The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 Read online

  BERENICE

  Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum forelevatas.

  --_Ebn Zaiat_.

  MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreachingthe wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues ofthat arch--as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching thewide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have deriveda type of unloveliness?--from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow?But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out ofjoy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish ofto-day, or the agonies which _are_, have their origin in the ecstasieswhich _might have been_.

  My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. Yetthere are no towers in the land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray,hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries; andin many striking particulars--in the character of the familymansion--in the frescos of the chief saloon--in the tapestries of thedormitories--in the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory--butmore especially in the gallery of antique paintings--in the fashion ofthe library chamber--and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of thelibrary's contents--there is more than sufficient evidence to warrantthe belief.

  The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber,and with its volumes--of which latter I will say no more. Here died mymother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had notlived before--that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it?--letus not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. Thereis, however, a remembrance of aerial forms--of spiritual and meaningeyes--of sounds, musical yet sad--a remembrance which will not beexcluded; a memory like a shadow--vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady;and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of itwhile the sunlight of my reason shall exist.

  In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of whatseemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of fairyland--into a palace of imagination--into the wild dominions of monasticthought and erudition--it is not singular that I gazed around me with astartled and ardent eye--that I loitered away my boyhood in books,and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it _is_ singular that as yearsrolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of myfathers--it _is_ wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springsof my life--wonderful how total an inversion took place in the characterof my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me asvisions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreamsbecame, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in verydeed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

  * * * * *

  Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternalhalls. Yet differently we grew--I, ill of health, and buried ingloom--she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, theramble on the hill-side--mine the studies of the cloister; I, livingwithin my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intenseand painful meditation--she, roaming carelessly through life, withno thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of theraven-winged hours. Berenice!--I call upon her name--Berenice!--andfrom the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections arestartled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image before me now, as in theearly days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantasticbeauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among itsfountains! And then--then all is mystery and terror, and a tale whichshould not be told. Disease--a fatal disease, fell like the simoon uponher frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change sweptover her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in amanner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity ofher person! Alas! the destroyer came and went!--and the victim--where isshe? I knew her not--or knew her no longer as Berenice.

  Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal andprimary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in themoral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the mostdistressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy notunfrequently terminating in _trance_ itself--trance very nearlyresembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recoverywas in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time my owndisease--for I have been told that I should call it by no otherappellation--my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumedfinally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary form--hourlyand momently gaining vigor--and at length obtaining over me the mostincomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it,consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind inmetaphysical science termed the _attentive_. It is more than probablethat I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no mannerpossible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequateidea of that nervous _intensity of interest_ with which, in my case,the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buriedthemselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects ofthe universe.

  To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to somefrivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a book; tobecome absorbed, for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaintshadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to losemyself, for an entire night, in watching the steady flame of a lamp,or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of aflower; to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, bydint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to themind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means ofabsolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in: suchwere a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by acondition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled,but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.

  Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, and morbidattention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, mustnot be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity commonto all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardentimagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extremecondition, or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily andessentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the dreamer,or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually _not_ frivolous,imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductionsand suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a daydream _often replete with luxury_, he finds the _incitamentum_, or firstcause of his musings, entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case, theprimary object was _invariably frivolous_, although assuming, throughthe medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance.Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciouslyreturning in upon the original object as a centre. The meditations were_never_ pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the firstcause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturallyexaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. Ina word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, asI have said before, the _attentive_, and are, with the day-dreamer, the_speculative_.

  My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate thedisorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginativeand inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of thedisorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise of thenoble Italian, Coelius Secundus Curio, "_De Amplitudine Beati RegniDei;_" St. Austin's great work, the "City of God;" and Tertullian's "_DeCarne Christi_," in which the paradoxical sentence "_Mortuus est Deifilius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certumest quia impossibile est,_" occupied my undivided time, for many weeksof laborious and fruitless investigation.

  Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivialthings, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of byPtolemy Hephestion, which steadi
ly resisting the attacks of humanviolence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembledonly to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, toa careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that thealteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the _moral_ condition ofBerenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that intenseand abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble inexplaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In the lucidintervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and,taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, Idid not fail to ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon the wonder-workingmeans by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly broughtto pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy ofmy disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similarcircumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its owncharacter, my disorder revelled in the less important but more startlingchanges wrought in the _physical_ frame of Berenice--in the singular andmost appalling distortion of her personal identity.

  During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I hadnever loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings withme, _had never been_ of the heart, and my passions _always were_ of themind. Through the gray of the early morning--among the trellised shadowsof the forest at noonday--and in the silence of my library at night--shehad flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her--not as the living andbreathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being ofthe earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as athing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but asthe theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And_now_--now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach;yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called tomind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to herof marriage.

  And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when, uponan afternoon in the winter of the year--one of those unseasonablywarm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon(*1),--I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in the inner apartment ofthe library. But, uplifting my eyes, I saw that Berenice stood beforeme.

  Was it my own excited imagination--or the misty influence of theatmosphere--or the uncertain twilight of the chamber--or the graydraperies which fell around her figure--that caused in it so vacillatingand indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word; andI--not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ranthrough my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; aconsuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair,I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes rivetedupon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestigeof the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My burningglances at length fell upon the face.

  The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and theonce jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollowtemples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow, and jarringdiscordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning melancholyof the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and lustreless, andseemingly pupilless, and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stareto the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in asmile of peculiar meaning, _the teeth_ of the changed Berenice disclosedthemselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them,or that, having done so, I had died!

  * * * * *

  The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that mycousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamberof my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away,the white and ghastly _spectrum_ of the teeth. Not a speck on theirsurface--not a shade on their enamel--not an indenture in theiredges--but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in uponmy memory. I saw them _now_ even more unequivocally than I beheldthem _then_. The teeth!--the teeth!--they were here, and there, andeverywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, andexcessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in thevery moment of their first terrible development. Then came the fullfury of my _monomania_, and I struggled in vain against its strange andirresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external worldI had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a phrenzieddesire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed intheir single contemplation. They--they alone were present to the mentaleye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence ofmy mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in everyattitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon theirpeculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon thealteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them inimagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted bythe lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle ithas been well said, "_Que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments_," andof Berenice I more seriously believed _que toutes ses dents etaient desidees_. _Des idees!_--ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me!_Des idees!_--ah _therefore_ it was that I coveted them so madly! I feltthat their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving meback to reason.

  And the evening closed in upon me thus--and then the darkness came, andtarried, and went--and the day again dawned--and the mists of a secondnight were now gathering around--and still I sat motionless in thatsolitary room--and still I sat buried in meditation--and still the_phantasma_ of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy, as, withthe most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changinglights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon mydreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause,succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many lowmoanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and throwing openone of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the ante-chambera servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was--no more!She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at theclosing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all thepreparations for the burial were completed.

  * * * * *

  I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. Itseemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream.I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware, that since thesetting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that drearyperiod which intervened I had no positive, at least no definitecomprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror--horror morehorrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. Itwas a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over withdim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived todecypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of adeparted sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemedto be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed--what was it? I asked myselfthe question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answeredme,--"_what was it?_"

  On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. Itwas of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, forit was the property of the family physician; but how came it _there_,upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things werein no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to theopen pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The wordswere the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat:--"_Dicebantmihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulumfore levatas_." Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my headerect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealedwithin my veins?

  There came a light tap at the library door--and, pale as the tenant of atomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror,and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What saidhe?--some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing thesilence of the night--of the gathering together of the household--ofa search in the direction of the sound; and t
hen his tones grewthrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave--ofa disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing--stillpalpitating--_still alive_!

  He pointed to garments;--they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spokenot, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented with the impressof human nails. He directed my attention to some object against thewall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade. With a shriek Ibounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I couldnot force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fellheavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound,there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled withthirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scatteredto and fro about the floor.