Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old

Review of “The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant: Halloween Countdown

26) “The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant

Plot:

Clean-shaven M. Bermutier, a judge, talks to a group of people gathered in Paris discussing the Saint-Cloud mystery. The judge notes that the women, shaking and trembling, move closer to him; they are “moved by fear and curiosity, and by the eager and insatiable desire for the horrible, which haunts the soul of every woman.”

Hmm…

Despite rumors to the contrary, the Saint-Cloud mystery involves nothing supernatural, even if it defies explanation. M. Bermutier offers an example of something that he came across some years earlier, when he was a judge at Ajaccio,* “a little white city on the edge of a bay which is surrounded by high mountains.”

An Englishman came to town and kept pretty much to himself, making everyone curious about him. “In my judicial position I thought it necessary to get some information about this man,” the judge says.

Nevertheless, he found it impossible to learn much of anything other than that he called himself Sir John Rowell. M. Bermutier finally made an excuse to make the newcomer’s acquaintance, and the two struck up a friendship. Sir John was a big man, with red hair and beard, very tall and very broad. M. Bermutier calls him “a kind of calm and polite Hercules.”

In discussing all the places and animals he’s hunted, Sir John makes the startling claim, “I have also been man-hunting.”

One day, M. Bermutier saw a mummified hand hanging on the wall: “dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of blood on the bones, which were cut off as clean as though it had been chopped off with an axe, near the middle of the forearm. “

And: “Around the wrist, an enormous iron chain, riveted and soldered to this unclean member, fastened it to the wall by a ring, strong enough to hold an elephant in leash.”

Sir John told him, “That is my best enemy”

Some time later, his maid found Rowell strangled to death.

Thoughts:

This brief tale is unsettling and creepy. The judge tells it as entertainment, dismissing the thought of the supernatural, though the supernatural seems to be the best explanation. Rowell’s death is never resolved. Or is Bermutier just so thick-headed he can’t see the obvious?

Ambiguity runs deeply through the tale; Bermutier shows his audience one thing and tells them another. That frustrates his listeners. Should it frustrate the reader as well?

Or is it a practical joke on the reader? Is de Maupassant tweaking the reader’s nose—for they, like “the women,” can’t help but be horrified and enthralled by the macabre? He tells a tale that delivers on the horrors but refuses a satisfying ending. All is not right with the world after all.

On the other hand (so to speak…) Rowell seems to enjoy killing an awful lot, as if he had nothing better to do with his time than to snuff out the life of various game animals. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for him. Yet did he deserve the violent death? His (French) servant weeps for him, perhaps shocked by the degree of mayhem it took to end his master’s life.

I found this story intriguing, if a bit ghoulish, rather than enjoyable per se.

* The capital of Corsica, a French island in the Mediterranean Sea, and the birthplace of Napoleon.

This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here:

Bio: Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) studied law and served as a private during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), an experience that inspired the short story, “Boule de suif” (“Ball of Fat”) (1880), which people who know such things regard as his best.
Other well-known stories of Maupassant’s include “The Horla” (1886/1887) and “The Necklace” (1884).

In his twenties, Maupassant realized he’d contracted syphilis and spent the rest of his life privately agonizing over his health. His later stories deal with madness. He attempted suicide by slitting his throat in 1892 in the wake of his disabled brother’s death. As a result, he was committed to an asylum, where he died, a month shy of his forty-third birthday.

Title: “The Hand”
Author: Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)
First published: in French in 1883 in Le Gaulois, a rework of an earlier story. “La main d’écorché” (“The Flayed Hand”) published in L’Almanach. First published in English under the title “The Englishman” in a 1903 collection of de Maupassant’s works.
Length: short story

Review of “For the Blood is the Life” by F. Marion Crawford: Halloween Countdown

25) “For the Blood is the Life” by F. Marion Crawford

Plot:

The unnamed narrator of this story owns a sixteenth-century tower on the west coast of Calabria, built to keep off Barbary pirates. The tower stands at the extremity of a curving, rocky promontory that forms a small but safe natural harbor at the southern end of the Gulf of Policastro, just north of Cape Scalea. According to local legend, Cape Scalea is the birthplace of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus of Nazareth with a kiss.

