Edward was twenty
when my son and only child was born, and seemed pleased when I named
the newcomer Edward Derby Upton, after him. By the time he was twenty-five Edward Derby was a prodigiously learned
man and a fairly well-known poet and _fantaisiste_, though his lack
of contacts and responsibilities had slowed down his literary growth
by making his products derivative and over-bookish. I was perhaps his
closest friend--finding him an inexhaustible mine of vital theoretical
topics, while he relied on me for advice in whatever matters he did not
wish to refer to his parents. He remained single--more through shyness,
inertia and parental protectiveness than through inclination--and moved
in society only to the slightest and most perfunctory extent. When the
war came both health and ingrained timidity kept him at home. I went to
Plattsburg for a commission, but never got overseas. So the years wore on. Edward's mother died when he was thirty-four, and
for months he was incapacitated by some odd psychological malady. His
father took him to Europe, however, and he managed to pull out of his
trouble without visible effects. Afterward he seemed to feel a sort
of grotesque exhilaration, as if of partial escape from some unseen
bondage. He began to mingle in the more "advanced" college set despite
his middle age, and was present at some extremely wild doings--on one
occasion paying heavy blackmail (which he borrowed of me) to keep his
presence at a certain affair from his father's notice. Some of the
whispered rumors about the wild Miskatonic set were extremely singular. There was even talk of black magic and of happenings utterly beyond
credibility. 2


Edward was thirty-eight when he met Asenath Waite. She was, I judge,
about twenty-three at the time; and was taking a special course in
mediæval meta-physics at Miskatonic. The daughter of a friend of mine
had met her before--in the Hall School at Kingsport--and had been
inclined to shun her because of her odd reputation. She was dark,
smallish, and very good-looking except for over-protuberant eyes; but
something in her expression alienated extremely sensitive people. It
was, however, largely her origin and conversation which caused average
folk to avoid her. She was one of the Innsmouth Waites, and dark
legends have clustered for generations about crumbling, half-deserted
Innsmouth and its people. There are tales of horrible bargains about
the year 1850, and of a strange element "not quite human" in the
ancient families of the run-down fishing-port--tales such as only
old-time Yankees can devise and repeat with proper awesomeness. Asenath's case was aggravated by the fact that she was Ephraim Waite's
daughter--the child of his old age by an unknown wife who always went
veiled. Ephraim lived in a half-decayed mansion in Washington Street,
Innsmouth, and those who had seen the place (Arkham folk avoid going
to Innsmouth whenever they can) declared that the attic windows were
always boarded, and that strange sounds sometimes floated from within
as evening drew on. The old man was known to have been a prodigious
magical student in his day, and legend averred that he could raise
or quell storms at sea according to his whim. I had seen him once or
twice in my youth as he came to Arkham to consult forbidden tomes at
the college library, and had hated his wolfish, saturnine face with
its tangle of iron-gray beard. He had died insane--under rather queer
circumstances--just before his daughter (by his will made a nominal
ward of the principal) entered the Hall School, but she had been his
morbidly avid pupil and looked fiendishly like him at times. The friend whose daughter had gone to school with Asenath Waite
repeated many curious things when the news of Edward's acquaintance
with her began to spread about. Asenath, it seemed, had posed as a
kind of magician at school; and had really seemed able to accomplish
some highly baffling marvels. She professed to be able to raise
thunderstorms, though her seeming success was generally laid to some
uncanny knack at prediction. All animals markedly disliked her, and she
could make any dog howl by certain motions of her right hand. There
were times when she displayed snatches of knowledge and language very
singular--and very shocking--for a young girl; when she would frighten
her schoolmates with leers and winks of an inexplicable kind, and would
seem to extract an obscene and zestful irony from her present situation. Most unusual, though, were the well-attested cases of her influence
over other persons. She was, beyond question, a genuine hypnotist. By
gazing peculiarly at a fellow-student she would often give the latter
a distinct feeling of _exchanged personality_--as if the subject were
placed momentarily in the magician's body and able to stare half across
the room at her real body, whose eyes blazed and protruded with an
alien expression. Asenath often made wild claims about the nature of
consciousness and about its independence of the physical frame--or
at least from the life-processes of the physical frame. Her crowning
rage, however, was that she was not a man; since she believed a male
brain had certain unique and far-reaching cosmic powers. Given a man's
brain, she declared, she could not only equal but surpass her father in
mastery of unknown forces. Edward met Asenath at a gathering of "intelligentsia" held in one of
the students' rooms, and could talk of nothing else when he came to see
me the next day. He had found her full of the interests and erudition
which engrossed him most, and was in addition wildly taken with her
appearance. I had never seen the young woman, and recalled casual
references only faintly, but I knew who she was. It seemed rather
regrettable that Derby should become so upheaved about her; but I said
nothing to discourage him, since infatuation thrives on opposition. He
was not, he said, mentioning her to his father. *       *       *       *       *

In the next few weeks I heard of very little but Asenath from young
Derby. Others now remarked Edward's autumnal gallantry, though they
agreed that he did not look even nearly his actual age, or seem at
all inappropriate as an escort for his bizarre divinity. He was only
a trifle paunchy despite his indolence and self-indulgence, and his
face was absolutely without lines. Asenath, on the other hand, had the
premature crow's-feet which come from the exercise of an intense will. About this time Edward brought the girl to call on me, and I at
once saw that his interest was by no means one-sided. She eyed him
continually with an almost predatory air, and I perceived that their
intimacy was beyond untangling. Soon afterward I had a visit from old
Mr. Derby, whom I had always admired and respected. He had heard the
tales of his son's new friendship and had wormed the whole truth out
of "the boy". Edward meant to marry Asenath, and had even been looking
at houses in the suburbs.