The Spectacles

The Spectacles by Edgar Allan Poe

Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, a young man of twenty-two who has legally adopted the surname Simpson to secure an inheritance, is a handsome but severely nearsighted man who refuses out of vanity to wear glasses. At the P—— Theatre one night with his friend Talbot, he becomes utterly infatuated at first sight with a magnificent-looking woman in a private box, though her face, when glimpsed, carries an odd air of weariness he cannot explain. Talbot identifies her as the wealthy, celebrated Parisian widow Madame Lalande and promises an introduction the next day. During the opera, the lady notices Simpson's stare, studies him deliberately through an eyeglass, confers with her escort, and finally returns his bow with two unmistakable nods of encouragement. The promised introduction falls through: Talbot leaves town unexpectedly and stays away for weeks, leaving Simpson to burn with impatience. He glimpses Madame Lalande passing in a carriage and exchanges another warm glance, then, unable to wait longer, writes her a bold letter confessing his love and proposing marriage. She replies in broken English, admitting he has guessed her feelings correctly. Still without Talbot to arrange things properly, Simpson accosts her directly during her evening promenade in a square, pretending old acquaintance to fool her attendant. They converse in French; she gently resists an immediate marriage as improper given how recently they've met, cites the impropriety of the situation, and raises the delicate matter of age, saying a wife should not be older than her husband and asking whether he realizes how much older than his twenty-two years she is. When Simpson presses past this, she drops a miniature portrait for him to examine later and invites him to escort her home to a musical soirée. At the softly lit gathering, singing by "Madame Lalande" enraptures him with astonishing vocal range, though he does not see the singer directly. Afterward, alone with him, Eugénie shows him the double eyeglass she used at the opera and extracts a promise: since he confessed his weak eyesight, he must agree to wear the glasses—as an eyeglass that night, and as spectacles from the morning after their wedding. He agrees enthusiastically. Plans are made to marry immediately, in secret, that very night with Talbot's help. Inspecting the miniature by the glasses' aid before the wedding, Simpson admires its beauty and reads on the back: "Eugénie Lalande — aged twenty-seven years and seven months." He finds Talbot, who congratulates him and helps arrange everything. At two in the morning, married, the couple ride out of the city toward the East, stopping before dawn at an inn in the village of C——. There, in daylight, Eugénie reminds him of his promise and he puts on the spectacles. Through the glasses he suddenly sees his bride's rouge, wrinkles, and missing teeth, and reacts with horror. She scolds him in her imperfect English, revealing she is not twenty-seven but eighty-two—the miniature was taken fifty-five years earlier for her daughter by her first husband, Monsieur Moissart. As she recounts her descendants' names—Moissart, Voissart, Croissart, Froissart—Simpson realizes in horror that she is his own great-great-grandmother, and that her late relative's heir, "Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart," is himself. The truth unravels: his ancient ancestress, immensely wealthy and childless in her widowhood, had come to America with a young relative-by-marriage, the real Madame Stephanie Lalande, intending to make Simpson her heir. At the opera she noticed him staring and recognized a family resemblance; his bow, meant for her, seemed to confirm he already knew who she was. Talbot, learning the truth from her the next morning, conspired with her to punish Simpson's vanity and presumption by staying away and letting him woo the wrong woman under a shared name. The soirée singer was the real, young Madame Stephanie Lalande, while the old lady maintained the deception; the eyeglass was given deliberately to expose both his weak eyes and his affectation in hiding them; and the "clergyman" who performed the ceremony was one of Talbot's friends in disguise, with Talbot himself driving the carriage. Simpson closes vowing to challenge both conspirators, relieved he is not truly wed to his ancestress but rather now betrothed, through her contrivance, to the actual Madame Stephanie Lalande—and resolved henceforth always to wear his spectacles.

By Edgar Allan Poe · First published 1844 · Genre: Romantic Fiction, Comedy, Satire · 11,424 words

First lines

Many years ago, it was the fashion to ridicule the idea of "love at first sight; " but those who think, not less than those who feel deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern discoveries, indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or magnetoaesthetics, render it probable that the most natural, and, consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy -- in a word, that the brightest and most enduring of the psychal fetters are those which are riveted by a glance. The confession I am about to make will add another to the already almost innumerable instances of the truth of the position.

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Mystery · Thriller · Detective Fiction · Short Story · Psychological Thriller · Gothic Fiction · Dark Fantasy · Supernatural · Paranormal · Crime Fiction · Suspense · Atmospheric Horror

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