Crossing the Threshold

Episode 206 of Celebrate. Poe is part two  of Silent Snow, Secret Snow by Conrad Aiken.  The story is an engaging story of a boy who lives in a world of his own - somewhat similar to many of Poe’s characters.  I must admit that at first I thought the story might be Christmas (or at least winter) themed, but the story gradually builds up to show the hidden world of a very troubled youth.  The episode ends with a brief discussion of anaphora in Aiken's works, as well as the use of anaphora by Poe.

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Poe, Episode Two Hundred Six - Crossing the Threshold or Silent Snow, Secret Snow, Part Two My name is George Bartley, and I am glad you are taking time to listen to this podcast.  

When I reached the conclusion of Silent Snow, Secret Snow - an experience that I hope you have today - it hit me that the story is very similar to much of Poe’s works.  And it turns out that Aiken read and imitated Edgar Allan Poe in many of his works. Poe’s influence is definitely apparent in Aiken's creation of a mentally unstable character and an eerie atmosphere.  Paul in Silent Snow, Secret Snow and the unnamed murderer in The Tell Tale Heart can both be viewed as unreliable narrators.  For example, Paul believes that he cannot adequately describe the ethereal loveliness of his new world. Moreover, he worries that any attempt to describe it might mean disaster for him. “Would it be safe to explain?" he asks  himself. “Would it be absurd? Would it merely mean that I would get into some obscure kind of trouble?" So he keeps quiet about his inner snowstorm until his mother, father, and family doctor prod him to talk about it. By that time, he has already crossed the threshold into mental illness. 

And now - the conclusion of Silent Snow, Secret Snow - and by the way, if you have not heard episode 205, you might want to go back and listen to it first.

The bird-house in the apple-tree was empty—it was the wrong time of year for wrens. The little round black door had lost its pleasure. The wrens were enjoying other houses, other nests, remoter trees. But this too was a notion which he only vaguely and grazingly entertained—as if, for the moment, he merely touched an edge of it; there was something further on, which was already assuming a sharper importance; something which already teased at the corners of his eyes, teasing also at the corner of his mind. It was funny to think that he so wanted this, so awaited it—and yet found himself enjoying this momentary dalliance with the bird-house, as if for a quite deliberate postponement and enhancement of the approaching pleasure. He was aware of his delay, of his smiling and detached and now almost uncomprehending gaze at the little bird-house; he knew what he was going to look at next: it was his own little cobbled hill-street, his own house, the little river at the bottom of the hill, the grocer’s shop with the cardboard man in the window— and now, thinking of all this, he turned his head, still smiling, and looking quickly right and left through the snow-laden sunlight.
And the mist of snow, as he had foreseen, was still on it— a ghost of snow falling in the bright sunlight, softly and steadily floating and turning and pausing, soundlessly meeting the snow that covered, as with a transparent mirage, the bare bright cobbles. He loved it—he stood still and loved it. Its beauty was paralyzing—beyond all words, all experience, all dream. No fairy-story he had ever read could be compared with it—none had ever given him this extraordinary combination of ethereal loveliness with a something else, unnameable, which was just faintly and deliciously terrifying. What was this thing? As he thought of it, he looked upward toward his own bedroom window, which was open—and it was as if he looked straight into the room and saw himself lying half awake in his bed. There he was—at this very instant he was still perhaps actually there—more truly there than standing here at the edge of the cobbled hill-street, with one hand lifted to shade his eyes against the snow-sun. Had he indeed ever left his room, in all this time? since that very first morning? Was the whole progress still being enacted there, was it still the same morning, and himself not yet wholly awake? And even now, had the postman not yet come round the corner? . . .
This idea amused him, and automatically, as he thought of it, he turned his head and looked toward the top of the hill. There was, of course, nothing there—nothing and no one. The street was empty and quiet. And all the more because of its emptiness it occurred to him to count the houses — a thing which, oddly enough, he hadn’t before thought of doing. Of course, he had known there weren’t many—many, that is, on his own side of the street, which were the ones that figured in the postman’s progress—but nevertheless it came to him as something of a shock to find that there were precisely six, above his own house—his own house was the seventh.
Six!
Astonished, he looked at his own house—looked at the door, on which was the number thirteen—and then realized that the whole thing was exactly and logically and absurdly what he ought to have known. Just the same, the realization gave him abruptly, and even a little frighteningly, a sense of hurry. He was being hurried—he was being rushed. For—he knit his brows—he couldn’t be mistaken—it was just above the seventh house, his own house, that the postman had first been audible this very morning. But in that case—in that case—did it mean that tomorrow he would hear nothing? The knock he had heard must have been the knock of their own door. Did it mean—and this was an idea which gave him a really extraordinary feeling of surprise—that he would never hear the postman again? — that tomorrow morning the postman would already have passed the house, in a snow by then so deep as to render his footsteps completely inaudible? That he would have made his approach down the snow-filled street so soundlessly, so secretly, that he, Paul Hasleman, there lying in bed, would not have waked in time, or, waking, would have heard nothing?
But how could that be? Unless even the knocker should be muffled in the snow—frozen tight, perhaps? . . . But in that case—
A vague feeling of disappointment came over him; a vague sadness, as if he felt himself deprived of something which he had long looked forward to, something much prized. After all this, all this beautiful progress, the slow delicious advance of the postman through the silent and secret snow, the knock creeping closer each day, and the footsteps nearer, the audible compass of the world thus daily narrowed, narrowed, narrowed, as the snow soothingly and beautifully encroached and deepened, after all this, was he to be defrauded of the one thing he had so wanted—to be able to count, as it were, the last two or three solemn footsteps, as they finally approached his own door? Was it all going to happen, at the end, so suddenly? or indeed, had it already happened? with no slow and subtle gradations of menace, in which he could luxuriate?
He gazed upward again, toward his own window which flashed in the sun: and this time almost with a feeling that it would be better if he were still in bed, in that room; for in that case this must still be the first morning, and there would be six more mornings to come—or, for that matter, seven or eight or nine—how could he be sure?—or even more.
III
After supper, the inquisition began. He stood before the doctor, under the lamp, and submitted silently to the usual thumpings and tappings.
“Now will you please say ‘Ah!’?”
“An!”
“Now again please, if you don’t mind.” “An.”
“Say it slowly, and hold it if you can—”
“Ah-h-h-h-h-h—”
“Good.”
How silly all this was. As if it had anything to do with his throat! Or his heart or lungs!
Relaxing his mouth, of which the corners, after all this absurd stretching, felt uncomfortable, he avoided the doctor’s eyes, and stared towards the fireplace, past his mother’s feet (in grey slippers) which projected from the green chair, and his father’s feet (in brown slippers) which stood neatly side by side on the hearth rug.
“Hm. There is certainly nothing wrong there . . . ?”
He felt the doctor’s eyes fixed upon him, and, as if merely to be polite, returned the look, but with a feeling of justifiable evasiveness.
“Now, young man, tell me,—do you feel all right?”
“Yes, sir, quite all right.”
“No headaches? no dizziness?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Let me see. Let’s get a book, if you don’t mind—yes, thank you, that will do splendidly—and now, Paul, if you’ll just read it, holding it as you would normally hold it—”
