the iron door shut behind me, however, than I wished I hadnât come. What had I to do with the hanging of a stranger? The pickled souvenirs of our kindâs brief struggle with death would have been a more welcome sight than the hemp cravat that the condemned man would be wearing to his grave.
By now, Iâd read too much of Poe to see the world without an intervening gloom: a gray drizzle of dust or, during this raw January day, an atmosphere composed of icy crystals, biting wind, and dread. I was unmoved when dusting Vogelâs skull and, once, to amuse a silly girl, I had kissed his tongue-less, gumless, altogether fleshless face. But at the sight of this manâhis name was Rudolph Holtz, or Heinzâdragging his misery, like a game leg, up a flight of wooden steps, I trembled. Poe looked on with only a trace of excitement in his gray eyes to leaven an otherwise-impassive expression. He gathered the collar of his shabby coat around his neck, not in an unconscious sympathy for the man who would soon be gathered into eternity, but against the bitter cold.
I was grateful that, for once, Poe had nothing to say; I could not have answered him for the chattering of my teeth. I was scared, Moran. I was familiar with what a man leaves behind after heâs departed this life for the next, but the solemn moment of departureâthatâs a secret better kept untold. My advice to you, Moran, is to avoid a hanging at all costs.
Now Holtz, or Heinz, entered the unearthly suspensionof time that Poe had claimed to experience when heâd pawed over Vogelâs skull and imagined in minute detail his own now-concluded transaction with the gallows. Heinz, or Holtz, seemed to mount the rough staircase toward the waiting noose as if he had all the time in the world. I would not have been surprised if winter had been replaced by spring, the gray sky by blue, so very slowly did he mount the wooden treads. With equal slowness, the rope was fitted around his neck, the chaplain muttered âCourage,â and the warden nodded toward the executioner, who pulled an iron lever, solemnly, as though to release the bottom of the world itself for humankind to tumble out into extinction. The condemned man descended gravely; I heard a noise like a bowstring when the arrow is let go; he nodded as in farewell to a world that had been unkind, intolerant, or merely indifferent to him. The tautening rope seemed to sting the very air, and then I heard a noise like an arrowâs hitting home. I felt the noose tighten. The dead man twisted on his axis. Silence flooded the prison yard, cold and barren as the moon. It seemed to me that even the wind was holding its breath.
ââAnd when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,ââ said Poe, who loved the Book of Revelation, of Saint John of Patmos, more than any other sacred text.
Two men in rubber aprons took down the body, as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had done the murdered Christ from his gibbet. They laid himâtenderly, I thoughtâon a barrow and wheeled him inside the prison to wash his corpse. It would end in potterâs field or, perhaps, inMütterâs own museum after the bones had been rid of their flesh and blood. I wondered what Vogel and he would find to talk about during the long hours of darkness when the door to the exhibits was shut. Edgar would know. Heâd make a story out of it, damn him: a comic piece of minstrelsy, with Vogel playing the part of Bones, Holtz, or Heinz, that of Tambo, with Poe as Mr. Interlocutorâpedantic middleman to their befuddled and black-faced end men.
          I NTERLOCUTOR: Brother Bones.
          B ONES: Yessuh, Mr. Interlocutor?
          I NTERLOCUTOR : You seem down in the mouth this morning. Didnât you sleep
By now, Iâd read too much of Poe to see the world without an intervening gloom: a gray drizzle of dust or, during this raw January day, an atmosphere composed of icy crystals, biting wind, and dread. I was unmoved when dusting Vogelâs skull and, once, to amuse a silly girl, I had kissed his tongue-less, gumless, altogether fleshless face. But at the sight of this manâhis name was Rudolph Holtz, or Heinzâdragging his misery, like a game leg, up a flight of wooden steps, I trembled. Poe looked on with only a trace of excitement in his gray eyes to leaven an otherwise-impassive expression. He gathered the collar of his shabby coat around his neck, not in an unconscious sympathy for the man who would soon be gathered into eternity, but against the bitter cold.
I was grateful that, for once, Poe had nothing to say; I could not have answered him for the chattering of my teeth. I was scared, Moran. I was familiar with what a man leaves behind after heâs departed this life for the next, but the solemn moment of departureâthatâs a secret better kept untold. My advice to you, Moran, is to avoid a hanging at all costs.
Now Holtz, or Heinz, entered the unearthly suspensionof time that Poe had claimed to experience when heâd pawed over Vogelâs skull and imagined in minute detail his own now-concluded transaction with the gallows. Heinz, or Holtz, seemed to mount the rough staircase toward the waiting noose as if he had all the time in the world. I would not have been surprised if winter had been replaced by spring, the gray sky by blue, so very slowly did he mount the wooden treads. With equal slowness, the rope was fitted around his neck, the chaplain muttered âCourage,â and the warden nodded toward the executioner, who pulled an iron lever, solemnly, as though to release the bottom of the world itself for humankind to tumble out into extinction. The condemned man descended gravely; I heard a noise like a bowstring when the arrow is let go; he nodded as in farewell to a world that had been unkind, intolerant, or merely indifferent to him. The tautening rope seemed to sting the very air, and then I heard a noise like an arrowâs hitting home. I felt the noose tighten. The dead man twisted on his axis. Silence flooded the prison yard, cold and barren as the moon. It seemed to me that even the wind was holding its breath.
ââAnd when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour,ââ said Poe, who loved the Book of Revelation, of Saint John of Patmos, more than any other sacred text.
Two men in rubber aprons took down the body, as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had done the murdered Christ from his gibbet. They laid himâtenderly, I thoughtâon a barrow and wheeled him inside the prison to wash his corpse. It would end in potterâs field or, perhaps, inMütterâs own museum after the bones had been rid of their flesh and blood. I wondered what Vogel and he would find to talk about during the long hours of darkness when the door to the exhibits was shut. Edgar would know. Heâd make a story out of it, damn him: a comic piece of minstrelsy, with Vogel playing the part of Bones, Holtz, or Heinz, that of Tambo, with Poe as Mr. Interlocutorâpedantic middleman to their befuddled and black-faced end men.
          I NTERLOCUTOR: Brother Bones.
          B ONES: Yessuh, Mr. Interlocutor?
          I NTERLOCUTOR : You seem down in the mouth this morning. Didnât you sleep
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