The Fall of the House of Usher Read online

thatintense mental collectedness and concentration to which I havepreviously alluded as observable only in particular moments ofthe highest artificial excitement. The words of one of theserhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the moreforcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the underor mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, andfor the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, ofthe tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses,which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if notaccurately, 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 odour went away.

  III.

  Wanderers in that happy valley Through two luminous windows saw Spirits moving musically To a lute's well tuned law, Round about a throne, where sitting (Porphyrogene!) In state his glory well befitting, The 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 anopinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of itsnovelty (for other men* have thought thus,) as on account of thepertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in itsgeneral form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daringcharacter, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon thekingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the fullextent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. Thebelief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) withthe gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditionsof the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in themethod of collocation of these stones--in the order of theirarrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi whichoverspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around--aboveall, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement,and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Itsevidence--the evidence of the sentience--was to be seen, he said,(and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certaincondensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters andthe walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in thatsilent, yet importunate and terrible influence which forcenturies had moulded the destinies of his family, and which madehim what I now saw him--what he was. Such opinions need nocomment, and I will make none.

  Our books--the books which, for years, had formed no smallportion of the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might besupposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. Wepored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuseof Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven andHell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm byHolberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance ofTieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favouritevolume was a small octavo edition of the DirectoriumInquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and therewere passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrsand OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. Hischief delight, however, was found in the perusal of anexceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual ofa forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum EcclesiaeMaguntinae.

  I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work,and of 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 some otherhighly 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 its hinges.

  Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels withinthis region of horror, we partially turned aside the yetunscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of thetenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister nowfirst arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, mythoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned thatthe deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of ascarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them.Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we couldnot regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed thelady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladiesof a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faintblush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciouslylingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. Wereplaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the doorof iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomyapartments of the 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. Thepallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a moreghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly goneout. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard nomore; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habituallycharacterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when Ithought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring 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 imaginarysound. 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 nightof the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the ladyMadeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power ofsuch feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hourswaned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousnesswhich had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much,if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influenceof the 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--Iknow not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me--tocertain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pausesof the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpoweredby an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable,I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleepno more during the night,) and endeavoured to arouse myself fromthe pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidlyto and fro through the apartment.

  I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light stepon an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presentlyrecognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards 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 his eyes--anevidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. Hisair appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitudewhich I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence asa relief.

  "And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after havingstared about him for some moments in silence--"you havenot then seen it?--but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, andhaving carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of thecasements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

  The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted usfrom our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternlybeautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and itsbeauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in ourvicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in thedirection of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds(which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) didnot prevent our perceiving the lifelike velocity with which theyflew careering from all points against each other, withoutpassing away into the distance. I say that even their exceedingdensity did not prevent our perceiving this--yet we had noglimpse of the moon or stars--nor was there any flashing forth ofthe lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses ofagitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediatelyaround us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintlyluminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hungabout 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 bewilderyou, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon--or it may bethat they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of thetarn. Let us close this casement;--the air is chilling anddangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances.I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away thisterrible night together."

  The antique volume which I had taken up was the "MadTrist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favouriteof Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, thereis little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which couldhave had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of myfriend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; andI indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitatedthe hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mentaldisorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness ofthe folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, bythe wild overstrained air of vivacity with which hehearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, Imight well have congratulated myself upon the success of mydesign.

  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, and whowas now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the winewhich he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with thehermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn,but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the risingof the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, madequickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntletedhand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, andripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry andhollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout theforest."

  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)--it appeared tome that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, therecame, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in itsexact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dullone certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which SirLauncelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amidthe rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinarycommingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, initself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested ordisturbed 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 demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sate 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 conquerer hath bin; Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

  and Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of thedragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, witha shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, thatEthelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against thedreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard."

  Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wildamazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in thisinstance, I did actually hear (although from what direction itproceeded 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 had alreadyconjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by theromancer.

  Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of thesecond and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousandconf
licting 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 demeanour.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.His head 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 side with agentle 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 wherethe shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for hisfull 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 ashield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon afloor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completelyunnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movementof Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his wholecountenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed myhand upon his shoulder, there came a