The Port-Wine Stain by Norman Lock

razor.
    â€œIndeed,” said Mütter.
    And then Poe recited a paragraph from his story “William Wilson” that ended “‘From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain .’ Doppelgänger; there’s no getting away from it.”
    From the tavern’s four corners, patrons craned their necks to discover the source of the disturbance. Embarrassed, Mütter bid Poe hush; the doctor was one of the city’s illustrious, who, by his dress and deportment, had pledgedhimself to respectability despite a keen interest in medical rarities and freaks.
    â€œI don’t believe in your ‘miracle,’ Dr . Mütter,” said Poe with a spitefulness distilled of too many malt whiskeys. “For us, there’s no wriggling off the hook—not once we bite. And we all do bite. The bait dangled before our eyes is too delectable to resist. Our wills are weak, our imaginations too alive.”
    â€œIt’s time to go,” said Mütter. “Edgar, can I give you a ride home in my carriage? I’ve arranged for Edward to spend the night, what’s left of it, at my house.”
    His urbanity amazed me, but I understood that he wanted to remove “the unpleasantness” from the genteel precincts, where his reputation preceded him, with as much alacrity and poise as he could manage. He wanted to bundle the drunkard into his buggy and fly.
    â€œI’d be honored, sir ,” replied Poe, pronouncing the final word with a southern drawl and bowing like a gentleman at a cotillion and not a besotted poet in a Philadelphia tavern.
    At that, we scraped back our chairs and, having paid the bill and a little more besides to lessen the landlord’s displeasure, went outside into the cold, sobering air.
    Philadelphia, February 1844
    â€œYou and Edgar are more alike than you suppose,” said Mütter while his wife, Mary, a shy, pious woman, quietly poured us tea.
    Are the wives of great men always this demure? I asked myself. I wouldn’t care to be married to a tyrant and ashrew. I was weak-willed—last night’s farce at the Magnetic Salon had shown me how weak. A bad wife would devour me. Even then, I wanted a “peaceable kingdom” of my own, but I knew that a woman like Mary or Ida would soon weary me with her goodness. I didn’t want to make a bad marriage, Moran, so I made none at all.
    I looked at the sumptuous room: the cheerful, generous fire, the bright andirons and screen, the luster of polished Regency furniture, the elegant plates and accessories of the table—so very different from the Poes’ mismatched and dilapidated furnishings. I wouldn’t have been able then to judge such things, but nonetheless I had the impression, unformed by experience as it must have been, that this fine home on Delancey Street was a world apart from that other on North Seventh. I envied Dr. Mütter and wanted to be like him. I thought that one day I might. Hadn’t he promised that I would enter medical school if I worked hard and continued to show an aptitude? Eagerness—that’s what the doctor liked to see in his students. I was bent on showing him how eagerly I wanted the life of a medical man, not to mention the rewards it would bring me. On that sunny winter morning, I let my mind drift among the golden motes of wishful thinking.
    Mütter wanted to talk about Edgar Poe. “He has all the afflictions of his type,” he said, spreading mulberry preserves on a piece of toast. “Melancholia, obsessiveness, destructiveness, intense self-regard, an addictive nature, a weakness of will coupled with a powerful, outlandish imagination.”
    â€œAnd you think I am like him ?” I asked, having to control a sudden resentment.
    â€œIn kind, but nothing at all like him in degree. You will suffer a little; he will suffer much. Mary, what