This episode deals with one of Bram Stoker’s best short stories - The Squaw. This is a story about a black cat that definitely gives Poe's The Black Cat a run for its money!
George will read the story (with a few sound effects) and hope you are not too grossed out.
This episode deals with one of Bram Stoker’s best short stories - The Squaw. This is a story about a black cat that definitely gives Poe's The Black Cat a run for its money!
George will read the story (with a few sound effects) and hope you are not too grossed out.
0:00 INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode Seventy - Implements of Torture
You know, when I am preparing a podcast, that’s about all that seems to be on my mind. And I was at a local gym the other day talking with a person by the name of Josh from Florida, and during a discussion, somehow the subject of podcasts came up. Well, of course I had to mention this podcast - you become a tireless self promoter - and I asked him if it was ok to give him a shout out in this podcast. So I hope that he listens and doesn’t get too creeped out by this story.
Now before I go into Bram Stoker’s life and talk about the development of Dracula, I want to look at one of Bram Stoker’s short stories - and how it builds suspense. You my remember the suspense in this story to that of “The Judge’s House” - from Episode 66 - The Giant Rats - well that is nothing compared to today’s story. If you have not heard it, you may want to go back and check out Episode 66.
Now this story was written 10 years before Dracula, and this podcast will delve into Stoker’s fascinating life and its similarity to his most famous work - Dracula - starting later this month.
01:31 Background to story
Today’s literary work is called The Squaw, and while it has maybe a sentence or two about a Native American mother, it really is not about a Native American. And its brief portrayal and observations regarding Native Americans - while not unusual for the period - are objectionable today.
In a 1973 BBC adaptation of The Squaw narrator by Vincent Price, the subplot about the Native American lady was removed, - a mother whose child was killed - was completely cut left out. The brief subplot really doesn’t add anything to the story except some objectionable references. So I have decided to leave out the few sentences that refer to the Native American lady - they really don’t add anything to the narrative.
First let me give a little background regarding the idea of the Iron Maiden -
The story takes place in Nuremberg, Germany - now this was years before World War II or the Nuremberg Trials. The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg (referred to throughout the story as the "Iron Virgin") was the most famous iron maiden in Europe. It first went on display in 1802. It was said to have first been used in 1515 to torture and execute a coin forger.
And no, this Iron Maiden has nothing to do with heavy metal. You could say that the Iron Maiden is associated with torture. A catalog of the devices later found describing the items in the Nuremburg castle, describes the maiden as having two doors which opened to an interior studded with spikes. These spikes impaled the victim in the eyes, the chest and the back; but left him or her alive. The unfortunate victim could hang there for for a time which could extend to days. A trap door supposedly existed beneath which opened to allow the remains to fall into a river or moat below. Near the end of this story, the descriptions get a bit gruesome, so this is not a story for the faint of heart. Some people believe that the Iron Maiden was not really used as an instrument of torture in the Middle Ages, but invented in the 19th century because of the fascination that many Victorians had with the idea of torture.
But before I begin the story. I want to point out three things:
First, Bram Stoker was born in Ireland, and had an extremely kind mother who was very interested in a variety of causes. One of them was caring for animals, and that concern was passed on to her son, Bram. The mother cat is one of the main characters in this story.
Second, Bram Stoker was greatly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. We don’t know exactly which Poe works he read, but this story must have been highly influenced by The Black Cat. And its use of torture at the end of the story is reminiscent of the ominous, ever-present torture in The Pit and the Pendulum.
Third, The main characters include the mother cat, the narrator and his wife on their honeymoon, and Elias P. Hutcheson - the ultimate ugly American - an insensitive and obnoxious braggart who thinks nothing of accompanying the narrator and his wife - two strangers - on their honeymoon.
6:20 The story begins
The Squaw by Bram Stoker
Nuremberg at the time was not so much exploited as it has been since then. My wife and I being in the second week of our honeymoon, naturally wanted someone else to join our party, so that when the cheery stranger, Elias P. Hutcheson, hailing from Bleeding Gulch, Maple Tree County, Neb., turned up at the station at Frankfort, and casually remarked that he so much travelling alone was enough to send an intelligent, active citizen into the melancholy ward of a daft house, we took the pretty broad hint and suggested that we should join forces. We found, on comparing notes afterwards, that we had each intended to speak with some diffidence or hesitation so as not to appear too eager, such not being a good compliment to the success of our married life; but the effect was entirely marred by our both beginning to speak at the same instant-stopping simultaneously and then going on together again. Anyhow, no matter how, it was done; Elias P. Hutcheson became one of our party. Straightway Amelia and I found the pleasant benefit; instead of quarrelling, as we had been doing, we found that the restraining influence of a third party was such that we now took every opportunity of spooning in odd corners. Amelia declares that ever since she has, as the result of that experience, advised all her friends to take a friend on the honeymoon.
