Thus it proved with the odious parcel left on my doorstep by Neuendorf. Had it occurred during a period of extended tranquillity, the unanticipated intrusion of this profoundly disquieting object would almost certainly have plunged me into a state of extreme distress. Arriving as it did, however, at a time of such intense, such unparalleled anxiety, I experienced it as merely one more vexation in a long series of unsettling events. Though certainly dismayed by this ghastly reminder of Neuendorf’s implacably vindictive temperament, I was too taken up with other, more urgent matters to dwell on it for very long.

The sense of alarm occasioned in me by the reception of this odious article was further assuaged by Crockett. Seated in his chaise with the excoriated strip of hide held aloft in one hand, he had insisted that the entire episode offered irrefutable proof of Neuendorf’s fundamentally pusillanimous nature.

“Why, looky here, Poe,” he had exclaimed. “If I aimed to skin a feller’s carcass, would I bother with such tomfoolery as sending him a chunk of horseflesh? No sir. I’d just show up one morning with my sharpest hunting knife and carve him up quicker than an owl can swallow a rat. You mark me, Poe, this here bit of nastiness don’t amount to shucks.”

And so saying, he had leaned over the front of the carriage and—with a contemptuous flick of the wrist—flung the vile article into the gutter, where it was instantly set upon and devoured by a pack of roving swine.

Among the many concerns preoccupying my mind in the days following our interview with Mrs. Nicodemus, one of the most pressing had to do with the latter’s impending gala. Immediately prior to our departure from her home, Mrs. Nicodemus had proposed that—to blend in more fully with her other guests, all of whom would be attending with partners of the opposite sex—Crockett and I each invite a female companion. When, upon returning to my dwelling, I had broached the subject with Virginia, she had responded with the utmost enthusiasm. It quickly occurred to me that Sissy and I could achieve a singularly vivid impression by arriving in costumes that embodied a related thematic or pictorial concept, so that—when viewed in conjunction with each other—we would produce the dramatic effect of a tableau vivant.

As I sat in my study on the following morning, cudgelling my brains over the still-unknown meaning of “Nevermore,” my gaze happened to fall upon a volume of Ovid’s Metamorphosis in Dryden’s excellent (if not consistently felicitous) translation. All at once, I was struck with an inspiration regarding the approaching masquerade. Within moments, I had sought out both Muddy and Sissy and excitedly shared my conception with them. They quickly perceived its charms and gave their eager approbation.