The Invalid's Story

The Invalid's Story Summary | Detailed Summary

The story begins with the narrator saying that he is only a shadow of his former healthy self, and that his ill health is because of his sufferings. He appears to be sixty and married, but is really a forty-one year old bachelor. He lost his health helping to take care of a box of guns on a two hundred mile railway journey in the winter.

Two years before, the narrator had agreed to accompany the body of a deceased friend from Cleveland, Ohio, to Wisconsin for burial. He had tacked a delivery label to a pine box that he assumed contained the body, saw the box loaded into an express car on a train, and gone to the dining car to get a sandwich and some cigars for the trip. When he returned, he was surprised to find a young man nailing a different shipping label to what appeared to be the same box. However, it turned out that it was a different, but identical, box. Only later did the narrator learn that he had mistakenly taken possession of a box of rifles that were supposed to be shipped to Peoria, Illinois, and the young man had left with the corpse.

As the train pulled away, a stranger came into the express car and left a package of "peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese" on one end of the coffin box, or rather the rifle box. At the time, the narrator had never heard of Limburger cheese, and knew nothing of its odor. At first, the railroad express man, named Thompson, was busy attending to his duties, while contentedly humming the hymn "Sweet Bye and Bye." Then the narrator and Thompson settled in for the trip. Outside, a terrible winter storm was raging, and so the car was closed up tight. Soon, the narrator noticed an evil and searching odor in the car, which he attributed to his friend. It seemed to the narrator that his friend was calling to him through this pathetic means, and it almost drove him to tears. He was also worried that the express man might notice, but that man just went on about his business, eventually building a roaring fire in the stove. This worried the narrator, for he feared the heat would have a bad effect on his friend. He began to get pale and squeamish, but he suffered in silence.

After Thompson completes his work, he asks the narrator about the occupant of the box, commenting on the odor. The express man notes how sometimes, it is hard to believe a corpse is actually dead, because of its still lifelike qualities. However, there is no doubt about the narrator's friend. Thompson asks how long he has been dead, and the narrator tells him two or three days. Thompson replies that it seems more like two or three years, and makes several comments on burial customs, and other bodies he has carried on the train.

Eventually, the narrator and Thompson decide something must be done to offset the terrible odor. They smoked cigars, which not only did not help, but made things worse. Thompson even suggested that the corpse saw the attempt to minimize its odor as a challenge, and observed that it seemed to "stir up his ambition."

They tried, unsuccessfully, to move the box further away. Thompson slipped and fell nose first toward the Limburger cheese, and had to run out onto the car's platform despite the freezing cold. However, the two men realized that staying outside could mean death from the cold, and so they went back inside. Again, Thompson attributed the failure to a conscious decision on the corpse's part, that he did not want to be moved. The odor continued to get worse and worse, and became suffocating. They took turns breathing in cold fresh air let in by a broken pane of glass, but it had no lasting effect.

Eventually they tried treating the box with carbolic acid. Thompson drenched everything with it, the box, including the cheese container, and all the surrounding area. After a few hopeful moments, though, they realized the two odors have mixed, and the smell was worse than before. Thompson commented that the corpse was now using their efforts to modify the odor against them.

After a station stop, Thompson lit a fire made of chicken feathers, dried apples, old shoes, sulfur and other items, to counteract the odor. The concoction makes the worst smell yet, of the passengers' efforts. Nevertheless, the corpse's smell grows even stronger. The two men race for the platform. Thompson trips on the way, and has to be hauled out by the collar. An hour later, at the next stop, they were taken off frozen and insensible. The narrator developed a virulent fever that lasted for three weeks. When he returned to consciousness, he learned the truth, but it was too late. His health was shattered, and as the story ends headed is home to die.