When our hero goes to the tower, he takes a couple of sailors with him, one of whom is a decent cook. When he is away, he leaves it in the charge of a “gnome-like little being who was once a miner.”

Visiting our hero is his friend, Scandinavian artist Holger. Because of the heat, they are dining on the roof. At twilight, Holger notices something in the distance.

“It’s strange,” he says. “Do you see that little mound just on this side of the boulder?”

“Yes,” [the narrator] says and guesses what is coming.

“It looks like a grave,” observes Holger.

“Very true. It does look like a grave.”

“Yes,” continues [the narrator’s] friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. “But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it.”

Holger isn’t content to observe from afar. He walks down and inspects the mound, no longer seeing the body. He walks onto the mound.

Still on the roof, the narrator sees the Thing wrap its arms around Holger’s legs, as if to pull itself up using his body. Holger appears oblivious.

“Come along!” [the narrator] shouts. “Don’t stay there all night!”

Holger comes back. When the two settle in, the narrator tells him the story.

Thoughts:

The long, sad backstory of the vampire involves a love triangle, theft, murder, ill-gotten gains, two innocent people, and the bravery of a man named Antonio and a priest.

This story is not modern in the sense that the action is more in revelation than accomplishment. The horror is genuine. Stakes (heh…) are high for both the vampire and her victim(s).

The setting is different from the usual vampire haunt, though the story still harkens back to the ancient. The vampire is an object not only of horror, but pity.

I can recommend this story for someone looking for a leisurely read.

This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (57:57)

Bio: F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was born in Italy to American parents. His father was the sculptor Thomas Gibson Crawford, who died while the author was a toddler. Crawford’s first novel, Mr. Issacs (1882), depicted Anglo-Indian life with an added touch of Theosophy, perhaps reflecting his time in India studying Sanskrit. It was successful, though today, he is best known for his story “The Upper Berth.

Title: “For the Blood is the Life”
Author: F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909)
First published: Collier’s, December 16, 1905
Length: short story

Review of “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving: Halloween Countdown

24) “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving (as Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.)

Note: The story reviewed is about two hundred years old and contains some racially insensitive and misogynistic language.

Plot:

In 1727, “at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in New England and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees,” Tom Walker, a “miserly fellow,” takes a shortcut through a swamp outside of Boston that most people in his village avoid. The area has history. It was once an Indian fort. On one side of the swamp is a dark grove. On the other, the land rises with large, ancient oaks. Under one of the gigantic oaks, so the story goes, Captain Kidd buried his treasure.

Tom Walker is not bothered by the spot’s bad reputation and sits down to take a breather. He uses his walking stick to probe into a piece of black mold by his feet. The staff strikes something hard; it is a skull with a tomahawk in it.

He kicks it away.

“Let that skull alone!” says a gruff voice.

He sees a “great black man.” After some back and forth, the stranger introduces himself as the Black Woodsman, though he confesses to going by various names. He also points out to Tom that the great oaks around them have the names of “some great men of the colony” scored into them. Additionally, all bear ax marks.

The Black Woodsman offers to make Captain Kidd’s gold available to Tom—for a price…

Thoughts:

This story is one in a series revolving around the idea of “money-diggers.”

A lot of tongue-in-cheek humor is imbued into the tale.

The Black Woodsman/”Old Scratch” never spells out his conditions for revealing the whereabouts of Captain Kidd’s gold, but they “may easily be surmised.” “They must have been very hard, for [Tom] required time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where money was in view.”

Old Scratch wants Tom to use some of his money to work a trade of his choosing. At first, he presses him toward “the black traffic,” that is, the slave trade, but Tom refuses. Hey, he has some principles.

The devil next presses him into becoming a moneylender:

“You shall lend at two percent a month.”

“Egad, I’ll charge four!”

The reader is told, “Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy.”

Tom’s wife is described as a “tall termagant,” who is as miserly as he is. She gives the devil a run for the money. They have a horse, who would sometimes lean his head over the fence and looks “piteously at the passer-by, and seem[s] to petition deliverance from this land of famine.”

