THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
1. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself,as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was-but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me-upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain-upon the bleak walls-upon the vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sledges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium-the bitter lapse into common life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the reason, and the analysis, of this power, lie among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down-but with a shudder even more thrilling than before-upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
2. Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country-a letter from him-which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a pitiable mental idiosyncrasy which oppressed him-and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed, his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said-it was apparent heart that went with his request-which allowed me no room for hesitation-and I accordingly obeyed, what I still considered a very singular summons, forthwith.
3. Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other-it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the "House of Usher"-an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.
4. I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment, of looking down within the tarn, had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition-for why should I not so term it?-served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy-a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that around about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity--an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn, in the form of an inelastic vapor or gas-dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspreads the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still prefect adaptation of parts, and the utterly porous, and evidently decayed condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
5. Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me-while the carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries of the walls, the ebony blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy-while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this-I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.
6. The room in which I found myself was very large and excessively lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
7. Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa upon which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality-of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down, and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty, that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these feature, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simply humanity.
8. In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence-an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision-that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation-that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the moments of the intensest excitement of the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium.
9. It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy-a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me-although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
10. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave, "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect-in terror. In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition-I feel that I must inevitably abandon life and reason together in my struggles with some fatal demon of fear."
11. I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and from which, for many years, he had never ventured forth-in regard to an influence whose suppositions force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated-an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit-an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at least, brought about upon the morale of his existence.
12. He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin-to the severe and long-continued illness-indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution-of a tenderly beloved sister; his sole companion for long years-his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease," he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." As he spoke the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread. Her figure, her air, her features-all, in their very minutest development were those-were identically, (I can use no other sufficient term,) were identically those of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me. A feeling of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. As a door, at length, closed upon her exit, my glance caught instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother-but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.
13. The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed, as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation, to the prostrating power of the destroyer-and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain-that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.
14. For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or
myself; and during
this period, I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy
of my friend. We painted
and read
together-or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his
speaking guitar. And
thus, as a
closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses
of his spirit,
the more
bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from
which darkness, as if
an inherent
positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical
universe, in one
unceasing
radiation of gloom.
15. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent
alone with the master of
the House of
Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character
of the
studies, or
of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and
highly
distempered
ideality threw a sulphurous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will
ring forever in
my ears.
Among other things, I bear painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and
amplification of
the wild air
of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate
fancy brooded,
and which
grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more
thrillingly, because I
shuddered
knowing not why, from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me)
I would in
vain endeavor
to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely
written
words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and
overawed
attention. If
ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least-in
the
circumstances
then surrounding me-there arose out of the pure abstractions which the
hypochondriac
contrived to
throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt
I ever yet
in the
contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.
16. One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly
of the spirit of
abstraction,
may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the
interior
of an
immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white,
and without
interruption
of device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea
that this
excavation
lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed
in any
portion of
its vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was
discernible-yet a flood of
intense rays
rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.
17. I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which
rendered all music
intolerable
to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments.
It was, perhaps,
the narrow
limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in
great measure,
to the
fantastic character of his performance. But the fervid facility of his
impromptus could not be so
accounted
for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his
wild
fantasias,
(for he not infrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations,)
the result
of that
intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously
alluded as
observable
only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of
one of these
rhapsodies I
have easily borne away in memory. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed
with it, as
he gave it,
because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I
perceived, and for the
first time, a
full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason
upon her
throne. The
verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if
not accurately thus:
I
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Snow-white palace-reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This-all this-was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
III
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The sovereign of the realm was seen.
IV
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh-but smile no more.
19. I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a
train of thought wherein there
became
manifest an opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its
novelty, (for
other men
have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained
it. This
opinion, in
its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his
disordered
fancy, the
idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain
conditions, upon
the kingdom
of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon
of his
persuasion.
The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray
stones of
the home of
his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined,
fulfilled in the
method of
collocation of these stones-in the order of their arrangement, as well as in
that of the many
fungi which
overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around-above all, in the
long
undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of
the tarn. Its
evidence-the
evidence of the sentience-was to be seen, he said, (and I here started as he
spoke,) in the
gradual
yet certain condensation of an atmosphere
of their own about the waters and
the walls. The
result was
discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence
which for
centuries had
molded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw
him-what he was.
Such
opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
20. Our books-the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the
mental existence of the
invalid-
were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm.
We pored
together over
such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli;
the
Selenography
of Brewster; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of
Nicholas
Klimm de
Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean d'Indagine, and of De la Chambre;
the
Journey into
the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite
volume
was a small
octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorium, by the Dominican Eymeric de
Gironne, and
there were
passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over
which
Usher would
sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the earnest and
repeated
perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic-the manual of a forgotten
church-the
Vigilae
Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.
21. I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its
probable influence upon the
hypochondriac, when, one evening having informed me abruptly that the lady
Madeline was no more,
he state his
intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final
interment,) in one
of the
numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The wordly reason,
however, assigned for
this singular
proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had
been led to
his
resolution (so he told me) by considerations of the unusual character of the
malady of the
deceased, of
certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the
remote
and exposed
situation of the burial- ground of the family. I will not deny that when I
called to mind the
sinister
countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my
arrival at the
house, I had
no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and not by any
means an
unnatural, precaution.
22. At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the
temporary entombment.
The body
having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we
placed it (and
which had
been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive
atmosphere, gave
us little
opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of
admission for
light; lying,
at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my
own
sleeping
apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst
purposes of a
donjon-keep,
and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or other highly
combustible
substance, as
a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which
we reached
it, were
carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also,
similarly protected.
Its immense
weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
23. Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of
horror, we partially
turned aside
the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. The
exact
similitude
between the brother and sister even here again startled and confounded me.
Usher, divining,
perhaps, my
thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and
himself had
been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always
existed
between them.
Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead-for we could not regard her
unawed. The
disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as
usual in
all maladies
of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the
bosom and the
face, and
that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We
replaced and
screwed down
the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the
scarcely
less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.
24. And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came
over the features of
the mental
disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
occupations were
neglected or
forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and
objectless step.
The pallor of
his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue-but the
luminousness of
his eye had
utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more;
and a
tremulous
quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance.-There
were times,
indeed, when
I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with an oppressive secret,
to
divulge which
he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to
resolve all into
the mere
inexplicable vagaries of madness, as I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long
hours, in an
attitude of
the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no
wonder that
his condition
terrified-that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild
influence of
his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
25. It was, most especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the
placing of
the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such
feelings. Sleep
came not near
my couch-while the hours waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness
which
had dominion
over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due
to the
phantasmagoric influence of the gloomy furniture of the room -of the dark and
tattered draperies,
which,
tortured into motion by the breadth of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and
fro upon the
walls, and
rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An
irrepressible
tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart
an
incubus of
utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted
myself upon
the pillows,
and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened--I
know not
why, except
that an instinctive spirit prompted me-to certain low and indefinite sounds
which came,
through the
pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an
intense
sentiment of
horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste, for I
felt that I
should sleep
no more during the night, and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable
condition
into which I
had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.
26. I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining
staircase arrested my
attention. I
presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards he rapped,
with a gentle
touch, at my
door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously
wan-but
there was a
species of mad hilarity in his eyes-an evidently restrained hysteria in his
whole demeanor.
His air
appalled me-but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long
endured, and I
even welcomed
his presence as a relief.
27. "And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly; after having stared
about him for some moments in
silence-
"you have not then seen it?-but, stay!you shall." Thus speaking, and
having carefully shaded
his lamp, he
hurried to one of the gigantic casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.
28. The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It
was, indeed, a tempestuous
yet sternly
beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A
whirlwind had
apparently
collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent
alterations in the
direction of
the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press
upon
the turrets
of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which
they flew
careering
from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I
say that even
their
exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving
29. "You must not-you shall not behold this!" said I, shudderingly, to
Usher, as I led him, with a gentle
violence,
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, are
merely electrical
phenomena not
uncommon-or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of
the
tarn. Let us
close this casement-the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one
of your
favorite
romances. I will read, and you shall listen-and so we will pass away this
terrible night together.
30. The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of Sir
Launcelot Canning-but I had
called it a
favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is
little in its uncouth
and
unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and
spiritual ideality of my
friend. It
was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope
that the
excitement
which now agitated the hypochondriac might find relief (for the history of
mental disorder is
full of
similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.
Could I have judged,
indeed by the
wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently
hearkened, to
the words of
the tale, I might have well congratulated myself upon the success of my design.
31. I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the
hero of the Trist, having
sought in
vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make
good an
entrance by
force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:-
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand, and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the forest."
33. At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment, paused; for
it appeared to me
(although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)-it appeared
to me that, from
some
very remote portion of the mansion or of its vicinity, there came, indistinctly,
to my ears, what
might
have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and
dull one certainly) of the
very cracking
and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was,
beyond
doubt, the
coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the
sashes of
the
casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the
sound, in itself,
had nothing
surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story.
34. "But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore
enraged and amazed to
perceive no
signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly
and prodigious
demeanor, and
of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of
silver; and
upon the wall
there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten-
Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin,
Who slayeth the dragon the shield he shall win.
And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which
fell before him, and
gave up his
pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that
Ethelred had
fain to close
his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was
never before
heard."
35. Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement-for
there could be no doubt
whatever
that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it
impossible to
say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual
screaming or
grating
sound-the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up as the
sound of the
dragon's
unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
36. Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and most
extraordinary
coincidence,
by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were
predominant,
I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any
observation, the
sensitive
nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the
sounds in
question;
although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes,
taken place in his
demeanor.
From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as
to sit with
his face to
the door of the chamber, and thus I could but partially perceive his features,
although I saw
that his lips
trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his
breast-yet I
knew that he
was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance
of it in
profile. The
motion of his body, too, was a variance with this idea-for he rocked from side
to side with a
gentle yet
constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed
the narrative of
Sir Launcelot,
which thus proceeded:-
37. "And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the
dragon, bethinking himself of
the brazen
shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the
carcass
from out of
the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the
castle to
where the
shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but
fell down at his
feet upon the
silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound."
38. No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than-as if a shield of brass
had indeed, at the
moment,
fallen heavily upon a floor of silver-I became aware of a distinct, hollow,
metallic, and
clangorous,
yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I started
convulsively to my
feet, but the
measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in
which he
sat. His eyes
were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned
a more
than stony
rigidity. But, as I laid my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder
over his
frame; a
sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried,
and gibbering
murmur, as if
unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over his person, I at length drank
in the
hideous
import of his words.
39. "Not hear it?-yes, I hear it, and have heard it.
Long-long-long-many minutes, many hours, many
days, have I
heard it-yet I dared not-oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!-I dared not-I dared
not
speak! We
have put her living in the tomb!
Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I
heard her
first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them-many, many days
ago-yet I dared
not- I
dared not speak! And now-to-night-Ethelred-ha!ha!-the
breaking of the hermit's door, and the
death-cry of
the dragon, and the clangor of the shield-say, rather, the rending of the
coffin, and the
grating of
the iron hinges, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh
whither
shall I fly?
Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have
I not
heard her
footsteps on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of
her heart?
Madman!"-here he sprung violently to his feet, and shrieked out his
syllables, as if in the effort he were
giving up his
soul- "Madman! I tell you that she now stands
without the door!"
40. As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the
potency of a spell-the
huge antique
panels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their
ponderous and
ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust-but then without those doors
there did
stand the
lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon
her white
robes, and
the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame.
For a
moment she
remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold-then, with a low
moaning
cry, fell
heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her horrible and now final
death-agonies,
bore him to
the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had dreaded.
41. From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still
abroad in all its wrath
as I found
myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild
light, and I
turned to see
whence a gleam so unusual could have issued-for the vast house and its shadows
were
alone behind
me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now
shone
vividly
through that once barely- discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken, as
extending from
the roof of
the building, in a zigzag direction to the base. While I gazed, this fissure
rapidly
widened-there
came a fierce breath of the whirlwind- the entire orb of the satellite burst at
once upon
my sight-my
brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder-there was a long
tumultuous
shouting
sound like the voice of a thousand waters-and the deep and dank tarn at my feet
closed
sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher."