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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-tunéd 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, 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 in-organization. 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 grey 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 moulded 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.
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 Heaven and Hell of
Swedenborg ; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg ;
the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé, 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 Œgipans, over which Usher would sit
dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the
perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic -
the manual of a forgotten church - the Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum
Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.
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
stated 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 worldly 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 consideration 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 by no means
an unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
en-coffined, 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 some 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.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon trestles within this
region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of
the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking
similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
attention ; and 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.
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 labouring
with some 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, for 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 influences of his own
fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
It was, 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 and waned away. I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me.
I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due
to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room - of
the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the
breath 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 endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition
into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the
apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised it
as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle
touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was,
as usual, cadaverously wan - but, moreover, there was a species of
mad hilarity in his eyes - an evidently restrained hysteria in his
whole demeanour. 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.
"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 casements, and
threw it freely open to the storm.
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 this
- yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars - nor was there any
flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge
masses of agitated vapour, as well as all terrestrial objects
immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a
faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.
"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 favourite romances. I will read, and you
shall listen ; - and so we will pass away this terrible night
together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of
Sir Launcelot Canning ; but I had called it a favourite 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 harkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the
tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.
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."
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, 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:
"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 demeanour, 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 en-written -
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."
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 for
the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
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 demeanour. 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 at 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:
"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."
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 leaped 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 stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand
upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person
; 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 him, I at length drank in the hideous
import of his words.
"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 her coffin,
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, 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 footstep on the stair ? Do I not
distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart ? Madman !"
- here he sprang furiously 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 !"
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 violent and
now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim
to the terrors he had anticipated.
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."
The House of Usher
Story
A Horror Story
by
Edgar Allen Poe
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