The theme of greed runs throughout the tale, but it also satirizes religious “great men.” The tree that Tom sits on bears the name of a recently deceased religious leader, an old buccaneer. The leader is mourned. Old Scratch refers to the tree as “ready for burning.”

The story seems light-hearted, but it also contains casual cruelty. And the bad guy gets his comeuppance.

It inspired such tales as Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1936) and Wilhelm Hauff’s “The Cold Heart” (1827). I can’t help but wonder if maybe it influenced, in a roundabout way, a Charlie Daniels song from a couple of years ago, but that’s a long shot.

In sum, the story has cute moments, but it is not a modern story. I enjoyed it, but again, it has its rough edges.

This story can be read and listened to here: (39:01)

Bio: Washington Irving (1783-1859) initially trained in law by apprenticing in a law office rather than studying at a university. From 1807 to 1808, Irving, his brother, and a friend published a satirical magazine, Salmagundi, in which they referred to New York City as “Gotham” or “goat town.” It was not a compliment, but the name stuck.

Later, he moved to England to take over a failing import-export business from his extended family. After it failed, he published The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., over 1819 and 1820. The Sketchbook contains thirty-four essays and short stories, including Irving’s best-known, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” These two are attributed to the fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker.

Irvine also served as a U.S. Ambassador to Spain and advocated for stronger copyright laws.

Title: “The Devil and Tom Walker”
Author: Washington Irving (1783-1859)
First published: Tales of a Traveler (collection), 1824
Length: short story
Series: The Money-Diggers #3

Review of “The Crime of Micah Rood” by Elia W. Peattie: Halloween Countdown

23) “The Crime of Micah Rood” by Elia W. Peattie

Plot:

In the early 18^th century, in eastern Connecticut near the Shetucket River lived Micah Rood, “a solitary soul,” who “occupied a low, tumble-down house, in which he had seen his sisters and his brothers, his father and mother, die. The mice used the bare floors for a playground; the swallows filled up the unused chimneys; in the cellar, the gophers frolicked, and in the attic, a hundred bats made their home.”

In contrast to his poor housekeeping, his garden flourished, particularly his apple trees. One tree bore amber apples with pure white interiors.

Despite his solitary nature, he liked the local children and often gave them apples from his other trees. The amber apples he sells for “siller” (silver).

On a rainy day in January, a man comes to call with papers, telling Micah he has until the first of May, but no more grace.

In the spring, Geoffry Peterkin, a well-known peddler, makes his way through the village. He stops at Rood’s place to check it out and stays the night. He’s carrying luxury items to sell and gold that customers have paid him with. He seems to know a lot about Rood’s financial situation. He’s doing everything but measuring the windows for new drapes.

Thoughts:

That spring, the amber apple tree blossoms pink. And the apples appear with a red spot in white flesh. In some, the spot is just under the skin. In others, it’s near the center.

Author Peattie is retelling an old New England legend. The apples with the flecks did exist, disappearing sometime in the mid-19^th century. They were known as Micah/Mike Roods, or sometimes just as Roods. The historical Micah Rood was born in 1653 and died in 1728. He was never tried for or convicted of murder.

In some versions of the tale, he hangs himself in the tree under which the remains of the peddler are buried. In others, the peddler is never found, or conversely, found with his skull split open the day after spending the night at Rood’s farm. So, were there some hinky goings-on? Or did the story appear to explain the odd-looking apple? Take your pick.

The author tells her story in ornate nineteenth-century prose, with “thee” and “thou” in the dialogue. However, she sets up a motive for the murder and builds the suspense nicely. Micah’s character changes. The deed haunts him. No ghost appears, but the visual reminder of the altered apples won’t let him escape.

This is a good old-fashioned horror story with a sad ending. I liked it.

This story can be read here:

I could find no readily available audio copy of this story.

Bio: Elia W. Peattie (1862-1935) was a journalist and writer who wrote travel and children’s works but is now best known for her myriad ghost stories. Her husband was also a newspaperman.