He took the book and read:
“And another praise have I to tell for this the city our mother, the gift of a great god, a glory of the land most high; the might of horses, the might of young horses, the might of the sea. . . . For thou, son of Cronus, our lord Poseidon, hast throned herein this pride, since in these roads first thou didst show forth the curb that cures the rage of steeds. And the shapely oar, apt to men’s hands, hath a wondrous speed on the brine, following the hundred-footed Nereids. . . . O land that art praised above all lands, now is it for thee to make those bright praises seen in deeds.”
He stopped, tentatively, and lowered the heavy book.
“No—as I thought—there is certainly no superficial sign of eye-strain.”
Silence thronged the room, and he was aware of the focused scrutiny of the three people who confronted him.
“We could have his eyes examined—but I believe it is something else.”
“What could it be?” This was his father’s voice.
“It’s only this curious absent-mindedness—” This was his mother’s voice.
In the presence of the doctor, they both seemed irritat-ingly apologetic.
“I believe it is something else. Now Paul—I would like very much to ask you a question or two. You will answer them, won’t you—you know I’m an old, old friend of yours, eh? That’s right! . . .”
His back was thumped twice by the doctor’s fat fist,— then the doctor was grinning at him with false amiability, while with one finger-nail he was scratching the top button of his waistcoat. Beyond the doctor’s shoulder was the fire, the fingers of flame making light prestidigitation against the sooty fireback, the soft sound of their random flutter the only sound.
“I would like to know—is there anything that worries you?”
The doctor was again smiling, his eyelids low against the little black pupils, in each of which was a tiny white bead of light. Why answer him? why answer him at all? “At whatever pain to others”—but it was all a nuisance, this necessity for resistance, this necessity for attention: it was as if one had been stood up on a brilliantly lighted stage, under a great round blaze of spotlight; as if one were merely a trained seal, or a performing dog, or a fish, dipped out of an aquarium and held up by the tail. It would serve them right if he were merely to bark or growl. And meanwhile, to miss these last few precious hours, these hours of which each minute was more beautiful than the last, more menacing—? He still looked, as if from a great distance, at the beads of light in the doctor’s eyes, at the fixed false smile, and then, beyond, once more at his mother’s slippers, his father’s slippers, the soft flutter of the fire. Even here, even amongst these hostile presences, and in this arranged light, he could see the snow, he could hear it—it was in the corners of the room, where the shadow was deepest, under the sofa, behind the half-opened door which led to the dining-room. It was gentler here, softer, its seethe the quietest of whispers, as if, in deference to a drawing-room, it had quite deliberately put on its “manners”; it kept itself out of sight, obliterated itself, but distinctly with an air of saying, “Ah, but just wait! Wait till we are alone together! Then I will begin to tell you something new! Something white! something cold! something sleepy! something of cease, and peace, and the long bright curve of space! Tell them to go away. Banish them. Refuse to speak. Leave them, go upstairs to your room, turn out the light and get into bed—I will go with you, I will be waiting for you, I will tell you a better story than Little Kay of the Skates, or The Snow Ghost—I will surround your bed, I will close the windows, pile a deep drift against the door, so that none will ever again be able to enter. Speak to them! . . .” It seemed as if the little hissing voice came from a slow white spiral of falling flakes in the corner by the front window — but he could not be sure. He felt himself smiling, then, and said to the doctor, but without looking at him, looking beyond him still— “Oh no, I think not—” “But are you sure, my boy?”
His father’s voice came softly and coldly then—the familiar voice of silken warning. . . .
“You needn’t answer at once, Paul—remember we’re trying to help you—think it over and be quite sure, won’t you?”
He felt himself smiling again, at the notion of being quite sure. What a joke! As if he weren’t so sure that reassurance was no longer necessary, and all this cross-examination a ridiculous farce, a grotesque parody! What could they know about it? these gross intelligences, these humdrum minds so bound to the usual, the ordinary? Impossible to tell them about it! Why, even now, even now, with the proof so abundant, so formidable, so imminent, so appallingly present here in this very room, could they believe it?—could even his mother believe it? No—it was only too plain that if anything were said about it, the merest hint given, they would be incredulous—they would laugh—they would say “Absurd!”—think things about him which weren’t true. . . .
“Why no, I’m not worried—why should I be?”
He looked then straight at the doctor’s low-lidded eyes, looked from one of them to the other, from one bead of light to the other, and gave a little laugh.
The doctor seemed to be disconcerted by this. He drew back in his chair, resting a fat white hand on either knee. The smile faded slowly from his face.
“Well, Paul!” he said, and paused gravely, “I’m afraid you don’t take this quite seriously enough. I think you perhaps don’t quite realize—don’t quite realize—” He took a deep quick breath, and turned, as if helplessly, at a loss for words, to the others. But Mother and Father were both silent—no help was forthcoming.
“You must surely know, be aware, that you have not been quite yourself, of late? don’t you know that? . . .”
It was amusing to watch the doctor’s renewed attempt at a smile, a queer disorganized look, as of confidential embarrassment.
“I feel all right, sir,” he said, and again gave the little laugh.
“And we’re trying to help you.” The doctor’s tone sharpened.
“Yes sir, I know. But why? I’m all right. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”
His mother made a quick movement forward, resting a hand on the back of the doctor’s chair.
“Thinking?” she said. “But my dear, about what?”
This was a direct challenge—and would have to be directly met. But before he met it, he looked again into the corner by the door, as if for reassurance. He smiled again at what he saw, at what he heard. The little spiral was still there, still softly whirling, like the ghost of a white kitten chasing the ghost of a white tail, and making as it did so the faintest of whispers. It was all right! If only he could remain firm, everything was going to be all right.
“Oh, about anything, about nothing,—you know the way you do!”
“You mean—day-dreaming?”
“Oh, no—thinking!”
“But thinking about what?”
“Anything.”
He laughed a third time—but this time, happening to glance upward towards his mother’s face, he was appalled at the effect his laughter seemed to have upon her. Her mouth had opened in an expression of horror. . . . This was too bad! Unfortunate! He had known it would cause pain, of course—but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so bad as this. Perhaps — perhaps if he just gave them a tiny gleaming hint—?
“About the snow,” he said.
“What on earth 1” This was his father’s voice. The brown slippers came a step nearer on the hearth-rug.
“But my dear, what do you mean!” This was his mother’s voice.
The doctor merely stared.
“Just snow that’s all. I like to think about it.”
“Tell us about it, my boy.”
“But that’s all it is. There’s nothing to tell. You know what snow is?”
This he said almost angrily, for he felt that they were trying to corner him. He turned sideways so as no longer to face the doctor, and the better to see the inch of blackness between the window-sill and the lowered curtain,—the cold inch of beckoning and delicious night. At once he felt better, more assured.
“Mother—can I go to bed, now, please? I’ve got a headache.”
“But I thought you said—”
“It’s just come. It’s all these questions—! Can I, mother?”
“You can go as soon as the doctor has finished.”
“Don’t you think this thing ought to be gone into thoroughly, and now?” This was Father’s voice. The brown slippers again came a step nearer, the voice was the well-known “punishment” voice, resonant and cruel.
“Oh, what’s the use, Norman—”
Quite suddenly, everyone was silent. And without precisely facing them, nevertheless he was aware that all three of them were watching him with an extraordinary intensity —staring hard at him—as if he had done something monstrous, or was himself some kind of monster. He could hear the soft irregular flutter of the flames; the cluck-click-cluck-click of the clock; far and faint, two sudden spurts of laughter from the kitchen, as quickly cut off as begun; a murmur of water in the pipes; and then, the silence seemed to deepen, to spread out, to become worldlong and worldwide, to become timeless and shapeless, and to center inevitably and rightly, with a slow and sleepy but enormous concentration of all power, on the beginning of a new sound. What this new sound was going to be, he knew perfectly well. It might begin with a hiss, but it would end with a roar—there was no time to lose—he must escape. It mustn’t happen here— Without another word, he turned and ran up the stairs.
IV
Not a moment too soon. The darkness was coming in long white waves. A prolonged sibilance filled the night— a great seamless seethe of wild influence went abruptly across it—a cold low humming shook the windows. He shut the door and flung off his clothes in the dark. The bare black floor was like a little raft tossed in waves of snow, almost overwhelmed, washed under whitely, up again, smothered in curled billows of feather. The snow was laughing: it spoke from all sides at once: it pressed closer to him as he ran and jumped exulting into his bed.
“Listen to us!” it said. “Listen! We have come to tell you the story we told you about. You remember? Lie down. Shut your eyes, now—you will no longer see much —in this white darkness who could see, or want to see? We will take the place of everything. . . . Listen—”
A beautiful varying dance of snow began at the front of the room, came forward and then retreated, flattened out toward the floor, then rose fountain-like to the ceiling, swayed, recruited itself from a new stream of flakes which poured laughing in through the humming window, advanced again, lifted long white arms. It said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold—it said—
But then a gash of horrible light fell brutally across the room from the opening door—the snow drew back hissing— something alien had come into the room—something hostile. This thing rushed at him, clutched at him, shook him—and he was not merely horrified, he was filled with such a loathing as   had never known. What was this? this cruel disturbance? this act of anger and hate? It was as if he had to reach up a hand toward another world for any understanding of it,—an effort of which he was only barely capable.
But of that other world he still remembered just enough to know the exorcising words. They tore themselves from his other life suddenly—
“Mother! Mother! Go away! I hate you!”
And with that effort, everything was solved, everything became all right: the seamless hiss advanced once more, the long white wavering lines rose and fell like enormous whispering sea-waves, the whisper becoming louder, the laughter more numerous.
“Listen 1” it said. “We’ll tell you the last, the most beautiful and secret story—shut your eyes—it is a very small story —a story that gets smaller and smaller—it comes inward instead of opening like a flower—it is a flower becoming a seed—a little cold seed—do you hear? we are leaning closer to you—”
The hiss was now becoming a roar—the whole world was a vast moving screen of snow—but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep.

One more note - Conrad Aiken read and imitated Edgar Allan Poe a great deal. You can see that in Aiken’s creating a mentally unstable character and an eerie atmosphere.  Also, like Poe, Aiken frequently used anaphora, a figure of speech involving repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other. Following are some examples of Aiken's use of anaphora. 

One must get up, one must go to breakfast, one must talk with Mother,

the sound of its seething was more distinct, more soothing, more persistent

The garden walls too were various, some of wooden palings, some of plaster, some of stone.

Beyond the thoughts of trees, mere elms. Beyond the thoughts of sidewalks, mere stone, mere brick, mere cement. 

And let me end with some examples of Poe’s use of anaphora - 

Poe - And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

Spirits of the Dead - shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken
The Tell Tale Heart - Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous, 

Throughout the Bells - Listen to the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells

The following episode is the first of two episodes covering the powerful short story - Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves - I will try to release the episode within a few minutes of each other - so you can go directly from Part One to Part Two of Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves.

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe.