the purloined letter full text
I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G--, the Prefect of the Parisian police. Translated from French, the words mean "so baleful a plan, if unworthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes." There is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to be accounted for in every cabinet. "'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?' A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. "Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin. … The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. “Why, I will tell you,” replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have seized it openly, and departed?”, “D—,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. Jacques Lacan, “Le seminaire sur ‘La Lettre volee,‘” from Ecrits (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), pp. "I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. “Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. "Be a little more explicit," I said. “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allen Poe As you read the story, watch for the answers to the following questions. "But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?" "To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host. “You might have spared yourself this trouble,” said Dupin. AT PARIS, JUST after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisieme, No. “I fear you are right there,” said the Prefect. What, for example, in this case of D—, has been done to vary the principle of action? "Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair. D--, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. “Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. But, then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D--, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to suspect. Full english text . Annotated Full Text. “And what, after all, is the matter on hand?” I asked. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. The identity of the owner of the stolen document is being revealed slowly, which builds suspense. "Why so?" Poe’s detective, Auguste Dupin, is the protagonist in “The Purloined Letter,” published in 1845, and in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.”. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. Dupin’s allusion to Newton’s work is another example of his unconventional approach to crime solving. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?”, “Certainly not; but we did better—we examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope.”. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. The thing is so plain. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed "lucky," --what, in its last analysis, is it?" My honor is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. Do you not see he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter,—not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg—but, at least, in some hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? Dupin’s many literary, historical, scientific, philosophical, and cultural allusions throughout the story are significant in his characterization; the breadth of his knowledge contributes to the depth of his insight—the very qualities he previously pointed out as lacking in Rochefoucauld, Machiavelli, Campanella, and Bruyère, who is misidentified as “La Bougive.”. The Parisian police have done this thing often before." D—rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. Show PDF in full window » Full Text (PDF) Classifications. She has now him in hers; since, being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to me.”, “Than whom,” said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, “no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined.”, “You flatter me,” replied the Prefect; “but it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained.”, “It is clear,” said I, “as you observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. "Certainly not; but we did better --we examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. ha! ha! You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. “And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?”, “To make a thorough re-search of the premises.”, “That is absolutely needless,” replied G—. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, less, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently in some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The word has negative connotations that disparage or belittle such language or speech. The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.”, “Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. summaries | I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the Minister?”, “Confound him, say I—yes; I made the reexamination, however, as Dupin suggested—but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be.”. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. The owner of the document is revealed to be the queen (“she”) and the “other exalted personage,” it can be inferred, is her husband. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. The narrator ridicules Monsieur G— for his wordy response, which lacks specifics in answering the question. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the Ministerial presence alive. They sleep at a distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste. See in text (The Purloined Letter) Translated from French, the words mean "so baleful a plan, if unworthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes." To be sure, it was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute a description. "Confound him, say I --yes; I made the reexamination, however, as Dupin suggested --but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be." "Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. “The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D—is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the document—its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice—a point of nearly equal importance with its possession.”. I found D—at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Roget. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design." He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now alive --but that is only when nobody sees him. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a mob. This last was much soiled and crumpled. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence. The queen’s wanting to keep the letter from him “especially” implies that it is a letter she has received from a lover. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. gallery The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. By tracing the letter's movements in the story, we can trace the shifting flow of power. “You include the grounds about the houses?”, “All the grounds are paved with brick. One party playing requires another to find a given word --the name of town, river, state or empire --any word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. "There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a map. 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