I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket . . . But by God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!

"'I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket . . . But by God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!'" is a short story written by Joanna Russ, first published in the August 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The title is a quote from H. P. Lovecraft's story "Pickman's Model"; the story itself does not reference the Cthulhu Mythos directly, but describes an obsessive Lovecraft fan's fatal fascination with a supernatural seductress.
== Characters ==
* Irvin Rubin: A "bookkeeper in a cheap publishing house" called Fantasy Press. Twenty-eight years old, he has "pale-blue protuberant eyes that should have been nearsighted." He lives in a "furnished room...in the decaying blocks near the rich section of Central Park West." He "never ate without a book propped up in front of his plate," and believes that "Howard Phillips Lovecraft was the greatest writer in the world." 
* June Kramer: Irv's only friend at work, whom he turns to for advice. She lives in the Stuyvesant Town housing development. Her younger sister died when they were girls, some 40 years earlier.
* Irv's Girl: The woman Irv meets "near Central Park, walking two dachshunds on a leash"; he describes her as a “real lady” and a “glamour girl.” When June sees her, she is struck by her "pale, powdered face": "the thin eyebrows, the expressionless profile," and her "wild, lovely, violet eyes." She appears to be a supernatural predator rather than a human woman--as evidenced by Irv's being found frozen to death in Central Park after an encounter with her.
== Publication History ==
The story was republished in The Hidden Side of the Moon (St. Martin's Press, 1988), a collection of Russ's fiction, and was later included in Cthulhu 2000 (Arkham House, 1995). It has been translated into French (as "La jeune fille en noir," 1965) and German ("Ich muß sie unwillkürlich abgerissen und eingesteckt haben ... aber bei Gott, Eliot, es war eine Blitzlichtaufnahme nach dem Leben!," 2004).Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: 'I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket ... But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!'"
== External Links ==
* “'I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket … But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life!' (1964) by Joanna Russ" at Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein
== References ==
Category:Joanna Russ works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works