Well, we "did" Nuremberg together, and much enjoyed the racy remarks of our Transatlantic friend, who, from his quaint speech and his wonderful stock of adventures, might have stepped out of a novel. We kept for the last object of interest in the city to be visited the Burg, and on the day appointed for the visit strolled round the outer wall of the city by the eastern side.
The Burg is seated on a rock dominating the town, and as we wandered round the wall, dawdling in the hot July sunshine, we often paused to admire the views spread before us. A little to our right rose the towers of the Burg, and nearer still, standing grim, the Torture Tower, which was, and is, perhaps, the most interesting place in the city. For centuries the tradition of the Iron Virgin of Nuremberg has been handed down as an instance of the horrors of cruelty of which man is capable; we had long looked forward to seeing it; and here at last was its home.
09:30 Encounter with mother and her kitten
In one of our pauses we leaned over the wall of the moat and looked down. The garden seemed quite fifty or sixty feet below us.The sun was hot and we were lazy; time was our own, and we lingered, leaning on the wall. Just below us was a pretty sight-a great black cat lying stretched in the sun, whilst round her gambolled prettily a tiny black kitten. The mother would wave her tail for the kitten to play with, or would raise her feet and push away the little one as an encouragement to further play. They were just at the foot of the wall, and Elias P. Hutcheson, stooped and took from the walk a moderate sized pebble.
"See!" he said, "I will drop it near the kitten, and they will both wonder where it came from."
"Oh, be careful," said my wife; "you might hit the dear little thing!"
"Not me, ma'am," said Elias P. "Why, I'm as tender as a Maine cherry-tree. Lor, bless ye, I wouldn't hurt the poor pooty little critter more'n I'd scalp a baby. An' you may bet your variegated socks on that! See, I'll drop it fur away on the outside so's not to go near her!"
Thus saying, he leaned over and held his arm out at full length and dropped the stone. It may be that there is some attractive force which draws lesser matters to greater; or more
probably that the wall was not plumb but sloped to its base-we not noticing the inclination from above; but the stone fell with a sickening thud that came up to us through the hot air, right on the kitten's head, and shattered out its little brains then and there. The black cat cast a swift upward glance, and we saw her eyes like green fire fixed an instant on Elias P. Hutcheson; and then her attention was given to the kitten, which lay still with just a quiver
of her tiny limbs, whilst a thin red stream trickled from a gaping wound. With a muffled cry, such as a human being might give, she bent over the kitten, licking its wound and moaning. Suddenly she seemed to realise that it was dead, and again threw her eyes up at us. I shall never forget the sight, for she looked the perfect incarnation of hate. Her green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and the white, sharp teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled her mouth and whiskers. She gnashed her teeth, and her claws stood out stark and at full length on every paw. Then she made a wild rush up the wall as if to reach us, but when the momentum ended fell back, and further added to her horrible appearance for she fell on the
kitten, and rose with her black fur smeared with its brains and blood. Amelia turned quite faint, and I had to lift her back from the wall. There was a seat close by in shade of a spreading plane-tree, and here I placed her whilst she composed herself. Then I went back to Hutcheson, who stood without moving, looking down on the angry cat below.
The cat was continuing her frantic efforts to get up the wall. She would take a run back and then charge up, sometimes reaching an incredible height. She did not seem to mind the heavy fall which she got each time but started with renewed vigour; and at every tumble her appearance became more horrible. Hutcheson was a kind-hearted man-my wife and I had both noticed little acts of kindness to animals as well as to persons-and he seemed concerned at the state of fury to which the cat had wrought herself.
"Wall, now!" he said, "I du declare that that poor critter seems quite desperate. There! there! poor thing, it was all an accident though that won't bring back your little one to you. Say! I wouldn't have had such a thing happen for a thousand! Just shows what a clumsy fool of a man can do when he tries to play! Seems I'm too darned slipperhanded to even play with a cat. Say Colonel!” -"I hope your wife don't hold no grudge against me on account of this unpleasantness? He came over to Amelia and apologised profusely, and she with
her usual kindness of heart hastened to assure him that she quite understood that it was an accident. Then we all went again to the wall and looked over.
The cat missing Hutcheson's face had drawn back across the moat, and was sitting on her haunches as though ready to spring. Indeed, the very instant she saw him she did spring, and with a blind unreasoning fury, which would have been grotesque, only that it was so frightfully real. She did not try to run up the wall, but simply launched herself at him as though hate and fury could lend her wings to pass straight through the great distance between them.
Amelia, womanlike, got quite concerned, and said to Elias P. in a warning voice:
"Oh! you must be very careful. That animal would try to kill you if she were here; her eyes look like positive murder."
He laughed out jovially. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I can't help laughin'. Fancy a man that has fought grizzlies an' Injuns bein' careful of bein' murdered by a cat!”
When the cat heard him laugh, her whole demeanour seemed to change. She no longer tried to jump or run up the wall, but went quietly over, and sitting again beside the dead kitten began to lick and fondle it as though it were alive.
"See!" said Mr. Hutcheson., "the effect of a really strong man. Even that animal in the midst of her fury recognises the voice of a master, and bows to him!"
Every now and then we looked over the wall and each time saw the cat following us. At first she had kept going back to the dead kitten, and then as the distance grew greater took it in her mouth and so followed. After a while, however, she abandoned this, for we saw her following all alone; she had evidently hidden the body somewhere. Amelia's alarm grew at the cat's persistence, and more than once she repeated her warning; but the American always laughed with amusement, till finally, seeing that she was beginning to be worried, he said:
"I say, ma'am, you needn't be skeered over that cat. Here he slapped his pistol pocket at the back of his lumbar region. "Why sooner'n have you worried, I'll shoot the critter, right here, an' risk the police interferin' with a citizen of the United States for carryin' arms contrairy to reg'lations!" As he spoke he looked over the wall, but the cat, on seeing him, retreated, with a
growl, into a bed of tall flowers, and was hidden. He went on: "Blest if that ar critter ain't got more sense of what's good for her than most Christians. I guess we've seen the last of her! You bet, she'll go back now to that busted kitten and have a private funeral of it, all to herself!"
Amelia did not like to say more, lest he might, in mistaken kindness to her, fulfil his threat of shooting the cat: and so we went on and crossed the little wooden bridge leading to the gateway whence ran the steep paved roadway between the Burg and the pentagonal Torture Tower. As we crossed the bridge we saw the cat again down below us. When she saw us her fury seemed to return, and she made frantic efforts to get up the steep wall. Hutcheson laughed as he looked down at her, and said:
"Good-bye, old girl. Sorry I in-jured your feelin's, but you'll get over it in time! So long!"
18:27 Entering torture chamber
And then we passed through the long, dim archway and came to the gate of Nuremburg.
Later we found we were the only visitors who had entered the Torture Tower that morning-so at least said the old custodian-and as we had the place all to ourselves were able to make a minute and more satisfactory survey than would have otherwise been possible. The custodian, looking to us as the sole source of his gains for the day, was willing to meet our wishes in any way.
The Torture Tower is truly a grim place, even now when many thousands of visitors have sent a stream of life, and the joy that follows life, into the place; but at the time I mention it wore its grimmest and most gruesome aspect. The lower chamber where we entered was seemingly, in its normal state, filled with incarnate darkness; even the hot sunlight streaming in through the door seemed to be lost in the vast thickness of the walls, and only showed the masonry rough as when the builder's scaffolding had come down, but coated with dust and marked here and
there with patches of dark stain which, if walls could speak, could have given their own dread memories of fear and pain. We were glad to pass up the dusty wooden staircase, the custodian leaving the outer door open to light us somewhat on our way; for to our eyes the
one long-wick'd, evil-smelling candle stuck in a sconce on the wall gave an inadequate light. When we came up through the open trap in the corner of the chamber overhead, Amelia held on to me so tightly that I could actually feel her heart beat. I must say for my own part
that I was not surprised at her fear, for this room was even more gruesome than that below. Here there was certainly more light, but only just sufficient to realise the horrible surroundings of the place
The builders of the tower had evidently intended that only they who should gain the top should have any of the joys of light and prospect. There, as we had noticed from below, were ranges of windows, albeit of mediaeval smallness, but elsewhere in the tower were only a very few narrow slits such as were habitual in places of mediaeval defence. A few of these only lit the chamber, and these so high up in the wall that from no part could the sky be seen through the thickness of the walls. In racks, and leaning in disorder against the walls, were a number of headsmen's swords, great double-handed weapons with broad blade and keen edge.
Hard by were several blocks whereon the necks of the victims had lain, with here and there deep notches where the steel had bitten through the guard of flesh and shored into the wood. Round the chamber, placed in all sorts of irregular ways, were many implements of torture which made one's heart ache to see-chairs full of spikes which gave instant and excruciating pain; chairs and couches with dull knobs whose torture was seemingly less, but which, though slower, were equally effective; racks, belts, boots, gloves, collars, all made for compressing at will; steel baskets in which the head could be slowly crushed into a pulp if necessary;
OMINOUS SOUND
Amelia grew quite pale with the horror of the things, but fortunately did not faint, for being a little overcome she sat down on a torture chair, but jumped up again with a shriek, all tendency to faint gone. We both pretended that it was the injury done to her dress by the
dust of the chair, and the rusty spikes which had upset her, and Mr. Hutcheson acquiesced in accepting the explanation with a kind-hearted laugh.
But the central object in the whole of this chamber of horrors was the engine known as the Iron Virgin, which stood near the centre of the room. It was a rudely-shaped figure of a woman, One would hardly have recognised it as intended for a human figure at all had not the founder shaped on the forehead a rude semblance of a woman's face. This machine was coated with rust without, and covered with dust; a rope was fastened to a ring in the front of the figure, about where the waist should have been, and was drawn through a pulley, fastened on the wooden pillar which sustained the flooring above. The custodian pulling this rope showed that a section of the front was hinged like a door at one side; we then saw that the engine was of considerable thickness, leaving just room enough inside for a man to be placed.
The door was of equal thickness and of great weight, for it took the custodian all his strength, aided though he was by the contrivance of the pulley, to open it. This weight was partly due to the fact that the door was of manifest purpose hung so as to throw its weight downwards, so that it might shut of its own accord when the strain was released. The inside was honeycombed with rust- nay more, the rust alone that comes through time would hardly have eaten so deep into the iron walls; the rust of the cruel stains was deep indeed! It was only, however, when we came to look at the inside of the door that the diabolical intention was manifest to the full. Here were several long spikes, square and massive, broad at the base and sharp at the points, placed in such a position that when the door should close the upper ones
would pierce the eyes of the victim, and the lower ones his heart and vitals. The sight was too much for poor Amelia, and this time she fainted dead off, and I had to carry her down the stairs, and place her on a bench outside till she recovered.
When we got back to the chamber we found Hutcheson still opposite the Iron Virgin; he had been evidently philosophising, and now gave us the benefit of his thought
"Wall, I guess I've been learnin' somethin' here while madam has been gettin' over her faint. 'Pears to me that we're a long way behind the times on our side of the big drink. We uster think out on the plains that the Injun could give us points in tryin' to make
a man oncomfortable; but I guess your old mediaeval law-and-order party could raise him every time. Splinters was pretty good in his bluff on the squaw, but this here young miss held a straight flush all high on him. The points of them spikes air sharp enough still, though even the edges air eaten out by what uster be on them. It'd be a good thing for our Indian section to get some specimens of this here play-toy to send round to the Reservations jest to knock the
stuffin' out of the bucks, and the squaws too, by showing them as how old civilisation lays over them at their best. Guess but I'll get in that box a minute jest to see how it feels!"
"Oh no! no!" said Amelia. "It is too terrible!"
"Guess, ma'am, nothin's too terrible to the explorin' mind. I've been in some queer places in my time. Spent a night inside a dead horse while a prairie fire swept over me in Montana Territory-an' another time slept inside a dead buffler when the Comanches was on
the war path an' I've been two days in a caved-in tunnel in the Billy Broncho gold mine in New Mexico, an' was one of the four shut up for three parts of a day in the caisson what slid over on her side when we was settin' the foundations of the Buffalo Bridge. I've not funked an odd experience yet, an' I don't propose to begin now!"
We saw that he was set on the experiment, so I said: "Well, hurry up, old man, and get through it quick?"
"All right, General," said he, "but I calculate we ain't quite ready yet. The gentlemen, my predecessors, what stood in that thar canister, didn't volunteer for the office-not much! And I guess there was some ornamental tyin' up before the big stroke was made. I want to go into this thing fair and square, so I must get fixed up proper first. I dare say this old galoot can rise some string and tie me up accordin' to sample?"
This was said interrogatively to the old custodian, but the latter, who understood the drift of his speech, though perhaps notappreciating to the full the niceties of dialect and imagery, shook his head. His protest was, however, only formal and made to be overcome. The American thrust a gold piece into his hand, saying, "Take it, pard! it's your pot; and don't be skeer'd. This ain't no necktie party that you're asked to assist in!" He produced some thin frayed rope and proceeded to bind our companion with sufficient strictness for the purpose. When the upper part of his body was bound, Hutcheson said:
"Hold on a moment, Judge. Guess I'm too heavy for you to tote into the canister. Jest let me walk in.
Whilst speaking he had backed himself into the opening which was just enough to hold him. It was a close fit and no mistake. Amelia looked on with fear in her eyes, but she evidently did not like to say anything. Then the custodian completed his task by tying the American's feet together so that he was now absolutely helpless and fixed in his voluntary prison.
"Guess this here Eve was made out of the rib of a dwarf! There ain't much room for a full-grown citizen of the United States to hustle. We uster make our coffins more roomier in Idaho territory. Now, Judge, you jest begin to let this door down, slow, on to me. I want to feel the same pleasure as the other folks had when those spikes began to move toward their eyes!"
"Oh no! no! no!" broke in Amelia hysterically. "It is too terrible! I can't bear to see it!-I can't! I can't!"
"Say, Colonel," said the American, "Why not take Madame for a little promenade? I wouldn't hurt her feelin's for the world; but now that I am here, havin' kem eight thousand miles, wouldn't it be too hard to give up the very experience I've been pinin' an' pantin' fur? A man can't get to feel like canned goods every time! Me and the Judge here'll fix up this thing in no time, an' then you'll come back, an' we'll all laugh together!"
Amelia stayed holding tight to my arm and shivering whilst the custodian began to slacken slowly inch by inch the rope that held back the iron door. Hutcheson's face was positively radiant as his eyes followed the first movement of the spikes.
"Wall!" he said, "I guess I've not had enjoyment like this since I left Noo York. Ah, now Slow there, Judge! Don't you rush this business! I want a show for my money this game-I du!"
The custodian must have had in him some of the blood of his predecessors in that ghastly tower, for he worked the engine with a deliberate and excruciating slowness which after five minutes, in which the outer edge of the door had not moved half as many inches. I saw Amelia’s lips whiten, and felt her hold upon my arm relax. I looked around an instant for a place whereon to lay her, and when I looked at her again found that her eye had become fixed on the side of the Virgin.
32:04 Mother cat’s revenge
Following its direction I saw the black cat crouching out of sight. Her green eyes shone like danger lamps in the gloom of the place, and their colour was heightened by the blood which still smeared her coat and reddened her mouth. I cried out:
"The cat! look out for the cat!" for even then she sprang out before the engine. At this moment she looked like a triumphant demon. Her eyes blazed with ferocity, her hair bristled out till she seemed twice her normal size, and her tail lashed about as does a tiger's
when the quarry is before it. Elias P. Hutcheson when he saw her was amused, and his eyes positively sparkled. Easy there. Judge! don't you slack that ar rope.
At this moment Amelia completed her faint, and I had to clutch hold of her round the waist or she would have fallen to the floor. Whilst attending to her I saw the black cat crouching for a spring, and jumped up to turn the creature out.
But at that instant, with a sort of hellish scream, she hurled herself, not as we expected at Hutcheson, but straight at the face of the custodian. Her claws seemed to be tearing wildly and as I looked I saw one of them light on the poor man's eye, and actually tear through
it and down his cheek, leaving a wide band of red where the blood
seemed to spurt from every vein.
With a yell of sheer terror which came quicker than even his sense of pain, the man leaped back, dropping as he did so the rope which held back the iron door. I jumped for it, but was too late, for the cord ran like lightning through the pulley-block, and the heavy mass
fell forward from its own weight.
As the door closed I caught a glimpse of our poor companion's face. He seemed frozen with terror. His eyes stared with a horrible anguish as if dazed, and no sound came from his lips.
And then the spikes did their work. Happily the end was quick, for when I wrenched open the door they had pierced so deep that they had locked in the bones of the skull through which they had crushed, and actually tore him-it-out of his iron prison till, bound as he was,
he fell at full length with a sickly thud upon the floor, the face
turning upward as he fell.
I rushed to my wife, lifted her up and carried her out, for I feared for her very reason if she should wake from her faint to such a scene. I laid her on the bench outside and ran back. Leaning against the wooden column was the custodian moaning in pain whilst he held his reddening handkerchief to his eyes. And sitting on the head of the poor American was the cat, purring loudly as she licked the blood which trickled through the gashed socket of his eyes.
SCREAMING CAT SOUND
35:46 Sources
Sources for this episode include The Squaw by Bram Stoker, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Classic Horror Blog by M. Grant Kellermeyer.
Why not visit my podcast web site at celebratepoe.buzzsprout.com - click on the episode you want to learn more about to see its show notes and a transcript.
36:24 Future Episodes
This month I want to concentrate on vampires - in the future, this podcast will deal with the first lesbian vampire story, some of the print and film versions of Dracula, and take a brief look at the history of vampire legends.
Then Celebrate Poe will specifically cover Poe’s years as a child in England - especially his education . I am finding some exciting stuff regarding the information that he learned - especially in the form of classical rhetoric - to become one of America’s greatest writers.
37:00 Outro
Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.