you could see me, as usual, more clearly than a looking-glass could!
Weeks after the dress ball, there were still no letters from Duponte in reply to mine. I could not abide the slow exchange of mailable communications. Mail could be stolen, or destroyed by accident or mischief. Here I had found the identity of the Dupin of real life, the one person probably in all the known world able to decipher the blank spot of Poe’s last days! I was still only serving Poe as I had promised him. I had reached this far, and should not cede my position through lack of action. I would not wait for
this
to be lost. In June 1851, I made my plans and set off for Paris.
Here I was in a different world. Even the houses seemed to be built from entirely different materials and colors, and to position themselves differently on the wide streets. There was a feeling of secretiveness to Paris, yet everything was open, and existence in Paris was entirely out of doors.
The latest city directories I found upon arriving had no listings for Duponte, and I realized that those I’d consulted in Washington City were a few years out of date. Nor did recent newspaper columns that had previously spoken breathlessly about him have a word to say.
In Paris, the post office delivered the mail directly to the houses of residents—a practice newly begun in some American cities by private arrangement; though in Paris, it was said, its convenience for citizens was less important than the surveillance it provided to the government. It was my hope that the postal officers would not have continued to carry Duponte’s mail to an incorrect address. In another peculiarity of the Parisian rules, I was refused (rigidly and politely, as with everything French) any admittance to the administrators of the post office, where I wanted to ask about Duponte’s present address. I would need to write for permission to the appropriate ministry. Guided in composing this letter by Madame Fouché, my hotel’s proprietress, I sent it by post. (This was another rule, even though the ministry was hardly three streets away!) “You will
certainly
receive a letter of permission within a day or two. It could be quite longer, though,” she added thoughtfully, “if there is an error by some functionary, which is
awfully
common.”
As I waited for any sign of progress in my search for Duponte’s address, I wrote to Hattie. Remembering the pain it had caused me whenever I’d seen her sad, I had been experiencing deep regret that the timing of this endeavor had caused her even the slightest grief. In my letters to Baltimore I promised her as little a delay as possible to our plans and entreated her in the meantime to come to Paris, however short a stay and dull a program my present venture might require. Hattie wrote that nothing would please her more than such a voyage, but she was needed to help care for the two new children recently added to her sisters’ households.
Peter, for his part, wrote a farewell letter explaining that I had ruined my life, and nearly ruined his, by yielding to the decadence and indecency of Europe.
What he must have been imagining! If only he could see how different the reality here in my chambers!
The nightly gaieties of the Parisian summer drifted recklessly through my window, the open-air orchestras and gala dances, the theaters that seated happy audiences by the hundreds. I, by contrast, opened and closed my two chests of drawers and stared at the clock on my room’s mantelpiece—waiting.
One day Madame Fouché came into my room and offered to tie a strip of black crêpe around my arm. Bothered by the interruption to my indolence, I assented.
“My deep condolences,” she said.
“Appreciated. How so?” I asked, suddenly alarmed.
“Hasn’t someone died?” she gasped importantly, as though her pity was in short supply and I had wasted it. “Why have you entered such a melancholy state, if not?”
I hesitated, frowning at the black
Weeks after the dress ball, there were still no letters from Duponte in reply to mine. I could not abide the slow exchange of mailable communications. Mail could be stolen, or destroyed by accident or mischief. Here I had found the identity of the Dupin of real life, the one person probably in all the known world able to decipher the blank spot of Poe’s last days! I was still only serving Poe as I had promised him. I had reached this far, and should not cede my position through lack of action. I would not wait for
this
to be lost. In June 1851, I made my plans and set off for Paris.
Here I was in a different world. Even the houses seemed to be built from entirely different materials and colors, and to position themselves differently on the wide streets. There was a feeling of secretiveness to Paris, yet everything was open, and existence in Paris was entirely out of doors.
The latest city directories I found upon arriving had no listings for Duponte, and I realized that those I’d consulted in Washington City were a few years out of date. Nor did recent newspaper columns that had previously spoken breathlessly about him have a word to say.
In Paris, the post office delivered the mail directly to the houses of residents—a practice newly begun in some American cities by private arrangement; though in Paris, it was said, its convenience for citizens was less important than the surveillance it provided to the government. It was my hope that the postal officers would not have continued to carry Duponte’s mail to an incorrect address. In another peculiarity of the Parisian rules, I was refused (rigidly and politely, as with everything French) any admittance to the administrators of the post office, where I wanted to ask about Duponte’s present address. I would need to write for permission to the appropriate ministry. Guided in composing this letter by Madame Fouché, my hotel’s proprietress, I sent it by post. (This was another rule, even though the ministry was hardly three streets away!) “You will
certainly
receive a letter of permission within a day or two. It could be quite longer, though,” she added thoughtfully, “if there is an error by some functionary, which is
awfully
common.”
As I waited for any sign of progress in my search for Duponte’s address, I wrote to Hattie. Remembering the pain it had caused me whenever I’d seen her sad, I had been experiencing deep regret that the timing of this endeavor had caused her even the slightest grief. In my letters to Baltimore I promised her as little a delay as possible to our plans and entreated her in the meantime to come to Paris, however short a stay and dull a program my present venture might require. Hattie wrote that nothing would please her more than such a voyage, but she was needed to help care for the two new children recently added to her sisters’ households.
Peter, for his part, wrote a farewell letter explaining that I had ruined my life, and nearly ruined his, by yielding to the decadence and indecency of Europe.
What he must have been imagining! If only he could see how different the reality here in my chambers!
The nightly gaieties of the Parisian summer drifted recklessly through my window, the open-air orchestras and gala dances, the theaters that seated happy audiences by the hundreds. I, by contrast, opened and closed my two chests of drawers and stared at the clock on my room’s mantelpiece—waiting.
One day Madame Fouché came into my room and offered to tie a strip of black crêpe around my arm. Bothered by the interruption to my indolence, I assented.
“My deep condolences,” she said.
“Appreciated. How so?” I asked, suddenly alarmed.
“Hasn’t someone died?” she gasped importantly, as though her pity was in short supply and I had wasted it. “Why have you entered such a melancholy state, if not?”
I hesitated, frowning at the black
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