Title: “The Crime of Micah Rood”
Author: Elia W. Peattie (1862-1935)
First published: The Cosmopolitan, January 1888
Length: short story

Review of “The Case of Lady Sannox” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Halloween Countdown

22) “The Case of Lady Sannox” by Arthur Conan Doyle

Plot:

Those in the know understand that the married surgeon Douglas Stone and the equally married Lady Sannox were having an affair. That she announced she was taking the veil and would never be seen by the world again got tongues wagging.

Stone’s valet found the brilliant man one morning “with both legs jammed into one side of his breeches and his great brain about as valuable as a cap full of porridge.” He was thirty-nine, so the condition could not be the result of advanced age.

Stone had been a skilled surgeon but also something of a “sensualist.” Lord Sannox had once been something of an actor, but gave that up. He likes to garden.

One evening, when Stone was supposed to meet Lady Sannox, a man came to call and asked him to attend to his wife. The man presented a card naming himself Hamil Ali from Smyrna. As he described it, his wife fell on a poisoned “dagger of the Almohades” and cut her lip. She’s in a coma. The only way to save her life is to remove the damaged part of her lip.

At first, Stone demurred. He had a hot date. But Mr. Ali paid him one hundred pounds in gold. He could use the money to pay off some debts. He gathered some instruments and got in the cab with Mr. Ali.

Thoughts:

No supernatural elements appear in this story, but the horror is in the lengths people will go to exact revenge, a morality tale tinged with orientalism. The ending is a bit of a see-it-coming.

Although Conan Doyle writes in sparse prose, the story itself is nicely atmospheric, producing a sense of dread. It opens with a “notorious” married woman “taking the veil,” not because she’s seen the light or whatever, but for the result that “the world would see her no more.” And a brilliant surgeon’s mind has turned to mush. What happened?

Are the two events related? How are they related?

I imagine most readers will catch on at some point and will scream at Stone, “You damn fool!” But since we already know he’s going to end up with cereal for brains, we know he’s going to go ahead and do the stupid thing anyway.

The story is enjoyable, if brutal. As for recommendation—fair to middling.

This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (25:55)

Bio: Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a British author and physician. He is best known for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes, whose deductive reasoning solved many cases that would otherwise have remained unsolvable. Holmes remains one of the most popular detectives and has become the subject of many books, plays, and movies. Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887. Unlike Holmes, Doyle was a believer in the supernatural. He also wrote some fantasy, such as The Lost World.

Title: “The Case of Lady Sannox”
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
First published: The Idler, November 1893
Length: short story

Review of “The Watcher by the Threshold” by John Buchan: Halloween Countdown

21) “The Watcher by the Threshold” by John Buchan

Plot:

Our hero, Henry, a lawyer, is enjoying some vacation time out shooting (ICK, but yeah) at a friend’s estate when he receives a letter from his cousin, Sibyl, asking him to visit her and her husband in Scotland. She adds a postscript: “For Heaven’s sake, come and see us. Bob is ill, and I am crazy. Don’t bother about bringing doctors. It is not their business.”

As much as he doesn’t want to leave the comforts of the present place, he sees how desperate his cousin is and goes to see them. It is a miserable drive. Henry describes the landscape as dreary and full of “faded gentility.”

To his surprise, he finds his cousin’s husband as cheerful as ever. He looks healthy. Sibyl, on the other hand, has changed. She is pale, her pretty eyes are now mournful, and, in place of her “delightful shyness,” are “the self-confidence and composure of pain.”

Is it perhaps Sibyl who is ill, and not Bob?

At dinner, Bob seems to be unable to recall the recent past. A bust of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian is both a prominent decoration and something of a forbidden topic. Something panics Bob, and Sibyl comforts him, stroking his hair “as one would stroke a frightened horse.”

A few minutes later, Bob picks up the conversation as if nothing happened. Has Sibyl calmed him, or has he forgotten whatever it was that frightened him?

Later, when Bob and Henry withdraw to smoke cigars, Bob refuses to smoke. Sibyl has asked Henry to find out what is bothering Bob; her husband won’t tell her.

