originally published Weird Tales June 1935
James Allington, a modern-day wizard (well, by 1935 standards), lies dead in his library. How come? Well, it seems he was using self-hypnosis to isolate his evil side (ala Mr, Hyde) and further cause it to manifest in a physical form separate from Allington's own bod.
Now I happen to know a fair bit about hypnosis, and that would be an impressive trick!
In any case, first Allington finds himself having shrunk to a significantly smaller size - AND there's now a huge ape-like thing running around in his library with him! It seems his evil side was the bigger half of him! Not seeing any other choice, Allington grabs a letter-opener to try to kill the monkey with.
They find Allington dead, with the letter-opener buried in his chest. But the prints on the handle are those of a great ape.
People thought apes were really scary in the 30's. Seriously.
"People thought apes were really scary in the 30's. Seriously."
ReplyDeleteWell in defense of this, the ape-like evil side of James Allington -who probably was inspired by the "popular culture" view of Mr. Crowley back then- has a decayed zombie-style face:
"It was like a rotting, living skull upon the body of a black ape. It was grisly and wicked, troglodytic and wise."
I don't know, but compared to Bloch's other very early stories, I always found this to be one of his most tongue-in-cheek. And for what concerns to apes in the 30s: I think they were more highly regarded as sinister henchmen or villains, in part because were considered more aggressive and intelligent than they really are.