For October 5
Plot:
Aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic, the narrator hears other passengers discuss being (maybe) over the spot where the Lusitania went down, which leads to a discussion of death by drowning and a discussion of ghosts, which in turn leads to laughter.
One passenger, a man from Fall River (MA?), does not laugh, though he denies believing in ghosts. He tells the narrator a story.
Later, topside walking and smoking cigars, the man from Fall River tells the narrator, “So many damn’ strange things happen in life that you can’t account for. You go on laughing at faith healing and dreams and this and that, and then something comes along that you can’t explain.”
Before he launches into his main story, the man from Fall River describes himself as an “outfitter” (he sells men’s clothes?). His favorite author is Ingersoll (presumably Robert G. Ingersoll, “the great agnostic”), so he’s not into woo-woo stuff.
After a tiresome time “before the courts,” he was acquitted and took a vacation in the hills of Vermont.
While walking, and sees a house burn, killing a couple inside. Oddly, the fire is not hot, nor does the smoke choke him. He runs back to the village for help and notices a man he’d seen earlier hanging from a footbridge, toes dangling in the water. When he tries to help him, he clasps at nothing.
Because of his earlier legal troubles, he’s reluctant to make a fuss and asks obliquely about the house on the hill when he returns to his inn.
The innkeeper says there is no house on the hill as he described.
Thoughts:
So, was the unnamed man from Fall River hallucinating? Was he daydreaming? Stressed out after his trial? That would be the most logical explanation.
While perhaps strictly not a ghost story—all parties are alive when the visions occur—it bears the same hallmarks as many ghost stories. It is sad. The actors are trapped by their fate, perhaps even doomed to repeat it. A suicide is involved.
Realizing he could do nothing to prevent the tragedy despite his forewarning haunts the man from Fall River as surely as any ghost.
I liked this little tale, as sad as it was.
Bio: Vincent O’Sullivan (1868-1940) was an American poet, critic, and writer of weird fiction, most notably in the turn-of-the-century Decadent movement. He spent most of his life in Europe, living quite comfortably until the family business went bust.
The text can be read here:
The text can be listened to here: (19:52)
Title: “The Burned House”
Author: Vincent O’Sullivan (1868-1940)
First published: The Century Magazine, October 1916
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 