes blur the discourse of rights with ideas of benevolence and charity that place the host above the guest, and abolition discourse on fugitive slaves could occasionally betray such tendencies; it could nonetheless be useful at key moments for garnering greater support for the antislavery cause. Still, a great conceptual distance exists between accepting a fugitive slave as an object of charity and benevolence and accepting a free black man as a social equal. Brown's revisions between the 1847 and 1855 texts attempt to shift the reader's response from the former to the latter.\n\nIndeed, in their 1855 narratives, both Brown and Douglass remind their readers that while the fugitive slave may be a worthy object of compassion, benevolence, and charity, the free black American is also worthy of respect and entitled to equal treatment in all spheres of American life: social, economic, religious, legal, and political. Most notably, both authors draw on their personal experiences traveling abroad to delineate sharp, critical contrasts between the hospitality they receive as \"foreigners\" abroad and the hostility and racism they face as perpetual strangers or aliens in their native land. Both authors experienced a level of freedom abroad that was new to them, particularly freedom from the racism so prevalent in American culture. Brown, for example, relished his time abroad, traveling thousands of miles across Europe and the British Isles, taking in cultural sites one associates with a \"grand tour,\" and hobnobbing with prominent diplomats, activists, artists, and reformers. He also delivered approximately one thousand public lectures in his five years overseas. As Ezra Greenspan puts it, the former slave Brown found this new sense of freedom\u2014unrestricted for the first time by American forms of color prejudice or racism\u2014\"thoroughly exhilarating.\" Indeed, Brown recounts how though he had originally felt himself a \"foreigner in a strange land\" upon arriving in England, five years of freedom and hospitable welcome had made him feel like \"an Englishman by habit, if not by birth.\" Consequently, Brown feels conflicted when the time comes to return to his \"native land,\" for he knows the racism and discriminatory practices that will greet him upon his return: \"My heart became sad at the thought of leaving all these dear friends, to return to a country in which I had spent some of the best days of my life as a slave, and where I knew that prejudice would greet me on my arrival.\" While Brown's narrative generally accords with the genteel, restrictive conventions of the travelogue genre to which _American Fugitive in Europe_ aligns itself\u2014a genre designed to give middle-class consumers a secondhand experience of cultural highlights and heritage\u2014his reflections on his return to America provide nothing less than a full frontal assault on not just slavery but American racism more broadly.\n\nNear the end of his narrative, as he reflects on his time in England, Brown describes his ability to travel and visit, unmolested, such notable sites as St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Temple Church, the British Museum and National Gallery, the Strand, and Piccadilly: \"In all these I had been treated as a man. The 'negro pew,' which I had seen in the churches of America, was not to be found in the churches of London. There, too, were my daughters. They who had been denied education upon equal terms with children of a fairer complexion, in the United States, had been received in the London schools upon terms of perfect equality.\" In contrast, Brown experiences the veil of race and racism almost as soon as he returns to America and makes a trip to Philadelphia. He complains bitterly of the \"Colorphobia\" that reigns supreme in the \"pro-slavery, negro-hating\" cities of New York and Philadelphia, and he further characterizes this racism as an \"unnatural\" and \"anti-christian prejudice.\" He narrates an incident that occurred in Philadelphia shortly after his return to America. Brown was with two companions from abroad\u2014foreigners in America\u2014and when the trio hailed an omnibus, Brown was gruffly informed, \"We don't allow niggers to ride in here.\" At the same time, his companions were offered seats. The incident lays bare the arbitrary logic of American hospitality and hostility: race governs the threshold, and whiteness is the passport to belonging. American racism overrides all other categories of identity and community, arbitrarily affording foreigners the privileges of citizens while simultaneously making aliens of native sons. Brown and his two foreign companions had traveled together from London to Liverpool and then across the Atlantic, but as Brown recounts:\n\nAs soon as we touch the soil of America we can no longer ride in the same conveyance, no longer eat at the same table, or be regarded with equal justice, by our thin-skinned democracy. During five years' residence in monarchical Europe I had enjoyed the rights allowed to all foreigners in the countries through which I passed; but on returning to my NATIVE LAND the influence of slavery meets me the first day that I am in the country. . . . I had partaken of the hospitality of noblemen in England. . . . I had eaten at the same table with Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Charles Dickens, Eliza Cook, Alfred Tennyson, and the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott; the omnibuses of Paris, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool, had stopped to take me up . . . \u2014but what mattered that? My face was not white, my hair was not straight; and, therefore, I must be excluded from a seat in a third-rate American omnibus. Slavery demanded that it should be so. I charge this prejudice to the pro-slavery pulpits of our land, which first set the example of proscription by erecting in their churches the \"negro pew.\" I charge it to that hypocritical profession of democracy which will welcome fugitives from other countries, and drive its own into exile. I charge it to the recreant sons of the men who carried on the American revolutionary war, and who come together every fourth of July to boast of what their fathers did, while they, their sons, have become associated with bloodhounds, to be put at any moment on the track of the fugitive slave.\n\nAs mentioned earlier in this chapter, many Americans were outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law's far-reaching effects in the North; these Americans felt that the 1850 Compromise essentially made slavery the law of the North as well as the South. Brown here rightly directs his readers to consider the broader American problem of racism. From his perspective, until America can move beyond its persistent forms of racism, slavery will always be the law of the land. According to Brown, slavery demands that he be treated as an inferior being not just in the South but in the North as well.\n\nIn _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , Frederick Douglass recalls his experiences in England in much the same way, and he draws conclusions identical to those of Brown. His chapters that describe his experiences in the British Isles include a letter he composed for Garrison while abroad, and like Brown, he describes the newfound, exhilarating sense of freedom he enjoys living abroad, free from American racism. Both Brown and Douglass must leave America to discover a truer, more complete, and cosmopolitan sense of identity _and_ hospitality:\n\nI have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country. I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life. . . . I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship, instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, _\"We don't allow niggers in here!\"_\n\nLike Brown, Douglass shows that race governs the threshold of belonging in American society. He continues with a devastating series of personal anecdotes from his life in America. In each anecdote he seeks entrance to the public entertainments and basic services that any white citizen and reader would take for granted\u2014an exhibition, a religious revival, a lyceum lecture, a steamship cabin, a restaurant, an omnibus\u2014and in each case he is met with this blunt and humiliating refrain, \" _We don't allow niggers in here!\"_ After contrasting these experiences with his invitation to dine with the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Douglass sardonically reflects:\n\nWhat a pity there was not some American democratic christian at the door of his splendid mansion, to bark out at my approach, 'They don't allow niggers in here!' The truth is, the people here know nothing of the republican negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a man's skin. This species of aristocracy belongs pre\u00ebminently to 'the land of the free, and the home of the brave.' I have never found it abroad, in any but Americans. It sticks to them wherever they go. They find it almost as hard to get rid of, as to get rid of their skins.\n\nIn short, both Brown and Douglass prod their American readers to entertain the possibility of a more inclusive form of American democracy, and ironically, they must return to the Old World for a usable model of behavior. At the same time, both authors push the discourse of hospitality in America beyond the recurring debates over the reality or unreality of hospitable slaveholders or the question of benevolence and charity toward fugitive slaves; their experiences beyond the nation's boundaries allowed them to frame a far more cosmopolitan ideal of hospitality and citizenship, a subject that I take up in the next chapter, where I consider the international contexts of southern hospitality.\n\n## CHAPTER FOUR\n\n## Southern Hospitality  \nin a Transnational Context\n\n_The Geopolitical Logic of the South's Sovereign Hospitality_\n\nWriting against the backdrop of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the historian and activist Howard Zinn offered the following assessment of what he described as the South's pervasive xenophobia, linking it to southern hospitality: \"It is one of the curious paradoxes of Southern life that suspicion of strangers, of outsiders, goes along with what is called 'Southern hospitality.' The answer to the paradox is that there is a line of demarcation which separates the accepted person from the unaccepted. Within that line, the warmth is almost overwhelming. But outside it, the coolness can become hostility to the point of violence. The foreign-born is almost always outside that line in the South, as is, of course, the Negro.\" Zinn was writing in the decade following the _Brown v. Board of Education_ decision, when many in the South had grown increasingly suspicious of outside interference in southern affairs, part of the South's long history of navigating the relationship with outsiders from without and the outsiders within (African Americans). Of course, Zinn's assertion that the foreigner and the African American are both \"outside that line\" does not mean that they occupy the same position, for as Derrida has described it, the politics of hospitality help to maintain the difference between the \"foreigner\" and the \"absolute other.\" While the foreigner may (or may not) be welcomed, those deemed absolute strangers or aliens (for whatever reason a particular society defines) never can be.\n\nSarah Josepha Hale's 1853 novel, _Liberia, or Mr. Peyton's Experiment_ , one of the many novelistic responses to the Fugitive Slave Law and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , contains a unique scene illustrating this distinction between the foreigner and the absolute stranger, particularly as it relates to race and the discourse of southern hospitality. While the book is not exactly pro-slavery, it is pro-southern in its general sentiments and its representation of the book's titular hero, Mr. Peyton, whom Hale praises for his \"hospitality, liberality, and true benevolence.\" Hale's novel details Mr. Peyton's freeing of his slaves and his various unsuccessful efforts to resettle them, first on nearby farms in Virginia, then in the urban North, and even in Canada. In each case his former slaves struggle to survive with the new responsibilities of freedom. They finally have a chance to thrive, however, when they join the newly established nation of Liberia on the west coast of Africa. As a longtime editor of _Godey's_ , Sarah Josepha Hale was one of the most influential voices on all aspects of American domesticity. Though _Godey's_ editorial policy was to refrain from engaging in political debate, her novel has a decidedly political goal in advocating the resettlement of slaves in Africa. Hale makes it abundantly clear that, from her perspective, the African has no place in America. In her preface to _Liberia_ , she describes those of African descent living in America as \"the stranger within her gates,\" and declares that her goal in the novel is \"to show the advantages Liberia offers to the African, who among us has no home, no position, and no future.\" In Hale's view, blacks living in America (whether slave or free) will forever be an unassimilable alien presence. Despite this inhospitable perspective on black men and women who had been born and lived their entire lives within the nation's borders, a strange turn occurs in one of the book's concluding scenes, where, in contrast to these unwelcoming sentiments toward the alien black population, a stranger visiting from Africa is deemed worthy of respect and hospitality. Moreover, when this man, the American-born president of Liberia, visits a group of philanthropists in Philadelphia, it is the southerner Mr. Peyton who shows the hypocritical northern philanthropists how to overcome their color prejudice in receiving the African. When Peyton arrives late to a reception for the Liberian president, he immediately understands and corrects an awkward social moment when the African is being ignored by the very men gathered to celebrate him (\"they had assembled for the purpose of meeting; and each one of them was trying to appear unconscious of his presence\"). The scene underscores what Hale perceives to be the inherent, natural color prejudice residing in all white Americans toward those of the African race, and only the aristocratic southern planter, armed with his social graces and his paternalistic knowledge of the African character, can step into this breach and show the way. Peyton immediately and gracefully enters into a lively conversation with the Liberian president, and soon the pair find themselves to be the life of the party, \"the centre of an audience composed of all the persons in the room.\" In this scene, the Liberian president's status as a \"foreigner\" gives him a recognizable identity, while _native-born_ slaves and black freemen remain absolute strangers or aliens in Hale's view. Blacks living in America may be worthy of charity perhaps (in the form of being sent back to Africa) but not hospitality (which would imply the potential for reciprocity and even equality among the guest and host).\n\nThis transformation from \"stranger\" to \"foreigner\" that occurs in Hale's novel raises questions regarding hospitality and how it relates to questions of race, national identity, and \"foreignness\" in the antebellum South. While previous chapters in this study have examined hospitality primarily within the domestic space, in this chapter, I put this question of southern hospitality in a broader, transnational context, particularly by exploring two case studies of southern xenophobia in the mid-nineteenth century, a xenophobia related specifically to slavery and race. Through the figures of free sailors of color (American and foreign) and of the revolutionary Hungarian freedom fighter Louis Kossuth, I trace the political logic of the South's jealously guarded sovereignty over slavery as it definitively overrides its claims of hospitality. In the case of the former, we see that, unlike Hale's conclusion, free citizens and foreign nationals of color were routinely quarantined and stripped of all legal status when they entered southern ports, even in the case of shipwreck. In the reception of Kossuth, we see that his status as a foreigner was a sliding identity contingent on slavery. As Kossuth's presence in America became even tangentially linked to the question of slavery, the southern reception evolved from admiration of a freedom fighter to denigration of a parasitical alien, with Kossuth himself figuratively transformed into the image of a fugitive slave. In these cases, we see the logical undercurrent of antebellum southern hospitality: driving fears regarding slavery and what the South perceived as external and internal threats to its peculiar social order. While historians and some literary scholars have provided thorough accounts of both the Negro Seamen Acts and the national and regional reception of Kossuth, they have yet to consider the extent to which these two national debates were informed by competing antebellum discourses of hospitality and to fully consider the fundamental relationship between the concepts of sovereignty and hospitality in the antebellum South. Southern sovereignty went hand in hand with southern hospitality, gauging threats and policing the borders of the prescribed social order.\n\n### Cosmopolitan Hospitality Meets the Negro Seamen Acts\n\nMidway through \"Civil Disobedience,\" his seminal essay arguing the existence of a \"higher law\" than mere governmental authority, Henry David Thoreau makes what today's reader would most certainly find to be an obscure reference to \"an act of inhospitality\" committed by South Carolina against Massachusetts:\n\nIf my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister,\u2014though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her,\u2014the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the following winter.\n\nThe \"esteemed neighbor\" to whom Thoreau refers is Samuel Hoar, a Massachusetts politician and fellow resident of Concord who was sent by the state of Massachusetts to Charleston, South Carolina, in late 1844 to test the constitutionality of one of its laws that was negatively affecting free citizens of Massachusetts. The law in question, one of several such laws that had been adopted in southern coastal states since the 1820s, dictated that any free sailors of color who landed in southern ports be imprisoned, even in the case of shipwreck. Known collectively as the Negro Seamen Acts, the first of these laws was enacted in South Carolina in 1822 following Denmark Vesey's failed plot to spark a slave insurrection in Charleston. In the wake of the uncovered conspiracy, South Carolinians worried about the possibility of free sailors of color, from either the North or foreign countries, mingling with and influencing their domestic slave population. The threat was so troubling that then\u2013South Carolina governor John Wilson described free black sailors as being \"afflicted with infectious disease.\" The \"disease\" in this case, would be freedom, and according to the logic of slavery, such a threat of infection must be effectively quarantined. Accordingly, the Act for Better Regulation and Government of Free Negroes and Persons of Color stipulated that any \"free negroes or persons of color\" who arrived on a ship in \"any port or harbor\" of the state are to be \"confined in jail until said vessel shall clear out and depart from this State.\" Moreover, the captain of the ship, and not the state, was responsible for covering the costs of the sailor's confinement. If a captain failed to pay such costs, the sailor would be considered a slave and sold. Over the next two decades, states across the coastal South\u2014North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana\u2014would follow South Carolina's lead by adopting similar laws. Consequently, free citizens of color from around the world who entered southern ports were transformed into one of two identities: prisoner or slave.\n\nThe laws were carried out with varying degrees of vigor and severity; South Carolina was considered especially notorious among black sailors. It is estimated that more than ten thousand free citizens of color\u2014from both the United States and foreign nations\u2014were jailed under these provisions across the South. An untold number simply vanished into slavery, and because they lacked legal standing (South Carolina, for example, suspended habeas corpus for black mariners), there is little historical evidence of what essentially amounted to state-sanctioned kidnapping. Those allowed to return to their ships lost wages during their periods of confinement, and shipping companies routinely passed the cost of imprisonment on to them following their release. These laws had a profound effect on the livelihood of these _free citizens_ of _both_ the United States _and_ foreign countries, often limiting their ability to sign on to vessels that might be traveling through southern waters. The laws also had a negative impact on free commerce with other states in the Union and foreign countries, as on many occasions black sailors either mutinied or abandoned ship rather than sail to southern ports.\n\nSouthern states enacted and carried out these laws despite vehement challenges from state, federal, and foreign governments. Great Britain, for example, lodged protests with the United States over a full quarter century. Unable to obtain relief from the federal government, in the 1850s Britain discretely began to make direct appeals to the southern states through its consuls, a tactic that, when made public, aroused a good amount of controversy and suspicion in the North. Those who protested the Negro Seamen Acts saw the southern practice of imprisoning foreign sailors of color as an outrageous violation of both the rights of free citizens and the \"law of nations.\" On the one hand, the right to free interstate travel was a basic element of citizenship; on the other hand, the right to temporary sojourn (to visit a sovereign territory and not be treated with hostility) was a basic right in Immanuel Kant's cosmopolitanism. Southerners, in contrast, defended these practices, claiming that they were acting within their sovereign right and according to the first law of nature: self-preservation. Southerners grew especially defensive of this example of state sovereignty as the sectional division intensified, as is evident in their inhospitable response to Samuel Hoar's mission, cited in Thoreau's \"Civil Disobedience.\" Before Hoar could even begin to plead the case of Massachusetts, he was run out of Charleston by a mob that had been spurred on in part by both incendiary public declarations of South Carolina's governor, James Henry Hammond, and similar resolutions against Hoar passed by the state legislature.\n\nWhile Thoreau's allusion to the Hoar affair may be lost on today's readers of \"Civil Disobedience,\" among his contemporaries it was a well-known episode, widely reported in the press and frequently cited in the ongoing debates over slavery. The Massachusetts state legislature was so incensed by Hoar's treatment that it was considered a \"plausible cause for war between the states.\" In alluding to the affair as an \"act of inhospitality,\" Thoreau, like many of the abolitionists and liberal reformers I have cited in previous chapters, challenges the pervasive myth of southern hospitality in a way that would have been understood by sympathetic listeners and readers of his day. But Thoreau also directs his readers to both look beyond the surface of the Hoar affair and rethink their understanding of hospitality altogether. Thoreau, in line with liberal reformers discussed earlier, subtly prods his audience to see hospitality as a progressive state of mind, a form of empathetic human action, and a universal principle of equality.\n\nIf anything, Thoreau in the passage cited above chastises his audience for focusing too much attention on the treatment of Hoar and not enough on the plight of the black sailors themselves. Rather than focusing on legal maneuverings from a distance, Thoreau encourages his readers to take action by engaging in civil disobedience where they are, a program that places them in metaphorical proximity with the black sailors themselves. As Thoreau explains, \"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly\"\u2014as in the treatment of free black sailors in the South\u2014\"the true place for a just man is also a prison. . . . It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race . . . ; on that separate, but more free and honorable, ground, where the State places those who are not _with_ her, but _against_ her.\" With this premise in place, Thoreau forcefully asserts that the prison is \"the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.\" Thoreau here utterly rejects the possibility of \"southern hospitality,\" instead articulating his radical theory on resistance to government authority and its imperfect laws as a progressive form of universal hospitality. He is willing to forgo his privileged position as a protected citizen of a supposedly free society because he is aware that not all are invited to receive the same benefits. When Thoreau refused to pay his poll tax because the government was pursuing an unjust war in Mexico that would extend slavery, he placed himself, figuratively and\u2014at least for the one night he spent in jail\u2014literally, alongside the resident aliens, foreigners, and strangers in American society. Completely subverting the notion that hospitality is a matter of entertaining guests in one's own domestic space, Thoreau claims that there is more \"honor\" in breaking bread with the dispossessed in prison than in being feted by the social elites of an unjust society, in this case the wealthy aristocracy of the slaveholding South. Certainly, according to Thoreau's logic, there can be no hospitality where slavery exists.\n\nThoreau, again like many other progressives of his day, places this universal ethic of hospitality over the fallible laws of human institutions. For example, in the conclusion of \"Civil Disobedience,\" when he attacks Senator Daniel Webster for his abiding faith in the Constitution and the laws of men, he criticizes Webster for a lack of _mental_ hospitality: \"Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time he never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality.\" Through his references to the Hoar affair and the Negro Seamen Laws, his assertion that hospitality and slavery cannot coexist, and his criticism of Webster for his lack of mental hospitality, Thoreau subtly challenges the conventional discourses on hospitality in his day. For him, hospitality exists beyond social exchanges in domestic settings, conventional morality, and human law : it is the ethical horizon at which all strangers, foreigners, aliens, and outcasts are offered an unconditional and universal welcome. Thoreau's is a decidedly cosmopolitan vision of human society.\n\nThe Negro Seamen Acts and the conflicts and controversies surrounding them place the question of hospitality squarely in the realms of international law and universal human rights. In these broad contexts, hospitality encompasses \"all human rights claims which are cross-border in scope,\" as Seyla Benhabib concisely explains. Immanuel Kant in _Perpetual Peace_ declares that cosmopolitan citizenship \"shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality,\" and Jacques Derrida has deconstructed Kant's assertion that hospitality is a matter of universal right by distinguishing between the absolute ethic of hospitality that demands a universal welcoming of the stranger and the laws that must limit this welcoming. Benhabib in _Another Cosmopolitanism_ goes further to develop Kant's cosmopolitan philosophy in a way that both acknowledges and even embraces the paradoxes limned by Derrida. According to her, with the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, \"we have entered a phase in the evolution of global civil society, which is characterized by a transition from _international_ to _cosmopolitan_ norms of justice.\" International norms of justice develop from official relationships and obligations among various states and their representatives through negotiated treaties, trade agreements, guest-worker programs, and the like. In contrast, cosmopolitan norms of justice \"accrue to individuals as moral and legal persons in a worldwide civil society.\" This transition, however, has necessarily resulted in tension between the particularities of law as articulated and enforced by states and their justice systems and the universal ethical obligation of human rights, which are often at odds with these laws but are nonetheless owed to each individual regardless of his or her state affiliation or \"legal\" status. In other words, the transition to cosmopolitan norms has created a conflict between the laws of nations and what may be described as the _higher_ law of human rights. For Benhabib, this conflict conceptually boils down to two opposing terms: \"sovereignty\" and \"hospitality.\" She observes, \"Throughout the international system, as long as territorial bounded states are recognized as the sole legitimate units of negotiation and representation, a tension, and at times even a fatal contradiction, is palpable: the modern state system is caught between _sovereignty_ and _hospitality_ , between the prerogative to choose to be a party to cosmopolitan norms and human rights treaties, and the obligation to extend recognition of these human rights to all.\" Cosmopolitanism, then, cannot be seen as a transcendent end point or definitive destination toward which the world is inevitably headed. Instead, as Benhabib states, \"Cosmopolitanism . . . is a philosophical project of mediations, not of reductions and totalizations.\"\n\nThough Benhabib rightly casts 1948 as a watershed moment in the transition from international to cosmopolitan norms of justice, we should also recognize that the inherent tension she identifies in this transition\u2014the tension between sovereignty and hospitality\u2014has always been present in organized human societies. In the case of the antebellum South, both of these terms were _essential_ to how southerners defined and imagined their culture. Simply put, state sovereignty was the very core of the South's political philosophy; hospitality was likewise an essential, defining term in its social and domestic sphere. Both were inextricably tied to slavery and the racial order of the Old South. The example of the Negro Seamen Acts extends the consideration of southern hospitality beyond this domestic sphere and into the realm of international law and politics; indeed, one of the early legal defenses of the law in South Carolina used the example of the domestic space, where the master of the household governs who crosses the threshold, as a way of explaining the law :\n\nThe civilized man can secure his family against the contagion of the dissolute or depraved, by closing his doors, or selecting his visitors;\u2014So, every sovereign state, has the perfect right of interdicting all intercourse with strangers, or of selecting those whose influence or example she may fear, and confining the exclusion to them. A master of a family receives or excludes his visitors, according to the peculiar situation and feelings of his own household. A State must be the sole judge to decide what strangers may or may not enter.\n\nHere the South's restrictive politics of hospitality are extended to the broader sphere of intercourse with free citizens of other states and nations. In both of these spheres\u2014the southern household and the domestic space of the state\u2014hospitality involves determining who doesn't belong, with race serving as the common denominator governing the threshold. It is an exercise of sovereignty. What is particularly striking about the Negro Seamen Laws, from a contemporary perspective, is the manner in which the laws and politics of slavery violently transgressed the ethics of hospitality. While we have largely forgotten these contradictions in the passage of years, antebellum Americans and foreigners alike were well aware of them, and many found them utterly confounding. In fact, the existence of the Negro Seamen Laws created a decades-long, simmering controversy that mobilized abolitionists and also prompted transregional and international protests against them.\n\nFrancis Colburn Adams's 1852 novel, _Manuel Pereira; or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina, with Views of Southern Laws, Life, and Hospitality_ , is among the body of literature protesting the Negro Seamen Acts. It is a thinly fictionalized account of a particularly egregious case in which a shipwrecked sailor was imprisoned for fifty-four days in Charleston's jail, but Adams takes the opportunity to critique the entire South Carolina social order, making the case that southerners' social practices cannot be separated from this egregious law and its effects. The novel's subtitle underscores the very contradiction Benhabib describes between a state's right of sovereignty and the obligation of hospitality, but it also directs readers to think more broadly about how they define hospitality. Hospitality is not only embodied in a people's social life; it is also embodied\u2014or not\u2014in its laws. Adams's novel expresses a cosmopolitan view of citizenship and effectively illustrates Thoreau's contention that the prison is \"the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.\"\n\nFrancis Colburn Adams was a former resident of Charleston and had been an active member of the city's theatrical and literary communities. Many of the details of his life remain sketchy, but his writings show that he was an outspoken critic of slavery. In addition to _Manuel Pereira_ , Adams published other books critical of the South: _Our World; or, The Slaveholder's Daughter_ in 1855 and _Justice in the By-Ways_ in 1856. He also published in 1853 a book titled _Uncle Tom at Home; A Review of the Reviewers and Repudiators of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Mrs. Stowe_. In the prefaces to both his defense of Stowe's novel and _Manuel Pereira_ , Adams directly appeals to southerners and claims that the books were written while he was in Charleston. In _Manuel Pereira_ , he pointedly attacks the element of southern cultural identity that southerners held most dear : their hospitality. Through his depiction of the plight of Manuel Pereira, an olive-skinned native of Brazil who has no African blood and who swears allegiance to England, Adams extends hospitality beyond the merely social sphere and into the realms of universal law and cosmopolitan right. Manuel is a free citizen of the world, yet his natural rights are horribly violated by the peculiar laws of the South.\n\nAdams endows his fictional version of the real-life Manuel Pereira with the qualities of Melville's Billy Budd: he is kind, generous, guileless, and incredibly well liked by the crew. But he also underscores Manuel's cosmopolitan identity, emphasizing the fluidity of _both_ national _and_ racial boundaries; more than a citizen of a particular nation, Manuel is a cosmopolite: \"Manuel was born in Brazil, an extract of the Indians and Spanish, claiming birthright of the Portuguese nation. It mattered but very little to Manuel where he was born, for he had been so long tossed about in his hardy vocation that he had almost become alienated from the affections of birthplace. He had sailed so long under the protection of the main-jack of old England that he had formed a stronger allegiance to that country than to any other.\" In addition to his cosmopolitan identity, we are also informed of Manuel's cosmopolitan experiences as a sailor who \"had sailed around the world\" and \"visited savage and semi-civilized nations.\" Among these varied travels, Manuel \"had received the hospitality of cannibals, had joined in the merry dance with the Otaheitian, had eaten the fruit of the Hottentots, shared the coarse morsel of the Greenlander, been twice chased by the Patagonians\u2014but what shall we say?\u2014he was imprisoned, for the olive tints of his color, in a land where not only civilization rules in its brightest conquests, but chivalry and honor sound its fame within the lanes, streets, and court-yards.\" The distinction Adams draws between the civilized and barbarous peoples of the world is the distinction between hospitality and hostility, and Manuel himself articulates his own sense of cosmopolitan rights, though they are still grounded in international law and the national status of England. Unfortunately for Manuel\u2014and for the thousands of black sailors imprisoned under the Negro Seamen Laws\u2014it was just this sense of progress toward universal human rights that made free cosmopolitan citizens of color such a threat to the South's social order of racebased slavery.\n\nWhen Manuel's ship is disabled in a storm and running low on fresh water, its captain, a Scotsman named Thompson, decides to head to the port of Charleston. His mate warns him of Charleston's unique laws concerning sailors of color and fears that they will apply to Manuel. The captain, however, expresses his confidence that, as a shipwreck, they surely must warrant an exception, particularly in light of southerners' reputation for hospitality: \"Certainly, no nation in Christendom could be found, that wouldn't open their hearts to a shipwrecked sailor. I have too much faith in what I have heard of the hospitality of Southerners, to believe any thing of that kind\" (24). Unfortunately, Captain Thompson's faith in southern hospitality proves unfounded. Shortly after their arrival, and despite the fact that Manuel is a free citizen and has no African blood, he is imprisoned in a decrepit, vermin-infested Charleston jail cell, where he withers away for most of the novel. The novel details the captain's and British consul's numerous efforts to have Manuel released and, when these efforts fail, to at least provide him some material comfort. Even these efforts are rebuffed by the manipulative and sadistic sheriff and constables, who seem dead set on asserting South Carolina sovereignty against any outside meddling.\n\nWhile the plot of the novel is quite simple\u2014with Manuel suffering increasing abuse at the hands of the sheriff and his lackeys\u2014Adams often interrupts the narrative to provide anecdotes, scenes, and dialogues that, taken together, provide a more complete picture of life in Charleston, hence the breadth of the novel's subtitle. In contrast to the idyllic image of the paternalistic southern plantation with which Americans were familiar, Adams\u2014in abolitionist fashion\u2014portrays a southern legal, political, and social order based on arbitrary power and characterized by corruption, licentiousness, exploitation, violence, and barbarous cruelty. At the same time, he makes it clear that not all southerners are guilty of these crimes; instead, he includes some sympathetic southerners who attempt in vain to help Manuel or alleviate his situation. Adams cites and quotes from editorials from Charleston newspapers that decry the abuses of the Charleston judicial system, and some of the book's fictional southerners speak out against the law that lands Manuel in prison, criticizing in particular the law's negative effect on foreign trade with southern ports. All these critics, however, are ultimately ineffectual against the unbending law and the arbitrary power of politicians and officials sworn to uphold it. As Adams shows, the peculiar institution of slavery trumps everything in southern society, making the South's claims of hospitality ring hollow and their social manners seem utterly meretricious.\n\nDespite the problems faced by Manuel, his captain, and the British consul, the Charlestonians repeatedly boast to the captain of the city's renowned hospitality. When the captain finally expresses his exasperation over the obvious contradiction between southerners' reputation for hospitality and the law under which Manuel is imprisoned, a Charlestonian replies, \"Yes!\u2014but society in South Carolina has nothing to do with the law\" (51). Though the Charlestonian tries to separate sociability from law, Adams shows that a society's inhospitable laws override any claims of hospitality on the social level. It was, after all, the institution of slavery that gave rise to that \"society\"\u2014its wealth, its capacity for leisure, and its development of its social habits and manners.\n\nToday, we often forget this link between antebellum southern social life and slavery, and particularly between this social life and the laws designed to preserve the peculiar institution. To illustrate this forgetfulness\u2014or selective remembering\u2014I will briefly discuss Adams's novelistic treatment of the historical figure of Jehu Jones Sr. In the novel, the Jones anecdote offers a digression from the main plot, being related to Captain Thompson by a character named Colonel S\u2014\u2014e, who \"belongs to one of the first families\" of Charleston (82). Jones was a prominent member of the free black community of Charleston and owned the Jones Hotel on Broad Street, the most popular and bestknown inn of antebellum Charleston. Though today he is a relatively obscure historical figure, _Charleston Magazine_ in 2007 included him in a feature titled \"The Charleston 100,\" which celebrates the one hundred most noteworthy personages from Charleston's rich history. It is worth noting that the magazine portrays him as a sort of historical point of origin for the contemporary hospitality industry in Charleston. As the magazine feature concisely explains, \"A free person of color, Jones began the tradition of fine hotels that catered to the white elite of the city now given over to the hospitality industry.\" Without any irony, this simple statement encapsulates much of the essential history of southern hospitality, particularly its origins as an exclusively white practice founded on black labor. It also exemplifies the typical elisions of history that we see throughout the discourse of southern hospitality, for certainly Jehu Jones is a more fraught figure than _Charleston Magazine_ here suggests.\n\nFirst, Jones, though a free black, was himself an owner of slaves; in fact, his hotel prospered on slave labor. Moreover, as a member of the mulatto elites of Charleston, he wanted little to do with the \"black\" community as a whole. But Jones's story, particularly as it relates to the South's traditions of hospitality, is even more complex; though he was something of a pioneer in the antebellum hospitality industry, he certainly was not a recipient of southern hospitality himself. Instead, he and his family were victimized by what Adams portrays as South Carolina's inhospitable laws. In addition to legislation designed to control the movements of free sailors of color, South Carolina also had laws that prevented free black residents of the state from leaving. If they did leave the state, they were subject to heavy fines and imprisonment upon their return. The colonel explains to Captain Thompson that Jones's eldest daughter, who \"was fairer than seven-eighths of the ladies who term themselves aristocracy on Charleston,\" married and moved with her husband to New York. Thinking they were immune to the law, \"for the family were very high-minded,\" Jones's second daughter went to visit her older sister in New York (89). While she was away, however, Jones was informed by authorities that the law would indeed be applied to his daughter should she attempt to return. She never was allowed to return to her native state even though several prominent Charlestonians attempted to intercede on her behalf. Later, when one of the daughters became gravely ill, Jones himself traveled in disguise to visit her. Unfortunately, while in New York he was spotted by another Charlestonian. Word of Jones's clandestine travels eventually reached Charleston authorities, and Jones, like his daughters, was denied the right to return to his home, again despite petitions signed by numerous prominent Charlestonians. Forbidden from ever returning, he was forced into a lengthy, costly process of settling his property and affairs through lawyers and his son, Jehu Jones Jr., who remained behind to run the family business for a period.\n\nIn light of the family's history of run-ins with antebellum South Carolina's notoriously inhospitable laws, _Charleston Magazine_ 's portrayal of Jones as a pioneer of the southern hospitality industry is ironic indeed. In Adams's novel, in contrast, Colonel S\u2014\u2014e acknowledges the severity of the law as it affected such a prominent and popular member of the free black community, concluding, \"Such is our respect for the law, that we were compelled to forego our hospitality, and maintain it [the law], even though it was painful to our feelings. Thus, you see, we maintain the _point_ and _spirit_ of the law above every thing else\" (90, emphasis in original). Historical evidence suggests Adams's portrayal of the Jones anecdote is accurate.\n\nAs Adams shows, the Negro Seamen Laws ran counter to at least one segment of public opinion in South Carolina, namely, merchants whose trade with foreign nations was adversely affected. But the law was sustained even against such mercantile interests, not, according to Adams, because of some high regard for law, but because it benefited a handful of public officials and politicians. Most notably, the sheriff and the city constables received fees for each sailor they arrested and imprisoned. In the case of the sheriff, these fees amounted to almost $1,000 a year, \"a nice little appendage to the sheriff's office,\" as Adams describes it (283). Perhaps most importantly, the law also carried potent symbolic value for the more radical politicians and citizens who were already advocating secession from the Union (and their repeated refrains of sovereignty over Constitution).\n\nNear the end of the novel, after detailing cases of three other victims of the law, Adams returns to the case of Manuel, describing in an incredulous and ironic tone the sailor's release after fifty-two days in prison. He again summarizes the inherent contradiction between southern hospitality and the South's social order : \"Manuel Pereira, a poor, shipwrecked mariner, who, by the dispensation of an all-wise Providence, was cast upon the shores of South Carolina\" was \"imprisoned because hospitality to him was 'contrary to law'\" (218\u201319). And Adams reminds readers that Manuel's story is \"but a faint glimpse\" of the ordeals suffered by sailors of color who land in Charleston or, by extension, the southern coastal states more generally. Throughout _Manuel Pereira_ , Adams shows that southerners, rather than exercising the gracious hospitality of which they so often boasted, are more interested in displaying their sovereignty through the symbolic exercise of arbitrary power. Again and again, Adams's text illustrates the ironic contradictions between southern claims of being a hospitable people and southern laws, with the prevailing tones of the novel shifting back and forth between irony and outrage.\n\nBut the deeper relationship between the discourse of southern hospitality and the inhospitable, exclusionary laws regarding sailors of color is perhaps more complementary than ironic, for the discourse of southern hospitality for much of its history has served this same exclusionary function, policing the borders of white southern identity and cultural memory. This phenomenon can perhaps be understood by the distinction Seyla Benhabib describes between the _ethnos_ and the _demos_ in the construction of the nation-state. Benhabib defines the _ethnos_ as a \"community bound together by the power of shared fate, memories, solidarity, and belonging. Such a community does not permit free entry and exit.\" The _demos_ , in contrast, is \"a democratically enfranchised totality of all citizens, who may or may not belong to the same ethnos.\" As Benhabib explains, \"All liberal democracies that are modern nation-states exhibit these two dimensions. The politics of peoplehood consists in their negotiation.\" Indeed, according to Benhabib's cosmopolitan perspective, \"Democracies require porous borders\" because the definition of the _demos_ is a fluid process, as \"aliens can become residents, and residents can become citizens.\" It goes without saying that the antebellum South was no liberal democracy with porous borders; instead, it was constructed as an ethnos, a community bound together by a shared sense of \"fate, memories, solidarity, and belonging\"\u2014both real and imagined. The discourse of southern hospitality was, in many ways, a symptomatic expression of this ethnos. As such, it was hardly a discourse of universal welcome; instead, it was an exclusionary discourse that reinforced cultural solidarity in the face of foreign threats from without and within. As Benhabib emphasizes, unlike the demos, the ethnos \"does not permit free entry and exit.\" Antebellum discourse on southern hospitality, we might say, was as inhospitable and exclusionary as the Negro Seamen Acts themselves.\n\n### Insulting \"The Guest of the Nation\":  \nSectional Divisions and the Reception of Louis Kossuth\n\nIn December 1851, a surprisingly contentious debate broke out in Congress over the obligations and limitations of the nation's hospitality. Louis Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian revolutionary, had just arrived on American shores, and the Senate was weighing how the government should officially receive him\u2014or if he should be received at all. The December debate in the Senate over the reception of Kossuth was surprising for two reasons. First, the fact that any debate at all occurred ran counter to public opinion, for national sympathy for Kossuth and his fellow exiles had been extremely high since the Hungarian revolt began in 1848. Newspapers and periodicals were filled with thousands of articles and accounts of Kossuth, the revolt, and its aftermath, and hundreds of poems were published honoring the leader and his cause. Second, and with abundant irony, the very same Congress that was now debating the propriety of receiving Kossuth was itself responsible for inviting him to America's shores. In response to Congress's inability to immediately pass even a simple resolution formally welcoming Kossuth, the _New York Daily Times_ exasperatedly wrote, \"No barbarians have yet been discovered who were insensible to the claims of hospitality. It has been reserved for the Congress of the United States to invite a guest and insult him upon his arrival.\" Ten months before his arrival in America, in February 1851, Congress, spurred no doubt by popular sympathy for Kossuth, had taken the extraordinary step of passing a joint \"Resolution for the relief of Louis Kossuth and his Associates, exiles from Hungary,\" which expressed sympathy for the exiles and encouraged them to immigrate to the United States, even offering a ship to transport them to America from their exile in Turkey. This resolution and the subsequent debate that occurred in Congress ten months later again demonstrate that hospitality extends beyond the \"domestic\" realm of individual social practice and into the broader realms of politics, law, and international relations\u2014in the official attitude a state or a people can assume toward the foreigner. The plight of Louis Kossuth in the years immediately following his failed rebellion provided Americans with a unique opportunity to consider\u2014through both their imagined and their real relationship with an illustrious and admired foreigner\u2014the obligations and limitations of just such national and international conceptions of hospitality. As Kossuth arrived in New York to a hero's welcome in early December 1851, the same Senate that had invited him degenerated into protracted bickering over the prospect of an official governmental reception. Importantly, this debate over extending American hospitality to Kossuth\u2014carried out both in Congress and in print\u2014would break down largely along sectional lines, with northerners enthusiastically welcoming Kossuth and southerners growing increasingly resistant to his presence in America. In short, national hospitality for a foreign freedom fighter could not be effectively separated from the South's peculiar institution of slavery; the arrival of the foreigner from without inevitably turned attention to the question of the \"strangers\" already living within, African slaves and free black Americans who were treated never as full citizens but rather as an alien presence.\n\nBonnie Honig's _Democracy and the Foreigner_ provides a theoretical rethinking of foreignness that places it at the very center of how we define and construct democracy. Nationhood and citizenship are always constructed in relation to the foreigner ; consequently, the traditional approach to foreignness sees it as a \"problem in need of a solution,\" an approach that has developed quite naturally from the xenophobic model that considers the foreigner a threat to national identity and purity. Honig, however, switches the question; instead of approaching foreignness as a problem, she asks, \"What does it mean? What sort of work does it do in cultural politics?\" As she demonstrates through her readings of a variety of theoretical, literary, and popular texts, the more traditional xenophobic ideas of foreignness cannot be entirely separated from more positive, more cosmopolitan ideas and situations in which the foreigner is seen as a positive agent of renewal or \"(re)-founding\": \"The novelties of foreignness, the mysteries of strangeness, the perspective of an outsider may represent the departure or disruption that is necessary for change.\" Honig shows how these xenophobic and cosmopolitan ideas of foreignness bleed into one another, and though she does not explicitly place the term hospitality at the center of her study, it is always there implicitly. Through the competing ideas of foreignness that Honig describes, we can think of hospitality quite simply as what takes place\u2014or what doesn't take place\u2014in the spaces between the citizen and the foreigner or between a national government and an outsider.\n\nThere was a lot at stake for Americans as they pondered the plight of the foreign freedom fighter Louis Kossuth, and they thought of him and wrote about him in terms that would certainly fit Honig's description of the symbolic value of \"foreign (re)-founders,\" whose stories can revitalize a democratic community and \"frame other issues of democratic theory and citizenship.\" Not since the Marquis de Lafayette's visit to America in 1824\u201325 had the presence of a foreigner on American soil aroused such fervor and excitement in the American people, and Kossuth hoped to translate his celebrity status into support for his revolutionary efforts in Hungary. For Americans in the mid-nineteenth century, Kossuth reflected back to them images of their own cherished national self-identity. On the one hand, he reminded them of their own origins in a fight for freedom against oppression, and on the other hand, his exile provided them the opportunity to exercise their identity as a hospitable people and a welcoming asylum for the oppressed of the world. Americans had watched rebellions spread across Europe\u2014in Germany, France, Italy, and Hungary\u2014in the late 1840s with keen interest and, given their country's own origins in revolution, with a sense of political kinship. They also felt themselves the model of republican democracy to which all these revolutionary movements aspired. The Hungarian cause was the most popular and closely watched of the 1848 revolutions among Americans, and during and after the failed revolution and prior to his arrival in America, Louis Kossuth enjoyed widespread popularity North and South.\n\nAmericans were deeply disappointed when the revolt in Hungary was put down by the combined might of Austria and Russia, and they continued to follow Kossuth's story closely. Upon the defeat of his revolutionary forces in 1849, Kossuth had fled to Turkey, where he and twelve hundred of his followers were living as exiles under house arrest. Russia and Austria had demanded his extradition, and Turkey offered permanent sanctuary only on the condition that the Hungarians convert to Islam. The February 1851 invitation from the United States government provided a way out of an untenable situation, and by September 1851 the Hungarians were on their way to the United States as exiles.\n\nEven before Congress passed its resolution offering refuge to Kossuth in early 1851, Americans seemed eager to welcome Kossuth and his fellow revolutionaries following their 1849 defeat and subsequent exile. At the time, this included southerners as well as northerners. Southerners expressed their support in a variety of ways\u2014by holding public rallies, by pledging financial support, and by supporting legislative action to support the refugees. A passionate article titled \"En Avant!\" published anonymously in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ in March 1850 similarly conveys this initial southern enthusiasm for Kossuth. The author reflects on the recently failed revolutionary movements in Italy and Hungary. Even though the revolutions in those countries ultimately failed, the anonymous author of \"En Avant!\" nonetheless takes them as evidence of the inevitable progress of human freedom and encourages his readers to \"rejoice in the new birth of liberty on earth.\" He also expresses confidence that the names of Garibaldi and Kossuth, the revolutionary leaders in Italy and Hungary, respectively, will be justly honored by posterity despite the recent failures of their revolutions. As was often the case, the author links Kossuth to Washington as a reminder of the United States' own revolutionary origins. Note how as the author describes this ideal future world of liberty that will honor Kossuth and Garibaldi, he also invokes the idea of hospitality as the condition of universal freedom and cosmopolitan citizenship:\n\nRome and Hungary, Garibaldi and Kossuth, have gloriously struggled to be free, and failing have fallen from the places of honour, but have fallen into the arms of the historic muse, to be crowned by her with the freshest laurels. And when, in future years, the day of the great social feast of free nations shall arrive, and all gates shall be opened, and viands for hungry souls shall be set out on the thresholds free for all comers, and strangers known and unknown shall be led to hospitality, and former foes shall converse in friendly words, and chains shall be knocked off from all captives, and all bickerings shall be composed, then . . . shall there be suitable _pulvinaria_ provided for Kossuth and Garibaldi, and they shall be borne about to feast rejoicing eyes in the same processions which bear images of the Wallaces, and the Tells, and the Dorias, and the Washingtons, of the world.\n\nThese symbolic images of hospitality evoke Kant's call for \"universal hospitality\" as the condition of world citizenship. The author links freedom to hospitality in an important way; according to the passage, only the \"free nations\" of the world can offer such unconditional and universal hospitality to \"strangers known and unknown,\" a curious phrase to which I shall return shortly. Considering that this article was published in a southern and pro-slavery literary magazine, there is also a certain irony in the author's imagining a day when all the \"chains shall be knocked off from all captives.\" Still, the sympathy expressed here for Kossuth and his cause was typical of American sentiment toward the exiled leader from the 1848 revolution up until his arrival in America.\n\nDuring this period, Americans followed his story through constant newspaper stories, and literally hundreds of poems honoring Kossuth and the Hungarian cause were published in American newspapers and periodicals. A typical example, a sonnet titled \"To Kossuth,\" was published in May 1851 in the _Southern Literary Messenger_. The poem praises the \"noble Kossuth\" and hopes that\n\nthe tears  \nOf nations shed for thee . . . . [shall]  \nInspire the mail\u00e9d breasts of serried hosts,  \nAnd flush ten thousand brows with proud disdain  \nOf Austrian tyranny's vainglorious boasts.  \nMay once more wave thy fiery plume on high\u2014  \nA Morning star to night-steeped Hungary.\n\nAgainst this backdrop of national sympathy, Kossuth in September 1851 stepped aboard the uss _Mississippi_ and embarked on his journey to America. The American public eagerly followed every step of his journey, and the language of national hospitality and generosity dominated the discourse in anticipation of Kossuth's imminent arrival, with many calling for the government to do more for the exiled Hungarians. This question of national hospitality carried out by the government is the subject of figure 13, a political cartoon by T. W. Strong of New York. The cartoon's caption reads, \"The Poor Organ Grinder from Hungary,\" and it implies that the government is not doing enough to welcome Kossuth and support his cause. It shows Secretary of State Daniel Webster peering out from behind a well-locked door and giving two coins to a monkey (possibly a caricature of Charles Sumner), as the noble yet mute figure of Kossuth looks on. The monkey is apparently pleading Kossuth's cause (ostensibly support for his revolution), but the Treasury and Navy offices are closed and locked, with signs declaring, \"Shut,\" \"Closed,\" \"No Admittance,\" and \"Strangers Not Admitted.\" Despite favoring support for Kossuth, the cartoon illustrates the duality of foreignness as described by Honig. While the cartoon characterizes Kossuth in a noble manner, it also employs humor (Kossuth's bag reads, \"Poor Hungary Man\") and stock stereotypes of European immigrants through the organ grinder imagery.\n\nFIGURE 13. _The Poor Organ Grinder from Hungary_ , political broadside by T. W. Strong of New York, 1852. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nIn part due to this doubleness of the foreigner, Kossuth's visit to America would remind Americans less of their republican ideals of freedom than of their failure to live up to them; it would also expose the ultimate double bind of hospitality. As suggested in the passage from \"En Avant!\" cited earlier, any talk of freedom must eventually turn on slavery, and any hospitable gesture to the foreigner from without seems hollow when it is not extended to the strangers already within the gates (\"the strangers unknown and known\"). Millions of slaves lived within the United States' borders, and the recently enacted Fugitive Slave Law made it a federal crime to extend hospitality to them, no matter how dire the circumstances.\n\nPoems published in the progressive, antislavery newspaper the _National Era_ soon after Kossuth's arrival forecast how the question of hospitality toward Hungarian refugees could not be separated from the question of hospitality toward fugitive slaves, the \"alien\" population already residing within the nation's borders. Catherine Ledyard's poem \"Kossuth,\" published on December 11, 1851, links his struggle to American origins in revolution, but here his arrival also serves as a reminder of American deficiencies. Ledyard claims that unlike leaders such as Alexander and Napoleon, who fought \"for love of power, lust of gold, or hope of glory,\" Kossuth wielded his sword \"in the cause of Liberty, \/ That the fetters may be broken, and all the oppressed go free.\" The concluding lines suggest that Hungary has the potential to be a more perfect republic of freedom, one free from slavery: \"Let it reign till Hungary's soil, home of the true and brave, \/ Freer than our own America, bears not a single slave.\"\n\nJohn Greenleaf Whittier had taken this implicit line of criticism further in his poem titled \"Kossuth,\" which was published a week earlier in the _National Era_. In Whittier's poem, the arrival of the foreigner is a chance not so much to reflect on America's past and revolutionary origins as it is to make pointed criticisms regarding its political present\u2014particularly its failure to abide by its own founding principles. Whittier implies that no one in America is worthy of welcoming this selfless freedom fighter while slavery still exists on American soil:\n\nWho shall receive him? Who, unblushing speak\n\nWelcome to him who, while he strove to break\n\nThe Austrian's chain from Magyar necks, struck off\n\nAt the same blow the fetters of the serf,\n\nAnd reared the altar of his Father-land\n\nOn the broad base of justice, and thereby\n\nLifting to Heaven a pure and honest hand,\n\nMocked not the God of Battles with a lie!\n\nWho shall be Freedom's mouth-piece? Who shall give\n\nHer welcoming cheer to the Great Fugitive?\n\nWhittier reminds Americans of the universal assumption behind Kossuth's revolutionary struggle; in addition to fighting for the Magyar nobility, he ended the system of serfdom in Hungary. It was not, according to Whittier, a \"lie\" but an act of universal justice. In contrast, Whittier implies that Americans are living a lie and have in fact betrayed the cause of freedom. When he refers to Kossuth as the \"Great Fugitive,\" all Americans in 1851 would have understood the allusion to the recently passed Fugitive Slave Law. And as he responds to his own question (\"Who shall receive him?\"), he seems to be singling out for criticism Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who antislavery activists felt had sold his soul by supporting the 1850 compromises and particularly the Fugitive Slave Law : \"Not he, who, all her sacred trusts betraying, \/ Is scourging back to Slavery's hell of pain \/ The swarthy Kossuths of our land again!\" The poem here transforms American slaves into \"swarthy Kossuths,\" and by extension, slave owners and their political supporters (including Webster) are tyrannical despots like Austria and Russia, which crushed the Hungarian rebellion for freedom. Unable to find a suitable voice for liberty among present-day politicians, who are appeasers and compromisers, Whittier concludes the poem by conjuring up the spirit of the recently deceased John Quincy Adams, descendant of Puritan forefathers and a staunch, passionate critic of slavery. According to Whittier, only an uncompromising champion of universal freedom such as Adams is worthy of welcoming \"the noblest guest,\" Kossuth.