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SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY

Edgar Allan Poe

NARRATOR-RICHARD HEFT

The symposium of the preceding evening had been a little too much for my nerves.  I had a wretched headache, and was desperately drowsy.  It occurred to me that I could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful of supper and go immediately to bed. 

I could not have completed my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street doorbell, and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once.  In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner.  It ran thus:

PONNONNER-MIKE CRAMER

Come to me, by all means, my dear good friend, as soon as you receive this.  Come and help us to rejoice.  At last, by long persevering diplomacy, I have gained the assent of the Directors of the City Museum, to my examination of the Mummy.  You know the one I mean.  I have permission to unswathe it and open it.  A few friends only will be present – you of course.  The Mummy is now at my house, and we shall begin to unroll it at eleven tonight.  Yours, ever, Ponnonner.

NARRATOR-HEFT

It struck me that I was as wide-awake as a man need be.  I leaped out of bed in an ecstasy, overthrowing all in my way; dressed myself with a rapidity truly marvelous; and set off, at the top of my speed, for the doctor's. 

There I found a very eager company assembled.  They had been awaiting me with much impatience; the Mummy was extended upon the dining table; and the moment I entered its examination was commenced. 

Approaching the table, I saw on it a large box, or case, nearly seven feet long and perhaps three feet wide, by two feet deep.  It was oblong, not coffin-shaped.  The material was at first supposed to be the wood of the sycamore, but, upon cutting into it, we found it to be pasteboard composed of papyrus.  It was ornamented with paintings, representing funeral scenes, and interspersed among were certain series of hieroglyphic characters, intended, no doubt, for the name of the departed.  By good luck, Mr. Gliddon formed one of our party; and he had no difficulty in translating the letters, which were simply phonetic, and represented the word Allamistakeo. 

We had some difficulty in getting this case open without injury; but we discovered and took out the body.  We found the flesh in excellent preservation, with no perceptible odor.  The color was reddish.  The skin was hard, smooth, and glossy.  The teeth and hair were in good condition.  The eyes (it seemed) had been removed, and glass ones substituted, which were very beautiful and wonderfully life-like, with the exception of somewhat too determined a stare.

Doctor Ponnonner was preparing his instruments for dissection, when some one suggested an experiment or two with the Voltaic pile. 

The application of electricity to a mummy three or four thousand years was an idea, if not very sage, still sufficiently original, and we all caught it at once.  So, about one-tenth in earnest and nine-tenths in jest, we arranged a battery in the Doctor's study, and brought forth the Egyptian. 

After much trouble, we succeeded in laying bare some portions of the temporal muscle, which, of course, as we had anticipated, gave no indication of galvanic susceptibility when brought in contact with the wire.  Our first experiment seemed decisive, when my eyes, happening to fall upon those of the Mummy, were there immediately riveted in amazement.  My brief glance, in fact, had sufficed to assure me that the orbs which we had all supposed to be glass, and which were originally noticeable for a certain wild stare, were now so far covered by the lids, that only a small portion of them remained visible. 

With a shout I called attention to the fact, and it became immediately obvious to all. 

I cannot say that I was alarmed at the phenomenon, because "alarmed" is, in my case, not exactly the word.  It is possible, however, that I might have been a little nervous.  As for the rest of the company, they really made no attempt at concealing the downright fright which possessed them.  Doctor Ponnonner was a man to be pitied.  Mr. Gliddon, by some peculiar process, rendered himself invisible.  Mr. Buckingham, I fancy, will scarcely be so bold as to deny that he made his way, upon all fours, under the table. 

We made an incision into the tip of the subject's nose, while the Doctor himself pulled the nose into vehement contact with the wire. 

Figuratively and literally – was the effect electric.  In the first place, the corpse opened its eyes and winked very rapidly for several minutes; in the second place, it sneezed; in the third, it sat upon end; in the fourth, it shook its fist in Doctor Ponnonner's face; in the fifth, turning to Gliddon and Buckingham, it addressed them, in very proper Egyptian.

MUMMY-CLIVE REES

I must say, gentlemen, that I am as much surprised as I am mortified at your behaviour.  Of Doctor Ponnonner nothing better was to be expected.  He is a poor little fat fool who knows no better.  I pity and forgive him.  But you, Mr. Gliddon, and you, Buckingham, who have traveled and resided in Egypt – you, I say who have been so much among us that you speak Egyptian as well as you write your mother tongue – you, whom I have always been led to regard as the friend of the mummies – I really did anticipate more gentlemanly conduct from you.  What am I to think of your standing quietly by and seeing me thus unhandsomely used? What am I to suppose by your permitting Tom, Dick, and Harry to strip me of my coffins, and my clothes, in this wretchedly cold climate? In what light (to come to the point) am I to regard your aiding and abetting that miserable little villain, Doctor Ponnonner, in pulling me by the nose?

NARRATOR-HEFT

It will be taken for granted, no doubt, that upon hearing this speech we all either made for the door, fell into violent hysterics, or went off in a general swoon.  Perhaps it was only the Mummy's exceedingly natural and matter-of-fact air, but no member of our party betrayed any very particular trepidation, or seemed to consider that any thing had gone very especially wrong. 

For my part, I was convinced it was all right, and merely stepped aside, out of the range of the Egyptian's fist.  Doctor Ponnonner thrust his hands into his breeches' pockets, looked hard at the Mummy, and grew excessively red in the face.  Mr. Gliddon stroked his whiskers and drew up the collar of his shirt.  Mr. Buckingham hung down his head, and put his right thumb into the left corner of his mouth. 

MUMMY-REES

Why don't you speak, Mr. Buckingham? Did you hear what I asked you, or not? Do take your thumb out of your mouth!

NARRATOR-HEFT

Mr. Buckingham, hereupon, gave a slight start, took his right thumb out of the left corner of his mouth, and, by way of indemnification inserted his left thumb in the right corner of the aperture. 

Not being able to get an answer from Mr. B., the figure turned to Mr. Gliddon and demanded what we all meant. 

Mr. Gliddon's discourse turned chiefly upon the vast benefits to science from the unrolling and disemboweling of mummies; apologizing for any disturbance that might have been occasioned this particular Mummy called Allamistakeo; and concluding with a suggestion that, as these little matters were now explained, it might be as well to proceed with the investigation intended.

Allamistakeo expressed himself satisfied with the apologies tendered, and, getting down from the table, shook hands with the company all round. 

It was now observed that the Count (this was the title, it seems, of Allamistakeo) had a slight fit of shivering, no doubt from the cold.  The Doctor immediately repaired to his wardrobe, and soon returned with a black dress coat, a pair of sky-blue plaid pantaloons with straps, a pink gingham chemise, a flapped vest, a white sack overcoat, a walking cane with a hook, a hat with no brim, patent-leather boots, straw-colored kidgloves, an eye-glass, and a waterfall cravat.

When all was arranged, he might have been said to be dressed.  Mr. Gliddon gave him his arm, and led him to a comfortable chair by the fire, while the Doctor rang the bell upon the spot and ordered a supply of cigars and wine. 

The conversation soon grew animated.  Much curiosity was, of course, expressed in regard to the somewhat remarkable fact of Allamistakeo's still remaining alive. 

BUCKINGHAM-EBBIE PARKER

I should have thought that it is high time you were dead.

MUMMY-REES

Why, I am little more than seven hundred years old! My father lived a thousand, and was by no means in his dotage when he died.

BUCKINGHAM-PARKER

But my remark had no reference to your age at the period of interment.   I am willing to grant, in fact, that you are still a young man.

PONNONNER-CRAMER

What we are especially at a loss to understand is how it happens that, having been dead and buried in Egypt five thousand years ago, you are here today all alive and looking so delightfully well.

MUMMY-REES

Had I been, as you say, dead, it is more than probable that dead I should still be.  But the fact is, I fell into catalepsy, and it was considered by my best friends that I was either dead or should be; they accordingly embalmed me at once.  I presume you are aware of the chief principle of the embalming process?

PONNONNER-CRAMER

Why, not altogether.

MUMMY-REES

What a deplorable condition of ignorance! Well I cannot enter into details just now: but it is necessary to explain that to embalm in Egypt, was to arrest indefinitely all the animal functions.  I repeat that the leading principle of embalming consisted in the immediate arresting, and holding in perpetual abeyance, all the animal functions subjected to the process.  To be brief, in whatever condition the individual was, at the period of embalming, in that condition he remained.  Now, as it is my good fortune to be of the blood of the Scarabaeus, I was embalmed alive, as you see me at present.

GLIDDON-PAUL ROBERTSON

The blood of the Scarabaeus!

MUMMY-REES

Yes.  The Scarabaeus was a very distinguished and very noble patrician family.

PONNONNER-CRAMER

But what has this to do with you being alive?

MUMMY-REES

Why, it is the general custom in Egypt to deprive a corpse of its bowels and brains; the race of the Scarabaei alone did not coincide with the custom.  Had I not been a Scarabeus, therefore, I should have been without bowels and brains; and without either it is inconvenient to live.

PONNONNER-CRAMER

It is not possible, then, that among the catacombs near the Nile there may exist other mummies of the Scarabaeus tribe, in a condition of vitality?

MUMMY-REES

There can be no question of it.   All the Scarabaei embalmed accidentally while alive, are alive now.  Even some of those purposely so embalmed, may have been overlooked by their executors, and still remain in the tomb.

NARRATOR-HEFT

"Will you be kind enough to explain," I said, "what you mean by 'purposely so embalmed'?"
The Mummy, surveyed me leisurely through his eyeglass, for it was the first time I had ventured to address him a direct question. 

MUMMY-REES

With great pleasure.  The usual duration of man's life, in my time, was about eight hundred years.  Few men died, unless by most extraordinary accident, before the age of six hundred; few lived longer than a decade of centuries; but eight were considered the natural term.  After the discovery of the embalming principle, it occurred to our philosophers that a curiosity might be gratified, and, at the same time, the interests of science much advanced, by living this natural term in installments.  An historian, for example, having attained the age of five hundred, would get himself carefully embalmed; leaving instructions to his executors pro tem that they should cause him to be revivified after the lapse of a certain period – say five or six hundred years.  Resuming existence at the expiration of this time, it was regarded as the bounden duty of the historian to set himself to work immediately in correcting, from his own private knowledge and experience, the traditions of the day concerning the epoch at which he had originally lived.   This personal rectification had the effect of preventing our history from degenerating into absolute fable.

PONNONNER-CRAMER

But since it is quite clear that at least five thousand years have elapsed since your entombment, I take it for granted that your histories were sufficiently explicit on that one topic of universal interest, the Creation, which took place only about ten centuries before.

MUMMY-REES

The ideas you have suggested are to me, I confess, utterly novel.  During my time I never knew any one to entertain so singular a fancy as that the universe ever had a beginning at all. 

GLIDDON-ROBERTSON

The long duration of human life in your time, together with the occasional practice of passing it, as you have say, in installments, must have had a strong tendency to the general development of knowledge.  I presume, therefore, that we are to attribute the inferiority of the old Egyptians in all particulars of science, when compared with the moderns altogether to the solidity of the Egyptian skull.

MUMMY-REES

I confess again that I am somewhat at a loss to comprehend you; pray, to what particulars of science do you allude?

NARRATOR-HEFT

Here our whole party, joining voices, detailed, at great length, the assumptions of phrenology and the marvels of animal magnetism. 

I asked the Count if his people were able to calculate eclipses and other astronomical phenomenon.  He smiled rather contemptuously, and said they were.  This put me a little out, but I began to make other inquiries.

I questioned the Mummy about burning-glasses and lenses, and, in general, about the manufacture of glass.  He merely asked me, in the way of reply, if we moderns possessed any such microscopes as would enable us to cut cameos in the style of the Egyptians.  While I was thinking how I should answer this question, little Doctor Ponnonner committed himself in a very extraordinary way. 

PONNONNER-CRAMER

Look at our architecture!  Look at the Bowling Green Fountain in New York!  Or regard for a moment the Capitol at Washington, D.C.!  The portico alone is adorned with no less than four and twenty columns, five feet in diameter, and ten feet apart.

MUMMY-REES

I regret not being able to remember, just at this moment, the precise dimensions of any one of the principal buildings of the city of Aznac.   I do recollect, however, that one affixed to an inferior palace in a kind of suburb called Carnac, consisted of a hundred and forty-four columns, thirty-seven feet in circumference, and twenty-five feet apart.  The approach from the Nile was through an avenue two miles long, composed of sphinxes, statues, and obelisks, twenty, sixty, and a hundred feet in height.  That palace at Carnac was an insignificant little building after all.  However, I cannot conscientiously refuse to admit the ingenuity, magnificence, and superiority of your Fountain at the Bowling Green.  Nothing like it, I am forced to allow, has ever been seen in Egypt or elsewhere.

NARRATOR-HEFT

I here asked the Count what he had to say to our railroads. 

MUMMY-REES

Nothing in particular.  They are rather slight, rather ill-conceived, and clumsily put together.  They cannot be compared, of course, with the vast, level, direct, iron-grooved causeways upon which the Egyptians conveyed entire temples of a hundred and fifty feet in altitude. 

NARRATOR-HEFT

All this disconcerted us so greatly that we thought it advisable to vary the attack to Metaphysics.  We sent for a copy of a book called “The Dial," and read out of it a chapter or two about something that is not very clear, but which the Bostonians call the Great Movement of Progress. 

MUMMY-REES

Great Movements were awfully common things in my day; and as for Progress, it was at one time quite a nuisance, but it never progressed. 

NARRATOR-HEFT

We then spoke of the great beauty and importance of Democracy, and were at much trouble in impressing the Count with a due sense of the advantages we enjoyed in living where there was suffrage ad libitum, and no king.  He listened with marked interest, and in fact seemed not a little amused. 

MUMMY-REES

A great while ago, there had occurred something of a very similar
sort.  Thirteen Egyptian provinces determined all at once to be free,
and to set a magnificent example to the rest of mankind.  They
assembled their wise men, and concocted the most ingenious
constitution it is possible to conceive .  For awhile they managed
remarkably well; only their habit of bragging was prodigious. 
The thing ended, however, in the consolidation of the thirteen states,
with some fifteen or twenty others, in the most odious and insupportable despotism that was ever heard of upon the face of the Earth. 

NARRATOR-HEFT

I asked what was the name of the usurping tyrant.

MUMMY-REES

As well as I can recollect, it was "The MOB".

NARRATOR-HEFT

We were now in imminent danger of being discomfited; but, as good luck would have it, Doctor Ponnonner, having rallied, returned to our rescue, and inquired if the people of Egypt would seriously pretend to rival the moderns in the all-important particular of dress. 

The Count, at this, glanced downward to the straps of his pantaloons, and then taking hold of the end of one of his coat-tails, held it up close to his eyes for some minutes.  Letting it fall, at last, his mouth extended itself very gradually from ear to ear; but I do not remember that he said any thing in the way of reply. 

We recovered our spirits, and the Doctor, approaching the Mummy with great dignity, asked it to say candidly, upon its honor as a gentleman, if the Egyptians had comprehended the manufacture of either Ponnonner's lozenges or Brandreth's pills. 

We awaited, with profound anxiety, for an answer.  It was not forthcoming.  The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head.  Never was triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace.  Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy's mortification.  I reached my hat, bowed to him stiffly, and took leave. 

Upon getting home I found it past four o'clock, and went immediately to bed.  It is now ten A.M.  I have been up since seven, writing this account for the benefit of my family and of mankind.  The former I shall behold no more.  My wife is a shrew.  The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life and of these times in general.  I am convinced that every thing is going wrong.  Besides, I am anxious to know who will be President in 2245.  As soon, therefore, as I shave and swallow a cup of coffee, I shall just step over to Ponnonner's and get embalmed for a couple of hundred years. 

-The End-

© 2001 David Delgado/PoeForward

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