Henry tries some tactful inquiry. After some hemming and hawing, Bob says his concern involves, “The devil.”

Thoughts:

This novelette is atmospheric and sad. As much as Henry wishes nothing were wrong with Bob, there is clearly something going on. He refers to the other man as “a commonplace man, with fair talents, a mediocre culture, honest instincts, and the beliefs and incredulities of his class. … He had a kind of dull, bourgeois rationalism, which used to find reasons for all things in heaven and earth.”

Not the kind of person Henry would expect to be subject to hallucinations.

In discussing Justinian at the uncomfortable (to say the least) dinner, Bob says he recalls a story about Justinian selling his soul to the devil for laws. Sibyl tries to tell him to change the subject. A less demure woman would have kicked his shin black and blue.

Henry is concerned about his cousin as well as her husband, but he really wants to be gone.

The ending of the story I read proved unsatisfying. Apparently, it is sometimes anthologized as a fragment with an unsatisfying ending.

There is a reason for that. Apparently, the version I read is truncated. A fuller version, available at the Gutenberg Project (see below), wanders a bit but at least leaves our hero looking less like a jerk.

An unabridged version of the story can be read here:

An unabridged version of the story can be listened to here: (1:47:41)

Bio: John Buchan (1875-1940) was a British statesman, writer, and publisher, best known for his adventure stories. Among his best-known books is Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), which was adapted into the movie of the same name, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He also wrote a biography, Sir Walter Scott (1932). In 1935, he was appointed governor-general of Canada.

Title: “The Watcher by the Threshold”
Author: John Buchan (1875-1940)
First published: The Watcher by the Threshold and Other Stories, 1902
Length: novelette

Review of “Wake Not the Dead” by Ernst Raupach: Halloween Countdown

20) “Wake Not the Dead” by Ernst Raupach (often attributed to Johann Ludwig Tieck)

Plot:

Walter, a powerful lord in Burgundy, marries a beautiful woman named Brunhilda. They are very much in love. Alas! Brunhilda dies, leaving Walter heartbroken. He eventually remarries a wonderful, beautiful woman named Swanhilda. They have two children, a boy and a girl.

But Walter can’t forget Brunhilda. Instead of sleeping next to Swanhilda, he goes to weep by Brunhilda’s grave in the middle of the night.

One night, as he’s weeping over Brunhilda’s grave, he cries aloud, “Wilt thou for ever sleep? wilt thou never more awake, my beloved?” That’s not all he says, of course.

A sorcerer approaches and says he can bring his dead wife back, but there are dangers. He repeats the refrain, warning Walter, “Wake not the dead.”

Walter doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about Swanhilda back home or their children, either. He wants his beloved Brunhilda back.

The sorcerer agrees. After several delays that nearly drive Walter out of his mind, he brings Walter’s beloved Brunhilda back from the dead.

And so, Brunhilda once again walks among the living, almost as if she never died. Now Walter has a bit of a problem on his hands. Two living (kinda) wives? Not really. He sends Swanhilda back to her father. The children stay with him.

Walter and Brunhilda are deliriously in love, just like when they were first married. Well, maybe not exactly like when they were first married. Walter doesn’t even notice that young people keep disappearing around the castle…

Thoughts:

The little tale is deliciously, straight-faced gothic. The affectation of using “thee” and “thou” is a bit much, but it is forgivable for the over-the-top atmosphere the author creates.

The language is evocative, as if this were indeed a play. When the sorcerer brings poor old Brunhilda back from the dead, the reader is told:

“The old man [sorcerer] now drew a circle round the grave, all the while muttering words of enchantment. Immediately the storm began to howl among the tops of the trees; owls flapped their wings, and uttered their low voice of omen; the stars hid their mild, beaming aspect, that they might not behold so unholy and impious a spectacle…”

This is all without the benefit of a Jacob’s ladder or thunder and lightning.

When the vampire Brunhilda seduces children into letting her suck their blood (Lucy Westerna, hold her beer), she induces gentle dreams:

“Then did visions of the most surpassing magnificence attend their dreams: they would fancy themselves in some garden where flowers of every hue rose in rows one above the other, from the humble violet to the tall sunflower, forming a parti-colored broidery of every hue, sloping upwards towards the golden clouds where little angels whose wings sparkled with azure and gold descended to bring them delicious cakes or splendid jewels; or sung to them soothing melodious hymns.”

An ICK warning: Brunhilda eschews drinking blood from the necks of her victims like a respectable vampire, but from their “bosoms.” Even though “bosom” can mean “chest,” it’s still pretty dang icky.

I did not realize until I did some reading on author Ernst Raupach that he lost his first wife a year or so after they were married. She died in childbirth. There is always a danger of psychoanalyzing someone, but perhaps one can see his grief and the letting go in the story.

I liked this story. I’ve come across it in a couple of different anthologies. It’s unapologetically gothic, a warning not to mourn too much, that there is a separation between the living and the dead for a reason, and mostly don’t forsake the living for the dead.

This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (1:39:19)

Bio: Ernst Raupach (1784-1852) was a German dramatist and writer. He was born in Straupitz, Silesia (present-day Strupice, Poland), the son of a village pastor. He studied theology and worked for a while as a tutor in Russia with his older brother, then settled in Berlin, where he wrote plays.

Title: “Wake Not the Dead”
Author: Ernst Raupach (1784-1852) (often attributed in error to Johann Ludwig Tieck)
First published: (German) “Laßt die Todten ruhen!” Minerva: Taschenbuch für das Jahr 1823 (1822); first English translation 1823 in Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations
Length: short story

Review of “Unseen—Un[f]eared” by Francis Stevens: Halloween Countdown

19) “Unseen—Un[f]eared” by Francis Stevens

Before I proceed, I would like to offer a few content warnings, specifically about suicide and some racially and ethnically insensitive elements of the story. About the latter: the narrator is ill and not himself, so it could reflect a paranoid, altered state of mind. Or he may just be a racist snob.

Plot:

Our hero, Blaisdell, tells of meeting his “ever-interesting” friend, Mark Jenkins, by chance at a little Italian restaurant near South Street in a large city. Jenkins is a detective with juicy stories.

When Blaisdell mentions something he saw in the morning papers, Jenkins laughs and says, “Poor old ‘Doc’ Holt! Fascinating old codger.” He also mentions saving a young assistant of Doc’s from a false accusation of poisoning.

“Why are you so sure he couldn’t have been implicated?” Blaisdell asks.

Jenkins shakes his head and says he has his grounds. “But the only reason he was suspected at all is the superstitious dread of these ignorant people around him.” He offers Blaisdell a cigar, which the other man gratefully accepts.

Careful, dude. Those things will kill you, ya know.

Jenkins makes his apologies. He has to leave for another appointment.

Blaisdell stays for a while, then leaves. Outside, the atmosphere feels oppressive. The people he passes on the street seem evil, almost bestial. He soon feels ill and blames the cheap wine they drank with dinner. He decides to tough it out.

Pausing outside a drugstore, he notes a sign:

SEE THE GREAT UNSEEN!
Come in! This Means You!
FREE TO ALL!

Well, why not? The man in charge of the exhibit at first doesn’t seem to see Blaisdell. He’s surprised that anyone wants to see his exhibit, goes back into his apartment ahead of him, and closes the door. Finally, he comes back out and asks Blaisdell if he’s coming or not. Blaisdell follows.

At first, all he gets is an interminable lecture on photography. Then the strange man turns off the lights.

Blaisdell is horrified—terrified at what he sees. He passes out.

When he wakes, the strange man is gone.

Thoughts:

This is a bizarre little tale framed in a detective story. Poor Blaisdell spends a horrifying evening, finally coming to doubt the nature of human beings to the point of convincing himself to do away with himself so he’ll never have to suffer the company of such detestable beings again. He recalls the unrelenting hostility from a passing Italian man who turned to him the evening before. The neighborhood is “unsavory,” full of Jews, Italians, and (in the parlance of the day) “negroes.” All this sets our hero on edge.