\n\nWhile most Americans seemed to support Kossuth prior to his arrival, these poems make it clear that they could not easily ignore the connections between Kossuth's struggle for freedom and the fact of American slavery. How could southerners welcome someone whose cause could be so clearly and dramatically linked to the cause of the slave? And what would be the repercussions if the American government officially recognized and welcomed him? On December 3, 1851, just days before Kossuth's much-anticipated arrival in America, a heated series of exchanges took place on the Senate floor, particularly among three southern senators\u2014Henry Foote of Mississippi, Joseph Underwood of Kentucky, and William Dawson of Georgia\u2014and an abolitionist senator from New Hampshire, John Parker Hale. Hale's clever rhetorical maneuvers would exacerbate divisions among the southerners and stall the resolution of welcome and hospitality for Kossuth. It was the first of many increasingly contentious exchanges that would develop in the coming weeks over the national reception of Kossuth. This lengthy and confrontational congressional debate over the reception of Kossuth was the result of the legal, political, and social contradictions inherent in the coexistence of American freedom and American slavery, but it was also the consequence of the inherent paradox of hospitality: any individual act of hospitality is also a violation of the ultimate ethic of hospitality that dictates the welcoming of all equally.\n\nThe trouble began as Senator Foote of Mississippi, acting on behalf of President Taylor, introduced a seemingly innocuous resolution concerning the \"reception and entertainment of Kossuth.\" Foote had played a key role in the passage of the 1850 Compromise measures, but he was also known for his temper. During a heated argument over the 1850 Compromise, Foote had pulled out a pistol on the Senate floor and threatened to shoot Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri; fortunately for Benton, Foote was wrestled to the floor and disarmed. Foote had introduced the February 1851 resolution providing for the transport of Kossuth to America, and now, ten months later, he was introducing a resolution that provided for a joint committee of the House and Senate to \"be appointed . . . for the reception of Louis Kossuth . . . and to tender to him, on the part of Congress, and in the name of the people of the United States, the hospitalities of the Metropolis of the Union.\" Foote told his fellow senators that he expected a unanimous vote without any delay, for with Kossuth about to arrive, Congress should \"receive him in a manner which [was] supposed to be proper by the Government.\"\n\nThe propriety of a timely welcome did not seem to matter to Senator Dawson of Georgia, however, who raised the first objection to the resolution by questioning the prospect of an official government welcome. He noted that there was no precedent for such action, particularly for an individual who had never been \"connected with [American] institutions\" and had never \"rendered any particular service to the country.\" He acknowledged, \"[Kossuth] is a great man, but he is not greater than many men who now live, and who have lived.\" In conclusion, Dawson stated, \"The American heart is open for his reception. It is the people who will receive him. It is the people and not the Government that ought to receive him.\"\n\nSenator Hale of New Hampshire immediately sensed a rhetorical opening in the reservations expressed by Dawson, and he offered what he characterized as a \"friendly amendment\" to assuage Dawson's concerns. Pointing out that Dawson objected to singling out Kossuth above all others, Hale offered to broaden the appeal by adding the following language to the end of the resolution: \"And also to assure him [Kossuth] and his associates in exile of the sympathy of the Congress and the people of the United States with the victims of oppression everywhere, and that their earnest desire is that the time may speedily arrive when the rights of man shall be universally recognized and respected by every people and government of the world.\"\n\nThe proposal was a good example of what Donald Spencer describes as Hale's \"verbal guerilla tactics.\" Hale, a former Liberty Party nominee for president, was seen as the \"most dedicated and consistent opponent of slavery\" in the Senate, and he \"impishly subscribed to the politics of disruption\" as a way of keeping the injustice of slavery at the center of any Senate debate. Hale and Foote had skirmished before. At one point Hale so incensed Foote that he threatened to lynch Hale should he ever venture South, a threat that earned him the name \"Hangman Foote\" among abolitionists. But Hale's proposal here goes beyond simple political maneuvering, for it also drew the debate to the inevitable double bind of hospitality as an ethical ideal of universal and unconditional welcome; he rhetorically extended the welcome to Kossuth to an exemplar of a universal ideal. Hale's proposal drew an immediate and stern response from Senator Foote; unfortunately for the Mississippian, he seemed to fall right into Hale's trap, a trap made possible only by this very double bind of hospitality.\n\nFoote initially expressed his \"deep grief\" and \"profound surprise\" that the resolution was meeting with resistance, and he offered a passionate defense of Kossuth, at one point boldly equating him with Washington. Dawson seemed to bristle at the comparison, asking if Kossuth had ever distinguished himself in battle in the manner of Washington. To this Foote responded with a lengthy and increasingly hyperbolic defense of the resolution and of Kossuth, calling him \"the author of achievements that must hand him down to future ages as _the man of the present age_.\" He reminded the senators that Kossuth would soon be arriving as \" _the invited guest of the nation_ \" and that the proposed resolution was nothing more than a \"simple and unavoidable act of national courtesy.\" It was in his concluding remarks to Dawson, however, where Foote, a staunch defender of American slavery, fell\u2014with fabulous dramatic irony\u2014into Hale's trap:\n\nSir, the gentleman from Georgia seems to overlook the fact, that there is a great struggle going on at this moment in all parts of the civilized world between the principles of freedom and the principles of slavery. The tyrants of the earth have combined for the overthrow of liberty. In some instances open attempts are made to break down political and religious freedom. In others, the means employed by the enemies of freedom are more disguised and insidious, but not at all less dangerous. At such a moment does it behoove the American people to join the side of despotism, or to stand by the cause of freedom? We must do one or the other. We cannot avoid the solemn alternative presented. Those who are not for us are against us. Those who are not for freedom are for slavery.\n\nTo this, Hale simply responded, \"Exactly.\" Hale had created a situation that placed Foote's resolution between two competing ideas of hospitality: Dawson's restrictive and somewhat xenophobic hospitality (which asks, what has the guest done for us in exchange, is he really better than anyone else, and does he really deserve special consideration?), and Hale's more expansive, cosmopolitan ideal of hospitality (which states, we welcome Kossuth as a representative of all oppressed strangers, and we only wish we could welcome them all in actuality).\n\nRealizing he had fallen into Hale's rhetorical ambush and confronted with the unavoidable ironies of slavery's hospitality, Foote launched into a long tirade questioning Hale's true motivation. He characterized Hale (indirectly, of course) as an irrational fanatic and an \"inflated demagogue\" who was trying to raise the slavery question again, an issue that the 1850 Compromise was supposed to have laid to rest. Foote charged that Hale's use of the phrase \" _the victims of oppression_ \" was a \"sinister allusion\" to American slavery, \"obviously designed to be expressive of a very peculiar sympathy for the colored races of this continent.\" Hale's proposal forced Foote to show that, for all his lofty talk of freedom and hospitality, his ideas of both were, as a southern supporter of slavery, limited and conditional.\n\nWith the subject of slavery now front and center in the debate over Kossuth's welcome, another southern senator, Joseph Underwood of Kentucky, ultimately derailed the discussion and doomed the resolution. Underwood flatly stated that he was opposed to the resolution altogether. He explained that if the Senate were to extend this unique welcome to Kossuth, \"there is no end; there is no limit to the exercise of this power, from this time forth forever.\" More importantly, Underwood felt that extending hospitality to Kossuth was a first step down the slippery slope of \"intervention in the affairs of other nations,\" in this case, Russia and Austria, which considered Kossuth a fugitive. As Underwood put it most simply, \"I am not for intervening in any way. I think the soundest policy for any man, family, or nation, is to mind its own business and let the business of other people alone.\" Underwood's fears of intervention had less to do with international relations than it did with domestic sectional politics; he noted that Senator Hale from New Hampshire may \"get up and say, 'I want to intervene a little; I think Kentucky has acted tyrannically; I think Georgia has rather a despotic system, and I want to express my sympathy with the oppressed?' Sir, I am against this whole measure.\"\n\nFollowing the objections of Underwood, other senators moved to postpone consideration of the resolution. Foote, clearly frustrated by the debate, withdrew his motion the next day, and the following week, Senator William Seward of New York put forward an even more moderately worded joint resolution: _\"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled_ , That the Congress of the United States, in the name and behalf of the people of the United States, give Louis Kossuth a cordial welcome to the capital and to the country.\" But even this simple resolution passed only after protracted debate. It would take another week and nearly one hundred thousand words spoken by senators for and against it before the resolution would ultimately pass on a 33 to 6 vote, with all 6 nays coming from southern senators. Thanks to parliamentary maneuvering, the House managed to pass the joint resolution of welcome without any debate, but the sectional divisions over the reception of Kossuth seen in the Senate debate would only deepen in the coming weeks and months. In early January, after another lengthy debate, the House voted 90\u201357 to receive Kossuth in an open session of Congress, with almost all the opposing votes coming from southern representatives. And while the Senate's December resolution to formally welcome Kossuth passed 33 to 6, a February resolution to enter Kossuth's reciprocal letter of thanks into the Congressional Record passed only by a 21 to 20 margin, with the opposition again coming primarily from southern senators (15 of 20 nay votes were from southerners, while only 2 of the 21 yeas were from southerners).\n\nDuring his time in America, Kossuth attempted to appease southern concerns by avoiding the slavery question altogether, claiming that it was an issue of states' rights and no concern for a foreigner such as himself. In March and April 1852, he traveled extensively in the South hoping to drum up support for his revolutionary cause. Yet in contrast to his experience in the North, where he received countless invitations from every state, in the South he came, for the most part, as an uninvited guest. He received only two invitations during his entire journey in the South. One came from Henry Foote, who had resigned from the Senate to become governor of Mississippi; Foote was one of the few southerners who remained supportive of Kossuth throughout his time in America. The other invitation came from the city of New Orleans, but this was undermined by the Louisiana state legislature, which renounced Kossuth and refused to consider him a guest of the state. As he traveled the South, southerners grew increasingly disdainful of him and his cause. The _Mississippi Free Trader_ , for example, referred to Kossuth as \"the Great Hungarian Leech,\" a particularly harsh though effective metaphor for a parasitical, uninvited guest. Earlier, the same paper had included a parody of a newspaper notice for a fugitive slave, reading: \"One Million Dollars Reward\u2014Ran Away from the subscriber, on the 18th of August, 1849, a likely Magyar fellow, named Louis Kossuth. . . . He pretends to be free, but says he was robbed of his freedom.\u2014Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria.\"\n\nIn the end, Kossuth's efforts to assure southerners that he had no interest in the slavery question did nothing to alleviate their suspicions. Although the _Southern Literary Messenger_ had published pro-Kossuth items up until the month of his arrival, by mid-1852 its editorial stance had clearly changed. He received no more favorable press in the _Messenger_ ; instead the journal directed readers to anti-Kossuth and anti-intervention materials in other publications.\n\nTo make matters worse, Kossuth's efforts to alleviate southern concerns only infuriated abolitionists, who initially had considered his arrival a potential boon to their cause. Both sides now openly admitted the parallels between Kossuth and the fugitive slave, and both sides projected onto Kossuth their own political anger, fear, and resentment. William Lloyd Garrison, for example, published his _Letter to Kossuth concerning Freedom and Slavery in the United States_ , an attack that runs to over one hundred pages. As Timothy Mason Roberts notes, Kossuth's narrowly focused and ultimately nationalistic goal of Hungarian independence was \"unsatisfactory to cosmopolitan American Abolitionists.\" In truth, following this national debate over Kossuth, abolitionists had another potent contradiction to point to in their attacks on slavery.\n\nThe extent to which these political debates over the obligations of hospitality pervaded the national consciousness may be seen in \"Christian Duty to Emigrants,\" a sermon delivered in 1852 by Edward Everett Hale before the Boston Society for the Prevention of Pauperism. In this sermon Hale portrays hospitality as an ethical ideal that embraces all equally and universally, but he goes beyond the issues of Kossuth and the Fugitive Slave Law ; in fact, he seems to berate his listeners for becoming overly concerned with these national political debates while neglecting the strangers who exist closer to home. The epigraph for his sermon, \"I was a stranger and ye took me not in,\" is from Matthew 25:43 (King James Version), and the strangers he has in mind are the poor immigrants who arrive in the city from overseas every day. He asks his congregation, \"How many who hear me have begun to attempt this duty? How many have ever stood upon the wharf to watch the unlading of one of these emigrant ships when she arrives?\" In contrast, he notes, \"If you knew that a hundred persons were coming into town who had been emancipated from Southern slavery by the success of whatever benevolence, you would be glad to watch their entry. Or if a handful of Hungarians, fresh from some last battle, sought a welcome, you would watch for their coming.\" And yet, according to Hale, the poor immigrants arriving every day \"have fought a battle as hard, and have been rescued from slavery as oppressive.\" Over the course of this sermon, he challenges his listeners and readers to overcome their fear of these strangers, and in doing so, to overcome their deep-seated ethnic, religious, and class prejudices. His description of these strangers implies just the sort of risk taking and discomfort required in acts of true hospitality, when we stand to receive no reciprocal benefit from our generosity:\n\nDo you tremble because you are afraid that there is a religious difficulty? Is your Protestantism wounded, lest they betray you to the Pope? . . . They come to us. They come eager to work for us. They come darkened, ignorant, stupid, and untrained. They come, therefore, often poor ; often wicked. Such are the strangers whom the Lord bids us entertain. It is not Hazael, servant of a distant king, with camels laden down with presents, who asks your hospitality. Ignorant men, thriftless women, neglected children, come to you; with no plea but that they are one blood with you, and one flesh; children of one father, heirs of one redemption, and bound to one heaven. Distasteful the care of them is, but it is not your taste which it is to gratify. Laborious it is, but it is not your love of ease which is to be trained. Unthankful they are, but it was not their gratitude that was promised you. His gratitude it was who said, \"Inasmuch as ye have done for the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.\"\n\nWith its references to his listeners' sense of taste, refinement, and leisure, with its unequivocal Christian precepts, with its allusions to Hungarian revolutionaries and fugitive slaves and foreign immigrants, Hale's sermon reminds us once again that antebellum discourse on hospitality informed many different cultural spheres, from the social to the religious to the political. His sermon also reminds us that this discourse was not simply a reflection of social practices and realities; it was also part of an ongoing ethical debate over the nature of American identity.\n\n## CHAPTER FIVE\n\n## Reconstructing  \nSouthern Hospitality  \nin the Postbellum World\n\n_Reconciliation, Commemoration, and Commodification_\n\nIn a sermon delivered at St. Mary's Church of Keyport, New Jersey, on January 27, 1867, the Reverend Telfair Hodgson, a Confederate veteran, made an emotional appeal to the northern congregation about charitable aid for his fellow southerners. Hodgson's \"A Sermon in Behalf of Southern Sufferers\" paints a dire picture of the South in the two years since the war had ended, with floods, droughts, and impending famines adding to the grim reality of an already devastated economy and a defunct social system. With this picture in mind, Hodgson reminds his audience of the Christian imperative of hospitality by citing Matthew 25:43: \"I was a stranger and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick and in prison and ye visited me not.\" Although Hodgson acknowledges that his northern listeners \"may . . . regard these people as enemies\" and may feel that the southern sufferers have \"made the bed upon which they lie,\" he urges them to remember the divine injunction: \"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.\"\n\nBut Hodgson's persuasive appeal goes beyond biblical injunctions by trading on the legendary southern reputation for hospitality. After describing the Atlantans forced to live in tent cities in the dead of winter, he reminds the northern congregation of the privileged position hospitable southerners once enjoyed before they lost everything:\n\nMany of these same persons have been as well, or better off than you or I, and we would have esteemed it a privilege to enjoy their company, or to extend to them the hospitality of our table. These, too, were men noted for their generosity, for their hospitality to strangers. No one, I may safely assert, has ever been turned away by them hungry, when they had it in their power to feed them. And how low they have fallen now. Men of education, and women of refinement, with nothing to clothe their nakedness, with nothing to feed their hunger. Should it be that you hate these people, it seems to me that they have suffered enough to satisfy the animosity of devils. Even though you should regard them as your enemies, their fallen condition should reach your sympathy. If you are not moved by their distress, I fear that your hearts are hard indeed.\n\nIn calling a southern reputation for hospitality to mind, Hodgson implies that northerners should likewise treat southerners\u2014a recently foreign population forcefully taken back into the domestic space of the nation\u2014with generosity and compassion. He cites the well-known legends of southern hospitality to help his listeners reimagine a national household following a fratricidal Civil War. His rhetoric promotes solidarity between northern audience and southern sufferers along the lines of religion and class, for his listeners would have recognized his characterization of hospitality as both an imperative of Christian morality and a pleasing social ritual carried out among people of refinement.\n\nHodgson's appeal, however, also has an underlying racial dimension. Elsewhere in his sermon he goes to great lengths to blame the freed black population for the current state of affairs in the South, concluding that the former slaves \"are of no use to the social community at the South. They continue to be consumers while they are not producers. At length they begin to be in want, and when there is little restraint they unhesitatingly appropriate the effects of the white population, which is struggling for a bare subsistence.\" For the faithful in New Jersey, Hodgson trades on recognized stereotypes that cast the former slaves as a shiftless, parasitical presence living off the white population. In short, he counterpoints fallen masters and freed slaves to suggest to his northern audience that, despite the white southerners' recent status as foreigners, the African Americans, and not the conquered whites, are the alien population residing within the nation's recently reestablished borders. With the end of the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction, the social order that generated such legends of the South's hospitality had collapsed, yet the discourse of southern hospitality persisted and eventually even proliferated in the postbellum period. Keeping in mind that hospitality is a philosophical question of how we both define and regulate borders between ourselves and others, it seems only natural that the discourses of hospitality generally and of southern hospitality more particularly would figure prominently in the national imagination at this particular moment, for national and regional identities had been formed, broken, and re-formed through sectionalism, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and some four million slaves, a significant part of the nation's population, had suddenly been transformed from strangers or aliens living within the nation into citizens, members of the American body politic.\n\nWhile the vaunted claims of southern hospitality had been vigorously and openly contested on ethical grounds in the antebellum period, these abolitionist critiques were largely forgotten after the Civil War, and between Reconstruction and the early years of the twentieth century, the South increasingly came to be seen as the nation's official home of hospitality. These decades saw radical changes in the South's social and political order, as well as in the South's place in the national imaginary. Reconstruction had begun with a brief period of promise, and many Americans hoped for a successful transition to a new, racially inclusive republic, but this initial promise of Reconstruction would not be fulfilled. Faced with violent resistance from many white southerners and plagued by mismanagement and insufficient resources, the government's most progressive Reconstruction goals were essentially abandoned. With the end of Reconstruction in 1877, Jim Crow segregation settled in as the new culture of the South, a violent discriminatory culture that would eventually receive the Supreme Court's approval in the 1896 _Plessy v. Ferguson_ case. Over these same decades that saw segregation emerge as the new culture of the South, the South itself assumed a new primacy in the national imaginary. As the Civil War receded into the distance, the way Americans remembered the conflict shifted away from its political causes and consequences\u2014slavery and emancipation\u2014and toward themes of national reconciliation and reunion. At the same time, positive and nostalgic representations of the South proliferated in print, popular culture, and the literary marketplace. As Americans turned their backs on the real plight of African Americans in the segregated South, a new rise in tourism and travel to the South increasingly brought northerners face-to-face with southerners, black and white. And in the emerging national marketplace of the late nineteenth century, the norms of middle-class consumerism were themselves predicated on the logic of segregation, with African Americans confined to the margins of the marketplace, not just regionally but nationally.\n\nIn this rapidly changing postbellum world, the discourse of southern hospitality proved to be adaptable and useful in an increasingly wide range of endeavors. With the growth of tourism and travel in the South and in an emerging national consumer culture, southern hospitality evolved into a nostalgic image that could be adapted for both economic and political purposes, often in the same iteration. The growing popularity of literature about the South\u2014particularly nostalgic plantation literature\u2014only enhanced the power of the southern hospitality myth. To northerners facing industrialization and urbanization, this view of the South as a haven of hospitality provided an open field for the projection of their own nostalgic desires for a simpler, better time, while also carrying the promise of regional reconciliation following fratricidal war. To southerners, this reasserted self-image stood as a confirmation of regional pride, exceptionalism, and superiority even in the face of military defeat. To both, the gathering perception of southern hospitality provided an adaptable discourse for reimagining postwar political relations, particularly as the national way of remembering the Civil War shifted toward themes of regional reunion and reconciliation. At the same time, southern hospitality continued to encode a regressive racial ideology throughout this period from the Civil War and emancipation, through Reconstruction, and into the establishment of segregation as both a regional and a national cultural norm. Indeed, a rather blatant racism and white supremacy can be seen as a common denominator in most iterations of southern hospitality throughout these decades. More specifically, most postbellum versions of the discourse of southern hospitality continued to depict the now-free population of African Americans as an alien presence in America, as perpetual strangers incapable of being assimilated into American society, even as they simultaneously portrayed the South as a friendly land of perpetual welcome to white nonsoutherners. This picture of southern hospitality was especially at odds with the rampant racial violence occurring in the South, with some decades during this period averaging hundreds of lynchings of blacks annually. Americans in this period somehow managed to live with and accept these obvious contradictions. Between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, then, southern hospitality continued to function as an exclusive and exclusionary white myth, a virtual \"race characteristic.\" In this chapter I focus on a range of texts that show how the southern hospitality myth was aligned with and generated by the development of tourism in the postbellum southern economy, the national cultural trends toward national reconciliation and unity following the war, and the increasingly popular field of plantation literature. As in the antebellum period of sectional tension, a regressive racial politics serves in these areas of cultural production as the ubiquitous subtext of southern hospitality. While some people questioned this perception of southern hospitality and offered alternative views of hospitality as a national ethic for a racially inclusive democracy, these voices were fewer and generally more muted than before the war. I begin and end this chapter with such alternative perspectives.\n\n### Reimagining Reconstruction as Hospitality in the Divided National Household\n\nJust a few years before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln famously used the biblical metaphor of \"a house divided,\" drawn from Mark 3, to describe the moral and political effect of slavery on the nation: \"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half _slave_ and half _free_.\" Lincoln certainly was not alone in referencing this biblical metaphor to describe the sectional crisis. Many Americans had imagined the nation as just such an internally divided household before the Civil War, but the simple eloquence and the prophetic quality of Lincoln's 1858 speech to the Republican State Convention in Illinois make his the most enduring instance. Lincoln was correct in prophesying that the nation would eventually become \"all one thing\" (in this case, free), but emancipation alone would not be enough to heal the nation's internal divisions. Following the war and emancipation, the national household would continue to be deeply divided, complicated now by the complex process of Reconstruction and by the addition of new or returning members to the household: the new population of freedmen and freedwomen, and the formerly \"foreign\" and increasingly recalcitrant population of white southerners.\n\nNineteenth-century discourses on hospitality and domesticity provided a meaningful lens through which to examine this divided domestic space of the nation in the years following the Civil War, and some women writers in particular elaborated upon this metaphor of a divided household in unique and powerful ways. While American women in the nineteenth century considered the domestic sphere as both a sacred space and the foundation for a virtuous republic, and while they generally saw hospitality as a pleasant social ritual founded on a biblically sanctioned moral imperative, nineteenth-century discourses of domesticity and hospitality were also more wide-ranging, bound up in broader conceptions of regional and national spaces and native and foreign identities. Julia McNair Wright and Constance Fenimore Woolson both used these broader conceptions of hospitality as a way of reimagining the possibilities of the domestic national space and its shifting populations in the Reconstruction years. Wright was a prolific writer of literature promoting social reform; she was also a bona fide arbiter of domestic habits and taste and published a popular etiquette book in the postwar decade. Woolson was a popular author of fiction and travel writing whose sojourns throughout the South in the years following the war resulted in a significant body of work documenting from a northerner's perspective this period of the South's fitful postwar transition. Their works that I discuss here provide a glimpse of a brief period in which the possibility of a racially inclusive democracy was at least imagined by some, and hospitality provides the ethical principle to express this possibility. In these texts, the complex divisions within the national household\u2014divisions of North and South, region and nation, male and female, black and white, slave and free, citizen and stranger\u2014all seem to be in a state of constant flux around the question of hospitality.\n\nJulia McNair Wright was a devoted Christian reformer and prolific writer who published numerous works of moral fiction and conduct literature for the National Temperance Society, the American Tract Society, and the Presbyterian Board of Publication. She also published a popular etiquette book titled the _Complete Home_ in 1879, which I briefly discussed in chapter 2. Her chapter on hospitality from this volume indicates her wariness regarding the shifting cultural terrain surrounding hospitality\u2014which she terms the \"queen of the social virtues\"\u2014in the changing, postwar American marketplace. In particular, Wright's text shows increasing uncertainty regarding the impact that a growing culture of consumerism was having on the social habits of hospitality and particularly on what Wright saw as their foundation in Christian morality. But in 1867, in the early days of Reconstruction, Wright published a unique Civil War novel titled _The Cabin in the Brush_ in which this Christian ethic of hospitality figures as perhaps the most prominent moral theme. Rather than focusing on the military side of the war, the novel details the plight of war refugees in the lawless border region between Missouri and Arkansas in the latter days of the war. Though set during the war, the novel promotes the ethic of simple Christian hospitality as a panacea for the numerous problems of identity politics facing the nation during Reconstruction, as Confederates were literally transformed from foreigners into countrymen, and slaves were transformed into freedmen and members of the American body politic. Given these shifting identities, Wright's novel proposes an ethic of hospitality that sees all strangers as one flesh and one body, and gestures toward the possibility of a truly integrated national household in which all stand equal before \"the bar of God.\"\n\nIn a similar fashion, Wright blurs many of the typical divisions of identity that had dominated the nineteenth-century political landscape\u2014race, class, North, South, black, white. The novel's preface, for example, reorients regional identities by substituting an East-West dichotomy for the North-South division that had obsessed the nation throughout decades of sectionalism. This reorientation seems to return the national agenda to a unifying effort of taming the western, uncivilized regions of the country, of bringing the light of Christian civilization into the darkness. Significantly, rather than projecting the designations of savagery and ignorance onto blacks\u2014a common practice during Reconstruction\u2014the divide between the civilized and the savage and the enlightened and the ignorant exists within the white subject: the novel's heroine, Rachel Craig, a mother of five who is illiterate and without any knowledge of God. Rachel lives in \"poverty and roughness\" (9), raising her \"uncouth flock of little ones,\" whose rough appearances are matched by \"manners wild as those of young Hottentots\" (12). By likening these white children to \"Hottentots,\" Wright further blurs the distinctions between whiteness and blackness and civilization and savagery, particularly when we consider the novel's other genuinely positive representations of black characters. Despite her roughness, Rachel's domestic devotion to her children provides the basis for her regeneration. In Wright's view, she is a natural mother sans Christian foundation: \"A very loving, devoted mother in her own way was Rachel, no mother more so; she lived but in her children, and would've defended the little group of white savages with her life\" (12).\n\nRachel's life in the Brush during the war is one of constant trial and tribulation. Her husband is away fighting for the Union cause, leaving her to raise five young children on her own. She is barely able to scrape out a meager existence from the soil. Her oldest son, Jim, is sickly and dies early in the novel. The fact that her husband, James, enlisted with the Union puts her at odds with the majority of those in her region of the Brush, and as a result Rachel and her children are repeatedly harassed and raided by Confederate bushwhackers. The harassment becomes so devastating that Rachel is forced to flee to a refugee camp, reluctantly leaving one of her sons behind with a neighboring couple named the McQueens, a surly, unsavory pair who also happen to be Confederate sympathizers. Most of the novel is devoted to Rachel's journeys to and from the refugee camp: her first journey to escape the bushwhackers, and her second journey back to the Brush to retrieve her young son. Rachel traverses a war-torn, impoverished landscape populated primarily by fellow wanderers, and throughout her travails, Wright provides numerous scriptural allusions to frame these scenes. Up until her initial arrival at the refugee camp, Wright always follows these scriptural allusions by reminding the reader that Rachel has no knowledge of God and consequently can take no comfort from him in the way that her ideal Christian reader would. But this all changes with Rachel's arrival at the refugee camp. Through Wright's depiction of the refugee camp, Reconstruction is nothing less than a transformation of the national household premised on the ethic of Christian hospitality. Moreover, this transformation of the domestic space is led by the combined efforts of white _and_ black Christian women. The title of the chapter in which Rachel arrives at this camp is \"The Good Samaritan,\" and the Good Samaritans in this chapter figure as the unlikely pair of a former plantation mistress, Mrs. P\u2014\u2014, and her former slave, Aunt Sally. The two welcome Rachel to the camp, and together they minister to both her physical and spiritual needs. A hopeful metaphor for the process of Reconstruction, the refugee camp itself is an erstwhile plantation whose slave quarters have been transformed into welcoming cabins and \"kindly shelter\" for an integrated population of refugee and former slave families. Mrs. P\u2014\u2014 and Aunt Sally introduce Rachel to the Christian faith and also provide helpful domestic hints on cleaning and caring for her children. And in a deeply symbolic passage that has roots in ancient hospitality rites and resonates with numerous biblical scenes, Aunt Sally carefully cleans and binds the traveler Rachel's feet, which have been severely injured from her long journey. Aunt Sally also gives Rachel her very first introduction to \"de good Lord Jesus Christ\" who \"come into dis worl', to bear our burdens an carry our sins\" (119). Further, as Rachel and Sally share their difficult histories with each other (Sally's includes separation from five children and her husband), the slave's narrative is symbolically laid beside the white refugee's narrative, with Sally reassuring Rachel that the Lord will \"bring good out ob all de ebil\" in the world, offering her own current state of freedom as proof (120).\n\nHospitality also figures prominently in Rachel's arduous journeys to and from the refugee camp to retrieve her young son Bill; in fact, nearly every scene described during these journeys revolves around the question of hospitality. Reflecting the fluidity of the postwar political moment, identities always seem uncertain in repeated scenes where Rachel must approach a campfire to ask for succor from fellow refugees (both Confederate and Union sympathizers), from newly freed blacks, from Union scouts, and even from some of the very bushwhackers who burned down her cabin (in this instance, a gray-haired bushwhacker does her a kindness, and he later figures in the novel's resolution). These encounters are usually filled with trepidation for both the guest _and_ the host, as the simplest exchanges of hospitality become fraught with uncertainty and risk in the war-torn landscape. The understated simplicity of Wright's descriptive and narrative style lends these scenes an almost biblical, parable-like quality. Rachel is enlightened and transformed by these exchanges, particularly when she desperately seeks the hospitality of a stranger who turns out to be an itinerant preacher named Parson Murray:\n\n\"May I sit by your fire? I am all alone, wet and tired,\" said Rachel.\n\n\"Come in, and welcome,\" replied the man, \"it is an old story that misery loves company; I'm all alone, too, and besides the Lord has said, 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,' and so here is such entertainment as I got.\"\n\nThis was a new speech, and Rachel entered the shelter of the branches, overwhelmed at the goodness of the Lord. (158)\n\nFollowing this encounter with Parson Murray, which occurs during Rachel's return journey to the Brush to retrieve her son Bill, the novel takes on new themes of postwar reconciliation and regeneration. This stranger becomes a fellow traveler and seeker, with Rachel's anxious search for her son paralleling Parson Murray's search for his long-lost brother Matt, a bushwhacker whom he hopes to \"turn from his ways\" (158). It soon becomes clear to Rachel that the gray-haired bushwhacker who had treated her with some kindness earlier in the novel is in fact Murray's brother, a fact that gives the parson hope for Matt's redemption. Somewhat enigmatically, Parson Murray seems to embody the theme of regional reconciliation: he originally hails from Vermont yet he is described as being clad in \"a suit of threadbare butternut,\" a de facto badge of the Confederate soldier (162).\n\nWright uses Parson Murray as a mouthpiece to express a generally progressive attitude toward Reconstruction racial politics. For example, in the midst of his \"godly conversation\" with Rachel, the parson tells her of his experiences ministering to blacks; in contrast to the mixed results of his preaching to whites, he says, \"Negroes is pretty generally ready to learn 'bout the Lord. I'se spent many happy hours in their cabins, feelin' we was all one in the Lord\" (174). Rachel concurs, noting, \"It was a good old black woman first told me of the Lord lovin' folks, and folks lovin' the Lord\" (174). Though the novel at times betrays a patronizing attitude regarding black spirituality\u2014common for much of the nineteenth century\u2014Wright nonetheless is progressive in her repeated symbolic representations of the national household as a racially integrated space governed by Christian principle. She immediately follows this passage with a scene in which Rachel and Parson Murray accept the hospitality of a small party of black refugees. This is one of the longest, most detailed of such scenes in the novel, with the white and black travelers dining, praying, worshiping, singing, and eventually sharing tents together.\n\nThough the novel is set near the end of the Civil War, it is clearly directed to the cultural and political climate of Reconstruction. For example, in this exchange with the black refugees one of the anecdotes related through the narrative seems to allude less to the violence that occurred during the war and more to the racial violence and intimidation already under way in the South at the time of the novel's publication. As the black refugees depart, one of them relates his hopes to arrive at a \"colored church\" recently established by a preacher known as Uncle Lucius, but Wright interrupts the narrative with this editorializing aside:\n\nAlas for his expectations! Already had the humble edifice been fired by lawless hands, because a school for colored children had been opened there, and while the unhappy blacks were violently prevented from doing aught to save their property, the place so dear to their simple hearts crumbled to blackened ashes. The black women wept from fright, Uncle Lucius wrung his hands from his pulpit and big Bible, and hymn book, and the children filled the air with cries for their books and slates; a rich ovation, all this grief and lamentation, to the cruel hearts who had done the deed. Who will build again the walls of this little outpost of Zion, where Christ was indeed preached with zeal and sinners were led to him? (182\u201383)\n\nRather than alluding to some fictional church established during the Civil War, Wright's direct question to the reader seems to refer to the current violence taking place in the South, as white southerners who rejected black progress and black social equality launched a successful and lawless campaign of violence and intimidation against black citizens and white Republicans alike.\n\nBut in the story of Matt Murray, the gray-haired bushwhacker and the parson's brother, Wright's narrative also holds out the hope for the possibility of Confederate regeneration. After finding her son, Rachel and the parson come upon his brother Matt, who is being held prisoner by a troop of Union scouts who had earlier offered Rachel their hospitality. With Rachel's testimony and Matt's promise of loyalty, the parson's brother is spared. Still, the troop does proceed with the execution of the bushwhacker Sime, Matt's malevolent commander who had seemed to take genuine pleasure in his persecution of Rachel's family earlier in the novel. As a Civil War parable for the Reconstruction era, the novel offers equal status for both freedmen and reconstructed Confederates within the national household, but lawless, unregenerate guerillas like Sime (a stand-in perhaps for the lawless insurgent groups such as the Ku Klux Klan that emerged during Reconstruction) do not. The novel ends with a scene of life back at the integrated refugee camp. Parson Murray departs with the now \"subdued,\" ex-Confederate brother, while Aunt Sally acts as an agent in the transformation of Mrs. McQueen, the former Confederate and bushwhacker sympathizer who, we are told, \"came out in an entirely new character, and behaved herself quite decently\" in this newly integrated domestic setting (248).\n\nWhile Julia McNair Wright's _The Cabin in the Brush_ is direct and unwavering in its advocacy of the Christian ethical imperative of hospitality in the context of Reconstruction, Constance Fenimore Woolson's writings of the South and the ethics of hospitality are more probing, circumscribed, and realistic in their moral expectations. Woolson spent six years living in and traveling throughout the South from 1873 to 1879, and her fiction and travel writing that resulted from these sojourns are kaleidoscopic, offering wide-ranging, nuanced views of the South as it was in the process of being reinvented both in the world of politics and in the national imagination. While some of Woolson's writings on the South view the southern aristocracy with a type of nostalgic fascination that seems to both conserve and celebrate the class and racial distinctions implicit in the discourse of southern hospitality, two of her \"Southern Sketches\"\u2014\"Old Gardiston\" and \"Rodman the Keeper\"\u2014provide remarkable rereadings of southern hospitality in the context of Reconstruction and national reconciliation. While these texts interrogate the motivating politics of southern hospitality, they also explore and reimagine interregional hospitality as an ethical imperative with national political consequences in the context of Reconstruction and reconciliation. More than once in these stories southerners are forced to either extend hospitality to or receive hospitality from northern military men.\n\nAs the last of her family and thus the last protector of the family home following the war, Gardis Duke, the central figure in \"Old Gardiston,\" believes in social practices that are pointedly exclusive rather than politically inclusive. Gardiston House had been in decline well before the war, and the South's defeat has ironically raised the family's social status by reducing everyone to the same low level. This allows Gardis's aunt, Miss Margaretta, to open her doors to her new peers, and while a subsequent visit of \"two ancient dames\" is a hollow and pathetic parody of the lavish ways of the past, the \"little stories\" they tell of earlier generations fill \"Gardis with admiring respect.\" Later in the story, when the military officers David Newell and Roger Saxton first visit Gardiston House to inform the household of the Union regiment's encampment in the area, Gardis immediately faces a conflict regarding her supposed heritage of hospitality: \"'Shall I ask them in?' she thought. 'What would Miss Margaretta have done?' The Gardiston spirit was hospitable to the core; but these\u2014these were the Vandals, the despots, under whose presence the whole fair land was groaning. No; she would not ask them in\" (111). Unfortunately for Gardis, she later becomes beholden to the occupying troops after they protect the house from a mob of rioting freedmen, and she is forced to extend them the hospitality she first denied. A deeply conflicted Gardis extends an invitation to the officers, but with the caveat that it is a \"mere dinner of ceremony, and not of friendship\" (119). Gardis seems acutely aware of the obligations entailed in the gift of hospitality, and receiving aid from her sworn enemies carries a sense of degradation for her, particularly since she had earlier denied them hospitality. Following the dinner, she is further horrified when Saxton extends his hand in friendship. She does not deign to acknowledge his efforts, and later she melodramatically burns the \"desecrated\" clothes she wore for the dinner.\n\nBut \"Old Gardiston\" does not simply debunk southern hospitality by portraying it as a hypocritical and self-serving myth. If that were the case, Woolson would not have given voice to Gardis's aging Cousin Copeland, who rebukes her when she initially fails to welcome the northern officers: \"Hospitality has ever been one of our characteristics as a family. . . . It is a very sad state of things, my dear\u2014very sad. It was not so in the old days at Gardiston House; then we should have invited them to dinner\" (114). Rather than simply dismissing southern hospitality out of hand, then, Woolson here offers two contrasting dimensions: Gardis's sense of hospitality's recent politics and Cousin Copeland's sense of hospitality's abiding ethics. In \"Old Gardiston,\" politics and ethics seem peculiarly at odds.\n\nCan northerners and southerners move beyond the trauma and resentment of the war and see one another as equals? This enduring ethical possibility is illustrated in the humble exchange of hospitality that takes place between Captain Newell and Cousin Copeland later in the story. When the family loses its one remaining source of income\u2014rent from a warehouse tenant\u2014Copeland is forced out of his house to seek employment in town. Newell comes upon the dejected and impoverished Copeland sitting on the steps of a church after a degrading and unsuccessful job search. In contrast to Gardis's politically charged efforts to maintain a sense of superiority, the present exchange is marked by equality and mutual respect. Newell takes a seat beside the dejected Copeland as though \"a church-step on a city street was a customary place of meeting\" (127), and Copeland offers Newell a portion of his meager rations\u2014a small piece of cornbread\u2014as he proceeds to tell his story of failure. The exchange, however, ends \"in the comfortable eating of a good dinner at the hotel, and a cigar in Captain Newell's own room\" (127). Since the two men can see each other as equals, Copeland has no qualms about accepting Newell's offer of assistance in finding a new tenant. He even goes so far as to invite Newell to spend the night during a later visit, much to the chagrin of his cousin Gardis. Anticipating the promise of a budding romance between Newell and Gardis, Copeland helps bring the story to a permanently hospitable close. The story concludes by incorporating the sort of intersectional marriage plot that proliferated in postbellum fiction as a symbol of national reconciliation.\n\nThe politics of hospitality were not so easily banished, however, even in the South that Woolson imagined. In \"Old Gardiston,\" the reconstructive pressure of new black citizens intrudes only briefly with the rioting freedmen and only to encourage white solidarity and a grudging \"noblesse oblige\" that brings Gardis and Captain Newell together. Old resentments can be eased through a newly national ethic of hospitality, it seems, as long as new political burdens do not frustrate a sense of well-heeled resolution. But in \"Rodman the Keeper,\" the title story of her 1880 collection of \"Southern Sketches,\" prejudices run too deep for characters to move forward, particularly when the politics of hospitality are tied to a more complex handling of race than \"Old Gardiston\" allows.\n\nAt first, a similar but more dramatic instance of the ethics of hospitality occurs in \"Rodman the Keeper\" when the Union veteran John Rodman grudgingly takes in the dying Confederate veteran Ward De Rossett, caring for him in his small cabin at Andersonville National Cemetery. The story's exposition underscores the absolute sense of alienation and hostility between victorious northerner and the defeated South. Rodman feels little but contempt for the defeated South, and his sectional prejudices only harden through his daily task of memorializing the Union dead: he is charged with \"transcribing day by day\" the names of the fourteen thousand dead Union soldiers that surround him. Not surprisingly, the townspeople likewise resent his presence and the entire initiative of the national cemetery within the conquered South: \"Everything was monotonous, and the only spirit that rose above the waste was a bitterness for the gained and sorrow for the lost cause. The keeper was the only man whose presence personated the former in their sight, and upon him therefore, as representative, the bitterness fell, not in words, but in averted looks, in sudden silences when he approached, in withdrawals and avoidance, until he lived and moved in a vacuum.\" Like the Union dead in the southern cemetery, Rodman is a \"Stranger . . . in a strange land,\" yet the southerners in the story also feel a sense of alienation, having been forced back into the nation (12).\n\nBut Rodman is able to overcome his own sectional prejudices\u2014or at least momentarily suspend them\u2014and open his door to his former enemy, the dying Confederate veteran Ward De Rossett. Rodman comes across De Rossett when searching for a cold spring on an abandoned plantation near the cemetery grounds. De Rossett is a pitiful specimen of the defeated planter class, starving and slowly wasting away from his war wounds in a dilapidated plantation mansion, tended to by an aging former slave named Pomp. Rodman feeds and cares for De Rossett, and with Pomp's assistance, eventually moves him to the keeper's cabin at the cemetery so that he can care for him, much to the chagrin of De Rossett's proud but impoverished niece, Bettina. As the following passage indicates, Rodman's benevolent actions create a \"remarkable\" new existence for De Rossett, Rodman, Bettina, and Pomp within the confines of the national cemetery:\n\nThen began a remarkable existence for the four: a Confederate soldier lying ill in the keeper's cottage of a national cemetery; a rampant little rebel coming out daily to a place which was to her anathema-maranatha; a cynical, misanthropic keeper sleeping on the floor and enduring every variety of discomfort for a man he never saw before\u2014a man belonging to an idle, arrogant class he detested; and an old black freedman allowing himself to be taught the alphabet in order to gain permission to wait on his master\u2014master no longer in law\u2014with all the devotion of his loving heart. For the keeper had announced to Pomp that he must learn his alphabet or go; after all these years of theory, he, as a New-Englander, could not stand by and see precious knowledge shut from the black man. So he opened it, and mighty dull work he found it. (28)\n\nFor at least a tenuous moment, the \"house divided\" by sectionalism and war is momentarily made whole under one roof, but this is a household that comes into existence only after Rodman can accept the risk of suspending his sectional prejudices and extending his hospitality to Ward De Rossett. Moreover, the resulting situation puts every party at some risk of similar discomfort, but this is essential if we think of hospitality from an ethical perspective.\n\nEven though Woolson in this metaphorical passage can imagine the possibilities of a national ethic of hospitality, the story cannot sustain such possibilities through to its conclusion. Old resentments and new political burdens frustrate any sense of resolution. Unlike the conclusion of \"Old Gardiston,\" which follows the dominant cultural patterns of reconciliation and reunion, \"Rodman the Keeper\" offers no sense of closure. Instead we see that prejudices run too deep to move forward. Bettina Ward cannot bring herself to sign the cemetery's registry of visitors. This more pessimistic\u2014and realistic\u2014conclusion can be tied directly to the story's more complex handling of race. Though the imagined household of reunion described a moment ago does include an African American presence, Pomp's role in the household is a mere projection of white desires. For De Rossett he plays the part of faithful slave, and to Rodman he remains the subject of missionary zeal. But a third alternative is offered through the events that occur on Memorial Day. Ironically, Rodman had totally forgotten the day until he is reminded of it by the arrival of a parade of freed blacks who have come to honor the dead. As the line of former slaves moves among the Union graves, Woolson describes the \"new-born dignity of the freedman\" and portrays the African American community in this scene as a more vital, self-directed presence and the former slaves as potentially equal partners in the American political landscape. Even Pomp momentarily steps out of character by sneaking out later that evening to honor the dead, unbeknown to his former master. Unfortunately, the possibility of black equality and political agency is something that Bettina Ward, like so many southerners, is unwilling to accept. When racial difference is a factor, they cannot accept the risk that unconditional hospitality requires. After the parade, Rodman ruefully notes to himself, \"Not a white face.\" Bettina Ward coolly responds, \"Certainly not\" (34). Indeed, if we compare the African American presence in both stories, the results are telling. In \"Old Gardiston\" the African Americans pose a threat in the form of a rioting mob that in turn brings the northern and southern characters together; in contrast, envisioning the freed African Americans as potentially equal partners in the political process drives a divisive wedge between the northern and the southern characters. With this juxtaposition, Woolson's stories here subtly prod her readers to imagine the possibilities of a civil society in which hospitality is a national ethical principle because national politics have been transformed.\n\nIn these fictions, Constance Fenimore Woolson and Julia McNair Wright both adapt nineteenth-century discourses of hospitality to conceptually open up the national domestic space around issues of identity and citizenship in Reconstruction, articulating complex and often shifting fault lines between self and other, region and nation, upper and lower classes, and, inevitably, white and black Americans. However, at the same time as Wright and Woolson were reimagining the ethical possibilities of hospitality, others were resurrecting the discourse of southern hospitality in ways that foreclosed these more democratic and racially inclusive possibilities. Ranging from the emerging tourism and hospitality industries, to Civil War memorialization, and to developing genres of regional literature, these iterations of southern hospitality evolved in the postwar decades into a wide-ranging, exclusionary white myth, all at the very moment when African Americans were struggling to define and assert themselves in their new roles as citizens in the national household and before an increasingly skeptical American public.\n\n### Southern Tourism and the \"Social Reconstruction\" of Whiteness: Edward A. Pollard's _The Virginia Tourist_ (1870)\n\nPublished in 1870 in the midst of Reconstruction, the journalist Edward A. Pollard's _The Virginia Tourist_ shows how the discourse of southern hospitality was easily adapted to a new economic agenda of tourism and travel in the postbellum South; it also reveals the historically situated racial and political dimensions of these emerging discursive practices. In the concluding chapter, titled \"Practical Hints,\" Pollard goes to great lengths to reassure his northern readers of the warm and hospitable reception they will receive from southerners, who customarily make \"a special and sedulous effort\" (277) to accommodate northern visitors:\n\nPersons in the North . . . will be received there with the most cordial welcome, will enjoy the advantages of marked efforts to please them, and will have the satisfaction of assisting in a social \"reconstruction,\" in which the people of the South are prepared to meet them with gracious readiness and with grateful alacrity. . . .\n\nTo the peaceful and richly-endowed spaces of her springs and mountains and scenery the State invites all comers; and what nature has bestowed, a generosity that does not encumber with its obligations, and a hospitality that never wearies of its offices, unite to dispense.(277)\n\nNot only would the immediate needs of northern tourists be met, but \"the social reunion of the two sections\" would naturally ensue (277). Through the genres of popular fiction and travel writing, Americans of the nineteenth century would have recognized the long-held assumption of southern hospitality, which Pollard here rhetorically transforms into both an enticing tourism pitch and a patriotic call to the duty of social reconstruction. On the one hand, Pollard's rhetoric reflects the post\u2013Civil War culture of reconciliation, which increasingly described the South in romantic and nonpolitical terms. On the other hand, his specific allusions to southern hospitality also forecast the more modern tendency to transform southern hospitality into both a compelling advertising strategy and a consumable product.\n\nAt the same time, when Pollard suggests that visiting northerners will be participating in the \"social 'reconstruction'\" of the nation, the reconstruction he has in mind is decidedly retrograde. It was Pollard who coined the phrase \"the Lost Cause,\" and following the publication of _The Lost Cause_ (1866), his history of the rebellion from a chauvinistically Confederate perspective, he had written _The Lost Cause Regained_ (1868), a work that outlines a comprehensive national political agenda based on the doctrine of white supremacy. For Pollard, the end of slavery only clarified the central political issue facing the country, that of white racial purity and dominance: \"When [the South] defended Slavery by her arms, she was single-handed, and encountered the antipathies of the world; now, when she asserts the ultimate supremacy of the white man, she has not lost her cause, but merely developed its higher significance, and in the new contest she stands, with a firm political alliance in the North, with the binding instincts of race in her favour, and with the sympathies of all generous and enlightened humanity drawn upon her.\" With this political agenda in mind, we can look at his comments in a new light; for Pollard, the \"social reconstruction\" that southern hospitality can help to secure is the reconstruction of the white race on a national level.\n\nSignificantly, this depiction of southern hospitality as a statement of white solidarity is sometimes seen in a more blatant manner in texts promoting northern and foreign emigration to the South after the Civil War. In Frederick B. Goddard's _Where to Emigrate and Why_ , for example, the introduction to the book's southern section concludes that \"the Southern people will extend to the immigrant of every land and condition, their far-famed hospitality and welcome.\" This promise is echoed in the numerous letters from southern officials that follow, detailing the South's climate, social customs, and economic opportunities. For example, in a letter describing the potential for immigration in Virginia, the state agent for immigration, J. D. Imboden, writes that there is a \"universal\" desire for immigration in the state, whether immigrants are foreign-born or from the North, and he promises these potential immigrants a \"cordial welcome.\" But again this promise of southern hospitality involves a racial logic. Tellingly, he draws his letter to a close with a promise of white supremacy that includes the potential immigrant (even the foreignborn) in its power structure: \"This too will always be a white man's State. The white male population of voting age exceeds the negroes more than 40,000 in the State, and the majority will rapidly increase as white population flows in, and the negroes move southward, as is now their tendency. They will be harmless here. No immigrant need fear any trouble from them, and the whites will welcome all you can send with open arms.\" For Pollard and like-minded southerners, then, the discourse of southern hospitality was about establishing boundaries of community and political power. While the sense of who could belong is fluid and depends largely on political or economic needs, the notion of who does not belong\u2014the black population\u2014remains constant.\n\nEven a simple call for the economic development of southern plantations into hunting resorts betrays this same dynamic. An 1879 article in _Forest and Stream_ titled \"A Hint to Southern Plantation Owners\" encourages owners of southern plantations to open their lands to well-heeled sportsmen from the North. The article complains that too often these abundant hunting grounds only supply \"entertainment for friends and an unlimited supply of 'sport' to our colored hero of the dollar shot gun.\" Like Pollard, the pitch here joins economic benefits with sociopolitical ones. By charging \"gentlemen visitors\" for their \"proverbial and long time-honored Southern hospitality,\" southern landowners will gain economically while still providing important opportunities for the sort of social reconstruction advertised by Pollard:\n\nHundreds of gentlemen who read this journal would eagerly embrace such an opportunity. . . . There would be many very pleasant attendant features of such visits of Northern sportsmen to their brothers in the South. . . . All such social interchange is to be encouraged. Its results are happy. . . . The dollar shot gun hunter of colored complexion would doubtless have his enjoyment somewhat marred and his privileges curtailed. But the proprietor who employs efficient game wardens will find ample reason to congratulate himself upon the new order of things.\n\nImportantly, in this case, the \"new order\" includes the displacement of the heretofore usurping black population and the happy reunion of southern and northern brothers-in-(sporting) arms. The article concludes by recommending a particular plantation in Virginia and reminding readers that they are already \"familiar with the beauty of the scenery, the hospitality of the people, and the abundance of game, for all of this ha[d] been repeatedly written of in [the journal's] columns.\"\n\nWith the war lost, the old social verities largely destroyed, and the free black population exerting an unforeseen pressure, Pollard's _Virginia Tourist_ tries to imagine just such a \"new order,\" both social and political. As David Blight writes in _Race and Reunion_ , Pollard's _Lost Cause Regained_ \"counseled reconciliation with conservative Northerners on Southern terms.\" It is not surprising, then, that his tour book published only two years later is primarily addressed to northerners, but particularly those of the white upper classes. His representation of life at the Springs resorts emphasizes conspicuous consumption, elegance, refinement, and exclusive society. At the same time, Pollard is noticeably ambivalent about the possibilities of more fluid relationships among the middle and upper classes. So while he insists on white solidarity in the face of a free black population, he also wants to maintain clear class distinctions among whites.\n\nIn his introductory chapter, for example, Pollard describes at great length the opportunities for economic development and speculative investment in the Springs, which he believes can compete with northern resort areas such as Saratoga Springs and Cape May. A factor preventing this is the southern onerate system, which puts all guests on the same level as consumers. Pollard urges Virginia's resort hotels to favor a more northern model of \"adaptation to different classes of customers.\" As things currently stand, Pollard complains that there are \"no degrees of comfort, or what is more, degrees of privacy.\" Later, in a description of social life at the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, he hints at a fear of class fluidity infecting the life at the Springs, particularly in the form of the newly wealthy from the North: \"The social life here, high as it is, is peculiarly Southern, drawing its animation from the principal Southern cities, such as New Orleans, and having little of that Northern shoddyism which it has been attempted to import into some of our summer resorts in Virginia\" (122). Pollard's comments on \"Northern shoddyism\" carried a particular meaning in the years after the war, for the word was \"first used in the United States with reference to those who made fortunes by army contracts at the time of the Civil War, it being alleged that the clothing supplied by the contractors consisted largely of shoddy,\" a type of cheap, recycled woolen yarn. Pollard, then, is criticizing the nouveau riche of the North. More specifically, he points to those whose sly wartime trickery enabled their social climb, and his critical comments here reveal the anxiety running beneath his desire for social reconstruction with the North. Pollard desires white political solidarity, but he fears the loss of rigid class distinctions in the more fluid postwar economy. Yet Nina Silber's assessment of bourgeoning travel and tourism industries in the South following the war reveals that this criticism of northern shoddyism actually could prove effective with northerners: \"The South held a unique class appeal which other tourist spots seemed to lack . . . [for] the South could offer an association with true aristocracy, even if it meant the remnants and ruins of an aristocratic past. . . . Consequently, for middle- and upper-class northerners, the South became a land in which the class tensions of their own industrializing and stratified society could evaporate.\"\n\nAt another point in _The Virginia Tourist_ , romantic visions of the aristocratic antebellum past are counterpointed with the postwar threat posed by a free black population. Pollard describes traveling in a remote and mountainous area of Bedford County, where he unexpectedly comes across a mansion in the mountains:\n\nIt is a wild and desolate country immediately around me. I ride for miles with no sign of human life by the roadside but what some hut contains; some dogs bark at the horse's heels, and an old, half-nude negro glares at the traveler with savage curiosity, ceasing his work in a half-scratched field of withered corn. Suddenly, and as if by a magical translation, the road that has hesitated in such scenes, comes out upon a broad shoulder of the mountain, in sight of a pleasing mansion, and where are noticed, with infinite surprise, all the evidences of the broad and garnished farm of a wealthy planter.\n\nIt was indeed a surprising revelation to have displayed here something like a vision of feudal proprietorship. . . . It was a picture of the old plantation life of Virginia hid away in the niche of a mountain; the romantic home of a modern feodary suspended in the clouds. The hospitality of the proprietor detained me; and it was indeed as refreshing as it was unexpected to dismount at a house which would have been of no mean pretensions even among our lowland gentry. (62\u201363)\n\nIn this scene, Pollard draws pointed contrasts between black and white, former slave and former master, savagery and refinement, and failure and success. These binary oppositions reinforce the desire for the aristocratic associations of the Old South while subtly warning readers of what Pollard sees as the potential disaster and dysfunction that would come with black political power. The hospitality and refinement of the planter he describes reaffirm white identity and provide an ethereal refuge from the grim realities Pollard sees in the shacks of black subsistence farmers. Like Telfair Hodgson, Pollard reinforces the myth of southern hospitality while simultaneously reminding readers of the perpetual strangers or aliens, the African American population.\n\n### Reconciliation, Reunion, and Southern Hospitality: A Northern Regiment Returns South for Mardi Gras\n\nThat northerners were _both_ willing consumers _and_ producers of this reconstructed discourse of southern hospitality may be seen in John Franklin Cowan's _A New Invasion of the South_ (1881), which illustrates the adaptability of the discourse of southern hospitality in the hands of northerners and southerners desirous of regional reconciliation and national unity in the decades following the Civil War. The book chronicles the 1881 expedition of the Seventy-First New York National Guard to New Orleans to participate as invited guests in the festivities of Mardi Gras and to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. Within the national contexts of reunion, reconciliation, and commemoration, the Seventy-First's trip to New Orleans at the invitation of the Royal Host of Mardi Gras was a self-consciously symbolic performance of southern hospitality. In Cowan's depiction of the trip we see this performance of southern hospitality translated into discursive practices that parallel those of Hodgson, Pollard, and others cited above, namely, by advocating national solidarity among the sections while simultaneously alienating or marginalizing black citizens. It also shows that as a way of commemorating or connecting with the past, the discourse of southern hospitality is as much about forgetting as it is about remembering. As David Blight shows in _Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory_ , in the decades after the Civil War, the national way of remembering the conflict shifted away from slavery and emancipation (its political cause and effect) and toward themes of regional reconciliation and mutual sacrifice. This changing way of remembering (and forgetting) was accomplished through rituals, memorials, and histories, and the discourse of southern hospitality was particularly well suited to this cultural work.\n\nIn the \"Dedicatory Note\" and opening chapter of the text, Cowan pointedly underscores the national importance of this act of southern hospitality, noting that \"there was an underlying principle of greater import than the mere interchange of courtesies.\" Cowan explains that he has written this account so that \"the generous treatment of Northern men by Southern men may be known, and to commemorate an event, that it is hoped, by all who participated, will be but that forerunner of that era of national fraternity on which so much of the future of our great country depends\" (1). In the first chapter, titled \"A New Invasion,\" Cowan portrays southern hospitality as having nothing less than transformative powers, turning the military invaders of twenty years earlier into a new invasion of appreciative guests and tourists: \"In 1861 they met with crossed bayonets. In 1881 they met with clasped hands. It was a new invasion of the South, but the olive branch and the magnolia twined about the rifles and the old flag rose and fell over all\" (6). The Seventy-First had been formally invited by the Royal Host of Mardi Gras, which Cowan claims is \"probably the most powerful society in the Southern States, having for its object the development of the financial and commercial interests of the South\" (7). Describing the society as \"knowing no politics,\" he notes that they \"headed the invitation with the offer of generous hospitality\" (7). Cowan interprets for the reader the logic and meaning of the invitation from the southerners' perspective: \"We of the South are anxious to show you of the North that the war is over. The throbbing of the war drums is hushed, the rancor of the past is gone forever. The soldiers of the South are Americans like yourselves, they have been and are misrepresented by designing men, and they are tired of misrepresentation. The old sectional bitterness is swallowed up in the desire for a new era of peace and brotherly love. Come and visit us that we may show you how sincere we are\" (7).\n\nLike Pollard, Cowan interprets the extending and receiving of hospitality between northerners and southerners as evidence of national reconciliation and reunion. Throughout the text, he reminds his readers of their warm reception in the South with numerous anecdotal examples and hyperbolic interpretations: the men of the regiment experienced \"not a single instance of unfriendliness,\" they were \"overwhelmed with kindness,\" they experienced the \"true hospitality\" of southerners, and the \"social attention\" they received \"was unprecedented in the history of any body of travelers\" (8, 42). Significantly, in a passage that elides the causes of the war and seems very much in line with Lost Cause ideology, Cowan proclaims, \"It was nearest the heart of the old confederacy that the reception was warmest\" (8).\n\nBut again as with the writers cited earlier, Pollard's representation of southern hospitality has an implicit racial meaning. His vision of national unity restored through hospitality does not include the population of former slaves. Despite all the references to the military action of the war, he does not include the causes of the war. For one thing, slavery is never even mentioned in the text, and the overall representation of the black population in the South is hardly sympathetic. Instead, the free black population merely hovers in the background, occasionally adding a sense of exotic local color interest to the narrative, as laboring \"darkies,\" half-naked \"pickaninnies,\" or rough-and-tumble roustabouts: \"Several old darkies stood about the cars,\" or \"Three or four little pickaninnies were playing before the door,\" or \"A little darkey, black as coal, and lively as a rat\" who performs for the officers \"a genuine plantation dance . . . that would make our 'variety specialists' turn green with envy\" (33, 35, 36). By the time Cowan was writing, many of the political, legal, and social gains that African Americans in the South had experienced under Reconstruction had already been eroded or dismantled by white lawmakers, and segregation was evolving as a way of life that would become the law of the South by the 1890s. Instead of confronting the complex political questions surrounding race in the post-Reconstruction era, Cowan's text approaches race through the stock conventions of minstrelsy and local color writing. Moreover, these exoticized and dehumanizing depictions of the black population are consistently juxtaposed with contrasting images of hospitable exchanges among white northerners and white southerners. These contrasting representations, which taken together underscore national solidarity and reconciliation along racial lines, culminate in two episodes related at the end of chapter 9 and in chapter 10.\n\nThe first of these passages relates what is meant to be a humorous anecdote about a black servant of one of the officers. The servant, known as Jep, was brought along on the trip to wait on his employer. Cowan describes how Jep, enamored of the \"dusky belles\" of the city, dreamed what it would be like to be an officer like his employer, Commissary Hess: \"He saw himself among the colored girls\u2014the lion of the evening, petted and feasted and admired above all his comrades\" (76). Following his dream, Jep comes up with a plan to turn it into reality, to which Cowan cannot resist the aside, \"Of course it took Jep some time to form an idea in its entirety, but with hard work and determination he succeeded\" (76). As Cowan sarcastically describes Jep's thought process as he decided to steal his employer's uniform and sneak out for a night on the town, it is clear that he finds Jep's aspirations ludicrous, and this message is underscored by the illustration that accompanies the passage. Captioned \"Ambitious Jep,\" the illustration features a black figure in full uniform and with facial features drawn from the caricatured expression of blackface minstrelsy (grossly exaggerated lips, bulging eyes), as a white sentry recoils in surprise and horror. After his ruse is exposed, Jep is returned to his \"proper sphere,\" stripped of the uniform and incarcerated until Commissary Hess secures his release. The anecdote seems to be a gratuitous and superfluous digression in the scheme of the overall narrative, but its placement in the text is perhaps calculated, appearing as it does immediately before the volume's climactic chapter, titled \"Across the Divide,\" which details the regiment's trip to Greenwood Cemetery to honor the Confederate war dead. Cowan explains that the conciliatory gesture was \"born of a desire to do something in return for the kindnesses heaped upon\" the regiment during its time in New Orleans (78). The hospitality of the southerners has created a sense of indebtedness and obligation in their northern visitors. Later, Cowan describes a Mardi Gras ceremony honoring the regiment as a similarly reciprocal act of kindness: \"The salute to the dead was a tribute of the North to the South; the ceremonies at the Opera House were a tribute from the South to the North\" (82). Reflecting on these exchanges, Cowan again interprets the southerners' intentions for his reader: \"In every action that day\u2014in every word\u2014those men and women gathered to do honor to a Northern regiment\u2014breathed but one hope: _that the past might be hidden_ by the weal of the present and the golden promises of the future\" (83, italics added for emphasis).\n\nThese lines from Cowan hint at the dual nature of this commemorative trip and his written record of it, for acts of memory are also, necessarily, acts of forgetting, as certain details of the past are brought to the foreground and others are allowed to recede into the background, to be forgotten. The acts of hospitality celebrated in Cowan's text remind readers of the shared cultural identity of northern and southern whites while simultaneously obfuscating the historical fact of slavery and avoiding the difficult racial politics of the present. Writing against the backdrop of post-Reconstruction politics in the South, which included the calculated disenfranchisement of the African American population and the systematic development of Jim Crow segregation, Cowan's text shows no concern with these contemporary political issues or with questions of African American rights, equality, or justice. Instead, he expresses a sense of indebtedness toward his southern hosts and passes along to his readers the southern message regarding the happy condition of \"colored\" people in the South.\n\nWhile these negative representations of the newly freed black population are not really surprising for this period, what generally hasn't been considered is how these representations work _in tandem_ with the persuasive appeal of southern hospitality. The contrasts drawn between the civility, generosity, and hospitality of white southerners and the savagery, ignorance, and barbarism of the freedmen are recurring discursive patterns in the decades following the Civil War and into the early twentieth century. Paternalistic, offensive, and racist images of African Americans were commonplace through cultural forms such as minstrelsy, cakewalks, newspaper reports and editorials, commercial advertising, and popular fiction and travel writing. At the same time, Americans were increasingly exposed to nostalgic images of the Old South as the war and its causes receded in public memory. Feeling a sense of nostalgia in the face of industrialization, immigration, urbanization, and the like; desiring reconciliation and peace following the devastation of the war; and accustomed to seeing negative stereotypes of African Americans, white Americans proved ripe and willing consumers for these racially inflected fictions of southern hospitality. In contrast to the antebellum period of sectional crisis when the claim of southern hospitality was hotly contested on ethical grounds, the South now emerged as the nation's official home of hospitality. As an Atlanta tourism promoter would later put it in a 1914 _Atlanta Journal_ , \"Every Southern city and every Southern state is joined in a new confederacy, not of arms, but of hospitality\"\u2014a statement that still cites the theme of regional reconciliation nearly a half century after the war. The ethical dimensions of hospitality largely disappeared or were muted in the new postwar economy and amid the emergence of a new hospitality and tourism industry. Indeed, the discourse of southern hospitality seemed perfectly suited to this new endeavor and new economy, providing a renovated and favorable image of the South after the war and in the face of continuing strife around racial issues. Americans could either face the stark political questions surrounding a newly freed population struggling for equality, or they could sink back into imagining themselves guests of the refined hospitality of the old southern aristocracy. Nostalgia was the easy choice for many, made easier by a Lost Cause ideology that reframed the conflict of the Civil War, by an honest desire for reconciliation, by growing fatigue over the difficult terrain of the so-called Negro question, and by a burgeoning school of plantation literature.\n\n### \"The New South is . . . simply the Old South\": Plantation Literature, Hospitality, and the Example of Thomas Nelson Page\n\nAs the nation progressed fitfully toward the modern era in the last decades of the nineteenth century, regional writing increasingly provided fodder for Americans' imaginations and particularly their nostalgic desires for pleasanter, simpler ways of life. Plantation literature of the South was perhaps the most popular and certainly the most ideologically potent school of this growing field of regional and local color writing. Writers in this field helped to renovate the image of the Old South after the war, providing a sanitized, favorable view of slavery, and popularizing a nostalgic, sentimental image of southern hospitality. Many of our perceptions of the South today are still filtered through the lens created by this late nineteenth-century plantation literature and its fictions. As Americans navigated the accelerated rate of social change and flux that came with modernity, this sentimental view of southern hospitality allowed them to project onto the South their own desires for social ideals they may have felt were slipping away. But these imagined hospitable social relationships did not include the African American population. Instead, while white Americans faced the increasingly complex racial politics of the so-called Negro question\u2014including the development of segregation culture and disenfranchisement of the free black population of the South\u2014southern plantation literature encouraged them to retreat into sunny pastoral landscapes filled with hospitable southerners and happy-go-lucky slaves who exhibited a doglike fidelity to their white masters. The \"New Negro\" may have been agitating for political rights or making inroads into the middle class at the end of the century, but in these fictions, the \"Old Negro\" of the plantation days was still alive and well. So while these positive representations of the Old South were steeped in nostalgia, they also went hand in hand with a racist doctrine of white supremacy. The overarching ethical ideals of hospitality were utterly displaced as southern hospitality became a prevailing signifier of white civilization, white solidarity, and white supremacy.\n\nThomas Nelson Page was by far the most influential and popular writer in this growing field of plantation literature, and his most significant extended statement on southern hospitality occurs in the sketches that comprise _Social Life in Old Virginia before the War_. _Social Life in Old Virginia_ was originally included in Page's 1892 collection _The Old South: Essays Social and Political_ , and it was also published in book form in 1897, with illustrations by Genevieve and Maude Cowles. Page labored relentlessly in his writings and public appearances to alter the American public's perception of the Old South, and many of the sketches and essays from these works were originally either delivered as lectures or published in periodicals as he strove to reach the widest possible audience. Page knew this world of the Old South firsthand, having spent his boyhood years on a plantation in Virginia. But the world he writes about had essentially disappeared by the time he was twelve with the South's defeat in the Civil War, so perhaps not surprisingly Page's representations of the Old South betray a sense of arrested development. He earnestly wants to believe, and desperately wants his audience to believe, that all his idealized, romantic notions of the Old South existed in the first place _and_ that they still exist. Page wants no distinction drawn between the postbellum and the antebellum South. As he writes in the title essay to _The Old South: Essays Social and Political_ , \"The New South is, in fact, simply the Old South with its energies directed into new lines.\" Whether in his fiction or nonfiction writing, Page channels his nostalgic representations of the Old South toward a deeply conservative and ultimately racist political agenda. Whether in lectures or on the printed page, his ultimate goal was to reconcile his audience to the sort of Lost Cause ideology articulated by Pollard and others, and to convert his national audience to a doctrine of white racial solidarity and supremacy.\n\nIn the introduction to _Social Life_ , Page explains that he wrote the book to correct \"the absolute ignorance of the outside world of the real life of the South in old times\" and out of \"the desire to correct the picture for the benefit of the younger generation of Southerners themselves.\" An emphasis on gentility, refinement, and social graces runs throughout the text, and for Page, these qualities assume an important racial dimension. In an America that was experiencing radical social changes and pressures at the close of the nineteenth century, Page's version of the Old South becomes a haven for all the traditional values that many Americans felt were slipping away: manners, civility, courtesy, secure and happy social relations, and, of course, hospitality. Indeed, hospitality is both an important theme _and_ a subtle governing principle of the narrative. By the end of the volume, Page has naturalized this social habit into the essential characteristic of the southern (read: white) race.\n\n_Social Life in Old Virginia_ is a series of sketches that essentially takes the reader on a tour of an archetypal southern plantation as Page imagines it to have existed before the war. The narrative logic accords with that of a friendly visit, moving from the exterior scenes and sweeping panoramas of the plantation's fields and grounds to the interior world of the mansion, with particular details of the household, its furnishings, and its inhabitants. Page essentially makes the reader a guest of the plantation in its days of glory. As the narrative enters the domestic space, Page introduces us to the characteristics and habits of the archetypal figures of the plantation household (with special emphasis on the \"Southern Lady\") and eventually to particular social customs and rituals on the plantation. Throughout, he appeals to his readers' senses, immersing them in a dreamlike ambience of the sights, sounds, and smells of plantation life. The accompanying illustrations by the Cowles sisters only underscore this atmosphere, as many seem to be viewed through a hazy, romantic lens that softens the subject. For example, consider the frontispiece portrait for the volume, which portrays the figures of a mother and daughter standing among lilies in a garden before an imposing, white-pillared mansion (see figure 14). The caption reads, \"Tall lilies, white as angels' wings and stately as the maidens that walked among them.\" The downcast eyes of the women create a somewhat mournful tone, perhaps hinting at a loss in the family or perhaps just nostalgically mourning the loss of the old order of things: the images of white pillars and white women and white lilies work in tandem to create this mood. Page likewise acknowledges that his verbal pictures are \"perhaps . . . idealized by the haze of time\" (7).\n\nThe slaves themselves are an important part of the romantic atmosphere that Page creates, adding a \"picturesque\" quality to the scenes being described. He presents the reader with a picture of pre\u2013Civil War racial harmony, with \"servants\" (according to Page, they were only referred to as \"slaves\" in legal documents) in their proper sphere under the paternalistic institution of slavery: \"The life about the place was amazing. There were the busy children playing in groups, the boys of the family mingling with the little darkies as freely as any other young animals, and forming the associations which tempered slavery and made the relation one not to be understood save by those who saw it\" (22). Unlike the New Negro, who was attempting to assert himself politically and economically, here the young slaves assume the docility and quaintness of barnyard animals under the budding paternalistic supervision of the young, future master. Typically, Page later describes happy slaves singing as they labor in the fields, a sign that \"the heart was light and the toil not too heavy\" (28). Even harvest time, which in reality was a period of arduous, tedious labor, is transformed by Page into a carnival: \"The severest toil of the year was a frolic\" (28). When it comes to representing slaves in the antebellum South, Page's strategy typifies plantation literature and southern travel writing of the last decades of the century. Nina Silber has described how writers from both the North and the South \"helped to soften and sentimentalize the 'negro problem' amidst an abundance of flowery prose,\" particularly by portraying African Americans as \"a 'picturesque' element on the southern scene\" or \"simply another feature of the landscape.\" In short, the picturesque provided a \"formula to render possibly threatening features of society . . . safe and amusing.\"\n\nFIGURE 14. Frontispiece for Thomas Nelson Page's _Social Life in Old Virginia before the War_ , 1897. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nAs Page's narrative turns to the inward life of the plantation household, hospitality becomes a more overt and prominent theme, with perpetual guests and entertainments and what Page characterizes as an abundant, wasteful generosity. He emphasizes hospitality as perhaps the most dominant characteristic of the Old South. Of the master, for example, he writes, \"To a stranger he was always a host, to a lady always a courtier. When the house was full of guests, he was the life of the company. He led the prettiest girl out for the dance\" (48). It is for the women of the South, though, that Page reserves his most lavish praise, and in these depictions he combines long-standing notions of an inherent southern aristocracy with a fallacious combination of Darwinian thinking and pseudo-scientific racism. His language calls to mind what Nina Silber has described as a \"cult of Anglo-Saxonism\" that developed in America at the end of the century, a discourse employed by white Americans to describe \"their sense of national will . . . as the working out of the Anglo-Saxon destiny.\" Of the archetypal Southern Lady, Page emphasizes bloodlines and an innate sense of gentility:\n\nShe was gently bred: her people for generations (since they had come to Virginia) were gentlefolk. . . . She was the incontestable proof of their gentility. In right of her blood (the beautiful Saxon, tempered by the influences of the genial Southern clime), she was exquisite, fine, beautiful; a creature of peach-blossom and snow ; languid, delicate, saucy; now imperious, now melting, always bewitching. . . . She had not to learn to be a lady, because she was born one. Generations had given her that by heredity. She grew up apart from the great world. But ignorance of the world did not make her provincial. Her instinct was an infallible guide. When a child she had in her sunbonnet and apron met the visitors at the front steps and entertained them in the parlor until her mother was ready to appear. Thus she had grown up to the duties of hostess. (52\u201354)\n\nPage here depicts the Southern Lady as a unique product of biological inheritance and environmental influence. Her Anglo-Saxon blood combines with the southern environment and social habits to produce the perfect hostess, one immune from the unseemlier \"ways of the world.\" Her social graces are the result of instinct. Moreover, she becomes an object of desire and allegiance for Page's ideal reader, for by the time he was writing, the intersectional marriage plot featuring a southern woman and a northern man had become a recurring trope in popular fiction. And at a time when the old-time virtue of hospitality was being supplanted by a bourgeoning hospitality and tourism industry and commodified in a developing national marketplace, Page offers the Southern Lady as the last bastion of this ancient domestic ideal.\n\nFor Page, though, hospitality is no moral imperative or ethical ideal; rather, it is both a marker of whiteness and an idealized form of consumption: excessive, lavish, and wasteful (an appropriate attitude for the Gilded Age audience for whom Page was writing). The Virginian Lucian Minor in the 1830s complained of the wastefulness and conspicuous consumption of the antebellum planter class. Page likewise describes their way of life as extravagant and wasteful\u2014but wonderful for this very reason. Life within the house, writes Page, \"was like the roses, wasteful beyond measure in its unheeded growth and blowing, but sweet beyond measure, too, and filling with its fragrance not only the region round about, but sending it out unmeasuredly on every breeze that wandered by\" (32). Page casually obscures the link between the labor of the slave and the leisure of the master; he only briefly describes the supporting cast of the household\u2014presenting them as members of \"one great family in the social structure now passed away\"\u2014before going on to detail the social habits and typical entertainments of the plantation: festivals, balls, friendly visits that stretch on for days, and, of course, fox hunts (64). Here Page's narrative reaches a crescendo, and he expresses some exasperation over his inability to convey the wonders of this antebellum world to his contemporary reader. At this point he offers his boldest claims regarding southern hospitality:\n\nI am painfully aware of the inadequacy of my picture. But who could do justice to the truth! . . . Hospitality had become a recognized race characteristic, and was practiced as a matter of course. It was universal; it was spontaneous. It was one of the distinguishing features of the civilization; as much a part of the social life as any other of the domestic relations. Its generosity secured it a distinctive title. The exactions it entailed were engrossing. Its exercise occupied much of the time, and exhausted much of the means. (77)\n\nWhat is unique in this passage is the manner in which Page completely naturalizes this social habit of hospitality by describing it as a \"race characteristic.\" Thirty years before the Civil War, and only a few years after the phrase \"southern hospitality\" had been invented, Lucian Minor could acknowledge that southerners' reputation for hospitality was contingent on slave labor, a product of the unique social circumstances of the South; thus Minor characterized it as an \"easy virtue.\" He also acknowledged that Yankees could be just as hospitable in spirit, even if the circumstances of their culture (the lack of slave labor) dictated different social practices. In contrast, Page, writing thirty years after the war, naturalizes southern hospitality in the Old South so that it becomes a race characteristic, a matter as attributable to blood as to custom. While some may argue that with his use of the term \"race\" Page may simply mean a group of people sharing a common history rather than a group of people genetically linked, both the conclusion of _Social Life_ and Page's other writings dictate otherwise.\n\nIndeed, in the conclusion of _Social Life_ , Page lays bare the racial assumptions and racist underpinnings of his portrayal of the South and its valorized social habits. Here he wistfully reflects on the changes that have taken place in the South since the war, and for the first time, he directly links his hyperbolic praise and nostalgic romanticism for the Old South's culture and social habits to his underlying racist assumptions and political agenda. This connection is accomplished both textually and visually in the 1897 illustrated edition. Having taken his readers on a virtual tour of the Old South plantation, encouraged them to nostalgically long for the simpler times of the past, and allowed them to imagine themselves as guests of the hospitable plantation household, Page offers the following conclusive remarks on the Old South's social habits:\n\nThat the social life of the Old South had its faults I am far from denying. What civilization has not? But its virtues far outweighed them; its graces were never equalled. For all its faults, it was, I believe, the purest, sweetest life ever lived. . . . It largely contributed to produce this nation; it led its armies and its navies; it established this government so firmly that not even it could overthrow it; it opened up the great West; it added Louisiana and Texas, and more than trebled our territory; it christianized the negro race in a little over two centuries, impressed upon it regard for order, and gave it the only civilization it has ever possessed since the dawn of history. It has maintained the supremacy of the Caucasian race, upon which all civilization seems now to depend. It produced a people whose heroic fight against the forces of the world has enriched the annals of the human race,\u2014a people whose fortitude in defeat has been even more splendid than their valor in war. It made men noble, gentle, and brave, and women tender and pure and true. It may have fallen short in material development in its narrower sense, but it abounded in spiritual development; it made the domestic virtues as common as light and air, and filled homes with purity and peace.\n\nIt has passed from the earth, but it has left its benignant influence behind it to sweeten and sustain its children. The ivory palaces have been destroyed, but myrrh, aloes, and cassia still breathe amid their dismantled ruins. (106\u20139)\n\nNotice how Page here drifts from a wistful reflection on social graces to a harder, more chauvinistic stance on white supremacy and Lost Cause idealism (\"fortitude in defeat,\" \"valor in war\") before slipping back to his more nostalgic, softer emphasis on the \"domestic virtues.\" This passage concisely exemplifies the fact that white supremacy was the hard center of Page's nostalgic vision of the South and, more particularly, this narrative. Indeed, the entire narrative has gently tried to direct the reader to this ideological conclusion. And the slightly alarmist tone here (\"It has maintained the supremacy of the Caucasian race, upon which all civilization seems now to depend\") is reminiscent of Page's polemic titled \"The Negro Question,\" where he describes blacks as \"an ignorant and hostile race,\" repeatedly rails against \"negro domination\" and the \"evil . . . race-degeneration\" that will result from any social contact between the races, and alarmingly warns that the \"only thing that stands between the North and the negro is the people of the South.\" Moreover, his overtly racist statement on white supremacy in _Social Life_ is underscored visually in the 1897 edition of the text. In this edition, at the very moment in the text when Page mentions the \"supremacy of the Caucasion race,\" a full-page illustration appears on the opposing page depicting \"A Typical Negro Cabin\" that features an African American couple before a quaint, ramshackle plantation cabin (see figure 15). The quaint and \"picturesque\" quality of this image contrasts sharply with the volume's numerous romantic images of white gentility and refinement. Indeed, if the frontispiece picture (figure 14) may be said to stand for the pillars of Page's constructed Old South ideal of white purity and civilization, this final illustration is the necessary antithesis of that picture. With the rustic, earthy, quaint, and disorderly image of the \"Typical Negro Cabin\" and its inhabitants, the text exiles African Americans to the backgrounds of a bygone era, reducing them once again to \"picturesque\" elements of the plantation landscape.\n\n### Hospitality, Hostility, and Transgenerational Trauma in Charles Chesnutt's _The Marrow of Tradition_ (1901)\n\nStanding on the outside of the southern hospitality myth, African Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continued to offer critiques of this white exclusionary discourse, but their more critical voices were at odds with the prevailing trends of the literary marketplace and their overwhelmingly positive representations of the old plantation South. Frederick Douglass, for example, continued his criticism of the hospitality of the Old South in his later autobiographies, and W. E. B. Du Bois followed suit in _The Souls of Black Folk_ , offering an ethical critique of southern hospitality that is very much in line with abolitionist critiques before the Civil War. Paul Laurence Dunbar offers one of the more imaginative literary renderings in his story \"Nelse Hatton's Vengeance\" from _Folks from Dixie_. In this story, a fallen, impoverished master is forced to seek the hospitality of his former slave, Nelse Hatton, who is now living prosperously in Ohio. Upon meeting, initial reminiscences between the two are wistful and nostalgic, but Nelse's wife eventually pulls him aside and reminds him of the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his master. Recalling that pain and humiliation, Nelse momentarily contemplates violence against his former master, but in the end he restrains himself and gives the former master money and a suit of Nelse's own clothes before sending him on his way. Given the way the economy of gift exchange functioned among planters in the antebellum South, one could say that Nelse's choice is an act that essentially humiliates the former master. Still, the story's resolution leaves an uneasy balance among the narrative's competing currents of nostalgia, truth, and justice: the encounter dredges up traumatic memories for Nelse, but the master is never forced to remember his own brutality, that he was the source of Nelse's trauma. A similar tension among truth, justice, and memory exists in Charles W. Chesnutt's 1901 masterpiece, _The Marrow of Tradition_. The question of southern hospitality figures in very subtle but meaningful ways in the novel, becoming intertwined with these questions of (collective) remembering and forgetting. Most notably, the ethics and politics of hospitality figure prominently in the parallel and climactic scenes in which the white supremacist Major Carteret first refuses and then later is forced to seek out the assistance of the black physician, Dr. Miller, in order to save his dying son (chapters 7 and 36\u201337). But this conclusion also suggests that for the South to move into a meaningful future will require hospitality of mind, namely, a willingness to acknowledge the full trauma of the past.\n\nFIGURE 15. \"A Typical Negro Cabin,\" illustration from Thomas Nelson Page's _Social Life in Old Virginia before the War_ , 1897. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.\n\nChesnutt was keenly aware of the popularity of romance and nostalgia when it came to depictions of the South, but he also believed that American readers could be swayed by compelling moral and ethical arguments. So in an age where much of the literary marketplace put a premium on the romantic \"moonlight and magnolias\" depictions of the South, Chesnutt opted instead for a heavy dose of realism in _The Marrow of Tradition_ , which he based on the recent Wilmington, North Carolina, \"race riot\" of 1898 (\"massacre\" or \"coup\" are actually more appropriate terms). Two years before Du Bois would declare the color line \"the problem of the Twentieth Century,\" Chesnutt's novel paints a comprehensive and nuanced picture of slavery's legacy and the debilitating consequences of southern and indeed American racial thinking. This panoramic view of southern society at the turn of the twentieth century cuts across classes of black and white characters, across varying positions of the racial-political spectrum, and, perhaps most importantly, across generations. As one of the novel's white characters is forced to reflect on the lasting legacy of slavery, \"The weed had been cut down, but its roots remained, deeply imbedded in the soil, to spring up and trouble a new generation.\"\n\nThe plotlines of the novel are held together by the shared, interwoven, and interracial history of two families, the Carterets and the Millers, and the fate of their two male children. The two families embody the historical reality of a racially integrated South and of the shared histories of white and black southerners more generally. This is the truth of the South, but it is one that the white southerners in the novel work hard to forget. Indeed, Major Phillip Carteret is a proud and ardent white supremacist whose main obsession in the novel is restoring his bloodline to its former dignity, and according to his Lost Cause worldview, this requires racial segregation and white dominance of southern culture and politics. The major's white supremacist blustering and obsession with racial purity cannot, however, erase the fact that his wife, Olivia, has a mulatto half-sister, Janet Miller, who is married to William Miller, a successful black doctor who is committed to uplifting his race. Particularly galling to Major Carteret is the fact that the self-sufficient and upwardly mobile Millers live in the former Carteret family mansion, Carteret's boyhood home. Both the major and Olivia forcibly repress these blood ties, despite the fact that Olivia's younger half-sister, Janet, is so similar in appearance as to sometimes be mistaken for Olivia on the street. This repression of the racially integrated reality of the South produces outbreaks of hysteria in the white characters\u2014including Olivia's induced premature labor at seeing her sister on the street, her later nightmares, the major's rabid, race-baiting editorials, and the mass hysteria of the lynch mob and climactic white riot later in the novel. For Olivia Carteret, though, the full truth asserts itself over the course of the novel: she comes to learn that her father had in fact legally married Janet's mother, his former slave Julia, and that Janet is thus her lawful sister and heir to a significant portion of the family estate. Deeply troubled by this revelation, Olivia initially decides to keep this secret to herself, but the truth will out, and in this case, it emerges under extraordinary circumstances in the novel's closing pages.\n\nA year before _The Marrow of Tradition_ , Chesnutt had made his skepticism regarding southern hospitality readily apparent in his novel _The House behind the Cedars_. Here he directly links the boasted claims of southern hospitality to the South's hostility toward its black citizens. More specifically, at one point in the narrative as one white gentleman welcomes another into his home, he opines: \"Strangers are rare birds in our society, and when they come we make them welcome. Our enemies may overturn our institutions, and try to put the bottom rail on top, but they cannot destroy our Southern hospitality. There are so many carpet-baggers and other social vermin creeping into the South, with the Yankees trying to force the niggers on us, that it's a genuine pleasure to get acquainted with another real Southern gentleman, whom one can invite into one's house without fear of contamination, and before whom one can express his feelings freely and be sure of perfect sympathy.\" Here southern hospitality can only exist among whites; indeed, it becomes a sort of defense mechanism that maintains hierarchies and inoculates the right sort of white citizens against blacks and their political supporters, who carry with them the possibility of \"contamination.\" Chesnutt develops this line of criticism more comprehensively and in more nuanced ways in _The Marrow of Tradition_ , particularly with juxtaposed scenes early in the novel that carefully link southern laws with southern social practices to show that the South has no hospitality for African Americans, whether in the public space of a railway car or the private space of a front parlor. This linking of southern laws and southern social practices is reminiscent of F. C. Adams's _Manuel Pereira_ , discussed earlier.\n\nDr. William Miller is introduced in the novel's fifth chapter, titled \"A Journey Southward,\" and here Chesnutt details the gross indignities faced by African Americans forced to endure segregated rail travel, as well as the coercive effect that these southern laws had on all outsiders, including white citizens. Miller is returning to Wellington after a trip north to acquire equipment for his new hospital, and he's pleased to run into one of his mentors from medical school, Dr. Burns, who happens to have been called to Wellington to perform a delicate operation on Major Carteret's son. Unfortunately for Miller, once the train crosses into Virginia he must face the humiliation of being sent to the \"colored\" car in front of his mentor and professional peer. Miller and Burns both protest but to no avail. For Chesnutt, this obsession with defining the color line is a peculiarly American phenomenon, and it trumps all other aspects of one's identity when considering the social worth of an individual: class, intelligence, wealth, cultural refinement, public service, and so forth. Chesnutt goes into detail in describing the painful psychological effect that this experience has on Miller. Musing on the fact that he, as a gentleman and a doctor, had been sent to the colored car, while a black nurse was allowed into the white car with her mistress, Miller utters the simple, universal truth that informed the discourse of southern hospitality in the nineteenth century: \"'White people,' said Miller to himself, . . . 'do not object to the negro as a servant. As the traditional negro,\u2014the servant,\u2014he is welcomed; as an equal he is repudiated'\" (59). Further reflecting on the logic of segregation, Miller, with a particularly apt allusion, compares it to the violent practices of Procrustes, the duplicitous host of Greek myth who invited guests into his home in order to murder them:\n\nSurely, if a classification of passengers on trains was at all desirable, it might be made upon some more logical and considerate basis than a mere arbitrary, tactless, and, by the very nature of things, brutal drawing of a color line. It was a veritable bed of Procrustes, this standard which the whites had set for the negroes. Those who grew above it must have their heads cut off figuratively speaking,\u2014must be forced back to the level assigned to their race; those who fell beneath the standard set had their necks stretched, literally enough, as the ghastly record in the daily papers gave conclusive evidence. (61)\n\nClosely following on this chapter on the segregated railcar, Miller finds himself again repudiated, this time at Major Carteret's home, where his professional peers in Wellington have gathered to witness Dr. Burns perform his operation to save Carteret's son. While on the train, Burns had invited Miller, a former star pupil, to assist with the delicate operation, but Burns has yet to learn of the racist logic that governs the major's hospitality: \"It was traditional in Wellington that no colored person had ever entered the front door of the Carteret residence, and that the luckless individual who once presented himself there upon alleged business and resented being ordered to the back door had been unceremoniously thrown over the piazza railing into a rather thorny clump of rosebushes below\" (68). As the scene unfolds, we see just how deep Carteret's obsessive racism runs, for he is willing to argue with Dr. Burns about Miller's presence even while his son is awaiting the doctor's care: \"Carteret was deeply agitated. The operation must not be deferred; his child's life might be endangered by delay. If the negro's presence were indispensable he would even submit to it, though in order to avoid so painful a necessity, he would rather humble himself to the Northern doctor. The latter course involved merely a personal sacrifice\u2014the former a vital principle\" (72). Luckily for Carteret, another \"way of escape\" comes to mind. Considering his wife's deep anxiety regarding her half-sister, he informs Burns that there are \"personal reasons, apart from Dr. Miller's color,\" that would make Miller's presence \"distasteful\" (73). With this new information, Burns eventually relents and agrees to proceed with the operation, never learning that Carteret's \"personal reasons\" still essentially revolve around Miller's race and the uncomfortable fact that the two families are bound by a common bloodline. Just as in the train scene, Dr. Burns, who holds genuinely progressive views on race, is coerced into conforming to the South's racist assumptions and correlating social practices. The white supremacist Carteret gets his way, and Miller is humiliated when he learns the truth from one of Carteret's servants. Even better for Carteret, Burns is able to remove the obstruction in his son's windpipe without a surgical procedure.\n\nThis repudiation of Miller during the operation scene is a defining moment in the novel, particularly in the way it foreshadows the novel's provocative conclusion, which essentially replays the operation scenario under more extreme circumstances to pose a fundamental question to the white reader. In the concluding chapters, Carteret and his political counterparts have successfully staged their riot and coup, but things spin out of Carteret's control as the white mob's destruction in the city exceeds what he had imagined, and even his family's faithful black servant, Mammy Jane, is among the victims. Worse yet, when he returns home he finds that his young son has fallen deathly ill with membranous croup, in part because his black nurses have fled the violence and left him unattended. None of the white doctors in town are available to attend to his son. Some had been forewarned of the planned coup and left ahead of time, while others are already attending other victims of the violence or have been themselves injured. Carteret finds his wife hysterical and inconsolable and his son attended only by an inexperienced medical student who is unable to perform the tracheotomy his child needs. Under these desperate circumstances, the major is finally willing to seek out the assistance of Dr. Miller, his de facto brother-in-law whom he has never met or acknowledged as such due to the color of his skin.\n\nIn creating this closing scenario, Chesnutt prods his contemporary white readers to explore the limits of their own sense of racial superiority and prejudice. Given the contrast with the earlier scene in which Miller is excluded, Chesnutt essentially asks the reader, _Would you be willing to let a black man into your house if your child's life depended on it?_ Chesnutt proposes that in such a situation, even an ardent white supremacist like Carteret would relent. Unfortunately for Carteret, as he approaches Miller's door for assistance he is unaware that Miller's child lies dead inside, an innocent victim of Carteret's orchestrated violence. In considering the exchange that takes place between the two men, it is important to remember that Miller lives in the former Carteret family mansion, so when Carteret knocks on the front door, it is in fact the door of his own past. And in returning to his family's antebellum mansion, the scene behind the door that is revealed to Carteret is not some plantation idyll of Thomas Nelson Page; instead, the major is met with the lifeless form of an anonymous black child. Unlike the Carteret baby, who has a name and even a nickname in the novel, the Miller child remains nameless throughout the book. The death of this unnamed black child could perhaps be said to signify a lost generation of black southerners who have seen the promise of emancipation go unfulfilled as they struggled unsuccessfully for equality in the segregated South. Returning to the scene of his own past, then, Carteret must face an uncomfortable truth in the form of the Millers' dead child. He is suddenly forced to fully comprehend his own complicity and must face the consequences of his own actions; he may even sense the toll that slavery and its legacy of segregation have taken on black citizens of the South. Moreover, when Miller refuses his desperate pleas for assistance, Carteret is ultimately forced to accept the justice of Miller's decision:\n\nCarteret possessed a narrow, but a logical mind, and except when confused or blinded by his prejudices, had always tried to be a just man. In the agony of his own predicament,\u2014in the horror of the situation at Miller's house,\u2014for a moment the veil of race prejudice was rent in twain, and he saw things as they were, in their correct proportions and relations,\u2014saw clearly and convincingly that he had no standing here. . . . Miller's refusal to go with him was pure, elemental justice. . . . As he had sown, so must he reap! (321)\n\nBut rather than opting for such an eye-for-an-eye sense of justice at the end of this novel filled with racial hostility, Chesnutt chooses to put a thematic emphasis on truth instead. Indeed, justice and truth seem particularly at odds with each other in this novel. The black child is dead, but the white child will live, though this is only possible after Olivia is forced to reveal the truth of the past and her familial bond with Janet Miller. Following the major's return home after Dr. Miller's refusal, Olivia runs to the Miller household and throws herself at the doctor's feet, begging for his aid. Momentarily swayed by the strikingly similar appearances of the pleading Olivia and his own grieving wife, Miller tells Olivia that she must take her appeal to his wife, the younger sister she has never acknowledged, and that he will abide by Janet's decision on whether he should act to save the Carteret child. Driven by her fear for her child's life, Olivia finally acknowledges her younger half-sister and reveals the full truth that she had learned regarding her father's marriage and Janet's legal standing as her sister. In response, Janet rebukes this \"sisterly recognition,\" which comes like \"apples of Sodom, filled with dust and ashes,\" but she does release her husband to save the Carteret child, her de facto nephew (328\u201329).\n\nThe novel's resolution, we might say, hinges on a profound act of \"good Samaritan\" hospitality performed by the Millers. Despite Carteret's earlier repudiation of Miller, despite the South's inhospitable system of racial segregation, despite the racist terrorism of the Wellington riot, and despite the death of their own child, the Millers open their door to these white family members who have heretofore scorned them. In the closing scene, the Carterets in turn allow Miller to cross their jealously guarded threshold to save their son, a possibility they had earlier denied. However, this moment of hospitality results in thematic tension where truth and justice particularly seem at odds. One could even argue that the novel seems to privilege a sense of forgiveness without justice, for while the black child dies, the white child will live if Miller acts in time. Carteret himself had acknowledged that the death of his own son would be a just result of his actions, but the plot involving the two families does not offer this eye-for-an-eye justice of the Mosaic code. Instead, we might say that the just payment made in exchange for their son's life has come in the form of truth\u2014more specifically, in the white characters' acknowledgment of a truth they had heretofore repressed. This honest acknowledgment carries consequent emotions of remorse and guilt, and it also brings about the most difficult of reconciliations between the families, one marked by trauma, tragedy, and irrevocable loss. Carteret knows and now must live with the consequences of his own racism and actions, and Olivia has revealed all to Janet. So unlike \"Nelse Hatton's Vengeance,\" the truth of the past in the novel's conclusion is at least acknowledged equally by both black and white characters, even though the trauma experienced by the two families is profoundly unequal. Considered more broadly, Chesnutt's conclusion suggests that given the white and black South's shared though unequal histories of trauma, acknowledging the full truth of the past may be more important than justice. Such a resolution seems particularly prescient, as it forecasts both the practices and the complications of \"truth commissions\" in modern states like South Africa. Despite William Dean Howells's assessment that the novel was too \"bitter,\" _The Marrow of Tradition_ is in fact a novel of hope: acknowledging the full truth of the past is the only way to move into the future. The Carteret child represents the future generation, and he is able to live only after his parents face and acknowledge the full truth of the past, including their complicity in the racial injustice of slavery and segregation.\n\nAs Matt Wilson explains in _Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt_ , \"one of the major cultural tensions with which Chesnutt had to contend as a writer was that he was producing his race fictions in a period when Americans wanted to forget what he insisted they remember, when the national consensus was one of active forgetting.\" Chesnutt felt it was essential that the nation remember the truth of slavery and that it face the fact of the continuing racial injustice of segregation. His novel ends with a moment of hope that comes only at a terrible cost. While racial hostility had been the prevailing mood of the novel, culminating in the white riot, the novel's final pages give way to an act of hospitality in which both the Millers and the Carterets are willing to put themselves at some risk. With the closing words of the novel\u2014\"There's time enough, but none to spare\" (329)\u2014Chesnutt implies that the complex and violent racial divisions and injustice in America were an urgent problem requiring immediate action. Unfortunately, when it came to the South and the legacy of slavery, most Americans at the time preferred romance and nostalgia over realism and truth. Over one hundred years later, many would say that we still have not faced the full truth of this past; instead, we have had more than a century of repression and active forgetting about slavery and its legacy. And unlike the acts of hospitality in the novel's conclusion, which open the characters up to the full truth of this difficult past (acts of \"mental hospitality\" we may say), the discourse of southern hospitality has provided a pervasive and recurring mechanism for the repression of this past.\n\n## CHAPTER SIX\n\n## The Modern Proliferation  \nof the Southern Hospitality Myth\n\n_Repetition, Revision, and Reappropriation_\n\nNow some of our guests ain't sure yet what this shindig is all about, so we better get started with our centennial, right folks? Yessirree! Now, it's been a hundred years, but what we celebratin' ain't important. What we need are guests, and you all are it!  \nNow for the next few days y'all gonna be guests of the town. You gonna have the best hotel rooms, the best food, the best entertainment, and it's all on the house! Yessir, y'all our guests, and we gonna show you some SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY!\n\n\u2014Mayor Earl Buckman,  \nfrom the 1964 film _Two Thousand Maniacs!_\n\nUnfortunately for his tourist guests from the North, when Mayor Earl Buckman promises them the best of southern hospitality, what he actually has in mind includes torture, mutilation, dismemberment, burning, cannibalism, and ritualistic mob violence. The shock film _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ was screened in drive-in theaters around the country, North and South, in the summer of 1964, and it was ardently promoted and particularly popular in southern markets. I begin this concluding chapter with _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ for a number of reasons. First, like perhaps no other text, the film shows the incredible, even absurd, ranginess of the myth of southern hospitality as it proliferated through twentieth-century mass media, popular culture, and advertising; one can hardly be more removed from the refined social practices of antebellum planters that first spawned the myth than the gore and destruction of this cult classic of American pop culture. With the twentieth-century development of new forms of popular culture, mass media, and mass marketing, the southern hospitality myth proliferated as never before, reaching wider audiences with an increasingly consistent, repeated message that the South was the nation's home of hospitality. Not surprisingly, this discourse of southern hospitality was perfectly suited to an overall \"branding\" of the South as a consumable product and marketable identity in twentieth-century economic endeavors such as tourism, lifestyle and leisure industries, and even manufacturing. These consistent repetitions of southern hospitality increasingly made it seem like a \"natural\" condition and attribute of southern culture, something that just goes without saying when one thinks about the South. Second, I begin with this film because it was produced at a unique juncture in the modern South's political, cultural, and economic history. On the one hand, the film was originally screened as the South was in the midst of its most profound cultural change since the Civil War: the erosion and eventual elimination of legalized segregation. White southern resistance to desegregation efforts had been unfolding in the national spotlight for a full decade since the _Brown v. Board of Education_ decision of 1954, and the landmark Civil Rights Act was finally passed on July 2, 1964, the same summer as the film's original screenings across the South. On the other hand, the film also appears at an important juncture in the South's economic history. By the early 1960s, decades of sustained effort had firmly established a thriving tourism industry across the region, making it the \"second or third largest generator of wealth in the South,\" one that was growing annually by 5 percent a year. Shortly after the film's release and just after the legal end of segregation, _Southern Living_ magazine would be successfully launched across the South, ushering in a new era of profitable lifestyle branding around southern identity. Both of these economic endeavors relied heavily on the southern hospitality myth as both a recognizable framing narrative and a virtual thematic center. As I will show later in this chapter, these iterations are characterized by pervasive habits of repression and repetition. The history of the southern hospitality myth in the twentieth century could easily be the subject of a book in itself, whether focusing on pop culture, literature, or even African American reappropriations of the myth post\u2013civil rights. But I conclude my study by focusing on tourism and lifestyle because they have been major generators of economic wealth for the South and for some southerners in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Consequently, more is perhaps at stake from an ethical perspective in these endeavors, particularly when we think about the long history of the southern hospitality myth and its racial dynamics.\n\nYou may recall that in chapter 1 I considered the original social practices of antebellum planters\u2014which generated the southern hospitality myth\u2014through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's theories of social capital. There I argued that the rituals of hospitality exercised by the antebellum planter class could be seen as an investment strategy for enhancing their social and cultural capital, a reproductive and legitimating tactic that enhanced and extended their own power and influence. The emergence and development of the southern hospitality myth had a multiplier effect on these original social practices, extending the planters' network of connections and consequently their influence and power. In short, the proliferation of the southern hospitality myth ensured that the investment made in these limited social practices paid off for generations of white southerners, as well as for the legacy of the original planters themselves: the southern hospitality myth helped legitimate white supremacy and privilege long after slavery, helped shape American cultural memory of the slaveholding class in a laudatory way, and provided future generations of white southerners with an effective branding strategy for some of the modern South's most important economic endeavors. At the same time, modern iterations of the southern hospitality myth inevitably erase the fact that it was the slave's degradation and labor that paid for the master's hospitality. But these contemporary iterations of southern hospitality cannot be entirely separated from the past of slavery, for they achieve their recognizable meanings only within the framework of this long history of repetition and citation. Consequently, even modern iterations of \"southern hospitality\" can be haunted by this past, as can readily be seen in _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , which provides one of the most uncannily incisive resignifications of the southern hospitality myth in its centuries-long history.\n\n_Two Thousand Maniacs!_ is a cult classic among B-movie aficionados, a breakthrough film in the shock and exploitation genres. Producer David Friedman, a former Paramount Studios executive, and director Herschell Gordon Lewis, a former English professor, had collaborated on a number of soft-porn exploitation films in the early 1960s, but as the market for such films became glutted, the pair sought to create some other form of cinematic exploitation. They struck gold with their 1963 film _Blood Feast_ , which invented new standards and a new genre of cinematic gore. Of the groundbreaking nature of the film, Lewis was known to quip: \" _Blood Feast_ is like a Walt Whitman poem. It's no good but it's the first of its kind, therefore it deserves recognition.\" With the success of _Blood Feast_ behind them, the pair became more ambitious; Lewis hoped to make a \"better\" gore film (that is, one that would actually tell a story): the result was _Two Thousand Maniacs!_. In contrast to _Blood Feast_ , which was produced on a $7,500 budget and a fifteen-page script that took six hours to write, _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ was shot on a $65,000 budget following a seventy-page script. Lewis even created a tie-in novelization of the screenplay in an attempt to capitalize on the film's anticipated success. Sixty-three copies of the film were originally created and circulated mainly in the South and the Midwest in the spring and summer of 1964. The novel version of the film may still be found today.\n\nAgainst a theme song whose refrain repeats, \"The South's gonna rise again,\" the film opens with two cars of northern tourists being purposefully detoured off the main highway and directed toward the small town of Pleasant Valley, Georgia\u2014population two thousand. As they arrive in the town, they are greeted by smiling locals who quickly surround the cars and hail the strangers with whoops and hurrahs, waving Confederate flags. A banner hanging across the street reads, \"Welcome to Pleasant Valley Centennial, April 1865\u2013April 1965,\" and the locals repeatedly tell the six northerners that they are the celebration's \"guests of honor.\" The northerners, who alternately seem arrogant and naive, are clearly mystified and initially even unsettled by the crowd, but the southerners' congenial warmth and good spirits eventually win them over. Even so, when Mayor Buckman stands before the crowd and gives his promise of southern hospitality cited in the epigraph, the crowd of locals responds with knowing, even mocking, laughter. The nature of this insider's joke soon becomes apparent as one by one the northerners are separated from one another and meet their unfortunate ends at the hands of the southern mob. Later in the film, we learn that the town's residents are the hapless ghosts of a Civil War massacre who, in an odd twist to the Broadway musical _Brigadoon_ that inspired it, will come to life once every one hundred years to seek vengeance against unsuspecting northerners.\n\nWhile the film is trashy, cheap, and exploitative, it is also unnerving. Perhaps the most disturbing element is that the violence is usually carried out at the center of a mob of smiling and cheering faces, and as the victims are led along to their unhappy ends, they are repeatedly reminded that they are the town's special guests. Simply put, the film shockingly juxtaposes two recognizable images of the region: the hospitable South and the violent South, or the South that claims a unique tradition of gracious hospitality, and the South that historically has been the site of ritualistic mob violence, particularly with the lynchings of thousands of African Americans, many of which took place in public squares before hundreds and even thousands of people. The unique reversal in the film is that, in contrast to the historical black victims, it is the white northern tourists who are victimized by the white southern mob. Similarly, the film's plotline offers an interesting twist on the historical trajectory of the myth of southern hospitality. The film's tourists from the North are on their way to Florida and Atlanta, both important icons of the New South ideals of progress and development and centers of the New South's expanding tourism and hospitality industries, but they are detoured away from these destinations and toward a site of repressed regional conflict, where they are literally confronted by ghosts of a traumatic past. By the time _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ was produced and screened in 1964, \"southern hospitality\" had proliferated through popular culture and mass media and had also become a familiar, even incessant, branding mantra for all sorts of southern economic and corporate endeavors. Through decades of concerted efforts, many southern states had already developed successful heritage and recreational tourism industries. Not surprisingly, promotional campaigns for these growing industries often hinged on the South's reputation for hospitality. At the time of the film's production, tourism ads placed in northern newspapers for southern resorts and vacation destinations routinely promised their potential visitors \"true southern hospitality\" or \"real southern hospitality\" or \"warm southern hospitality.\" Southern hospitality was also often cited in ads trying to lure professionals and businesses to the South. A 1960 ad in the _New York Times_ for the Norfolk Industrial Park reads, \"New Housing, new businesses, new growth, all added to Norfolk's old southern hospitality make Norfolk the perfect place for you to expand and grow.\" Similarly, a Fulton County Commission ad trying to lure businesses to Atlanta promises \"just the right blend of Southern hospitality and hustle.\" And Atlanta's own Delta Air Lines emphasized southern hospitality as an effective marketing tool and as the thematic basis for its culture of customer service. In short, by the time of the film's initial screening in 1964, American consumers had long been conditioned to think of the South as the nation's home of hospitality.\n\nRather than having these consumer desires fulfilled, however, the film's northern tourists are detoured away from their target destinations of Florida and Atlanta and toward the site of an earlier, repressed historical conflict. Indeed, the film's genre\u2014a southern Gothic tale featuring literal ghosts from a violent past\u2014is particularly appropriate for addressing the unresolved regional conflicts facing the nation for a full century since the Civil War, particularly those surrounding race and the long struggle for civil rights. In Pleasant Valley, the regional strife and conflict of the past continue to haunt the present. The northerners, however, are unsuspecting; their view of the South as a hospitable vacation destination (along with their condescending attitudes toward the southerners) prevents them from seeing the ghosts for what they are, and the only northerners who survive are the ones with a fifth-grader's basic knowledge of American history:\n\nTOM WHITE: Has it occurred to you that nobody has told us what this centennial is all about? Now, this is 1965, and a hundred years ago it was 1865, right? So, what happened in 1865?\n\nTERRY ADAMS: It was the ending of the Civil War. The war between the states!\n\nTOM WHITE: Well then you tell me why would a southern town want northerners as guests of honor at the centennial? It must have something to do with what happened a hundred years ago. So, something is very wrong with this town.\n\nEven though the film can offer a counternarrative to traditional views of southern hospitality, particularly by suggesting that the myth of southern hospitality obscures lingering and repressed historical conflict, it does not directly address the racial element of this historical conflict between the North and the South. The entire cast and all extras are white, and the only seemingly overt allusion to the subject of race occurs in the opening credits. As the crowd gathers, waving their Confederate flags, a number of rambunctious youngsters scurry about the crowd; a perceptive viewer might notice that all of them seem to be carrying small nooses. In a sudden shift near the end of the opening sequence, the camera cuts to a small group of the boys who use one of the nooses to strangle a black cat. A close-up shows that the cat wears a tag reading \"Dam [ _sic_ ] Yankee\" (a detail meant to confirm the negative stereotype of southern illiteracy), and after the cat is killed, the camera holds a long still shot of the noose as the credits roll to a close.\n\nWhen it comes to race, the film operates according to what Tara McPherson describes as the \"lenticular logic\" that typically regulates the representation of race in the imagined South. According to McPherson, \"a lenticular logic is a monocular logic, a schema by which histories or images that are actually copresent get presented (structurally, ideologically) so that only one of the images can be seen at a time. Such an arrangement represses connection, allowing whiteness to float free from blackness, denying the long historical imbrications of racial markers and racial meaning in the South.\" In other words, just because the South's bifurcated racial history is invisible does not mean that it is not there. Indeed, in addition to the lynching of the black cat, the images of violence in _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ seem haunted by the complex history of racial strife and violence in the South. For example, in a modern incarnation of the trope of interregional romance, which figured prominently in reconciliation efforts following the Civil War, the first female victim from the North is easily seduced away from her husband by one of the locals. The interregional romance here, however, is just a mask for repressed regional hatred. The tryst takes a savage turn when the man abruptly and inexplicably cuts off the woman's thumb, and the film erupts into several minutes of violence as the victim is taken into a cabin where Mayor Buckman and others are waiting for her. Against a backdrop of a hearth and mantle decorated with Confederate flags, she is held down on a table and her right arm is chopped off with an axe. In a revenge fantasy with real historical antecedents, the woman from the North is here victimized in a manner analogous to the way southerners often imagined Reconstruction and black political power: as a threat to white southern womanhood (see figures 16 and ). In what becomes standard practice for the film, several shots counterpoint close-ups of the victim's bloody corpse with close-ups from low and side angles of her crazed yet gleeful tormentors. Later that evening, the victim's severed arm is seen roasting on a spit at the centennial barbeque while the crowd enjoys a rollicking rendition of Flatt and Scruggs' \"Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms.\"\n\nFans of this classic of cinematic gore often laud what they see as the particularly original forms of death meted out to the rest of the northern victims, but these scenes are likewise haunted by the South's history of racial violence during slavery and segregation. One victim is dismembered by having his arms and legs tied to four horses, which are then driven in opposing directions. Another is placed in a barrel lined with sharp nails and rolled down a hill. And finally, in a macabre variation on a carnival dunking booth, the last victim is tied up beneath a teetering boulder as a crowd of townspeople take turns trying to hit the target that will trigger the boulder's fall. While these certainly are creative methods for murder and mayhem, they are not necessarily original. The first two of these three death scenes actually have historical antecedents in the legacy of slavery, and even the carnival-like death scene featuring the teetering boulder, while original, nonetheless calls to mind the atmosphere of the modern \"spectacle lynching\" described by Grace Elizabeth Hale and others. The South's history is replete with competing and contradictory images, and the film's novelty is that it manages to conjoin contradictory images of the South and resignify them in unusual ways: hospitality becomes hostility, the romance of reunion becomes repressed regional hatred, and the white visitor from the North assumes the position so often occupied by the black victim.\n\nFIGURE 16. _Murder of Louisiana Sacrificed on the Altar of Radicalism_ , political broadside by A. Zenneck, 1871. Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.\n\nGiven the timing of its release in 1964, the film's ironic resignification of southern hospitality is especially evocative, for it occurred when this idea of the South was under intense pressure. Indeed, you could say that the resulting irony and tension in the film's juxtaposition of southern hospitality and hostility accurately reflects the cognitive dissonance then circulating in American culture over the South's image. While the plotline and violent images in the film are haunted by the past, viewers of the film in 1964 must have felt strong resonances in the present. The summer in which this film was screened in drive-ins throughout the country coincided with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Summer Project of 1964, a campaign that marked an increase in white involvement in the southern civil rights movement. It was the summer that came to be known as \"Mississippi Burning,\" the FBI's code name for the violence and intimidation taking place in response to these concerted efforts by white and black civil rights workers to register black voters. It was also the summer in which three civil rights workers\u2014Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney\u2014were kidnapped and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. With this more immediate context in mind\u2014and knowing that this violence unfolded under a national media spotlight\u2014the film's plotline and violence, and particularly its juxtaposition of southern hospitality and hostility, seem somewhat less fantastic. We can only wonder how audiences in this immediate context would have reacted to the film's details\u2014its violence directed at northerners, the theme song's refrain of \"The South's gonna rise again,\" the insiders' joke about southern hospitality, and the image of the hangman's noose and the \"lynching\" of the black cat that occurs in the film's opening credits. Might some southerners have taken satisfaction at seeing the arrogant northerners meet their horrible ends? And what of nonsouthern viewers? Did the film provide comfortable confirmation of their assumptions about southern abjection, backwardness, and violence, thereby confirming their own sense of moral superiority?\n\nFIGURE 17. Scene from the 1964 shock film _Two Thousand Maniacs!_\n\nFIGURE 18. Political cartoon by James Dobbins, originally published in the _Boston Traveler_ , 1961.\n\nSignificantly, the film's ironic resignification of southern hospitality is not an isolated or aberrant example in this particular moment. Against the backdrop of the increasing tension and violence of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, and at a moment in which the very image of the South in the national consciousness was in a constant state of flux, the myth of southern hospitality was both cited widely and deeply contested. The same newspapers that were advertising southern hospitality as a commodity were also printing numerous stories and images that challenged this claim of southern hospitality. A 1961 editorial cartoon originally published in the _Boston Traveler_ , for example, has a freedom bus driving past the barred windows of a jail; the caption simply reads, \"Southern hospitality.\" Similarly, a 1963 cartoon in response to the strife in Birmingham, Alabama, shows an imposing Birmingham city jail with a dripping water hose, sleeping guard dogs, and a \"No vacancy sign.\" The caption again ironically reads, \"Southern hospitality\" (see figures 18 and ). Other news stories made similarly ironic allusions to southern hospitality. In short, simply uttering \"southern hospitality\" in this particular context of racial strife and violence in the segregated South is enough to challenge the myth, reminding readers that the concept of hospitality has important moral and ethical dimensions, and that these dimensions don't seem operational in the South at this moment in its history. Importantly, this sense of irony in both the film and these other media instances runs throughout the history of this discourse. Indeed, _from an ethical perspective_ , it is fair to say that southern hospitality could not exist until after the civil rights movement, for segregation, like slavery, is antithetical to the ethics of hospitality. Despite this contradiction, the southern hospitality myth has been successfully deployed throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to market the southern tourism industry, and since the 1960s, to promote a range of lifestyle industries based on southern identity. The end of segregation might have provided a day of reckoning for the southern hospitality myth, particularly given the examples just cited that point to the ethics of hospitality amid the politics of segregation. Instead, however, the myth continued to follow familiar patterns of repetition and repression of historical connections, though some have challenged, resignified, or reappropriated it in ways that expose the South's repressed histories of conflict and trauma.\n\nFIGURE 19. Political cartoon by Pierre Bellocq (PEB), originally published in the _Philadelphia Inquirer_ , 1963. Courtesy of Pierre Bellocq (www.pebsite.com).\n\n### Historical Conflict and the Southern Hospitality and Tourism Industries\n\nAnyone familiar with _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ may very well have felt a little uneasy had he or she pulled into one of South Carolina's eight official welcome centers over a series of weekends in the spring of 2002. Not only had a trashy remake of the film (titled _2001 Maniacs!_ ) been released the previous year, but had they arrived at one of the welcome centers in March or April of that year, visitors entering the state whose tourism motto at the time was \"Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places\" would likely have been welcomed\u2014or confronted\u2014by groups of smiling individuals enthusiastically waving Confederate flags and holding signs with slogans like \"Welcome to South Carolina, We Love You,\" \"Southern Heritage is American Heritage!\" \"Stop hate against the South!\" \"We love our flag and we love our state!\" and \"Southern Hospitality.\" Unlike the film, though, these individuals were not ghosts from the past; rather, they were primarily members of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a white rights group organized in 2000 in Louisiana by David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and former Louisiana state representative. In March and April 2002, EURO organized a series of \"welcome patrols\" to counter the NAACP boycott of South Carolina's tourism and hospitality industries over the state's continued display of the Confederate flag on state house grounds.\n\nThe NAACP had initiated the boycott of South Carolina's tourism industry in January 2000 in an effort to remove the Confederate flag that had flown on the state house dome since 1962. This boycott was launched following a fifty-thousand-strong march on the state capitol protesting the flag. Later that year, after an estimated loss of 500 million in tourism dollars, the state legislature voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state house dome and instead place it on the state house grounds with the Confederate Memorial, which had originally been erected in 1879. This proposal, however, did not satisfy the state chapter of the NAACP. As Dwight C. Jones, executive director of the NAACP South Carolina State Conference, explained, \"They took it [the flag] from one prominent place, the dome and placed it in another\u2014in front of the Capitol with the 24-hour guard and illuminated it so that now you can see it day and night.\" According to the state chapter of the NAACP, the boycott would remain in effect until the flag was removed from official state sites. In the spring of 2002, as a way of highlighting the fact that the boycott was still in effect, NAACP \"border patrols\" established \"informational pickets\" at the state welcome centers to protest the state's continued display of the Confederate flag on the state house grounds. EURO had organized and manned its own \"welcome patrols\" within a week. Vincent Breeding, EURO's national director, told reporters that his group's presence at the welcome centers was not an act of protest but instead was \"just a display of Southern hospitality.\" Breeding went on to say, \"The NAACP's divisive policies must give way to understanding in South Carolina. . . . It is time to begin accepting that the people of the South have every right to their faith, symbols, heroes, monuments, and beautiful cultural heritage. Tolerance is not a one-way street. These policies of divisiveness and ethnic cleansing must end.\"\n\nThese competing protests staged at the welcome centers during March and April 2002 caused state officials a great deal of consternation. Some officials described the NAACP boycott as \"economic terrorism,\" an emotionally charged phrase given the very recent 9\/11 terror attacks. Attorney General Charlie Condon, a flag supporter, threatened to sue both the NAACP and EURO to stop the protests at the welcome centers. All of this played out as travelers continued to pass through the state welcome centers, with some expressing support for the NAACP efforts, and others showing solidarity with the flag supporters, if not exactly with EURO. No doubt many unsuspecting travelers were simply mystified by the controversy. As one resident of New York State on his way to vacation in Hilton Head put it, \"This has been going on awhile. It hits the news from time to time, but it seems like it's never settled. It's basically whoever yells the loudest.\" While the competing protests at welcome centers eventually faded away, the Confederate flag would continue to fly on the state house grounds until July 2015, when a young white supremacist's terrible massacre of nine black members of the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston prompted a nationwide debate over the flag and its meaning. Nine months before the massacre, Governor Nikki Haley had downplayed the significance of the flag in a gubernatorial debate, claiming that it wasn't hurting the state's economic development and noting that in her time in office she had \"not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.\" Following the massacre, however, and to her credit, Haley strongly advocated for the removal of the flag. After weeks of public outcry, the state legislature finally took action, and the flag was removed on July 10, 2015.\n\nRepeated calls to remove the flag and the NAACP boycott were too often seen as momentary and local flashpoints or derided as outbreaks of \"political correctness\"; instead, we should view the debate surrounding the flag as an ethical problem involving cultural memory. For the episode really speaks to a long, complicated history in which African Americans have been repeatedly displaced from the \"official\" public memory and heritage of the South, in part through the very efforts of the South to develop itself as a popular and hospitable tourist destination for Americans. While the NAACP probably chose to boycott the state's tourism industry for its calculated economic impact, its choice had profound historical resonances and implications as well. The boycott was an effective means of injecting the ethics of public memory into state economics and thereby revising perceptions of the South Carolina tourism industry. When we think about the commodification of southern hospitality in the twentieth century and particularly its role in branding the South as a desirable tourist destination, we should always keep in mind that these concerted efforts by southern states to develop the tourism economy had their origins in the segregated South in the early and middle part of the twentieth century. Moreover, this fledgling industry's most significant period of growth in the postwar decades _coincided with_ the period of major struggle for African American civil rights in the South. In short, the success of this myth of southern hospitality in branding the southern tourism industry shows that American consumers\u2014North and South\u2014were willing to either overlook or forget the fact that African American citizens were not welcome guests of this growing tourism economy in the South. From the beginning of the century through at least the end of segregation, then, southern hospitality continued to function as an exclusionary white myth for both marketers and consumers of the South's flourishing industry, and the negative consequences of this exclusionary history linger to this day.\n\nLike many southern states, South Carolina experienced exponential growth in its tourism and hospitality industries over the course of the twentieth century. Today, tourism is by far the most important industry in South Carolina, generating $18 billion annually for the state's economy. As Nicole King notes, the state's long-used marketing slogan, \"'Smiling faces. Beautiful places'\u2014evokes both mythologized southern hospitality and the beautiful landscapes that make tourism so popular in the South.\" South Carolina is not alone in the important place tourism holds in the state's economy and in the way that it trades on the myth of southern hospitality to promote that industry. Tourism generates more revenue than agriculture in many southern states, and it is \"one of the top three economic activities in every state of the former Confederacy.\" Indeed, the South's unique blend of heritage attractions, mild climate, and recreational landscapes has historically made it a popular tourist destination. Given its economic impact, it is no wonder that so many portray the South's tourism and hospitality industries as a sign of its progress and development. However, the history of southern tourism is richly varied and complicated, and these economic endeavors can seem to pull the South in opposing directions.\n\nWhile the origins of tourism in the South go back to the antebellum period, particularly with northerners traveling South for health reasons, it was in the post-Reconstruction decades and through the development of railroad lines and travel that the South first began to market itself specifically as a tourist destination, increasingly appealing to northerners as a land of \"leisure, relaxation, and romance.\" With the advent of the automobile in the twentieth century, the South became even more accessible, with boosters launching new strategic efforts not only to make the South an appealing destination but also to tell visitors a particular story about the South. This development of heritage tourism in the early twentieth century drew heavily on the stock images of plantation fiction and Lost Cause ideology. In 1914, John Temple Graves, a prominent newspaper editor whom many considered one of the great orators of the age, concisely captured the emerging sensibility of the South's nascent tourism economy in an editorial reflecting on the success of a major Shriners convention held in Atlanta: \"Every Southern city and every Southern state is joined in a new confederacy, not of arms, but of hospitality.\" But like Edward A. Pollard before him, even as Graves promoted a vision of the hospitable South, he publicly advocated a retrograde agenda when it came to racial politics, making headlines for his public defenses of white southern lynch mobs, arguing for castration as a means to thwart potential black rapists, and whipping up racial unrest in Atlanta through caustic, fearmongering editorials. Ida B. Wells singled Graves out for particular criticism for his defense of lynch mobs, and an editor of a black Atlanta newspaper called Graves \"one of the most vitriolic enemies of the negro race.\"\n\nWhile someone like Graves could boast of and welcome this new \"confederacy of hospitality,\" the development of the southern tourism industry had profound implications for African Americans living in the South. In a repetition of the antebellum racial dynamics of the southern hospitality myth, this new tourism industry essentially excluded African Americans from the South's mythic hospitality even as it depended on them to fulfill many of the emerging industry's low-paying service jobs. The tourism industry alternately fixed them in subordinate positions, portrayed them through degrading stereotypes, and even erased their presence from history and the landscape. In _The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory_ , W. Fitzhugh Brundage traces the evolution of how the South's tourism industry commercialized the southern past through heritage tourism. According to Brundage, the period between the world wars \"marked a watershed in the self-conscious commercialization of the southern past. The struggle to cultivate and perpetuate historical memory in the South was incorporated into the commerce of tourism.\" Memorialization groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy played an important early role in both promoting and setting the tone for the development of southern tourism around southern heritage, and combined with fortuitous market forces and consumer demands, these concerted efforts created a powerful, though conflicted, sense of collective memory of the South. Brundage points to Charleston, South Carolina, as a quintessential example of this process. Charleston city and society leaders early on saw the potential to cash in on tourism as the city became more accessible through the development of new roads such as the Dixie Highway. They put resources into effective marketing, the creation of a coherent \"historic district,\" and the development of a tourism infrastructure that could support growth in the industry. They effectively transformed the tourist's experience of the city into a form of \"memory theater\" that offered \"a magical suspension of time: these tourists experienced an enchanting, innocent, exotic, and seemingly timeless past while simultaneously escaping the perceived tedium, emptiness, and artificiality of modern life.\" Other cities across the South developed similar strategies in the 1920s, including Richmond, Savannah, Natchez, and New Orleans, each of which modified the prevailing nostalgic vision of the Old South to meet its particular New South economic goals around tourism.\n\nOf course, this \"New South\" wasn't so new for African Americans living in or traveling through the region. Because the development of tourism was occurring during segregation, African Americans could not participate in this new welcoming South, but they could nonetheless be exploited by it. African Americans were typically confined to marginal roles in this cultivated memory theater, primarily in servile positions as service or domestic workers or as picturesque, exotic elements in the touriscape, pushing flower carts or weaving handmade baskets. As Brundage puts it, \"Tourists could enjoy the picturesque spectacle created by servile African-Americans without needing to understand them. . . . As the southern past became one of the region's leading generators of wealth, it shaped and perpetuated pernicious representations of blacks in places that became icons of regional identity.\"\n\nThis complex intersection between tourism, nostalgia, and racism becomes readily apparent in a short piece from _Life_ magazine in 1923. The article, titled \"Hints for Our Native Southerners: What They Should Do before the Winter Tourist Comes,\" was certainly meant at the time to be a lighthearted, humorous list (like, say, a David Letterman \"Top Ten\" list), but from today's perspective it provides a disturbing glimpse into what then were prevailing expectations and desires as northern consumers prepared to travel South, particularly regarding the subject of race. Notice how the list playfully engages nostalgic stereotypes of the plantation myth but also how blacks can be imagined only in subservient roles:\n\n1. Teach all Negroes to call all white men \"boss.\"\n\n2. Learn to drink liquor only in mint juleps.\n\n3. Find out what is meant by term, \"old plantation melodies,\" and memorize words and air of at least one.\n\n4. Discover, if it can be done upon such short notice, a bald Negro with a fringe of snow white hair.\n\n5. Learn what is expected of you to justify term, \"Southern hospitality.\"\n\n6. Start immediately growing white mustache and goatee.\n\n7. Let each family come to an agreement now as to battles of Civil War in which grandfather received wounds.\n\n8. Training Negro servants in following points:\n\n( _a_ ) (negro men) Answer only to Biblical names, preferably Moses, Abraham, Daniel and Ezekiel.\n\n( _b_ ) (negro women) Wear at all times red bandanna handkerchief round head.\n\nThe list\u2014and particularly items 1, 4, and 8\u2014indicates that the development of the modern consumer version of southern hospitality in the twentieth-century tourism industry simply repeated the dynamics of earlier iterations: southern hospitality here is still a message from whites to whites, with the marginalized African American presence only reinforcing that exclusive sense of white privilege. There is little subtlety about it: the humiliating etiquette of Jim Crow segregation as experienced by African Americans (item 1) becomes the stuff of humor for white consumers visiting the South and expecting to experience \"southern hospitality.\"\n\nA certain irony can also be detected in the statement \"Learn what is expected of you to justify the term, 'Southern hospitality,'\" for the list's negative racial stereotypes suggest that this hospitality exchange is a two-way street: northerners demand southern hospitality, but they reciprocate this gift by abiding by the South's Jim Crow assumptions. Northern consumer desires for constructed ideals of southern romance, gracious living, and history override any concern for African Americans demanding justice while living under the daily degradations of Jim Crow segregation. To give the list more context, the article appeared after a significant number of well-publicized mob lynchings had occurred across the United States and particularly in the South between 1917 and 1923. Moreover, earlier in 1923, the infamous Rosewood massacre had occurred in Florida, and 1923 also marked yet another failed attempt by Congress, with the support of the NAACP, to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. The idea of experiencing southern hospitality, drinking mint juleps, and laughing at stereotypes of \"Uncle Tom\" and \"Aunt Dinah\" may have proven more appealing to many Americans than considering African American demands for justice, equal rights, or even personal safety.\n\nBut beyond promoting such pernicious forms of representation, the forces of the developing heritage tourism industry could literally wipe the black presence from public spaces, the landscape, and history. In Charleston, for example, through the development of the city's historic district, the city cited \"preservation\" as a reason to \"move black residents away from the 'Old and Historic District' and into African-American public-housing projects. . . . The 'restoration' of historic Charleston effectively purged black residents from the tip of the Charleston peninsula for the first time in the city's history.\" A subtler form of erasure took place in the way various states privileged white southern history in \"official\" historic routes and heritage markers along roadways. As states across the South developed more modern road and highway systems, they linked these efforts to historic preservation and commemoration. States such as Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama, and South Carolina developed \"historic routes,\" interpretive maps, and systematic methods for marking landmarks of historical significance for the new tourist consumers. Virginia was an early leader in these efforts, and by the middle of the 1930s the state had erected over one thousand official state landmark signs commemorating significant events in the state's history. Promotional literature of the time described the heritage landmarks as \"history written on iron.\"\n\nThese early efforts to mark the landscape with historical significance generally elided the African American presence in the South's history. About ten years into the state of Virginia's efforts in erecting these historical markers, the African American poet and literary scholar Sterling A. Brown was working on the Negro Affairs Project of the WPA's Federal Writers' Project. Despite Brown's efforts to record the history of the African American presence in Virginia, he clearly was dismayed by what he saw in the state's memorialization of an exclusively white history. His 1939 poem, \"Remembering Nat Turner,\" laments the utter annihilation of black history and, consequently, black identity. Brown describes following the trail of Turner's failed uprising and encountering both misinformed white perspectives on his historical significance and African American ambivalence and ignorance, though the poem makes clear that the latter is more the result of oppressive social and economic structures than of choice. Despite the obvious historical significance of Nat Turner in the history of the antebellum South, Brown's poem laments that there is no sanctioned reminder of that past. At the end of the poem, Brown imagines Turner's ghost haunting the landscape even as signs of \"New South\" progress\u2014highways carrying trucks, buses, and tourists\u2014infiltrate the Virginia countryside:\n\nAs we drove from Cross Keys back to Courtland,  \nAlong the way that Nat came down upon Jerusalem,  \nA watery moon was high in the cloud-filled heavens,  \nThe same moon he dreaded a hundred years ago.\n\nThe tree they hanged Nat on is long gone to ashes,  \nThe trees he dodged behind have rotted in the swamps.  \nThe bus for Miami and the trucks boomed by,  \nAnd touring cars, their heavy tires snarling on the pavement.  \nFrogs piped in the marshes, and a hound bayed long,  \nAnd yellow lights glowed from the cabin windows.\n\nAs we came back the way that Nat led his army,  \nDown from Cross Keys, down to Jerusalem,  \nWe wondered if his troubled spirit still roamed the Nottaway,  \nOr if it fled with the cock-crow at daylight,  \nOr lay at peace with the bones in Jerusalem,  \nIts restlessness stifled by Southampton clay.\n\nAs Mark Sanders notes, Brown's poem \"identifies a tragic breakdown in continuity and community between generations of African-Americans.\" Only through a continuity of memory and cultural identity can the African American community maintain the \"psychological and physical resistance\" necessary to its own survival\u2014particularly under such pressures as disenfranchisement and Jim Crow segregation\u2014but here the vital connection to the past has been lost. While a historical figure such as Nat Turner has the potential to be interpreted among African Americans as a revolutionary figure, as a self-directed and self-empowering freedom fighter, \"whites reconstruct\" that history so as to \"delimit its political potential.\"\n\nIn light of such historical patterns of repression and segregation in the development of the South's hospitality and tourism industries, the target of the NAACP boycott in South Carolina makes perfect sense, injecting as it does an important ethical debate over cultural memory into a state-sanctioned economic endeavor that rarely, if ever, considers its own troubled past. From an ethical perspective, the development of the southern hospitality and tourism industry subtly repeated the dynamics of the planter class's original social practices, which likewise relied on black subordination and labor to support white privilege, status, and economic power across the South.\n\n### An Underground Railroad for the Twentieth Century\n\nDuring this same period when the South was graciously welcoming white American tourists, travel for black American citizens in the segregated South was always a fraught endeavor. To them, the South was anything but hospitable; instead, they were unwelcome strangers and aliens to this invented image of the South as a hospitable tourist destination. A 1941 \"Bungleton Green\" comic strip titled \"Southern Hospitality\" concisely conveys an African American perspective on the ubiquitous southern hospitality myth as it relates to the black tourist or traveler (see figure 20). \"Bungleton Green\" was a comic that ran from 1920 to 1964 in the African American _Chicago Defender_ newspaper. Given the significant influx of southern blacks in the city as part of the Great Migration of African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South, this particular 1941 strip titled \"Southern Hospitality\" would have seemed a pedestrian form of realism to many of its contemporary readers. The opening frame establishes that Bungleton and his new bride are on their honeymoon traveling \"thru Virginia and Maryland and up thru Washington and Baltimore.\" \"This is a swell honeymoon Bung,\" she notes, \"but it's not keeping me from getting hungry.\" Bungleton, however, cautiously reminds her that there are other forms of discomfort besides hunger : \"We're in the South now, so let's wait till we get to Baltimore and save ourselves embarrassment,\" to which his bride responds, \"I'd rather be embarrassed than hungry!\" She instructs him to stop at a roadhouse diner that advertises \"Southern Barbeque,\" with Bungleton still warning, \"We're sticking our necks out.\" Sure enough, the penultimate frame shows some already-seated white diners looking on as a white waitress, standing over empty tables, informs the couple, \"I'm so sorry sir. All the tables are reserved out here . . . but we do have a lovely private dining room.\" The final frame shows the newlyweds in a back room, with Bungleton's wife sardonically commenting, loud enough for the waitress to hear, \"Isn't it nice to be such 'honored' guests?!\" The simple irony of the comic points to a general consensus among African American readers regarding travel in the South, and caustically places black experiences of white southern hostility directly alongside the South's vaunted claims of being a hospitable tourist destination.\n\nFIGURE 20. 1941 \"Bungleton Green\" comic strip from the _Chicago Defender_.\n\nAs Cotten Seiler makes clear in _Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America_ , fear of embarrassment and humiliation was a constant for African Americans traveling in the segregated South, but it was only one of many uncertainties, as they could never be sure where they would be welcome to stop, rest, refuel, eat, use the bathroom, or spend the night. If their car broke down, they could not be certain of finding a mechanic willing to serve a black customer. And they also had to be mindful of the real possibility of white intimidation and violence against \"uppity\" blacks who did not know their \"proper\" place. Automobiles were a sure sign of upward mobility, but such an indicator of prosperity could be dangerous. As an example of this all-too-real possibility, Cotten Seiler points to the 1948 case of Robert Mallard, who was \"attacked in his car by a Georgia mob (allegedly for being 'too prosperous' and 'not the right kind of negro') and murdered in front of his wife and child.\" Given this range of negative possibilities, Seiler concludes that, \"for black drivers, the road's only constant was uncertainty.\"\n\nThe uncertainties associated with travel in an era of segregation and discrimination (not only in the South but _across America_ ) were pervasive enough to prompt Victor H. Green, a New York travel agent, to create in 1936 _The Negro Motorist Green Book_ , which would become an essential companion for black travelers until it ceased publication in 1964, the year that the Civil Rights Act was passed, making it illegal for businesses such as gas stations, hotels, and restaurants to discriminate against potential customers. As the cover typically and somewhat ominously warned, \"Carry your Green Book with you\u2014you may need it.\" In an age when \"southern hospitality\" was being used as a mantra to lure white Americans to the South, the _Green Book_ formed a sort of alternative underground hospitality network for African Americans living and traveling under the pressures of Jim Crow and in the shadows of the South's flourishing tourism industry. The first _Green Book_ was modest in scope, but Green continually solicited black travelers, asking for personal recommendations of every sort that business travelers may need: hotels and motels, garages and service stations, barber shops and beauty parlors, restaurants and taverns, liquor stores and drugstores. Scanning the pages of a _Green Book_ provides a stark reminder of just how circumscribed African Americans were in their mobility and their citizenship, the open hostility they often faced, and the constant anxiety they must have felt as they tried to map out their journeys by connecting stops from the often sparse options for welcome and assistance. At the same time, the _Green Book_ provides equal evidence of the power of their community, social networking, _and hospitality_ in the face of these obstacles.\n\nMore particularly, one thing that stands out in scanning these pages is the significant number of \"Tourist Homes\" in the listings of accommodations, where private homeowners would provide lodging to African American travelers. In some towns and cities, these were the only accommodations available for African Americans. For example, even though by 1949 Charleston, South Carolina, was in the midst of a successful tourism boom following decades of civic effort and investment, the _Green Book_ entry for Charleston that year lists four tourist homes as the _only_ accommodations willing to cater to black travelers. No hotels or motels were listed as available to them. At the same time, however, the _Green Book_ reminds us that some white businesses and individuals made the conscious choice to respect the African American traveler and welcomed their business, whether motivated by profit or justice or both. The Esso Standard Oil Company provided support for the _Green Book_ and became known as a safe haven for African American travelers, and Green notes in his introduction to the 1949 edition that \"the guide contains 80 pages and lists numerous business places, including whites which cater to the Negro trade.\" Significantly, Green does not distinguish white-owned businesses from black-owned. In the same introduction, he concludes with the following prophetic words: \"There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.\" The quotes on the cover also suggest that Green saw his travel guide as helping to effect this change; they read: \"Travel is fatal to prejudice\" (Mark Twain), and \"Travel makes America stronger.\"\n\nDuring its twenty-eight-year publication history, the _Green Book_ was very much an underground endeavor\u2014crucial to African Americans yet unknown to most white Americans\u2014and after 1964, it fell into oblivion, largely forgotten even in the African American community that had relied on it. However, the _Green Book_ has received renewed attention in recent years from scholars and artists who increasingly have come to see this as an important, though largely unrecognized artifact of the long struggle for civil rights. A particularly noteworthy example is the African American playwright and writer Calvin Alexander Ramsey, who has written both a play and an award-winning children's book based on the _Green Book_ 's important role in the African American community during segregation. Tellingly, Ramsey's explanation of why he felt compelled to write about the _Green Book_ (and particularly a children's book about it) makes important connections to an even earlier underground hospitality network that assisted African Americans: \"Most kids today hear about the Underground Railroad, but this other thing has gone unnoticed. . . . It just fell on me, really, to tell the story.\" With realistic oil-wash illustrations by Floyd Cooper accompanying Ramsey's narrative, _Ruth and the Green Book_ tells the simple yet poignant story of Ruth, a young girl from Chicago who is initially filled with excitement to set out on a journey to visit her grandmother's house in the family's new car. Her excitement, however, soon turns to confusion, disappointment, and sadness as the family begins to encounter the discriminatory practices of the Jim Crow South: stopping for gas they are refused access to the restroom and must resort to the woods; stopping at a hotel they are turned away and must continue to drive through the night. Following the incident at the gas station, Ruth tells her mother that she was embarrassed, but her mother replies, \"The people who should be ashamed of themselves were those service station owners.\"\n\nRuth is truly distressed at the experiences and particularly at seeing the effect they have on her parents\u2014their growing frustration and impotent anger. She feels out of place in the South and consequently homesick. Thankfully, though, the family learns of the _Green Book_ after spending the night with family friends in Tennessee. Having been told that they can purchase it at any Esso service station, Ruth is given the job of lookout. Ruth spots an Esso station near the Georgia border, and the travel guide they acquire steers them to safe havens along the rest of their journey. With the _Green Book_ now in hand, the family first finds a \"tourist home\" run by Mrs. Melody: \"We reached the tourist home in the early evening. Mrs. Melody, the owner, gave us a big smile when she opened the door. It was like coming home. And she wouldn't let Daddy pay her. She said she welcomed Negro travelers because it was right to help each other out. I'm going to do the same one day!\" As the official keeper of the _Green Book_ , Ruth can't stop reading and rereading it, finding reassurance in \"all those places in all those states where [she and her family] could go and not worry about being turned away.\" Rather than take the _Green Book_ as evidence of the family's degraded status in the South, Ruth sees it as evidence of communal strength and support. With the _Green Book_ 's help, the family is able to service their car when it breaks down and find another hotel to stay in during the resulting delay, where they spend time sharing stories with other African American travelers and users of the _Green Book_. They successfully make it to the home of Ruth's grandmother, but what had originally begun as a trip to reconnect with immediate family has become a trip to reconnect with the larger African American community. Ruth finds comfort in the underground network of African American hospitality in the Jim Crow South, and young readers are successfully introduced to this important though neglected episode in American history. On the last page of the book, Ramsey provides a concise history of the _Green Book_ and also directs readers to a web link where they can view an online digital copy of a real _Green Book_.\n\nWhile Ramsey's children's book is geared toward memorializing this underground hospitality network for a young generation of readers, his 2010 play, _The Green Book_ , extends and complicates the ethical question of hospitality in significant ways. Set in 1953 at a tourist home in Jefferson City, Missouri, the play brings together Keith Chenault, a cynical, self-serving young African American salesman from Harlem, and Stefan Lansky, an older Polish Jew and concentration camp survivor. Chenault is initially incredulous and outraged that the Davises, the owners of the tourist home, would admit a white man. Lansky, however, has arrived at the Davises' after refusing to stay at the town's \"whites-only\" hotel. Notably, upon his arrival at the Davises' he offers thanks for their \"southern hospitality.\" We later learn that Lansky owes his life to an African American soldier who saved him at Buchenwald, and through both Lansky's story and the unfolding events in the play, Chenault comes to see the limitations of his narrow pursuit of economic self-interest in an era of racial segregation and injustice. The play illustrates the fluidity of hospitality as an ethical ideal, extending it from a local to a cosmopolitan scale, while also resignifying \"southern hospitality\" by retroactively recasting this historical African American institution of private tourist homes as a form of \"true\" southern hospitality.\n\nOverall, the case of the _Green Book_ provides an alternative narrative of hospitality that contrasts sharply with the perceptions and practices of southern hospitality that prevailed during the growth period of southern tourism, not unlike the way that nineteenth-century abolitionist discourse and activism around the Fugitive Slave Law or the Negro Seamen Laws had challenged the antebellum claim of southern hospitality more than a century earlier. In contrast to the consistently restrictive politics of southern hospitality, these alternatives are governed by a more expansive ethics of hospitality, premised on a more egalitarian ideal of welcoming all equally. Why have these American narratives of a more ethical form of hospitality been forgotten while the myth of southern hospitality has prevailed? By revisiting a forgotten document of the past and transmitting it to the future generation, Ramsey's award-winning children's book and play are examples of what Paul Ricoeur terms \"telling otherwise.\" In recent years, this \"telling\" has also been occurring through the development of newer, more inclusive forms of heritage tourism in the South, particularly those involving the history of civil rights and slavery in the South, which are in many cases being revisited and recognized. Take, for example, the case of Nat Turner discussed earlier. In contrast to the marginalization of the Nat Turner insurrection from a variety of earlier efforts to mark the Virginia landscape's history, and despite a long history of conflict over this past among local black and white populations, in February 2013 the Southampton County Board of Supervisors, in conjunction with the Southampton County Historical Society, announced its sponsorship of a proposed Nat Turner\/1831 Southampton Insurrection Trail. The county was awarded a $420,000 Transportation Enhancement Grant \"to connect travelers, tourists, students and residents with sites associated with the Nat Turner rebellion.\" While the county may or may not have mixed motives involving economic development, its willingness to engage this traumatic history in its fullness requires an acceptance of risk and an awareness of the contradictions, conflicts, injustices, and competing values of the South's past.\n\nBut even as progress is being made, the legacy of the segregated racial history of southern tourism can linger across this aspect of the South's economy in subtle ways. A 2013 article by Derek H. Alderman and E. Arnold Modlin Jr. published in the _Journal of Cultural Geography_ provides a case in point. Alderman and Modlin's comprehensive study of North Carolina tourism brochures, funded in part by the Center for Sustainable Tourism at East Carolina University, revealed that \"racial inequalities . . . characterize the seemingly harmless arena of southern hospitality and tourism promotion,\" and they link this to the long history of racial injustice in the South. The authors forcefully argue that \"it is essential that the tourism industry recognize its involvement in the politics of representation\" and that it also \"recognize that current racial patterns in travel are not simply the product of the contemporary market but also the product of a racialized history of southern mobility and hospitality and the traditionally limited access that minority travelers have had to destinations.\" Alderman and Modlin's study is particularly notable for their willingness to see an ethical dilemma in the way \"southern hospitality\" is used to promote the South; moreover, their approach also suggests that southern hospitality can be reframed as a progressive ethical imperative that can have sustainable and just socioeconomic benefits.\n\n### Southern Hospitality, \"Lifestyle\" Choices, and White Southern Sublimation\n\nWe Southern women have been forced by the ever-growing global economy to become just as fast-paced as our counterparts in the North. The days of sipping mint juleps on the porch are long gone, and in many cases so are the porches. Although we may slave over our computers eight hours a day, we still have an innate need to entertain and be hospitable. It's a characteristic that forms at the instant of conception.\n\nRebecca Lang, _Southern Entertaining for a New Generation_\n\nSo begins Rebecca Lang's 2004 cookbook _Southern Entertaining for a New Generation_. At the time of the book's publication, Lang was a food columnist for several newspapers in the Southeast, and she was on her way to a successful career as a food writer, cooking instructor, and eventually a contributing editor at _Southern Living_ magazine. Her words embody one of the most typical rhetorical strategies associated with the southern hospitality myth, as she here affirms the notion of southern tradition and continuity of identity even in the face of change, in this case the social changes wrought by globalization. It's worth considering her explanation of southern hospitality alongside the earlier explanations offered by Lucian Minor and Thomas Nelson Page, for across these three writers we can see the discourse of southern hospitality becoming increasingly naturalized as an essential cultural trait of the South and southerners. While Minor in the 1830s could acknowledge the fact of slavery's role in southern hospitality, and Page in the 1890s attributed southern hospitality to the combination of \"Anglo-Saxon\" bloodlines and the unique southern social environment, Lang here attributes southern hospitality to the genetic code of southerners. In reality, and as I hope I have shown, southern hospitality is more a matter of discursive practices than social habits (or even genetics); it is a phrase that has been repeated so often that many have come to accept it as a natural fact.\n\nFrom the 1960s through the early twenty-first century, this assumption that the South and southerners are inherently hospitable has formed a narrative frame and thematic center for a variety of successful lifestyle industries built on southern regional identity, seen most prominently in the remarkably successful _Southern Living_ magazine and its numerous related spinoff industries, and in the national popularity and success of a southern celebrity chef like Paula Deen, who offered American viewers and readers a folksier\u2014even crass\u2014alternative to the more genteel, refined representations found in _Southern Living_. In such economic endeavors built on southern identity, the southern hospitality myth seems alive and well, even as \"the South\" and \"southerners\" are becoming ever more difficult to define. On the one hand, new demographics and mobile populations have both destabilized and simultaneously expanded the potential definition of \"southerner.\" Almost a third of the population in the contemporary South consists of migrants who came from outside the South, and this migrant population includes significant numbers of African Americans who have returned South since the civil rights movement, many as southern suburbanites, as well as Latin American immigrants who have simultaneously complicated the notion of a racially bifurcated (black\/white) South. On the other hand, this is the age of late capitalism and globalization, when local or regional cultures lose their aura of authenticity as they are repeatedly absorbed, reproduced, and commodified by market forces. Scott Romine explains that in this age of cultural reproduction and simulation, \"the real South\" has been replaced by \"the 'real'\/'South': a set of anxious, transient, even artificial intersections, sutures, or common surfaces between two concepts that are themselves remarkably fluid.\" As for the effect on southern identity itself, Larry J. Griffin and Ashley B. Thompson studied trends through a decade of Southern Focus Polls and described the emergence of what they term \"symbolic southerness,\" an identity that \"need not rest on an actually existing distinctive South.\" Instead, \"symbolic southerners are able to proclaim their heritage and differentiate themselves from the mass of Americans by grounding their sense of who they are in a mythic place existing mainly in cultural memory\u2014the South as an imagined community\u2014rather than in a 'real' space.\" According to the cultural logic of late capitalism, consumption is the primary method of affirming such an imagined identity, which can raise a host of intersecting questions about who or what is defining southern identity and with what consequences. As Amy Elias asks, \"Is regional identity being created by multinational outsiders now marketing Southerners to themselves as lifestyle products as well as lifestyle producers? Are Southerners, in other words, now products rather than consumers in the global market?\"\n\nWhen such business interests begin driving the identity of southerners, one might expect a certain level of historical amnesia around sensitive or unpleasant topics and unresolved historical tensions. This is especially true in the way southern hospitality has been commodified in lifestyle industries, as these iterations of southern distinctiveness inevitably elide the complex racial dynamics that were foundational to the origins of the southern hospitality myth. Indeed, to return to the quote from Rebecca Lang with which I began this essay, there is something ironic and awkward in her description of contemporary southern women \"slaving over computers.\" One might even be tempted to read Lang's word choice as a Freudian slip, for while her description tries to make her southern identity as a refined, gracious hostess seem natural (presenting it as a biological fact), her words also point to unacknowledged traces of the historical past, namely, the fact that black women performed the labor (first as slaves and later as domestics) that allowed white southern women the leisure to be such gracious and attentive hostesses.\n\nIf the discourse of southern hospitality is largely used to affirm a sense of tradition and continuity of southern identity in the face of change, then certainly the greatest change that white southerners faced in the twentieth century was integration. The end of segregation might have provided a day of reckoning for the southern hospitality myth or, more optimistically, an opportunity to recast it as an inclusive ethical principle for the newly integrated South, but the southern hospitality myth continued to follow familiar patterns of repetition and repression. More particularly, the details and timeline surrounding the creation of _Southern Living_ magazine in 1966 indicate the ways that the southern hospitality myth provided white southerners a defensive means of sublimation and substitution in response to the new social reality posed by integration. For the generation of white southerners who lived through this profound and often violent cultural change in the late 1950s and 1960s, integration was a traumatic experience. Segregation was built on the assumption of white supremacy, and these white southerners had to cope with a range of emotional and psychological conflicts when this change finally came. Depending on whether or how deeply a southerner believed in the assumption of white supremacy, integration could have prompted feelings of rage, fear, and impotence, on the one hand, or profound feelings of guilt, shame, and regret, on the other. As a long-standing affirmation of white southern exceptionalism and superiority, the southern hospitality myth provided a way for these southerners to both contain and transform the trauma they experienced with the end of segregation. Integration was a world change much more traumatic than the globalizing forces to which Lang alludes in the epigraph above, and many white southerners were desperate to hold on to a sense of their own felt exceptionalism and superiority in the face of these changes. The southern hospitality myth provided a way to affirm \"the good life\" and continue traditions of the South even as its foundational tradition of racial segregation and white supremacy gave way. More specifically, if this generation of southerners lost the public markers and blatant expressions of white supremacy (separate schools and water fountains, segregated lunch counters and buses, police dogs and water cannons, lynchings and church bombings, etc.), they could still find other, more acceptable, more subtle ways to express their superiority and exceptionalism, such as an exaggerated emphasis on hospitality, gracious living, and manners. _Southern Living_ attempts to embody and reinforce such domestic virtues, and the fact that it was created at the very same moment that segregation was ending in many ways assured its success.