The Project Gutenberg eBook The Fall of the House ofUsher, by Edgar Allan Poe
THE FALL OF
THE HOUSE OF USHER
BY
EDGAR ALLAN POE
| Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne. |
De Béranger.
DURING the whole of a dull,play kitchens for 7 year olds under 100 dollars dark, andsoundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hungoppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, onhorseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and atlength found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, withinview of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how itwas—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense ofinsufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; forthe feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable,because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receiveseven the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. Ilooked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, andthe simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleakwalls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a fewrank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayedtrees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compareto no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream ofthe reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-daylife—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was aniciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemeddreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination couldtorture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused tothink—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplationof the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor couldI grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as Ipondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactoryconclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there arecombinations of very simple natural objects which have the powerof thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies amongconsiderations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of thescene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient tomodify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowfulimpression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to theprecipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffledlustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shuddereven more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled andinverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed tomyself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years hadelapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had latelyreached me in a distant part of the country—a letter fromhim—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admittedof no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence ofnervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodilyillness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him—andof an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his onlypersonal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulnessof my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the mannerin which all this, and much more, was said—it was theapparent heartthat went with his request—whichallowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyedforthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet Ireally knew little of my friend. His reserve had been alwaysexcessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his veryancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiarsensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, inrepeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well asin a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even morethan to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musicalscience. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that thestem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had putforth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, thatthe entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and hadalways, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over inthought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises withthe accredited character of the people, and while speculatingupon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse ofcenturies, might have exercised upon the other—it was thisdeficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequentundeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony withthe name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to mergethe original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocalappellation of the “House of Usher”—anappellation which seemed to include, in the minds of thepeasantry who used it, both the family and the familymansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childishexperiment—that of looking down within the tarn—hadbeen to deepen the first singular impression. There can be nodoubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of mysuperstition—for why should I not so term it?—servedmainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have longknown, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror asa basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, whenI again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image inthe pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy—a fancy soridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid forceof the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon myimagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion anddomain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and theirimmediate vicinity—an atmosphere which had no affinity withthe air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayedtrees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a pestilentand mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, andleaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what musthave been a dream,I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Itsprincipal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspreadthe whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from theeaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinarydilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and thereappeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfectadaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of theindividual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of thespecious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for longyears in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from thebreath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensivedecay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability.Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovereda barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof ofthe building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzagdirection, until it became lost in the sullen waters of thetarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to thehouse. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered theGothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thenceconducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricatepassages in my progress to the studioof his master. Muchthat I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, toheighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken.While the objects around me—while the carvings of theceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebony blacknessof the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies whichrattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such aswhich, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while Ihesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this—Istill wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies whichordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I metthe physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore amingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted mewith trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a doorand ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. Thewindows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distancefrom the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible fromwithin. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way throughthe trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinctthe more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled invain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recessesof the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon thewalls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique,and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scatteredabout, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt thatI breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, andirredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had beenlying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmthwhich had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdonecordiality—of the constrained effort of theennuyéman of the world. A glance, however, at hiscountenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down;and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with afeeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never beforeso terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit theidentity of the man being before me with the companion of myearly boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at alltimes remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large,liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin andvery pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of adelicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual insimilar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its wantof prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more thanweb-like softness and tenuity;—these features, with aninordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made upaltogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now inthe mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of thesefeatures, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay somuch of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastlypallor 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 wildgossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, Icould not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expressionwith any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with anincoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this toarise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome anhabitual trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. Forsomething of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less byhis letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, andby conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformationand temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen.His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when theanimal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species ofenergetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, andhollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced andperfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed inthe lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, duringthe periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of hisearnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me toafford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived tobe the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutionaland a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find aremedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in ahost of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them,interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms andthe general manner of the narration had their weight. He sufferedmuch from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid foodwas alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certaintexture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes weretortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiarsounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did notinspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave.“I shall perish,” said he, “I mustperish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise,shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not inthemselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought ofany, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon thisintolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence ofdanger, except in its absolute effect—in terror. In thisunnerved, in this pitiable, condition I feel that the period willsooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reasontogether, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken andequivocal hints, another singular feature of his mentalcondition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressionsin regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for manyyears, he had never ventured forth—in regard to aninfluence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms tooshadowy here to be re-stated—an influence which somepeculiarities in the mere form and substance of his familymansion had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained overhis spirit—an effect which the physiqueof the graywalls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all lookeddown, had, at length, brought about upon the moraleof hisexistence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much ofthe peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to amore natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe andlong-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approachingdissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister, his solecompanion for long years, his last and only relative on earth.“Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I cannever forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and thefrail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” Whilehe spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowlythrough a remote portion of the apartment, and, without havingnoticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utterastonishment not unmingled with dread; and yet I found itimpossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stuporoppressed me as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When adoor, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctivelyand eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried hisface in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more thanordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers throughwhich trickled many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill ofher physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of theperson, and frequent although transient affections of a partiallycataleptical character were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto shehad steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and hadnot betaken herself finally to bed; but on the closing in of theevening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brothertold me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostratingpower of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I hadobtained of her person would thus probably be the last I shouldobtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seenby me no more.
For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by eitherUsher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnestendeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We paintedand read together, or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wildimprovisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer andstill closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into therecesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive thefutility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness,as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objectsof the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation ofgloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours Ithus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet Ishould fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exactcharacter of the studies, or of the occupations, in which heinvolved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distemperedideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improviseddirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I holdpainfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplificationof the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From thepaintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew,touch by touch, into vagueness at which I shuddered the morethrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why—from thesepaintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would invain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should liewithin the compass of merely written words. By the uttersimplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested andoverawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortalwas Roderick Usher. For me at least, in the circumstances thensurrounding me, there arose out of the pure abstractions whichthe hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, anintensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yetin the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concretereveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partakingnot so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowedforth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented theinterior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel,with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption ordevice. Certain accessory points of the design served well toconvey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depthbelow the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in anyportion of its vast extent, and no torch or other artificialsource of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense raysrolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly andinappropriate splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditorynerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, withthe exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was,perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself uponthe guitar which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantasticcharacter of the performances. But the fervid facilityofhis impromptuscould not be so accounted for. They musthave been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of hiswild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself withrhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mentalcollectedness and concentration to which I have previouslyalluded as observable only in particular moments of the highestartificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies Ihave easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forciblyimpressed with it as he gave it, because, in the under or mysticcurrent of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for thefirst time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher of thetottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, whichwere 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— Radiant 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-tunèd law; Round about a throne, where sitting (Porphyrogene!) In state his glory well befitting, The ruler 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. | |
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, ledus into a train of thought wherein there became manifest anopinion of Usher’s which I mention not so much on accountof its novelty (for other men* have thoughtthus), as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintainedit. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentienceof all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the ideahad assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, undercertain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lackwords to express the full extent, or the earnest abandonof his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I havepreviously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of hisforefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, heimagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of thesestones—in the order of their arrangement, as well as inthat of the many fungiwhich overspread them, and of thedecayed trees which stood around—above all, in the longundisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in itsreduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Itsevidence—the evidence of the sentience—was to beseen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradualyet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about thewaters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, inthat silent yet importunate and terrible influence which forcenturies had moulded the destinies of his family, and which madehimwhat I now saw him—what he was. Such opinionsneed no comment, and I will make none.
Our books—the books which, for years, had formed nosmall portion of the mental existence of the invalid—were,as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character ofphantasm. We pored together over such works as the “Ververtet Chartreuse” of Gresset; the “Belphegor” ofMachiavelli; the “Heaven and Hell” of Swedenborg; the“Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm” by Holberg;the “Chiromancy” of Robert Flud, of JeanD’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the “Journeyinto the Blue Distance” of Tieck; and the “City ofthe Sun” of Campanella. One favorite volume was a smalloctavo edition of the “Directorium Inquisitorium,” bythe Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages inPomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and Œgipans,over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight,however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare andcurious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgottenchurch—the Vigiliæ Mortuorum Secundum ChorumEcclesiæ Maguntinæ.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, andof its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, oneevening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline wasno more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for afortnight (previously to its final interment), in one of thenumerous vaults within the main walls of the building. Theworldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding,was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brotherhad been led to his resolution (so he told me) by considerationof the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, ofcertain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medicalmen, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-groundof the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind thesinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase,on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to opposewhat I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means anunnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in thearrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having beenencoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in whichwe placed it (and which had been so long unopened that ourtorches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave uslittle opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, andentirely without means of admission for light; lying, at greatdepth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in whichwas my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, inremote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep,and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or someother highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor,and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reachedit, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massiveiron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weightcaused an unusually sharp, grating sound, as it moved upon itshinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within thisregion of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lidof the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A strikingsimilitude between the brother and sister now first arrested myattention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmuredout some few words from which I learned that the deceased andhimself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcelyintelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances,however, rested not long upon the dead—for we could notregard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the ladyin the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of astrictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blushupon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingeringsmile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced andscrewed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, madeour way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments ofthe upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, anobservable change came over the features of the mental disorderof my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinaryoccupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamberto chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallorof his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastlyhue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out.The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; anda tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habituallycharacterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when Ithought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with someoppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for thenecessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve allinto the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld himgazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of theprofoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound.It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that itinfected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certaindegrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressivesuperstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night ofthe seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madelinewithin the donjon, that I experienced the full power of suchfeelings. Sleep came not near my couch—while the hourswaned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousnesswhich had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, ifnot all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence ofthe gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattereddraperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a risingtempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustleduneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts werefruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame;and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus ofutterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and astruggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peeringearnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber,hearkened—I know not why, except that an instinctive spiritprompted me—to certain low and indefinite sounds whichcame, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knewnot 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), andendeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition intowhich I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through theapartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step onan adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presentlyrecognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward herapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing alamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but,moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in hiseyes—an evidently restrained hysteriain his wholedemeanor. His air appalled me—but anything was preferableto the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomedhis presence as a relief.
“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly,after having stared about him for some moments insilence—“you have not then seen it?—but, stay!you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded hislamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freelyopen to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us fromour feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautifulnight, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. Awhirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; forthere were frequent and violent alterations in the direction ofthe wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung solow as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not preventour perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flewcareering from all points against each other, without passingaway into the distance. I say that even their exceeding densitydid not prevent our perceiving this—yet we had no glimpseof the moon or stars, nor was there any flashing forth of thelightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitatedvapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us,were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous anddistinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about andenshrouded the mansion.
“You must not—you shall not behold this!”said I, shuddering, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentleviolence, from the window to a seat. “These appearances,which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena notuncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly originin the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close thiscasement;—the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame.Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shalllisten:—and so we will pass away this terrible nighttogether.”
The antique volume which I had taken up was the “MadTrist” of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it afavorite of Usher’s more in sad jest than in earnest; for,in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginativeprolixity which could have had interest for the lofty andspiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only bookimmediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that theexcitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might findrelief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similaranomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I shouldread. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained airof vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, tothe words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myselfupon the success of my design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story whereEthelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain forpeaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds tomake good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, thewords of the narrative run thus:
“And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, andwho was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of thewine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley withthe hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and malicefulturn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing therising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, withblows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for hisgauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he socracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of thedry and hollow-sounding wood alarumed and reverberated throughoutthe forest.”
At the termination of this sentence I started and, for amoment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at onceconcluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—itappeared to me that, from some very remote portion of themansion, there came, indistinctly to my ears, what might havebeen, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but astifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and rippingsound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was,beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested myattention; 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 haveinterested or disturbed me. I continued the story:
“But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within thedoor, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of themaliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scalyand prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sat inguard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and uponthe wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legendenwritten—
| Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win. |
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wildamazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, inthis instance, I did actually hear (although from what directionit proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparentlydistant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming orgrating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy hadalready conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek asdescribed by the romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of thissecond and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousandconflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror werepredominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind toavoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness ofmy companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed thesounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alterationhad, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor.From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought roundhis chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber;and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although Isaw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. Hishead had dropped upon his breast—yet I knew that he was notasleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught aglance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was atvariance with this idea—for he rocked from side to sidewith a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly takennotice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot,which thus proceeded:
“And now, the champion, having escaped from the terriblefury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, andof the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removedthe carcass from out of the way before him, and approachedvalorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where theshield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his fullcoming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with amighty great and terrible ringing sound.”
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as ifa shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upona floor of silver—I became aware of a distinct, hollow,metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled, reverberation.Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measuredrocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chairin which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, andthroughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity.But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strongshudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about hislips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibberingmurmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely overhim, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words.
“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and haveheard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, manyhours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh,pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—Idarednot speak! We have put her living in thetomb!Said I not that my senses were acute? I nowtellyou that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.I heard them—many, many days ago—yet I darednot—I dared not speak!Andnow—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—thebreaking of the hermit’s door, and the death-cry of thedragon, and the clangor of the shield!—say, rather, therending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of herprison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of thevault! Oh! whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is shenot hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard herfootstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy andhorrible beating of her heart? Madman!”—here hesprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, asif in the effort he were giving up hissoul—“Madman! I tell you that she now standswithout the door!”
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had beenfound the potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to whichthe speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, theirponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushinggust—but then without those doors there didstandthe lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher.There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of somebitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For amoment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon thethreshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inwardupon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now finaldeath-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim tothe terrors he had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. Thestorm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myselfcrossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path awild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual couldhave issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behindme. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-redmoon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discerniblefissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roofof the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While Igazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fiercebreath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satelliteburst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw themighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuousshouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and thedeep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently overthe fragments of the “House of Usher.”
* Watson, Dr. Percival,Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff.—See“Chemical Essays,” vol. v.
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