Interestingly enough, Blaisdell receives a rational explanation for his adventures, but he and his friend Jenkins agree to destroy the evidence. And questions linger.

The anthology I found this in had a typo in the title and the Table of Contents, titling this story “Unseen—Ungeared.” I wondered about it, since it made no sense. It also posed a challenge when trying to find any information about the story. It is, nevertheless, correctly “Unseen—Unfeared.”

This story was an intriguing little ride. I liked the way it played with reality. None of these positives overcame its negatives for me, however. Unfortunately, it is a product of its time, so it’s difficult to recommend. If going in forewarned, the reader may enjoy the LSD-trip-like little yarn. Or, the reader may wish to avoid the racist crap altogether.

This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (45:11)

Bio: Francis Stevens (legal name Gertrude Mabel Barrows Bennett) (1883-1948) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction short fiction and novels. Most of Bennett’s writing was published between 1917 and 1920. She made her living as a stenographer and turned to writing to supplement her income while caring for her ill, widowed mother. After her mother’s death, she gave up on writing and returned to stenography.

Title: “Unseen—Un[f]eared”
Author: Francis Stevens (legal name Gertrude Mabel Barrows Bennett) (1883-1948)
First published: People’s Favorite Magazine, February 10, 1919
Length: short story

Review of “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” by Clark Ashton Smith: Halloween Countdown

18) “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” by Clark Ashton Smith

Plot:

Satampra Zeiros of Uzuldaroum writes about all that happened to him and his friend and partner, Tirouv Ompallios, in the shrine of Tsathoggua. Satampra and Tirouv live by thieving and adventuring. They’ve enjoyed some glorious times, but right now, they’re down on their luck. They spend their last three pazoors (which could have bought them two loaves of bread) on a bottle of pomegranate wine.

“Is there any reason why you and I, who are brave men and nowise subject to the fears and superstitions of the multitude, should not avail ourselves of the kingly treasure of Commorion?” Satampra asks his friend as the level of the pomegranate wine drifts ever earthward. “A day’s journey from this tiresome town, a pleasant sojourn in the country, an afternoon or forenoon of archaeological research—and who knows what we should find?”

Commorion is the former capital, deserted hundreds of years earlier because the White Sybil of Polarion foretold an undescribed and abominable doom would fall for all mortal beings who should dare to tarry within its environs.

Tirouv agrees to go to Commorion. It’s rumored to lie untouched all this time. Imagine the jewels in the idols of the temples! And who’s to stop them from taking what they want?

They leave, robbing and duping people on the way, because that’s what they do.

The jungle has grown up around the site of the city, adding a sense of gloom, but that doesn’t deter our heroes. They find the city almost perfectly preserved. The first temple they come across differs from the other buildings. It is a shrine of one of the elder gods, Tsathoggua, whom no one worships anymore. The only signs of decay are the several splinters and crumbled places in the lintel along the door.

Our heroes work hard to push the door open, certain to find treasure inside. To their dismay, only a plain brass cauldron and an unadorned statue of the god meet them. There are no jewel-encrusted idols, no piles of gold on the floor.

However, something stirs within the brass cauldron.

Thoughts:

This story is one of two of Smith’s Satampra Zeiros stories and part of his Hyperborea cycle, which combines the Iron Age with a touch of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and a little Cthulhu Mythos thrown in for fun. It comes across as something out of Lord Dunsany’s sword-and-sorcery, with a couple of ne’er-do-well adventurers thieving and running away their way through life before something bites them on the rear end—or, in Satampra’s case, the hand.

The writing is atmospheric. The reader knows immediately that Satampra has lost his right hand and that Tirouv is probably dead. After they leave the highway for the overgrown road to Commorion, it’s like they enter another world. As they walk further into the forest, they lose daylight, and the air grows “fraught with oppressive odors of lush growth and of vegetable corruption.” “Stealthy vipers” glide by at their feet, but there are no birds, only “huge purpureal bats with eyes like tiny rubies” who feast on “poisonous-looking fruits.”