\n\nToday _Southern Living_ is by far the most successful regional magazine in the country and one of the most successful American magazines overall, ranking in the top twenty for overall circulation. To put that in perspective in relation to magazines with more \"national\" target audiences, this is just above _Glamour_ and _O, The Oprah Magazine_ , and close behind _Cosmopolitan_ and _Sports Illustrated_. Its profits amount to over $300 million annually, and it boasts approximately 3 million subscribers and more than 15 million monthly readers. The readership is mostly female (77 percent) with a median age in the early fifties. Southernliving.com, the online division of the magazine, claims another 1.2 million unique visitors and 11 million page views annually. As the _Southern Living_ 2013 Media Kit notes to potential advertisers, \"1 in 5 Southern Women Read Southern Living.\" Today, _Southern Living_ is much more than a magazine: for many southerners, it is a tradition, a connective web for an incredibly wide range of consumerism around southern identity, and \"a kind of imagined community.\" The idea of southern hospitality has been essential to this community since the magazine was founded in 1966, but the motivation behind its founding belies any true sense of hospitality from an ethical perspective.\n\n_Southern Living_ was developed in the early 1960s as an offshoot of the longstanding _Progressive Farmer_ agricultural magazine, and its early success and incredibly loyal readership were very much a matter of timing: it entered the marketplace just as segregation was ending, and it offered its readers relentlessly positive images of the white, suburban South at just the moment when they were feeling most threatened and under attack. _Progressive Farmer_ had been a successful agricultural magazine based in Birmingham, Alabama, since its founding in 1886 by Confederate veteran Leonidas L. Polk. _Progressive Farmer_ 's subscription list peaked at 1.4 million readers in the post\u2013World War II decade, but by the late 1950s, its readership had declined as more southerners were living in and around cities than on farms. _Southern Living_ was conceived and launched in response to these changing demographics, essentially casting the emergence of the southern suburban landscape as a marker of white identity. The concept for _Southern Living_ magazine was first brought before the Progressive Farmer Board of Directors meeting on May 22, 1963, and it was immediately embraced. The board decided that the \"Home Section\" of _Progressive Farmer_ would be retitled \"Southern Living\" and that the editorial staff would begin the transition to a stand-alone magazine. The first issue of _Progressive Farmer_ to include the new \"Southern Living\" section appeared in October 1963. Following a successful transition period, the board definitively decided to move forward with the magazine launch in March 1965. The first stand-alone issue of _Southern Living_ magazine was published in February 1966, and it included features on food and entertaining, gardening, home projects, and travel, along with general interest stories. The first issue featured stories, for example, on azalea trails across the South, Mardi Gras, cornbread, and the carving of the Confederate icons on Stone Mountain in Georgia.\n\nTo put the time line of _Southern Living_ 's inception into some context, the year in which the board initially decided to pursue the project was one of the most tumultuous periods in the civil rights movement, and much of the nation's attention that year was focused on events unfolding in Birmingham, Alabama, the home city of _Progressive Farmer_ and its offshoot, _Southern Living_. In January of that year, Alabama governor George Wallace had delivered his inaugural address, in which, in response to national pressure to integrate, he staunchly promised Alabamans \"segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.\" Under Martin Luther King Jr.'s leadership, the Southern Christian Leadership Council launched its \"Birmingham Campaign\" in early April of that year and was met with Birmingham public safety commissioner Bull Connor's violent tactics, including police dogs and fire hoses eventually being used against demonstrating students, all under a national and world media spotlight. Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed early in the campaign, prompting him to write his \"Letter from Birmingham Jail\" to the white clergy of the city who had made it clear that they did not want outsiders meddling in the city's business. These events were unfolding only weeks and days before the initial decision was made to launch _Southern Living_. Indeed, on May 10 the City of Birmingham, under the pressure of nonviolent protest and increasing national outrage, acceded to the protestors' demands, effectively ending the most overt and discriminatory practices of segregation in the city. This was only twelve days before the board decision to launch _Southern Living_. And some months later, the first \"Southern Living\" section of _Progressive Farmer_ was published only weeks after what is surely among the most infamous acts committed in response to the civil rights movement, the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which left four black girls dead and many others injured.\n\nGiven this context of political turmoil and violence, it is difficult to imagine today what those editorial meetings must have been like or how readers would have responded to the new \"Southern Living\" section of _Progressive Farmer_. As Diane Roberts observes in her critical analysis of the early years and development of _Southern Living_ , from our contemporary perspective, the total avoidance of any mention of politics in a southern magazine in the 1960s now seems \"strange, even perverse,\" but as she goes on to explain, this is precisely the point: _Southern Living_ \"thrives on denial.\" Particularly for its early readers, it provided \"a haven from the world turning upside down around them.\" The editorial staff in those early years seemed to know precisely what they were doing. Publisher Emory Cunningham was one of the main proponents of the _Southern Living_ launch, and he later offered a frank assessment of the magazine's agenda and consequent success:\n\nEverybody was running down the South. . . . I felt that keenly, and a lot of other Southern people did, too, people with their hardships going all the way back to the Civil War. The Depression hit us harder. Everybody up North thought the racial unrest was an Alabama and a George Wallace problem only. It hadn't hit Watts in Los Angeles and Chicago. Southern people were thirsting for something to make them feel good about themselves.\n\nIt is interesting to note the way that the magazine's habits of denial and repression are mirrored in Cunningham's own memories. Even while recounting the context of the magazine launch many years later, he fails to directly acknowledge the context of the civil rights movement, which was the main reason why everybody was \"running down the South\" at the time. Moreover, his comments here oddly turn white southerners into victims, noting first the \"hardships\" (white) southerners have faced since the Civil War and the Depression and indirectly suggesting that it was unfair to criticize the South for its racial unrest of the times because the North had racial problems as well. In reality, Jim Crow segregation was a matter not of \"racial unrest\" but of racial oppression, one in which white southerners figured in the role of oppressors and not victims.\n\n_Southern Living_ quickly developed an intensely loyal readership, due largely to the fact that it repressed any reminders of the South's fraught racial history and civil rights conflicts. Instead the magazine offered readers optimistic images of a refined, contemporary southern lifestyle that revolved around entertaining, traveling, gardening, and maintaining southern \"traditions.\" Howell Raines has referred to the magazine's editorial approach and \"relentlessly cheerful\" content as \"the Southern Living disease,\" which obscures the historical past and recasts the region as \"one endless festival of barbecue, boiled shrimp, football Saturdays and good old Nashville music.\" By avoiding the world of politics and offering such content to its readers, _Southern Living_ has successfully transformed itself into a \"tradition\" in the South. This conflict between the pressure of political realities and the pull of escapist fantasies was there from the start of the magazine's history. Indeed, the magazine's sublimation of white supremacist desires may be gleaned from the editorial wrangling that took place leading up to publication of the first issue in 1966. John Logue and Gary McCalla describe how this first issue unfolded in their joint memoir, _Life at Southern Living_ , which traces their experiences working at the magazine from the period leading up to its creation in the early 1960s through its eventual purchase in 1985 by Time, Inc. Logue and McCalla describe the editorial conflicts that took place between the \"Old Guard\" of the _Progressive Farmer_ who wanted to pursue a more overtly political editorial agenda and the younger generation of editors who had experience in modern advertising and marketing and were consequently savvier to the subtle workings of the contemporary media marketplace. Dr. Alexander Nunn, the president of the Progressive Farmer Corporation, insisted on having absolute editorial control over the launch of the first issue. According to Logue and Mc-Calla, Nunn was an ardent segregationist who \"thought two things will ruin the South, or ruin the country: integration and a decline in agriculture, city people not appreciating farmers. He felt those were fundamental problems and were going to ruin the country.\" Nunn hoped to use _Southern Living_ as a way to bolster white political solidarity, and he went so far as to offer the cover of the first issue to Lurleen Wallace, wife of then\u2013Alabama governor George Wallace. While the editorial staff somehow managed to nix the idea of Lurleen Wallace on the cover, they could not control the contents of the opening editorial message of the first issue, a bizarre statement, complete with Scripture, that preached the need for unity between the rural and urban people of the South and on the need to avoid the urban problems (read: racial problems) of the North.\n\nAppearing in the context of segregation's simultaneous demise, the magazine allowed southerners to maintain a sense of regional pride and (white) superiority. Directed to a target audience of white middle- and upper-middle-class southerners (as well as to those who aspired to be), the magazine's features and stories guided the performance of white southern identity post\u2013civil rights. It also reinforced white privilege in subtle (and sometimes obvious) ways, as may be seen in the way the magazine coded racial identity. Especially in the early years of the magazine's publication, the only blacks who appear among the pages are in service roles for white subjects, as hotel attendants, domestics, or waiters. While Martin Luther King Jr. had dreamed in 1963 of the day when \"the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,\" the images of blacks in the early years of _Southern Living_ show that the magazine's editors and readers were still much more comfortable with having blacks appear in adjunct service roles to the white southern hospitality myth. This is certainly not to say that all the early readers of _Southern Living_ magazine were consciously looking to have their sense of white supremacy maintained when they perused the magazine's pages, but there is little doubt that some were. In 1973, for example, a cover photograph featuring an integrated picnic apparently resulted in approximately five thousand subscription cancellations from outraged readers.\n\nEven though today _Southern Living_ has made progress in its representations of race and its acknowledgment of the South's civil rights history, it still struggles with the past racial history of the South and the racialized meaning of the southern hospitality myth it draws upon, where blacks have historically been confined to service roles in the white imagination. In a fairly recent (2009) interview, a _Southern Living_ travel editor was asked specifically about the magazine's relationship to the South's racial history, prompting a rambling and at times conflicted response. At first, the editor assures the interviewer that the magazine strives for diversity, but his answer also suggests that some things may not be so different from the 1960s:\n\nWe are very, very deliberate here about trying to put diversity in the magazine, so that's something I look for when we're going through the pictures. Do we have black faces in our magazine? And not just the help. That sounds harsh, and I don't mean it to sound harsh. But a lot of times when you go to look through the pictures for any particular month, sometimes the only minority faces you'll see are the hotel maid or the hotel waiter, and I believe\u2014this is not based on any research\u2014but I believe if you're looking through a magazine and you don't see any people who look like you, whether you're a woman or you're young or you're old or you're black or white or whatever, that you will internalize that and say, \"That magazine is not for me.\"\n\nMaybe the problem now is that the world that _Southern Living_ strives to represent is still a world where minorities too often figure only as \"the help.\" Here the notion of diversity seems superficial at best. As the editor goes on to discuss the way the magazine engages the South's history of racial politics, we also see that things haven't progressed much. He provides an oscillating description of editorial choices and reader desires:\n\nWe cover the history of the South. We don't talk a lot about history at _Southern Living_ because it's not a huge interest of our readers. They're interested in today. How do I make my meal tonight better? How do I make my garden grow next spring better? How do I plan my next vacation? So they're really not that interested in history, but when we do talk about the racial tensions in Birmingham and Mississippi, we're really proud of those moments in our history. A lot of southerners are very sheepish about what happened here.\n\nFrom here the editor shifts rather abruptly and strangely to talk about racism in other regions in the country, noting, \"The worst racist jokes I've ever heard in my life were in New York.\" To his credit, he goes on to acknowledge the complex and difficult racial history of Birmingham and the South more generally, noting that \"the institutionalized racism in the South that existed prior to the Civil Rights Movement is certainly a very dark, dark spot on our history.\" While it is somewhat troubling that such a statement portrays institutional racism as a thing of the past (it isn't), at least the editor speaks quite openly about the subject in relation to the magazine. He concludes by saying that the South's racial history is \"not something [he's] ashamed of,\" commenting, \"I don't think my colleagues here are ashamed of it. We write about it at least once a year. There's a new civil rights trail, a new museum opening up on a regular basis around the South, and so we cover that and we're proud of it.\" The editor's tightrope-walk response is perhaps understandable for someone whose primary motivation is increasing market share for advertisers and profits for stockholders, but still, the way the magazine has historically repressed the fullness of southern history\u2014warts and all\u2014can have pernicious effects. By softening the rough edges and injustices of the historical past, and by severing the links of complicity between past and present, you may make the past more palatable for modern readers of a \"lifestyle\" magazine, but you also encourage a dangerous sense of complacency. As Diane Roberts succinctly and poignantly concludes in her analysis of the magazine: \" _Southern Living_ admits no sense that race has been the great sorrow and burden of the south.\"\n\nAs a modern iteration of the southern hospitality myth, we can associate _Southern Living_ magazine with Paul Ricouer's discussion of melancholia and cultural memory. In his analysis of the processes and pathologies of collective memory, Ricoeur draws on Freud's concepts of melancholia and mourning to contrast two different responses to the traumas of the past. Melancholia, the undesirable response, results from resistance, repression, and a general unwillingness to accept the losses of the past. Melancholia is based not in reality but in sentiment and nostalgia. The subject is compelled to simply repeat these symptoms \"and is barred from any progress toward recollection.\" In contrast, mourning, the healthier though more difficult response, is the result of \"a _travail_ ,\" a patient and difficult \"working through\" that results in an acceptance of loss and a reconciliation with the reality of past. According to Ricoeur, \"What is preserved in mourning and lost in melancholia is self-esteem, of the sense of one's self. This is so because in melancholia there is a despair and a longing to be reconciled with the love object which is lost without the hope of reconciliation.\"\n\n### Paula Deen, White Southern Melancholia, and the Dilemma of \"Southern Foodways\"\n\nTo illustrate how melancholia can provide a useful framework for understanding the relationship between white southerners' experience of integration and the persistence of the southern hospitality myth, let us briefly consider passages from Paula Deen's memoir, particularly where she describes growing up during integration, alongside one of the more controversial details from a deposition she provided in a 2013 workplace lawsuit, namely, her expressed desire to have a \"southern, plantation style wedding\" for her brother featuring an all-black waitstaff. Paula Deen's rise to fame from the early 1990s to 2013 was remarkable; despite her relatively humble background, a difficult first marriage, financial uncertainties, and a battle with agoraphobia, she would eventually advance from small-time caterer to entrepreneurial restaurateur to a TV star celebrity chef. She did so by combining a folksy brand of southern hospitality with a particularly deep-fried, butter-baked, mayonnaise-laden version of southern cuisine. Deen built her business empire by trading heavily on the coupled concepts of southern hospitality and southern comfort food; in fact, her original TV show was successfully pitched to Food Network executives as a way to help Americans cope with the trauma following the terrorist attacks of 9\/11. By early 2013, Deen was seemingly on top of the culinary entertainment world with popular TV shows, numerous cookbooks, a magazine, her own line of culinary products, and profitable sponsorships. For much of the American public, she had come to embody the very idea of southern hospitality, but in June of that year, the story broke that Deen had admitted to using racist language in a deposition she gave in a lawsuit filed by former employee alleging a hostile work environment that included sexist and racist behavior.\n\nDeen's fall from grace was remarkable for its rapidity. She gave her deposition on May 17, details of the transcript were leaked by the _National Enquirer_ on June 19, and a media feeding frenzy ensued that resulted in the crumbling of her empire in a matter of weeks. Despite two video apologies and a tearful live TV interview, by July 1 the Food Network had fired Deen and she had lost her sponsorship with Smithfield Foods and her role as spokeswoman for Novo Nordisk. Numerous retailers, including Target, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart, and Walgreens, also dropped her products from their shelves and severed their ties with her. Despite strong pre-sales on Amazon.com, Ballantine Books canceled the publication of what was to be her fifteenth cookbook. Random House also canceled a multibook contract that Deen had signed the previous year. Among Deen's transgressions revealed in the deposition: admitting to using the N-word, telling racist jokes, and perhaps most startlingly, desiring a southern plantation\u2013style wedding for her brother that would feature an all-black waitstaff.\n\nI choose to focus on Deen here not to simply denigrate her or because she is an easy target, but because I think there is something to learn in this controversy about the southern hospitality myth post\u2013civil rights. In other words, Deen's constructed southern identity\u2014as it exists within her generation, within the region, and within the nation\u2014reflects larger cultural patterns of repression and repetition around the southern hospitality myth. When considering the details of this deposition alongside her memoir's account of living through the South's transition to integration, the relationship between melancholia and mourning is thrown into sharper focus, revealing unresolved historical tensions around race in the white imagination and suggesting the complex psychological motivations behind the historical persistence of the southern hospitality myth post\u2013civil rights. Deen was nineteen at the time _Southern Living_ was first published in 1966, so she embodies the same sort of cultural and psychological experiences I have described regarding that generation of white southerners who lived through integration and who consequently experienced this loss of an explicit white supremacy. Indeed, Deen's hometown of Albany, Georgia, was the site of the high-profile Albany Movement of 1961\u201362, whose tactics of boycott and protest, while unsuccessful at the time, nonetheless paved the way for the successes of the Birmingham Campaign in 1963. Deen's high school was integrated during her senior year in 1965, when five black female students were admitted.\n\nDeen's 2007 memoir, _It Ain't All about the Cooking_ , which was a _New York Times_ best seller, provides a brief but telling glimpse into her experiences of segregation, and these recollections hint at the sort of traumatic psychological effects that the process of integration would have had on many white southerners. While most of Deen's memoir details her various personal struggles and eventual rise to fame, one early chapter goes into some detail regarding her experiences growing up in the segregated South as it was moving toward integration. On the one hand, Deen at times seems to downplay the day-to-day experience of living through these changes as they occurred, noting that the \"civil rights movement belonged to the nightly radio news\" and that \"we lived a pretty unexamined life in terms of politics or civil rights.\" At other moments, however, and I would argue to Deen's credit, her memories reveal a burden of guilt, remorse, and even shame. For example, as she recalls the visible signs of segregation that informed her world (such as separate bathrooms and drinking fountains), she claims the memory \"shocks\" her and that she is \"plain horrified that things could have been that way and [she] was so blind [she] didn't get that it was wrong.\" Later, when Deen recalls the experience of her senior year, when five African American girls integrated the high school, she is similarly disturbed by the memory of her own indifference. She remembers her self-centered teenage amazement that someone's parents would be willing to put her through something as difficult as the isolation the black girls faced. Deen is \"embarrassed and ashamed\" to admit that she felt this way at the time, and she later claims to be \"mortified\" over the fact that she did nothing to assuage the obvious loneliness of the five girls, whom Deen describes as \"five small black faces in a sea of unthinking teenaged white faces.\"\n\nThe most difficult memory Deen recalls, however, comes from earlier in her life, and it involves her experience with a \"real nice black woman\" who looked after her and her sister. This episode, which occurs when Deen is about ten years old, is especially powerful because it involves a greater degree of culpability and complicity on her part, and a sort of initiation into the true implications of segregation, as well as her place of power in the system:\n\nEverybody would be so busy working over at River Bend and at the gas station that sometimes I would be told to stay with a real nice black woman who often babysat Trina and me. I remember this one day she had brought her little girl to work, and that child had many big, fat blisters on her hand, probably from helping out her momma. Something about those blisters just attracted me and I remember hitting those little hands with a bolo bat, and it busted her blisters good. It was pretty satisfying. I don't know why I did it. I have a hard time thinking I did it out of meanness. But her mother\u2014I can't remember if she slapped me across the face or she spanked me, or both\u2014but either way, now I know I sure had it comin'. Well, still, I was heartbroken, and I went running to find my Grandmother Paul and Granddaddy and my momma. And my granddaddy had the woman arrested for hitting me. The little black girl's momma went to jail. All this time it's bothered me. It was me who deserved to be sittin' in that jail for breaking a little black girl's blisters in 1957.\n\nHere Deen experiences the power of her own white privilege in a way that produces profound guilt and remorse. Her impulsive act, which may or may not have been done simply \"out of meanness,\" has unintended and very real consequences for others. A \"real nice black woman,\" a grown woman and mother, lands in jail because of Deen's impulsive act and is consequently separated from the child whom Deen hit. Whether Deen had a conscious realization of this at the time or not, the incident shows that even as a ten-year-old girl, she had more social standing than a grown black woman who also happened to be her caretaker. If this incident occurred as Deen describes it, it would certainly be a traumatic initiation into the complicated and unequal world of segregation, one that reveals her own complicity in the unjust system. The lack of many details surrounding the scene suggests a possibly incomplete process of coming to terms with this past event: Did the little black girl cry? Was she hurt? How much younger was she than Deen? What steps led to her mother being jailed? What happened next? Why did she find hitting the little girl's hands to be a \"pretty satisfying\" experience at the time?\n\nThese uncomfortable memories of segregation, though brief, stand in stark contrast to all the scenes of \"comfort\" she describes in her recollections on family, friends, and home-cooked meals, which provide the bulk of her other childhood memories. Remorse, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and mortification are the emotions Deen describes feeling as she recalls her experiences in the segregated South, and they are appropriate and understandable responses, part of what is necessary in a successful \"working through\" of memory and an acceptance of the losses of the past. But they are also difficult and painful emotions to confront, so it is no wonder that individuals try to avoid them. In the case of southerners and the South, acknowledging such emotions can be a particularly complicated process because there are so many readymade and long-standing cultural myths to draw on as a way of protecting the self from difficult truths of the past. As Ricouer explains, personal memory and collective memory interact and inform each other constantly and in a \"reciprocal and interconnected\" manner as identity is continually formed and re-formed over time.\n\nDeen in her memoir seems to know and acknowledge something about the injustice of segregation and even her own complicity in it, but in other instances she relies instead on jaded explanations of the South and race that can be traced back to the nineteenth century. These are myths that can protect one from the uncomfortable truths of the past and from one's own experience of trauma and loss. Moreover, they can at times subtly reinforce a lost sense of white superiority. In a _New York Times_ video interview with Deen in October 2012, Kim Severnsen notes that Deen has a \"pride about the South\" and goes on to ask her how she places the South's history of racism and slavery \"within that.\" It's a fair and natural question to ask of a celebrity who trades so heavily on her southern-ness, and one would expect that it's a question Deen or her handlers would have prepared her to answer at some point. Deen, however, seems utterly flummoxed by the question, and her response is awkward to watch. She's hesitant and halting and seems to be searching for words: \"I do. You know, it's funny. I think. I feel like the South is almost less prejudiced because black folks played such an integral part in our lives. They were like our family. Ummm. And we didn't see ourselves as prejudiced.\" It's hard to reconcile Deen's comments on \"black folks\" being \"like family\" with her more direct expressions of her memories growing up during segregation. Her response here trades on the old paternalistic myth of slavery as a way of protecting herself from the truth of segregation. Given her standing at the time as one of the most recognizable southern celebrities in America, one might have hoped for something better. One might have hoped that she had actually reflected on the issue at some point.\n\nBut if we consider details from Deen's 2013 deposition, and particularly her desire to have an all-black waitstaff at her brother's wedding, we can see that Deen is even more rooted in the past than the personal anecdotes in her memoir would lead one to think. Indeed, they suggest a deeper, impossible longing for that past. The exchanges regarding these wedding plans are surely one of the more remarkable moments in the deposition, for by expressing this desire so blatantly, Deen makes overt the unacknowledged historical meaning of the southern hospitality myth itself: blacks are to serve whites, first as slaves, later as domestics, and now as waitstaff. In response to Deen's admission of using the N-word in the past, some were willing to accept or defend her, noting that many people of her generation would have used it as a matter of course. The wedding anecdote, however, is more pathological and, I would suggest, more revealing, especially if we keep in mind her uncomfortable recollections of segregation in her memoir. In the deposition, Deen describes going to a restaurant in the South where \"the whole entire wait staff was middleaged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with black bowties. I mean it was really impressive. And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that . . . but I would be afraid somebody would misinterpret.\" When the plaintiff's lawyer asked, \"The media might misinterpret it?\" Deen replied, \"Yes, or whomever is so shallow that they would read something into it.\" As the lawyer pressed Deen on details, asking, for example, whether she could not achieve the same desired effect with \"people of different races,\" she replied, \"Well, that's what made it. That's what made it so impressive. These were professional. I'm not talking about somebody that's been a waiter for two weeks. I'm talking about these were professional middle-aged men, that probably made a very, very good living. . . . It was the whole picture, the setting of the restaurant, the servers, their professionalism.\" When asked if she could possibly have used the N-word in referring to these men, she replied, \"No, because that's not what these men were. They were professional black men doing a fabulous job.\"\n\nWhile her earlier explanation of seeing blacks as \"family\" may be understood as a way to deflect the real, though unacknowledged, guilt or shame from complicity in segregation, this pathological desire for an all-black wait-staff seems to reveal an unconscious longing to recover or hold on to a lost ideal, in this case, a sense of one's own white supremacy that was lost with integration. Deen, however, seems to not see the historical associations that such an image of black men might conjure up, and in the deposition transcript, the lawyer almost acts like an analyst, asking questions to help a patient trace these connections and thereby relocate the lost object of desire:\n\nLAWYER: Why did that make it a\u2014if you would have had servers like that, why would that have made it a really southern plantation wedding?\n\nDEEN: Well, it\u2014to me, of course I'm old but I ain't that old, I didn't live back in those days but I've seen the pictures, and the pictures that I've seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America.\n\nLAWYER: Okay.\n\nDEEN: And I was in the South when I went to this restaurant. It was located in the South.\n\nLAWYER: Okay. What era in America are you referring to?\n\nDEEN: Well, I don't know. After the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.\n\nLAWYER: Right. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.\n\nDEEN: Well, it was not only black men, it was black women.\n\nLAWYER: Sure. And before the Civil War\u2014before the Civil War, those black men and women who were waiting on white people were slaves, right?\n\nDEEN: Yes, I would say that they were slaves. Lawyer: Okay.\n\nDEEN: But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying that I loved their look and their professionalism.\n\nDeen was certainly correct in stating that the media wouldn't understand her desire to have an all-black waitstaff at a \"southern style\" wedding, because it's simply hard for anyone to understand this peculiar desire in the twenty-first century. For a woman who both grew up in the segregated South and later made a fortune in the restaurant industry not to be able to see the uncomfortable historical associations that such an image conjures up is really quite remarkable. Deen here seems entirely too comfortable in her historic position of privilege as a white southerner. According to her, if her wanting an all-black waitstaff is a problem, it is due to the misunderstanding of people who would be so \"shallow\" as to read something into it. In other words, from Deen's perspective, the desire itself is not problematic. This strange desire to surround oneself with an image of the past exemplifies the habits of melancholia described above, revealing a hopeless longing to hold on to the lost love object of this past. The love object in this case would be Deen's own white superiority where blacks are confined to serving whites. But it is also worth noting that her language makes the image a timeless one: it reminds her of a time \"after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.\" Indeed, this is the essential fact of the southern hospitality myth itself: it has created a seemingly timeless, \"natural\" image through which white southerners and white Americans more generally have either consistently accepted or conveniently forgotten the long history of subjugation and alienation of black Americans. In other words, if there's something pathological in Deen's personal memories and desires, it is also a reflection of something pathological in the broader, collective, cultural memory. Southern hospitality has historically celebrated white superiority and southern exceptionalism, and when integration disrupted this myth of white supremacy, it created new anxieties and desires for white southerners and thereby breathed new life into the myth, a sublimation of white supremacy. The southern hospitality myth survives through a pernicious habit of forgetting: forgetting the realities of slavery, of black domestic servitude, of racial inequality, and, importantly, black contributions to southern culture itself.\n\nThe national media reaction to Deen's transgressions are perhaps as telling as the transgressions themselves, revealing a national desire to purge ourselves of racism in one simple act, rather than acknowledging more pervasive habits of inequality and forgetfulness in American culture. Paula Deen momentarily showed us the racism that could reside within the southern hospitality myth, but it has been there from the beginning. Significantly, and in contrast to the knee-jerk media reaction, some of the most thoughtful responses to the controversy came from black southerners working in the culinary fields, particularly those devoted to preserving the history and traditions of southern foodways, a rapidly growing endeavor in the twenty-first century. Some took umbrage at the fact that Deen, whose celebrity status made her a de facto spokesperson for southern cuisine, had shown little interest in honoring the complex history of southern foodways and particularly the many contributions made by slaves and later domestic servants who did the cooking and in many instances were responsible for the traditions. As a _New York Times_ article reported, the controversy around Deen \"stirred up long-simmering issues in the culinary business, including accusations of industrywide racism and sexism; class divisions; and the fight over the true heritage of the region's food.\"\n\nPerhaps the most impassioned statement in this regard came from African American culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, who published an \"Open Letter to Paula Deen\" on his website, Afroculinaria, which is devoted to \"preparing, preserving and promoting African American foodways and its parent traditions in Africa and her Diaspora and its legacy in the food culture of the American South.\" In the letter, which went viral on the web and was picked up by the Huffington Post, Twitty speaks to Deen as a \"fellow Southerner\" and notes, \"As Southerners our ancestors co-created the food and hospitality and manners which you were born to 66 years ago and I, thirty-six.\" Given his ancestors' contributions of labor to the making of the \"southern hospitality myth,\" Twitty reappropriates this tradition as his own. Still, this doesn't stop him from chastising Deen for drawing attention away from much more vital issues than her use of the N-word; according to Twitty, Deen's celebrity status as the de facto spokesperson for southern cuisine speaks to a long tradition of \"culinary injustice\": \"In the world of Southern food, we are lacking a diversity of voices and that does not just mean Black people\u2014or Black perspectives! We are surrounded by culinary injustice where some Southerners take credit for things that enslaved Africans and their descendants played key roles in innovating.\" This lack of diversity and the consequent loss of culinary traditions is, for Twitty, \"far more galling than you saying 'nigger,' in childhood ignorance or emotional rage or social whimsy.\" Twitty goes on to point to the long-unacknowledged African American labor that made the southern hospitality myth possible:\n\nCulinary injustice is what you get where you go to plantation museums and enslaved Blacks are not even talked about, but called servants. We are invisible. Visitors come from all over to marvel at the architecture and wallpaper and windowpanes but forget the fact that many of those houses were built by enslaved African Americans or that the food that those plantations were renowned for came from Black men and Black women truly slaving away in the detached kitchens.\n\nTwitty's critique in his \"Open Letter to Paula Deen\" exposes the historical elisions that lie at the heart of the southern hospitality myth, but he also closes the letter on a note of true hospitality, one that would offer Deen a \"reconciliation\" with the truth of the region's past and perhaps her own. Reminding Deen of King's dream of the future day when \"sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would sit down at the table of brotherhood,\" Twitty closes by inviting Deen to \"bake bread and break bread\" at a fund-raising dinner for African American farmers to be held at Historic Stagville, an antebellum plantation and state historic site in North Carolina. In contrast to the repression and repetition of melancholia, such a meeting would amount to the travail associated with mourning, an appropriate \"working through\" and proper reconciliation with the past, warts and all. In short, Twitty's open letter reappropriates and resignifies the southern hospitality myth in important and significant ways: by claiming the heritage of black labor that produced the southern hospitality myth, by alluding to King's futural vision of full equality and justice, and by extending this invitation for reconciliation to Deen. Twitty's version of hospitality has a hard ethical edge, demanding a sense of future justice that can come only through a full and honest reckoning with the past.\n\nDiscourse around this growing field of southern foodways has often attempted to recast or reimagine southern hospitality as an inclusive cultural practice, but due to the way the field fetishizes southern food _as tradition_ , it may simply, in the long run, further naturalize the repressive patterns of the southern hospitality myth of old. For example, consider the way the Southern Foodways Alliance incorporates hospitality as a \"cornerstone\" of both its own subject and its entire enterprise. Devoted to preserving and celebrating the South's culinary heritage, the Southern Foodways Alliance is an academic endeavor sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and its mission statement and website seem to accept the notion of southern hospitality\u2014here expressed as the \"welcome table\"\u2014at face value: \"The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies, and explores the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. Our work sets a welcome table where all may consider our history and our future in a spirit of respect and reconciliation.\" Striving to be racially and ethnically inclusive, willing to tell \"honest and sometimes difficult stories about our region,\" motivated by a sense of justice and sustainability are all stated goals of the SFA, and they are indeed laudable goals. However, the tone and tenor of the SFA's discourse on hospitality is ultimately problematic. For example, the SFA's website includes a \"Southern Food Primer\" that historicizes the various cultural influences that shaped southern cuisine, including its African and ethnic connections, and this is immediately followed by the following statement on \"Community in the South\":\n\nHospitality is a cornerstone of Southern foodways.\n\nJohn Egerton asserts, \"Whether in the home or in public places, the food traditions that had become a part of Southern culture by the 1940s could be summarized under a single descriptive heading: hospitality. As overworked and ambiguous as the word may have been to many, it had meaning for most Southerners.\n\nIt was not a myth, nor was it a hallmark of the rich alone; it was simply the way people were. Twice in their history since the Revolutionary War\u2014in the aftermath of the Civil War and in the depths of the Great Depression\u2014Southerners had known hunger, even starvation, and that knowledge had taught them to enjoy the moment, to feast when food was available, and to keep a wary eye on the future. Among all the classes\u2014those who had plenty and those who had nothing and all the others in between\u2014food was a blessing, a pleasure, a cause for celebration. The tradition of hospitality, of serving large quantities of good things to eat to large numbers of hungry people, of sharing food and drink with family and friends and even strangers, proved to be a durable tradition in the South, outliving war and depression and hunger.\"\n\nThe quote is drawn from SFA founding member John Egerton's _Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History_ , considered a classic text on southern cuisine, but it could come from just about any of a thousand southern cookbooks published in the last fifty years, for it is little more than a jaded echo of the southern hospitality myth. Despite the way that modern southern cookbooks throw around the word \"hospitality\" as a sort of hallowed essence of southern tradition, classic southern cookbooks of the nineteenth century never even mention it; they do, however, allude to slave labor and the need for management systems for effectively organizing such labor. To his credit, Egerton in _Southern Food_ discusses at some length the reality of the slave labor that created the planter's wealth and hospitality, and he notes slave contributions to southern cuisine, but he just as often describes the hospitality of antebellum southerners in the sort of uncritical, breathless terms that might be associated with Thomas Nelson Page. This excerpted quote on the SFA website once again obfuscates historical connections as it attempts to naturalize southern hospitality _as tradition_. Indeed, there is something particularly awkward in suggesting that \"food traditions\" in \"public places\" in the 1940s South could be said to embody hospitality: from an ethical perspective, even a children's book like _Ruth and the Green Book_ speaks a more powerful truth than this statement by Egerton.\n\nScott Romine and Fitzhugh Brundage have both offered insightful critiques of this growing field of southern foodways and the motivations behind it. According to Brundage, interest in the movement is fueled, in part, by a pervasive desire for authenticity as well as by a desire \"for a usable past of multicultural adaptation and exchange.\" But as Brundage points out, in looking to the southern past, these \"champions of southern syncreticism are prone to overreach and exaggeration.\" Romine has effectively described the way the movement fetishizes southern food as tradition and has offered a sharp critique of the \"irrepressibly upbeat\" nature of its iconography and discourse, including Egerton's notion of \"one great Southern table\": \"Aspirational rather than historical, this discourse of the southern table suppresses the racial taboos and prohibitions that for generations dictated the protocols of food consumption. The pleasures of consumption predominate, while accounts of hunger and lack\u2014Frederick Douglass's or Richard Wright's, say\u2014are lost to history.\" The problem here is that, considered from an ethical perspective, _there is no usable past_ when it comes to the southern hospitality of slavery and segregation. In short, as well-intentioned as the Southern Foodways Alliance may be in its stated principles, its recurring emphasis on tradition runs the risk of simply further naturalizing long-standing habits of repression. Indeed, given both its standing as an academic institution and the sometimes breezy nature of its discourse (as described by Brundage and Romine), the work of the SFA might simply end up creating an aura of seeming legitimacy and authenticity for \"symbolic southerners\" who fetishize southern food and southern hospitality and who can move seamlessly from a Paula Deen cookbook to the pages of _Southern Living_ to the websites or workshops of the SFA, repeating the mantra of tradition, tradition, tradition. But from an ethical perspective, hospitality is not in the past, and it is not a tradition. It is an ethical imperative whose obligations always lie in the future arrival of the stranger. To repeat (and slightly modify) Jacques Derrida, \"We do not yet know what [southern] hospitality is.\"\n\n## EPILOGUE\n\n## New Strangers of the Contemporary South\n\nAll the strangers came today, and it looks as though they're here to stay.\n\n\u2014David Bowie\n\nToday, the discourse of southern hospitality is so burdened with a long history of jaded, empty, and meaningless repetitions that it perhaps seems impossible to reconstruct it as a meaningful regional ideal. Take, for example, the \"Southern Hospitality Experience\" program developed in 2006 by _Southern Hospitality_ magazine, a Florida-based trade magazine for hoteliers and restaurateurs in the southeastern United States. Here we see the crass commercialization of southern hospitality at perhaps its worst. The Fall 2006 issue of the magazine announced this \"certification program\" as \"an unparalleled opportunity to brand your property as a provider of the authentic Southern Hospitality Experience. Your guests will look for the SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY EXPERIENCE seal and then make their reservations with confidence.\" As the program announcement goes on to proclaim, \"Your guests expect Southern Hospitality: Warmth, courtesy, care, and comfort\u2014the special welcome and attention of the South. And, you deliver on that Promise through superb service, high quality product and unique, satisfying venues. Let's elevate that message and your distinctive Brand by certifying your Performance through the 'Southern Hospitality Experience' program.\" After listing the program details (which includes a \"professional hospitality assessment,\" the awarding of a \"seal of distinction,\" and consequent marketing benefits), the announcement displays the \"Southern Hospitality Experience\" seal of certification, emblazoned, of course, with a pineapple. Is it possible to be any further removed from the moral and ethical dimensions of hospitality? Beneath the seal of certification on the program announcement, large bold red letters announce, \"EVERYONE WINS.\"\n\nTypically, though, not everyone is a winner in the contemporary hospitality industry in the South (or anywhere, for that matter); the industry is known for low-paying, menial jobs, and it relies heavily on an international labor force of migrant workers. As the Southern Poverty Law Center reports, these workers often are unaware of their rights and fearful of deportation or other consequences, making them easy to manipulate by some employers and contractors who do not abide by industry standards and fair labor practices. In the worst cases, these workers are so consistently and thoroughly exploited that they exist in a state \"close to slavery.\" What role might such service laborers play in the \"Southern Hospitality Experience\" I just described? The program's assessment check sheet, to be filled out during the reviewer's unannounced visit, includes the following clues:\n\nROOM ATTENDANT'S ATTITUDE\n\nUpon encountering guest(s), the room attendant should be friendly, polite and prepared to answer questions.\n\nROOM ATTENDANT'S ATTIRE\/APPE ARANCE\n\nRoom attendants should be appropriately dressed for the task and have a neat appearance. Reasonable grooming standards should be demonstrated. . . .\n\nMANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT\n\nManagement and supervisory personnel should be . . . setting the proper example of Hospitality to the guests as well as evaluating and correcting employees' deficiencies. Discipline should be carried out away from the guests' view ; however, praise should be given where guests can observe it.\n\nThese guidelines suggest a nagging fear of what may go wrong when the obligation of carrying out \"authentic southern hospitality\" has to be entrusted to low-wage workers, largely from minority and immigrant communities. And this nagging fear seems to go beyond just this example. In 2004, for example, the city of Columbia, South Carolina, in conjunction with its newly minted city slogan, \"Where Friendliness Flows,\" launched a new \"Hospitality course\" for \"Columbia tourism's first responders: hotel desk clerks, waiters and cab drivers.\" The Columbia Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau funded the classes with proceeds from restaurant taxes. In the profile in the Columbia newspaper the _State_ , a bellman and shuttle driver enrolled in the course noted, \"I think I'm friendly naturally.\" However, the paper stated that once the course was complete he would \"officially be 'certified friendly.'\" An official of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina expressed hope that the program could be developed to \"generate more friendly employees.\" These examples suggest that these generally low-wage service laborers, many of them immigrants, are being placed under new disciplinary practices of the southern hospitality myth, and this raises an important ethical question. We see here that the myth of southern hospitality can make demands of these laborers, but what is owed to them? Can they likewise be imagined as subjects of southern hospitality?\n\nThe intense debate that occurred in 2011 over the state of Alabama's immigration law (Alabama HB 56) provides a possible answer to these questions. The debate over this law marks an important contemporary episode in the history of southern hospitality, on the one hand, providing a reminder of the tension between politics and ethics in the southern hospitality myth and, on the other hand, offering a glimpse into how hospitality in the South _can_ still function as a meaningful ethical ideal, one directed toward the challenges of both the present and the future.\n\nLike many other southern states, Alabama cashes in on its reputation for \"southern hospitality\" with a thriving travel and tourism sector : Alabama's official travel site, like the \"Southern Hospitality Experience\" program described above, is keen to emphasize the \"authenticity\" of hospitality in the South as it announces the following to its potential visitors (and their tourism dollars):\n\n_Wherever you're from, you'll feel welcome in Alabama. Politeness and generosity are the norm, and there's always plenty of space around the dinner table_.\n\nSouthern Hospitality:\n\nA truly authentic Southern experience is about something far more memorable than a stately plantation or frosty mint julep. While you'll find plenty of those in Alabama, the moments that best define our state are far more personal. The firm handshakes, the warm smiles, the generations of stories behind each delicious dish and handmade craft. Our famous Southern hospitality goes far beyond the warm welcome and fond goodbyes you'll hear across the state\u2014although its always nice to hear \"Come on in!\" and \"Y'all come back!\" More than anything, we love telling stories about times gone by and the traditions passed down through our families. We share these stories to keep the memories alive and remind the world that the most meaningful interactions still happen face-to-face.\n\nThese warm words of welcome seemed hopelessly ironic after the state passed Alabama HB 56 in June 2011, which at the time became the toughest set of anti\u2013illegal immigration regulations in America. Bill sponsor Representative Micky Hammon (R-Decatur) told legislators that the bill \"attacks every aspect of an illegal alien's life\" and \"is designed to make it difficult for them to live here so they will deport themselves.\" Representative Kerry Rich (R-Albertville), a supporter of the bill, portrayed illegals as parasites and a physical threat to the \"household\" of the state of Alabama: \"The illegals in this country are ripping us off. . . . If we wait for the federal government to put this fire out, our house is going to burn down.\" Still, state senator Scott Beason, another supporter of the law, had no problem reconciling southern hospitality with the nation's toughest crackdown on illegal immigrants, stating, \"We expect people to be here in the state of Alabama legally. We have open arms, we have all the hospitality we can muster for the people who come to the state of Alabama legally. But if you are here illegally, it's going to be a challenge.\"\n\nThe law's provisions challenged illegals (and to some extent, anyone who could be mistaken for one) in a wide variety of ways. Following Arizona's suit, the law required \"state and local police officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop based on a 'reasonable suspicion' the person is an illegal immigrant,\" a provision that critics claimed amounted to racial profiling. But Alabama went much further than Arizona as it sought to put pressure on every possible aspect of an illegal's life. Among its numerous provisions, the law required schools to identify and report any students who were illegal aliens, prohibited illegals from attending any public university, required businesses to determine the legal status of all employees, and made it illegal to knowingly rent properties to illegals or knowingly transport, harbor, or assist them in any way. Moreover, it required all state employees to assist in the enforcement of these laws; failure to do so would be seen as a punishable criminal offense. These provisions together created, in theory at least, a panoptical system of surveillance where almost anyone could be a potential informant for the state and could consequently present a threat to an illegal alien: a teacher or school administrator, a police officer, a social worker, a courthouse clerk, a landlord, even a member of one's church if he or she happened to be a state employee.\n\nPassage of the law had profound and immediate consequences, with schools reporting high rates of absenteeism among immigrant populations, farmers left with crops rotting in fields, and hotels and restaurants suddenly short-staffed. Reports indicated that many _legal_ aliens also left the state due to the new law. The state also had to endure the prospect of economic losses, boycotts, and embarrassing public relations moments. For example, a representative from a major medical convention that canceled its scheduled convention in Mobile, cited the law, saying, \"We had people who felt they would not be able to jog without identification if they did not appear to be American.\" An early study of the law's potential economic effects predicted the state would lose billions annually as a result. The cost-benefit analysis conducted by the Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Alabama determined that the law would \"annually shrink Alabama's economy by at least $2.3 billion and . . . cost the state not less than 70,000 jobs.\" Job losses would come in part \"from reduced demand for goods and services provided by Alabama businesses patronized by immigrants\" but also because low-wage labor performed by immigrants inevitably is connected to and supports jobs in other sectors and industries: \"Those positions support other jobs, leading to a net employment loss of 70,000 to 140,000.\" Dr. Samuel Addy, who carried out the study, \"estimated that the state's gross domestic product [would] decline by $2.3 billion to $10.8 billion for every year the law is in effect and [would] cost $56.7 million to $264.5 million in tax revenue.\" Significantly, the departure of immigrant laborers under the law did not suddenly create new jobs for natives, as the law's supporters had promised; rather, \"the four job categories that once hired most of the state's immigrants\u2014agriculture, construction, food service, and hospitality\u2014\" were found to \"employ fewer people than they did before the law went into effect.\" As Addy noted, \"Many Alabamans have rejected hard, dirty, low-paying jobs that immigrants once performed. . . . Now employers struggle to fill those positions.\" So while proponents of the law portrayed immigrants as parasites or thieves, the reality is much more complex, with both legal and illegal immigrants contributing to the overall economy in a variety of unseen but impactful ways, as producers, consumers, and taxpayers.\n\nWhile the law succeeded in creating a pervasive sense of threat to immigrants in low-paying industries, its dragnets did not discriminate, making for some embarrassing moments for the state. In November 2011, the case of a German executive from Mercedes-Benz arrested for failing to produce proper paperwork during a traffic stop made the national headlines. A similar incident occurred the following month with a Japanese executive from Honda. Like many southern states, Alabama had gone to great lengths to woo foreign auto manufacturers to the state, but with these cases, it found itself essentially insulting the corporate guests after initially putting out the welcome mat. In response to these incidents, a _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ editorial gleefully skewered the state for its lack of hospitality and encouraged Mercedes to move to Missouri. As the _Decatur ( AL) Daily News_ ruefully noted in an editorial, \"The people of our once-hospitable state should send a thank-you card to the Mercedes Benz executive arrested Friday for violation of the immigration law. . . . The German did more to demonstrate the idiocy of the immigration law in one day than the law's opponents have managed in months.\"\n\nAll in all, the story of HB 56 would seem to be just another anecdote that illustrates the disparity between politics and ethics in the southern hospitality myth, but the debate and protests that followed suggest otherwise. With grassroots protests and challenges to the law coming from a wide range of Alabamans, the state suddenly found itself in a significant debate on the obligations and limitations of hospitality itself, one not unlike the antebellum debate over the Fugitive Slave Law a century and a half earlier. These grassroots efforts to repeal the law involved interdenominational clergy and churches; industry representatives; public policy and political organizations such as the NAACP, the Center for American Progress, the Southern Poverty Law Center; and ordinary Alabama citizens. This coalition was also integrated across lines of race and class and included groups historically seen as \"strangers\" to the southern hospitality myth, specifically Latinos and African Americans. These activists and protestors routinely drew on the South's reputation for hospitality as a way to bolster their arguments, but they also viewed hospitality through a moral and ethical lens. Early on after the law was passed, for example, the state's United Methodist, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic churches joined forces and filed suit against the law, claiming that the law's provisions violated their religious freedom and particularly the biblical imperative of hospitality. As Methodist minister Melissa Self Patrick of Birmingham noted, \"The new legislation goes against the tenets of our Christian faith\u2014to welcome the stranger, to offer hospitality to anyone.\" Similarly, Reverend Fred L. Hammond, a Unitarian minister from Tuscaloosa, invoked the Christian ideal of the Good Samaritan in speaking out against the law : \"The work of people of faith lies here in attending to the people in the shadows, including those who are immigrants among us. HB 56 criminalizes the ability of faithful people to provide sanctuary, transportation to needed services, and the basic care that the despicable Samaritan offered to one injured by society. This law needs to be repealed . . . so people of faith can bring everyone out of the shadows and truly be whole and upright living in the noonday light of love.\"\n\nIn addition to invoking the biblical imperative of hospitality, critics of the law also invoked Alabama's civil rights history as a way of framing the debate. Lawton Higgs, a retired Methodist minister from Birmingham who supported the church's lawsuit challenging the law, likened the current debate over immigration in Alabama to the earlier civil rights movement that he had lived through, noting that this time the clergy who stood up against the law were going to be on the right side of history. Indeed, it was to the conservative, gradualist clergy of Birmingham that Martin Luther King Jr. had addressed his famous \"Letter from the Birmingham Jail\" a half-century earlier. Like many others, Higgs compared the new immigration law to Jim Crow and candidly noted that he had been on the wrong side of the earlier debates: \"And I'm a recovering racist, transformed by the great fruits of the civil rights movement in this city.\" Just as many Alabamans strongly supported the law, not all clergy and church members agreed with the suit; however, the emerging immigration debate in the state suddenly put the question of hospitality in the South in stark terms, making it a pressing ethical dilemma for many Alabamans. As one Methodist minister from a \"very conservative\" congregation in north Alabama filled with supporters of the law noted, \"You cannot tell a church that if there's a man hungry out there, a family hungry out there, that they can't feed them just because they don't have a green card. . . . That's just not Christian.\"\n\nInterestingly, the ethics of hospitality articulated in these grassroots political efforts had much more in common with the abolitionists than with the long history of iterations of \"southern hospitality.\" Take, for example, the case of a resolution submitted to the Alabama Baptist Convention, an association of Baptist churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, during its annual meeting in November 2012. The resolution was submitted by the Reverend Alan Cross, pastor of Gateway Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Though Alabama Baptists provided a significant bloc of support for the Republican legislature that passed the immigration law, Cross's resolution shows that their support of the law was not universal. What is perhaps most notable in the resolution is the way that Cross so closely echoes abolitionist discourse around hospitality and the Fugitive Slave Law from a century and a half earlier, with the stranger or alien transformed from the runaway slave to the illegal immigrant. The resolution cites the very same biblical passages most often cited by abolitionists, and it portrays hospitality as part of God's \"higher law.\" When human law runs counter to God's higher law, Cross, like the abolitionists before him, contends that we must follow the former (\"we seek to be good citizens in our state and nation only because we are first citizens of the Kingdom of God who represent Christ as His ambassadors\"). In a series of blog posts leading up to and following the convention, Cross explained his reasons for submitting the resolution. After noting that Alabama Baptists are close supporters of the Alabama Republicans who created the law, Cross declared, \"[My] simple hope was that we could send a clear message to Alabama Baptists that when they met a Hispanic person in need, they should first seek to love and minister to them instead of worrying about if they might get in trouble with the state if that person is here illegally. We could have done that today.\" Moreover, Cross goes on to describe the real dilemma many Alabama Christians faced in light of the law's provision regarding state employees and the legal obligation to report illegals:\n\nOur church is in the state capitol of Alabama. We have a lot of state workers who are members of our church. If our church is helping a Hispanic family in need, are the state workers to try and figure out if the people are here legally or not? If we do ministry in a nearby community that we know has illegals living in it, will the state workers not engage in the ministry for fear that they might come in contact with illegals and be forced to report them or report other church members who help them in any way? . . . My concern is that Christians be free to help people in need who live in our community without fear that they are breaking the law. . . . Private citizens, whether they work for the state or not, should not be called upon to act as law enforcement or as an immigration agent.\n\nThe dilemma posed to Christians by the Alabama law can indeed be likened to the Fugitive Slave Law, particularly in the way it criminalizes acts of hospitality to illegals and also in the way it requires state employees to uphold the law even though they may find it morally objectionable. The Fugitive Slave Law required citizens to assist federal officers in the capture of fugitives when called upon, and it made the act of extending hospitality to a runaway slave a federal crime, punishable with excessive fines and imprisonment.\n\nBut Cross goes beyond simply critiquing the law. In a later blog post, he proposes the possibility of Alabama Baptists\u2014and Christians more generally\u2014taking a leading role on the issue of immigration reform in the United States, based again primarily on this moral and ethical approach to the question of hospitality. Motivated in part by the frustration of not having his resolution make it out of committee, Cross wonders whether \"it might not be possible for Alabama Baptists to tell a better story than [they] have\" on the issue of immigration. The title of this post asks, \"Could Alabama Baptists Lead the Way in Immigration Reform in America?\" Cross's answer to the titular question returns to the question of hospitality and hinges on how we define the immigrant\u2014either as a neighbor and brother and sister or as a stranger and alien. And again, the scriptural text he cites and his approach to it are more in line with abolition hospitality than with southern hospitality. In this particular case, he cites Paul's Letter to Philemon as evidence that we have a duty to minister to immigrants, whether they are illegal or not. The parallel between his progressive reading of Philemon and that of the abolitionists' 150 years earlier shows that while the historical and political contexts have changed, the underlying ethical questions and dilemmas surrounding hospitality remain constant. Whether we are speaking of the runaway slave in biblical times or the runaway slave in antebellum America or the contemporary illegal immigrant in Alabama, similar points of tension emerge between the ethics and the politics of hospitality, between higher law and human law, between the claim of hospitality and the claim of sovereignty, and between strangers cast as guests, neighbors, or brothers and strangers cast as aliens, parasites, and criminals. These parallels show that the ethical question of hospitality in the South (and in the nation as a whole) is as urgent today as ever, perhaps even more so, given the new pressures of a global economy and the demands that go along with an increasingly mobile population of immigrants, aliens, and strangers. While so many iterations of \"southern hospitality\" are simply jaded echoes of an exclusionary historical politics, in this debate over HB 56 we see that hospitality in the South can perhaps be renovated as an ethical principle oriented toward the future and the arrival of new strangers.\n\n## NOTES\n\n### Introduction. What Can One Mean by Southern Hospitality?\n\n. Isaac, _Transformation of Virginia_ , 303. Scholars who have written about southern hospitality have limited themselves almost exclusively to the antebellum period and have concerned themselves only with determining its origins and cultural meanings. For representative examples, see Genovese, _Political Economy of Slavery_ ; Luraghi, _Rise and Fall_ ; Wyatt-Brown, _Southern Honor_ ; Greenberg, _Honor and Slavery_ ; and Isaac, _Transformation of Virginia_.\n\n. See Kreyling, _Inventing Southern Literature_ ; Duck, _Nation's Region_ , 3; McPherson, _Reconstructing Dixie_ , 1; Greeson, _Our South_ , 1; G. E. Hale, _Making Whiteness_ ; Bone, Ward, and Link, _Creating and Consuming the American South_ ), 1; and Lassiter and Crespino, _Myth of Southern Exceptionalism_ , 7.\n\n. Wilson and Ferris, _Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ , 1133, 1134. Volume 4 of _The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ , also edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and published in 2006, includes a more nuanced and critical discussion of southern hospitality's origins, evolving meanings, and motivations. Still, the tone of this excerpt from the 1989 edition is in many ways more typical of the way many people think about southern hospitality and its relationship to the past, as many examples in the pages that follow will illustrate.\n\n. Wallerstein, \"What Can One Mean?,\" 1, 3, 7. The scholars Wallerstein discusses as examples are George Brown Tindall, Clement Eaton, William Nicholls, Richard Weaver, F. Garvin Davenport, John Egerton, Richard Current, and Barrington Moore.\n\n. Ibid., 8.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid., 9.\n\n. By approaching southern hospitality as a form of cultural memory, I seek to build on the scholarship on cultural memory and the American South that has been produced in recent years, such as Hinrichsen, _Possessing the Past_ ; Kreyling, _South That Wasn't There_ ; Brundage, _Southern Past_ ; and Brundage's earlier edited collection, _Where These Memories Grow_. While much of this work has focused on more \"official\" or at least discretely defined forms of cultural memory\u2014histories, monuments, rituals, museums, landmarks, literary texts\u2014the southern hospitality myth as I define and trace it is a more pervasive yet subtler form of cultural memory, one that has persisted and evolved for over two centuries, functioning consistently as a narrative form of southern community, to borrow Scott Romine's phrase. See Romine, _Narrative Forms of Southern Community_.\n\n. For the seminal work on \"imagined communities\" and the construction of national identities, see Anderson, _Imagined Communities_.\n\n. See Foucault, _Archaeology of Knowledge_.\n\n. African Americans in the post\u2013civil rights South have often reappropriated this myth of southern hospitality according to the logic of what Zandria F. Robinson terms \"country cosmopolitanism.\" Robinson posits, \"Country Cosmopolitanism is a best-of-both worlds blackness that addresses the embattled notion of racial authenticity in a post-black era by hearkening back to and modernizing rural, country tropes.\" This version of black identity is \"both performed and performative.\" While informed by traditional notions of southern manners, politeness, and hospitality, it also \"calls for seemingly paradoxical approaches to race, class, and gender realities\" and provides \"the theoretical validation for black southern cultural superiority relative to both whites and non-southern blacks.\" To the extent that this performed identity draws on the discourse of southern hospitality, it marks an important reappropriation of a myth originally generated by black labor. See Robinson, _This Ain't Chicago_ , 17, 18, 21, 22.\n\n. Given my thesis, it should be apparent that in using the terms \"southerners,\" \"non-southerners,\" and \"northerners\" I am generally referring to different groups of \"white\" Americans.\n\n. Benedict Anderson comments on the roles memory and forgetting play in the national imaginary of Americans faced with the historical trauma of the Civil War: \"A vast pedagogical industry works ceaselessly to oblige young Americans to remember\/ forget the hostilities of 1861\u20131865 as a great 'civil' war between 'brothers' rather than between\u2014as they briefly were\u2014two sovereign nation-states\" ( _Imagined Communities_ , 201). My point here is that the discourse of southern hospitality is just such a form of memory and forgetting that responds to this fraught, often traumatic history.\n\n. Also see Duck, _Nation's Region_ , especially part 1, titled \"Imagining Affiliation,\" where she provides a theoretical model for rethinking the role of region in U.S. nationalism, a model in which white supremacy similarly serves as \"a source for not only regional but national passions\" (11).\n\n. Henry Wiencek offers a powerful description of the slave activity that generated Jefferson's hospitality and the way Jefferson consciously designed Monticello to conceal that activity from guests:\n\nIn designing the mansion, Jefferson followed a precept laid down two centuries earlier by Palladio: \"We must contrive a building in such a manner that the finest and most noble parts of it be the most exposed to public view, and the less agreeable disposed in by places, and removed from sight as much as possible.\"\n\nThe mansion sits atop a long tunnel through which slaves, unseen, hurried back and forth carrying platters of food, fresh tableware, ice, beer, wine and linens, while above them 20, 30 or 40 guests sat listening to Jefferson's dinner-table conversation. At one end of the tunnel lay the icehouse, at the other the kitchen, a hive of ceaseless activity where the enslaved cooks and their helpers produced one course after another.\n\nDuring dinner Jefferson would open a panel in the side of the fireplace, insert an empty wine bottle and seconds later pull out a full bottle. We can imagine that he would delay explaining how this magic took place until an astonished guest put the question to him. The panel concealed a narrow dumbwaiter that descended to the basement. When Jefferson put an empty bottle in the compartment, a slave waiting in the basement pulled the dumbwaiter down, removed the empty, inserted a fresh bottle and sent it up to the master in a matter of seconds. Similarly, platters of hot food magically appeared on a revolving door fitted with shelves, and the used plates disappeared from sight on the same contrivance. Guests could not see or hear any of the activity, nor the links between the visible world and the invisible that magically produced Jefferson's abundance. (Wiencek, \"Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson\")\n\n. Gray, \"Foreword,\" xvi\u2013xvii, xvii\u2013xviii.\n\n. Ibid., xxi.\n\n. As some scholars have noted, there are no doubt many limitations to the corpus, which only represents about 4 percent of all the books ever published, and to the program. I am not hanging my argument on this data, but I do find it worthwhile to mention here that the data patterns revealed in the n-gram viewer at least echo the findings of my research in this project. See Michel, \"Quantitative Analysis\"; and Geoffrey Nunberg, \"Google's Book Search.\"\n\n. The earliest use in print of the phrase \"southern hospitality\" that I have found is in 1824. As Michael O'Brien points out, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, \"the South\" was in many ways \"a moving target, a thing in process, never what it had been ten years before, never what it would be ten years later.\" At the beginning of the century, it \"was not yet habitually called the South\" (O'Brien, _Conjectures of Order_ , 5).\n\n. See Loughran, _Republic in Print_ , 3, 345. Also see Jennifer Greeson's discussion of the emergence of the concept of the \"Slave South\" in the national imaginary, which coincides with this emergence of the discourse of southern hospitality ( _Our South_ , part 2). Greeson traces three major shifts in the national conception of the South as an \"internal other\"\u2014the Plantation South, the Slave South, and the Reconstruction South\u2014all of which worked to constitute evolving notions of American exceptionalism.\n\n. For discussions of the centrality of _Gone with the Wind_ to the contemporary imagined idea of the South, see McPherson, _Reconstructing Dixie_ , 47\u201368; and Romine, _Real South_ , chapter 1.\n\n. See Bone, _Postsouthern Sense of Place_ ; and Romine, _Real South_. See also see Griffin and Thompson, \"Enough about the Disappearing South.\"\n\n. Since colonial times, the pineapple has been a symbol of hospitality. In the colonial era, pineapples were exotic, rare, and expensive to obtain; consequently, to serve a pineapple to guests or to have it as a centerpiece was seen as a sign of status for both the host _and_ the guest. Pineapples were so prized by hosts and hostesses that they could even be rented for parties. See, for example, A. F. Smith, _Oxford Encyclopedia_.\n\n. The print by Kevin Liang provides an interesting example of the marketability of \"southern hospitality\": the painting is available online under two different titles: \"Sun Room\" and \"Southern Hospitality.\"\n\n. See McPherson, _Reconstructing Dixie_ , 150\u201357.\n\n. Tracy McNulty, for example, claims that \"the problem of hospitality is coextensive with the development of Western civilization, occupying an essential place in virtually every religion and defining the most elementary of social relations: reciprocity, exogamy, potlatch, 'brotherly love,' nationhood. In almost every Western religion, hospitality is the attribute or special domain of the principal divinity . . . who evaluates the character of the human hosts by appealing for hospitality disguised as a supplicant. In ancient Greece, one could even argue that hospitality _is_ religion, the defining social ethics of _Zeus X\u00e9nios_ , Zeus god of strangers. Similarly, Christian 'eucharistic hospitality' is the medium through which Christians are invested with a transcendental identity, made 'equal' to their fellows through the love of Christ, the supreme Host\" (McNulty, _Hostess_ , vii). In addition to its classical and Judeo-Christian religious origins and traditions, hospitality has figured as an important concept in both philosophy and political theory. In the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant reenvisioned hospitality as the universal right of the world citizen, an essential precondition for cosmopolitan law and the premise for a state of perpetual peace. More recently, Seyla Benhabib has revisited Kant's cosmopolitan theories in light of our current debates on globalization, international law, and universal human rights. She explains that in these realms, hospitality encompasses \"all human rights claims which are cross-border in scope\" (Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ , 31).\n\n. Quoted in McNulty, _Hostess_ , xvii.\n\n. Derrida and Dufourmantelle, _Of Hospitality_ , 25.\n\n. See Phillipson, _International Law_ , 214\u201316. The unusual title of the essay by Derrida cited in the epigraph (\"Hostipitality\") points to this shared origin.\n\n. Derrida, \"Hostipitality,\" 3.\n\n. In _Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch_ , Immanuel Kant outlines a series of six \"preliminary\" and three \"definitive\" articles necessary for the achievement of perpetual peace among the nations of the world. The third definitive article addresses the question of hospitality and marks a seminal moment in philosophical thinking about the ethics of hospitality. Kant's third definitive article reads, \"The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality.\" Significantly, Kant maintains that hospitality is not a matter of a host's \"philanthropy\" toward a guest; instead, it is the inherent \"right\" of the stranger : \"Hospitality means the right of the stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another.\" Kant considers this to be a natural right that all humans have \"by virtue of their common ownership of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth.\" But this right is, for Kant, not without limitations. He offers many conditions that limit this \"universal\" right; the stranger can be turned away, as long as he or she is not harmed, and the stranger cannot demand the \"right to be a permanent visitor. . . . It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have.\" Since Kant's outlining of \"universal hospitality\" is already conditional and limited, it isn't surprising that Derrida uses Kant's concept of \"universal hospitality\" as a starting point for some of his deconstructive reading of the paradoxes of hospitality. See Kant, _Perpetual Peace_ , 21.\n\n. See, for example, Derrida and Dufourmantelle, _Of Hospitality_ , 147\u201350.\n\n. Derrida, \"Hostipitality,\" 14.\n\n. Quoted in Rosello, _Postcolonial Hospitality_ , 11\u201312.\n\n. Derrida, \"Hostipitality,\" 6.\n\n. Ibid., 14.\n\n. Ricoeur juxtaposes individual and collective memory, which exist in a complementary relationship. Collective memory antedates an individual's memory, serving as a backdrop. History mediates between the two. Ricoeur's monumental work _Memory, History, Forgetting_ provides an incredibly detailed synthesis and summation of his career-long engagement with these issues. For my purposes here, and for the sake of concision, I am relying on his earlier essay, \"Memory and Forgetting,\" published in _Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy_.\n\n. In outlining what he describes in _Memory, History, Forgetting_ as this \"pathology of collective memory\" (71), Ricoeur transposes several principles from Freud. In particular, he draws on Freud to contrast two different responses to the traumas of the past: melancholia and mourning. Melancholia, the undesirable response to the traumas of the past, results from resistance and repression, which prevent one from \"progress towards recollection, or towards a reconstruction of an acceptable and understandable past.\" Instead, the subject is compelled to simply repeat symptoms \"and is barred from any progress toward recollection.\" In contrast, mourning, the healthier though more difficult response, is the result of \"a _travail_ ,\" a patient and difficult \"working through\" that results in a reconciliation with the past. This idea of the _work_ of memory is especially important to Ricoeur, who claims that \"it is quite possible that the work of memory _is_ a kind of mourning, and also that mourning is a painful exercise in memory.\" Ricoeur draws the following important distinctions between the two responses to such trauma and loss: \"What is preserved in mourning and lost in melancholia is self-esteem, of the sense of one's self. This is so because in melancholia there is a despair and a longing to be reconciled with the love object which is lost without the hope of reconciliation.\" Narratives of collective memory can betray such negative symptoms as the compulsion to repeat and the tendency to manipulate or block memory, all abuses of memory linked to melancholia rather than proper mourning. Ricoeur claims that we can see evidence of such abuses of memory in \"the excess of certain commemorations, their rituals, their festivals, their myths which attempt to fix the memories in a kind of reverential relationship to the past\" (Ricoeur, \"Memory and Forgetting,\" 6, 7, 9).\n\n. It should also be noted that neither of these groups\u2014black and white\u2014are homogeneous; rather, each contains a variety of possible affiliations, including distinctions such as rich and poor; rural, urban, and suburban; male and female, and so on.\n\n. See also Lisa Hinrichsen's recent book, _Possessing the Past_. Hinrichsen challenges the traditional function of \"memory\" in southern studies, where it has figured as a \"knowable object\" that can be possessed and mastered. According to Hinrichsen's analysis\u2014which draws on Sigmund Freud, Slavoj \u017di\u017eek, and Lauren Berlant, among others\u2014the narrative of southern hospitality would qualify as a \"fantasy\" that \"forms a suture between political forms and the subjective understanding of historical experience, and, as such, it is fundamental to the formation of the public sphere\" (7).\n\n. Ricoeur, \"Memory and Forgetting,\" 8\u201310.\n\n. See Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ , 31.\n\n. A number of scholars have turned their attention in recent years to the effects of globalization on the South; see Peacock, Watson, and Matthews, _American South in a Global World_ ; Cobb and Stueck, _Globalization and the American South_ ; and Peacock, _Grounded Globalism_.\n\n. See Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ ; and Appiah, _Cosmopolitanism_.\n\n. Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ , 31, italics in original.\n\n### Chapter 1. A Virginian Praises \"Yankee Hospitality\"\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 2,\" 166. Minor is not named as the author; instead, the letters are simply attributed to \"A Virginian.\" Also, the series was originally published in the _Fredericksburg Arena_.\n\n. A short sketch titled \"The Wedding\" that appeared in 1835 in _The Lady's Book_ makes essentially the same points as Minor does in contrasting northern and southern hospitality, locating the origins of the differences in the \"political conditions\" of the region (i.e., slavery). With slaves to serve in the South, hospitality is \"free from care,\" while in the North it is \"full of anxiety.\" See Ogle, \"Wedding,\" 205. For a later version of the same argument, see Atwater, _Incidents of a Southern Tour_ , especially chapter 3. Atwater's tone suggests how the legend of southern hospitality proliferated in the decades of sectional crisis. Regarding southern hospitality, he notes, \"We have most of us heard this lauded to the skies,\" but like Minor, he points to the \"different circumstances\" provided for by slavery (9).\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 2,\" 166.\n\n. \"Editorial Remarks.\"\n\n. L. Jackson, _Business of Letters_ , 36.\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 5,\" 425.\n\n. Thomas Willis White felt that Minor's views on Liberia were too progressive for the _Messenger_ 's readership and ordered Edgar Allan Poe to edit out passages that could be deemed controversial or offensive to southern readers. Minor came from a slaveholding family whose history had something of a progressive streak; in the late eighteenth century, for example, his grandfather had sponsored an emancipation bill in the Virginia legislature, and for over three decades a female cousin recorded a journal she titled \"Notes Illustrative of the Wrongs of Slavery.\" Minor certainly seems to have inherited at least some of the family's progressive leanings regarding slavery. At the same time that his \"Letters from New England\" were appearing in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ , he had undertaken to teach one of his father's slaves to read, keeping a \"journal of Elisha's learning\" and apparently rousing the ire of neighbors. These efforts seem especially remarkable when we consider that the memories of Nat Turner's bloody rebellion in 1831\u2014which resulted in the deaths of fifty-five whites and the hangings of seventeen blacks, as well as the wanton killing of an untold number of slaves\u2014were still fresh in the minds of Minor's fellow Virginians. See Whalen, _Edgar Allan Poe and the Masses_ , 297n38, and his discussion of the editorial changes made to Minor's essay \"Liberian Literature,\" 124\u201325.\n\n. Quoted in Isaac, _Transformation of Virginia_ , 71.\n\n. For example, Daniel R. Hundley in _Social Relations in Our Southern States_ also includes the \"yeomen farmer\" as a practitioner of true southern hospitality. He divides southerners into eight distinct social types or classes, with \"The Southern Gentleman\" at the top, and the \"Poor White Trash\" and \"Negro Slaves\" at the bottom; the \"Yeoman\" figures in the middle. Of the yeomen he writes, \"So far as hospitality goes, the Yeomen of the South are not a whit behind the Southern Gentleman\" (207). Hundley's text also suggests the degree to which idealized stories of southern hospitality had proliferated in the antebellum period. Describing northerners who travel south, he writes, \"They have been so accustomed from infancy to hear and read of Southern hospitality and wealth, as well as of the splendors of natural scenery in all Southern latitudes, they seem to anticipate at every step a princely mansion, and at every turn magnolia groves. Filled with such ideal conceptions of the Summer Land, it is not at all strange that such persons can not refrain at times from expressing their disappointment, when they come to realize the facts\" (23\u201324).\n\n. See Wyatt-Brown, _Southern Honor_ , 327\u201329; and Isaac, _Transformation of Virginia_ , 302\u20133. See also D. B. Smith, _Inside the Great House_ , for a detailed discussion\u2014drawn from diaries\u2014of the visiting habits and open house rituals of eighteenth-century planters (21\u201322, 175\u201378, and 198\u2013230). For a discussion of the experiences of southern women within these rituals and traditions, see Fox-Genovese, _Within the Plantation Household_ , 140\u201341, 213\u201315, 223\u201328; and Weiner, _Mistresses and Slaves_ , 23\u201328, 33\u201334, and 48.\n\n. Wyatt-Brown, _Southern Honor_ , 332\u201333.\n\n. S. M. Stowe, _Intimacy and Power_ , xv, 162, 252.\n\n. Wyatt-Brown, _Southern Honor_ , 337.\n\n. Mauss, _Gift_ , 3.\n\n. Greenberg, _Honor and Slavery_ , 70.\n\n. See, for example, Luraghi, _Rise and Fall_ , 74\u201375; and Genovese, _Political Economy of Slavery_ , 16\u201318, 28\u201336, and 245\u201346.\n\n. Isaac, _Transformation of Virginia_ , 71.\n\n. Bleser, _Secret and Sacred_ , 174.\n\n. Ibid., 170.\n\n. Greenberg, _Honor and Slavery_ , 3. Wyatt-Brown cites this same passage from Hammond in his discussion of the sense of deep competition underlying hospitality among southern gentleman, but he does not mention the entire context of the letter regarding his sexual indiscretions, one that further underscores what Greenberg would describe as the \"superficial\" quality of southern honor. It is also worth noting that Hammond alludes to hospitality as one of the \"high and noble qualities\" that the system of slavery promotes in southern society. See his \"Letters on Slavery,\" where he dismisses abolitionists' charges that the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their masters was rampant: \"But I have done with this disgusting topic. And I think I may justly conclude, after all the scandalous charges which tea-table gossip and long-gowned hypocrisy have brought against the slave-holders, that a people whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our system of slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of these high and noble qualities.\" It should be noted that Hammond did make at least two female slaves his mistresses, first a seamstress named Sally Johnson and, later, her twelve-year-old daughter, Louisa. See \"Hammond's Letters on Slavery,\" 120\u201321; and Bleser, _Secret and Sacred_ , 17\u201320.\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 2,\" 167, emphasis in original.\n\n. For an example of this early tendency to identify particular social habits with a more localized community, see Dr. Ladd, \"Sketch of the Character,\" which was reprinted in the _Massachusetts Magazine_ in 1791. While the article warns of the dangers of luxury and ostentatious display and also suggests the potential for \"savage brutality\" among slave owners by alluding to the West Indies, the author concludes that when it comes to \"the exercise of hospitality, and all the social virtues . . . no country on earth has equalled Carolina\" (231). In contrast, an 1837 sketch in the _Southern Literary Journal_ shows the ways that these particulars eventually tended to be generalized more broadly as \"Southern hospitality.\" The sketch details a day of entertainments, including a hunt, in Summerville, South Carolina, but even as the writer focuses on the more particular habits of \"the Carolina planter,\" the anecdotes are also generalized to extend the traits to the entire region of the South: \"Every thing was in accordance with Southern hospitality.\" See \"Day at Summerville,\" 228.\n\n. Foster, \"Visit to a Southern Plantation.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid. A unique early use of an anecdote of southern hospitality is included in the preface of _Learning Is Better Than House or Land_ , a popular children's book by Irish-born classicist John Carey that went through several editions between 1808 and 1864. In the preface the author praises American hospitality and notes that it \"shines more conspicuously in the southern states of the union, where any decently dressed man may travel a thousand miles without ever entering an inn.\" He goes on to recount when he was lost in Virginia in a snowstorm and was forced to seek the hospitality of a plantation. At the end of the preface, he makes special note that, in retrospect, upon his arrival at the home, \"there was not the smallest necessity for [him] to stand parleying with the negro at the door,\" observing, \"I might at once have commanded him to take my horse . . . walked in without hesitation, and experienced precisely the same reception.\" The book tells the comparative stories of two orphan immigrants to the United States\u2014one industrious and one indolent\u2014to emphasize the virtues of persistence and hard work as the keys to one's social rise, so it is somewhat ironic that the book begins with an anecdote featuring slavery. Given the book's popularity, many young American children may have first learned of the South's reputation for hospitality from it. They also learned that a \"negro\" was someone who could be \"commanded\" (vi, xi).\n\n. Bourdieu, \"Forms of Capital,\" 87.\n\n. Ibid., 86, 87.\n\n. Jennifer Greeson describes how the emergence of abolitionism resulted in a \"newly configured\" image of the \"Slave South\" in the national imaginary. As she understands it, this was \"not evolution but rupture\"\u2014hence, the palliative nature of the emergent discourse of southern hospitality. See Greeson, _Our South_ , 118.\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 1,\" 87.\n\n. Ibid., 87\u201388.\n\n. Minor, \"Letters from New England\u2014No. 5,\" 426.\n\n. Bourne, _Picture of Slavery_ , 86.\n\n. X Y Z, \"Letters from the South West.\"\n\n. Ibid. For a similar report from a northern clergyman traveling in the South and expressing discomfort with the conflict between southern hospitality and slavery, see \"Scenes from Louisiana.\" Sarah M. Grimke also makes similar observations in \"Narrative and Testimony of Sarah M. Grimke.\"\n\n. Bourdieu, \"Forms of Capital,\" 89.\n\n. \"SOUTHERN ARGUMENTS,\" emphasis in original.\n\n. \"Pro-Slavery as It Is.\"\n\n. \"Report of the Committee on Slavery.\" Southerners often expressed confidence in the persuasive powers of southern hospitality to sway northerners to their cause, and abolitionists routinely expressed anxiety and outrage at this prospect. For an example of the former, see Hutchinson, \"Mrs. Hutchinson's Letter\"; for an example of the latter, see \"Pro-Slavery as It Is.\"\n\n. Barker, _Influence of Slavery_ , 10, emphasis in original.\n\n. Redpath, _Roving Editor_ , 139.\n\n. Fox-Genovese and Genovese, _Mind of the Master Class_ , 96.\n\n. Redpath, _Roving Editor_ , 82.\n\n. Ibid., 139.\n\n. Ibid., 140.\n\n. Only a year later, Redpath would offer the following direct criticism of southern hospitality in his _Southern Notes_ : \"Down South where the Slave-holders so loudly boast of their hospitality, they nevertheless have changed all that; and 'Be _in_ hospitable to strangers, for some have entertained Abolitionists without knowing it,' seems now to be the rule that governs them.\" Quoted in McKivigan, _Forgotten Firebrand_ , 58.\n\n. For an analysis of Genovese's scholarly and political shifts in the latter part of his career, see Lichtenstein, \"Right Church, Wrong Pew.\"\n\n. Fox-Genovese and Genovese, _Mind of the Master Class_ , 5.\n\n### Chapter 2. The Amphytrion and St. Paul; the Planter and the Reformer\n\n. See Scott, 6:227.\n\n. Carothers, \"Modern Hospitality,\" 120\u201321, hereafter cited parenthetically in text.\n\n. For example, the story that follows \"Modern Hospitality\" in this issue of _Godey's_ is an installment of a five-part nostalgic tale of plantation life titled \"Sketches of Southern Life,\" by Pauline Forsyth. The five installments appeared between May 1852 and August 1853.\n\n. See Lehuu, \"Sentimental Figures,\" 82.\n\n. McNulty, _Hostess_ , viii.\n\n. To return to Carothers's story from _Godey's_ for a moment, as Lehuu points out, \" _Godey's_ epitomized the nineteenth century shift from a primarily devotional to an increasingly secular literature, blurring in a single medium the sacred and profane\" (\"Sentimental Figures,\" 83).\n\n. Wright, _Complete Home_ , ix.\n\n. The titles of these various sketches published under the pseudonym Hermes include \"The Mysteries of Bona Dea,\" \"The Reformer,\" \"The Mysterious Countess,\" \"Gaston De Foix,\" \"The Ghostly Banquet,\" \"The Death of Chevalier D'Assas,\" and \"The Prophecy\"; all were published in the _New-York Mirror_ during 1833, with the exception of \"Gaston De Foix,\" which was published serially in the _Philadelphia Album_ that same year.\n\n. Hermes, \"Science of Hospitality.\"\n\n. C.C.O., \"On Hospitality,\" emphasis in original.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Mireille Rosello has argued that the discourse of hospitality often \"blurs the distinction between a discourse of rights and a discourse of generosity, the language of social contracts and the language of excess and gift-giving.\" See _Postcolonial Hospitality_ , 9.\n\n. In light of the contrasts drawn in these two essays, I would also direct the reader's attention to an essay published in the _New-York Mirror_ in 1838 that discussed the negative effects that fashionable or ostentatious practices of hospitality could have on the moral development of children in the household, warning that children \"should be sheltered from the ostentatious and heartless intercourse that fashion authorizes.\" See \"Family Circle.\"\n\n. Rosello, _Postcolonial Hospitality_ , 14, 15.\n\n. See also McNulty's discussion of Derrida's reading of the story of Lot in _Hostess_ , 15\u201322.\n\n. As Christie Anne Farnham explains, \"young, unmarried women from the North\" were largely responsible for the education of the female population of the southern social elite, and one of the most appealing features of this northern population of educators was that \"these women were in a position to train their charges in the minutiae of etiquette by which distinctions could be drawn between the elite and others. In this regard they were essential in the socialization of the Southern belle.\" See Farnham, _Education of the Southern Belle_ , 113.\n\n. Hartley, _Ladies' Book of Etiquette_ , 3.\n\n. Etiquette books proliferated in nineteenth-century America, particularly from the 1820s onward, and several cultural historians have provided interesting analyses of etiquette and domestic advice literature of the nineteenth and, to a lesser extent, twentieth centuries. For examples, see especially Kasson, _Rudeness and Civility_ ; Hemphill, _Bowing to Necessities_ ; and Leavitt, _From Catherine Beecher to Martha Stewart_.\n\n. _Art of Good Behaviour_ , ix.\n\n. Kasson and Hemphill both argue that the development of increasingly restrictive codes of manners in nineteenth-century America was an anxious response to the excesses of American democracy and class fluidity. See for example, Kasson, _Rudeness and Civility_ , 6; and the third section of Hemphill, _Bowing to Necessities_. Hemphill claims that restrictive manners guided \"behavior in a supposedly democratic but increasingly unequal society. The resulting rules allowed Americans to deal with the contradiction, largely by espousing one set of values while nonverbally communicating another\" (9).\n\n. _Art of Pleasing_ , vi\u2013vii.\n\n. The following passage appears on pp. 28\u201329 of _The Art of Pleasing_ ; it is plagiarized from Calabrella, _Ladies' Science of Etiquette_ :\n\nTo receive visitors with ease and elegance, and in such a manner that everything in you, and about you, shall partake of propriety and grace\u2014to endeavor that people may always be satisfied when they leave you, and be desirous to come again\u2014are the obligations of the master, and especially of the mistress, of the house.\n\nEverything in the house ought, as far as possible, to offer English comfort, and French grace.\n\nPerfect order, exquisite neatness and elegance, which easily dispense with being sumptuous, ought to mark the entrance of the house, the furniture, and dress of the lady.\n\nIn a house where affluence abounds, it is indispensable to have a drawing-room; if that can not be afforded, then let the receiving-room be the parlor. To receive company in a dining-room is not allowed, except among those who can not bear the expense of furnishing a parlor or drawing-room.\n\nThe Baroness de Calabrella's etiquette book was republished in varying forms in America between the 1840s and 1860s, including a T. B. Peterson edition in cheap paper wrappers that cost only twenty-five cents. This edition includes numerous advertisements inside its covers, and the back cover boldly announces: \"BOOKS FOR EVERYBODY, PRINTED FOR THE 'MILLION,' AT GREATLY REDUCED RATES.\" The cheap material presentation contrasts sharply with the aristocratic tones of the text (as well as with frontispiece portrait of the baroness), suggesting that this particular edition probably provided its readers with fodder for daydreams rather than any useful etiquette guidance. Americans in the middle and even lower classes could at least fantasize about living like exclusive aristocrats or perhaps like hospitable southern planters, the closest thing we had to a natural aristocracy. Sarah A. Leavitt has argued that domestic advice literature has \"always been the stuff of fantasy,\" and this particular edition provides excellent evidence of this. See Leavitt, _From Catherine Beecher to Martha Stewart_ , 5. For more details on the publication history of the baroness's text, see Bobbitt, _Bibliography of Etiquette Books_.\n\n. _Art of Pleasing_ , 47\u201348, 52. Conduct-of-life literature such as _Anecdotes for the Family and Social Circle_ often included numerous stories warning against ostentatious display and emphasizing simplicity at the table when entertaining guests. They also included many tales of Christian hospitality either being rewarded or having the power to convert nonbelievers. See, for example, \"A Widow and Her Son,\" \"The Worldly Family,\" \"Luxury,\" \"William Wilberforce, Esq.,\" \"An Innkeeper's Family,\" \"A Christian Family\" (24\u201325, 139, 140\u201341, 142\u201343, 250\u201353, 258\u201361).\n\n. Kirkland, \"Chapter on Hospitality,\" 224, 225.\n\n. C. E. Beecher, _Treatise on Domestic Economy_ , 257.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid., 257\u201358.\n\n. Quoted in O'Brien, _Conjectures of Order_ , 1:58.\n\n. Ibid., 1:2, 5, 7.\n\n. Calvin Henderson Wiley's _Roanoke, or, Where Is Utopia?_ was first published serially in _Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art_ in 1849. It was subsequently republished under several other titles between 1849 and 1866. It appeared in London in 1851 under the title _The Adventures of Old Dan Tucker and His Son Walter_. Following the sensation over _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , it was published in 1852 by T. B. Peterson of Philadelphia under two different titles: _Life in the South: A Companion to Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , and _Utopia, a Picture of Life in the South_. After the Civil War, Peterson published it again under the original title of _Roanoke, or, Where Is Utopia?_ See Johnson, \"Southern Fiction Prior to 1860,\" 104\u20135. In the pages that follow I cite from the 1852 T. B. Peterson edition, _Life at the South: A Companion to Uncle Tom's Cabin_ ; citations are made parenthetically in the text.\n\n. See Jarrett, \"Calvin H. Wiley\"; and _Dictionary of North Carolina Biography_ , 6:196\u201397. Though he is considered an important historical figure in southern educational history, very little scholarship has been devoted to Wiley's work as an author. Still, Wiley did figure in nineteenth-century literary debates on the question of the South's literary tradition: a deeply critical and satirical article that appeared in _Putnam's Monthly Magazine_ in 1857 lambasted Wiley for censorship, namely, for his elimination from the North Carolina common schools any book that \"tended to disseminate the heresy of human brotherhood.\" See \"Southern Literature,\" 209\u201310. The article heaps scorn on efforts among southern writers and editors to create a distinctly southern literary tradition, and it also ridicules Wiley's public statements on North Carolina's literacy rates, noting that the state's mostly illiterate slave population does not figure in his statistics.\n\n. In the opening pages of his novel, Wiley directly and unapologetically states his goal in writing: to defend and celebrate North Carolina history and culture, and the southern way of life more generally. Noting that the lack of \"commercial facilities\" in North Carolina has at times led to \"ridicule abroad,\" Wiley asserts that this very lack of commerce has in fact been a blessing. He goes on to draw familiar contrasts between the more progressive, industrial North and the more traditional, agrarian South; indeed, his contrasts forecast the statement of principles outlined by the Southern Agrarian group in their 1930 manifesto, _I'll Take My Stand_ ; see Wiley, _Roanoke_ , 11\u201312.\n\n. As if his rants against the aristocracy were not ironic enough in a pro-slavery novel, Walter later meets up with a notorious runaway slave named Wild Bill and enters into a debate with him on the arbitrary nature of power and the relative rights of oppressed groups to revolt. Walter's lengthy dialogue with Wild Bill is unique among pro-slavery literature of the period, for Wiley creates a black character who argues with both logic and passion for his own freedom. Bill condemns the white race's treatment of the Indians and the African slaves, and his comments on the arbitrary nature of power echo Walter's own attitudes toward the aristocracy articulated only a few pages earlier. Bill goes on to argue that slaves have as much right to revolt against their masters as the colonists have a right to revolt against their king. Walter, however, claims that \"the case is altogether different\" because, first, the slaves have no chance of success, which would make it \"useless bloodshed\" (81); second, and more importantly, whites and blacks \"are two distinct nations living in the same country, and one or the other must be masters of it\" (81). Amazingly, Bill accepts Walter's argument as having the greater merit, acknowledging, \"I know very well what you mean, and you need not apologize. My people were the lowest barbarians in Africa: they have been slaves here; and are, I know it well, vastly inferior to the whites\" (81\u201382).\n\n. Robert Bladen, another survivor of the shipwreck at Utopia, serves as something of a foil to Walter Tucker. Walter earns his place in aristocratic society through his actions, while Robert is born into it. Robert takes advantage of his position, growing increasingly dissipated over the course of the novel and eventually making impure advances toward Utopia, who spurns him.\n\n. \"Hospitality of the Olden Time.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Fox, \"Mental Hospitality,\" 5.\n\n. Ibid., 6.\n\n. An 1856 column in the Unitarian _Christian Inquirer_ magazine is similarly titled \"Mental Hospitality\" and follows a nearly identical pattern of development. It likewise begins by alluding to the same passage from Paul's Letter to the Hebrews, adding, \"But why not heed it in respect to guests of the mind, as well as to those of the house? There is no inhospitality so full of suspicion, so determined to bar all newcomers, as that which is extended to ideas and truths having a strange aspect. There are many persons at the gates of whose minds a new truth might sit in a supplicatory attitude forever, ere they would ask it to come in.\" Echoing Fox's sentiments, hospitality here is more a state of mind than a set of social practices: \"The liberal mind is courteous, it will avoid everything that looks like insult, coarse attack, and coarse ridicule.\" More importantly, the liberal mind's hospitality is absolutely essential if we are to have access to God's truth: \"Truth is divine; it has a divine message; but it will have no message for us if we shut our minds and hearts against it because it is a stranger.\" See \"Mental Hospitality.\"\n\n. Frothingham, \"Christian Hospitality.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid. Channing was no radical abolitionist and was in fact sharply criticized by William Lloyd Garrison for not being radical enough on the slavery question. He did adopt a stronger position near the end of his life, though. By the time Frothingham delivered this sermon (only two years before the Civil War), the abolition of slavery was a more mainstream position. The \"look\" of the \"stranger\" described here could be taken as the public's view of the American abolitionist movement's early days in the 1830s, when it was seen by many as \"vulgar,\" ridiculous,\" and \"fanatical.\"\n\n. Derrida writes, \"To take up the figure of the door, for there to be hospitality, there must be a door. But if there is a door, there is no longer hospitality. There is no hospitable house. There is no house without doors and windows. But as soon as there are a door and windows, it means someone has the key to them and consequently controls the conditions of hospitality. There must be a threshold. But if there is a threshold, there is no longer hospitality. This is the difference, the gap, between the hospitality of invitation and the hospitality of visitation. In visitation there is no door. Anyone can come at any time and can come in without needing a key for the door. There are no customs checks with a visitation. But there are customs and police checks with an invitation. Hospitality thus becomes the threshold or the door\" (\"Hostipitality,\" 14).\n\n. Frothingham, \"Christian Hospitality.\" As these examples have largely been from Unitarian ministers, it's worth noting that the general question of the hospitality of the church itself and of particular congregations toward strangers was also a matter of pressing concern at times. Several essays in the Unitatian _Christian Register_ lament what the writers feel is a want of hospitality at some of Boston's most prominent churches. See, for example, \"Hospitality of 'The Church,'\" _Christian Register_ , February 1, 1845; \"Hospitality,\" _Christian Register_ , August 29, 1846; and \"Church Hospitality.\"\n\n. \"Abolition Hospitality.\" See also \"Hospitality,\" _Liberator_ , November 26, 1847, for an article that criticizes northerners both for accepting the claims of southern hospitality and for believing the common charge \"that they are stingy and mean in comparison.\"\n\n. For a contemporary discussion of hospitality and the oppressed stranger as theorized by Levinas, see Zylinska, _Ethics of Cultural Studies_.\n\n. Kant, _Perpetual Peace_ , 21. For an insightful discussion of the ambiguity behind the abolitionist motto \"Our County Is the World\" and its broader implications, see Greeson, _Our South_ , 118\u201320.\n\n. While the industrial experiment of Lowell was a popular topic of discussion at the time among politicians, economists, and capitalists, Whittier warns his readers in the preface that his writings on Lowell were \"influenced by no special considerations of practical utility\"; instead, he simply wrote with \"his heart open to the kindliest influence of nature and society.\" Whittier, _Stranger in Lowell_ , v\u2013vi, hereafter cited parenthetically in text. Whittier himself developed a considerable reputation for his practices of liberal hospitality. An 1883 article in the _Friends' Intelligencer_ praises him for practicing \"the truest type\" of hospitality, which placed \"all on equal terms,\" and particularly notes that \"his home was a well-known refuge for fugitive slaves\" (Rowe, \"Quaker Poet,\" 12).\n\n. Jennifer Greeson describes how the growing anonymity of urban industrial life in the North led to northern nostalgia and a consequent fixation on traditional aspects of southern culture. According to Greeson, by the end of the 1830s the concept of the \"Slave South\" produced by the emergence of abolitionism had evolved to become an \"indispensable cultural register\" for handling the trauma of rapid modernization. By the early 1840s, \"these two realms\u2014industrial city and Slave South\u2014. . . were bound together imaginatively for U.S. writers by their shared contradiction of the ideals of the republic, their joint location of power extremes, and their fundamental hostility to the very existence of the nation according to the terms of its founding.\" Published in 1845, Whittier's text bucks this trend by fully embracing the northern, urban-industrial environment, portraying it as a leveler of social distinction and a path to a more inclusive republic. See Greeson, _Our South_ , 118\u201344; quotations from 133, 142.\n\n. For a thorough cultural history of the antebellum American response to Catholicism, see Franchot, _Roads to Rome_.\n\n. The chapter title is an allusion to George Henry Borrow's book, _The Zincali; or, An Account of the Gypsies of Spain_ (Philadelphia: James M. Campbell, 1843).\n\n. As Susan M. Ryan explains, \"In addition to their codes of manners, . . . antebellum Americans developed an etiquette of charity, one that identifies the duplicitous beggar as its enemy.\" See Ryan, _Grammar of Good Intentions_ , 51.\n\n. Antislavery almanacs provide a good indication of the way the issue of hospitality could pervade a range of topics in abolitionist discourse. These almanacs contain numerous anecdotes, facts, and talking points, and they routinely derided southern social habits, expressed outrage and exasperation over the fact that southerners have a reputation for hospitality, drew on Scripture and the Constitution to advocate aiding runaway slaves and treating free blacks as equals, and criticized the inherent racism and inhospitality of the colonization movement and particular northern laws and social practices toward free black citizens. For examples, see _American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1836_ , 34\u201335, 37; _American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1837_ , 26; _American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1839_ , cover, inside cover, 23, 29, 46; _American Anti-Slavery Almanac_ _for 1840_ , cover, 25; _American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1841_ , 9\u201315, 18, 19; _Liberty Almanac for 1850_ , 34\u201335; _Liberty Almanac for 1852_ , cover, 18\u201319.\n\n### Chapter 3. Making Hospitality a Crime\n\n. The U.S. Constitution contained a fugitive slave clause (article 4, section 2, clause 3): \"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.\" The 1793 Fugitive Slave Law, signed by President Washington, was meant to close loopholes in the original constitutional provision, but by 1850 the 1793 Law had become ineffectual and haphazard in its application. See Hamilton, _Prologue to Conflict_ , 21\u201323. Hamilton's work remains the classic historical study of the 1850 Compromise.\n\n. See Laura L. Mitchell's analysis of religious discourse surrounding the Fugitive Slave Law, \"'Matters of Justice.'\"\n\n. For representative examples, see J. T. Randolph, _Cabin and the Parlor_ , 182; Eastman, _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ , 20; D. Brown, _Planter_ , 216, 273; Evangelicus, _Onesimus_. The _Liberator_ includes scores of references to the Epistle to Philemon, including the following representative examples: Whittier, \"Sabbath Scene\"; \"Puzzle for Philemon\"; \"Philemon and Onesimus.\"\n\n. See, for example, Ralph A. Keller's study of Methodist newspapers' responses to the Fugitive Slave Law. His study surveys five northern Methodist newspapers with a combined circulation of over seventy thousand Americans, showing that, in regard to the 1850 Compromise, \"it was the Fugitive Slave Law which aroused the greatest anxiety. Not only did the Methodist weekly press give attention to the fugitive slave portion of the Compromise of 1850 far out of proportion to the attention given it in Congress, but also the attention was unanimously negative, even by conservative editors who ordinarily sought to avoid political issues\" (Keller, \"Methodist Newspapers,\" 322).\n\n. Seward, _Works of William H. Seward_ , 1:65\u201366, 74.\n\n. As Julie Roy Jeffrey explains, the \"growing discomfort with the Fugitive Slave Law provided an opening for abolitionist propaganda, while the enforcement of the law created the material for a persuasive case against slavery\" (Jeffrey, _Great Silent Army of Abolitionism_ , 176).\n\n. Scanning the pages of the _Liberator_ for 1850 and 1851 reveals how the debate over the Fugitive Slave Law brought the subject of hospitality to the forefront of abolitionist consciousness at the time and also how it intersected with other issues such as the plight of black sailors in southern states and, by early 1851, the arrival of Louis Kossuth (both subjects I discuss in the next chapter). During this period, the _Liberator_ made constant references to the moral, biblical, political, legal, and constitutional claims of hospitality. For a range of examples in a variety of forms\u2014essays, letters, anecdotes, news reports, poems\u2014see \"Daniel Webster\"; \"Fugitive Slave to the Christian\"; \"Mr. Webster's Speech on Slavery\"; \"Letter to Henry Clay\"; \"Puzzle for Philemon\"; Whittier, \"Sabbath Scene\"; Bungay, \"Scene in Boston\"; \"Colored Seamen in South Carolina\"; \"Imprisonment of Colored Seamen\"; \"Declaration of Sentiments\"; \"Did Willie Do Wrong?\"\n\n. \"Fugitive Slave to the Christian.\"\n\n. According to Jeffrey, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law \"brought the plight of the fugitive slave into the foreground of abolitionists' consciences and shaped the activities they undertook during the decade\" of the 1850s, providing women with a \"tangible purpose\" in the broader cause of abolitionism. See Jeffrey, _Great Silent Army_ , 179, 188\u201389.\n\n. _Liberty Almanac for 1852_ , 18\u201319.\n\n. Emerson, \"Fugitive Slave Law,\" 11:219.\n\n. Crane, _Race, Citizenship, and Law_ , 17.\n\n. Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_ , 28.\n\n. For a thorough consideration of Whitman's complex and evolving views on race, slavery, and the South, see Reynolds, _Walt Whitman's America_.\n\n. Charles Beecher, _Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws_ , 14.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid., 21\u201322.\n\n. Pointing first to the \"Golden Rule\" of \"Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you,\" he asks the members of his congregation to imagine that, while on a cross-country journey to California, they have been taken prisoner by hostile Indians and reduced to \"the most servile condition.\" Later the Indians threaten to separate parents from children, which prompts them to attempt an escape. After describing their successful escape and travails as fugitives, Arvine asks his congregation to imagine reaching the door of a \"Home missionary\" who nonetheless turns them away due to the provisions of law that prevent him from receiving them: \"So he shuts the door in your face, and leaves you and your family faint, hungry, and cold, to bide the winter storm and drag on your weary way further. What think you? Would not your head and heart at once and utterly condemn him as one who so poorly understood the law of love, that instead of being a teacher of the heathen, he had 'Need that one teach' him which be the first principles of the gospel of Christ? You feel, you _know_ that such conduct, in such a case, would be most palpably unjust, most infamously cruel.\" Arvine asserts that this scenario is completely parallel to the situation of fugitive slaves fleeing from the South: southerners have no greater right to enslave Africans than Indians have to enslave white settlers. See Arvine, _Our Duty to the Fugitive Slave_ , 15\u201316.\n\n. Ibid., 19\u201320.\n\n. H. B. Stowe, \"Freeman's Dream.\"\n\n. Crane, _Race, Citizenship, and Law_ , 60.\n\n. H. B. Stowe, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , 118\u201319, 121\u201323.\n\n. Quoted in Hedrick, _Harriet Beecher Stowe_ , 205\u20136.\n\n. Seward, _Works of William H. Seward_ , 1:66.\n\n. Stowe, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , 133\u201334.\n\n. As Mitchell explains, pro-rendition ministers from the North \"justified the reenslavement of fugitives by establishing the Union as the most important community for Christian citizens and ultimately, the most important community in the world. . . . In numerous sermons, northern Protestant ministers from nearly every denomination preached that the Union, the white citizenry's community, was divinely ordained and that the Constitution was its divinely inspired set of laws. The Constitution was to the Union what, in effect, the Ten Commandments had been to the Hebrews\" (Mitchell, \"'Matters of Justice,'\" 150\u201351).\n\n. Lord, _\"Higher Law,\"_ 4, 15\u201316.\n\n. Quoted in Mitchell, \"'Matters of Justice,'\" 152.\n\n. Butt, _Anti-Fanaticism_ , v, 15, 16, 17.\n\n. Ibid., 23.\n\n. Tower, _Slavery Unmasked_ , 410.\n\n. See Drew, _Refugees from Slavery_ , ix\u2013xi. According to Tilden G. Edelstein, editor of this modern reissue of Benjamin Drew's 1855 collection, _A North Side View of Slavery_ , the 1854 publication of Adams's account created something of a crisis in the abolitionist movement already demoralized by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, for Adams, a well-known Boston minister, directly challenged the veracity of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and drew conclusions regarding the paternalistic institution of slavery similar to those outlined by George Fitzhugh in _Sociology for the South; or, the Failure of Free Society_ , published that same year. Adams was repeatedly attacked in the _Liberator_.\n\n. The Philadelphia publishing houses of T. B. Peterson and Lippincott, Grambo both published extensive lists of pro-southern texts throughout the sectional crisis and even after the Civil War. These publishing houses exploited a niche market and political controversy, and they perhaps felt complementary economic and political motivations for their production and distribution of these texts. They also enjoyed closer proximity to southern markets than Boston and New York publishing houses.\n\n. Eastman opens the chapter by downplaying her capacity to adequately portray this scene, comparing her meager efforts to those of the \"master,\" James Fenimore Cooper. She alludes in particular to his 1821 Revolutionary War romance _The Spy_ , and the opening chapter where General Washington, in disguise, seeks out the hospitality of the Wharton family as a storm approaches: \"It was in the olden time that Cooper described a dinner party in all its formal, but hospitable perfection. Washington was a guest there, too, though an unacknowledged one.\" This allusion to Cooper's novel\u2014and particularly to the founding father Washington\u2014places her own domestic scene amid a broader, national political and cultural context, subtly underscoring the theme of a shared heritage of hospitality. Eastman, _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ , 88. See also Cooper, _Spy_ , 23.\n\n. Eastman, _Aunt Phillis's Cabin_ , 91, 95, 96.\n\n. Ibid., 96.\n\n. See Weld, _American Slavery as It Is_.\n\n. In addition to being perhaps the most famous novelistic response to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , the novel is notable for its early treatment of the subject of divorce.\n\n. Caroline Lee Hentz was actually a native of Massachusetts who moved to North Carolina following her marriage and subsequently lived most of her adult life in states across the South. Hentz was a highly successful author of several novels, and she was also personally acquainted with Harriet Beecher Stowe from time spent in Cincinnati earlier in her career. For a thorough discussion of her career and standing in the literary marketplace, see Moss, _Domestic Novelists of the Old South_.\n\n. Hentz, _Planter's Northern Bride_ , 40, hereafter cited parenthetically in text.\n\n. Later, Hastings further violates the laws of hospitality even when extending them to Moreland, who is invited to the house for dinner. After enjoying a meal and conversation, Hastings ruins the visit by presenting Moreland with copies of the \"Emancipator,\" edited by Mr. Hastings himself. In short, Hentz portrays Hastings's hospitality as motivated by selfishness rather than generosity of spirit: \"Mr. Hastings, like most men, was actuated by mixed motives. He believed in the good old scripture injunction of hospitality to strangers, and he was exceedingly fond of making impressions, and enlarging the bounds of his influence. . . . He loved to have strangers call at his house, assured that when they left the place, they would carry the impression that Mr. Hastings was the greatest man in the village\" (60).\n\n. A similar scenario occurs in the novel _Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent_ , another pro-slavery response to Stowe published under the pseudonym \"Vidi\" in 1853 (also by Lippincott, Grambo). Mr. Frank, an abolitionist and agent for the Underground Railroad, has helped Tom run away from slavery, even giving him money to establish himself in Canada, but when Tom and his wife show up again at Mr. Frank's door to ask for additional assistance, Mr. Frank learns a sad lesson regarding his misplaced charity: \"When he left his master, some two years previously, through the persuasions of Mr. Frank, [Tom] . . . was a well-dressed, obedient, steady man\u2014now he was dirty, ragged, and saucy; and presented, in every respect, most unquestionable appearances of leading a drunken, vagabond life. Mr. Frank seemed to be fully impressed with this truth, and a painful cloud passed over his countenance.\" Mr. Frank is much like the character of Squire Hastings in Hentz's novel: both are portrayed as hypocritical idealists who devote themselves to the distant cause of the southern slaves while neglecting the worthier, whiter objects of charity in their own, more local sphere. Mr. Frank's daughter Emma, who is more vocal than Eula Hastings, questions him directly on these apparent contradictions of character in chapter 3 (36\u201345). See Vidi, _Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent_ , 47.\n\n. Claudia, for example, violates the laws of hospitality by boldly allowing herself into Eula's home unannounced in order to confront Eula. Later, we find that when she had been married to Moreland, she and her mother were in the habit of \"introducing . . . unprincipled companions into his household during his absence, and making his home a scene of midnight revelry\" (375). Brainard also violates the laws of hospitality, though much more dramatically, by taking advantage of Moreland's hospitality in order to carry out his plans for a slave insurrection (see p. 457). This notion of duplicitous abolitionists taking advantage of southern hospitality is a recurring trope in pro-slavery novels of the period. As a character in Robert Criswell's _\"Uncle Tom's Cabin\" Contrasted with Buckingham Hall_ states, \"If those Northern abolitionists were to stop their meddling in our concerns, the condition of the slaves would be much improved. They come among us as friends\u2014and while enjoying our hospitality, whisper sedition and conspiracy into the ears of our slaves, and often go so far as to steal them from us. If they were to let us alone, there is no doubt that, in the course of years, not a slave State would be in existence; and for my part I should rejoice to see that time arrive\" (58).\n\n. Carme Manual Cuenca sees Eulalia as a figure who represents \"literary democratization\" and suggests that the nationalistic model of womanhood presented in the novel is \"the American middle-class lady, not the Southern aristocratic lady.\" Critics such as Cuenca and Kathryn Seidel have been right to argue that the novel's intersectional marriage of Eulalia Hastings, a village maiden of Massachusetts, and the aristocratic southerner planter Russell Moreland, stands as a proffered solution to the intersectional political impasse; however, they have failed to sense the important point the novel makes regarding class. See Cuenca, \"Angel in the Plantation,\" 97; and Seidel, _Southern Belle in the American Novel_.\n\n. Novels and travel narratives about the South written in this period often dwell in great detail on the social details of hospitality\u2014of families, friends, and visitors around the table or around the hearth. These scenes often do little to advance the plot or story line, but they do create a recognizable space for like-minded Americans to imagine an amiable social engagement with the South, southerners, and slavery. That these depictions are taken seriously is seen in one of the most pointed criticisms David Brown offers of Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ in his book, _The Planter_. In particular, Brown singles out a scene in which Shelby, Uncle Tom's first owner, dines with a slave trader. Brown is absolutely incredulous that Stowe would depict a high-born planter such as Shelby entertaining a lowly slave trader at the dinner table (32\u201335).\n\n. While Douglass traveled to England even before the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Brown happened to be abroad when the law was passed and was consequently forced to remain in England for nearly five years, with his daughters eventually joining him there as well. While living abroad, both Douglass and Brown had their freedom purchased for them by English supporters, allowing them to return to the United States in relative safety.\n\n. _The American Fugitive in Europe_ includes an abbreviated, revised version of Brown's 1847 slave narrative, _Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself_ , this time written in the third-person and presented as a \"memoir.\"\n\n. Rights of citizenship were tenuous for free blacks in the antebellum period and up until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Only some states granted citizenship rights to blacks, and the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision declared that no black resident living in America could be deemed a citizen, whether slave or free. For an insightful discussion of the role travel and mobility played in the construction of antebellum American identity\u2014including the travel narratives of slaves and runaways\u2014see John D. Cox, _Traveling South_. According to Cox's readings of American travel narratives, \"travel is constitutive of American freedom and identity, serving as proof of . . . [the authors'] status (or lack thereof) as American citizens\" (18). While Cox focuses on travel within the boundaries of the United States, it's interesting to consider how these narratives of fugitive slaves traveling abroad both extend and perhaps complicate his thesis.\n\n. For example, according to Douglass, the hospitality practiced on the Lloyd plantation \"would have astonished and charmed any health-seeking northern divine or merchant, who might have chanced to share it. Viewed from his own table, and _not_ from the field, the colonel was a model of generous hospitality.\" Douglass goes on to describe the \"magnificent entertainments\" for visitors, which created a graceful veneer over the institution of slavery. The plantation home was transformed into \"a hotel, for weeks during the summer months,\" and the goal was always to \"dazzle\" and \"charm\"\u2014as well as to persuade\u2014the visitors. Reflecting on the effects produced on visitors by the figure of the gracious, paternalistic master surrounded by well-trained, well-dressed, and graceful house slaves (the only scene shown to guests), Douglass states that only \"a fanatic\" could be expected to feel any sympathy for the slave. But according to Douglass, the scene is only \"a sham at last! This immense wealth; this gilded splendor ; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all?\" \"The poor slave\" in the field or \"on his hard, pine plank, but scantily covered with his thin blanket\" remain out of sight for the visitors. It's also worth noting that Douglass, as a self-made black man who raised himself out of slavery, presents, in many ways, a more recognizably \"American\" version of identity for the reader than the idle, aristocratic slave owner, whose life free from work breeds nothing but \"restless discontent\" and \"capricious irritation.\" Later Douglass also adds a new critique of the false hospitality that Master Auld provides for pro-slavery ministers. These pro-slavery ministers who come \"to share Master Thomas's hospitality\" are fed \"on the fat of the land,\" while his slaves are \"nearly starving.\" See Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , 110\u201311, 197\u201398. For a detailed analysis of the way that Douglass self-consciously re-creates his personal narrative in _My Bondage and My Freedom_ as that of a representative American, see chapter 3 of Levine, _Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass_. The passage just cited on Lloyd's dissipated form of hospitality figures in Levine's analysis of Douglass's temperance agenda in _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , 120\u201321.\n\n. Brown's 1852 travel narrative, _Three Years in Europe_ , also included the \"memoir\" of Brown in the first section of the text, but for this English edition, the scene of Wells Brown's hospitality is less developed than in either his 1847 slave narrative or in the 1855 _American Fugitive in Europe_ , both published for American audiences. See W. W. Brown, _Three Years in Europe_ , xvii\u2013xviii.\n\n. W. W. Brown, _Narrative of William W. Brown_ , iii, 102\u20133.\n\n. W. W. Brown, _American Fugitive in Europe_ , 26.\n\n. For a thorough analysis of these complicated issues regarding essentialist racial thinking and abolitionism, see Levine, _Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass_. In the case of Douglass and Delany, these issues become especially fraught in regard to their contrasting responses to Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and their conflicting stances on black emigration to Africa (and, in Delany's case, the Caribbean).\n\n. See Greenspan, _William Wells Brown Reader_ , 130\u201335, 130.\n\n. W. W. Brown, _American Fugitive in Europe_ , 303, 305.\n\n. See Greenspan, _William Wells Brown Reader_ , 134.\n\n. W. W. Brown, _American Fugitive in Europe_ , 306, 312.\n\n. Ibid., 312\u201314.\n\n. Douglass, _My Bondage and My Freedom_ , 372\u201371.\n\n. Ibid., 372.\n\n### Chapter 4. Southern Hospitality in a Transnational Context\n\n. Zinn, _Southern Mystique_ , 249. Zinn's overall point is to also challenge the American habit of projecting undesirable attributes on the South, and he goes on to critique the xenophobia of America more generally, citing several examples of national xenophobia. He concludes, \"It ill becomes us to let the South bear the burden of the charge of nativism or xenophobia\" (252).\n\n. Derrida and Dufourmantelle, _Of Hospitality_ , 25.\n\n. Hale in the preface describes the Liberian experiment as the Union's act of charity on behalf of the slave. A native of New Hampshire, Hale was sympathetic to southerners, as she made clear in her preface to the 1852 fifth edition of _Northwood_ , written in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Law, where she openly admonishes abolitionists: \"The great error of those who would sever the Union rather than see a slave within its borders, is, that they forget that the _master_ is their brother as well as the _servant_.\" But for Hale, the master certainly had the greater claim of being treated like a brother. S. J. Hale, _Northwood_ , iv.\n\n. S. J. Hale, _Liberia_ , 6, iv, 191\u201393.\n\n. For another example of the racial underpinnings of Sarah Josepha Hale's domesticity, see her _Manners_. Published a few years after the end of the Civil War, the structure of the book appeals to ideals of national unity by focusing on national holidays (Washington's Birthday, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving), but it also links domestic manners to a specifically white identity. As Hale states in the preface, \"When we study domestic life in its influence on national characteristics, it seems as if the two Anglo-Saxon Peoples were intrusted with the holy duty of keeping pure the home of woman and the altar of God. . . . The Anglo-Saxon peoples have another bond of unity,\u2014they represent home life, in its highest characteristics among the nobility of England, and in its best aspects of purity and happiness in America. These characteristics and virtues of the Princely and the Popular are united in the MANNERS that form the most perfect standard for social life and home happiness\" (5\u20136).\n\n. Thoreau, _Essays of Henry D. Thoreau_ , 134.\n\n. See Hamer, \"Great Britain,\" 3.\n\n. Both sources\u2014the comment from Governor Wilson and the excerpt from the law\u2014are quoted in Bolster, _Black Jacks_ , 194.\n\n. As Edlie Wong explains, these coastal states in the South \"seized on their sovereign power to decide on the value and nonvalue of life as they effectively deemed certain individuals outside the political community and, therefore, alienable as property. Only two legal identities existed for black sailors under the specific provisions of such police laws: they were either prisoners or slaves. And the prisoner quickly became a slave if the jail fees went unpaid\" (Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , 184).\n\n. See Bolster, _Black Jacks_ , 206.\n\n. See Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , 188\u201391.\n\n. See Hamer, \"British Consuls,\" 146\u201352.\n\n. See Hamer, \"Great Britain,\" 5\u20137.\n\n. Thoreau, _Essays of Henry D. Thoreau_ , 335.\n\n. Thoreau's essay was first delivered as a lecture in January 1848 and was first published in essay form the following year. See Thoreau, _Essays of Henry D. Thoreau_ , 330.\n\n. Ibid., 335. This logic is consistent with the message of the \"Abolition Hospitality\" advertisement discussed in chapter 2.\n\n. Ibid., 134, 143.\n\n. See Fanuzzi, _Abolition's Public Sphere_ , for a thorough discussion of cosmopolitanism and abolitionism. Of Thoreau's cosmopolitanism in _Walden_ , Fanuzzi states that Thoreau \"looked forward to . . . the arrival of cosmopolitanism in the wake of town's destruction. In the 'Conclusion' to _Walden_ , he recommended the model of the 'cosmopolite' over the life of the provincial village, whose residents would 'think if rail-fences were pulled down, and stone-walls piled upon our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided'\" (177).\n\n. Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ , 15\u201316, 19\u201320, 31.\n\n. Quoted in Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , 197.\n\n. In _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , Wong traces the decades-long controversy surrounding these laws from the time they were enacted up until the Civil War, noting that when legal appeals were regularly blocked,\n\nAntislavery activists and opponents of this police regulation increasingly turned to the 'bar of public opinion.' . . . Black and white abolitionists and merchants, southern reformers, and free blacks within the Atlantic world forged unexpected alliances as they endeavored to push the issue to the top of the political agenda. In the failure of law, they turned to newsprint, pamphleteering, and literature as they sought to enlist the 'public mind' to do the work that legislators and jurists refused to do. These writers and orators, such as [David] Walker, drew forth a revolutionary black consciousness from the law's negativity and limits, creating an oppositional agenda over these many decades of intermittent transatlantic protest. (Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , 185)\n\n. Only two scholars have written on Adams's antislavery writings: Harold Woodell and Edlie Wong. Woodell, drawing on earlier reference works, identifies Adams as an American author, but Wong, pointing to contemporary reviews of his novel, identifies him as an Englishman. Woodell describes Adams's temporary successes as a theater professional in Charleston and traces subsequent legal proceedings against Adams that resulted in his incarceration in the Charleston jail for the inability to pay his debts. Here he may have come face-to-face with mariners jailed under the Negro Seamen Laws. In contrast, Wong also discusses Adams's work as editor of a Savannah, Georgia, newspaper and cites an unverified early review that traces his point of increasing activism to his time in Charleston, where he saw the Samuel Hoar affair unfold. See Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ ; and Woodell, \"Justice Denied in the Old South.\"\n\n. Adams, _Manuel Pereira_ , 15, hereafter cited parenthetically in text. As Wong notes, \"Free black mariners . . . best typified the cosmopolitanism\" outlined in David Walker's incendiary text, \"An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,\" and such \"black maritime circulation . . . threatened slaveholding localisms in a world where freedom seemed to inch westward\" (Wong, _Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , 183, 185).\n\n. After describing to a shipmate his close encounter with Patagonia savages, Manuel explains that he prefers to \"always sail in English ship, because [he] can get protection from flag and consul, where [he goes]\u2014any part of the globe\" (19). His shipmate in responding casts England and America as the guiding powers in the world's progress toward universal human rights, and he also portrays this progress as inevitable: \"It's a glorious thing, this civilization, and if the world keeps on, there'll be no danger of a fellow's being imprisoned or killed among these savages. . . . Men neither imprison nor kill strangers, that don't fear the injustice of their own acts\" (19).\n\n. Greene and Hoffius, \"Charleston 100.\"\n\n. Koger, _Black Slaveowners_ , 147, 153\u201354.\n\n. A petition for Jones asking that he be allowed to return to South Carolina was submitted to the South Carolina Senate by former governor John L. Wilson, who served as Jones's \"Guardian at Law\" and was also the very governor who had supported the creation of these laws in the first place; no action was taken by the senate in response to the petition. For the text of this petition, see Schweninger, _Southern Debate over Slavery_ , 1:87. It should also be noted that Jones's son, Jehu Jones Jr., also found himself subject to the law some years later. The younger Jones, a free black and Lutheran minister, had left South Carolina in preparation for immigrating to Liberia with other free blacks from Charleston. When he attempted to return to South Carolina, he was arrested and expelled from the state. An 1840 petition from Jones to the South Carolina Senate was denied. See Schweninger, _Southern Debate over Slavery_ , 173. See also Aaseng, _African American Religious Leaders_ , 125.\n\n. As Philip M. Hamer summarizes, \"In one sense this law represented, not only an attempt to protect the institution of slavery, but an assertion of the state's rights to exercise police power. . . . Some stubbornly defended the law because it was so roundly criticized by 'outsiders.' Others were opposed to making any concession because northerners desired it. In some quarters there existed a feeling of antagonism to Great Britain, . . . in part . . . a reaction against Britain's antislavery tendencies. . . . In part it was the result of provincial dislike of foreigners in general\" (Hamer, \"British Consuls,\" 144\u201345).\n\n. Benhabib, _Another Cosmopolitanism_ , 65, 68.\n\n. As Donald S. Spencer explains, \"So convinced was the nation of Kossuth's virtue that it became hazardous to attack him publicly or to question his dedication to those principles Americans claimed as their own\" (Spencer, _Louis Kossuth and Young America_ , 43).\n\n. \"Kossuth and Congress.\"\n\n. The text of the resolution reads as follows:\n\nWhereas the people of the United States sincerely sympathize with the Hungarian exiles, Kossuth and his associates, and fully appreciate the magnanimous conduct of the Turkish Government in receiving and treating these noble exiles with kindness and hospitality; and if it be the wish of these exiles to emigrate to the United States, and the will of the Sultan to permit them to leave his dominions: Therefore,\n\n_Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled_ , That the President of the United States be and he hereby is requested to authorize the employment of some one of the public vessels which may now be cruising in the Mediterranean to receive and convey to the United States the said Louis Kossuth and his associates in captivity. (Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Special Session, 710 [1851])\n\n. Honig, _Democracy and the Foreigner_ , 2, 4, 39, 7.\n\n. See T. M. Roberts, _Distant Revolutions_ , 18.\n\n. See T. M. Roberts, _Distant Revolutions_ , 131. See also Roberts's discussion of southerners' initial response to the revolutions of 1848 (125\u201329).\n\n. \"EN AVANT!,\" 142\u2013143.\n\n. In typical fashion, an article titled \"Kossuth\" from _Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion_ predicted, \"In America, wherever . . . [Kossuth] goes, his welcome will be as enthusiastic and general as it is sincere, and every arrangement made to give him a generous reception.\" _The National Era_ went further by calling on Congress to provide material refuge for the exiles: \"Will not Congress . . . signalize its devotion to the great cause of republicanism in Europe, and its appreciation of the services of these, its gallant, but unfortunate champions, by giving them homes upon our soil? We are all brethren in the sacred cause of liberty; but, while we won a continent by striking for freedom, they have lost a country. Let us, then, impart to them freely of our blessings. We have sent a national vessel to bring Kossuth to our shores. Shall our hospitality cease with this?\" See \"Liberation of Kossuth.\"\n\n. The title of an article published in the _New York Daily Times_ also plays on this stereotype. See \"'Organ' upon Kossuth.\" The article offers a liberal response to a recent _Washington Republic_ story on Kossuth and laments the emerging sectional divisions regarding his national reception.\n\n. See also Julian, \"America's Welcome to Kossuth.\"\n\n. Whittier, \"Kossuth.\" For a more typical poem of welcome for Kossuth, see Julian, \"America's Welcome to Kossuth.\"\n\n. See Spencer, _Louis Kossuth and Young America_ , 65\u201381.\n\n. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 21 (1851).\n\n. Ibid., 22.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Spencer, _Louis Kossuth and Young America_ , 72\u201373.\n\n. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 22 (1851), emphasis in original.\n\n. Ibid., 23.\n\n. Ibid., 23\u201324, emphasis in original.\n\n. Ibid., 25\u201326.\n\n. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 34 (1851).\n\n. See Komlos, _Louis Kossuth in America_ , 81\u201384. For an example of northern media exasperation over the South's growing resistance to Kossuth and the idea of intervening in foreign affairs, see \"South and Intervention.\" As the article summarizes, \"The prominent politicians of the South seem determined to make the policy of nonintervention a sectional issue. They proclaim the hostility of the South to any diplomatic action on the part of our Government concerning Russian intervention in the domestic affairs of Hungary. Southern politicians in Congress and their leading presses throughout their section of the Union, are generally hostile to Kossuth and his cause.\"\n\n. See Spencer, _Louis Kossuth and Young America_ , 147\u201348. See also T. M. Roberts, _Distant Revolutions_ , 148, 162\u201363. The visit to New Orleans included other uncomfortable moments for Kossuth; as Timothy Mason Roberts notes, \"City officials escorted Kossuth both to the battleground of Andrew Jackson's victory over a British force in 1815 and to a slave auction, scenes awkwardly suggesting Southerners' tension at hearing a Hungarian preach self-determination for his own country\" (162).\n\n. _Mississippi Free Trader_ excerpts quoted in Spencer, _Louis Kossuth and Young America_ , 103\u20134, 148.\n\n. See, for example, \"Whimsicalities\"; and \"Outlines of English Literature.\" The latter, for example, points readers to a scathing attack on Kossuth and the idea of intervention in the _Southern Quarterly Review_. The article calls Kossuth \"a sort of political Jenny Lind\" who \"would have done vastly better, if he had placed himself . . . under the charge and management of Mr. Barnum.\" Regarding the notion of universal rights that Kossuth had come to symbolize, the writer dismisses the notion and calls Kossuth a \"political pedlar of unsound wares.\" See \"Kossuth and Intervention,\" 226, 228.\n\n. T. M. Roberts, _Distant Revolutions_ , 154.\n\n. For example, following her description of the heroic fugitive slave George Harris in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , Harriet Beecher Stowe pointedly chastises Americans for their inconsistent support of freedom fighters:\n\nIf it had been only a Hungarian youth, now bravely defending in some mountain fastness the retreat of fugitives escaping from Austria into America, this would have been sublime heroism; but as it was a youth of African descent, defending the retreat of fugitives through America into Canada, of course we are too well instructed and patriotic to see any heroism in it; and if any of our readers do, they must do it on their own private responsibility. When despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, against all the search-warrants and authorities of their lawful government, to America, press and political cabinet ring with applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives do the same thing,\u2014it is\u2014what _is_ it? (H. B. Stowe, _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , 284)\n\n. E. E. Hale, _Christian Duty to Emigrants_ , 21.\n\n. Ibid., 22.\n\n### Chapter 5. Reconstructing Southern Hospitality in the Postbellum World\n\n. Hodgson, _Sermon in Behalf_ , 11.\n\n. Ibid., 16.\n\n. Ibid., 12.\n\n. For a detailed history of the way the initial promise of Reconstruction was undermined and eventually extinguished, see Foner, _Reconstruction_. For a study of the changing way the Civil War was remembered in American culture, see Blight, _Race and Reunion_. Nina Silber also considers the themes of reunion and nostalgia, with attention paid to the emerging southern tourism industry, in _Romance of Reunion_. Grace Elizabeth Hale describes the contemporaneous development of segregation culture and the national consumer marketplace in _Making Whiteness_ , while more recently, K. Stephen Prince outlines the various ways popular and print culture redefined the South in the American imagination in his book _Stories of the South_.\n\n. For a detailed analysis of causes, contexts, and complex social codes in the southern practice of lynching during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Brundage, _Lynchings in the New South_. Brundage offers a sweeping, comparative analysis of nearly six hundred lynchings that occurred in the two states over this period. See also chapter 5 of Grace Elizabeth Hale's _Making Whiteness_. Hale focuses on the emergence of \"spectacle lynchings,\" showing that even as the numbers of lynchings began to decrease, their symbolic potency was enhanced as lynchings became increasingly commodified through postcards, photographs, advertising campaigns in the media prior to lynchings, and national press coverage.\n\n. Lincoln, \"House Divided,\" 372\u201373.\n\n. Amy Kaplan radically challenges traditional scholarly readings of nineteenth-century feminine domesticity by showing how antebellum discourses of domesticity and empire were inextricably linked and how both were \"dependent upon racialized notions of the foreign.\" Domesticity has traditionally been understood as an \"anchor\" or \"feminine counterforce to the male activity of territorial conquest,\" but as Kaplan shows, nineteenth-century domesticity was \"more mobile and less stabilizing\" than we typically think, moving along often \"contradictory circuits both to expand and contract the boundaries of home and nation and to produce shifting conceptions of the foreign.\" More specifically, Kaplan shows that part of the \"cultural work\" of domesticity was to \"unite men and women in a national domain and to generate notions of the foreign against which the nation can be imagined as a home.\" The discourse of hospitality was similarly mobile\u2014ranging from inclusive and progressive to exclusive and reactionary\u2014in its construction of otherness. See Kaplan, \"Manifest Domesticity,\" 183\u201385.\n\n. Wright in the preface directly addresses the book to those readers \"who spent the last few years in the peaceful East\" and assures them \"that there is in this enlightened land such a region of darkness\" as that depicted in the novel, a region populated by \"bushwhackers\" and \"guerrillas\" but also by families who have faced \"trials that have pressed hard on living hearts.\" In the novel's opening pages, Wright defines \"the Brush\" as the border region between southwestern Missouri and Arkansas populated mainly by \"uncouth children\" and \"men and women, with scarcely a thought rising above the earth they live upon.\" These uncivilized inhabitants of the western frontier are the antithesis of Wright's domestic middle-class readership in the East, but she nonetheless reminds her readers of their common humanity: \"Here, nevertheless, poor, degraded, and outcast, live those bound to us as kindred by common descent, bodies that must moulder, as we shall, under the sod, and souls that shall meet us at the bar of God\" (Wright, _Cabin in the Brush_ , 5, 8\u20139, hereafter cited parenthetically in text). The first edition of the novel was published by J. A. Moore in 1867; J. P. Skelly published editions in 1870 and 1872. I cite here a copy of the 1870 edition housed in the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass. It is likely that the same plates were used for all these editions.\n\n. For a sharply contrasting use of the hospitality trope in relation to Reconstruction politics, consider the obscure white supremacist book by A. C. Harness, _The Great Trial_ , with its lamenting of the passing of southern hospitality, its use of the trope of the \"good \"Samaritan,\" and its apocalyptic views of miscegenation (9\u201325, 88).\n\n. For evidence of Woolson's shrewd nostalgia, which quietly incorporated white northerners of a certain class, see her travel sketch of Charleston, \"Up the Ashley and Cooper.\" Woolson seems to celebrate the class distinctions implicit in the discourse of southern hospitality; she also reminds her readers that the original Charlestonians included \"the only bona fide United States nobility of which we have record\"(3), and she goes on to paint a romantic picture of the \"great magnificence\" and \"lavishness\" of the planter lifestyle. There is little mention of the war or slavery and no hint of the complicated politics of Reconstruction. Instead, Woolson's narrative, like much of the period literature described by Silber, seems \"directed to the potential tourist\" (73). Her travel account opens with a detailed picture of Charleston from the aerial view of St. Michael's Church spire, where it is possible to make out the Battery, Fort Sumter, Morris Island, and \"the old ridge of Battery Wagner,\" though Woolson does not elaborate. Instead, after briefly describing the \"picturesque\" qualities of the city streets and architecture, her narrative moves \"up the two rivers to search out the old manors, with their legends and history, now almost forgotten, of colonial times and of the Revolution\" (4). Published on the eve of the nation's centennial year, \"Up the Ashley and Cooper\" turns away from the present\u2014from the fresh memories of the Civil War and the stubborn political uncertainties of Reconstruction\u2014and back toward the shared mythology of the colonial era and the Revolutionary War, when northerners and southerners stood united against the British.\n\n. Woolson, _Rodman the Keeper_ , 108. Quotations from the stories \"Old Gardiston\" and \"Rodman the Keeper\" are drawn from this text and hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.\n\n. In \"Rodman the Keeper,\" which I discuss later, Bettina Ward has a similarly melodramatic reaction when she finds out that her cousin, a dying Confederate veteran, has been taken in by a Union soldier who maintains the National Cemetery. She cannot address Rodman as an equal; instead, \"she spoke to him as though he was something to be paid and dismissed like any other mechanic\" (26). She in fact does attempt to pay Rodman for his services to her cousin, but she is humiliated even further when Rodman knowingly states a price that she cannot afford.\n\n. See Silber, _Romance of Reunion_ , especially chapter 2, 39\u201365.\n\n. Though the exact location is never indicated, one might presume that it is Andersonville based on the numbers of dead specified in the story. Also the description of the landscape accords with the area around Andersonville in Georgia. For an alternative reading of the story and setting, see Buinicki, \"Imagining Sites of Memory.\" For a history of the government's efforts to create the National Cemeteries following the Civil War, see Faust, _This Republic of Suffering_.\n\n. The story may be subtly reminding readers that the first \"Decoration Day\" following the Civil War was actually performed by African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. The event was covered in the national press at the time and is discussed in Blight's _Race and Reunion_ , 68\u201371. Also it should be noted that Woolson provides mixed representations of the freedmen in other stories. In \"King David,\" for example, the main character, David King, a northern teacher working with the freedmen, invites two of his students to dine in his home, yet he refrains from eating with them, going so far as to fix an entirely new supper after they depart. The representations of African Americans in this text stand in sharp contrast to this Memorial Day scene from \"Rodman the Keeper.\" Overall, Woolson's writings contain conflicting representations of race, and it can be difficult to precisely locate her position among the views articulated by her characters and narrators.\n\n. A fictional sketch by Sarah Annie Frost published in 1878 provides a concise and pointed contrast to the fictions of Wright and Woolson and illustrates the remarkable adaptability of the discourse of southern hospitality, how it could be easily renovated to suit the new political climate and serve the ideology of the Lost Cause. Frost was a managing editor at the influential _Godey's_ , a frequent contributor to genteel periodical magazines, and also an author of children's books, guides to domestic parlor games and family entertainments, and perhaps the most popular etiquette book of the period, _Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society_. She was, in short, an arbiter of public sentiment and a prominent public voice for the values and social mores of American middle-class domestic culture. Writing under her married name, S. A. Shields, Frost provides an assessment of the black population of the South similar to that of Telfair Hodgson in her sketch titled \"Sambo.\" Published just a year after Reconstruction had ended, Frost's recasts the exploitative contract and sharecropping systems that emerged after the war as evidence of the hospitality and generosity of the planter classes, transforming the planter classes into the overly generous hosts and their former slaves into a parasitical population, surviving off the planters' limitless generosity. History certainly tells us otherwise: former slaves were perpetually indebted through exorbitant pricing systems and exploitative loan practices. See, for example, W. E. B. Du Bois's devastating analysis of the tenant and sharecropping system in _Souls of Black Folk_ , especially chapters 7 and 8, \"Of the Black Belt\" and \"Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece.\" For a discussion of the conflict between the North's free-labor ideology and the contract system that emerged in the South under Reconstruction, See Foner, _Reconstruction_ , especially chapter 4.\n\n. The abolitionist James Redpath, whom I discussed briefly in chapter 1, provides an interesting example of this increasing sense of skepticism regarding black rights in the Reconstruction era and later. In 1876, Redpath traveled to the South as part of a congressional committee to investigate political violence and intimidation in state elections. According to John R. McKivigan, these travels produced a sense of \"grave despair\" in Redpath over the failure of Reconstruction, and he went on to criticize both white _and_ black southerners in a series of letters published in the _New York Independent_. His comments on abolitionism seem to accord to a certain extent with Frost's sketch: \"Sentimental abolitionism was well enough in its day; but Mississippi owes its present condition as much to sentimental abolitionism as to fiendish Negrohaters\" (quoted in McKivigan, _Forgotten Firebrand_ , 145). At the same time, Redpath still believed that education was the key to the freedman's citizenship, and he also continued to criticize the coercive political tactics of the Democratic Party in the South. See McKivigan, _Forgotten Firebrand_ , 144\u201346.\n\n. See Pollard, _Virginia Tourist_ ; further references are cited parenthetically in the text. Directed to potential visitors from the North, Pollard's volume provides a comprehensive tour of the mineral springs resort areas of Virginia, combining detailed information on hotels, travel arrangements, the medicinal qualities of the springs' waters, descriptions of natural scenery, overviews of local and natural history, discussions on the possible economic development of the region, and a large number of local color scenes and sketches based on firsthand experience and secondhand knowledge. Pollard's travel guide was also serialized in _Lippincott's Magazine of Literature, Science and Education_ that same year. The Lippincott publishing house had strong ties to southern markets both before and after the war and published many pro-southern titles; for discussions of the Lippincott house, see Derby, _Fifty Years_ , 381\u201389; and Mott, _History of American Magazines,_ 396\u2013401.\n\n. The 1873 edition of Jones, _Appleton's Handbook of American Travel_ , quotes extensively from Pollard's travel guide, including from this particular passage on the warm reception that northerners will receive (91\u201393). For a similar assurance that northerners, particularly those who desired to travel South for reasons of health, need not be anxious about southern travel following the war, see Brinton, _Guide Book_ , 136.\n\n. According to Nina Silber, for example, both the tourism experience and tourism literature allowed middle- and upper-class northerners \"to view the South and reconciliation through a romantic and depoliticized prism\" ( _Romance of Reunion_ , 92). Still, the manner in which Pollard presents the South as open for the tourist's business so soon after the war stands in stark contrast to some of the travel narratives published in the immediate aftermath of the war, such as Reid, _After the War_ ; Andrews, _The South since the War_ ; and Kennaway, _On Sherman's Track_.\n\n. Pollard, _Lost Cause Regained_ , 155.\n\n. Goddard, _Where to Emigrate and Why_ , 336, 358, 359.\n\n. See also Atkinson and Loring, _Cotton Culture_. In contrast to Pollard, some letters from southern officials in these emigration texts warn upper-class northerners that they will not be well received in the South; see, for example, Goddard, _Where to Emigrate and Why_ , 420\u201321. For a series of widely conflicting impressions on the reception of northerners in the South, see Atkinson and Loring, _Cotton Culture_ , 67\u201384.\n\n. \"Hint to Southern Plantation Owners.\"\n\n. Ibid. As Bertram Wyatt-Brown and others note, in the antebellum period, many southerners already charged for their hospitality to travelers in need of a place to spend the night.\n\n. Blight, _Race and Reunion_ , 260. See also Maddex, _Reconstruction of Edward A. Pollard_. Maddex describes Pollard's remarkable evolution from Old South secessionist to New South unionist. Even as Pollard moved away from his southern nationalist ideology, however, he remained committed to the doctrine of white supremacy and the social separation of the races.\n\n. Pollard, _Virginia Tourist_ , 28, hereafter cited parenthetically in text.\n\n. The passage goes on to contrast the inherent character of northern and southern women in ways that were typical of the day: \"Our Southern belles might, perhaps, improve their taste in decoration, but we are sure that people of fashion in the North might improve their own style by imbibing some of that earnest and natural gayety and enthusiasm, that unconcealed sense of happiness and enjoyment, which characterizes the more impulsive and demonstrative people of the South in places designed for pleasure and recreation\" (122). A very similar contrast is drawn between the women of northern resorts like Saratoga and the women in the springs resorts of Virginia in an 1874 article published in a phrenological journal, which notes that while the women of the South may dress \"less fashionably\" and \"less tastefully,\" they have more natural and graceful manners, which can be traced to the \"English ancestry\" of their antebellum forebears. The article also discusses the habits of hospitality in the South. See M.L.C., \"Women at the South,\" 174\u201375. For a more thorough phrenological interpretation of southern character and hospitality based on the \"effects of climate,\" see \"Signs of Character.\" The article notes that in the \"sunny South\" the \"black man is there in his element,\" while the white man is compelled to \"seek the shade,\" where he grows \"cadaverous,\" \"attenuated,\" \"indifferent and careless,\" which in turn contributes to his \"hospitality, generosity,\" and \"excessive prodigality\" (59).\n\n. _Oxford English Dictionary_ , <http:\/\/www.oed.com\/>.\n\n. Silber, _Romance of Reunion_ , 69. Considering this aristocratic appeal, we should not be surprised that Pollard subsequently turns to a long description and \"knightly\" defense of a \"Grand Tournament\" held at the White Sulphur Springs, a spectacle hearkening back to antebellum plantation practices and what Twain termed the \"Sir Walter Scott disease.\"\n\n. For a similar scene that compares the former grandeur of southern hospitality with the vaguely threatening prospects of black freedom, consider the following description of Charleston written by English novelist and travel writer Lady Duffus Hardy in _Down South_ :\n\nOccasionally, in some obscure corner of the city, we come upon a rambling old mansion of quaint, picturesque architecture, once the home of refinement and wealth, where the great ones of the country lived in a state of ease, luxury, and almost feudal splendour. It is occupied now by hosts of coloured folk; swarms of black babies crowd the verandahs or climb and tumble about the steps and passages, while the dilapidated balconies are filled with lines of clothes to dry; the negro smokes his pipe beneath the eaves, and the women folk, with their heads turbanned in gay-coloured handkerchiefs, laugh and chatter from the windows and lounge in the doorways. How long ago is it since the clank of the cavaliers' spurs rang upon the crumbling pavement, and sweet ladies with their pretty patched faces laughed from the verandahs, while merry voices and music and hospitality echoed from the now dingy, time-dishonoured halls, and stately dames in the decorous dress and manners of the old days walked to and fro, adding by their gracious presence to the attraction of the festive scene? But these good old days are over; no imperious dames, in stiff brocades and jewelled slippers, pace the wide corridors, or dance the graceful minuet upon the floor; there is no sound of flute and tabor now, but the many sounding notes of labour, the tramp of busy hives of working men and women, and the plaintive voices of the negroes singing is heard instead of it, and who shall say which makes the better music? (56\u201357)\n\nHardy acknowledges that slavery was an \"inherited evil\" that the South endured, but she still waxes nostalgic at times. See also Kennaway, _On Sherman's Track_ , 42\u201343, 133\u201337.\n\n. Cowan served as a captain in the regiment, which saw action in several major engagements of the war, including the First Battle of Bull Run, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. The trip to New Orleans twenty years after Bull Run brought them face-to-face with some of the very southern regiments they had fought against on the field.\n\n. See Blight, _Race and Reunion_ , chapters 3 and 4.\n\n. Cowan, _New Invasion of the South_ , 1, hereafter cited parenthetically in text.\n\n. For a detailed discussion of the \"restoration of white supremacy\" in the South in the years immediately following Reconstruction and the methodical dismantling of African American rights, see Foner, _Reconstruction_ , chapter 12.\n\n. See, for example, his comments on the \"marvelous manifestation of the happy condition of the colored people of the South\" (86), as well as his inclusion of numerous documents and conciliatory statements from southerners in the book's appendices. For a very different view from another Union Army veteran, see McElwin, _Travels in the South_. In these observations, originally published in the _Elyria Republican_ , McEl-win comments on the treatment of strangers and outsiders in the South\u2014at one point minding his manners rather than giving his honest opinion on race issues (11)\u2014and offers very negative summary comments on travel in the South (38\u201339). He often comments favorably on the progress and contributions of the freedmen and on the resentment of white southerners, especially the former planter class: \"Engage one of these chivalry in conversation any length of time and he is sure to commence swearing about the 'lazy niggers,' when they are the only working people a traveler sees on the route\" (10).\n\n. In this sense, it is important to keep in mind Grace Elizabeth Hale's description of the way the emerging national marketplace adopted the cultural logic of segregation, imagining the American consumer as white and routinely adopting negative, patronizing, or demeaning racial stereotypes of African Americans in branding strategies. See _Making Whiteness_ , especially chapter 4. The southern hospitality myth was perfectly suited to this cultural moment and its particular habits of reinforcing white transregional identity.\n\n. _Atlanta Journal_ , May 12, 1914, 11, quoted in Newman, _Southern Hospitality_ , 8.\n\n. See Blight, _Race and Reunion_ , chapter 7. See also Prince, _Stories of the South_ , chapter 4. As the national way of remembering the Civil War shifted away from slavery and emancipation (its political cause and effect) and toward themes of regional reconciliation and mutual sacrifice, authors associated with this growing and popular field of plantation literature\u2014which included fiction, poetry, sketches, memoir, and travel writing\u2014spread positive, sentimental, and highly romanticized views of the Old South. Prince argues that authors such as Thomas Nelson Page and Joel Chandler Harris essentially wrestled narrative control over the South away from more progressive voices, \"insisting on the exclusive rights of white southerners to tell the South's story to the nation\" (11). Prince argues that the cultural work performed by these authors in the 1880s and 1890s made it easier for Americans to turn their backs on the failed promises of Reconstruction: \"The political retreat from Reconstruction could not have occurred without a contemporaneous cultural retreat from Reconstruction\" (2). Travel writing about the South, steeped in nostalgia, also helped to soften the effects of this cultural retreat from the Reconstruction. See, for example, Ralph, _Dixie_. Ralph notes that the volume's contents originally appeared in _Harper's_ \"as a series of papers upon the development of what may well be called 'Our New South'\" (v), but the contents are steeped in a nostalgia for the Old South that sees little possibility for the development of the now-free black citizens: \"I learned long ago that there are two sorts of colored folks in the South\u2014the rude, dull field hands, and the spruce, polite, and far more intelligent and ambitious house-servants, both originating in and descending from similar classes in the time of slavery\" (381\u201382).\n\n. For a discussion of how the emergence of a rising and diverse black middle class\u2014the \"New Negro\"\u2014was clouded by persistent stereotypes of the \"Old Negro,\" see chapter 1 of G. E. Hale, _Making Whiteness_.\n\n. Later in this essay in which Page calls for a new generation of historians of the Old South, he idealizes the Old South as \"a civilization so pure, so noble, that the world to-day holds nothing equal to it. After less than a generation it has become among friends and enemies the recognized field of romance. Its chief attribute was conservatism. Others were courage, fidelity, purity, hospitality, magnanimity, honesty, and truth\" (Page, _Old South_ , 5, 43).\n\n. Page, _Social Life in Old Virginia_ , 1, hereafter cited parenthetically in text. Most particularly, Page singles out Harriet Beecher Stowe for creating a false picture of slavery in the Old South, one that no southerner \"would willingly have stand as a final portrait of Southern life\" (2). He also complains about the way the typical southerner has been caricatured on the contemporary stage as an \"underbred little provincial\" or a \"sloven\" (3, 4). In closing, Page asserts that the best remnants of the Old South still exist and persist\u2014and that the South provides one of the \"final refuges of old-fashioned gentility and distinguished manners, . . . [and] old-time good breeding and high courtesy\"(5).\n\n. Silber, _Romance of Reunion_ , 78, 79.\n\n. Ibid., 137. See also G. E. Hale, _Making Whiteness_ , 21\u201322.\n\n. At a time when the so-called New Woman was emerging to challenge traditional gender expectations in America, Page places the woman firmly back in the domestic sphere as \"the mistress . . . the most important personage about the home, the presence which pervaded the mansion, the centre of all that life, the queen of that realm\" (34).\n\n. Page goes on, with characteristic hyperbole, to describe the hospitable social interactions among the planter class, with their \"perpetual round of dinners, teas, and entertainments\" and the \"visits of friends and relatives\" that lasted \"a month or two, or as long a time as they pleased.\" He presents the southern planter's openhanded manner of hospitality as defying the laws of physics, claiming that it was \"a mystery how the house ever held the visitors. . . . The walls seemed to be made of india-rubber, so great was their stretching power. No one who came, whether friend or stranger, was ever turned away. If the beds were full\u2014as when were they not!\u2014pallets were put down on the floor in the parlor or the garret for the younger members of the family, sometimes even the passages being utilized\" (77\u201379).\n\n. Page makes the same claim in his essay \"The Old South\": \"The tendency to hospitality was not local nor narrow ; it was the characteristic of the entire people, and its concomitant was a generosity so general and so common in its application that it created the quality of magnanimity as a race characteristic\" (Page, _Old South_ , 45).\n\n. Ibid., 280, 283, 284.\n\n. For a discussion of how the emergence of a rising and diverse black middle class\u2014the \"New Negro\"\u2014was clouded by persistent stereotypes of the \"Old Negro,\" see chapter 1 of G. E. Hale, _Making Whiteness_.\n\n. See Chapter 7 of Du Bois, _Souls of Black Folk_ , 123\u201324; Douglass, _Life and Times_ , 67\u201368, 134\u201335; and Dunbar, _Folks from Dixie_ , 185\u2013204.\n\n. Among the first successful African American novelists, Charles Chesnutt had to negotiate a literary marketplace dominated by white readers, writers, editors, and assumptions, and this fact informed the \"moral\" and political agenda of his fictions. As a mixed-race individual whose formative years were spent in the South as it moved through Reconstruction and into segregation, Chesnutt was keenly aware of his own status as a perpetual stranger in the South (and in the nation more broadly). His fictions set out to challenge his white readers\u2014his main readership\u2014to see and acknowledge this pervasive injustice. In an early journal entry where he contemplates pursuing a career as a writer, Chesnutt muses, \"The object of my writings would be not so much the elevation of the colored people as the elevation of the whites, \u2014for I consider the unjust spirit of caste which is . . . so powerful as to subject a whole race and all connected with it to scorn and social ostracism\u2014I consider this a barrier to the moral progress of the American people.\" From a journal entry dated May 29, 1879, in Chesnutt, _Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt_ , 139\u201340.\n\n. For detailed descriptions and analyses of the novel's relationship to the historical events surrounding the Wilmington coup, see M. Wilson, _Whiteness_ ; and Sundquist, _To Wake the Nations_.\n\n. Du Bois, _Souls of Black Folk_ , vii. Chesnutt's novel manages to touch on virtually every major topic and form of cultural production associated with what was commonly referred to as \"the Negro Question\" in the South: the politics of white supremacy, disfranchisement, Lost Cause ideology, lynching and political violence, the Ku Klux Klan, segregation, miscegenation, white emigration and tourism, advertising and media representation of race, minstrelsy and cakewalks, and competing theories of racial uplift.\n\n. Chesnutt, _Marrow of Tradition_ , 269, hereafter cited parenthetically in text. As Sundquist notes, \" _The Marrow of Tradition_ , one could say, is devoted to the question of 'propagation'\u2014or, to use the novel's more frequent words, to 'generation' and 'degeneration'\" ( _To Wake the Nations_ , 408).\n\n. See, for example, Sundquist, _To Wake the Nations_ , 427\u201331.\n\n. Chesnutt, _House behind the Cedars_ , 115.\n\n. As Chesnutt introduces the two men, he pointedly draws on specific language from the recent _Plessy v. Ferguson_ decision in describing Miller, explaining how an \"American eye\" may detect a \"visible admixture\" of African blood in Miller (49). Chesnutt's description in the passage implicitly contrasts worldly or cosmopolitan perspectives that see humans as essentially the same with narrower, more provincial (i.e., \"American\") viewpoints that see race first and foremost when considering an individual's worth. Chesnutt's quoting of this particular passage of the Supreme Court ruling is notable, for rather than creating a sense of certitude regarding racial categories of white and black, the passage from which this phrase is drawn underscores the utter ambiguity of the color line. What is a \"visible admixture\" of African blood? The Supreme Court itself refrained from weighing in on this question, instead leaving it up to the states. And in his 1889 essay \"What Is a White Man?\" Chesnutt had demonstrated this arbitrary and capricious drawing of the color line by surveying the convoluted and inconsistent definitions of black and white identity across these and other state laws. Importantly, Chesnutt's description of one of the novel's villains\u2014the young, degraded white aristocrat Tom Delamere\u2014includes similar language to that seen in the description of Miller. Tom is described as \"dark almost to swarthiness,\" with \"black eyes\" and \"curly hair of raven tint\" (15\u201316). The similar descriptions could just be Chesnutt's way of underscoring the arbitrary nature of the color line, or he could be hinting at a mixed racial ancestry for Tom. Later in the novel, we have the briefest mention of an incident that may point to the possibility that Tom is the son of a slave named Black Sally (207), but Chesnutt leaves the question unanswered and utterly ambiguous.\n\n. Elsewhere in the text, Chesnutt expands this theme of coercion to include the southern hospitality industry itself, offering a detailed critique of the way the developing southern tourism industry reinforced the racial status quo. At the opening of chapter 8, \"The Cakewalk,\" Chesnutt describes in detail how a \"party of Northern visitors . . . interested in the study of social conditions and especially in the negro problem\" are \"taken courteously under the wing of prominent citizens and their wives,\" who carefully plan and stage the visitors every move over the course of a day, all the while \"sighing sentimentally over the disappearance of the good old negro of before the war, and gravely deploring the degeneracy of his descendants\" (115). They also are careful to be present with the guests when they desire to visit the \"colored mission school.\" The gracious care and attention of the hosts, along with the carefully selected examples of black life and culture, work together to sway the northern visitors:\n\nThe visitors were naturally much impressed by what they learned from their courteous hosts, and felt inclined to sympathize with the Southern people, for the negro is not counted as a Southerner, except to fix the basis of congressional representation. There might of course be things to criticise here and there, certain customs for which they did not exactly see the necessity, and which seemed in conflict with the highest ideals of liberty: but surely these courteous, soft-spoken ladies and gentlemen, entirely familiar with local conditions, who descanted so earnestly and at times pathetically upon the grave problems confronting them, must know more about it than people in the distant North, without their means of information. The negroes who waited on them at the hotel seemed happy enough. . . . Surely a people who made no complaints could not be very much oppressed. (116\u201317)\n\n. Chesnutt's novel shows the inevitable consequences of this eye-for-an-eye form of justice through the conflict between Captain McBane and the heroic though tragic figure of Josh Green. Green fulfills his lifelong plan of revenge against McBane for the murder of his father, but he ends up dead in the process. Miller, in contrast, is alive, but he faces the irrevocable loss of his child.\n\n. For discussions of this complicated ethical dilemma in modern states, see Rotberg and Thompson, _Truth v. Justice_.\n\n. M. Wilson, _Whiteness_ , xii.\n\n. Chesnutt inscribes this conflict between romance and realism within the plot of the novel through the love triangle involving Tom Delamere, Clara Pemberton, and Lee Ellis. Matt Wilson suggests that the inclusion of this subplot is a nod to the demands of the marketplace and white readers' expectations, but one can also argue that its inclusion is in fact an indictment of romance, particularly when comparing the relative ethics of Ellis's behavior in his wooing of Clara and his decidedly detached stance on racial politics. See M. Wilson, _Whiteness_ , 234\u2013235n 14.\n\n### Chapter 6. The Modern Proliferation of the Southern Hospitality Myth\n\n. In _Dreaming of Dixie_ , the historian Karen L. Cox surveys a wide range of modern cultural forms\u2014popular song, advertisements, radio, film, literature, and tourism campaigns\u2014to show how a remarkably consistent, stereotyped picture of the American South emerged and proliferated in the United States from the 1890s through the 1950s. Cox correctly underscores the role of nonsouthern consumers and creators of popular culture\u2014from popular songwriters to Hollywood producers to corporate advertisers\u2014in the creation of this image, but southerners were likewise savvy to the potential economic development and profit that could go along with this image of the South. And southerners responded to these growing perceptions of the region by giving consumers \"exactly what they had come to expect of the South,\" including, as Cox describes it, \"that ubiquitous feature of life in Dixie known as southern hospitality\" (K. L. Cox, _Dreaming of Dixie_ , 7).\n\n. See, for example, Bone, Ward, and Link, _Creating and Consuming the American South_ ; and Cobb, _Selling of the South_.\n\n. See Brundage, _Southern Past_ , 221.\n\n. Quoted in Gregory, \"David F. Friedman.\"\n\n. Production details are drawn from Bankard, \"Herschell Gordon Lewis Guide.\"\n\n. Rather than the two thousand residents implied by the title, the crowd numbers a few hundred at best. Friedman and Lewis shot the film in Saint Cloud, Florida, and many of the film's outdoor locations were later transformed into Disney World's Magic Kingdom. The first verse and chorus of the film's theme song run as follows: \"There's a story you should know from a hundred years ago \/ And a hundred years we've waited now to tell \/ Now the Yankees come along and they'll listen to this song \/ And they'll quake in fear to hear this Rebel yell \/ Chorus: Yeeeeehaw! Oh, the South's gonna rise again! Yeeeeehaw! Oh, the South's gonna rise again!\" ( _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ ). The next three verses focus on Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and J. E. B. Stuart, respectively.\n\n. Certainly whites were victims of lynching in the South as well, including abolitionists in the antebellum period and white civil rights workers in the film's contemporary moment. With this in mind, the film could be said to conjoin the earlier form of anti-abolitionist intraracial violence with the contemporary political moment in the South that was dominated by the civil rights movement and saw white participation among the freedom riders. Still, the majority of victims of lynching in the South were always African American, and in the twentieth century, consumer culture and mass media transformed the practice of lynching into a modern commodified spectacle. For a discussion of this modern transformation of lynching, see chapter 5 of G. E. Hale, _Making Whiteness_. As Hale points out, even though the number of lynchings decreased in the twentieth century, their message became more powerful, for these modern \"spectacle lynchings\" were performed \"in public, attended by thousands, captured in papers by reporters who witnessed the tortures, and photographed for spectators who wanted a souvenir\" (202).\n\n. See chapter 6 of K. L. Cox, _Dreaming of Dixie_ , for a fairly comprehensive survey of these efforts across several southern states.\n\n. These phrases are drawn from display ads that routinely appeared in the _New York Times_ from 1960 to 1964 for resorts in Hot Springs, Arkansas; Fort Pierce, Florida; and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The use of the modifiers \"true,\" \"real,\" and \"warm\" suggests the jaded nature of the discourse; other modifiers commonly used include \"traditional,\" \"authentic,\" and \"historic.\"\n\n. _New York Times_ , 15 May, 1966, Ad. 4; _Wall Street Journal_ , 13 July 1960, 6.\n\n. See, for example, Whitelegg, \"From Smiles to Miles.\"\n\n. _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ In the film's opening scenes we learn that Tom White (played by William Kerwin) was on his way to a teacher's convention in Atlanta when his car broke down, and Terry Adams (played by Playboy Playmate Connie Mason) gave him a lift. Their budding romance provides the closest thing to a subplot amid the film's violence.\n\n. While the killing of the cat could certainly be taken as a veiled reference to the subject of race, it could also be a deferential allusion to the 1962 gothic horror film _Tales of Terror_ , which included a loose adaptation of Poe's \"The Black Cat,\" starring Vincent Price and Peter Lorre.\n\n. McPherson, _Reconstructing Dixie_ , 7. In contrast to the original _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , the recent remake of the film titled _2001 Maniacs_ , an homage to the cult status of the original, incorporates race in a very direct and offensive manner. The victims in this film include an interracial couple: an African American man and an Asian American woman.\n\n. Douglas Egerton has described how southern authorities commonly sentenced rebellious or criminal slaves to be dismembered, either after execution or, in the most extreme cases, while still alive. See D. R. Egerton, \"Peculiar Mark of Infamy,\" 149\u201360. Calling to mind the specific film scene, some historical sources say the slave Gabriel Prosser, who led an unsuccessful revolt in 1800, \"was executed by having a horse attached to each of his four limbs, and was thus torn asunder.\" For example, see \"Gabriel's Defeat.\" Though apocryphal, this particular account of Gabriel's death circulated through some northern papers that, in the wake of Nat Turner's failed revolt of 1831, revisited the story of Gabriel's earlier revolt. The _Liberator_ acknowledges the _Albany Evening Journal_ as the source of its copy, and it also appeared in The _Free Enquirer_. For an account of Gabriel Prosser's execution by hanging, see D. R. Egerton, _Gabriel's Rebellion_ , 108\u201311. Similarly, several separate sources describe slaves being punished or killed by being placed in a barrel lined with nails and rolled down a hill. See, for example, Roper, _Narrative_ , 24; _Slave Narratives_ , produced by the Federal Writers' Project, 297; and Rothert, _History of Muhlenberg County_ , 341.\n\n. See Dobbins, \"Southern Hospitality\"; and Bellocq, \"Southern Hospitality.\"\n\n. For example, the headline of a May 19, 1963, _New York Times_ front-page story on President Kennedy's visit to the South that same year reads \"Kennedy, in South, Hails Negro Drive for Civil Rights.\" In the accompanying photo, the segregationist and white supremacist governor George Wallace steps aside to let Kennedy take the podium to speak; yet again, the photo caption reads \"Southern Hospitality.\" Likewise, a December 1, 1964, _Chicago Daily Defender_ photo carries the caption: \"Southern Hospitality\u2014Montgomery Style.\" The photo shows the results of the bombing in Montgomery, Alabama, of a black resident's home.\n\n. Berkowitz, \"David Duke's Welcome Wagon.\"\n\n. Petrie, \"Economic Sanctions.\"\n\n. Quoted in Burns, \"NAACP Plans More Flag Protests.\" EURO's instructions to its members included the following: \"DO NOT DISTRIBUTE ANY LITERATURE. . . . Do not bring ANY WEAPONS OF ANY KIND. . . . Do not WEAR ANYTHING OFFENSIVE. If you have a pin or a shirt that is offensive, it will be the only thing the media will look at. That will then be how the entire event is represented.\" Quoted in Berkowitz, \"David Duke's Welcome Wagon,\" emphasis in original.\n\n. Certainly not all the flag supporters in these debates are white supremacists or racists, but the episode shows that the flag cannot be entirely separated from racist connotations. For a particularly tragic case involving the complex symbolism of the Confederate flag, see chapter 5 of Horwitz, _Confederates in the Attic_.\n\n. Iacobelli, \"White Pride Group.\"\n\n. \"Nikki Haley Defends Confederate Flag.\"\n\n. King, _Sombreros and Motorcycles_ , 21.\n\n. Starnes, introduction to _Southern Journeys_ , 1.\n\n. Silber, _Romance of Reunion_ , 67.\n\n. _Atlanta Journal_ , May 12, 1914, 11. Quoted in Newman, _Southern Hospitality_ , 8. Graves, who rose to be a prominent editor for William Randolph Hearst and a vice presidential nominee for Hearst's short-lived political party, was described by the _Saturday Evening Post_ in 1908 as the \"silvern-toungued [ _sic_ ] orator from Dixie.\" Graves here and elsewhere turned his rhetorical talents to promoting tourism in the South, even writing a romantic promotional brochure for the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway Company. In promoting the South, Graves had a particular image in mind that he knew nostalgic Americans in the modern age would appreciate, and one Americans were already very familiar with, a version of the plantation ideal that had been developed through plantation fiction, minstrelsy, and Lost Cause rhetoric. See, for example, \"Laurels of Demosthenes.\" See also Silber, _Romance of Reunion_ , 91\u201393.\n\n. Quoted in Hughes, _\"Rich Georgian Strangely Shot,\"_ 85. See also pp. 85\u201387 for a description of Graves's fearmongering and race-baiting editorials. Nonetheless, Graves managed to run for president, and he was a generally accepted spokesperson and advocate for all things southern, including the tourism trade, illustrating the continuing disparity between ethics and politics in the discourse of southern hospitality.\n\n. Brundage, _Southern Past_ , 183\u201384.\n\n. See K. L. Cox, _Dreaming of Dixie_ , 148. Cox notes that during this period, \"the South's urban tourist literature often combined the nostalgia northerners had for the Old South with ideas of progress and innovation that suggested that the region had entered the era of the New South.\"\n\n. Brundage, _Southern Past_ , 184.\n\n. Rosewood was a black community that included a rail stop for the Seaboard Airline Railroad, which transported thousands of tourists to southern cities from Virginia through Florida. Following the lynching of a Rosewood resident by a white mob on spurious charges of rape, the town's residents decided to defend themselves against the growing white mob, but during a week of unrestrained violence, the mob murdered several black citizens and burned the entire town to the ground. Black residents were forced to flee the conflagration, never to return. See Dye, \"Rosewood, Florida.\"\n\n. Brundage, _Southern Past_ , 213. See also Yuhl, _Golden Haze of Memory_ , for a comprehensive history of Charleston's creation of a historic tourist destination.\n\n. As W. Fitzhugh Brundage concisely explains, these markers \"taught native Virginians and tourists about what was historically significant and, by implication, what was not. To travel the road to Virginia was literally to enter a system of signs through which the state promoted a certain narrative of history\u2014a narrative that dwelled on the state's vaunted contributions to the nation's development.\" These signifying systems offered what Brundage describes as \"a veneer of encyclopedic objectivity,\" and they also served to \"revalue southern history\" in the traveler's imagination. See Brundage, _Southern Past_ , 197, 198\u201399.\n\n. Quoted in K. L. Cox, _Dreaming of Dixie_ , 153.\n\n. The poem is dedicated to Roscoe C. Lewis, a fellow writer on the project who authored _The Negro in Virginia_. See Sanders, _Afro-modernist Aesthetics_ , 115\u201316.\n\n. S. A. Brown, _Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown_ , 209\u201310.\n\n. Sanders, _Afro-modernist Aesthetics_ , 115, 116.\n\n. J. Jackson, \"Bungleton Green.\"\n\n. Seiler, _Republic of Drivers_ , 114\u201315, 115.\n\n. _Negro Motorist Green Book_ , 1.\n\n. McGee, \"Open Road.\"\n\n. Ramsey, with Strauss, _Ruth and the Green Book_ , 9.\n\n. Ibid., 20.\n\n. The play premiered at the Balzer Theater in Atlanta in July 2010, and a staged reading featuring former NAACP chairman Julian Bond was also performed at the Lincoln Theater in Washington in September of that year.\n\n. Ricoeur points out that while narratives of collective memory can include wounds and traumas for some groups, narratives of the past can also provide sites of healing, for \"it is always possible to tell in another way. This exercise of memory is here an exercise in _telling otherwise_ , and also in letting others tell their own history.\" For Ricoeur, \"telling otherwise\" takes us to the \"ethico-political level\" of collective memory and the \"duty to remember,\" which includes \"transmitting the meaning of past events to the next generation. The duty, therefore, is one which concerns the future; it is an imperative directed towards the future, which is exactly the opposite side of the traumatic character of the humiliations and wounds of history. It is a duty, thus, to tell.\" See Ricoeur, \"Memory and Forgetting,\" 5, 9\u201310.\n\n. For a wide range of analyses of both the successes and the recurring conflicts of these endeavors, see Oliver and Horton, _Slavery and Public History_ ; and part 2 of K. L. Cox, _Destination Dixie_.\n\n. \"Project Update.\" This is a far cry from the state of affairs described by Tony Horwitz in 1999 when he wrote about the conflicts between black and white residents over the way Nat Turner should be remembered. In Horwitz's _New Yorker_ article titled \"Untrue Confessions,\" he portrays the historical representation of Nat Turner as an essentially unresolvable conflict: \"Interpretation of history always reveals as much about the present as it does about the past. But with Nat Turner the contemporary echo is especially loud, raising raw and unresolved questions about race, religious zealotry, and revolutionary violence. Even at a distance of more than a century and a half, the story of a black man who massacred whites in the name of God and freedom remains incendiary.\" Horwitz is right in noting that historical representations reveal as much about the present as about the past, and the fact that this is taking place now is indicative of change and of a healthier, though perhaps fitful, willingness to engage this complex history.\n\n. Alderman and Modlin, \"Southern Hospitality,\" 6, 25.\n\n. See Lassiter and Crespino, _Myth of Southern Exceptionalism_ , 6; Wiese, \"African-American Suburbanization and Regionalism\"; and Odem, \"Latin American Immigration.\"\n\n. See Romine, _Real South_ , 2\u20133. Griffin and Thompson, \"Enough about the Disappearing South,\" 52\u201353; and Elias, \"Postmodern Southern Vacation,\" 278.\n\n. Far too often, this basic and simple historical fact is unacknowledged or even willfully forgotten. A concise illustration of this fact may be found in Pitzer, _Southern Hospitality Cookbook_. Pitzer's cookbook is rather unique in that her preface attempts to provide a detailed explanation of the historical origins of southern hospitality with several quotes and examples from historical sources. She traces southern hospitality from the revolutionary period, up through the Civil War and \"the dark days following the war.\" Throughout her account of this history, however, she makes no mention of the slave labor or domestic workers who made these social habits possible. Instead, she blithely concludes, \"A look at the history of southern hospitality suggests that the one true constant is this passion for a party. Bad times or good, the South will have parties\"(11). Like Lang, Pitzer identifies the challenges facing southerners today: \"In our fast-paced, servantless, trimmed down times, our challenge is to find new ways of continuing the old spirit of southern parties\" (11).\n\n. For a thorough examination of this psychological conflict of white southerners written as the South was moving through the process of integration, see Warren, _Segregation_. For a more recent analysis that considers the South's loss of white supremacy alongside post\u2013World War II Germany's loss of racial superiority, see J. Smith, _Finding Purple America_ , 50\u201364.\n\n. \"Top 25 US Consumer Magazines.\"\n\n. See Romine, _Real South_ , 15. See also 14\u201316, 227\u201329.\n\n. See Logue and McCalla, _Life at Southern Living_ , 30\u201332, 52\u201360.\n\n. Ibid., 31.\n\n. D. Roberts, \"Living Southern in _Southern Living_ ,\" 89. Roberts's essay, though brief, offers the best general cultural analysis of _Southern Living_ magazine.\n\n. Quoted in Logue and McCalla, _Life at Southern Living_ , 33\u201334.\n\n. Jon Smith discusses the broader implications of this process of \"imagining oneself as _victim_ \" in _Finding Purple America_ ; see especially 55\u201359.\n\n. Raines, \"Getting to the Heart of Dixie.\"\n\n. Logue and McCalla, _Life at Southern Living_ , 39.\n\n. Logue and McCalla describe their own mortification over the first issue, but as they go on to explain, even with the strange opening message and even with the first issue's \"dated, random, dreary design,\" the magazine was instantly popular: \"Many readers wrote to express their instant affection for the magazine. They couldn't be sure of what it was, but it was _theirs_.\" See Logue and McCalla, _Life at Southern Living_ , 38\u201339; 54\u201356; 56, 59. For a detailed analysis of the \"coded language\" of the first issue's editorial message, see D. Roberts, \"Living Southern in _Southern Living_.\"\n\n. Indeed, the very first image of an African American to appear in the magazine seems right out of the nineteenth century. Diane Roberts describes the offensive image from the second issue of March 1966: \"The magazine printed its first picture of an African-American, a 'menu boy' of ten or eleven, in a feature on a Smyrna, Georgia restaurant called Aunt Fanny's Cabin. The restaurant purported to be a much enlarged, 'genuine' slave cabin serving genuine old southern food. The menu boys wore chalk sandwich boards and recited the menu. The story says, 'As you eat happily, several Negro boys put on a singing, dancing show of century-old songs\" (D. Roberts, \"Living Southern in _Southern Living_ ,\" 87).\n\n. See D. Roberts, \"Living Southern in _Southern Living_ ,\" 98n27; see also Elias, \"Postmodern Southern Vacation,\" on the continuing coded racial language of travel ads in _Southern Living_ in more recent years, especially pp. 265\u201369.\n\n. M. N. Jones, \"Defining the Southern,\" 139\u201340.\n\n. Ibid., 140.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. D. Roberts, \"Living Southern in _Southern Living_ ,\" 96. Roberts argues that in more recent years, the typical representations of African Americans in the magazine essentially reassure the predominantly white readership by portraying blacks in the same \"comfortable, decorated bourgeois world\" and implying they are \"just like us\" (see pp. 95\u201396).\n\n. Ricoeur, \"Memory and Forgetting,\" 6, 7. I choose to draw on Ricoeur here, rather than directly from Freud, due to Ricoeur's explicit emphasis on the ethics of memory. For another discussion of mourning and melancholia as it pertains to the South, see Lisa Hinrichsen's recent book, _Possessing the Past_.\n\n. See Deen and Cohen, _It Ain't All about the Cookin'_ , 169. For Deen's discussion of southern hospitality as both a domestic tradition and a business model, see pp. 215\u201319, 239\u201340.\n\n. \"Timeline of Paula Deen's Downfall.\"\n\n. Deen and Cohen, _It Ain't All about the Cooking_ , 11, 12.\n\n. Ibid., 10.\n\n. Ricoeur, _Memory, History, Forgetting_ , 95.\n\n. \"Paula Deen on Race.\" The video includes other awkward moments on the subject of race. For a scathing critique of the video interview in light of the 2013 controversy, see Frank Bruni's editorial, \"Paula's Worst Ingredients.\"\n\n. _Transcript of the Testimony of Paula Deen_ , 125, 127, 129.\n\n. Ibid., 129\u201331. For readability, I have modified the typescript of the deposition to more clearly indicate the speakers, and I have also removed objections from Deen's attorney.\n\n. Moskin, \"Culinary Birthright in Dispute.\"\n\n. Twitty, \"Open Letter to Paula Deen.\"\n\n. Southern Foodways Alliance, \"About Us.\"\n\n. Southern Foodways Alliance, \"Southern Food Primer.\"\n\n. For example, Sarah Rutledge in _The Carolina Housewife_ , in explaining the need for such a cookbook, points to the unique circumstances of slavery: \"French or English Cookery Books are to be found in every bookstore; but these are for French or English servants, and almost always require an apparatus either beyond our reach or too complicated for our native cooks\" (3). Mary Randolph, in _The Virginia Housewife_ , emphasizes the need for establishing methodical routines of preparation for the slaves, noting at one point, for example, that the dinner table should be prepared for service every morning \"with the same scrupulous regard to exact neatness and method, as if a grand company was expected. When the servant is expected to do this daily, he soon gets into the habit of doing it well; and his mistress having made arrangements for him in the morning, there is no need for bustle and confusion in running after things that may be called for during the hour of dinner\" (v). See also see Bryan, _Kentucky Housewife_ , vii. In _Recollections of a Southern Matron_ , Caroline Gilman describes these duties and contrasts them with the popular conception of the southern lady: \"A planter's lady may seem indolent, because there are so many under her who perform trivial services; but the very circumstance of keeping so many menials in order is an arduous one, and the _keys_ of her establishment are a care of which a Northern housekeeper knows nothing, and include a very extensive class of duties. Many fair, and even aristocratic girls, if we may use this phrase in our republican country, who grace a ball-room, or loll in a liveried carriage, may be seen with these steel talismans, presiding over storehouses, and measuring, with the accuracy and conscientiousness of a shopman, the daily allowance of the family\" (47). See also Fox-Genovese, _Within the Plantation Household_ , especially chapter 2, for detailed analysis of the complex and often fraught relationship that could exist between a mistress and her slaves.\n\n. For example, see J. Egerton, _Southern Food_ , 13\u201315, 20, 38\u201339.\n\n. See Brundage, \"From Appalachian Folk to Southern Foodways\"; and Romine, \"God and the MoonPie.\"\n\n. In this regard, it is worth noting that the founder's meeting of the Southern Foodways Alliance was held in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1999 at the headquarters of _Southern Living_ magazine, and the _Southern Living_ magazine and website have often partnered with the SFA, running stories and profiles on the SFA and its members. At the same time as it is willing to align itself with _Southern Living_ , the SFA draws a clear line of demarcation between itself and Paula Deen, even though it is apparent that many consumers move easily among these different entities. After the Paula Deen controversy in 2013, the following was posted on the SFA's \"Southern Six-Pack Blog\" (note the allusion to southern hospitality):\n\nOver the years many of you have asked the SFA, \"Why don't y'all do something with Paula Deen? She's Southern. You're the Southern Foodways Alliance. Seems like a perfect fit.\" We were (hopefully) polite in our answer which went something like this, \"Yes, she's from the South but she's not cooking the kind of Southern food we celebrate.\" Our focus is on the men and women who work, mostly in their own communities, making great food out of often modest ingredients. For SFA, acceptable excesses are in hospitality and graciousness, not in butter, salt, and sour cream. We don't find any joy in what happened to Ms. Deen this week. But it did happen. The commentary churned up by Ms. Deen's very public implosion says much about the Southern larder, the Southern table, and the great Southern cooks who populate our region. (Hall, \"Southern Six-Pack\")\n\n### Epilogue. New Strangers of the Contemporary South\n\n. Dewell, \"It's All about the Experience!\"\n\n. \"Your Guests Expect Southern Hospitality.\"\n\n. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, these immigrant laborers are often especially vulnerable in southern states due to the region's generally weaker labor laws. See \"Immigrant Justice\" and related links.\n\n. \"Guidelines.\"\n\n. Drake, \"Hospitality Course Covers 'Friendly.'\" Other southern locales have developed similar programs. For example, see \"Music City's Hospitality Workers\"; and the \"Five Star Southern Hospitality Training Program.\"\n\n. \"Sweet Home Alabama.\"\n\n. Chandler, \"Alabama House Passes Arizona-Style Immigration Law.\"\n\n. Valdes, \"New Alabama Law.\"\n\n. Preston, \"In Alabama, a Harsh Bill.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. The law reads, \"Every person working for the State of Alabama or a political subdivision thereof, including, but not limited to, a law enforcement agency in the State of Alabama or a political subdivision thereof, shall have a duty to report violations of this act. Failure to report any violation of this act when there is reasonable cause to believe that this act is being violated is guilty of obstructing governmental operations as defined in Section 13A-10\u20132, Code of Alabama 1975, and shall be punishable pursuant to state law.\" Alabama HB 56, p. 17.\n\n. De Lollis, \"Hotel.\"\n\n. Dewskin, \"Alabama's Immigration Law.\"\n\n. \"Hey Mercedes.\" Interestingly, the editorial board issued a somewhat apologetic editorial a few months later after Missouri passed a similar law. See \"Alas, Poor Alabama.\"\n\n. Quoted in \"Alabama Nabs Foreign Auto Execs.\"\n\n. See Azziz, \"Alabama Immigration Law.\" For an interesting perspective on the law from a Chinese immigrant, see Huang, \"Southern Hospitality.\"\n\n. Elliot, \"Clergy Sues.\"\n\n. Fred L. Hammond, \"Alabama's Immigration Law.\"\n\n. Elliot, \"Clergy Sues.\"\n\n. Cross's resolution, which did not make it out of committee, read as follows:\n\nRESOLUTION CALLING FOR THE AFFIRMATION OF ALABAMA BAPTIST CHURCHES TO PROVIDE A WELCOMING, HOSPITABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR THE IMMIGRANTS AND ALIENS IN OUR MIDST\n\nWHEREAS, the people of God are always considered aliens and strangers in the land (1 Peter 2:11); and\n\nWHEREAS, God commanded the people of Israel to \"not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt\" (Exodus 22:21); and\n\nWHEREAS, We are commanded to be hospitable \"to strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels without knowing it\" (Hebrews 13:2); and\n\nWHEREAS, Many of the immigrants to our state from other nations, both legal and illegal, have many physical, financial, and social needs; and\n\nWHEREAS, Jesus says in Matthew 25:40 that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him; and\n\nWHEREAS, Alabama has enacted some of the strongest laws in the nation in response to illegal immigration to our state;\n\nTHEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, we the messengers to the Alabama Baptist State Convention meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, November 13\u201314, 2012 affirm the call for Christians to show hospitality, Christian love, and care for immigrants and aliens in our presence; and\n\nBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that though we are to submit to the governing authorities and live quiet, peaceful lives (1 Peter 2:13\u201317; 1 Timothy 2:1\u20136), we are to first show love and concern for all people according to God's higher law as we love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:36\u201340); and\n\nBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we encourage Alabama Baptist churches and individual Christians to care for all of those in need as God places them in our path whether they are here legally or not; and\n\nBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all people in all circumstances praying that all come to salvation in Christ; and\n\nBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we seek to make disciples of all nations, including the immigrants of the nations that God has sovereignly brought to our state through various means according to Matthew 28:18\u201320; and\n\nBE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that we seek to be good citizens in our state and nation only because we are first citizens of the Kingdom of God who represent Christ as His ambassadors. (Cross, \"Are Alabama Baptists Wrong?\")\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\nThe fact that Southern Baptists are divided on the issue may also be seen in a vote on an immigration amendment at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting earlier that year. A blog post on SBC Voices describes an \"immigration brouhaha\" at the SBC annual meeting over a resolution submitted on the issue. According to the SBC Voices blog, \"The amendment was defeated by a razor thin margin of 766\u2013723.\" In the blog discussion that followed, Cross and others pushed for a more progressive approach to immigration. See Miller, \"Immigration Brouhaha at SBC.\"\n\n. As discussed in chapter 3, the Epistle to Philemon was continually cited by both sides of the Fugitive Slave Law debate, and Cross's interpretation parallels that of the abolitionists. At one point he quotes a colleague who specifically notes that \"in many ways, Onesimus, as a runaway slave, was the counterpart in that day and context to an 'illegal immigrant' today.\" Through a reading of Philemon, Cross proposes that churches possibly take a more active role in assisting illegals\u2014whether it be to help them on a path to citizenship, to help them return to native countries, to help keep immigrant families in tact during legal processes, or to provide a sanctuary for them against persecution. See Cross, \"Could Alabama Baptists Lead the Way?\"\n\n. Indeed, as this book was going to press the issue of immigration was dominating the presidential primary season, while new, inhospitable laws were being passed in southern states (North Carolina HB 2, Mississippi HB 1523) allowing for open discrimination against gays, lesbians, unwed mothers, and bisexual or transgender individuals.\n\n## BIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nAaseng, Nathan. _African American Religious Leaders_. 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Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.\n\nWong, Edlie L. _Neither Fugitive nor Free: Atlantic Slavery, Freedom Suits, and the Legal Culture of Travel_. New York: New York University Press, 2009.\n\nWoodell, Harold. \"Justice Denied in the Old South: Three Novels by F. Colburn Adams.\" _Southern Literary Journal_ 11, no. 1 (Fall 1978): 54\u201363.\n\nWoolson, Constance Fenimore. _Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches_. New York: Appleton, 1880.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \"Up the Ashley and Cooper.\" _Harper's Monthly_ , December 1875, 1\u201324.\n\nWright, Julia McNair. _The Cabin in the Brush_. Philadelphia: J. P. Skelly, 1870.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Complete Home: An Encyclop\u00e6dia of Domestic Life and Affairs_. Philadelphia: J. C. McCurdy, 1879.\n\nWyatt-Brown, Bertram. _Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.\n\nX Y Z. \"Letters from the South West to Mr. A. Tappan: Letter II.\" _American Anti-Slavery Reporter_ , March 1834, 42.\n\n\"Your Guests Expect Southern Hospitality.\" _Southern Hospitality Magazine_ , Fall 2006, 28. <http:\/\/www.southernhospitalitymagazine.com\/pdfs\/SHM_FALL_WEB.pdf>. Accessed May 7, 2010.\n\nYuhl, Stephanie E. _A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston_. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.\n\nZenneck, A. _Murder of Louisiana Sacrificed on the Altar of Radicalism_. Broadside. N.p., 1871.\n\nZinn, Howard. _The Southern Mystique_. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964.\n\nZylinska, Joanna. _The Ethics of Cultural Studies_. London: Continuum, 2005.\n\n## INDEX\n\nabolition hospitality, , , \u201376, \u2013100, \u201318\n\nabolitionism: antebellum critiques of, \u201344, \u201332, n55\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201384, , , n9\n\nGarrisonian,\n\nGreeson on, n28, n51\n\nand Kossuth, \u201328\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, ,\n\nand northerners, \u201395\n\nand progressive ideologies,\n\nwhite,\n\nAct for Better Regulation and Government of Free Negroes and Persons of Color,\n\nactive forgetting,\n\nAdams, Francis Colburn, n22\n\n_Justice in the By-Ways_ ,\n\n_Manuel Pereira_ , \u201316, , nn23\u201324\n\n_Our World_\n\n_or, The Slaveholder's Daughter_ ,\n\n_Uncle Tom at Home_ ,\n\nAdams, John Quincy,\n\nAdams, Nehemiah, _South-Side View of Slavery_ ,\n\nAddy, Samuel,\n\nadvertising, , , \u201398,\n\nadvice literature. _See_ etiquette\n\nAfrican Americans: as alien presence, , , \u20135, , \u201333,\n\nand \"culinary injustice,\" \u20138\n\nnarratives of, \u2013103, \u201361, n51\n\npolitical power of,\n\nportrayal of, \u201310, \u201343,\n\npost\u2013civil rights, , , n11\n\npost-Reconstruction, \u201351\n\nas service laborers, \u201310, , , , \u20137\n\nand tourism, \u201391\n\nZinn on, . _See also_ race and racism\n\nracial politics\n\nsegregation\n\nslavery\n\nAfroculinaria (website),\n\nAlabama, , , , , \u201397, \u201318\n\nAlabama Baptist Convention, \u201318\n\nAlderman, Derek H.,\n\nalien populations. _See_ immigration\n\nstrangers and foreigners\n\nalmanacs, , \u201344, \u201383, n55\n\nAlthusser, Louis,\n\n_American Anti-Slavery Almanac, The_ , \u201343\n\n_American Anti-Slavery Reporter_ ,\n\nAmerican Anti-Slavery Society,\n\nAmerican Tract Society,\n\nAnderson, Benedict, n13\n\nAndersonville National Cemetery, , n14\n\n_Anecdotes for the Family and Social Circle_ , n24\n\nantebellum hospitality: and abolition hospitality, , , \u201376, \u2013100, \u201318\n\nand benevolence,\n\nand class,\n\nand etiquette, \u201360,\n\nand exclusionary politics,\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376\n\nMinor on, \u201335\n\nand modern racial dynamics, ,\n\nand origins of southern hospitality, \u20134, \u201313, \u201324, n3\n\nand pro-southern texts, \u201347, \u201351\n\nsacred and secular models of, \u201356\n\nand sectionalism, \u201338, \u201351, \u201352\n\nand slavery, \u201310, \u201344, \u201351\n\nand social capital, \u201337, \u201342, , \u201370\n\nand sovereignty, \u201339, ,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , \u201365. _See also_ postbellum hospitality\n\nantirendition literature, \u201388,\n\nantislavery texts: and abolition hospitality, \u201376, \u2013100\n\nalmanacs, , \u201344, \u201383, n55\n\nand ethics of hospitality, \u201347, \u201388, \u201360\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201388, \u2013103,\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376. _See also_ abolitionism\n\nAppiah, Kwame Anthony,\n\naristocratic hospitality: and etiquette,\n\nand forgetting,\n\nvs. liberal hospitality, ,\n\nand nostalgia, , ,\n\nPage on,\n\nof the planter class, , \u201365,\n\nPollard on, \u201348\n\nin pro-southern texts, \u201351\n\nvs. republican hospitality, \u201325, \u201354, \u201361,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , \u201365\n\nand Woolson's \"Southern Sketches,\" . _See also_ class\n\nArizona, ,\n\n_Art of Good Behavior, The_ , \u201358\n\n_Art of Pleasing, The_ , \u201359, \u201329n23\n\nArvine, Kazlitt, n19\n\n\"Our Duty to the Fugitive Slave,\"\n\nasylum, , \u201382,\n\nAtwater, Cowles H., n3\n\nBarker, Louisa Jane Whiting, \"Influence of Slavery upon the White Population, by a Former Resident of Slave States,\" \u201344\n\nBeason, Scott, \u201314\n\nBeecher, Catherine,\n\n_Treatise on Domestic Economy_ , \u201360\n\nBeecher, Charles, \"The Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws,\" \u201386\n\nBellocq, Pierre, \u201377\n\nbenevolence: and antebellum hospitality,\n\nand consumerism, \u201359\n\ntoward fugitive slaves, \u2013100,\n\nand honor,\n\nand mental hospitality,\n\nbetween North and South, , \u201339\n\nand pro-southern texts, \u201351,\n\nstrangers and foreigners, \u201356;\n\nin Whittier's _Stranger in Lowell_ , \u201375\n\nBenhabib, Seyla, \u201327, \u201317, n26;\n\n_Another Cosmopolitanism_ ,\n\nBenton, Thomas Hart,\n\nBeverly, Robert, _History of Virginia_ ,\n\nbiblical hospitality. _See_ Christianity\n\nBirmingham Campaign,\n\nblack identity. _See_ racial identity\n\nBlight, David, _Race and Reunion_ , , , n4, n15\n\nBone, Martyn,\n\n_Creating and Consuming the American South_ ,\n\n_Boston Traveler_ ,\n\nBourdieu, Pierre, \u201337, ,\n\nBourne, George,\n\n_Picture of Slavery in the United States of America_ , \u201340\n\nboycott, of South Carolina tourism, , \u201380,\n\nBreeding, Vincent,\n\n_Brigadoon_ (musical),\n\nBrown, David, _The Planter_ , n46\n\nBrown, Sterling A., \"Remembering Nat Turner,\" \u201385\n\nBrown, Wells, \u201399, n51\n\nBrown, William Wells: _American Fugitive in Europe_ , \u2013103, n48\n\n_Three Years in Europe_ , , n51\n\n_Brown v. Board of Education_ , ,\n\nBrundage, W. Fitzhugh, \u201310, n34\n\n_Lynchings in the New South_ , n5\n\n_The Southern Past_ , \u201382\n\nButt, Martha Haines, _Anti-Fanaticism_ , \u201393\n\nCalabrella, Baroness de, _Ladies' Science of Etiquette_ , , , \u201329n23\n\nCarey, John, _Learning Is Better Than House or Land_ , n25\n\nCarothers, P. W. B., \"Modern Hospitality,\" \u201351,\n\nC. C. O., \"On Hospitality,\" \u201356,\n\nCenter for American Progress,\n\nCenter for Business & Economic Research,\n\nCenter for Sustainable Tourism,\n\nCenter for the Study of Southern Culture,\n\nChaney, James,\n\nChanning, William Ellery, , n44\n\ncharity, \u201375, , , \u2013100, , . _See also_ benevolence\n\nCharleston (S.C.), , \u20138, \u201316, , \u201384,\n\n_Charleston Magazine_ , \u201315\n\nChesnutt, Charles W., , n51\n\n_The House behind the Cedars_ , \u201363\n\n_The Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367, n57, \u201353n62, nn58\u201359\n\n\"What Is a White Man?,\" \u201352n57\n\n_Chicago Defender_ , \u201387\n\n_Christian Inquirer_ , , n40\n\nChristianity: and antirendition literature, \u201388\n\nand consumerism, \u201355,\n\nand domesticity,\n\nand ethics of hospitality, \u201360\n\nand etiquette, , n24\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201379, \u201382\n\nand immigration, \u201318\n\nLot's \"sacred guests,\"\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376\n\nPaul's letter to Philemon, , \u201379, , n23\n\nPaul's letter to the Hebrews, \u201371\n\nin pro-southern texts, \u201351\n\nand Reconstruction, \u201339\n\nand republican idealism, \u201361,\n\nvs. secular hospitality, \u201355\n\nand slavery, \u201340\n\nand the stranger, \u201356, \u201360, , , n44, n46\n\nin Wright's _Cabin in the Brush_ , \u201338\n\n_Christian Register_ , , n46\n\ncitizenship: and cosmopolitanism, , , , \u201313,\n\nof freed slaves,\n\nand Kant, , n26\n\nand Reconstruction,\n\nrestrictions of,\n\nrights of, , n49\n\nand strangers and foreigners,\n\ncivil disobedience, \u201387, , \u20139\n\nCivil Rights Act of 1964, , \u201388\n\ncivil rights movement: and African American return to the South, ,\n\nand collective memory,\n\nand immigration,\n\nsouthern hospitality post\u2013civil rights, \u201327,\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u201399\n\nand _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201377\n\nand usage of term \"southern hospitality,\"\n\nwhite involvement in, , n7. _See also_ race and racism; racial politics\n\nCivil War, , \u201352\n\nclass: and antebellum hospitality,\n\nand Christianity,\n\nand etiquette, \u201356\n\nfluidity, \u201354, \u201396, , n21\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law,\n\nidentity, , ,\n\nand mental hospitality,\n\nnouveau riche,\n\nprejudices,\n\nand Reconstruction,\n\nand _Southern Living_ ,\n\nupward mobility, , , . _See also_ planter class\n\nClay, Henry,\n\nColeman-Singleton, Sharonda,\n\ncollective memory: abuses of, , n38\n\nand ethics of hospitality,\n\nand heritage tourism, \u201382\n\nand identity, , \u20134\n\nand melancholia, , n37\n\nvs. personal memory, \u20134\n\npolitics of,\n\nrace and racism within, , ,\n\nand Reconstruction,\n\nRicoeur on, \u201324, n37, n38, n46\n\nand sectionalism, \u201324\n\nand trauma, \u201324, , n13, n46. _See also_ cultural memory; forgetting\n\nColumbia Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau,\n\nCompromise of 1850, \u201380, , , \u201326, n4\n\nCondon, Charlie,\n\nconduct-of-life literature, n24. _See also_ Wright, Julia McNair\n\nConfederate flag boycott, , \u201380, nn20\u201321\n\nConfederate Memorial,\n\nConnor, Bull,\n\nconspicuous consumption, , , , \u201350, \u201354, ,\n\nconsumerism: and Christianity, \u201355,\n\nand etiquette, \u201359\n\nexclusionary history of, \u201383\n\nand identity, , ,\n\nand immigrants,\n\nand nostalgia,\n\nand segregation, , n37\n\nvs. traditional hospitality,\n\ncookbooks, , , \u201310, n52, n83\n\nCooper, Floyd,\n\nCooper, James Fenimore, _The Spy_ , n35\n\ncosmopolitanism: and abolition hospitality,\n\nBenhabib on, , \u201312\n\nand citizenship, \u201372, , , \u201313,\n\nand globalization,\n\nand identity, \u20133, ,\n\nand Kant, \u201372, , , n26\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201372,\n\nnorms of justice, \u201311\n\nand strangers and foreigners, ,\n\nThoreau on, , n18. See also _ethnos_ and _demos_ concepts; immigration; sovereignty; universal hospitality\n\n\"country cosmopolitanism\" (Robinson), n11\n\nCowan, John Franklin, n32\n\n_A New Invasion of the South_ , \u201351\n\nCowles, Genevieve and Maude, \u201354\n\nCox, John D., _Traveling South_ , n49\n\nCox, Karen L., _Dreaming of Dixie_ , n1, n30\n\nCrane, Gregg D., \u201384,\n\nCrespino, Joseph, _The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism_ , \u20134\n\nCriswell, Robert, _\"Uncle Tom's Cabin\" Contrasted with Buckingham Hall_ , n44\n\nCross, Alan, \u201318, \u201361n20\n\nCuenca, Carme Manual, \u201337n45\n\n\"culinary injustice\" (Twitty), \u20138\n\ncultural capital, \u201337, ,\n\ncultural identity, , , ,\n\ncultural memory: and the Confederate flag debate, \u201380,\n\nand Deen, \u20136\n\nand ethics of hospitality, , \u201318, \u201323,\n\nand forgetting, \u201318\n\nand historical narratives, \u201347, n8\n\nand melancholia,\n\npolitics of,\n\nand racial identity,\n\nand slavery, \u201318, \u201376, ,\n\nand tradition, , . _See also_ collective memory; forgetting\n\nCunningham, Emory, \u201397\n\nDawson, William, \u201325\n\n_Decatur (AL) Daily News_ ,\n\nDecoration Day, n15\n\nDeen, Paula, , , \u2013208\n\n_It Ain't All about the Cooking_ , \u20133\n\n_demos_ and _ethnos_ concepts (Benhabib), \u201317\n\nDerrida, Jacques: and ethics of hospitality, \u201322,\n\nand hospitality as risk, ,\n\nand hospitality of invitation and visitation, , \u201370, n45\n\nand the paradoxes of hospitality, , , n31\n\nand politics of hospitality, \u201322, , \u201356,\n\nand the right of the guest, \u201321\n\nand universal hospitality, \u201321,\n\non the unknown nature of hospitality, , , ,\n\ndesegregation, , ,\n\nDiGiacomo, Fran, \"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201314\n\ndiscrimination, , , , \u201388, , n24\n\nDixie Highway,\n\nDobbins, James,\n\ndomesticity: and Christianity,\n\ndomestic social space, \u201325, \u201384, \u201392, , , ,\n\nand etiquette, \u201360\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201384\n\nand Hale, , n5\n\nKaplan on, n7\n\nPage on, \u201359, n45\n\nand postbellum hospitality, \u201339. _See also_ etiquette\n\nDouglass, Frederick, , , n47\n\n_My Bondage and My Freedom_ , \u201398, \u20133, \u201338n50\n\n_Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave_ ,\n\nDouglass, Stephen,\n\nDred Scott decision, n49\n\nDrew, Benjamin, _A North Side View of Slavery_ , n33\n\nDu Bois, W. E. B., _The Souls of Black Folk_ ,\n\nDuck, Leigh Anne,\n\nDuke, David,\n\nDunbar, Paul Laurence: _Folks from Dixie_ ,\n\n\"Nelse Hatton's Vengeance,\" ,\n\nDupre, Karen, \"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201317\n\nDyer Anti-Lynching Bill,\n\nDyke, Larry, \"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201317\n\nEastman, Mary Henderson, _Aunt Phyllis's Cabin_ , \u201393, n35\n\nEdelstein, Tilden G., n33\n\nEgerton, Douglas, n15\n\nEgerton, John,\n\n_Southern Food_ , \u201310\n\nEhringer, Britt, \"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201320\n\nElias, Amy,\n\nEmanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, ,\n\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo,\n\nemigration, ,\n\n\"En Avant\" (article), ,\n\n_Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ , ,\n\nEsso Standard Oil Company,\n\nethics of hospitality: in antislavery texts, \u201347, \u201388, \u201361\n\nand Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\nand Christianity, \u201356\n\nDerrida on, \u201322,\n\nand globalization,\n\nand immigration, \u201318\n\nand Kant, \u201372, n31\n\nand memory, , \u201318, \u201323, ,\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376\n\nmodern dilemmas in,\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts,\n\nand pro-slavery texts, \u201390\n\nand segregation, , ,\n\nand slavery, , ,\n\nin Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ ,\n\nWoolson on, . _See also_ politics of hospitality\n\nethics of memory, \u201318, \u201323, , . _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\n_ethnos_ and _demos_ concepts (Benhabib), \u201317\n\netiquette: books on, , \u201353, \u201360, , , \u201329n23, n19\n\nand Christianity, , n24\n\nand consumerism, \u201359\n\nand education, n17\n\nand Jim Crow,\n\nand politics of hospitality,\n\nEuropean-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), \u201379\n\nEuropean revolutions,\n\nexceptionalism, southern: background of, \u20134,\n\ndefense of,\n\nGreeson on, n20\n\nand integration,\n\nand northerners,\n\nrace and racism within,\n\nand regional reconciliation, \u201333\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ ,\n\nexclusionary politics, , , , , , . _See also_ politics of hospitality\n\nFarnham, Christie Anne, n17\n\nFaulkner, William, _Absalom, Absalom!_ ,\n\nFederal Writers' Project (WPA),\n\nFitzhugh, George, _Sociology for the South_ , n33\n\nFood Network,\n\nfoodways, \u201310\n\nFoote, Henry, \u201327\n\nforeigners. _See_ strangers and foreigners\n\n_Forest and Stream_ (journal),\n\nforgetting: active forgetting,\n\nand Adams's treatment of Jehu Jones Sr.,\n\nand aristocratic hospitality,\n\nand collective identity, \u201324\n\nand cultural memory, \u201318\n\nand remembering, , ,\n\nRicoeur on, , \u201347\n\nand segregation,\n\nand slavery, \u20136\n\nand trauma, n13. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\nForsyth, Pauline, \"Sketches of Southern Life,\" n3\n\nFoster, A., \u201341\n\n\"Visit to a Southern Plantation,\" \u201337\n\nFourteenth Amendment, n49\n\nFox, William, _Christian Morality_ , \u201368\n\n\"Mental Hospitality,\" \u201368\n\nFox-Genovese, Elizabeth, _The Mind of the Master Class_ , \u201347\n\nfreed slaves, , , \u201343, \u201352. _See also_ slavery\n\nFreud, Sigmund, , n38, n40\n\nFriedman, David,\n\n_Friend_ ,\n\nFrost, Sarah Annie (S. A. Shields), _Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society_ , n16\n\nFrothingham, Octavius Brooks, \"Christian Hospitality,\" \u201370, n44\n\nFugitive Slave Law of 1793, , n1\n\nFugitive Slave Law of 1850: and abolitionism, \u201384, , , n9\n\nand antislavery texts, \u201388, \u2013103,\n\nBrown and Douglass on, \u2013103\n\ndebate about, compared to immigration debate, , \u201318\n\ndefined, ,\n\nand domestic social space, \u201384\n\nand Hale's _Liberia_ , \u20136\n\nKeller on, n4\n\nand Kossuth, \u201323, ;\n\nand northerners, \u201384, \u201397\n\npolitics of, \u201379, nn6\u20137\n\nand pro-slavery texts, \u201397\n\nfugitive slaves, , , , , \u201329. _See also_ slavery\n\n\"Fugitive Slave to the Christian, The\" (poem),\n\nFulton County Commission,\n\nGaribaldi, Giuseppe, \u201320\n\nGarrison, William Lloyd, \u201338, , n44\n\n_Letter to Kossuth concerning Freedom and Slavery in the United States_ ,\n\nGarrisonian abolitionism,\n\ngender: and feminine identity, \u201382, \u201394, \u201397\n\nhierarchies of, ,\n\nand honor,\n\npictorial representations of, \u201319, \u201367\n\npolitics of,\n\nand racial identity, \u201394\n\nand southern womanhood, , \u201348n28\n\nGenovese, Eugene, _The Mind of the Master_\n\n_Class_ , \u201347\n\ngift exchanges, \u201333, \u201337, . _See also_\n\nplanter class\n\nGilded Age,\n\nGlass, Eddie, \"Southern Hospitality,\"\n\n_Gleason's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion_ , \"Kossuth,\" n37\n\nglobalization, , , \u201394, n26, n43\n\nGoddard, Frederick B., _Where to Emigrate and Why_ ,\n\n_Godey's Magazine and Lady's Book_ , \u201351, , \u201367, , n2, n16\n\n_Gone with the Wind_ (novel and film), , n21\n\nGoodman, Andrew,  goodwill. _See_ benevolence\n\nGraves, John Temple, , nn27\u201328\n\nGray, Richard,\n\n_South to a New Place_ , \u201311\n\nGreat Britain,\n\nGreat Migration,\n\nGreen, Victor H., _The Negro Motorist Green_\n\n_Book_ , \u201390\n\nGreenburg, Kenneth, \u201334\n\nGreenspan, Ezra,\n\nGreeson, Jennifer, , n20, n28, n51\n\nGriffin, Larry J.,  group identities,\n\nguests and hosts: and abolition hospitality, , \u2013100\n\nand complicity with slavery, \u201344, \u201367\n\nDerrida on, \u201321\n\nin Eastman's _Aunt Phyllis's Cabin_ , \u201393\n\nand ethics of hospitality, \u201318\n\nand etiquette, \u201360\n\nand Kant, \u201372\n\nKossuth as \"guest of the nation,\" , , \u201327\n\nand leisure, , \u201394\n\nLot's \"sacred guests,\"\n\nand regional reconciliation,\n\nright of the host, ,\n\nand social capital, \u201337, \u201342\n\nThoreau on, . _See also_ Christianity\n\nHale, Edward Everett, \"Christian Duty to Emigrants,\" \u201329\n\nHale, Grace Elizabeth, , , n37\n\n_Making Whiteness_ , n4, n5\n\nHale, John Parker, \u201326\n\nHale, Sarah Josepha: _Liberia, or Mr. Peyton's Experiment_ , \u20136, n3\n\n_Manners_ , n5\n\n_Northwood_ , n3\n\nHaley, Nikki,\n\nHamer, Philip M., n28\n\nHammon, Micky,\n\nHammond, Fred L.,\n\nHammond, James Henry, \u201334,\n\n\"Letters on Slavery,\" n20\n\nHampton, Wade,\n\nHardy, Duffus, _Down South_ , n31\n\nHarness, A. C., _The Great Trial_ , n9\n\n_Harper's_ , n39\n\nHarris, Joel Chandler, n39\n\nHartley, Florence, _The Ladies Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness_ ,\n\nHemphill, C. Dallett, n21\n\nHentz, Caroline Lee, n40\n\n_The Planter's Northern Bride_ , \u201397, n42, nn44\u201345\n\nheritage tourism, , , , \u201385, , n34. _See also_ race and racism; tourism\n\nHermes [pseud.], n8\n\n\"Science of Hospitality,\" \u201354, ,\n\nHiggs, Lawton,\n\nHinrichsen, Lisa, _Possessing the Past_ , n40\n\n\"Hints for Our Native Southerners: What They Should Do before the Winter Tourist Comes,\" \u201383\n\nHoar, Samuel, \u20139, n22\n\nHodgson, Telfair,\n\n\"A Sermon in Behalf of Southern Sufferers,\" \u201331\n\nHonig, Bonnie,\n\n_Democracy and the Foreigner_ ,\n\nhonor, , \u201335, , , \u201363, \u201312, n20\n\nHorowitz, Tony, \"Untrue Confessions,\" \u201357n48\n\nhospitality. _See_ Derrida, Jacques; ethics of hospitality; politics of hospitality; southern hospitality; _specific types of hospitality_\n\nHospitality Association of South Carolina,\n\nhospitality industries. _See_ tourism\n\nhostility: and Adams' _Manuel Pereira_ ,\n\nDerrida on,\n\nironic resignification of, \u201375\n\ntoward Kossuth,\n\nbetween North and South,\n\nrace and racism, , \u2013101, \u201367, \u201388\n\nand violence,\n\nhosts. _See_ guests and hosts\n\nHowells, William Dean,\n\nHundley, Daniel R., _Social Relations in Our Southern States_ , \u201325n9\n\nHungary, \u201323, n51\n\nHurd, Cynthia Marie Graham,\n\nidentity: class, , ,\n\ncollective, ;\n\nconstructed,\n\nand consumerism, , ,\n\ncontinuity of, \u201394\n\nand cosmopolitanism, \u20133, ,\n\ncultural, , , ,\n\nDerrida on, \u201321\n\nLang on, \u201394\n\nmarketable, , ,\n\nand memory, , , , , \u20136\n\nperformed, , , n11\n\npersonal, ,\n\npolitics of, , \u201352n57\n\nrace and racism, \u20133, \u201364\n\nand Reconstruction,\n\nregional, , , \u201313, \u201361, \u201335, , \u201393\n\ntransregional, \u201396\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , \u201362. _See also_ national identity; racial identity; southern identity\n\nimaginary communities, \u201395, n9. _See also_ southern identity\n\nImboden, J. D.,\n\nimmigration, , , , \u201318, n11, n22, nn23\u201324\n\nindividual memory, , \u20134, n37. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\ninequality. _See_ race and racism\n\ninstitutionalized racism, , \u20137\n\nIsaac, Rhys, _The Transformation of Virginia_ , , ,\n\nJackson, Jay, _Bungleton Green_ (comic strip), \u201387\n\nJackson, Susie,\n\nJefferson, Thomas, , \u201321n15\n\nJeffrey, Julie Roy, n6, n9\n\nJim Crow laws, , , , , \u201390, ,\n\nJones, Charles H., _Appleton's Handbook of American Travel_ , n19\n\nJones, Dwight C.,\n\nJones, Jehu, Jr. and Sr., \u201315, n27\n\njustice, norms of, \u201311\n\nKansas-Nebraska Act, n33\n\nKant, Immanuel, , , , n26\n\n_Perpetual Peace_ , \u201372, , n31\n\nKaplan, Amy, n7\n\nKasson, John F., n21\n\nKaufman, Theodor, \"Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law,\" \u201381\n\nKeller, Ralph A., n4\n\nKing, Martin Luther, Jr., , , ,\n\nKing, Nicole,\n\nKirkland, C. M., \"A Chapter on Hospitality,\"\n\nKomlos, John, _Louis Kossuth in America_ , n51\n\nKossuth, Louis, , , \u201329, nn30\u201332, nn37\u201338, nn51\u201352, n54\n\nKreyling, Michael,\n\nKu Klux Klan, , , , n53\n\nLadd, Dr., \"Sketch of the Character,\" \u201326n22\n\nLafayette, Marquis de, \u201319\n\nLance, Ethel Lee,\n\nLang, Rebecca, _Southern Entertaining for a New Generation_ , \u201394\n\nLassiter, Matthew D., _The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism_ , \u20134\n\nLedyard, Catherine, \"Kossuth\" (poem),\n\nLehuu, Isabelle, n6\n\n\"lenticular logic\" (McPherson), . _See also_ race and racism\n\nLevinas, Emmanuel,\n\nLewis, Herschell Gordon, _Blood Feast_ (film),\n\nLiang, Kevin, n24\n\n\"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201316\n\n_Liberator, The_ , , , \u201371, , n7. _See also_ antislavery texts\n\nLiberia, , \u20136, n7, n3, n27\n\n_Liberty Almanac for 1852_ , \u201383\n\n_Life_ , \u20139, \u201383\n\nlifestyle industries, , , , \u201393. _See also_ tourism\n\nLincoln, Abraham, \u201334\n\nLippincott, Grambo & Co., , n34, n18\n\n_Lippincott's Magazine of Literature, Science, and Education_ , n18\n\nlocal color writing, \u201350, , \u201347n18\n\nLogue, John, n63\n\n_Life at Southern Living_ , \u201398\n\nLord, John C.,\n\nLost Cause ideology, , \u201346, \u201352, , ,\n\nLot's \"sacred guests,\"\n\nLoughran, Trish, _The Republic in Print_ , \u201313\n\nLowell (Mass.), \u201376, n50\n\nlynchings, , , , , n7, \u201344n5, n7\n\nMaddex, Jack P., Jr., _Reconstruction of Edward A. Pollard_ , n26\n\nMallard, Robert,\n\nmanners. _See_ etiquette\n\nMardi Gras, \u201351\n\n_Massachusetts Magazine_ , n22\n\nMauss, Marcel, _The Gift_ , \u201333\n\nMcCalla, Gary, n63\n\n_Life at Southern Living_ , \u201398\n\nMcElwin, Henry, _Travels in the South_ , n36\n\nMcKivigan, John R., n17\n\nMcNulty, Tracy, \u201352, \u201322n26\n\nMcPherson, Tara, ,\n\n_Reconstructing Dixie_ ,\n\nmelancholia, , , , , n38. _See also_ mourning; nostalgia\n\nMemorial Day, , n15\n\nmemorialization groups,\n\nmental hospitality, \u201376, \u201310,\n\nMethodist Anti-Slavery Convention,\n\n\"Report of the Committee on Slavery,\" n38\n\nMiddleton-Doctor, Depayne,\n\nMinor, Lucian, \u201344, \u201358,\n\n\"Letters from New England,\" \u201335, \u201341, , n7\n\n\"Mississippi Burning\" code,\n\n_Mississippi Free Trader_ ,\n\nMitchell, Laura I., n27\n\nModlin, E. Arnold, Jr.,\n\nMoli\u00e8re, _Amphytrion_ ,\n\nMontgomery White Sulphur Springs, , n30\n\nMonticello, , \u201321n15\n\nmoral fiction. _See_ Wright, Julia McNair\n\n\"Mother Emmanuel\" AME church, ,\n\nmourning, , , , , n38. _See also_ melancholia; nostalgia\n\nNAACP, , \u201380, , , \u201316\n\n_National Enquirer_ ,\n\n_National Era_ , , , n37\n\nnational identity, \u201313, , , , \u20136, \u201319, \u201333\n\nnational reconciliation, , \u201329, \u201333, \u201341, , \u201352. _See also_ sectionalism\n\nNational Temperance Society,\n\nNat Turner\/1831 Southampton Insurrection Trail,\n\nNegro Affairs Project (WPA),\n\n\"Negro question,\" debates about, \u2013153, n53\n\nNegro Seamen Acts, , \u201317, , n9, n22\n\nNew England Anti-Slavery Society, ,\n\nNew Jersey,\n\nNew South, \u201353, , \u201384\n\n_New York Daily Times_ , , n38\n\n_New Yorker_ , \u201357n48\n\n_New York Independent_ , n17\n\n_New-York Mirror_ , , n14\n\n_New York Times_ , , , , , n9, n17\n\nNorfolk Industrial Park,\n\nNorth Carolina, , \u201365, , , , , nn32\u201333\n\nnortherners: and emigration and immigration,\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201384, \u201397\n\nhospitality of, \u201329,\n\nidea of southern hospitality, , ,\n\nand industrialization, , , nn50\u201351\n\nand Kossuth, , \u201319, n51\n\npostbellum attitudes, \u201343\n\nand Redpath, \u201346, n17\n\nand the right to hospitality,\n\nand slavery, \u201343,\n\nand southern exceptionalism,\n\nstereotypes of,\n\nand _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201376\n\nas visitors to the South, \u201337, \u201393, , \u201383, n23. _See also_ southern identity\n\nnostalgia: and aristocratic hospitality, , ,\n\nand heritage tourism, , \u201385, , n34\n\nindustry of,\n\nand Lost Cause ideology, ,\n\nand melancholia,\n\nfor the \"Old South,\" \u201351\n\nand plantation literature, , \u201360\n\nand race, , \u201353, \u201383\n\nand romance, ,\n\nand slavery, \u201356. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\nnullification crisis,\n\nNunn, Alexander,\n\nNute, Cherrie, \"Southern Hospitality,\"\n\nO'Brien, Michael, , n19\n\n_Conjectures of Order_ , \u201361\n\nOdum Institute for Research in Social Science,\n\nOld South. _See_ antebellum hospitality\n\nOnesimus, \u201379, n23. _See also_ slavery\n\nPage, Thomas Nelson, , , n39, nn41\u201342, nn45\u201346\n\n\"The Negro Question\" (polemic),\n\n_The Old South_ ,\n\n\"The Old South,\" n47\n\n_Social Life in Old Virginia before the War_ , \u201360\n\nPatrick, Melissa Self,\n\nPaul (apostle): letter to Philemon, , \u201379, , n23\n\nletter to the Hebrews, \u201371, n40\n\nperformed identity, , , n11\n\nPhilemon, , \u201379, , n23. _See also_ slavery\n\npineapple symbol, , , , , n23\n\nPinkney, Clementa C.,\n\nPitzer, Amy, _Southern Hospitality Cookbook_ , n52\n\nplantation homes: economic development of, \u201346\n\nand exclusionary politics,\n\nas extension of self,\n\nand the origins of hospitality, ,\n\nrepresentations of, \u201318, , , \u201338n50\n\nplantation literature, \u201333, \u201348, \u201360, , n39\n\nplanter class: aristocratic hospitality of, , , \u201365,\n\nin Butt's _Anti-Fanaticism_ , \u201391\n\nand conspicuous consumption, ,\n\nin Fox-Genovese and Genovese's _Mind of the Master Class_ , \u201346\n\nin Hentz's _Planter's Northern Bride_ , \u201397\n\nPage on, n46\n\npostbellum, \u201348, n36\n\nand slavery, , n16\n\nand social capital, \u201337, \u201342, , \u201370\n\nsocial practices of, , , \u201333, \u201337, \u201341\n\n_Plessy v. Ferguson_ , , n57\n\nPoe, Edgar Allan, , n7\n\npoliteness, , , , . _See also_ etiquette\n\npolitical broadsides and cartoons, \u201381, , \u201377\n\npolitics: avoidance of, , , \u201397\n\ncultural,\n\nof disruption (Hale),\n\nvs. ethics, , , \u201318\n\nexclusionary, , , , , ,\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201379\n\nof gender,\n\nof identity,\n\nnational, \u201316,\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, \u201316\n\nand sectionalism, \u201327. _See also_ racial politics\n\npolitics of hospitality: and Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\ndefinition and treatment of strangers and foreigners, ,\n\nDerrida on, \u201322, , \u201356,\n\nand etiquette,\n\nand Hentz's _Planter's Northern Bride_ , \u201397\n\nand immigration, \u201318\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, \u201316\n\npost\u2013civil rights,\n\nand sovereignty,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , \u201364\n\nand Woolson's \"Southern Sketches,\" \u201343. _See also_ ethics of hospitality\n\nPolk, Leonidas L.,\n\nPollard, Edward A., \u201350, , , n23, n26, nn19\u201320\n\n_The Lost Cause_ ,\n\n_The Lost Cause Regained_ , \u201346\n\n_The Virginia Tourist_ , \u201348, \u201347n18\n\npostbellum hospitality: and Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\nand Cowan's _New Invasion of the South_ , \u201352\n\nand domesticity, \u201336\n\nand emancipation, \u201334\n\nand northerners, \u201343\n\nand plantation literature, \u201360\n\nand Pollard's _Virginia Tourist_ , \u201348\n\nand Reconstruction, \u201333\n\nand Woolson's \"Southern Sketches,\" \u201343\n\nand Wright's _Cabin in the Brush_ , \u201339. _See also_ antebellum hospitality\n\nPresbyterian Board of Publications,\n\nPrince, K. Stephen, n39\n\n_Stories of the South_ , n4\n\nprint culture, \u201313\n\nProcrustes, \u201364\n\n_Progressive Farmer_ (magazine), \u201398\n\npropaganda, \u201343, , , n6\n\npro-slavery texts, \u201351, \u201397, \u20136, , \u201348, n34, nn43\u201344\n\nProsser, Gabriel, n15\n\npublic memory, , \u201380. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\nrace and racism: and the absolute stranger,\n\nand antirendition literature, \u201385\n\nBrown and Douglass on, \u2013103\n\nand cosmopolitanism, \u201313\n\nand Green's _The Negro Motorist Green Book_ , \u201389\n\nand Hale's _Liberia_ , \u20136\n\nand Hentz's _Planter's Northern Bride_ , \u201396\n\nhierarchies of, , , ,\n\nhistory of, \u20134\n\nand hostility, , \u2013101, \u201367, \u201388\n\nand identity, \u20133, \u201364\n\nand immigration, , \u201316\n\ninstitutionalized racism, , \u20137\n\nand \"lenticular logic\" (McPherson),\n\nand memory, , ,\n\nand mental hospitality,\n\nmodern struggles, , , \u201399,\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, \u201316\n\nand nostalgia, , \u201353, \u201383\n\npersistence of, within southern hospitality myth, ,\n\nand postbellum narratives, , \u201345, \u201350, \u201367, \u201346n15\n\nregressive and progressive ideologies of, \u20138,\n\nand shared heritage,\n\nand southern exceptionalism,\n\nand southern foodways, \u201310\n\nand sovereignty,\n\nand tourism, \u201391, n58\n\nand _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201374\n\nand violence, \u201323, \u201333, \u201339, , , \u201376,\n\nand whiteness, \u20133. _See also_ racial politics; segregation\n\nracial identity: affirmation of,\n\nand the color line, , \u201364, \u201352n57\n\nand \"country cosmopolitanism\" (Robinson), n11\n\nand cultural memory,\n\nand gender, \u201394\n\nand immigration,\n\nloss of, ,\n\nand sectionalism,\n\nand segregation, ,\n\nand slavery,\n\nand _Southern Living_ , ,\n\nin Wright's _Cabin in the Brush_ ,\n\nracial politics: avoidance of,\n\ngrassroots efforts, \u201318\n\nand Lost Cause ideology,\n\nand memory, , ,\n\nPage on, \u2013\n\nPollard on,\n\nand Reconstruction, \u201338, , \u201352\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u201397,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , . _See also_ politics\n\nRaines, Howell,\n\nRamsey, Calvin Alexander: _The Green Book_ (play), \u201391\n\n_Ruth and the Green Book_ , \u201391,\n\nRandolph, Mary, _The Virginia Housewife_ , n83\n\nReconstruction: and Christianity, \u201339\n\nand collective memory,\n\nand national domestic space,\n\nand persistence of southern hospitality myth, ,\n\nand Pollard's _Virginia Tourist_ , \u201348\n\nand postbellum hospitality, \u201333;\n\nand racial politics, \u201338, , \u201352\n\nand segregation post-Reconstruction, , \u201351\n\nand usage of term \"southern hospitality,\"\n\nwomen writers during, \u201343. _See also_ sectionalism\n\nRedpath, James, \u201346, n17\n\n_Roving Editor_ ,\n\n_Southern Notes_ , n45\n\nReed, John Shelton,\n\nrefuge\/refugee, , , , \u201339,\n\nregional identity, , \u201313, \u201361, \u201335, , \u201393. _See also_ identity; northerners; southern identity\n\nregional reconciliation, , , \u201333, \u201341, \u201348, , n39. _See also_ sectionalism\n\nreligion. _See_ Christianity\n\nrepetition: in Beecher's sermon,\n\nand collective memory (Ricoeur), n38\n\nthrough discourse, , ,\n\nand identity,\n\nof melancholia,\n\nnaturalizing southern hospitality, \u201370\n\npatterns of, , ,\n\nin pictorial images, ,\n\nand southern hospitality, , \u201370\n\n_Repository & Observer_,\n\nrepression: and active forgetting,\n\nand collective memory, \u201324\n\nof melancholia,\n\npatterns of, , , , ,\n\nand segregation,\n\nand _Southern Living_ ,\n\nand violence,\n\nrepublican hospitality, \u201325, \u201354, \u201361, . _See also_ aristocratic hospitality; class\n\nRich, Kerry,\n\nRicoeur, Paul: and ethics of memory, , n46\n\nand forgetting, \u201347\n\non melancholia and mourning, , n38\n\n_Memory, History, Forgetting_ , \u201323n37, n38\n\nand personal memory,\n\n\"telling otherwise\" concept of, , , n46. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory\n\nRoberts, Diane, , n64, n69\n\nRoberts, Timothy Mason, \u201328, \u201343n52\n\nRobinson, Zandria F., n11\n\nRomine, Scott, , , \u201310\n\nRosello, Mireille, , n13\n\nRosewood massacre, , \u201356n32\n\nRutledge, Sarah, _House and Home_ , n83\n\nRyan, Susan M., n54\n\nSanders, Mark,\n\nSanders, Tywanza,\n\n_Saturday Evening Post_ , n27\n\nSchwerner, Michael,\n\nScott, Sir Walter, _Rob Roy_ ,\n\nsecession, ,\n\nsectionalism: and antebellum hospitality, \u201338, \u201351, \u201352\n\nand antislavery texts,\n\nbackground, \u201349\n\nand collective memory, \u201324\n\nand the Compromise of 1850,\n\nand Kossuth, , \u201327, n38\n\nLincoln on, \u201334\n\nand mental hospitality,\n\nand persistence of southern hospitality myth, , \u20138\n\nand prejudices, \u201342\n\nand racial identity,\n\nand racial politics, ,\n\nand regional identity, \u201335\n\nand regional reconciliation, ,\n\nand slavery, , \u201379, ,\n\nand sovereignty, . _See also_ Reconstruction\n\nsegregation: and African American travelers, \u201391\n\nand Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\nand collective memory,\n\nand consumerism, , n37\n\nDeen's experiences of, \u20135\n\nelimination of, , ,\n\nand ethics of hospitality, , ,\n\nand Lost Cause ideology,\n\nnaturalizing of, ,\n\nand persistence of southern hospitality myth, ,\n\nand plantation literature,\n\npostReconstruction, , ,\n\nprogressive critiques of,\n\nand racial identity,\n\nand racial violence, ,\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u201398\n\nand white supremacy,\n\nSeidel, Kathryn, n45\n\nSeiler, Cotten, _Republic of Drivers_ ,\n\nSeventy-First New York National Guard, \u201349\n\nSevernsen, Kim,\n\nSeward, William, \u201380, ,\n\nshock films, \u201376\n\nshoddyism (Pollard), \u201347\n\nSilber, Nina, , , n4, n10, n20\n\nSimmons, Daniel,\n\nSixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.),\n\nslavery: and antebellum hospitality, \u201310, \u201344, \u201351\n\nand Brown's _American Fugitive in Europe_ , \u2013100\n\nand Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\nand citizenship,\n\ncomplicity with, \u201344, \u201367\n\ndebate over, , \u201379, , \u201329\n\nand ethics of hospitality, , ,\n\nand exclusionary politics,\n\nand foodways, \u201310\n\nand forgetting, \u20136\n\nfugitive slaves, , , , , \u201329\n\nand heritage tourism,\n\nand honor, \u201335\n\nand Kossuth,\n\nand memory, \u201318, , \u201376, ,\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201376\n\nMinor on, \u201330, \u201339, \u201358\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, \u201317\n\nand northerners, \u201344,\n\nand persistence of southern hospitality myth, ,\n\nand plantation literature, \u201358\n\nand the planter class, , n16\n\nand sectionalism, , \u201379, ,\n\nand service laborers, \u201313\n\nand _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ ,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ , \u201365. _See also_ antislavery texts\n\nFugitive Slave Law of 1850\n\nrace and racism\n\nsocial capital, \u201337, \u201342, , \u201370. _See also_ tourism\n\n\"social reconstruction\" (Pollard), \u201348\n\nSodom, \u201356,\n\nSons of Confederate Veterans,\n\nSouthampton County (Va.) Historical Society,\n\nSouth Carolina, , , \u201317, \u201385, \u201313\n\nSouthern Baptist Convention, , n22\n\nSouthern Focus Poll, , ,\n\nSouthern Foodways Alliance, \u201310, \u201360n86\n\nsouthern honor. _See_ honor\n\nsouthern hospitality: African American critiques of, \u201363\n\nand the African American traveler, \u201391\n\nalternative narratives of, \u201319, \u201391\n\nBrown and Douglass on, \u2013103\n\nand Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ , \u201367\n\nand Christianity, \u201318\n\ncommercialization of, \u201312\n\ncommodification of,\n\nand Cowan's _New Invasion of the South_ , \u201352\n\nand Deen, \u2013208\n\ndefining identity, \u20138\n\nand Derrida, \u201322\n\nhistorical view of, \u201328\n\nand Hodgson's sermon, \u201331\n\nand immigration, \u201318\n\nironic resignification of, \u201378\n\nand lifestyle industries, \u2013200\n\nmodern proliferation of, \u201378\n\nand modern tourism, \u201385\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts, \u201317\n\npersuasive powers of, , , , , , n38\n\npictorial representations of, \u201320\n\npineapple as symbol of, \u201318,\n\nand plantation literature, \u201360\n\nPollard on, \u201348\n\nin a postbellum world, \u201333\n\nand southern foodways, \u201310\n\nThoreau on, \u20139\n\nand transregional identity, \u201397\n\nand _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201378\n\nusage of term, \u201313, n19\n\nand Woolson's \"Southern Sketches,\" \u201340\n\nZinn on, . _See also_ antebellum hospitality; postbellum hospitality\n\n\"Southern Hospitality Experience\" program,\n\nsouthern identity: branding of, , \u201371, ,\n\nconstructed identity, ,\n\ncontinuity of, \u201394\n\ncontradictions in, \u201362,\n\nand cultural memory, , , ,\n\nexclusionary,\n\nand food, \u201310\n\nand Gray's \"southern self-fashioning,\" \u201311\n\npictorial representations of, \u201320\n\nprocess of defining, \u20138, \u201313, \u201394\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u2013200\n\n\"symbolic southernness\" (Griffin and Thomas),\n\nand whiteness, , \u201363. _See also_ northerners\n\nSouthern Lady archetype, \u201357, n83. _See also_ domesticity\n\n_Southern Literary Journal_ , n22\n\n_Southern Literary Messenger_ , \u201330, , \u201320, , n7\n\n_Southern Living_ , , , , , \u2013200, nn63\u201364, n86\n\nSouthern Poverty Law Center, , , n3\n\n_Southern Quarterly Review_ , n54\n\nsovereignty, \u201339, \u201370, , , \u201316\n\n\"spectacle lynching\" (Hale), , n5, \u201354n7\n\nSpencer, Donald S., , n30\n\nStearns, Jonathan,\n\nstereotypes: of African Americans, , \u201383, n37\n\nantebellum, \u201351\n\nof Kossuth,\n\nof northerners,\n\nof slaves,\n\nof the South, , , n1\n\n_St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ ,\n\nStowe, Harriet Beecher, , n40, n42\n\n_The American Woman's Home_ , \u201360\n\n\"The Freeman's Dream,\" \u201387\n\n_Uncle Tom's Cabin_ , , \u201388, , , n46, n56\n\nStowe, Steven M.,\n\nstrangers and foreigners: and abolition hospitality, \u201376, \u2013100\n\nabsolute, \u20135\n\nAfrican Americans as, , \u20135, , \u201333,\n\nand Butt's _Anti-Fanaticism_ , \u201391\n\nand Chesnutt's _House behind the Cedars_ , \u201363\n\nand Christianity, \u201356, \u201360, , \u201318\n\nand citizenship,\n\nand cosmopolitanism, ,\n\nDerrida on, \u201321\n\nemigration and immigration,\n\nethical response to, \u201327,\n\nfear of,\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, , ,\n\nin Hale's _Liberia_ , \u20136\n\nand Kossuth, \u201322,\n\nand mental hospitality, \u201370\n\non native land, \u2013101, ,\n\nand the Negro Seamen Acts,\n\nand politics of hospitality, ,\n\nrights of, \u201321\n\nsocial practices involving, \u201332\n\nand Thoreau,\n\nand Wiley's _Roanoke_ ,\n\nand Wright's _Cabin in the Brush_ , \u201337\n\nStrong, T. W., \"The Poor Organ Grinder from Hungary,\"\n\nStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Summer Project of 1964, . _See also_ civil rights movement\n\nTarpley, Frank H., \"Southern Hospitality,\" \u201315\n\nTaylor, Zachary, \u201324\n\nThackeray, William Makepeace,\n\nThompson, Ashley B.,\n\nThompson, Myra,\n\nThoreau, Henry David: \"Civil Disobedience,\" \u201310\n\n_Walden_ , n18\n\ntourism: and African American travelers, \u201391\n\nand Alabama's immigration law,\n\nboycott of, , \u201380,\n\nand branding of identity, , \u201371, ,\n\nheritage, , , , \u201385, , n34\n\nand Pollard's _Virginia Tourist_ , \u201348\n\npostbellum,\n\nrace and racism, \u201391, n58\n\nand segregation, \u201385,\n\nand service laborers, \u201313\n\nSilber on,\n\nstudy of brochures,\n\nin _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201372. _See also_ consumerism; heritage tourism\n\n\"tourist homes,\" \u201390\n\nTower, Philo, _Slavery Unmasked_ ,\n\ntradition: affirmation of, ,\n\nof the antebellum planter class, , \u201347\n\nand aristocratic hospitality,\n\nand cultural memory, ,\n\ndefining culture, \u20136\n\nand foodways, \u201310\n\nand foreignness,\n\nhospitality as, , ,\n\nsecular vs. Christian, \u201353\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u201397\n\nvalues of, \u201354\n\ntransregional identity, , \u201396\n\ntraumatic memory, \u201324, , n13. _See also_ collective memory; cultural memory; forgetting\n\ntravel writing: A. Foster's travel sketches, \u201337, \u201341\n\nBrown and Douglass, \u2013103, n51\n\nand the Fugitive Slave Law, \u201397\n\nand Fox-Genovese and Genovese's _Mind of the Master Class_ , \u201347\n\nand Green's _Negro Motorist Green Book_ , \u201390\n\nand Minor's \"Letters from New England,\" \u201335, \u201341\n\nand nostalgia, \u201352, n39\n\nreinforcing the myth of southern hospitality,\n\nX Y Z's _Letters from the Southwest_ ,\n\nTurner, Nat, \u201338, \u201385, , n7, n15, \u201357n48\n\nTwitty, Michael W., \"Open Letter to Paula Deen,\" \u20138\n\n_2001 Maniacs!_ (film), , n14\n\n_Two Thousand Maniacs!_ (film), , \u201376, nn6\u20137, n12\n\nunderground hospitality networks, \u201391\n\nUnderwood, Joseph, ,\n\nUnited Daughters of the Confederacy, ,\n\nUnited Nations Declaration of Human Rights,\n\nuniversal hospitality, \u201321, , \u201372, \u201310, , n26, n31\n\nUpham, Thomas, \u201388\n\nVesey, Denmark,\n\nVidi, _Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent_ , n43\n\nviolence: in Chesnutt's _Marrow of Tradition_ ,\n\nand the civil rights movement, \u201377,\n\nand collective memory,\n\nand exclusion,\n\nand hostility,\n\nand lynchings, , , , , n7, \u201344n5, n7\n\n\"Mother Emmanuel\" AME church tragedy,\n\nand Nat Turner, \u201338, \u201385, , n7, n15, \u201357n48\n\npolitical, n17, n53\n\nracial, \u201323, \u201333, \u201339, \u201367, \u201376,\n\nRosewood massacre, \u201356n32\n\nin _Two Thousand Maniacs!_ , \u201373\n\nVirginia, , , , \u201348, \u201360, ,\n\nWalker, David, \"An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,\" n23\n\nWallace, George, , , n17\n\nWallace, Lurleen,\n\nWallerstein, Immanuel, , n4\n\nWashington, George, , , n1\n\n_Washington Republic_ , n38\n\nWebster, Daniel, , \u201382, \u201310, ,\n\nWeld, Theodore Dwight, _American Slavery as It Is_ ,\n\nWells, Ida B.,\n\n_Western Recorder_ ,\n\nWhite, Thomas Willis, \u201330, n7\n\nwhite exclusionary myth, , , , , , , . _See also_ exclusionary politics\n\nwhiteness: and antirendition literature, \u201385\n\nand benevolence, \u2013100\n\nand Chesnutt's fiction,\n\nand conspicuous consumption,\n\nand cultural solidarity,\n\nand \"lenticular logic\" (McPherson),\n\nrace and racism, \u20133\n\nand Reconstruction, \u201333\n\nWright on, . _See also_ racial identity\n\nwhite supremacy: and Hammond,\n\nand Lost Cause ideology, , ,\n\n\"Mother Emmanuel\" AME church tragedy, ,\n\nmyth of, \u20136\n\nPage on, \u201360\n\nPollard on, \u201348\n\nin postbellum narratives,\n\nand segregation,\n\nand social capital,\n\nand _Southern Living_ , \u201398\n\nWhitman, Walt: _Leaves of Grass_ ,\n\n\"Song of Myself,\" ,\n\nWhittier, John Greenleaf: \"Kossuth\" (poem), \u201323\n\n_The Stranger in Lowell_ , \u201376, n50\n\nWiencek, Henry, n15\n\nWiley, Calvin Henderson, nn32\u201334\n\n_Roanoke, or, Where Is Utopia?_ , \u201365, , \u201330n31\n\nWilson, Charles Reagan, _New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture_ , n3\n\nWilson, John L., , n27\n\nWilson, Matt, _Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt_ ,\n\nwomanhood, \u201397, , \u201348n28\n\nWong, Edlie, n9\n\n_Neither Fugitive nor Free_ , nn21\u201323\n\nWoodell, Harold, n22\n\nWoolson, Constance Fenimore,\n\n_Rodman the Keeper_ , \u201343, \u201346n15, n12\n\n\"Up the Ashley and Cooper,\" \u201345n10\n\nWright, Julia McNair,\n\n_The Cabin in the Brush_ , \u201339, n8\n\n_The Complete Home_ , \u201353\n\n_Complete Woman's Home_ , \u201335\n\nWright, Richard,\n\nWyatt-Brown, Bertram, \u201333, n20, n25\n\nxenophobia, , n1. _See also_ race and racism; segregation\n\nX Y Z, \"Letters from the Southwest,\" \u201341\n\nZenneck, A., _Murder of Louisiana Sacrificed on the Altar of Radicalism_ ,\n\nZinn, Howard, , \u201339n1\n\n### The New Southern Studies\n\n_The Nation's Region: Southern Modernism, Segregation, and U.S. Nationalism_\n\nby Leigh Anne Duck\n\n_Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta_\n\nby Rich\u00e9 Richardson\n\n_Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World_\n\nby James L. Peacock\n\n_Disturbing Calculations: The Economics of Identity in Postcolonial Southern Literature, 1912\u20132002_\n\nby Melanie R. Benson\n\n_American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary_\n\nedited by Deborah E. Barker and Kathryn McKee\n\n_Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era_\n\nby Arthur Remillard\n\n_Reconstructing the Native South: American Indian Literature and the Lost Cause_\n\nby Melanie Benson Taylor\n\n_Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America_\n\nby Coleman Hutchison\n\n_Reading for the Body: The Recalcitrant Materiality of Southern Fiction, 1893\u20131985_\n\nby Jay Watson\n\n_Latining America: Black-Brown Passages and the Coloring of Latino\/a Studies_\n\nby Claudia Milian\n\n_Finding Purple America: The South and the Future of American Cultural Studies_\n\nby Jon Smith\n\n_The Signifying Eye: Seeing Faulkner's Art_\n\nby Candace Waid\n\n_Sacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways: Travels in Deep Southern Time, Circum-Caribbean Space, Afro-creole Authority_\n\nby Keith Cartwright\n\n_Jim Crow, Literature, and the Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs_\n\nedited by Tess Chakkalakal and Kenneth W. Warren\n\n_Sounding the Color Line: Music and Race in the Southern Imagination_\n\nby Erich Nunn\n\n_Borges's Poe: The Influence and Reinvention of Edgar Allan Poe in Spanish America_\n\nby Emron Esplin\n\n_Eudora Welty's Fiction and Photography: The Body of the Other Woman_\n\nby Harriet Pollack\n\n_Keywords for Southern Studies_\n\nedited by Scott Romine and Jennifer Rae Greeson\n\n_The Southern Hospitality Myth: Ethics, Politics, Race, and American Memory_\n\nby Anthony Szczesiul\n\n_Navigating Souths: Transdisciplinary Explorations of a U.S. Region_\n\nedited by Michele Grigsby Coffey and Jodi Skipper\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}