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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 Watson, Dr Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of
Landaff. Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by
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 by Campanella. One favourite
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and Aegipans, 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 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
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 purpose 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 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. 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, hearkened -
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
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,
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 lifelike 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
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, 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 alarmed 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
enwritten -
Who entered herein, a conquerer 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 the
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
clangour 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 footsteps 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 was 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 END
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