The Thing on the Doorstep | Page 3

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-grey 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 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 exercises 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. Knowing my usually great influence
with his son, the father wondered if I could help to break the ill-advised
affair off; but I regretfully expressed my doubts. This time it was not a
question of Edward's weak will but of the woman's strong will. The
perennial child had transferred his dependence from the parental image
to a new and stronger image, and nothing could be done about it.
The wedding was performed a month later - by a justice of the peaoe,
according to the bride's request. Mr. Derby, at my advice, offered no
opposition, and he, my wife, my son, and I attended the brief ceremony
- the other guests being wild young