Yet, our heroes, certain there’s a pot of gold just waiting for them, sally forth, not missing a step—regardless of what else they miss.

While the end may not be a surprise, this yarn gives the reader some good old-fashioned horror. The prose might be a little heavy for the modern reader. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. It’s a good little Halloween tale.

I could not find an online version with a secure connection and legible text, but here is an audio version: (31:41)

Bio: Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) was primarily a poet but is now best known for his weird fiction, much of which was published in Weird Tales. His prose tends to be extravagant. His protagonists are often drawn, against their better judgment, toward some dangerous or forbidden object. He also painted and translated works.

Title: “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros”
Author: Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961)
First published: Weird Tales, November 1931
Length: short story

Review of “Spurs” by Todd Robbins: Halloween Countdown

17) “Spurs” by Todd Robbins

Plot:

In early 20^th-century France, Jacques Courbé is a dwarf who performs in Copo’s Circus, riding his “gallant charger”—a dog—St. Eustache, like a knight of old. The crowd laughs and throws orange and banana peels at him, for he is a parody of the circus bareback horse riders.

Only by dreams does Courbé tolerate this job. He sees himself elsewhere, a knight in shining armor winning the hands of fair maidens.

A new bareback rider joins the circus, the tall, beautiful, graceful, and daring Mlle. Jeanne Marie. She and her mare, Sappho, are a delight to watch. Courbé falls in love. He hates her partner, the “swarthy,” herculean Simon Lafleur, with black eyes and hair that glistens “with grease, like the back of Solon, the trained seal.”

St. Eustache, however, dislikes Jeanne Marie from the start. He growls at the sight of her.

Courbé knows his love is hopeless and stays silent until he inherits a country estate from his uncle. His proposal surprises Jeanne Marie, to say the least. He asks if she is laughing at him.

“I am not laughing,” Jeanne Marie managed to say. “You have taken me by surprise. I never thought, I never even guessed—”

“That is well, mademoiselle,” the dwarf broke in. “I do not tolerate laughter. In the arena, I am paid to make laughter; but these others pay to laugh at me. I always make people pay to laugh at me.”

He then promises her the country estate, with servants and a carriage.

Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Jeanne Marie stops laughing. As she later explains to Simon, she won’t actively work to become a widow, but the little guy could have an accident.

At the wedding, Jeanne Marie sets Jacques on her shoulders and carries him out.

Simon says, “You are strong as an ox, and he is only a marmoset; still I will wager a bottle of Burgundy that you set him down by the roadside.”

“I swear that I could carry my little ape from one end of France to the other!” Jeanne Marie says.

Something changes in M. Jacques Courbé.

Thoughts:

This horror story contains no supernatural elements. The author evokes horror through the various sideshow performers, such as “Griffo,” the giraffe boy, or Mlle. Lupa, who has an unsettling liking for meat and resembles a wolf in more than just the physical. “I have a sense of humor and sharp teeth,” she tells the guests at the wedding reception. “Let the erring hand not stray too near!”

However, the true horror lies in how people treat each other. “There can be no genial companionship among great egoists who have drunk too much,” the narrator tells the reader as an introduction to the wedding feast. The horror goes beyond mere squabbling or obnoxious drunks.

It goes without saying that one should always listen to the warnings of one’s animals.

This horror story is not bad, but it is sad. I’m on the fence about recommending it. It is relatively short, so it’s not a big time investment, but it is an unhappy tale.

This story can be read and listened to here: PseudoPod 653: Spurs | PseudoPod (1:04:34)

Bio: Todd Robbins (legal name Clarence Aaron Robbins) (1888-1949) was an American short story writer and novelist of horror and mystery. His 1917 novel The Unholy Three was filmed in silent and sound versions, both times with Lon Chaney (not Lon Chaney, Jr, who played the wolfman). The short story “Spurs” was adapted into the 1932 film Freaks, which later developed a cult following. He lived on the French Riviera and refused to leave during the Nazi occupation. He spent time in a concentration camp.

Title: “Spurs”
Author: Todd Robbins (1888-1949)
First published: Munsey’s Magazine, February 1923
Length: short story