MISCELLANY 98
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
PART 2
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 Vigiliæ Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiæ Maguntinæ.
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 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 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 laboring 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 endeavored 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 endeavored 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 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 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.
“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 vapor, 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, shuddering, 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.”
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 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 alarumed 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 demeanor, and of a fiery tongue,
which sat 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.”
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 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
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.”
