December 1830–April 1831

December 1830–April 1831 is the period in which Augustus Landor, after Edgar Allan Poe has closed the door on him, turns from the possibility of ending his life to the work of recording his crimes. Its closing date, April 19, 1831, finds the manuscript complete but hidden, and judgment still pending. The interval thus marks not a settled redemption but a passage from private guilt toward a record that Landor expects another person to discover.

From crisis to confession

At the period’s opening, Landor calls himself a coward for not acting when Poe leaves. He compares the action he contemplated to the deaths of Greek and Roman ancients who extinguished their own lives at the first hint of scandal. The confession gives the interval a stark starting point: Landor has considered death as an escape from exposure, but cannot bring himself to take it.

Instead, he begins to wonder whether there may be a reason he has been spared. That possibility leads him, by stages, to set down the story as best he can: a document of his crimes, exposed to whatever justice follows. The shift does not erase his guilt or establish that he has been granted a purpose. It redirects the question of what happens next from his own decision to the record he is making and the judgment he expects it to invite.

Work and withdrawal

Once Landor begins writing, he says there is no stopping him. He works day and night, comparing his effort to Gouverneur Kemble’s foundry, and becomes less troubled when people stay away. Visitors, once a possible source of company or scrutiny, would now only interrupt the labor. The manuscript takes precedence over ordinary contact, while the people’s absence becomes a condition he can accept rather than a hardship he must resist.

Landor does still venture out, more often to Benny Havens’ tavern, but chooses daytime so that he will not encounter cadets. The detail makes his withdrawal selective rather than complete: he continues to leave his rooms, yet arranges his movements to avoid the community connected to the events he is documenting. He cannot, however, avoid Patsy. She greets him with the same cool courtesy she has always shown him in public, a response he accepts as the best he could have hoped for. Their brief encounters offer neither reconciliation nor open confrontation; the familiar restraint remains in place.

Completion and concealment

On April 19, 1831, Landor declares the work done: everything that can be written has been written, and only judgment remains. He puts down his pen, but does not submit the manuscript openly. He leaves it at the back of his desk drawer, behind a row of inkwells, where the first person to come by will not find it. Its discovery, he predicts, will require a more curious eye, but he is certain it will be found. The concealment complicates his stated readiness for judgment: he creates a barrier to immediate discovery while preserving the document for a future reader.

The final scene places that hidden record beside the ordinary particulars of Landor’s household. He waves to his wife, who is sifting ashes by the hearth, bids good day to Alderman Hunt and Claudius Foot, and scratches his Newfoundland behind the ears. Outside, the first warm weather of the year has arrived: pollen yellows the winter light, tulip trees show pink, and robins gather in the meadow. Landor says it is best to leave when the world is at its glory, when the mind can be clear. The bright spring setting accompanies his departure, but the account does not disclose the judgment he has awaited or explain what follows after he leaves.