Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="bruin" data-source="post: 1055629" data-attributes="member: 12587">Excerpts from The Diary of William Thurber-1920-1924-[Most of the early entries deal with his time in the Art History program at Harvard, inheriting his father’s fortune, marrying Elizabeth Jones, consorting with other dilettantes at the Art Club, and other irrelevant material]-October 1924-Met Pickman for the first time, the others weren't kidding about him.  There's something crazy about him, but the man intrigues me at the same time.  Says he hasn't gotten them to take any of his stuff yet, none of his good pieces anyways.  All they display of his are some unremarkable watercolor still-lifes and such nonsense.  -1924-1925-[More irrelevant entries]-October 1925- Saw Pickman at the club arguing with the owners; apparently they were scandalized by one of the paintings he had put on display.  I saw the thing; it was horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Showed a bunch of deformed figures; looked like men in a terrible way, but also looked half like dogs or demons, feeding.  It wasn't fanastitic or surreal, the figures seemed as if they were alive.  It takes a true artist to disgust a philistine like Joe Minot enough to kick Pickman out of the club.  Perhaps a study in weird art would be amusing.[Most of these entries detail his frequent visits to Pickman in the Newbury St. House] -July 1, 1926-This entry is devoted to the events described in the story "Pickman's Model" and is in all respects identical, except that it is in the form of a diary entry rather than a dialogue to his friend Eliot, and doesn't go into the same detail in recounting some of Pickman's commentary or Thurbers comment on art generally.  [OODM: It is mainly this entry that Renard has used to compile the clues in the handwritten list]-August 7, 1926-Tremors-Damnable earthquakes!  No one still has any idea where they come from or why.  If the rumors are true, there should be another one a week from today.  And then there won't be any for another 7 years.  Whoever can explain such freakish phenomena is a better man than I.  The shock of Pickman is wearing off now; I think I can go on, living a life where those things do not exist, are just a figment of my imagination.  Hundreds of thousands of people do it in this city everyday, totally unaware of what lies beneath them.  Been doing it for centuries, if the history Pickman gave me is any indication.  If they can embrace ignorance of this second, other realm, so can I.  And yet I know that tomorrow, I will still avoid the subway.-August 14, 1926-The second tremor came, but I was better prepared this time.  At least I won't have to worry about any more of those for a while.  Pickman has disappeared, though that hardly surprises me.  The police came by the house after I came of work, asking questions about when I might have last seen him.  I told them I didn't know anything; it's not as if I could find the way back to that god-awful place even if I wanted to.  Whatever Pickman was up to, he must have transgressed whatever boundaries he'd set with those...things.  Living life as an artist is supposed to have a price, but that price!  I don't even want to think of it.-October 1926-Thurber recounts a conversation with his friend Eliot, summarizing some of the details of the earlier diary entry and adding remarks about art and some of Pickman’s history of the tunnels(as discussed in the story).-October 31, 1926-They go out tonight, some in masks, others not.  Who would know the difference really.  Pickman wanted to destroy the difference, to say that however cultured, upright, and evolved we might like to think we are, there is an element of decay, bestiality, savagery waiting latent inside us, waiting to erupt and take over like it did with him.  They say the wearing of masks and costumes originated as a way to hide yourself from the ghosts and goblins of Halloween, but how do you hide from the ghoul inside you waiting to break out and take you over?-November 1, 1926-Terrible dreams, didn't get a wink of sleep.  Dreamt Pickman showed up at the door, dressed up as one of those ghouls, but then realizing it wasn't a costume, he was advancing towards me and Elizabeth, terrible mouth gaping towards me and ready to feed on me, on her, on our unborn child...  And in the papers today!  A little girl disappeared near those old tunnels off the Boston Common last night.  I shudder to think what she might have found, or what might have found her.-November 29, 1926-My son Henry was born today; what a Thanksgiving gift this is.  The dreams of Pickman have all gone away in the last week; finally getting some good sleep.  Took the subway this morning for the first time in months.  