“The Man Who Spoke in Rhyme” (1969)

This story by Ray Russell has a bit of a tangled history, at least in terms of its title. ISFDB is adamant that it is “The Man Who Spoke in Rhyme,” the title as it was originally published in Ellery Queen magazine—a strange place to find it in the first place. However, the preference of Russell, who died in 1999, appears to be “The Vendetta.” He may have even made some revisions toward that end after the original publication. (For whatever reason, the storytellers at youtube call it just “Vendetta.”) The Penguin collection Haunted Castles, with a foreword by Guillermo del Toro (!), came out circa 2013 and has the title Russell’s way. But I have to admit I’m a fan of the original title too, because I like that aspect of the story and think it’s worth calling attention to. It turns out the man is a very bad man, and he does speak in rhyme—doggerel, really. “But pray go on, although it chill your marrow—a half-told tale’s a bow without an arrow,” etc. A rhyming man is typical of Russell’s many flourishes. He wrote in the latter half of the 20th century but imagined some gothic, infinitely sophisticated past he often attempted to recreate. This story is in the form of a letter—the epistolary form—written “probably in 1876 or 1877” and detailing an incident many years older than that. Layers of distancing shove it ever further into the past. As always, Russell’s language is witty and to the point. The letter writer is in Venice (of course), shuddering at the advent of telephones, which he puts in scare quotes (“telephones”). It proceeds like a letter in a regular correspondence, with news of the weather and reference to other letters. And, finally, to the story at hand. There is the Count, the man who speaks in rhyme, and his beautiful sister of marrying age. And there is an artist, a Spaniard, who shows up at the Count’s castle and wants to paint the sister as Eve before the Fall. The Count is weird about his sister, jealous and possessive, but for some reason he feels OK about this artist. Then it turns out the artist and the Count’s sister are using their modeling and painting time for making love behind closed doors. Eventually the Count catches them in flagrante (my term). They’re both naked. There’s no point denying anything. They marry. She becomes pregnant. At this point the story becomes complicated, although Russell has set it up well. But the twist involves a lot of explanation which is there to be discovered. Now that I think about it, I guess another argument for the original title is that in many ways “The Vendetta” gives away the twist—that this is a revenge story, in approximately the same way the movie Oldboy is a revenge story. The vengeance is admirably thought through, patiently anticipated, and instantly devastating. Then the letter closes cheerfully, as letters do. It’s classic Russell.

Ray Russell, Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories
Listen to story online.