The Murders in the Rue Morgue | Page 2

player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game
is the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game.
He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully
with that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting
the cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by
honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He
notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of
thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise,
of triumph, or of chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he
judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He
recognises what is played through feint, by the air with which it is
thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental
dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or
carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks,
with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation,
eagerness or trepidation - all afford, to his apparently intuitive
perception, indications of the true state of affairs. The first two or three
rounds having been played, he is in full possession of the contents of
each hand, and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a
precision of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the
faces of their own.
The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity;
for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is
often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining
power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and to which the

phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ,
supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those
whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted
general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and
the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that
between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly
analogous. It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always
fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the
light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.
Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I
there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This
young gentleman was of an excellent - indeed of an illustrious family,
but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty
that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to
bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes.
By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a
small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this,
he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the
necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities.
Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily
obtained.
Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre,
where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare
and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We
saw each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little
family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a
Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is his theme. I was astonished,
too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul
enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his
imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the
societyof such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this
feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we
should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly

circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was
permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style
which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a
time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions
into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and
desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we
should have been regarded as madmen - although, perhaps, as madmen
of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no
visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a
secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years
since Dupin