Out of sight, out of mind.-1926-1930-[Four years of relative domestic tranquility are recorded in the entries for this period]-January 27, 1931-Elizabeth was killed three days ago by a speeding motor as she went to pick up something up at the store.  I have finally composed myself somewhat; finally gotten some amount of control; have to compose myself for the funeral tomorrow; have to keep myself together, for the sake of my relatives and my poor son.-January 28, 1931-Dear God what is happening to my mind?  What a lunatic they must think me!  As I leaned over to take a last look at Elizabeth, before my very eyes, through some hallucination or shadow of the mind, a terrible transmutation took place; she metamorphosed into one of Pickman’s ghouls as I looked down at her, her hideous canine maw shifting towards me as her eyes opened and gazed at me with execration!  I pushed her back, but all I really did was knock over the casket.  People were screaming and some ran; some of the men grabbed me and held me down until I was myself again.  If it were not for her sister, Emily, looking after my son, I don’t know what I would do.  -Jan-Feb 1931-[These entries show Thurber experiencing frequent nightmares about Elizabeth and Pickman returning as ghouls to attack Thurber and his son]-February 25, 1931- The phantoms keep coming every night, Emily had to take Henry to her home just to get him away from the screams at night.  Have to compose myself.  I have to go back where it began, just see that it was a normal house like any other, that I’ve been hallucinating it all, that Elizabeth is at rest.February 26,1931, 2 am-I couldn’t find it, but I found something much worse.  Went and strolled for hours looking for the right alley but couldn’t find the place.  I was about to give up completely as it got close to midnight I reached the Copp’s Hill terrace.  I was walking south, about to return to the elevated on Charter, but then I caught the shape of a shadowy figure running through past the church into the burying ground.  I ran over to see what was the matter and saw the figure was trailing blood on the ground after it.  I thought whoever it was might have been hurt and followed him.  The I saw he wasn’t running through the cemetery, but running to the big tomb that houses the Mathers.  It was somehow pressing on the inscription on the front of the tomb, then I saw the lid of the tomb move, by some sort of mechanical means.  As I drew closer it looked back and me and howled.  It was one of Pickman’s ghouls.  I can only hope that I have been dreaming all this, and that I’ve been at home asleep all this time since my last entry.  But I do not think so.  And I do not think I saw what I saw either.  This can only mean that I have fully lost my mind.  Tomorrow, or today rather, since today has already passed into tomorrow, I have to call Bronson.  He’ll know how to get me committed to a good place, and take care of the finances while I’m away.  For my own sake, and the sake of my son, there is no other choice.  -At the bottom of the last entry, an annotation from Henry Thurber-“At this point my father committed himself to the Danvers asylum for a period of five years.”-Henry Thurber, 1945. -June 21, 1936-I’ve been out of the asylum for a week now, and am living with Emily and her husband and Henry until I begin work and can afford a new home.  The other house paid well for all my time in the institution and covered Henry well enough it seems.  Now, to take this diary under my control again.  This is the last step, the psychoanalyst told me; to confront the demons I’ve recorded in this diary, and put them to rest once and for all. -July 5, 1936-I tried for a while, and I thought that I was gaining control over it again.  But as I tried to go to sleep tonight, I heard the chamber door open.  I started, then I saw a small ghoul coming at me, with it’s claws trying to dig into me.  I struck at it with my fists, trying to batter it down, then I came to my senses; there was Henry, bruised and bleeding on the floor with a broken nose!  Emily grabbed the boy and took him away, and yelled at me to go back to the asylum, but I know now that I can never be normal again, and that I can never put the memory of those creatures out of my mind. -On the following page, another note from Henry: “My father hanged himself that night.  Aunt Emily kept this knowledge from me for all this time, although I suppose that was for the best.  I had always been scared of him, and I wasn’t happy when he came back home.  Scared the bloody hell out of me and I was glad when Emily told me dad had “gone away” for a while.  I’ll never know what truly happened to him and Pickman that night, and I’m probably better off for it.”-Henry Thurber, 1945.</blockquote>

Verification