The Three Impostors · Chapter
Novel of the Black Seal explained
The chapter presents the personal narrative of Miss Lally, who recounts her impoverished upbringing, her mother's death, and her desperate search for work in London.
What happens
The chapter presents the personal narrative of Miss Lally, who recounts her impoverished upbringing, her mother's death, and her desperate search for work in London. She then reads Professor Gregg's manuscript, which details his decades-long investigation into the Black Seal, a mysterious inscribed object. Gregg's research leads him to believe that folklore about fairies and demons conceals a dark truth about a hidden race and a forbidden knowledge of human transmutation.
Themes in this chapter
The Occult and Forbidden Knowledge
Professor Gregg's obsessive decipherment of the Black Seal reveals a secret about human transmutation into reptilian form, representing forbidden knowledge.
Deception and Identity
The narrative explores how folklore and fairy tales disguise a horrifying reality, and Miss Lally's own identity is tied to her hidden past.
Madness and Psychological Horror
Gregg's relentless pursuit of the Seal's secret and his destruction of the translation suggest a descent into obsession and horror.
Characters to notice
- Miss Lally
Narrates her own history of poverty and her mother's death, then reads Professor Gregg's manuscript.
- Professor Gregg
Author of the manuscript; describes his lifelong research into the Black Seal and his theories about folklore and hidden races.
Key passages
“I was absolutely alone. I was aware how poorly my brother was paid; and though I came up to London in the hope of finding employment, with the understanding that he would defray my expenses, I swore it should only be for a month, and that if I could not in that time find some work, I would starve rather than deprive him of the few miserable pounds he had laid by for his day of trouble.”
Miss Lally describes her desperate solitude and her vow to find work in London within a month, preferring starvation over burdening her brother financially.
Highlights her poverty and determination.
“I made an exact copy of the two inscriptions; and when I got to my London study, and had the Seal before me, I was able seriously to grapple with the great problem.”
Professor Gregg copies the inscriptions from the museum specimen and begins the serious work of deciphering the Black Seal.
Key moment in the decipherment process.
“The last word was hardly written, when with fingers all trembling and unsteady I tore the scrap of paper into the minutest fragments, and saw them flame and blacken in the red hollow of the fire, and then I crushed the gray films that remained into finest powder.”
After translating the Seal, Gregg frantically destroys the paper containing the secret, burning it to ash.
Emphasizes the horror and secrecy of the knowledge.