I

A dismal, fog-dank afternoon was turning into a murky twilight when Theophilus Alvor paused on Brooklyn Bridge to peer down at the dim river with a shudder of sinister surmise. He was wondering how it would feel to cast himself into the chill, turbid waters, and whether he could summon up the necessary courage for an act which, he had persuaded himself, was now becoming inevitable as well as laudable. He felt that he was too weary, sick and disheartened to go on with the evil dream of existence.

From any human stand-point, there was doubtless abundant reason for Alvor’s depression. Young, and full of unquenched visions and desires, he had come to the city from an up-state village three months before, hoping to find a publisher for his writings; but his old-fashioned classic verses, in spite (or because) of their high imaginative fire, had been unanimously rejected both by magazines and book-firms. His last literary hope, a little volume of fanciful tales in prose, which he had written since his arrival in Brooklyn, had now been returned with disconcerting promptness by a firm which he had deemed the likeliest of all conceivable sponsors. Though Alvor had lived frugally and had chosen lodgings so humble as almost to constitute the proverbial poetic garret, the small sum of his savings was now exhausted. He was not only quite penniless, but his clothes were so worn as to be no longer presentable in editorial offices, and the soles of his shoes were becoming rapidly nonexistent from the tramping he had done. He had not eaten for days, and his last meal, like the several preceding ones, had been at the expense of his soft-hearted Irish landlady. After hours of aimless and desolate wandering through the fog-muffled streets, he was at this moment miles from his lodgings; and he had about made up his mind that he would not return to them.

For more reasons than one, Alvor would have preferred another death than that of drowning. The foul and icy waters were not inviting from an aesthetic view-point; and in spite of all he had heard to the contrary, he did not believe that such a death could be anything but disagreeable and painful. By choice he would have selected a sovereign Oriental opiate, whose insidious slumber would have led through a realm of gorgeous dreams to the gentle night of an ultimate oblivion; or, failing this, a deadly poison of merciful swiftness. But such Lethean media are not readily obtainable by a man with an empty purse.

Damning his own lack of forethought in not reserving enough money for such an eventuation, Alvor shuddered on the twilight bridge, and looked at the dismal waters, and then at the no less dismal fog through which the troubled lights of the city had begun to break. And then, through the instinctive habit of a country-bred person who is also imaginative and beauty-seeking, he looked at the heavens above the city to see if any stars were visible. He thought of his recent “Ode to Antares,” which, unlike his earlier productions, was written in vers libre and had a strong modernistic irony mingled with its planturous lyricism. He had hoped for its acceptance by The Contemporary Muse, but had heard nothing after many weeks, and surmised with a mordant pessimism that it had long been relegated to the editorial waste-basket. Now, with a sense of irony far more bitter than that which he had put into his ode, he looked for the ruddy spark of Antares itself, but was unable to find it in the sodden sky. His gaze and his thoughts returned to the river.

“There is no need for that, my young friend,” said a voice at his elbow. Alvor was startled not only by the words and by the clairvoyance they betrayed, but also by something that was unanalyzably strange in the tones of the voice that uttered them. The tones were those of a man of culture, they were well-modulated, they were both refined and authoritative; but in them there was a quality which, for lack of more precise words or imagery, he could think of only as metallic and unhuman. While his mind wrestled with swift-born unseizable fantasies, he turned to look at the stranger who had accosted him.

The man was neither uncommonly nor disproportionately tall; and he was modishly dressed, with a long overcoat and top hat. His features were not unusual, from what could be seen of them in the dusk, except for his full-lidded and burning eyes, like those of some nyctalopic animal. But from him there emanated a palpable sense of things that were inconceivably strange and outré and remote—a sense that was more patent, more insistent than any impression of mere form and odor and sound could have been, and which was well-nigh tactual in its intensity. Even at that meeting in the twilight, Alvor was conscious of wonder and fear and awe before this stranger about whom there was nothing ostensibly remarkable except his metallic voice and his fiery eyes.

“I repeat,” continued the man, “that there is no necessity for you to drown yourself in that river. A vastly different fate can be yours, if you choose… In the meanwhile, I shall be honored and delighted if you will accompany me to my house, which is not far away.”

In a state of astonishment preclusive of all analytical thought, or even of any clear cognizance of where he was going or what was happening, Alvor followed the stranger with a docility that would have surprised even himself if he had not been beyond all comparatively minor elements of surprise. A mutual silence was maintained while they traversed several blocks in the swirling fog. Then the stranger paused before a dark mansion.

“I live here,” he said, as he mounted the steps and unlocked the door. “Will you deign to enter?” He turned on the lights with the last word, as he mounted the steps and waited for Alvor to precede him. Entering, Alvor saw that he was in the hall of an old house which must in its time have had considerable pretensions to aristocratic dignity, for the paneling, carpet and furniture were all antique and were both rare and luxurious.

Alvor was conducted by his host to a library with furniture of the same well-nigh fabulous period as the hall. The place was crowded to the very ceiling with numberless books. Motioning the poet to be seated, the stranger poured out a small glassful of golden liquor and gave it to his guest. It was Benedictine, and the mellow warmth of the flavorous drink was truly magical. The poet’s weakness and weariness fell off like a dissolving fog, and the mental confusion in which he had accompanied his benefactor began to clear away.

“Rest here,” commanded his host, and left the room. Alvor resigned himself to the luxury of an ample arm-chair, while his brain occupied itself with countless conjectures. He could make up his mind to nothing, but the wildest thoughts occurred to him every instant, and he felt that there was an element of unique mystery about the whole proceeding. His first impressions of the stranger were momently intensified, though for no tangible reason.

His host returned in a few minutes.

“Will you come to the dining-room?” he suggested. “I know that you are hungry and I have ordered some food for you. Afterward, we will talk.”

An excellent meal for two had been brought in from a neighboring restaurant. Alvor, who was faint with inanition, ate with no attempt to conceal his ravening appetite, but noticed that the stranger made scarcely even a pretense of touching his own food. With a manner preoccupied and distrait, the man sat opposite Alvor, giving no more ostensible heed to his guest than the ordinary courtesies of a host required.

“We will talk now,” said the stranger, when Alvor had finished. The poet, whose energies and mental faculties were now fully revived, became bold enough to survey his host with a frank attempt at appraisal. On his part, the stranger looked at the thin Dantean features and slight frame of the poet with a cool unreadable air which seemed to indicate that he knew all that was essential to know about Alvor. Meeting his luminous gaze, Alvor was almost overcome by sensations no less novel than powerful. He saw a man of indefinite age, whose lineaments and complexion were Caucasian, but whose nationality he was unable to determine. The eyes had lost something of their weird luminosity beneath the electric light, but nevertheless, they were most remarkable, and from them there poured a sense of unearthly knowledge and power and strangeness not to be formulated by human thought or conveyed in human speech. Under his scrutiny, vague, dazzling, intricate, unshapable images rose on the dim borders of the poet’s mind and fell back into oblivion ere he could envisage them. Apparently without rime or reason, some lines of his “Ode to Antares” returned to him, and he found that he was repeating them over and over beneath his breath: