THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
VOLUME II
Contents
THE PURLOINED LETTER
Nil serpentine odious
acumen minion.
Seneca.
At Paris, just after dark one gusty
evening in the autumn of 18-, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation
and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Duping, in his little
back library, or book-closet, au toilsome, No. 33, Rue Dent, Faubourg St.
Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while
each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively
occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the
chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which
had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the
evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the
murder of Marie Rog? t. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a
coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our
old acquaintance, Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for
there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about
the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the
dark, and Duping now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down
again, without doing so, upon G.‘s saying that he had called to consult us, or
rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had
occasioned a great deal of trouble.
“If it is any point requiring
reflection,” observed Duping, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, “we shall
examine it to better purpose in the dark.”
“That is another of your odd notions,”
said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything “odd” that was beyond
his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of “oddities.”
“Very true,” said Duping, as he
supplied his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
“And what is the difficulty now?” I
asked. “Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?”
“Oh no; nothing of that nature. The
fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can
manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Duping would like to
hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.”
“Simple and odd,” said Duping.
“Why, yes; and not exactly that,
either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is
so simple, and yet baffles us altogether.”
“Perhaps it is the very simplicity
of the thing which puts you at fault,” said my friend.
“What nonsense you do talk!” replied
the Prefect, laughing heartily.
“Perhaps the mystery is a little too
plain,” said Duping.
“Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of
such an idea?”
“A little too self-evident.”
“Ha! ha! ha—ha! ha! ha! —ho! ho!
ho!” roared our visitor, profoundly amused, “oh, Duping, you will be the death
of me yet!”
“And what, after all, is the matter
on hand?” I asked.
“Why, I will tell you,” replied the
Prefect, as he gave a long, steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself
in his chair. “I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me
caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I
should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that I
confided it to anyone.”
“Proceed,” said I.
“Or not,” said Duping.
“Well, then; I have received
personal information, from a very high quarter, that a certain document of the
last importance, has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual
who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is
known, also, that it still remains in his possession.”
“How is this known?” asked Duping.
“It is clearly inferred,” replied
the Prefect, “from the nature of the document, and from the non-appearance of
certain results which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber’s
possession; that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end
to employ it.”
“Be a little more explicit,” I said.
“Well, I may venture so far as to
say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where
such power is immensely valuable.” The Prefect was fond of the cant of
diplomacy.
“Still I do not quite understand,”
said Duping.
“No? Well; the disclosure of the
document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the
honor of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of
the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace
are so jeopardized.”
“But this ascendancy,” I interposed,
“would depend upon the robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the
robber. Who would dare—”
“The thief,” said G., “is the
Minister D—, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a
man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in
question—a letter, to be frank—had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by
the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her
wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer,
she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The address, however,
was uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At
this juncture enters the Minister D—. His lynx eye immediately perceives the
paper, recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the
personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions,
hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat like the
one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close
juxtaposition to the other. Again, he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon
the public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table
the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course,
dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who
stood at her elbow. The minister decamped; leaving his own letter—one of no
importance—upon the table.”
“Here, then,” said Duping to me,
“you have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy complete—the
robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber.”
“Yes,” replied the Prefect; “and the
power thus attained has, for some months past, been wielded, for political
purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly
convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of
course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed
the matter to me.”
“Then whom,” said Duping, amid a perfect
whirlwind of smoke, “no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or
even imagined.”
“You flatter me,” replied the
Prefect; “but it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained.”
“It is clear,” said I, “as you
observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister; since it is
this possession, and not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power.
With the employment the power departs.”
“True,” said G.; “and upon this
conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the
minister’s hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of
searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the
danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design.”
“But,” said I, “you are quite au fate
in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often
before.”
“O yes; and for this reason, I did
not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is
frequently absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous.
They sleep at a distance from their master’s apartment, and, being chiefly
Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can
open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed,
during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in
ransacking the D— Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to mention a great
secret, the reward is enormous. So, I did not abandon the search until I had become
fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I
have investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible
that the paper can be concealed.”
“But is it not possible,” I
suggested, “that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it
unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own
premises?”
“This is barely possible,” said Duping.
“The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those
intrigues in which D— is known to be involved, would render the instant
availability of the document—its susceptibility of being produced at a moment’s
notice—a point of nearly equal importance with its possession.”
“It's susceptibility of being
produced?” said I.
“, of being destroyed,” said Duping.
“True,” I observed; “the paper is
clearly then upon the premises. As for its being upon the person of the
minister, we may consider that as out of the question.”
“Entirely,” said the Prefect. “He
has been twice waylaid, as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched
under my own inspection.”
“You might have spared yourself this
trouble,” said Duping. “D—, I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not,
must have anticipated these waylaying's, as a matter of course.”
“Not altogether a fool,” said G.,
“but then he’s a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool.”
“True,” said Duping, after a long
and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, “although I have been guilty of
certain doggerel myself.”
“Suppose you detail,” said I, “the
particulars of your search.”
“Why the fact is, we took our time,
and we searched everywhere. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took
the entire building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each.
We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible
drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a
thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a
‘secret’ drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain.
There is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to be accounted for in every
cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not
escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with
the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the
tops.”
“Why so?”
“Sometimes the top of a table, or
other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing
to conceal an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within
the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed
in the same way.”
“But could not the cavity be
detected by sounding?” I asked.
“By no means, if, when the article
is deposited, a sufficient wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in
our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise.”
“But you could not have removed—you
could not have taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have
been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be
compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a
large knitting-needle, and in this form, it might be inserted into the rung of
a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?”
“Certainly not; but we did better—we
examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed the jointing's of
every description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had
there been any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect
it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as
obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the gluing—any unusual gaping in the
joints—would have sufficed to insure detection.”
“I presume you looked to the
mirrors, between the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the
bed-clothes, as well as the curtains and carpets.”
“That of course; and when we had
absolutely completed every particle of the furniture in this way, then we
examined the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments,
which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each
individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses
immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before.”
“The two houses adjoining!” I exclaimed;
“you must have had a great deal of trouble.”
“We had; but the reward offered is
prodigious!”
“You include the grounds about the
houses?”
“All the grounds are paved with
brick. They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between
the bricks and found it undisturbed.”
“You looked among D— ‘s papers, of
course, and into the books of the library?”
“Certainly; we opened every package
and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in
each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the
fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every
book-cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most
jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently
meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have
escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the
binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with the needles.”
“You explored the floors beneath the
carpets?”
“Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet
and examined the boards with the microscope.”
“And the paper on the walls?”
“Yes.”
“You looked into the cellars?”
“We did.”
“Then,” I said, “you have been
making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you
suppose.”
“I fear you are right there,” said
the Prefect. “And now, Duping, what would you advise me to do?”
“To make a thorough re-search of the
premises.”
“That is absolutely needless,”
replied G—. “I am not surer that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at
the Hotel.”
“I have no better advice to give
you,” said Duping. “You have, of course, an accurate description of the
letter?”
“Oh yes!”—And here the Prefect,
producing a memorandum-book proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the
internal, and especially of the external appearance of the missing document.
Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure,
more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman
before. In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit and found us
occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered some
ordinary conversation. At length I said, —
“Well, but G—, what of the purloined
letter? I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such
thing as overreaching the Minister?”
“Confound him, say I—yes; I made the
re-examination, however, as Duping suggested—but it was all labor lost, as I
knew it would be.”
“How much was the reward offered, did
you say?” asked Duping.
“Why, a very great deal—a very
liberal reward—I don’t like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will
say, that I wouldn’t mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs
to anyone who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more
and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it
were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done.”
“Why, yes,” said Duping, drawlingly,
between the whiffs of his meerschaum, “I really—think, G—, you have not exerted
yourself—to the utmost in this matter. You might—do a little more, I think,
eh?”
“How? —in what way?’
“Why—puff, puff—you might—puff,
puff—employ counsel in the matter, eh? —puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the
story they tell of Abernethy?”
“No; hang Abernethy!”
“To be sure! hang him and welcome.
But, once upon a time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of sponging
upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an
ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the
physician, as that of an imaginary individual.
“‘We will suppose,’ said the miser,
‘that his symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed
him to take?’
“‘Take!’ said Abernethy, ‘why, take
advice, to be sure.’”
“But,” said the Prefect, a little
discomposed, “I am perfectly willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would
really give fifty thousand francs to anyone who would aid me in the matter.”
“In that case,” replied Duping, opening
a drawer, and producing a checkbook, “you may as well fill me up a check for
the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter.”
I was astounded. The Prefect
appeared thunder stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and
motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that
seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in some
measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally
filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across
the table to Duping. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocketbook;
then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect.
This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a
trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and
struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and from
the house, without having uttered a syllable since Duping had requested him to
fill up the check.
When he had gone, my friend entered
some explanations.
“The Parisian police,” he said, “are
exceedingly able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and
thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand.
Thus, when G— detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel
D—, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation—so
far as his labors extended.”
“So far as his labors extended?” said
I.
“Yes,” said Duping. “The measures
adopted were not only the best of their kind but carried out to absolute
perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search,
these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.”
I merely laughed—but he seemed quite
serious in all that he said.
“The measures, then,” he continued,
“were good in their kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being
inapplicable to the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious
resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he
forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too
shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game
of ‘even and odd’ attracted universal admiration. This game is simple and is
played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys and
demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right,
the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all
the marbles of the school. Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and
this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his
opponents. For example, an errant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up
his closed hand, asks, ‘are they even or odd?’ Our schoolboy replies, ‘odd,’
and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, ‘the
simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just
sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess
odd;’—he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first,
he would have reasoned thus: ‘This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed
odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a
simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a
second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he
will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even;’—he
guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his
fellows termed ‘lucky,’—what, in its last analysis, is it?”
“It is merely,” I said, “an identification
of the reasoner’s intellect with that of his opponent.”
“It is,” said Duping; “and, upon
inquiring of the boy by what means he effected the thorough identification in
which his success consisted, I received answer as follows: ‘When I wish to find
out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are
his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately
as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see
what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or
correspond with the expression.’ This response of the schoolboy lies at the
bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Roche
Foucault, to La Boogie, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella.”
“And the identification,” I said,
“of the reasoner’s intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I
understand you aright, upon the accuracy with which the opponent’s intellect is
admeasured.”
“For its practical value it depends
upon this,” replied Duping; “and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently,
first, by default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement,
or rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for
anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it.
They are right in this much—that their own ingenuity is a faithful
representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the individual
felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of course.
This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is
below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations; at best,
when urged by some unusual emergency—by some extraordinary reward—they extend
or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their principles.
What, for example, in this case of D—, has been done to vary the principle of
action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing
with the microscope and dividing the surface of the building into registered
square inches—what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one
principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of
notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of
his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for granted that
all men proceed to conceal a letter,—not exactly in a gimlet hole bored in a
chair-leg—but, at least, in some out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the
same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a
gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such research's
nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be
adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a
disposal of the article concealed—a disposal of it in this recherché?
manner,—is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its
discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere
care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of
importance—or, what amounts to the same thing in the policies eyes, when the
reward is of magnitude,—the qualities in question have never been known to
fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the
purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the Prefect’s
examination—in other words, had the principle of its concealment been
comprehended within the principles of the Prefect—its discovery would have been
a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been
thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the
supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a
poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a
non-distribution media in thence inferring that all poets are fools.”
“But is this really the poet?” I
asked. “There are two brothers, I know; and both have attained reputation in
letters. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential
Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet.”
“You are mistaken; I know him well;
he is both. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere
mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at
the mercy of the Prefect.”
“You surprise me,” I said, “by these
opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean
to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason
has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.”
“‘Il y a ? pari ? r,’” replie Dupin, qu'oing frome Chamfort, “‘que toute ide
publique, toute convention revue est une sottise, car elle a convenu au plus
grand nombre.’ The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best to
promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less an
error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for
example, they have insinuated the term ‘analysis’ into application to algebra.
The French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a term is
of any importance—if words derive any value from applicability—then ‘analysis’
conveys ‘algebra’ about as much as, in Latin, ‘ambitus’ implies ‘ambition,’ ‘religion’
‘religion,’ or ‘hominess honesty,’ a set of honorable men.”
“You have a quarrel on hand, I see,”
said I, “with some of the algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”
“I dispute the availability, and
thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other
than the abstractly logical. I dispute the reason educed by mathematical study.
The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is
merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great error
lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are
abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded
at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are
not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation—of form and quantity—is
often grossly false regarding morals, for example. In this latter science it is
very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In
chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration of motive, it fails; for
two motives, each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united,
equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical
truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the
mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of
a general applicability—as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his
very learned ‘Mythology,’ mentions an analogous source of error, when he says
that ‘although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves
continually, and make inferences from them as existing realities.’ With the
algebraists, however, who are Pagans themselves, the ‘Pagan fables’ are
believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as
through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or
one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x2+px was
absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by
way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where
x2+px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you
mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he
will endeavor to knock you down.
“I mean to say,” continued Duping,
while I merely laughed at his last observations, “that if the Minister had been
no more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I know him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and
my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances
by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intrigant.
Such a man, I considered, could not fail to be aware of the ordinary policies
modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate—and events have proved
that he did not fail to anticipate—the waylaying's to which he was subjected.
He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises.
His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as
certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity
for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the
conviction to which G—, in fact, did finally arrive—the conviction that the
letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought,
which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the
invariable principle of policies action in searches for articles concealed—I
felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind
of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary
nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that
the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his
commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the
microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a
matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter
of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when
I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery
troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-evident.”
“Yes,” said I, “I remember his
merriment well. I really thought he would have fallen into convulsions.”
“The material world,” continued Duping,
“abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of
truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be
made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the vis inertia? for example, seems to be identical in physics and
metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more
difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum
is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that
intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more
eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less
readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few
steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street
signs, over the shop-doors, are the most attractive of attention?”
“I have never given the matter a
thought,” I said.
“There is a game of puzzles,” he
resumed, “which is played upon a map. One party playing requires another to
find a given word—the name of town, river, state or empire—any word, in short,
upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally
seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered
names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from
one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely lettered signs
and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively
obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But
this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the
Prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the Minister had
deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of
best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
“But the more I reflected upon the
daring, dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of D—; upon the fact that the
document must always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good
purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was
not hidden within the limits of that dignitary’s ordinary search—the more
satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to
the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at
all.
“Full of these ideas, I prepared
myself with a pair of green spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by
accident, at the Ministerial hotel. I found D— at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is,
perhaps, the most energetic human being now alive—but that is only when nobody
sees him.
“To be even with him, I complained
of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of
which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly
intent only upon the conversation of my host.
“I paid especial attention to a
large writing-table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some
miscellaneous letters and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and
a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw
nothing to excite suspicion.
“At length my eyes, in going the
circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard,
that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just
beneath the middle of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four
compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last
was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle—as
if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had
been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the
D— cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand,
to D—, the minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
“No sooner had I glanced at this
letter, than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it
was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect
had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with
the D— cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S—
family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine; there the
superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided;
the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the radicalness of
these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition
of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D—, and so
suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness
of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of
this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in
accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these
things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with
the intention to suspect.
“I protracted my visit as long as
possible, and, while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister
upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept
my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed
to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and fell, at
length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have
entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more
chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance, which is
manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a
folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which
had formed the original fold. This discovery was enough. It was clear to me
that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and
re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once,
leaving a gold snuffbox upon the table.
“The next morning, I called for the
snuff-box, when we resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding
day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard
immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams, and the shootings of a terrified mob. D— rushed to a casement,
threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack,
took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far
as regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings—imitating
the D— cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
“The disturbance in the street had
been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it
among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without
ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard.
When he had gone, D— came from the window, whither I had followed him immediately
upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The
pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay.”
“But what purpose had you,” I asked,
“in replacing the letter by a fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the
first visit, to have seized it openly, and departed?”
“D—,” replied Duping, “is a
desperate man, and a man of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants
devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might
never have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might
have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of
the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power.
She has now him in hers—since, being unaware that the letter is not in his
possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus, will he
inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall,
too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk
about the facilis dissensus Averna; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalan
said of singing, it is far easier to get up than to come down. In the present
instance I have no sympathy—at least no pity—for him who descends. He is that menstruum
horrendous, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should
like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being
defied by her whom the Prefect terms ‘a certain personage’ he is reduced to
opening the letter which I left for him in the card-rack.”
“How? did you put anything
particular in it?”
“Why—it did not seem altogether
right to leave the interior blank—that would have been insulting. D—, at Vienna
once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I
should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity regarding the
identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give
him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the
middle of the blank sheet the words—
“‘— — Un dessein si funeste, S’il n’est digne d'ATR ? e, est digne de
Thyeste. They are to be found in Cribellum's ‘Art? e.’”
THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
Truth is stranger than fiction.
OLD SAYING.
HAVING had occasion, lately, in the
course of some Oriental investigations, to consult the Tellme now Stormont, a
work which (like the Zohar of Simeon Pochades) is scarcely known at all, even
in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American—if
we except, perhaps, the author of the “Curiosities of American
Literature”;—having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the
first-mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover
that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the
fate of the vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the
“Arabian Nights”; and that the denouement there given, if not altogether
inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very
much farther.
For full information on this
interesting topic, I must refer the inquisitive reader to the “Stormont”
itself, but in the meantime, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I
there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the
usual version of the tales, a certain monarch having good cause to be jealous
of his queen, not only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the
prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and
the next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many
years to the letter, and with a religious punctuality and method that conferred
great credit upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was
interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand
vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her
idea was, that she would either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon
its beauty, or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the
attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not
find it to be leap-year (which makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she
deputes her father, the grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand.
This hand the king eagerly accepts—(he had intended to take it at all events,
and had put off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the
vizier),—but, in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to
understand, that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest
design of giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore,
the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually marry
him despite her father’s excellent advice not to do anything of the kind—when
she would and did marry him, I say, will I, nil I, it was with her beautiful
black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.
It seems, however, that this politic
damsel (who had been reading Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious
little plot in her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I
forget what specious pretense, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently
near that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed; and,
a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the good monarch, her
husband (who bore her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck
on the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on account of a
capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept well) by the profound
interest of a story (about a rat and a black cat, I think) which she was
narrating (all in an undertone, of course) to her sister. When the day broke,
it so happened that this history was not altogether finished, and that
Scheherazade, in the nature of things could not finish it just then, since it
was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung—a thing very little more
pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.
The king’s curiosity, however,
prevailing, I am sorry to say, even over his sound religious principles,
induced him for this once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next
morning, for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it fared
in the end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.
The night having arrived, however,
the lady Scheherazade not only put the finishing stroke to the black cat and
the rat (the rat was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found
herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not
altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent
manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history
the king was even more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the
day broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen’s endeavors to
get through with it in time for the bowstringing), there was again no resource
but to postpone that ceremony as before, for twenty-four hours. The next night
there happened a similar accident with a similar result; and then the next—and
then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch, having been unavoidably
deprived of all opportunity to keep his vow during a period of no less than one
thousand and one nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this
time, or gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father confessor. At
all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally descended from Eve, fell heir,
perhaps, to the whole seven baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all
know, picked up from under the trees in the garden of Eden—Scheherazade, I say,
finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.
Now, this conclusion (which is that
of the story as we have it upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and
pleasant—but alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than
true, and I am indebted altogether to the “Stormont” for the means of
correcting the error. “Le mix,” says a French proverb, “Est enemy du bien,”
and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk, I
should have added that she put them out at compound interest until they
amounted to seventy-seven.
“My dear sister,” said she, on the
thousand-and-second night, (I quote the language of the “Stormont” at this
point, verbatim) “my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little
difficulty about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so
happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in
withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores—a thing no gentleman
would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through
numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which I related; but
the truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and so
was seduced into cutting them short—a grievous piece of misconduct, for which I
only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to
remedy my great neglect—and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in
order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible noise, I will
forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases) with the sequel of this very
remarkable story.”
Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade,
as I have it from the “Stormont,” expressed no very particular intensity of
gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceased
snoring, and finally said, “hum!” and then “hood!” when the queen,
understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to signify that he was
all attention, and would do his best not to snore any more—the queen, I say,
having arranged these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once,
into the history of Sinbad the sailor:
“‘At length, in my old age,’ [these
are the words of Sinbad himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]—‘at length, in my
old age, and after enjoying many years of tranquility at home, I became once
more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries; and one day, without
acquainting any of my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of such
merchandise as was most precious and least bulky, and, engaged a porter to
carry them, went with him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival of any
chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I
had not as yet explored.
“‘Having deposited the packages upon
the sands, we sat down beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the
hope of perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At
length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound; and the
porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish it.
Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubt
that the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of
the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in size until
we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of its body
above the surface of the sea. It came toward us with inconceivable swiftness,
throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and illuminating all that
part of the sea through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended
far off into the distance.
“‘As the thing drew near, we saw it
very distinctly. Its length was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees
that grow, and it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O
most sublime and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of
ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout
all that portion of it which floated above the water, with the exception of a
narrow blood-red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated
beneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and then as
the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic
scales, of a color like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat
and nearly white, and from it there extended upwards of six spines, about half
the length of the whole body.
“‘The horrible creature had no mouth
that we could perceive, but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was
provided with at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets
like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in
two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which
seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes
were much larger than the others and had the appearance of solid gold.
“‘Although this beast approached us,
as I have before said, with the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved
altogether by necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like
a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the manner of a
vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its
tail were shaped precisely alike, only, not far from the latter, were two small
holes that served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick
breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking, disagreeable noise.
“‘Our terror at beholding this
hideous thing was very great, but it was even surpassed by our astonishment,
when upon getting a nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast
number of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much
resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do), being supplied
(by nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable covering, a good deal like
cloth, but fitting so tight to the skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably
awkward, and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their
heads were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thought might
have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discovered that they were
excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore concluded they were contrivances
designed, by their great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and
safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were fastened
black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as we keep on our dogs,
only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so that it was quite impossible for
these poor victims to move their heads in any direction without moving the body
at the same time; and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their
noses—a view piggish and snobby in a wonderful, if not positively in an awful
degree.
“‘When the monster had nearly
reached the shore where we stood, it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a
great extent, and emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a
dense cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As
the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near the
head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it
to his mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable
accents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they not come
altogether through the nose.
“‘Being thus evidently spoken to, I
was at a loss how to reply, as I could in no manner understand what was said;
and in this difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through
affright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was,
what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed upon its
back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for trepidation, that he
had once before heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels
of Sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means of inflicting
misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back were vermin, such as
sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that
these vermin had their uses, however evil—for, through the torture they caused
the beast by their nibbling and stinging, it was goaded into that degree of
wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfil the
vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.
“This account determined me to take
to my heels, and, without once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up
into the hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an
opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with my
bundles, of which I have no doubt he took excellent care—although this is a
point I cannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.
“‘For myself, I was so hotly pursued
by a swarm of the men-vermin (who had come to the shore in boats) that I was
very soon overtaken, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which
immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea.
“‘I now bitterly repented my folly
in quitting a comfortable home to peril my life in such adventures as this; but
regret being useless, I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to
secure the goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared
to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor
that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of his favor,
and in the end even went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it
was vain enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was enabled
to converse with it readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I
had of seeing the world.
“‘Waspish squashes squeak, Sinbad,
hey-diddle diddle, grunt unto grumble, hiss, fuss, whisks,’ said he to me, one
day after dinner—but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty
is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals were
called; I presume because their language formed the connecting 2148link between
that of the horse and that of the rooster). With your permission, I will
translate. ‘Waspish squashes,’ and so forth:—that is to say, ‘I am happy to find,
my dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are now about
doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so
desirous of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage
upon back of the beast.’”
When the Lady Scheherazade had
proceeded thus far, relates the “Stormont,” the king turned over from his left
side to his right, and said:
“It is, in fact, very surprising, my
dear queen, that you omitted, hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do
you know I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange?”
The king having thus expressed himself;
we are told, the fair Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:
“Sinbad went on in this manner with
his narrative to the caliph—‘I thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and
soon found myself very much at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious
rate through the ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of
the world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went—so
to say—either uphill or downhill all the time.’
“That I think, was very singular,”
interrupted the king.
“Nevertheless, it is quite true,”
replied Scheherazade.
“I have my doubts,” rejoined the
king; “but, pray, be so good as to go on with the story.”
“I will,” said the queen. “‘The
beast,’ continued Sinbad to the caliph, ‘swam, as I have related, uphill and downhill
until, at length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in
circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea
by a colony of little things like caterpillars’”
“Hum!” said the king.
“‘Leaving this island,’ said
Sinbad—(for Scheherazade, it must be understood, took no notice of her
husband’s ill-mannered ejaculation) ‘leaving this island, we came to another
where the forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces
the finest-tempered axes with which we endeavored to cut them down.”’
“Hum!” said the king, again; but
Scheherazade, paying him no attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.
“‘Passing beyond this last island,
we reached a country where there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty
or forty miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater
number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found
in all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriads
of gems, like diamonds, but larger than men; and in among the streets of towers
and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and
swarming with fish that had no eyes.’”
“Hum!” said the king. “‘We then swam
into a region of the sea where we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides
there streamed torrents of melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide
and sixty miles long ; while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a
quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and
it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that when we were even at the
distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it was impossible to
see the whitest object, however close we held it to our eyes.’”
“Hum!” said the king.
“‘After quitting this coast, the
beast continued his voyage until we met with a land in which the nature of
things seemed reversed—for we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which,
more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in
full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.’”
“Hood!” said the king.
“Some hundred miles farther on
brought us to a climate where the atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or
steel, just as our own does feather.’”
“Fiddle de dee,” said the king.
“Proceeding still in the same
direction, we presently arrived at the most magnificent region in the whole world.
Through it there meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles.
This river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of
amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which arose on
either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crowned with
ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that made the whole
territory one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the
Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death’”
“Humph!” said the king.
“‘We left this kingdom in great
haste, and, after some days, came to another, where we were astonished to
perceive myriads of monstrous animals with horns resembling scythes upon their
heads. These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a
funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rocks, so disposed one upon the
other that they fall instantly, when trodden upon by other animals, thus
precipitating them into the monster’s dens, where their blood is immediately
sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an immense
distance from “the caverns of death."’”
“Pooh!” said the king.
“‘Continuing our progress, we
perceived a district with vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the
air. There were others that sprang from the substance of other vegetables;
others that derived their substance from the bodies of living animals; and then
again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire; others that
moved from place to place at pleasure, and what was still more wonderful, we
discovered flowers that lived and breathed and moved their limbs at will and
had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures,
and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of
appointed tasks.’”
“Pshaw!” said the king.
“‘Quitting this land, we soon
arrived at another in which the bees and the birds are mathematicians of such
genius and erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of
geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a
reward for the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon
the spot—the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the king keeping
their solution a secret, it was only after the most profound researches and
labor, and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long series of
years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the identical solutions
which had been given upon the spot by the bees and by the birds.’”
“Oh my!” said the king.
“‘We had scarcely lost sight of this
empire when we found ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew
over our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty
miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it required
no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us—in which there were
several millions of millions of fowl.’”
“Oh fee!” said the king.
“‘No sooner had we got rid of these
birds, which occasioned us great annoyance, than we were terrified by the
appearance of a fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs
which I met in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the
domes on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had
no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was
of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth,
shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, the monster was bearing
away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from which it had knocked off the
roof, and in the interior of which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond
doubt, were in a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited
them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening the bird into
letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage and
then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with
sand!’”
“Stuff!” said the king.
“‘It was just after this adventure
that we encountered a continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but
which, nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow
that had no fewer than four hundred horns.’”
“That, now, I believe,” said the
king, “because I have read something of the kind before, in a book.”
“‘We passed immediately beneath this
continent, (swimming in between the legs of the cow), and, after some hours,
found ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the
man-animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species.
This elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now began
to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him;
for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most powerful
magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, which, no doubt, served to
stimulate them by their painful writhing's and wriggling's to the most
miraculous efforts of imagination!’”
“Nonsense!” said the king.
“‘Among the magicians, were
domesticated several animals of very singular kinds; for example, there was a
huge horse whose bones were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of
corn, he had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a
diet, he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than
the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight of
most birds.’”
“Tattle!” said the king.
“‘I saw, also, among these people a
hen without feathers, but bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she
had iron and brick; her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was
nearly related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or
black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens in the
day; and, after birth, they took up their residence for several weeks within
the stomach of their mother.’”
“Fa! all!” said the king.
“‘One of this nation of mighty
conjurors created a man out of brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him
with such ingenuity that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind
with the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Arsacid. Another of these magi
constructed (of like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of
him who made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it
performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required the
united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. But a still more
wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was neither man
nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed with a black matter like
pitch, and fingers that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity
that it would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies of the
Koran in an hour, and this with so exquisite a precision, that in all the
copies there should not be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the
finest hair. This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or
overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised
equally for evil and for good.’”
“Ridiculous!” said the king.
“‘Among this nation of necromancers
there was also one who had in his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he
made no scruple of sitting down to smoke his chibouk in a red-hot oven until
his dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them during the
process. Another had such a delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to
be invisible. Another had such quickness of perception that he counted all the
separate motions of an elastic body, while it was springing backward and
forward at the rate of nine hundred million of times in a second.’”
“Absurd!” said the king.
“‘Another of these magicians, by means
of a fluid that nobody ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends
brandish their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at
his will. Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could
have made himself heard from one end of the world to the other. Another had so
long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and incite a letter at Bagdad—or
indeed at any distance whatsoever. Another commanded the lightning to come down
to him out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him for a
plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them made a
silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights.
Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. Another directed the sun to paint his
portrait, and the sun did. Another took this luminary with the moon and the
planets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into
their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic ability,
that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and dogs have any
difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all, or that for twenty
millions of years before the birth of the nation itself had been blotted out
from the face of creation.”’
“Preposterous!” said the king.
“‘The wives and daughters of these
incomparably great and wise magi,’” continued Scheherazade, without being in
any manner disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on
the part of her husband—“‘the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers
are everything that is accomplished and refined; and would be everything that
is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and
from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has,
hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and
some in others—but this of which I speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.’”
“A what?” said the king.
“‘A crotchet’” said Scheherazade.
“‘One of the evil genii, who are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has
put it into the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we
describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the
region which lies not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of
loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having
been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, the
days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman from a
dromedary-’”
“Stop!” said the king— “I can’t
stand that, and I won’t. You have already given me a dreadful headache with
your lies. The day, too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we
been married? —my conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that
dromedary touch—do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well
get up and be throttled.”
These words, as I learn from the “Stormont,”
both grieved and astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man
of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted
to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, (during
the tightening of the bowstring,) from the reflection that much of the history
remained still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had
reaped for him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable
adventures.
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTR? M.
The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as us
ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have
a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus.
Joseph Glanville.
WE had now reached the summit of the
loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
“Not long ago,” said he at length,
“and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons;
but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never
happened to mortal man—or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and
the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul.
You suppose me a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to
change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to
unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened
at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without
getting giddy?”
The “little cliff,” upon whose edge
he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of
his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his
elbow on its extreme and slippery edge—this “little cliff” arose, a sheer
unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred
feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to
within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the
perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground,
clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the
sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very
foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was
long before I could reason myself into enough courage to sit up and look out
into the distance.
“You must get over these fancies,”
said the guide, “for I have brought you here that you might have the best
possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned—and to tell you the whole
story with the spot just under your eye.”
“We are now,” he continued, in that
particularizing manner which distinguished him— “we are now close upon the
Norwegian coast—in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of
Norrland—and in the dreary district of Loosen. The mountain upon who's top we
sit is Holsinger, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher—hold on to
the grass if you feel giddy—so—and look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath
us, into the sea.”
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide
expanse of ocean, whose waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my
mind the Nubian geographer’s account of the Mare Tenenbaum. A panorama more
deplorably desolates no human imagination can conceive. To the right and left,
as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the
world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was
but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against its
white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever. Just opposite the
promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or
six miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, more
properly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which
it was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of smaller
size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a
cluster of dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean, in the
space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual
about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a
brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly
plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a
regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every
direction—as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was
little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.
“The island in the distance,”
resumed the old man, “is called by the Norwegians Burgh. The one midway is Moskov.
That a mile to the northward is Ambari. Yonder are Islesmen, Hotham, Kelheim, Suave,
and Buckholt. Farther off—between Moskov and Burgh—are Otter Holm, Flamen, Sandflies,
and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places—but why it has been
thought necessary to name them at all, is more than either you or I can
understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the water?”
We had now been about ten minutes
upon the top of Holsinger, to which we had ascended from the interior of Loosen,
so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the
summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing
sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie;
and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character
of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set to the
eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each
moment added to its speed—to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes, the
whole sea, as far as Burgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was
between Moskov and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast
bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels,
burst suddenly into premised convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in
gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the
eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in
precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more, there came
over the scene another radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat smoother,
and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam
became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at length,
spreading out to a great distance, and entering combination, took unto
themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the
germ of another vaster. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct and
definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the
whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of
this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as
the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water,
inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding
dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth
to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the
mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.
The mountain trembled to its very
base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face and clung to the scant
herbage in an excess of nervous agitation.
“This,” said I at length, to the old
man— “this can be nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelstrom? m.”
“So, it is sometimes termed,” said
he. “We Norwegians call it the Moskov-str? m, from the island of Moskov in the
midway.”
The ordinary accounts of this vortex
had by no means prepared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is
perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception
either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene—or of the wild
bewildering sense of the novel which confounds the beholder. I am not sure from
what point of view the writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it
could neither have been from the summit of Holsinger, nor during a storm. There
are some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for
their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an
impression of the spectacle.
“Between Loosen and Moskov,” he
says, “the depth of the water is between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on
the other side, toward Ver (Burgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a
convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks,
which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, the stream runs up
the country between Loosen and Moskov with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar
of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most
dreadful cataracts; the noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices
or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its
attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there
beat to pieces against the rocks; and when the water relaxes, the fragments
thereof are thrown up again. But these intervals of tranquility are only at the
turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an
hour, its violence gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and
its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of
it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it
before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently, that whales
come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is
impossible to describe their howling's and bellowing's in their fruitless
struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Loosen
to Moscow, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, to
be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by
the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew
upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among
which they are whirled to and from. This stream is regulated by the flux and
reflux of the sea—it being constantly high and low water every six hours. In
the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such
noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to
the ground.”
Regarding the depth of the water, I
could not see how this could have been ascertained at all in the immediate
vicinity of the vortex. The “forty fathoms” must have reference only to
portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskov or Loosen. The
depth in the center of the Moskoe-str?m must be immeasurably greater; and no
better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the
sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest
crag of Holsinger. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethontic
below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas
Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and
the bears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the
largest ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of that
deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and
must disappear bodily and at once.
The attempts to account for the
phenomenon—some of which, I remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in
perusal—now wore a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally
received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferree
islands, “have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and falling,
at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the
water so that it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the
flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a
whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by
lesser experiments.”—These are the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Kircher and others imagine that in the center of the channel of the Maelstrom?
m is an abyss penetrating the globe and issuing in some very remote part—the
Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance. This opinion,
idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed, my imagination most readily
assented; and, mentioning it to the guide, I was rather surprised to hear him
say that, although it was the view almost universally entertained of the
subject by the Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former
notion he confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I agreed with
him—for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether unintelligible, and
even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss.
“You have had a good look at the
whirl now,” said the old man, “and if you will creep round this crag, so as to
get in its lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that
will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-str?m.”
I placed myself as desired, and he
proceeded.
“Myself and my two brothers once
owned a schooner-rigged smack of about seventy tons burthen, with which we were
in the habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskov, nearly to Burgh. In
all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if
one has only the courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Loosen coast
men, we three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to
the islands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the
southward. There fish can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore
these places are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however,
not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we
often got in a single day, what the tinier of the craft could not scrape
together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation—the
risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for capital.
“We kept the smack in a cove about
five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine
weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes’ slack to push across the
main channel of the Moskoe-str?m, far above the pool, and then drop down upon
anchorage somewhere near Otter Holm, or Sandflies, where the eddies are not so
violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water
again, when we weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition
without a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure would not
fail us before our return—and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point.
Twice, during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account
of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had
to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale
which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to
be thought of. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in
spite of everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently,
that, at length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been that
we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents—here to-day and gone
to-morrow—which drove us under the lee of Flamen, where, by good luck, we
brought up.
“I could not tell you the twentieth
part of the difficulties we encountered ‘on the grounds’—it is a bad spot to be
in, even in good weather—but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the
Moskoe-str?m itself without accident; although at times my heart has been in my
mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack. The
wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we made
rather less way than we could wish, while the current rendered the smack
unmanageable. My eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two
stout boys of my own. These would have been of great assistance at such times,
in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing—but, somehow, although we
ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into the
danger—for, after all is said and done, it was a horrible danger, and that is
the truth.
“It is now within a few days of
three years since what I am going to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day
of July 18-, a day which the people of this part of the world will never
forget—for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came
out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the
afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the south-west, while the
sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen
what was to follow.
“The three of us—my two brothers and
myself—had crossed over to the islands about two o’clock P. M., and had soon
nearly loaded the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more
plenty that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven, by my watch,
when we weighed and started for home, to make the worst of the Str? m at slack
water, which we knew would be at eight.
“We set out with a fresh wind on our
starboard quarter, and for some time spanked along at a great rate, never
dreaming of danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it.
All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Holsinger. This was most
unusual—something that had never happened to us before—and I began to feel a
little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but
could make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was upon the point of
proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole
horizon covered with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most
amazing velocity.
“In the meantime, the breeze that
had headed us off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every
direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us
time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us—in less
than two the sky was entirely overcast—and what with this and the driving
spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the
smack.
“Such a hurricane as then blew it is
folly to attempt describing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything
like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at
the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed
off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to
it for safety.
“Our boat was the lightest feather
of a thing that ever sat upon water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a
small hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to
batten down when about to cross the Str? m, by way of precaution against the
chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once—for
we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped
destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For
my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck,
with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping
a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. It was mere instinct that prompted
me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for I
was too much flurried to think.
“For some moments we were completely
deluged, as I say, and all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt.
When I could stand it no longer, I raised myself upon my knees, keeping hold
with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave
herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid
herself, in some measure, of the seas. I was now trying to get the better of
the stupor that had come over me, and to collect my senses to see what was to
be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother, and my
heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard—but the next
moment all this joy was turned into horror—for he put his mouth close to my
ear, and screamed out the word ‘Moskoe-str?m!’
“No one ever will know what my
feelings were at that moment. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the
most violent fit of the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well
enough—I knew what he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now
drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of the Str? m, and nothing could save
us!
“You perceive that in crossing the Strum
channel, we always went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest
weather, and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack—but now we were
driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this! ‘To be
sure,’ I thought, ‘we shall get there just about the slack—there is some little
hope in that’—but in the next moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool
as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed, had we been
ten times a ninety-gun ship.
“By this time the first fury of the
tempest had spent itself, or perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded
before it, but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the
wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. A singular
change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every direction it was still
as black as pitch, but nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular
rift of clear sky—as clear as I ever saw—and of a deep bright blue—and through
it there blazed forth the full moon with a luster that I never before knew her
to wear. She lit up everything about us with the greatest distinctness—but, oh
God, what a scene it was to light up!
“I now made one or two attempts to
speak to my brother—but, in some manner which I could not understand, the din
had so increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although I
screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head,
looking as pale as death, and held up one of his fingers, as if to say ‘listen!
‘
“At first I could not make out what
he meant—but soon a hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from
its fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then
burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It had run down at
seven o’clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Str?
m was in full fury!
“When a boat is well built, properly
trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going
large, seem always to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a
landsman—and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase. Well, so far, we had
ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us
right under the counter and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the
sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And then down
we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy,
as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up,
I had thrown a quick glance around—and that one glance was all enough. I saw
our exact position in an instant. The Moskov-Str? m whirlpool was about a
quarter of a mile dead ahead—but no more like the every-day Moskov-Str? m, than
the whirl as you now see it is like a millrace. If I had not known where we
were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognized the place at all.
As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched
themselves together as if in a spasm.
“It could not have been more than
two minutes afterward until we suddenly felt the waves subside and were
enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot
off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring
noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek—such a
sound as you might imagine given out by the wastepipes of many thousand
steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together. We were now in the belt of
surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another
moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly
on account of the amazing velocity with which we wore borne along. The boat did
not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the
surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the
larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing
wall between us and the horizon.
“It may appear strange, but now,
when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we
were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of
a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was
despair that strung my nerves.
“It may look like boasting—but what
I tell you is truth—I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in
such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a
manifestation of God’s power. I do believe that I blushed with shame when this
idea crossed my mind. After a little while I became possessed with the keenest
curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its
depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was
that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the
mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a
man’s mind in such extremity—and I have often thought since, that the
revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little
light-headed.
“There was another circumstance
which tended to restore my self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind,
which could not reach us in our present situation—for, as you saw yourself, the
belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed of the ocean, and this
latter now towered above us, a high, black, mountainous ridge. If you have
never been at sea in a heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of
mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and
strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection. But we were now,
in a great measure, rid of these annoyances—just as death-condemned felons in
prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet
uncertain.
“How often we made the circuit of
the belt it is impossible to say. We careered round and round for perhaps an
hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the
middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. All
this time I had never let go of the ringbolt. My brother was at the stern,
holding on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely lashed under the
coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been swept
overboard when the gale first took us. As we approached the brink of the pit he
let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in the agony of
his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to
afford us both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him
attempt this act—although I knew he was a madman when he did it—a raving maniac
through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I
knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so, I let
him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. This there was no great
difficulty in doing; for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even
keel—only swaying to and from, with the immense sweeps and swelters of the
whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild
lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried
prayer to God and thought all was over.
“As I felt the sickening sweep of
the descent, I had instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed
my eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them—while I expected instant destruction
and wondered that I was not already in my death-struggles with the water. But
moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased;
and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the
belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage
and looked once again upon the scene.
“Never shall I forget the sensations
of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared
to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a
funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth
sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with
which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth,
as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black
walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
“At first I was too much confused to
observe anything accurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all
that I beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze feels
instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed
view, from the way the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool. She was
quite upon an even keel—that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with
that of the water—but this latter sloped at an angle of more than forty-five
degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help
observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my
hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a dead level; and
this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.
“The rays of the moon seemed to
search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing
distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped,
and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering
bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity. This
mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of
the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom—but the yell that went up to
the Heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt to describe.
“Our first slide into the abyss
itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the
slope; but our farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round
we swept—not with any uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and jerks, that
sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards—sometimes nearly the complete
circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at each revolution, was slow, but
very perceptible.
“Looking about me upon the wide
waste of liquid ebony on which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat
was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us
were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks
of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken
boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity
which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me
as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a
strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must have
been delirious—for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative
velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I
found myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that takes
the awful plunge and disappears,’—and then I was disappointed to find that the
wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down before. At length,
after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all—this
fact—the fact of my invariable miscalculation—set me upon a train of reflection
that made my limbs again tremble, and my heartbeat heavily once more.
“It was not a new terror that thus
affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from
memory, and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great variety
of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Loosen, having been absorbed and
then thrown forth by the Moskov-str? m. By far the greater number of the
articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way—so chafed and roughened
as to have the appearance of being stuck full of splinters—but then I
distinctly recollected that there were some of them which were not disfigured
at all. Now I could not account for this difference except by supposing that
the roughened fragments were the only ones which had been completely
absorbed—that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide,
or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not
reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb, as the case
might be. I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might thus be
whirled up again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those
which had been drawn in earlier or absorbed more rapidly. I made, also, three
important observations. The first was, that, as a general rule, the larger the
bodies were, the more rapid their descent—the second, that, between two masses
of equal extent, the one spherical, and the other of any other shape, the
superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere—the third, that, between
two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other
shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have had
several conversations on this subject with an old schoolmaster of the district;
and it was from him that I learned the use of the word's ‘cylinder’ and
‘sphere.’ He explained to me—although I have forgotten the explanation—how what
I observed was, in fact, the natural consequence of the forms of the floating
fragments—and showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex,
offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater
difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. (*1)
“There was one startling
circumstance which went a great way in enforcing these observations, and
rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and this was that, at every
revolution, we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of
a vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first
opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up above us,
and seemed to have moved but little from their original station.
“I no longer hesitated what to do. I
resolved to lash myself securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to
cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
attracted my brother’s attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that
came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was
about to do. I thought at length that he comprehended my design—but, whether
this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move
from his station by the ringbolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency
admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his
fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to
the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea, without another
moment’s hesitation.
“The result was precisely what I had
hoped it might be. As it is myself who now tell you this tale—as you see that I
did escape—and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this
escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther to
say—I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have been an hour, or
thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast
distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid succession,
and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged headlong, at once and forever,
into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very
little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the
spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the
character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became
momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew, gradually, less
and less violent. By degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the
bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to upriser. The sky was clear, the winds had
gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found
myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Loosen, and
above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-str?m had been. It was the hour of
the slack—but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the
hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Str? m, and in a few
minutes was hurried down the coast into the ‘grounds’ of the fishermen. A boat
picked me up—exhausted from fatigue—and (now that the danger was removed) speechless
from the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates and
daily companions—but they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler
from the spirit-land. My hair which had been raven-black the day before, was as
white as you see it now. They say too that the whole expression of my
countenance had changed. I told them my story—they did not believe it. I now
tell it to you—and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did
the merry fishermen of Loosen.”
VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY
AFTER THE very minute and elaborate
paper by Aragon, to say nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with
the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be
supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von
Kempe Len's discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific
point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few words of
Von Kempe Len himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight
personal acquaintance), since everything which concerns him must necessarily,
at this moment, be of interest; and, in the second place, to look in a general
way, and speculatively, at the results of the discovery.
It may be as well, however, to
premise the cursory observations which I have to offer, by denying, very
decidedly, what seems to be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case
of this kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it
unquestionably is, is unanticipated.
By reference to the ‘Diary of Sir
Humphrey Davy’ (Cottle and Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53
and 82, that this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in
question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in
the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempe
Len, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt
(I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the
‘Diary’ for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.
The paragraph from the ‘Courier and
Enquirer,’ which is now going the rounds of the press, and which purports to
claim the invention for a Mr. Kassam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I
confess, a little apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing
either impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go into
details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its manner. It
does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular
as Mr. Kassam seems to be, about day and date and precise location. Besides, if
Mr. Kassam actually did come upon the discovery he says he did, at the period
designated—nearly eight years ago—how happens it that he took no steps, on the
instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known
would have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large, from the
discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common understanding
could have discovered what Mr. Kassam says he did, and yet have subsequently
acted so like a baby—so like an owl—as Mr. Kassam admits that he did.
By-the-way, who is Mr. Kassam? and is not the whole paragraph in the ‘Courier
and Enquirer’ a fabrication got up to ‘make a talk’? It must be confessed that
it has an amazingly moon-hoax-air. Very little dependence is to be placed upon
it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well aware, from experience, how
very easily men of science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of
inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as
Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kassam's (or is it Mr. Quizzer's?) pretensions
to the discovery, in so serious a tone.
But to return to the ‘Diary’ of Sir
Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not designed for the public eye, even upon the
decease of the writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may
satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13,
for example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches about the
protoxide of azote: ‘In less than half a minute the respiration being
continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle
pressure on all the muscles.’ That the respiration was not ‘diminished,’ is not
only clear by the subsequent context, but using the plural, ‘were.’ The
sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: ‘In less than half a minute, the
respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were
succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ A
hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so inconsiderately published,
was merely a rough notebook, meant only for the writer’s own eye, but an inspection
of the pamphlet will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my
suggestion. The fact is Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world
to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a more than ordinary
dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing empirical; so
that, however fully he might have been convinced that he was on the right track
in the matter now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had everything
ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last
moments would have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his
wishes in regard to burning this ‘Diary’ (full of crude speculations) would
have been unattended to; as, it seems, they were. I say, ‘his wishes,’ for that
he meant to include this notebook among the miscellaneous papers directed ‘to
be burnt,’ I think there can be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the
flames by good fortune or by bad yet remains to be seen. That the passages
quoted above, with the other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempe Len the
hint, I do not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains
to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any
circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempe
Len and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to
doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to ‘realize,’ in time,
by large purchases of houses and land, with other property of intrinsic value.
In the brief account of Von Kempe
Len which appeared in the ‘Home Journal,’ and has since been extensively
copied, several misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made
by the translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a late number
of the Parkesburg ‘Chellos.’ ‘Vielle’ has evidently been misconceived (as it
often is), and what the translator renders by ‘sorrows,’ is probably ‘linden,’
which, in its true version, ‘sufferings,’ would give a totally different
complexion to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess,
on my part.
Von Kempe Len, however, is by no
means ‘a misanthrope,’ in appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My
acquaintance with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in
saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so
prodigious a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not
a small matter, as times go.
‘The Literary World’ speaks of him,
confidently, as a native of Parkesburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in ‘The
Home Journal’) but I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have
it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York,
although both his parents, I believe, are of Parkesburg descent. The family is
connected, in some way, with Maazel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In
person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and
whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose.
There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole
manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as
little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man I ever saw. We were fellow sojourners for
a week about six years ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I
presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or four
hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day, and nothing that
fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel
before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the
latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it was
there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is about all that I
personally know of the now immortal Von Kempe Len; but I have thought that even
these few details would have interest for the public.
There can be little question that
most of the marvelous rumors afloat about this affair are pure inventions,
entitled to about as much credit as the story of Aladdin’s lamp; and yet, in a
case of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is clear
that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least,
is so well authenticated, that we may receive it implicitly.
Von Kempe Len had never been even
tolerably well off during his residence at Bremen; and often, it was well
known, he had been put to extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When
the great excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of Gunsmith &
Co., suspicion was directed toward Von Kempe Len, on account of his having
purchased a considerable property in Gasper itch Lane, and his refusing, when
questioned, to explain how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at
length arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set
at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and
thus discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth
of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the ‘Dunderpate.’
Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traded him to a garret in an old
house of seven stories, in an alley called Flat Platz, —and, coming upon him
suddenly, found him, as they imagined, during his counterfeiting operations.
His agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had not the
slightest doubt of his guilt. After handcuffing him, they searched his room, or
rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all the mansard.
Opening into the garret where they
caught him, was a closet, ten feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical
apparatus, of which the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of
the closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire
a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these
crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to
the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim. The other crucible had
some liquid in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously
dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempe Len seized
the crucibles with both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards
turned out to be asbestos) and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was
now that they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises
they searched his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward ascertained to
be a mixture of antimony and some unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite,
equal proportions. All attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so
far, failed, but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their
prisoner, the officers went through a sort of antechamber, in which nothing
material was found, to the chemist’s sleeping-room. They here rummaged some
drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some
good coin, silver and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large,
common hair trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying
carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out
from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were
three of them, all powerful men), they ‘could not stir it one inch.’ Much
astonished at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the
trunk, said:
‘No wonder we couldn’t move it—why
it’s full to the brim of old bits of brass!’
Putting his feet, now, against the
wall so as to get a good purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his
companions pulled with all theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid
out from under the bed, and its contents examined. The supposed brass with
which it was filled was all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a
pea to that of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more
or less flat-looking, upon the whole, ‘very much as lead looks when thrown upon
the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.’ Now, not one of
these officers for a moment suspected this metal to be anything but brass. The
idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such a
wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived, when
the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the ‘lot of brass’ which
they had carted so contemptuously to the police office, without putting
themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only
gold—real gold—but gold far finer than any employed in coinage-gold, in fact,
absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.
I need not go over the details of
Von Kempe Len's confession (as far as it went) and release, for these are
familiar to the public. That he has realized, in spirit and in effect, if not
to the letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher’s stone, no sane person is
at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Aragon are, of course, entitled to the
greatest consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of
bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grana sails. The
simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempe
Len chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it is more than
probable that the matter will remain, for years, in status quo. All that yet
can fairly be said to be known is, that ‘Pure gold can be made at will, and
very readily from lead in connection with certain other substances, in kind and
in proportions, unknown.’
Speculation, of course, is busy as
to the immediate and ultimate results of this discovery—a discovery which few
thinking persons will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the
matter of gold generally, by the late developments in California; and this
reflection brings us inevitably to another—the exceeding inopportuneness of Von
Kempe Len's analysis. If many were prevented from adventuring to California, by
the mere apprehension that gold would so materially diminish in value, on
account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the speculation
of going so far in search of it a doubtful one—what impression will be wrought
now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and especially upon the minds
of those actually in the mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding
discovery of Von Kempe Len? a discovery which declares, in so many words, that
beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may
be), gold now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempe
Len can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far
inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to speculate
prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery, but one thing may be
positively maintained—that the announcement of the discovery six months ago
would have had material influence regarding the settlement of California.
In Europe, yet, the most noticeable
results have been a rise of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and
nearly twenty-five per cent. that of silver.
MESMERIC REVELATION
WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale
of mesmerism,
its startling facts are now almost
universally admitted. Of these
later, those who doubt, are your
mere doubters by profession—an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe.
There can be no more absolute waste
of time than the attempt to prove,
at the present day, that man, by
mere exercise of will, can so
impress his fellow, as to cast him into an
abnormal condition, of which the
phenomena resemble very closely those
of death, or at least resemble them
more nearly than they do the
phenomena of any other normal
condition within our cognizance; that,
while in this state, the person so
impressed employs only with effort,
and then feebly, the external organs
of sense, yet perceives, with
keenly refined perception, and
through channels supposed unknown,
matters beyond the scope of the
physical organs; that, moreover, his
intellectual faculties are
wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that his
sympathies with the person so impressing
him are profound; and, finally,
that his susceptibility to the
impression increases with its frequency,
while, in the same proportion, the
peculiar phenomena elicited are more
extended and more pronounced.
I say that these—which are the laws of mesmerism
in its
general features—it would be
supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I
inflict upon my readers so needless
a demonstration; to-day. My purpose
at present is a very different one
indeed. I am impelled, even in
the teeth of a world of prejudice,
to detail without comment the very
remarkable substance of a colloquy,
occurring between a sleep-wake and
myself.
I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing
the person in
question, (Mr. Vanir,) and the usual
acute susceptibility and
exaltation of the mesmeric
perception had supervened. For many months he
had been laboring under confirmed
phthisis, the more distressing effects
of which had been relieved by my
manipulations; and on the night of
Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I
was summoned to his bedside.
The invalid was suffering with acute pain in
the region of the
heart, and breathed with great difficulty,
having all the ordinary
symptoms of asthma. In spasms such
as these he had usually found relief
from the application of mustard to
the nervous centers, but to-night
this had been attempted in vain.
As I entered his room, he greeted me with a cheerful
smile, and
although evidently in much bodily
pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite
at ease.
“I sent for you to-night,” he said, “not so
much to administer
to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy
me concerning certain psyche
impressions which, of late, have
occasioned me much anxiety and
surprise. I need not tell you how skeptical
I have hitherto been on the
topic of the soul’s immortality. I
cannot deny that there has always
existed, as if in that very soul
which I have been denying, a vague
half-sentiment of its own existence.
But this half-sentiment at no
time amounted to conviction. With it
my reason had nothing to do.
All attempts at logical inquiry
resulted, indeed, in leaving me more
skeptical than before. I had been
advised to study Cousin. I studied
him in his own works as well as in
those of his European and American
echoes. The ‘Charles Elwood’ of Mr.
Brownson, for example, was placed
in my hands. I read it with profound
attention. Throughout I found it
logical, but the portions which were
not merely logical were unhappily
the initial arguments of the
disbelieving hero of the book. In his
summing up it seemed evident to me
that the reasoner had not even
succeeded in convincing himself. His
end had plainly forgotten his
beginning, like the government of
Trinculo. In short, I was not long in
perceiving that if man is to be
intellectually convinced of his own
immortality, he will never be so
convinced by the mere abstractions
which have been so long the fashion
of the moralists of England, of
France, and of Germany. Abstractions
may amuse and exercise, but take no
hold on the mind. Here upon earth,
at least, philosophy, I am persuaded,
will always in vain call upon us to
look upon qualities as things. The
will may assent—the soul—the intellect,
never.
“I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and
never intellectually
believed. But latterly there has
been a certain deepening of the
feeling, until it has come so nearly
to resemble the acquiescence of
reason, that I find it difficult to
distinguish between the two. I am
enabled, too, plainly to trace this
effect to the mesmeric influence.
I cannot better explain my meaning
than by the hypothesis that the
mesmeric exaltation enables me to
perceive a train of ratiocination
which, in my abnormal existence,
convinces, but which, in full
accordance with the mesmeric
phenomena, does not extend, except through
its effect, into my normal
condition. In sleep-waking, the reasoning
and its conclusion—the cause and its
effect—are present together. In
my natural state, the cause
vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only
partially, remains.
“These considerations have led me to think
that some good
results might ensue from a series of
well-directed questions
propounded to me while mesmerized.
You have often observed the profound
self-cognizance evinced by the
sleep-wake—the extensive knowledge he
displays upon all points relating to
the mesmeric condition itself; and
from this self-cognizance may be
deduced hints for the proper conduct of
a catechism.”
I consented of course to make this
experiment. A few passes
threw Mr. Vanir into the mesmeric
sleep. His breathing became
immediately easier, and he seemed to
suffer no physical uneasiness.
The following conversation then ensued:
—V. in the dialogue representing
the patient, and P. myself.
P. Are you asleep?
V. Yes—no I would rather sleep more
soundly.
P. [After a few more passes.] Do you
sleep now?
V. Yes.
P. How do you think your present
illness will result?
V. [After a long hesitation and
speaking as if with effort.] I must die.
P. Does the idea of death afflict
you?
V. [Very quickly.] No—no!
P. Are you pleased with the
prospect?
V. If I were awake, I should like to
die, but now it is no matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to
content me.
P. I wish you would explain
yourself, Mr. Vanir.
V. I am willing to do so, but it
requires more effort than I feel able to make. You do not question me properly.
P. What then shall I ask?
V. You must begin at the beginning.
P. The beginning! but where is the
beginning?
V. You know that the beginning is
GOD. [This was said in a low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most
profound veneration.]
P. What then is God?
V. [Hesitating for many minutes.] I
cannot tell.
P. Is not God spirit?
V. While I was awake, I knew what
you meant by “spirit,” but now it seems only a word—such for instance as truth,
beauty—a quality, I mean.
P. Is not God immaterial?
V. There is no immateriality—it is a
mere word. That which is not matter, is not at all—unless qualities are things.
P. Is God, then, material?
V. No. [This reply startled me very
much.]
P. What then is he?
V. [After a long pause, and
mutteringly.] I see—but it is a thing difficult to tell. [Another long pause.]
He is not spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as you understand it. But
there are gradations of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser
impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmosphere, for
example, impels the electric principle, while the electric principle permeates
the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in rarity or fineness,
until we arrive at a matter unparticle—without particles—indivisible—one and
here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate, or unparticle
matter, not only permeates all things but impels all things—and thus is all
things within itself. This matter is God. What men attempt to embody in the
word “thought,” is this matter in motion.
P. The metaphysicians maintain that
all action is reducible to motion and thinking, and that the latter is the
origin of the former.
V. Yes; and I now see the confusion
of idea. Motion is the action of mind—not of thinking. The unparticle matter,
or God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call mind.
And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in
the unparticle matter, the result of its unity and omni prevalence; how I know
not, and now clearly see that I shall never know. But the unparticle matter,
set in motion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.
P. Can you give me no more precise
idea of what you term the unparticle matter?
V. The matters of which man is cognizant,
escape the senses in gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood,
a drop of water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the luminiferous
ether. Now we call all these things matter, and embrace all matter in one
general definition; but in spite of this, there can be no two ideas more
essentially distinct than that which we attach to a metal, and that which we
attach to the luminiferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost
irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or with nihility. The only
consideration which restrains us is our conception of its atomic constitution;
and here, even, we must seek aid from our notion of an atom, as something
possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the
idea of the atomic constitution and we should no longer be able to regard the
ether as an entity, or at least as matter. For want of a better word we might
term it spirit. Take, now, a step beyond the luminiferous ether—conceive a
matter as much more rare than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the
metal, and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique
mass—an unparticle matter. For although we may admit infinite littleness in the
atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in the spaces between them is an
absurdity. There will be a point—there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if
the atoms are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the mass
absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic constitution being now
taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably glides into what we conceive of
spirit. It is clear, however, that it is as fully matter as before. The truth
is, it is impossible to conceive spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what
is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have
merely deceived our understanding by the consideration of infinitely rarified
matter.
P. There seems to me an
insurmountable objection to the idea of absolute coalescence;—and that is the
very slight resistance experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions
through space—a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in some
degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite overlooked
by the sagacity even of Newton. We know that the resistance of bodies is,
chiefly, in proportion to their density. Absolute coalescence is absolute
density. Where there are no interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, dense,
would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star than
would an ether of adamant or of iron.
V. Your objection is answered with
an ease which is nearly in the ratio of its apparent answerability. —As regards
the progress of the star, it can make no difference whether the star passes
through the ether or the ether through it. There is no astronomical error more
unaccountable than that which reconciles the known retardation of the comets
with the idea of their passage through an ether: for, however rare this ether
be supposed, it would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far
briefer period than has been admitted by those astronomers who have endeavored
to slur over a point which they found it impossible to comprehend. The
retardation experienced is, on the other hand, about that which might be
expected from the friction of the ether in the instantaneous passage through
the orb. In the one case, the retarding force is momentary and complete within
itself—in the other it is endlessly accumulative.
P. But in all this—in this identification
of mere matter with God—is there nothing of irreverence? [I was forced to
repeat this question before the sleep-wake fully comprehended my meaning.]
V. Can you say why matter should be
less reverenced than mind? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is,
in all respects, the very “mind” or “spirit” of the schools, so far as regards
its high capacities, and is, moreover, the “matter” of these schools at the
same time. God, with all the powers attributed to spirit, is but the perfection
of matter.
P. You assert, then, that the unparticle
matter, in motion, is thought?
V. In general, this motion is the
universal thought of the universal mind. This thought creates. All created
things are but the thoughts of God.
P. You say, “in general.”
V. Yes. The universal mind is God.
For new individualities, matter is necessary.
P. But you now speak of “mind” and
“matter” as do the metaphysicians.
V. Yes—to avoid confusion. When I
say “mind,” I mean the unparticle or ultimate matter; by “matter,” I intend all
else.
P. You were saying that “for new
individualities matter is necessary.”
V. Yes; for mind, existing unincorporated,
is merely God. To create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to
incarnate portions of the divine mind. Thus, man is individualized. Divested of
corporate investiture, he was God. Now, the motion of the incarnated portions
of the unparticle matter is the thought of man; as the motion of the whole is
that of God.
P. You say that divested of the body
man will be God?
V. [After much hesitation.] I could
not have said this; it is an absurdity.
P. [Referring to my notes.] You did
say that “divested of corporate investiture man were God.”
V. And this are true. Man, thus
divested would be God—would be unindividualized. But he can never be thus
divested—at least never will be—else we must imagine an action of God returning
upon itself—a purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature. Creatures are
thoughts of God. It is the nature of thought to be irrevocable.
P. I do not comprehend. You say that
man will never put off the body?
V. I say that he will never be
bodiless.
P. Explain.
V. There are two bodies—the rudimental
and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the
butterfly. What we call “death,” is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present
incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected,
ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.
P. But of the worm’s metamorphosis
we are palpably cognizant.
V. We, certainly—but not the worm.
The matter of which our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the
organs of that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted to
the matter of which is formed the rudimental body; but not to that of which the
ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus escapes our rudimental senses, and
we perceive only the shell which falls, in decaying, from the inner form; not
that inner form itself; but this inner form, as well as the shell, is
appreciable by those who have already acquired the ultimate life.
P. You have often said that the
mesmeric state very nearly resembles death. How is this?
V. When I say that it resembles
death, I mean that it resembles the ultimate life; for when I am entranced the
senses of my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things
directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in the ultimate,
unorganized life.
P. Unorganized?
V. Yes; organs are contrivances by
which the individual is brought into sensible relation with classes and forms
of matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The organs of man are
adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only; his ultimate condition,
being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension in all points but one—the nature
of the volition of God—that is to say, the motion of the unparticle matter. You
will have a distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire
brain. This it is not; but a conception of this nature will bring you near a
comprehension of what it is. A luminous body imparts vibration to the
luminiferous ether. The vibrations generate similar ones within the retina;
these again communicate similar ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys
similar ones to the brain; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticle
matter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of which
perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the mind of the
rudimental life communicates with the external world; and this external world
is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its organs.
But in the ultimate, unorganized life, the external world reaches the whole
body, (which is of a substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with
no other intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the
luminiferous; and to this ether—in unison with it—the whole body vibrates, setting
in motion the unparticle matter which permeates it. It is to the absence of
idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited
perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
necessary to confine them until fledged.
P. You speak of rudimental “beings.”
Are there other rudimental thinking beings than man?
V. The multitudinous conglomeration
of rare matter into nebula? planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebula?
suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying pabulum for the
idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings. But for the
necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life, there would have been
no bodies such as these. Each of these is tenanted by a distinct variety of
organic, rudimental, thinking creatures. In all, the organs vary with the
features of the place tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures,
enjoying the ultimate life—immortality—and cognizant of all secrets but the
one, act all things and pass everywhere by mere volition:—indwelling, not the
stars, which to us seem the sole palpability's, and for the accommodation of
which we blindly deem space created—but that SPACE itself—that infinity of
which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the star-shadows—blotting them
out as non-entities from the perception of the angels.
P. You say that “but for the necessity
of the rudimental life” there would have been no stars. But why this necessity?
V. In the inorganic life, as well as
in the inorganic matter generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one
simple unique law—the Divine Volition. With the view of producing impediment,
the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, and law-encumbered,) were
contrived.
P. But again—why need this
impediment have been produced?
V. The result of law inviolate is
perfection—right—negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection,
wrong, positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number,
complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and matter, the
violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent, practicable. Thus pain, which
in the inorganic life is impossible, is possible in the organic.
P. But to what good end is pain thus
rendered possible?
V. All things are either good or bad
by comparison. Enough analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but
the contrast of pain. Positive pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one
point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never
to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain
cannot be thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of
Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.
P. Still, there is one of your
expressions which I find it impossible to comprehend— “the truly substantive
vastness of infinity.”
V. This, probably, is because you
have no sufficiently generic conception of the term “substance” itself. We must
not regard it as a quality, but as a sentiment: —it is the perception, in
thinking beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are
many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants of
Venus—many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could not be brought
to appreciate as existing at all. But to the inorganic beings—to the angels—the
whole of the unparticle matter is substance—that is to say, the whole of what
we term “space” is to them the truest substantiality;—the stars, meantime,
through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic sense, just in
proportion as the unparticle matter, through what we consider its
immateriality, eludes the organic.
As the sleep-wake pronounced these
latter words, in a feeble tone, I observed on his countenance a singular
expression, which somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No
sooner had I done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features,
he fell back upon his pillow and expired. I noticed that in less than a minute
afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone. His brow was of the
coldness of ice. Thus, ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long
pressure from Azrael’s hand. Had the sleep-wake, indeed, during the latter
portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out the region of the
shadows?
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
OF course, I shall not pretend to
consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar
has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not-especially
under the circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep
the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had farther
opportunities for investigation—through our endeavors to effect this—a garbled
or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many
unpleasant misrepresentations, and, very naturally, of a great deal of
disbelief.
It is now rendered necessary that I
give the facts—as far as I comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:
My attention, for the last three
years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine
months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments
made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable
omission:—no person had as yet been mesmerized in particular mortis. It
remained to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the
patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any
existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent,
or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the
process. There were other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my
curiosity—the last in especial, from the immensely important character of its
consequences.
In looking around me for some
subject by whose means I might test these particulars, I was brought to think
of my friend, M. Ernest Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the “Bibliotheca Forensic,”
and author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish versions of
“Wallenstein” and “Gargantua.” M. Valdemar, who has resided principally at Haarlem,
N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme sparseness
of his person—his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and,
also, for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness
of his hair—the latter, in consequence, being very generally mistaken for a
wig. His temperament was markedly nervous and rendered him a good subject for
mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions I had put him to sleep with
little difficulty but was disappointed in other results which his peculiar
constitution had naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period
positively, or thoroughly, under my control, and regarding clairvoyance, I
could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always attributed my
failure at these points to the disordered state of his health. For some months before
my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declared him in a confirmed
phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching
dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.
When the ideas to which I have
alluded first occurred to me, it was of course very natural that I should think
of M. Valdemar. I knew the steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend
any scruples from him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely
to interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my surprise, his
interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise, for, although he had
always yielded his person freely to my experiments, he had never given me any
tokens of sympathy with what I did. His disease was of that character which
would admit of exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in
death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for me about
twenty-four hours before the period announced by his physicians as that of his
decease.
It is now rather more than seven
months since I received, from M. Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:
My DEAR P—-,
You may as well come now. D—— and
F—— are agreed that I cannot hold out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think
they have hit the time very nearly.
VALDEMAR
I received this note within half an
hour after it was written, and in fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man’s
chamber. I had not seen him for ten days and was appalled by the fearful
alteration which the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden
hue; the eyes were utterly lusterless; and the emaciation was so extreme that
the skin had been broken through by the cheekbones. His expectoration was
excessive. The pulse was barely perceptible. He retained, nevertheless, in a
very remarkable manner, both his mental power and a certain degree of physical
strength. He spoke with distinctness—took some palliative medicines without
aid—and, when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocketbook.
He was propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D—— and F—— were in
attendance.
After pressing Valdemar’s hand, I
took these gentlemen aside, and obtained from them a minute account of the
patient’s condition. The left lung had been for eighteen months in a
semi-osseous or cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for
all purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also partially,
if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was merely a mass of
purulent tubercles, running one into another. Several extensive perforations
existed; and, at one-point, permanent adhesion to the ribs had taken place.
These appearances in the right lobe were of comparatively recent date. The
ossification had proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no sign of it had been
discovered a month before, and the adhesion had only been observed during the
three previous days. Independently of the phthisis, the patient was suspected
of aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous symptoms rendered an
exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion of both physicians that M.
Valdemar would die about midnight on the morrow (Sunday). It was then seven
o’clock on Saturday evening.
On quitting the invalid’s bedside to
hold conversation with myself, Doctors D—— and F—— had bidden him a final
farewell. It had not been their intention to return; but, at my request, they
agreed to look in upon the patient about ten the next night.
When they had gone, I spoke freely
with M. Valdemar about his approaching dissolution, as well as, more
particularly, of the experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite
willing and even anxious to have it made and urged me to commence it at once. A
male and a female nurse were in attendance; but I did not feel myself
altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no more
reliable witnesses than these people, in case of sudden accident, might prove.
I therefore postponed operations until about eight the next night, when the
arrival of a medical student with whom I had some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore
L—l,) relieved me from farther embarrassment. It had been my design,
originally, to wait for the physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by
the urgent entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I had
not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.
Mr. L—l was so kind as to accede to
my desire that he would take notes of all that occurred, and it is from his
memoranda that what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either
condensed or copied verbatim.
It wanted about five minutes of
eight when, taking the patient’s hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as
he could, to Mr. L—l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I
should make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.
He replied feebly, yet quite audibly,
“Yes, I wish to be. I fear you have mesmerized”—adding immediately afterwards,
“deferred it too long.”
While he spoke thus, I commenced the
passes which I had already found most effectual in subduing him. He was
evidently influenced with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead;
but although I exerted all my powers, no further perceptible effect was induced
until some minutes after ten o’clock, when Doctors D— and F— called, according
to appointment. I explained to them, in a few words, what I designed, and as
they opposed no objection, saying that the patient was already in the death
agony, I proceeded without hesitation—exchanging, however, the lateral passes
for downward ones, and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the
sufferer.
By this time his pulse was imperceptible,
and his breathing was stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.
This condition was nearly unaltered
for a quarter of an hour. At the expiration of this period, however, a natural
although a very deep sigh escaped the bosom of the dying man, and the
stertorous breathing ceased—that is to say, its tortuousness was no longer
apparent; the intervals were undiminished. The patient’s extremities were of an
icy coldness.
At five minutes before eleven I perceived
unequivocal signs of the mesmeric influence. The glassy roll of the eye was
changed for that expression of uneasy inward examination which is never seen
except in cases of sleep-waking, and which it is quite impossible to mistake.
With a few rapid laterals passes I made the lids quiver, as in incipient sleep,
and with a few more I closed them altogether. I was not satisfied, however,
with this, but continued the manipulations vigorously, and with the fullest
exertion of the will, until I had completely stiffened the limbs of the slumbered,
after placing them in a seemingly easy position. The legs were at full length;
the arms were nearly so and reposed on the bed at a moderate distance from the
loin. The head was very slightly elevated.
When I had accomplished this, it was
fully midnight, and I requested the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar’s
condition. After a few experiments, they admitted him to be an unusually
perfect state of mesmeric trance. The curiosity of both the physicians was
greatly excited. Dr. D—— resolved at once to remain with the patient all night,
while Dr. F—— took leave with a promise to return at daybreak. Mr. L—l and the
nurses remained.
We left M. Valdemar entirely
undisturbed until about three o’clock in the morning, when I approached him and
found him in precisely the same condition as when Dr. F—went away—that is to
say, he lay in the same position; the pulse was imperceptible; the breathing
was gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the application of a mirror to the
lips); the eyes were closed naturally; and the limbs were as rigid and as cold
as marble. Still, the general appearance was certainly not that of death.
As I approached M. Valdemar, I made
a kind of half effort to influence his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I
passed the latter gently to and from above his person. In such experiments with
this patient, I had never perfectly succeeded before, and assuredly I had
little thought of succeeding now; but to my astonishment, his arm very readily,
although feebly, followed every direction I assigned it with mine. I determined
to hazard a few words of conversation.
“M. Valdemar,” I said, “are you
asleep?” He made no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was
thus induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition,
his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids unclosed
themselves so far as to display a white line of the ball; the lips moved
sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the
words:
“Yes; —asleep now. Do not wake me! —let
me die so!”
I here felt the limbs and found them
as rigid as ever. The right arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I
questioned the sleep-wake again:
“Do you still feel pain in the
breast, M. Valdemar?”
The answer now was immediate, but
even less audible than before: “No pain—I am dying.”
I did not think it advisable to
disturb him farther just then, and nothing more was said or done until the
arrival of Dr. F—, who came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded
astonishment at finding the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and
applying a mirror to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-wake again.
I did so, saying:
“M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?”
As before, some minutes elapsed ere
a reply was made; and during the interval the dying man seemed to be collecting
his energies to speak. At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very
faintly, almost inaudibly:
“Yes; still asleep—dying.”
It was now the opinion, or rather
the wish, of the physicians, that M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain
undisturbed in his present apparently tranquil condition, until death should
supervene—and this, it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few
minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely repeated
my previous question.
While I spoke, there came a marked
change over the countenance of the sleep-wake. The eyes rolled themselves
slowly open, the pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a
cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the
circular hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the center
of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the suddenness
of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a
candle by a puff of the breath. The upper lip, at the same time, writhed itself
away from the teeth, which it had previously covered completely; while the
lower jaw fell with an audible jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and
disclosing in full view the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no
member of the party then presents had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors;
but so hideous beyond conception was the appearance of M. Valdemar at this
moment, that there was a general shrinking back from the region of the bed.
I now feel that I have reached a
point of this narrative at which every reader will be startled into positive
disbelief. It is my business, however, simply to proceed.
There was no longer the faintest
sign of vitality in M. Valdemar; and concluding him to be dead, we were
consigning him to the charge of the nurses, when a strong vibratory motion was
observable in the tongue. This continued for perhaps a minute. At the
expiration of this period, there issued from the distended and motionless jaws
a voice—such as it would be madness in me to attempt describing. There are,
indeed, two or three epithets which might be considered as applicable to it in
part; I might say, for example, that the sound was harsh, and broken and
hollow; but the hideous whole is indescribable, for the simple reason that no
similar sounds have ever jarred upon the ear of humanity. There were two,
nevertheless, which I thought then, and still think, might fairly be stated as
characteristic of the intonation—as well adapted to convey some idea of its
unearthly peculiarity. In the first place, the voice seemed to reach our ears—at
least mine—from a vast distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth. In
the second place, it impressed me (I fear, indeed, that it will be impossible
to make myself comprehended) as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress the
sense of touch.
I have spoken both of “sound” and of
“voice.” I mean to say that the sound was one of distinct—of even wonderfully,
thrillingly distinct—syllabification. M. Valdemar spoke—obviously in reply to
the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had asked him, it
will be remembered, if he still slept. He now said:
“Yes; —no; —I have been sleeping—and
now—now—I am dead.”
No person presents even affected to
deny, or attempted to repress, the unutterable, shuddering horror which these
few words, thus uttered, were so well calculated to convey. Mr. L—l (the
student) swooned. The nurses immediately left the chamber and could not be
induced to return. My own impressions I would not pretend to render
intelligible to the reader. For nearly an hour, we busied ourselves,
silently—without the utterance of a word—in endeavors to revive Mr. L—l. When
he came to himself, we addressed ourselves again to an investigation of M.
Valdemar’s condition.
It remained in all respects as I
have last described it, with the exception that the mirror no longer afforded
evidence of respiration. An attempt to draw blood from the arm failed. I should
mention, too, that this limb was no farther subject to my will. I endeavored in
vain to make it follow the direction of my hand. The only real indication,
indeed, of the mesmeric influence, was now found in the vibratory movement of
the tongue, whenever I addressed M. Valdemar a question. He seemed to be trying
to reply but had no longer enough volition. To queries put to him by any other person
than myself he seemed utterly insensible—although I endeavored to place each
member of the company in mesmeric rapport with him. I believe that I have now
related all that is necessary to an understanding of the sleep-walker's state
at this epoch. Other nurses were procured; and at ten o’clock I left the house
in company with the two physicians and Mr. L—l.
In the afternoon we all called again
to see the patient. His condition remained precisely the same. We had now some
discussion as to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him; but we had
little difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be served by so doing.
It was evident that, so far, death (or what is usually termed death) had been
arrested by the mesmeric process. It seemed clear to us all that to awaken M.
Valdemar would be merely to insure his instant, or at least his speedy
dissolution.
From this period until the close of
last week—an interval of nearly seven months—we continued to make daily calls
at M. Valdemar’s house, accompanied, now and then, by medical and other
friends. All this time the sleeper-wake remained exactly as I have last
described him. The nurses’ attentions were continual.
It was on Friday last that we
finally resolved to make the experiment of awakening or attempting to awaken
him; and it is the (perhaps) unfortunate result of this latter experiment which
has given rise to so much discussion in private circles—to so much of what I
cannot help thinking unwarranted popular feeling.
For the purpose of relieving M.
Valdemar from the mesmeric trance, I made use of the customary passes. These,
for a time, were unsuccessful. The first indication of revival was afforded by
a partial descent of the iris. It was observed, as especially remarkable, that
this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by the profuse out-flowing of a
yellowish ichor (from beneath the lids) of a pungent and highly offensive odor.
It was now suggested that I should
attempt to influence the patient’s arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and
failed. Dr. F—then intimated a desire to have me put a question. I did so, as
follows:
“M. Valdemar, can you explain to us
what your feelings are or wishes now?”
There was an instant return of the
hectic circles on the cheeks; the tongue quivered, or rather rolled violently
in the mouth (although the jaws and lips remained rigid as before;) and at
length the same hideous voice which I have already described, broke forth:
“For God’s sake! —quick! —quick! —put
me to sleep—or, quick! —waken me! —quick! —I say to you that I am dead!”
I was thoroughly unnerved, and for
an instant remained undecided what to do. At first, I made an endeavor to
re-compose the patient; but, failing in this through total abeyance of the
will, I retraced my steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In this
attempt I soon saw that I should be successful—or at least I soon fancied that
my success would be complete—and I am sure that all in the room were prepared
to see the patient awaken.
For what really occurred, however,
it is quite impossible that any human being could have been prepared.
As I rapidly made the mesmeric
passes, amid ejaculations of “dead! dead!” absolutely bursting from the tongue
and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once—within the space
of a single minute, or even less, shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away
beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly
liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putridity.
THE BLACK CAT.
FOR the wildest, yet most homely
narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad
indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own
evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I
die, and to-day I would unburthened my soul. My immediate purpose is to place
before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere
household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have
tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they
have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less terrible than baroques.
Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm
to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less
excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with
awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and
effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the
docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so
conspicuous as to make me the rest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals
and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent
most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.
This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived
from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an
affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of
explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which
goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the
paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early and was happy to
find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my
partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the
most agreeable kind. We had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small
monkey, and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large
and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.
In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little
tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular
notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was
ever serious upon this point—and I mention the matter at all for no better
reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my
favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went
about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from
following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this
manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and
character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to
confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day,
moodier, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered
myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her
personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my
disposition. I not only neglected but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I
still retained enough regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no
scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by
accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon
me—for what disease is like Alcohol! —and at length even Pluto, who was now
becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience
the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much
intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided
my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a
slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly
possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to
take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence,
gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket
a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately
cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen
the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the
morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a
sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been
guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul
remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all
memory of the deed.
In the meantime, the cat slowly
recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful
appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the
house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my
approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this
evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this
feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and
irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy
takes no account. Yet I am not surer that my soul lives, than I am that
perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible
primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly
action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a
perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which
is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of
perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable
longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do
wrong for the wrong’s sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning,
in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;—hung
it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my
heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had
given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so doing I was
committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to
place it—if such a thing wore possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite
mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
On the night of the day on which
this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The
curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with
great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the
conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was
swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking
to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the
atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to leave even a
possible 2148link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the
ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found
in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the
house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here,
in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to
its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected,
and many persons seemed to be examining a portion of it with very minute and
eager attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar
expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas
relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was
given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal’s
neck.
When I first beheld this
apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less—my wonder and my terror were
extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had
been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this
garden had been immediately filled by the crowd—by some one of whom the animal
must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my
chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep.
The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the
substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames,
and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I
saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to
my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just
detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For
months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this
period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was
not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look
about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another
pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to
supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupefied,
in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black
object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of
Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me
surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I
approached it and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a very large
one—fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but
one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had
a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region
of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly,
rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was
the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of
the landlord; but this person made no claim to it—knew nothing of it—had never
seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I
prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I
permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded.
When it reached the house, it domesticated itself at once, and became
immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a
dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had
anticipated; but—I know not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself
rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and
annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain
sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me
from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise
violently ill use it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with
unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from
the breath of a pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred
of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that,
like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance,
however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed,
in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my
distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest
pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat,
however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps
with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend.
Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees,
covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get
between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp
claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times,
although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing,
partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by
absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread
of physical evil—and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am
almost ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to
own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been
heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My
wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of
white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible
difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader
will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very
indefinite; but, by slow degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a
long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful—it had, at length, assumed
a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object
that I shudder to name—and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and
would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was now, I say, the image
of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!—oh, mournful and terrible
engine of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond
the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast —whose fellow I had
contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me—for me a man,
fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable wo! Alas!
neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest anymore! During the
former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started,
hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing
upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power
to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!
Beneath the pressure of torments
such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil
thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The
moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all
mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury
to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the
most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon
some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty
compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly
throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and
forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand,
I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly
fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of
my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I
withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead
upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I
set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing
the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by
night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects
entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments
and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in
the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in
the yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual
arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally, I hit
upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined
to wall it up in the cellar—as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to
have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the
cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed and had lately been
plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere
had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection,
caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to
resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace
the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before,
so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. And in this calculation, I was
not deceived. By means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having
carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that
position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it
originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible
precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old,
and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had
finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest
appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up
with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself— “Here
at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”
My next step was to look for the
beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length,
firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the
moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the
crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forbore
to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to
imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the
detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during
the night—and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the
house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of
murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed,
and still my tormentor came not. Once again, I breathed as a freeman. The
monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more!
My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little.
Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a
search had been instituted—but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked
upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the
assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house,
and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure,
however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no
embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search.
They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth
time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heartbeat
calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end
to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and from. The police
were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too
strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph,
and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the
party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish
you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this—this is
a very well-constructed house.” [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I
scarcely knew what I uttered at all.]— “I may say an excellently well-constructed
house. These walls—are you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put
together;” and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily,
with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work
behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But my God shield and deliver me
from the fangs of the Archfiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows
sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a
cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly
swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and
inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as
might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed
in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to
speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party
upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In
the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The
corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the
eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye
of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and
whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster
up within the tomb!
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Son cœur est un luth suspendu ;
Sita ? t qu’on le touche il résonne.
De B?
ranger.
DURING the whole of a dull, dark,
and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively
low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades
of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know
not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of
insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with
which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the
desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house,
and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the
vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of
decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly
sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the
bitter lapse into everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was
an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of
thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the
sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the
contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could
I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was
forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond
doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the
power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere
different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the
picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity
for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the
dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than
before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the
ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of
gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor,
Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years
had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in
a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which, in its wildly
importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS.
gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of
a mental disorder which oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as
his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by
the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the
manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it was the apparent heart
that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even
intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had
been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient
family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of
temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted
art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive
charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even
more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science.
I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race,
all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch;
in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and
had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was
this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect
keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the
people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the
long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other—it was this
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating
transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at
length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in
the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher”—an appellation
which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the
family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of
my somewhat childish experiment—that of looking down within the tarn—had been
to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness
of the rapid increase of my superstition—for why I should not so term it? —served
mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the
paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have
been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself,
from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy—a fancy so
ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the
sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to
believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere
peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity—an atmosphere which had no
affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed
trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a pestilent and mystic vapor,
dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must
have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The
discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole
exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was
apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had
fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In
this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old woodwork
which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance
from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay,
however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a
scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure,
which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the
tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a
short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered
the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me,
in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio
of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how,
to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the
objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries of
the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial
trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or too such as
which, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated not to
acknowledge how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how unfamiliar
were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the
staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore
a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation
and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence
of his master.
The room in which I found myself was
very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so
vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible
from within. Feeble gleams of crimsoned light made their way through the trellised
panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects
around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the
chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique,
and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about but failed
to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of
sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded
all.
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a
sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious
warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of
the constrained effort of the ennui? man of the world. A glance, however, at
his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for
some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity,
half of awe. Surely, man had never so terribly altered, in so brief a period,
as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to
admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early
boyhood. Yet the character of his face had always been remarkable. A
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond
comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful
curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual
in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of
prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness
and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of
the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And
now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and
of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I
doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now
miraculous luster of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The
silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild
gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even
with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at
once struck with an incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to
arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome a habitual
trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature, I had
indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain
boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation
and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice
varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed
utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt,
weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced
and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost
drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most
intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the
object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he
expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived
to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family
evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy—a mere nervous affection,
he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed
itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them,
interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general
manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid
acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear
only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his
eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds,
and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror, I
found him a bounden slave. “I shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this
deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the
events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the
thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this
intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except
in its absolute effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I
feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and
reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
I learned, moreover, at intervals,
and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental
condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to
the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never
ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was
conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence which some
peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by
dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the
physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all
looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with
hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be
traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and
long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution—of a
tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for long years—his last and only
relative on earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never
forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the
ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she
called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without
having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter
astonishment not unmingled with dread—and yet I found it impossible to account
for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her
retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought
instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he had buried his
face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanes
had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate
tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had
long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting
away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially
cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily
borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not be taken herself
finally to bed; but, on the closing in on the evening of my arrival at the
house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible
agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the
glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should
obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing, her name
was unmentioned by either Usher or myself: and during this period, I was busied
in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and
read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of
his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted
me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I
perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as
if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and
physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory
of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of
Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or
led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a salubrious luster
overall. His long-improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other
things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and
amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the
paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by
touch, into vagueness's at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I
shuddered knowing not why;—from these paintings (vivid as their images now are
before me) I would in vain endeavor to reduce more than a small portion which
should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity,
by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever
mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least—in the
circumstances then surrounding me—there arose out of the pure abstractions
which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvass, an intensity of
intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the
certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric
conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of
abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture
presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel,
with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain
accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this
excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet
was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other
artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout
and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid
condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the
sufferer, except for certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps,
the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave
birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But
the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must
have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild
fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal
improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration
to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of
the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have
easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he
gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that
I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher,
of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were
entitled “The Haunted Palace,” ran very nearly, if not accurately, 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 odor
went away.
III.
Wanderers in that
happy valley
Through two
luminous windows saw
Spirits moving
musically
To a lute’s
well-tun? d law,
Round about a
throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogenite!)
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 travelers now
within that valley,
Through the
red-latten 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 inorganization. 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 gray 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 molded 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.
* Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani,
and especially the Bishop of Llandaff. —See “Chemical Essays,” vol v.
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 Pervert et Chartreuse of Grasset; the
Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean
Voyage of Nicholas Klemm by Holmberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flood, of Jean Disdain?,
and of De la Chamber; 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
Directories Inquisitorial, by the Dominican Emerick de Garonne; and there were
passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and Aegipan's, 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 Virgilian Moratorium silundum Chorus Ecclesiae
Saguntine.
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 unconfined, 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 ghastlier 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 from 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 endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into
which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and from 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, 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 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 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 planking's 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 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 conqueror hath bin;
Who slayed 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 pasty
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 feel 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, now, 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 from 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.”
SILENCE—A FABLE
ALCMAN. The
mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and
caves are silent.
“LISTEN to me,” said the Demon as he
placed his hand upon my head. “The region of which I speak is a dreary region
in Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor
silence.
“The waters of the river have a
saffron and sickly hue; and they flow not onwards to the sea but palpitate
forever and forever beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and
convulsive motion. For many miles on either side of the river’s oozy bed is a
pale desert of gigantic waterlilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude
and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod to and from
their everlasting heads. And there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out
from among them like the rushing of sub terrene water. And they sigh one unto
the other.
“But there is a boundary to their
realm—the boundary of the dark, horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves
about the Hebrides, the low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no
wind throughout the heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally hither
and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their high summits, one
by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots strange poisonous flowers lie
writhing in perturbed slumber. And overhead, with a rustling and loud noise,
the gray clouds rush westward forever, until they roll, a cataract, over the
fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And by
the shores of the river Zaire there is neither quiet nor silence.
“It was night, and the rain fell;
and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the
morass among the tall and the rain fell upon my head—and the lilies sighed one
unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation.
“And, all at once, the moon arose
through the thin ghastly mist, and was crimson in color. And mine eyes fell
upon a huge gray rock which stood by the shore of the river and was lighted by
the light of the moon. And the rock was gray, and ghastly, and tall, —and the
rock was gray. Upon its front were characters engrave in the stone; and I
walked through the morass of waterlilies, until I came close unto the shore,
that I might read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decipher them.
And I was going back into the morass, when the moon shone with a fuller red,
and I turned and looked again upon the rock, and upon the characters; —and the
characters were DESOLATION.
“And I looked upwards, and there
stood a man upon the summit of the rock; and I hid myself among the
water-lilies that I might discover the actions of the man. And the man was tall
and stately in form and was wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the
toga of old Rome. And the outlines of his figure were indistinct—but his
features were the features of a deity; for the mantle of the night, and of the
mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered the features of his
face. And his brow was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care; and, in
the few furrows upon his cheek I read the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and
disgust with mankind, and a longing after solitude.
“And the man sat upon the rock, and
leaned his head upon his hand, and looked out upon the desolation. He looked
down into the low unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and
up higher at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close
within shelter of the lilies and observed the actions of the man. And the man
trembled in the solitude; —but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock.
“And the man turned his attention
from the heaven, and looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the
yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the
man listened to the sighs of the waterlilies, and to the murmur that came up
from among them. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of
the man. And the man trembled in the solitude; —but the night waned and he sat
upon the rock.
“Then I went down into the recesses
of the morass and waded afar in among the wilderness of the lilies and called
unto the hippopotami which dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass.
And the hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot
of the rock, and roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay close
within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in
the solitude; —but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.
“Then I cursed the elements with the
curse of tumult; and a frightful tempest gathered in the heaven where, before,
there had been no wind. And the heaven became livid with the violence of the
tempest—and the rain beat upon the head of the man—and the floods of the river
came down—and the river was tormented into foam—and the water-lilies shrieked
within their beds—and the forest crumbled before the wind—and the thunder
rolled—and the lightning fell—and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay
close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man
trembled in the solitude; —but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.
“Then I grew angry and cursed, with
the curse of silence, the river, and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest,
and the heaven, and the thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they
became accursed and were still. And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to
heaven—and the thunder died away—and the lightning did not flash—and the clouds
hung motionless—and the waters sunk to their level and remained—and the trees
ceased to rock—and the water-lilies sighed no more—and the murmur was heard no
longer from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast illimitable
desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and they were changed; —and
the characters were SILENCE.
“And mine eyes fell upon the
countenance of the man, and his countenance was wan with terror. And,
hurriedly, he raised his head from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and
listened. But there was no voice throughout the vast illimitable desert, and
the characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man shuddered, and turned
his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld him no more.”
Now there are fine tales in the
volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein,
I say, are glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the
mighty sea—and of the Genii that over-ruled the sea, and the earth, and the
lofty heaven. There was much lore too in the sayings which were said by the
Sybils; and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled
around Dodona—but, as Allah lived, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat
by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all!
And as the Demon made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of
the tomb and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me
because I could not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb,
came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and looked at him
steadily in the face.
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.
THE “Red Death” had long devastated
the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its
Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp
pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with
dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of
the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the
sympathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of
the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and
dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned
to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the
knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of
one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure,
the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty
wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered,
brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave
means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of
frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the
courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care
of itself. In the meantime, it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had
provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatory,
there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was
wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”
It was toward the close of the fifth
or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously
abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked
ball of the most unusual magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that
masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were
seven—an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and
straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on
either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the
case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of
the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision
embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every
twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left,
in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a
closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of
stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the
decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity
was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second
chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were
purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth
was furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with
violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries
that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon
a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of
the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
scarlet—a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any
lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered
to and from or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating
from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that
followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod,
bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and
so glaringly illumined the room. And thus, were produced a multitude of gaudy
and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of
the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted
panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the
countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold
enough to set foot within its precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that
there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum
swung to and from with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the
minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken,
there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud
and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that,
at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to
pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the
waltzes perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of
the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was
observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their
hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the
echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the
musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and
folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of
the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse
of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the
Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were
the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.
But, despite these things, it was a
gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine
eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His
plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster.
There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was
not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.
He had directed, in great part, the
moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great
fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the
masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were many glare and glitter
and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.” There
were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were
delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful,
much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a
little of that which might have excited disgust. To and from in the seven
chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed
in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the
orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the
ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all
is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen
as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an
instant—and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart.
And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and from
more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which
stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westward
of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is
waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes;
and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls
upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal
more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the
more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were
densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel
went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight
upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions
of the waltzes were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as
before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the
clock; and thus, it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of
time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who reveled. And thus,
too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had
utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had
arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this
new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length
from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and
surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as
I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have
excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly
unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod and gone beyond the
bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts
of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the
utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of
which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel
that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither it nor propriety
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the
habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so
nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny
must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have
been endured, if not approved, by the mad revelers around. But the mummer had
gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in
blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled
with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero
fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if
more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and from among the waltzes) he was
seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of
terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of
the courtiers who stood near him— “who dares insult us with this blasphemous
mockery? Seize him and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang at
sunrise, from the battlements!”
It was in the eastern or blue
chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang
throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the prince was a bold and
robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
It was in the blue room where stood
the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke,
there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the
intruder, who now was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately
step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with
which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there
were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed
within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with
one impulse, shrank from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way
uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had
distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the
purple—through the purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through
this again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement
had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero,
maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed
hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a
deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had
approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the
retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet
apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp
cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which,
instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then,
summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw
themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure
stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which
they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the
presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by
one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel and died
each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock
went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion overall.
THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I
had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.
You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I
gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point
definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved,
precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A
wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally
unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has
done the wrong.
It must be understood, that neither
by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I
continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that
my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
He had a weak point—this
Fortunato—although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even
feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the
true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the
time and opportunity—to practice imposture upon the British and Austrian
millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a
quack—but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not
differ from him materially: I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself and
bought largely whenever I could.
It was about dusk, one evening
during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend.
He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man
wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting party-striped dress, and his head was
surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him, that I
thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him— “My dear Fortunato,
you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have
received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”
“How?” said he. “Amontillado? A
pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”
“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and
I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in
the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”
“Amontillado!”
“I have my doubts.”
“Amontillado!”
“And I must satisfy them.”
“Amontillado!”
“As you are engaged, I am on my way
to Lucchese. If anyone has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—”
“Lucchese cannot tell Amontillado
from Sherry.”
“And yet some fools will have it
that his taste is a match for your own.”
“Come, let us go.”
“Whither?”
“To your vaults.”
“My friend, no; I will not impose
upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Lucchese—”
“I have no engagement; —come.”
“My friend, no. It is not the
engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The
vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with niter.”
“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold
is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Lucchese,
he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed
himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk, and drawing a roguelike
closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home;
they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I
should not return until the morning and had given them explicit orders not to
stir from the house. These orders were enough, I well knew, to ensure their
immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
I took from their sconces two
flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of
rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding
staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to
the foot of the descent and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs
of the Montresor's.
The gait of my friend was unsteady,
and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
“The pipe,” said he.
“It is farther on,” said I; “but
observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.”
He turned towards me and looked into
my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
“Niter?” he asked, at length.
“Niter,” I replied. “How long have
you had that cough?”
“Ugh! ugh! ugh! —ugh! ugh! ugh! —ugh!
ugh! ugh! —ugh! ugh! ugh! —ugh! ugh! ugh!”
My poor friend found it impossible
to reply for many minutes.
“It is nothing,” he said, at last.
“Come,” I said, with decision, “we
will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired,
beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is
no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible.
Besides, there is Lucchese—”
“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a
mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.”
“True—true,” I replied; “and,
indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily—but you should use all
proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”
Here I knocked off the neck of a
bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mold.
“Drink,” I said, presenting him the
wine.
He raised it to his lips with a
leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.
“I drink,” he said, “to the buried
that repose around us.”
“And I to your long life.”
He again took my arm, and we
proceeded.
“These vaults,” he said, “are
extensive.”
“The Montresor's,” I replied, “were
a great and numerous families.”
“I forget your arms.”
“A huge human foot d’or, in a field
azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the
heel.”
“And the motto?”
“Nemo me immune laces sit.”
“Good!” he said.
The wine sparkled in his eyes and
the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through
walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost
recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize
Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
“The niter!” I said: “see, it
increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed.
The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back here it is
too late. Your cough—”
“It is nothing,” he said; “let us go
on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.”
I broke and reached him a flagon of
De Gr? vet. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He
laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He
repeated the movement—a grotesque one.
“You do not comprehend?” he said.
“Not I,” I replied.
“Then you are not of the
brotherhood.”
“How?”
“You are not of the masons.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”
“You? Impossible! A mason?”
“A mason,” I replied.
“A sign,” he said.
“It is this,” I answered, producing
a trowel from beneath the folds of my roguelike.
“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling
a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”
“Be it so,” I said, replacing the
tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it
heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through
a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a
deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to
glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt
there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human
remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of
Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner.
From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the
earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed
by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth
about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been
constructed for no especial use but formed merely the interval between two of
the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs and was backed by one of
their circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato,
uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its
termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.
“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the
Amontillado. As for Lucchese—”
“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my
friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his
heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his
progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I
had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant
from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a
short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the 2148links about his waist,
it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to
resist. Withdrawing the key, I stepped back from the recess.
“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the
wall; you cannot help feeling the niter. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let
me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must
first render you all the little attentions in my power.”
“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my
friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
“True,” I replied; “the
Amontillado.”
As I said these words, I busied
myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them
aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these
materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the
entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier
of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a
great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning
cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There
was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third,
and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise
lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the
more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last
the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption
the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a
level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the
mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill
screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to
thrust me violently back. For a moment I hesitated I trembled. Unsheathing my
rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an
instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs
and felt satisfied. I reproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who
clamored. I re-echoed—I aided—I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did
this, and the clamorer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was
ending. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had
finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single
stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it
partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low
laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice,
which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice
said—
“Ha! ha! ha! —he! he! —a very good
joke indeed—an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the
palazzo—he! he! he! —over our wine—he! he! he!”
“The Amontillado!” I said.
“He! he! he! —he! he! he! —yes, the
Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the
palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”
“Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”
“For the love of God, Montresor!”
“Yes,” I said, “for the love of
God!”
But to these words I hearkened in
vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud—
“Fortunato!”
No answer. I called again—
“Fortunato!”
No answer still. I thrust a torch through
the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only
a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the
catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into
its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old
rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In
pace requiescat!
THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE
IN THE consideration of the
faculties and impulses—of the prima mobile of the human soul, the phrenologists
have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as
a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all
the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the reason, we
have all overlooked it. We have suffered its existence to escape our senses,
solely through want of belief—of faith; —whether it be faith in Revelation, or
faith in the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply because
of its supererogation. We saw no need of the impulse—for the propensity. We
could not perceive its necessity. We could not understand, that is to say, we
could not have understood, had the notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded
itself;—we could not have understood in what manner it might be made to further
the objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be denied that
phrenology and, in great measure, all metaphysicians have been concocted a
priori. The intellectual or logical man, rather than the understanding or
observant man, set himself to imagine designs—to dictate purposes to God.
Having thus fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of
these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter of
phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough, that it was the
design of the Deity that man should eat. We then assigned to man an organ of imitativeness,
and this organ is the scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nil-I,
into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God’s will that man should
continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness, forthwith. And so,
with combativeness, with ideality, with causality, with constructiveness, —so,
in short, with every organ, whether representing a propensity, a moral
sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the
Principia of human action, the Prelimits, whether right or wrong, in part, or
upon the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their
predecessors: deducing and establishing everything from the preconceived
destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of his Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would
have been safer, to classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what man
usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than
upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do. If
we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable
thoughts, that call the works into being? If we cannot understand him in his
objective creatures, how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation?
Induction, posteriori, would have
brought phrenology to admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human
action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a
more characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile
without motive, a motive not motivity. Through its promptings we act without
comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in
terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its
promptings we act, because we should not. In theory, no reason can be more
unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none stronger. With certain minds, under
certain conditions, it becomes irresistible. I am not more certain that I
breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often
the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its
prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong’s
sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical,
a primitive impulse elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we
persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is
but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the combativeness of
phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of this idea. The phrenological
combativeness has for its essence, the necessity of self-defense. It is our
safeguard against injury. Its principle regards our well-being; and thus, the
desire to be well is excited simultaneously with its development. It follows,
that the desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle
which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the case of that
something which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not
aroused, but a strongly antagonistically sentiment exists.
An appeal to one’s own heart is, after
all, the best reply to the sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly
consults and thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more incomprehensible
than distinctive. Their lives no man who at some period has not been tormented,
for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution.
The speaker is aware that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he
is usually curt, precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language is
struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty that he
restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and deprecates the anger of
him whom he addresses; yet, the thought strikes him, that by certain
involutions and parentheses this anger may be engendered. That single thought
is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to
an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and
mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is indulged.
We have a task before us which must
be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most
important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and
action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the
anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it
shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow, and why?
There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no
comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a more impatient
anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a
nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This
craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is at
hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, —of the definite
with the indefinite—of the substance with the shadow. But, if the contest has
proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, —we struggle in vain. The
clock strikes and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the
chanticleer—note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies—it
disappears—we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it is
too late!
We stand upon the brink of a
precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is
to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our
sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling.
By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the
vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But
out of this our cloud upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability,
a shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it
is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow
of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the
idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall
from such a height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very reason
that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly
and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented
themselves to our imagination—for this very cause do we now the most vividly
desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore
do we the most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a
precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in any attempt at
thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and
therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check
us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the
abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.
Examine these similar actions as we
will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We
perpetrate them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there
is no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a
direct instigation of the Archfiend, were it not occasionally known to operate
in furtherance of good.
I have said thus much, that in some
measure I may answer your question, that I may explain to you why I am here,
that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of
a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the
condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me
altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily
perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the
Perverse.
It is impossible that any deed could
have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I
pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because
their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading some
French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to
Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea
struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed. I knew,
too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you
with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I
substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making for the
one which I there found. The next morning, he was discovered dead in his bed,
and the Coroner’s verdict was— “Death by the visitation of God.”
Having inherited his estate, all
went well with me for years. The idea of detection never once entered my brain.
Of the remains of the fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left
no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to
suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of
satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute security. For a
very long period I was accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded me
more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin.
But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew,
by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It
harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It
is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or
rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary song, or some
unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the
song be good, or the opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would
perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low
undertone, the phrase, “I am safe.”
One day, whilst sauntering along the
streets, I arrested myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary
syllables. In a fit of petulance, I remodeled them thus; “I am safe—I am
safe—yes—if I be not fool enough to make open confession!”
No sooner had I spoken these words,
than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these
fits of perversity, (whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and
I remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted their
attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly be fool
enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if
the very ghost of him whom I had murdered—and beckoned me on to death.
At first, I tried to shake off this
nightmare of the soul. I walked vigorously—faster—still faster—at length I ran.
I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought
overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that to
think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still quickened my pace. I bounded
like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took
the alarm, and pursued me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I
have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in
my ears—a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned I gasped for
breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind,
and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with
his broad palm upon the back. The long-imprisoned secret burst forth from my
soul.
They say that I spoke with a
distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in
dread of interruption before concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that
consigned me to the hangman and to hell.
Having related all that was
necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I feel prostrate in a swoon.
But why shall I say more? To-day I
wear these chains and am here! To-morrow I shall be fetterless! —but where?
THE ISLAND OF THE FAY
Nullius denim locus sine géni est. —Servius.
“LA MUSIQUE,” sas Marmontel, in thèse “Contes Moraux” (*1) winch in all Our
translations, web have insiste jupon Calling “Moral Tales,” as if in mickey of théier
spirit—“la musique est le seul des talents qui jouissent de lui-même ; tous les
autres veulent des témoins.” He here confounds the pleasure derivable
from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other
talent, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there is no
second party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common with other
talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The
idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain clearly, or has
sacrificed in its expression to his national love of point, is, doubtless, the
very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly
estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition, in this form, will be
admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake, and for its
spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen
mortality and perhaps only one—which owes even more than does music to the
accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the
contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the
glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me, at least,
the presence—not of human life only, but of life in any other form than that of
the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless—is a stain upon the
landscape—is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the
dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the
forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that
look down upon all,—I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal
members of one vast animate and sentient whole—a whole whose form (that of the
sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among
associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign
is the sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God; whose
enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity, whose cognizance
of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the animalcule which infest the
brain—a being which we, in consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material
much in the same manner as these animalcule must thus regard us.
Our telescopes and our mathematical
investigations assure us on every hand—notwithstanding the cant of the more
ignorant of the priesthood—that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important
consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move
are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest
possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as,
within a given surface, to include the greatest possible amount of matter; —while
the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population
than could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it
any argument against bulk being an object with God, that space itself is
infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it. And since we see
clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle—indeed, as
far as our judgments extend, the leading principle in the operations of
Deity,—it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the
minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As
we find cycle within cycle without end,—yet all revolving around one
far-distant center which is the God-head, may we not analogically suppose in
the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within
the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring, through self-esteem, in
believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment
in the universe than that vast “clod of the valley” which he tills and
contemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that
he does not behold it in operation. (*2)
These fancies, and such as these,
have always given to my meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the
rivers and the ocean, a tinge of what the everyday world would not fail to term
fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many, and far-searching,
and often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a
dim, deep valley, or gazed into the reflected Heaven of many a bright lake, has
been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and gazed
alone. What flippant Frenchman was it who said in allusion to the well-known
work of Zimmerman, that, “la solitude Est use belle chose; mays ill faut queuing
pour vows dire que la solitude Est use belle chose?” The epigram cannot be gainsaid;
but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.
It was during one of my lonely
journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and
sad rivers and melancholy tarn writhing or sleeping within all—that I chanced
upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June,
and threw myself upon the turf, beneath the branches of an unknown odorous
shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should
I look upon it—such was the character of phantasm which it wore.
On all sides—save to the west, where
the sun was about sinking—arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little
river which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to
sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep
green foliage of the trees to the east—while in the opposite quarter (so it
appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down
noiselessly and continuously into the valley, a rich golden and crimson waterfall
from the sunset fountains of the sky.
About midway in the short vista
which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdure,
reposed upon the bosom of the stream.
So blended bank and shadow there
That each seemed pendulous in air—so
mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what
point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began.
My position enabled me to include in
a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet; and I
observed a singularly marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all
one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eyes of
the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short,
springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe,
mirthful, erect—bright, slender, and graceful, —of eastern figure and foliage,
with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life
and joy about all; and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet everything
had motion through the gentle sweepings to and from of innumerable butterflies,
that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings. (*4)
The other or eastern end of the isle
was whelmed in the blackest shade. A somber, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom
here pervaded all things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form
and attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes that
conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep
tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither
and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and
not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not; although over and
all about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shade of the trees fell
heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the
depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun
descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave
it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream; while other shadows issued
momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed.
This idea, having once seized upon
my fancy, greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in reverie. “If ever
island were enchanted,” said I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of the
few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?
—or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying,
do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little,
their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their
substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes
its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the
Fay be to the death which engulfs it?”
As I thus mused, with half-shut
eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round
and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of
the bark of the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the
water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased, while
I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about
whom I had been pondering made its way slowly into the darkness from out the
light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile
canoe and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence
of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy—but sorrow
deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at
length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. “The revolution
which has just been made by the Fay,” continued I, musingly, “is the cycle of
the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her
summer. She is a year nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she
came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark
water, making its blackness blacker.”
And again, the boat appeared and the
Fay, but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and
uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and
into the gloom (which deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from her
into the ebony water and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and
again she made the circuit of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his
slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her
person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each
passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed
in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had utterly departed, the
Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into
the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say,
for darkness fell over all things and I beheld her magical figure no more.
THE ASSIGNATION
Stay for me
there! I will not fail.
To meet thee in
that hollow vale.
[Ezequiel on the
death of his wife, by Henry King,
Bishop of Chichester.]
ILL-FATED and mysterious man! —bewildered
in the brilliancy of thine own imagination and fallen in the flames of thine
own youth! Again, in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before
me!—not—oh not as thou art—in the cold valley and shadow—but as thou should
be—squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of dim
visions, thine own Venice—which is a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the
wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter
meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I repeat it—as thou should
be. There are surely other worlds than this—other thoughts than the thoughts of
the multitude—other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then
shall call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours,
or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowing
of thine everlasting energies?
It was at Venice, beneath the
covered archway there called the Ponte di Suspire, that I met for the third or
fourth time the person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that
I recall the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember—ah! how should I forget?
—the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the Genius of
Romance that stalked up and down the narrow canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The
great clock of the Piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening.
The square of the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old
Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Pizzetta, by
way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth of the
canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly upon the night,
in one wild, hysterical, and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I
sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it
in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery, and we were consequently
left to the guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into the
smaller channel. Like some huge and sable-feathered condor, we were slowly
drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaux flashing
from the windows, and down the staircases of the Ducal Palace, turned all at
once that deep gloom into a livid and preternatural day.
A child, slipping from the arms of
its own mother, had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the
deep and dim canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim;
and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer,
already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the treasure which
was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad black marble flagstones
at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a figure
which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchese
Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the gayest of the gay—the most lovely
where all were beautiful—but still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentone,
and the mother of that fair child, her first and only one, who now, deep
beneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet
caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare,
and silvery feet gleamed in the black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair
not yet more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array,
clustered, amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in
curls like those of the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and gauze-like drapery
seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summer
and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in the statue-like
form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor which hung
around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet—strange to say! —her
large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest
hope lay buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the
Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice—but how could
that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling her only
child? Yon dark, gloomy niche, too, yawns right opposite her chamber
window—what, then, could there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in its
ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices—that the Marchese di Mentone had not wondered
at a thousand times before? Nonsense! —Who does not remember that, at such a
time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its
sorrow, and sees in innumerable far-off places, the woe which is close at hand?
Many steps above the Marchese, and
within the arch of the water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure
of Mentone himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and
seemed ennui to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the
recovery of his child. Stupefied and aghast, I had myself no power to move from
the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have
presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and ominous appearance,
as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that
funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of
the most energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions and yielding to
a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child; (how much less
than for the mother!) but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has
been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, and as
fronting the lattice of the Marchese, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out
within reach of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy
descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he
stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp, upon the
marble flagstones by the side of the Marchese, his cloak, heavy with the
drenching water, became unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet,
discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful person of a very
young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of Europe was then
ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the
Marchese! She will now receive her child—she will press it to her heart—she
will cling to its little form and smother it with her caresses. Alas! another’s
arms have taken it from the stranger—another’s arms have taken it away, and
borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the Marchese! Her lip—her
beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her eyes—those eyes which, like
Pliny’s acanthus, are “soft and almost liquid.” Yes! tears are gathering in
those eyes—and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the
statue has started into life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the
swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold
suddenly flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder
quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich
silver lilies in the grass.
Why should that lady blush! To this
demand there is no answer—except that, having left, in the eager haste and
terror of a mother’s heart, the privacy of her own boudoir, she has neglected
to enthrall her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw
over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other
possible reason could there have been for her so blushing?—for the glance of
those wild appealing eyes? for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for
the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell, as Mentone
turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What
reason could there have been for the low—the singularly low tone of those
unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou
hast conquered,” she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me; “thou hast
conquered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be!”
The tumult had subsided, the lights
had died away within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood
alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye
glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the
service of my own; and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the
water-gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly recovered
his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of
great apparent cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I
take pleasure in being minute. The person of the stranger—let me call him by
this title, who to all the world was still a stranger—the person of the
stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather
than above the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion when
his frame expanded and belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry
of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the
Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to
wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the
mouth and chin of a deity—singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows
varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet—and a profusion of curling,
black hair, from which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals
all light and ivory—his were features than which I have seen none more
classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus.
Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at
some period of their lives and have never afterwards seen again. It had no
peculiar—it had no settled predominant expression to be fastened upon the
memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten—but forgotten with a vague
and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each
rapid passion failed, at any time, to throw its own distinct image upon the
mirror of that face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of
the passion, when the passion had departed.
Upon leaving him on the night of our
adventure, he solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon
him very early the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself
accordingly at his Palazzo, one of those huge structures of gloomy, yet
fantastic pomp, which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity
of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into an
apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an
actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with luxuriousness.
I knew my acquaintance to be
wealthy. Report had spoken of his possessions in terms which I had even
ventured to call terms of ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I
could not bring myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe
could have supplied the princely magnificence which burned and blazed around.
Although, as I say, the sun had
arisen, yet the room was still brilliantly lighted up. I judge from this
circumstance, as well as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my
friend, that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night.
In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had
been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the decora of
what is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of nationality. The
eye wandered from object to object and rested upon none—neither the grotesques
of the Greek painters, nor the sculptures of the best Italian days, nor the
huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the room
trembled to the vibration of low, melancholy music, whose origin was not to be
discovered. The senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes,
reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with multitudinous flaring
and flickering tongues of emerald and violet fire. The rays of the newly risen
sun poured in upon the whole, through windows, formed each of a single pane of
crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and from, in a thousand reflections, from
curtains which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of molten silver, the
beams of natural glory mingled at length fitfully with the artificial light,
and lay weltering in subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid-looking cloth
of Chili gold.
“Ha! ha! ha! —ha! ha! ha!”—laughed
the proprietor, motioning me to a seat as I entered the room, and throwing
himself back at full-length upon an ottoman. “I see,” said he, perceiving that
I could not immediately reconcile myself to the instance of so singular a
welcome—“I see you are astonished at my apartment—at my statues—my pictures—my
originality of conception in architecture and upholstery! absolutely drunk, eh,
with my magnificence? But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me for my uncharitable
laughter. You appeared so utterly astonished. Besides, some things are so completely
ludicrous, that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing, must be the most
glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was Sir Thomas
More—Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also, in the Absurdities of Revisits
Texter, there is a long list of characters who came to the same magnificent
end. Do you know, however,” continued he musingly, “that at Sparta (which is
now Pal?; ochre,) at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos
of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of socle, upon which are still legible the
letters AAEM. They are undoubtedly part of PEAAEMA. Now, at Sparta were a
thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities. How
exceedingly strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the
others! But in the present instance,” he resumed, with a singular alteration of
voice and manner, “I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well
have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my little
regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same order—mere
ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion—is it not? Yet
this has but to be seen to become the rage—that is, with those who could afford
it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any
such profanation. With one exception, you are the only human being besides
myself and my valet, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these
imperial precincts, since they have been bedizened as you see!”
I bowed in acknowledgment—for the
overpowering sense of splendor and perfume, and music, together with the
unexpected eccentricity of his address and manner, prevented me from
expressing, in words, my appreciation of what I might have construed into a
compliment.
“Here,” he resumed, arising and
leaning on my arm as he sauntered around the apartment, “here are paintings
from the Greeks to Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are
chosen, as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtue. They are
all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, is some chef's
d’oeuvre of the unknown great; and here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated
in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence
and to me. What think you,” said he, turning abruptly as he spoke— “what think
you of this Madonna Della Pieta?”
“It is Guido’s own!” I said, with
all the enthusiasm of my nature, for I had been pouring intently over its
surpassing loveliness. “It is Guido’s own! —how could you have obtained it? —she
is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture.”
“Ha!” said he thoughtfully, “the
Venus—the beautiful Venus? —the Venus of the Medici? —she of the diminutive
head and the gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped to be
heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and in the
coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation.
Give me the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy—there can be no doubt of
it—blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the
Apollo! I cannot help—pity me! —I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it
not Socrates who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of
marble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his couplet—
‘Non ha l’Otto artiste alun concetto
Che un marmot solo in se non circonscrive.’”
It has been, or should be remarked,
that, in the manner of the true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from
the bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in
what such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its full
force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful
morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperament and character.
Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so
essentially apart from all other human beings, than by calling it a habit of
intense and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial
actions—intruding upon his moments of dalliance—and interweaving itself with
his very flashes of merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the
grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.
I could not help, however,
repeatedly observing, through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with
which he rapidly descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of
trepidation—a degree of nervous unction in action and in speech—an unquiet
excitability of manner which appeared to me at all times unaccountable, and
upon some occasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the
middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed
to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation
of a visitor, or to sounds which must have had existence in his imagination
alone.
It was during one of these reveries
or pauses of apparent abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and
scholar Politian’s beautiful tragedy “The Orfeo,” (the first native Italian
tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined
in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act—a passage of the
most heart-stirring excitement—a passage which, although tainted with impurity,
no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion—no woman without a sigh.
The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon the opposite interleaf, were
the following English lines, written in a hand so very different from the
peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognizing
it as his own:—
Thou west that all
to me, love,
For which my soul
did pine—
A green isle in
the sea, love,
A fountain and a
shrine,
All wreathed with
fairy fruits and flowers;
And all the
flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too
bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope,
that didst arise
But to be
overcast!
A voice from out
the Future cries,
“Onward!”—but o’er
the Past
(Dim gulf!) my
spirit hovering lies,
Mute—motionless—aghast!
For alas! alas!
with me
The light of life
is o’er.
“No more—no
more—no more,”
(Such language
holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon
the shore,)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken
eagle soar!
Now all my hours
are trances;
And all my nightly
dreams
Are where the dark
eye glances,
And where thy
footstep gleams,
In what ethereal
dances,
By what Italian
streams.
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee
o’er the billow,
From Love to
titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow!
—
From me, and from
our misty clime,
Where weeps the
silver willow!
That these lines were written in
English—a language with which I had not believed their author
acquainted—afforded me little matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the
extent of his acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing
them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery; but the place
of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been
originally written London, and afterwards carefully over scored—not, however,
so effectually as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say, this
occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a former
conversation with a friend, I particularly inquired if he had at any time met
in London the Marchese di Mentone, (who for some years previous to her marriage
had resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to
understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might
as well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without, of course,
giving credit to a report involving so many improbabilities,) that the person
of whom I speak, was not only by birth, but in education, an Englishman.
“There is one painting,” said he,
without being aware of my notice of
the tragedy— “there is still one
painting which you have not seen.” And
throwing aside a drapery, he
discovered a full-length portrait of the
Marchese Aphrodite.
Human art could have done no more in the
delineation of her
superhuman beauty. The same ethereal
figure which stood before me the
preceding night upon the steps of
the Ducal Palace, stood before me once
again. But in the expression of the
countenance, which was beaming all
over with smiles, there still lurked
(incomprehensible anomaly!) that
fitful stain of melancholy which
will ever be found inseparable from the
perfection of the beautiful. Her
right arm lay folded over her bosom.
With her left she pointed downward
to a curiously fashioned vase.
One small, fairy foot, alone
visible, barely touched the earth; and,
scarcely discernible in the
brilliant atmosphere which seemed to
encircle and enshrine her
loveliness, floated a pair of the most
delicately imagined wings. My glance
fell from the painting to the
figure of my friend, and the
vigorous words of Chapman’s Busy
D'Amboise, quivered instinctively
upon my lips:
“He is up
There like a Roman
statue! He will stand
Till Death hath
made him marble!”
“Come,” he said at length, turning
towards a table of richly enameled and massive silver, upon which were a few
goblets fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases,
fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the
portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be Johannesburg. “Come,” he said,
abruptly, “let us drink! It is early—but let us drink. It is indeed early,” he
continued, musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the apartment
ring with the first hour after sunrise: “It is indeed early—but what matters
it? let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to yon solemn sun which these
gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue!” And, having made me pledge him
in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.
“To dream,” he continued, resuming
the tone of his desultory conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a
censer one of the magnificent vases— “to dream has been the business of my
life. I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the
heart of Venice could I have erected a better. You behold around you, it is
true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is
offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched
upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone.
Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify
mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent. Once I was myself a deforest;
but that sublimation of folly has called upon my soul. All this is now the
fitter for my purpose. Like these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in
fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of
that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing.” He here paused
abruptly, bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound which I
could not hear. At length, erecting his frame, he looked upwards, and
ejaculated the lines of the Bishop of Chichester:
“Stay for me
there! I will not fail
To meet thee in
that hollow vale.”
In the next instant, confessing the
power of the wine, he threw himself at full-length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the
staircase, and a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to
anticipate a second disturbance, when a page of Mentone's household burst into
the room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent
words, “My mistress! —my mistress! —Poisoned! —poisoned! Oh, beautiful—oh,
beautiful Aphrodite!”
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman,
and endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence.
But his limbs were rigid—his lips were livid—his lately beaming eyes were
riveted in death. I staggered back towards the table—my hand fell upon a
cracked and blackened goblet—and a consciousness of the entire and terrible
truth flashed suddenly over my soul.
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
Impair tort rum logos
hic turban furors
Sanguinis innocuité, non stata, alunit.
Sopite Nunc patria, fractur Nunc fineries antra,
Mors Ubi dira fuit Vita salique patent.
[Quatrain composed for the gates of
a market to be erected
upon the site of
the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]
I WAS sick—sick unto death with that
long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I
felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of
death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that,
the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate
hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution—perhaps from its association
in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period; for
presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an
exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me
white—whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words—and thin even to
grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of
immoveable resolution—of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the
decrees of what to me was Fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them
writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and
I shuddered because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of
delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable
draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell
upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of
charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me; but then, all
at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fiber
in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while
the angel forms became meaningless specters, with heads of flame, and I saw
that from them there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like
a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.
The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained
full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and
entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before
me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the
blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad
rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night was
the universe.
I had swooned; but still will not
say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not
attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest
slumber—no! In delirium—no! In a swoon—no! In death—no! even in the grave all
is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most
profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second
afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have
dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that
of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical,
existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could
recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent
in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is—what? How at least shall we
distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what
I have termed the first stage, are not, at will, recalled, yet, after long
interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence, they come? He who
has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar
faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad
visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of
some novel flower—is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of
some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention.
Amid frequent and thoughtful
endeavors to remember; amid earnest struggles to regather some token of the
state of seeming nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been
moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been brief, very brief
periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later
epoch assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming
unconsciousness. These shadows of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall figures
that lifted and bore me in silence down—down—still down—till a hideous
dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of the interminableness of the descent.
They tell also of a vague horror at my heart, on account of that heart’s
unnatural stillness. Then comes a sense of sudden motionlessness throughout all
things; as if those who bore me (a ghastly train!) had outrun, in their
descent, the limits of the limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of
their toil. After this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is
madness—the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.
Very suddenly there came back to my
soul motion and sound—the tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the
sound of its beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and
motion, and touch—a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then the mere
consciousness of existence, without thought—a condition which lasted long.
Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to
comprehend my true state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility.
Then a rushing revival of soul and a successful effort to move. And now a full
memory of the trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of
the sickness, of the swoon. Then entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of
all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely
to recall.
So far, I had not opened my eyes. I
felt that I lay upon my back, unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell
heavily upon something damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many
minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed yet
dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me.
It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast
lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at
heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The
blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The
intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was
intolerably close. I still lay quietly and made effort to exercise my reason. I
recalled the inquisitorial proceedings and attempted from that point to deduce
my real condition. The sentence had passed; and it appeared to me that a very
long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose
myself dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is
altogether inconsistent with real existence; —but where and in what state was
I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the autos-da-fe, and one
of these had been held on the very night of the day of my trial. Had I been
remanded to my dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place
for many months? This I at once saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate
demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had
stone floors, and light was not altogether excluded.
A fearful idea now suddenly drove
the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period, I once more
relapsed into insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet,
trembling convulsively in every fiber. I thrust my arms wildly above and around
me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move a step, lest I should
be impeded by the walls of a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore and stood
in cold big beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length
intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes
straining from their sockets, in the hope of catching some faint ray of light.
I proceeded for many paces; but still all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed
more freely. It seemed evident that mine was not, at least, the most hideous of
fates.
And now, as I continued to step
cautiously onward, there came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague
rumors of the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things
narrated—fables I had always deemed them—but strange, and too ghastly to
repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this
subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful,
awaited me? That the result would be death, and a death of more than customary
bitterness, I knew too well the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and
the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.
My outstretched hands at length
encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone
masonry—very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the
careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This
process, however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my
dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence I set out,
without being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I
therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket, when led into the
inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my clothes had been exchanged for a
wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of forcing the blade in some minute
crevice of the masonry, to identify my point of departure. The difficulty,
nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed
at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and placed the
fragment at full length, and at right angles to the wall. In groping my way
around the prison, I could not fail to encounter this rag upon completing the
circuit. So, at least I thought but I had not counted upon the extent of the
dungeon, or upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I
staggered onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue
induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.
Upon awaking, and stretching forth
an arm, I found beside me a loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too much
exhausted to reflect upon this circumstance but ate and drank with avidity.
Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil came
at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I felt I had
counted fifty-two paces, and upon resuming my walk, I had counted forty-eight more;
—when I arrived at the rag. There were in all, then, a hundred paces; and, admitting
two paces to the yard, I presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I
had met, however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess
at the shape of the vault; for vault I could not help supposing it to be.
I had little object—certainly no
hope—in these researches; but a vague curiosity prompted me to continue them.
Quitting the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first, I
proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid material,
was treacherous with slime. At length, however, I took courage, and did not
hesitate to step firmly; endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible.
I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when the remnant of the
torn hem of my robe became entangled between my legs. I stepped on it and fell
violently on my face.
In the confusion attending my fall,
I did not immediately apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance, which yet,
in a few seconds afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my
attention. It was this—my chin rested upon the floor of the prison, but my lips
and the upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less elevation than
the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy
vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put
forward my arm and shuddered to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a
circular pit, whose extent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining now.
Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a
small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For many seconds I hearkened to
its reverberations as it dashed against the sides of the chasm in its descent;
at length there was a sullen plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At
the same moment there came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid
closing of a door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly
through the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.
I saw clearly the doom which had
been prepared for me and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which
I had escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more.
And the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had regarded as
fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition. To the victims
of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies,
or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the
latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the
sound of my own voice and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the
species of torture which awaited me.
Shaking in every limb, I groped my
way back to the wall; resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of
the wells, of which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about
the dungeon. In other conditions of mind, I might have had courage to end my
misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the varies
of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read of these pits—that the
sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan.
Agitation of spirit kept me awake
for many long hours; but at length I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by
my side, as before, a loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed
me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been drugged; for
scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep sleep fell
upon me—a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted of course, I know not;
but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible.
By a wild sulfurous luster, the origin of which I could not at first determine,
I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the prison.
In its size I had been greatly
mistaken. The whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For
some minutes this fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for
what could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which
environed me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild
interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the error
I had committed in my measurement. The truth at length flashed upon me. In my
first attempt at exploration I had counted fifty-two paces, up to the period
when I fell; I must then have been within a pace or two of the fragment of
serge; in fact, I had nearly performed the circuit of the vault. I then slept,
and upon awaking, I must have returned upon my steps—thus supposing the circuit
nearly double what it was. My confusion of mind prevented me from observing
that I began my tour with the wall to the left and ended it with the wall to
the right.
I had been deceived, too, in respect
to the shape of the enclosure. In feeling my way, I had found many angles, and
thus deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total
darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those
of a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general shape of
the prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or
some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the
depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in
all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the
monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton
forms, and other more fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls. I
observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were sufficiently distinct,
but that the colors seemed faded and blurred, as if from the effects of a damp
atmosphere. I now noticed the floor, too, which was of stone. In the center
yawned the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one
in the dungeon.
All this I saw indistinctly and by
much effort: for my personal condition had been greatly changed during slumber.
I now lay upon my back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of
wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a surcingle. It
passed in many convolutions about my limbs and body, leaving at liberty only my
head, and my left arm to such extent that I could, by dint of much exertion,
supply myself with food from an earthen dish which lay by my side on the floor.
I saw, to my horror, that the pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror; for
I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared to be the
design of my persecutors to stimulate for the food in the dish was meat
pungently seasoned.
Looking upward, I surveyed the
ceiling of my prison. It was some thirty or forty feet overhead and constructed
much as the side walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my
whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly
represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance,
I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on
antique clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine
which caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly upward at
it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in
motion. In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief,
and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more
in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes
upon the other objects in the cell.
A slight noise attracted my notice,
and, looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had
issued from the well, which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while
I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the
scent of the meat. From this it required much effort and attention to scare
them away.
It might have been half an hour,
perhaps even an hour, (for I could take but imperfect note of time) before I
again cast my eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep
of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural
consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly disturbed me
was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now observed—with what horror it
is needless to say—that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of
glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward,
and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it
seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure
above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it
swung through the air.
I could no longer doubt the doom
prepared for me by monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had
become known to the inquisitorial agents—the pit whose horrors had been
destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of hell, and
regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments. The plunge into
this pit I had avoided by the merest of accidents, I knew that surprise, or
entrapment into torment, formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of
these dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan
to hurl me into the abyss; and thus (there being no alternative) a different
and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I
thought of such application of such a term.
What boots it to tell of the long,
long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing
vibrations of the steel! Inch by inch—line by line—with a descent only
appreciable at intervals that seemed ages—down and still down it came! Days
passed—it might have been that many days passed—ere it swept so closely over me
as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the sharp steel forced itself
into my nostrils. I prayed I wearied heaven with my prayer for its speedier
descent. I grew frantically mad and struggled to force myself upward against
the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I feel suddenly calm, and lay
smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.
There was another interval of utter
insensibility; it was brief; for, upon again lapsing into life there had been
no perceptible descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew
there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the
vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very—oh, inexpressibly
sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid the agonies of that
period, the human nature craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my
left arm as far as my bonds permitted and took possession of the small remnant
which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips,
there rushed to my mind a half-formed thought of joy—of hope. Yet what business
had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half-formed thought—man has many such
which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but felt also
that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect—to regain
it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was
an imbecile—an idiot.
The vibration of the pendulum was at
right angles to my length. I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the
region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe—it would return and
repeat its operations—again—and again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide sweep
(some thirty feet or more) and the hissing vigor of its descent, enough to
sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all
that, for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I
dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity
of attention—as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent of the steel.
I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass
across the garment—upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of
cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth
were on edge.
Down—steadily down it crept. I took
a frenzied pleasure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To
the right—to the left—far and wide—with the shriek of a damned spirit; to my
heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I alternately laughed and howled as
the one or the other idea grew predominant.
Down—certainly, relentlessly down!
It vibrated within three inches of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously,
to free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could
reach the latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with great effort,
but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have
seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well have attempted to
arrest an avalanche!
Down—still unceasingly—still
inevitably down! I gasped and struggled at each vibration. I shrunk
convulsively at its every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls
with the eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves
spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a relief, oh! how
unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking of
the machinery would precipitate that keen, glistening axe upon my bosom. It was
hope that prompted the nerve to quiver—the frame to shrink. It was hope—the
hope that triumphs on the rack—that whispers to the death-condemned even in the
dungeons of the Inquisition.
I saw that some ten or twelve
vibrations would bring the steel in actual contact with my robe, and with this
observation there suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness
of despair. For the first time during many hours—or perhaps days—I thought. It
now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was
unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of the razorlike
crescent athwart any portion of the band, would so detach it that it might be
unwound from my person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case,
the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle how deadly!
Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and
provided for this possibility! Was it probable that the bandage crossed my
bosom in the track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it
seemed, my last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a
distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs and body close in
all directions—save in the path of the destroying crescent.
Scarcely had I dropped my head back
into its original position, when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot
better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which
I have previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately
through my brain when I raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought was
now present—feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, —but still entire. I
proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its
execution.
For many hours the immediate
vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay, had been literally swarming
with rats. They were wild, bold, ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if
they waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. “To what
food,” I thought, “have they been accustomed in the well?”
They had devoured, despite all my
efforts to prevent them, all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I
had fallen into a habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter: and,
at length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement deprived it of effect. In
their voracity the vermin frequently fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers.
With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly
rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from the
floor, I lay breathlessly still.
At first the ravenous animals were
startled and terrified at the change—at the cessation of movement. They shrank
alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not
counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained without motion,
one or two of the boldest leaped upon the framework and smelt at the surcingle.
This seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they hurried in
fresh troops. They clung to the wood—they overran it and leaped in hundreds
upon my person. The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at
all. Avoiding its strokes, they busied themselves with the anointed bandage.
They pressed—they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon
my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging
pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and
chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the
struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I
knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a more than
human resolution I lay still.
Nor had I erred in my
calculations—nor had I endured in vain. I at length felt that I was free. The
surcingle hung in ribands from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum already
pressed upon my bosom. It had divided the serge of the robe. It had cut through
the linen beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through
every nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my hand my
deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement—cautious,
sidelong, shrinking, and slow—I slid from the embrace of the bandage and beyond
the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was free.
Free! —and in the grasp of the
Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone
floor of the prison, when the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld
it drawn up, by some invisible force, through the ceiling. This was a lesson
which I took desperately to heart. My every motion was undoubtedly watched. Free!
—I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse than
death in some other. With that thought I rolled my eves nervously around on the
barriers of iron that hemmed me in. Something unusual—some change which, at
first, I could not appreciate distinctly—it was obvious, had taken place in the
apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction, I busied
myself in vain, unconnected conjecture. During this period, I became aware, for
the first time, of the origin of the sulfurous light which illumined the cell.
It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in width, extending entirely around
the prison at the base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely
separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to look through
the aperture.
As I arose from the attempt, the
mystery of the alteration in the chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I
have observed that, although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were
sufficiently distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite. These
colors had now assumed, and were momentarily assuming, a startling and most
intense brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish portraitures an
aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves than my own. Demon eyes, of
a wild and ghastly vivacity, glared upon me in a thousand directions, where
none had been visible before, and gleamed with the lurid luster of a fire that
I could not force my imagination to regard as unreal.
Unreal! —Even while I breathed there
came to my nostrils the breath of the vapor of heated iron! A suffocating odor
pervaded the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared
at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the pictured
horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for breath! There could be no doubt of the
design of my tormentors—oh! most unrelenting! oh! most demoniac of men! I
shrank from the glowing metal to the center of the cell. Amid the thought of
the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came
over my soul like balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision
below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost recesses. Yet,
for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I
saw. At length it forced—it wrestled its way into my soul—it burned itself in
upon my shuddering reason. —Oh! for a voice to speak! —oh! horror! —oh! any
horror but this! With a shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in
my hands—weeping bitterly.
The heat rapidly increased, and once
again I looked up, shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a
second change in the cell—and now the change was obviously in the form. As
before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavored to appreciate or understand
what was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial
vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more
dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of
its iron angles were now acute—two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful
difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an
instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the
alteration stopped not here-I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could
have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. “Death,”
I said, “any death but that of the pit!” Fool! might I have not known that into
the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me? Could I resist its
glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its pressure? And now, flatter and
flatter grew the lozenge, with a rapidity that left me no time for
contemplation. Its center, and of course, its greatest width, came just over
the yawning gulf. I shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me restlessly
onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch
of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony
of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt
that I tottered upon the brink—I averted my eyes—
There was a discordant hum of human
voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating
as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm
caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General
Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands
of its enemies.
THE PREMATURE BURIAL
THERE are certain themes of which
the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the
purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he does
not wish to offend or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the
severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for
example, with the most intense of “pleasurable pain” over the accounts of the
Passage of the Berezina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London,
of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the hundred and
twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts, it
is the fact——it is the reality——it is the history which excites. As inventions,
we should regard them with simple abhorrence.
I have mentioned some few of the
more prominent and august calamities on record; but in these it is the extent,
not less than the character of the calamity, which so vividly impresses the
fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of
human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete
with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster. The
true wretchedness, indeed—the ultimate woe——is, not diffuse. That the ghastly
extremes of agony are endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass——for
this let us thank a merciful God!
To be buried while alive is, beyond question,
the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere
mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be
denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at
best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other
begins? We know that there are diseases in which occur total cessations of all
the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these cessations are
merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only temporary pauses in the
incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses, and some unseen
mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard
wheels. The silver cord was not for ever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably
broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?
Apart, however, from the inevitable
conclusion, a priori that such causes must produce such effects——that the
well-known occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give
rise, now and then, too premature interments—apart from this consideration, we
have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that a
vast number of such interments have actually taken place. I might refer at
once, if necessary, to a hundred well authenticated instances. One of very
remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory
of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of
Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and widely extended
excitement. The wife of one of the most respectable citizens—a lawyer of
eminence and a member of Congress—was seized with a sudden and unaccountable
illness, which completely baffled the skill of her physicians. After much
suffering she died or was supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or had
reason to suspect, that she was not actually dead. She presented all the
ordinary appearances of death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken
outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There
was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved
unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity. The funeral, in short,
was hastened, on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be
decomposition.
The lady was deposited in her family
vault, which, for three subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of
this term it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; ——but, alas! how
fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the door! As
its portals swung outwardly back, some white-appareled object fell rattling
within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmolded shroud.
A careful investigation rendered it
evident that she had revived within two days after her entombment; that her
struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the
floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been
accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it might have
been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps which
led down into the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which,
it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention by striking the iron
door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through
sheer terror; and, in failing, her shroud became entangled in some ironwork
which projected interiorly. Thus, she remained, and thus she rotted, erect.
In the year 1810, a case of living
inhumation happened in France, attended with circumstances which go far to
warrant the assertion that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine
of the story was a Mademoiselle Victorine LA Fourcade, a young girl of
illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among her numerous
suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or journalist of Paris. His
talents and general amiability had recommended him to the notice of the
heiress, by whom he seems to have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth decided
her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Rinella, a banker and a
diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman
neglected, and, perhaps, even more positively ill-treated her. Having passed
with him some wretched years, she died, ——at least her condition so closely
resembled death as to deceive everyone who saw her. She was buried——not in a
vault, but in an ordinary grave in the village of her nativity. Filled with
despair, and still inflamed by the memory of a profound attachment, the lover
journeys from the capital to the remote province in which the village lies,
with the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself of
its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At midnight he unearths the
coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the hair, when he is arrested
by the unclosing of the beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive.
Vitality had not altogether departed, and she was aroused by the caresses of
her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death. He bore her
frantically to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful
restoratives suggested by no little medical learning. In fine, she revived. She
recognized her preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees, she
fully recovered her original health. Her woman’s heart was not adamant, and
this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet.
She returned no more to her husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection,
fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to
France, in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady’s
appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her. They were
mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur Rinella did recognize
and make claim to his wife. This claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal
sustained her in her resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with
the long lapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but legally, the
authority of the husband.
The “Chirurgical Journal” of
Leipsic—a periodical of high authority and merit, which some American
bookseller would do well to translate and republish, records in a late number a
very distressing event of the character in question.
An officer of artillery, a man of
gigantic stature and of robust health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse,
received a very severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible
at once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was
apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled, and many
other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually, however, he fell
into a more and more hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it was thought
that he died.
The weather was warm, and he was
buried with indecent haste in one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took
place on Thursday. On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery where,
as usual, much thronged with visitors, and about noon an intense excitement was
created by the declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the grave of
the officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned
by someone struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the man’s
asseveration; but his evident terror, and the dogged obstinacy with which he
persisted in his story, had at length their natural effect upon the crowd.
Spades were hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow,
was in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant appeared.
He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect within his coffin, the lid
of which, in his furious struggles, he had partially uplifted.
He was forthwith conveyed to the
nearest hospital, and there pronounced to be still living, although in an as
phytic condition. After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his
acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in the grave.
From what he related, it was clear
that he must have been conscious of life for more than an hour, while inhumed,
before lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled
with an exceedingly porous soil; and thus, some air was necessarily admitted.
He heard the footsteps of the crowd overhead and endeavored to make himself
heard in turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery, he said,
which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he awake than
he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his position.
This patient, it is recorded, was
doing well and seemed to be in a fair way of ultimate recovery but fell a
victim to the quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was
applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic paroxysms which,
occasionally, it superinduces.
The mention of the galvanic battery,
nevertheless, recalls to my memory a well-known and very extraordinary case in
point, where its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young
attorney of London, who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831,
and created, at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was made the
subject of converse.
The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton,
had died, apparently of typhus fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms
which had excited the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming
decease, his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem examination, but
declined to permit it. As often happens, when such refusals are made, the
practitioners resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at leisure, in
private. Arrangements were easily effected with some of the numerous corps of
body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third night after the
funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a grave eight feet deep, and
deposited in the opening chamber of one of the private hospitals.
An incision of some extent had been made
in the abdomen, when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject
suggested an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and
the customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in any
respect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary degree of lifelikeness
in the convulsive action.
It grew late. The day was about to
dawn; and it was thought expedient, at length, to proceed at once to the
dissection. A student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory of
his own and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral muscles.
A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily brought in contact, when the patient,
with a hurried but quite convulsive movement, arose from the table, stepped
into the middle of the floor, gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds, and
then—spoke. What he said was unintelligible, but words were uttered; the
syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell heavily to the floor.
For some moments all were paralyzed
with awe—but the urgency of the case soon restored them their presence of mind.
It was seen that Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon exhibition
of ether he revived and was rapidly restored to health, and to the society of
his friends—from whom, however, all knowledge of his resuscitation was
withheld, until a relapse was no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder—their
rapturous astonishment—may be conceived.
The most thrilling peculiarity of
this incident, nevertheless, is involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He
declares that at no period was he altogether insensible—that, dully and
confusedly, he was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment
in which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he fell
swooning to the floor of the hospital. “I am alive,” were the comprehended
words which, upon recognizing the locality of the dissecting-room, he had
endeavored, in his extremity, to utter.
It was an easy matter to multiply
such histories as these—but I forbear—for, indeed, we have no need of such to
establish the fact that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very
rarely, from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to detect them, we
must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance. Scarcely, in
truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great
extent, that skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most fearful
of suspicions.
Fearful indeed the suspicion—but
more fearful the doom! It may be asserted, without hesitation, that no event is
so terribly well adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental
distress, as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the
lungs—the stifling fumes from the damp earth—the clinging to the death
garments—the rigid embrace of the narrow house—the blackness of the absolute
Night—the silence like a sea that overwhelms—the unseen but palpable presence
of the Conqueror Worm—these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass
above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but informed of
our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be
informed—that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead—these
considerations, I say, carry into the heart, which still palpitates, a degree
of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must
recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth—we can dream of nothing half
so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell. And thus, all narratives upon
this topic have an interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through
the sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly depends
upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What I have now to
tell is of my own actual knowledge—of my own positive and personal experience.
For several years I had been subject
to attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term
catalepsy, in default of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate
and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease are
still mysterious, it's obvious and apparent character is sufficiently well
understood. Its variations seem to be chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient
lies, for a day only, or even for a shorter period, in a species of exaggerated
lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; but the pulsation of the
heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces of warmth remain; a slight
color lingers within the center of the cheek; and, upon application of a mirror
to the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating action of the
lungs. Then again, the duration of the trance is for weeks—even for months;
while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical tests, fail to
establish any material distinction between the state of the sufferer and what
we conceive of absolute death. Very usually he is saved from premature
interment solely by the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously
subject to catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, by
the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily, gradual.
The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal. The fits grow
successively more and more distinctive and endure each for a longer term than
the preceding. In this lies the principal security from inhumation. The
unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme character which is
occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb.
My own case differed in no important
from those mentioned in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I
sank, little by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon; and,
in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly
speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the
presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the
disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At other times I was
quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy,
and so fell prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and
silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be no more.
From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation slow in proportion
to the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day dawns to the friendless and
houseless beggar who roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter
night—just so tardily—just so wearily—just so cheerily came back the light of
the Soul to me.
Apart from the tendency to trance,
however, my general health appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it
was at all affected by the one prevalent malady—unless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy
in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from
slumber, I could never gain, at once, thorough possession of my senses, and
always remained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity;—the
mental faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a condition
of absolute abeyance.
In all that I endured there was no
physical suffering but of moral distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel,
I talked “of worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death,
and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The
ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In the
former, the torture of meditation was excessive—in the latter, supreme. When the
grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with every horror of thought, I
shook—shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When Nature could endure
wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I consented to sleep—for I
shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking, I might find myself the tenant of a
grave. And when, finally, I sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into
a world of phantasms, above which, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing,
hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea.
From the innumerable images of gloom
which thus oppressed me in dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision.
Methought I was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and
profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient,
gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!” within my ear.
I sat erect. The darkness was total.
I could not see the figure of him who had aroused me. I could call to mind
neither the period at which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in
which I then lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in endeavors to
collect my thought, the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking it
petulantly, while the gibbering voice said again:
“Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”
“And who,” I demanded, “art thou?”
“I have no name in the regions which
I inhabit,” replied the voice, mournfully; “I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless
but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. —My teeth chatter as I speak,
yet it is not with the chilliness of the night—of the night without end. But
this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot
rest for the cry of these great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear.
Get thee up! Come with me into the outer Night and let me unfold to thee the
graves. Is not this a spectacle of woe? —Behold!”
I looked; and the unseen figure,
which still grasped me by the wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of
all mankind, and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so
that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded
bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real
sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not at all; and
there was a feeble struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out
the depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling from the
garments of the buried. And of those who seemed tranquilly to repose, I saw
that a vast number had changed, in a greater or less degree, the rigid and
uneasy position in which they had originally been entombed. And the voice again
said to me as I gazed:
“Is it not—oh! is it not a pitiful
sight?”—but, before I could find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp
my wrist, the phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a
sudden violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries, saying
again: “Is it not—O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?”
Phantasies such as these, presenting
themselves at night, extended their terrific influence far into my waking
hours. My nerves became thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual
horror. I hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that
would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out of the
immediate presence of those who were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest,
falling into one of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition
could be ascertained. I doubted the care, the fidelity of my dearest friends. I
dreaded that, in some trance of more than customary duration, they might be
prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear
that, as I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very
protracted attack as enough excuse for getting rid of me altogether. It was in
vain they endeavored to reassure me by the most solemn promises. I exacted the
most sacred oaths, that under no circumstances they would bury me until
decomposition had so materially advanced as to render farther preservation
impossible. And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason—would
accept no consolation. I entered a series of elaborate precautions. Among other
things, I had the family vault so remodeled as to admit of being readily opened
from within. The slightest pressure upon a long lever that extended far into
the tomb would cause the iron portal to fly back. There were arrangements also
for the free admission of air and light, and convenient receptacles for food and
water, within immediate reach of the coffin intended for my reception. This
coffin was warmly and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned
upon the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs so contrived
that the feeblest movement of the body would be enough to set it at liberty.
Besides all this, there was suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell,
the rope of which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in the coffin,
and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But, alas? what avails
the vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even these well-contrived
securities sufficed to save from the uttermost agonies of living inhumation, a
wretch to these agonies foredoomed!
There arrived an epoch—as often before
there had arrived—in which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness
into the first feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly—with a tortoise
gradation—approached the faint gray dawn of the psyche day. A torpid
uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No care—no hope—no effort.
Then, after a long interval, a ringing in the ears; then, after a lapse still
longer, a prickling or tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly
eternal period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings
are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking into non-entity; then a
sudden recovery. At length the slight quivering of an eyelid, and immediately
thereupon, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which sends
the blood in torrents from the temples to the heart. And now the first positive
effort to think. And now the first endeavor to remember. And now a partial and
evanescent success. And now the memory has so far regained its dominion, that,
in some measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking from
ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to catalepsy. And now, at
last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the
one grim Danger—by the one spectral and ever-prevalent idea.
For some minutes after this fancy
possessed me, I remained without motion. And why? I could not summon courage to
move. I dared not make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate—and yet
there was something at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair—such as
no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being—despair alone urged me,
after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted them.
It was dark—all dark. I knew that the fit was over. I knew that the crisis of
my disorder had long passed. I knew that I had now fully recovered the use of
my visual faculties—and yet it was dark—all dark—the intense and utter ray
lessness of the Night that endured for evermore.
I endeavored to shriek; and my lips
and my parched tongue moved convulsively together in the attempt—but no voice
issued from the cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some
incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every elaborate
and struggling inspiration.
The movement of the jaws, in this
effort to cry aloud, showed me that they were bound up, as is usual with the
dead. I felt, too, that I lay upon some hard substance, and by something
similar my sides were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to
stir any of my limbs—but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been lying
at length, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden substance, which
extended above my person at an elevation of not more than six inches from my
face. I could no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last.
And now, amid all my infinite
miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed
and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt
my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled
forever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could not help
perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so carefully prepared—and
then, too, there came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist
earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not within the vault. I had
fallen into a trance while absent from home—while among strangers—when, or how,
I could not remember—and it was they who had buried me as a dog—nailed up in
some common coffin—and thrust deep, deep, and forever, into some ordinary and
nameless grave.
As this awful conviction forced
itself, thus, into the innermost chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to
cry aloud. And in this second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and
continuous shriek, or yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the
subterranean Night.
“Hilo! hello, there!” said a gruff
voice, in reply.
“What the devil’s the matter now!”
said a second.
“Get out o’ that!” said a third.
“What do you mean by yowling in that
were kind of style, like a catty mount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was
seized and shaken without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very
rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber—for I was
wide awake when I screamed—but they restored me to the full possession of my
memory.
This adventure occurred near
Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by a friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning
expedition, some miles down the banks of the James River. Night approached, and
we were overtaken by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the
stream, and laden with garden mold, afforded us the only available shelter. We
made the best of it and passed the night on board. I slept in one of the only
two berths in the vessel—and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need
scarcely be described. That which I occupied had no bedding of any kind. Its
extreme width was eighteen inches. The distance of its bottom from the deck
overhead was precisely the same. I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to
squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my
vision—for it was no dream, and no nightmare—arose naturally from the
circumstances of my position—from my ordinary bias of thought—and from the
difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my senses, and especially of
regaining my memory, for a long time after awaking from slumber. The men who
shook me were the crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it.
From the load itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a
silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of my customary
nightcap.
The tortures endured, however, were
indubitably quite equal for the time, to those of actual sepulture. They were
fearfully—they were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for
their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul
acquired tone—acquired temper. I went abroad. I took vigorous exercise. I
breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought upon other subjects than Death. I
discarded my medical books. “Buchan” I burned. I read no “Night Thoughts”—no
fustian about churchyards—no bugaboo tales—such as this. In short, I became a
new man, and lived a man’s life. From that memorable night, I dismissed forever
my charnel apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of
which, perhaps, they had been less the consequence than the cause.
There are moments when, even to the
sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of
a Hell—but the imagination of man is no Carat his, to explore with impunity its
every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as
altogether fanciful—but, like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his
voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us—they must be
suffered to slumber, or we perish.
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
The garden like a
lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she
slumbered in delight,
And to the open
skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields
of Heaven were ‘assembled right
In a large round,
set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce,
and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon
their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling
stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.
FROM his cradle to his grave a gale
of prosperity bore my friend Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in
its mere worldly sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of
whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet—of exemplifying by individual instance what
has been deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief existence of Ellison,
I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in man’s very nature lies some
hidden principle, the antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his career
has given me to understand that in general, from the violation of a few simple
laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind—that as a species we have
in our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content—and that, even now,
in the present darkness and madness of all thought on the great question of the
social condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under certain
unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy.
With opinions such as these my young
friend, too, was fully imbued, and thus it is worthy of observation that the
uninterrupted enjoyment which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the
result of preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the instinctive
philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the stead of experience, Mr.
Ellison would have found himself precipitated, by the very extraordinary
success of his life, into the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for
those of pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object to pen an
essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few words. He
admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss.
That which he considered chief was (strange to say!) the simple and purely
physical one of free exercise in the open air. “The health,” he said,
“attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name.” He instanced the
ecstasies of the foxhunter, and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only
people who, as a class, can be fairly considered happier than others. His
second condition was the love of woman. His third, and most difficult of realization,
was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit;
and he held that, other things being equal, the extent of attainable happiness
was in proportion to the spirituality of this object.
Ellison was remarkable in the
continuous profusion of good gifts lavished upon him by fortune. In personal
grace and beauty, he exceeded all men. His intellect was of that order to which
the acquisition of knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a necessity.
His family was one of the most illustrious of the empire. His bride was the
loveliest and most devoted of women. His possessions had been always ample; but
on the attainment of his majority, it was discovered that one of those
extraordinary freaks of fate had been played in his behalf which startle the
whole social world amid which they occur, and seldom fail radically to alter
the moral constitution of those who are their objects.
It appears that about a hundred
years before Mr. Ellison’s coming of age, there had died, in a remote province,
one Mr. Seabright Ellison. This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and,
having no immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to
accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing
the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the
nearest of blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who should be alive at the end
of the hundred years. Many attempts had been made to set aside this singular
bequest; their ex post facto character rendered them abortive; but the
attention of a jealous government was aroused, and a legislative act finally obtained,
forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however, did not prevent young
Ellison from entering possession, on his twenty-first birthday, as the heir of
his ancestor Seabright, of a fortune of four hundred and fifty million of
dollars. (*1)
When it had become known that such
was the enormous wealth inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as
to the mode of its disposal. The magnitude and the immediate availability of
the sum bewildered all who thought on the topic. The possessor of any
appreciable amount of money might have been imagined performing any one of a
thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would
have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable
extravagances of his time—or busying himself with political intrigue—or aiming
at ministerial power—or purchasing increase of nobility—or collecting large
museums of virtual—or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of
art—or endowing, and bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity.
But for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of the heir, these
objects and all ordinary objects were felt to afford too limited a field.
Recourse was had to figures, and these but sufficed to confound. It was seen
that, even at three per cent., the annual income of the inheritance amounted to
no less than thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was one
million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or thirty-six
thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or one thousand five hundred and
forty-one per hour; or six and twenty dollars for every minute that flew. Thus,
the usual track of supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to
imagine. There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest
himself of at least one-half of his fortune, as of utterly superfluous
opulence—enriching whole troops of his relatives by division of his
superabundance. To the nearest of these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual
wealth which was his own before the inheritance.
I was not surprised, however, to
perceive that he had long made up his mind on a point which had occasioned so
much discussion to his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of
his decision. Regarding individual charities he had satisfied his conscience.
In the possibility of any improvement, properly so called, being affected by
man himself in the general condition of man, he had (I am sorry to confess it)
little faith. Upon the whole, whether happily or unhappily, he was thrown back,
in very great measure, upon self.
In the widest and noblest sense, he
was a poet. He comprehended, moreover, the true character, the august aims, the
supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the
sole proper satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his early
education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with what is termed
materialism all his ethical speculations; and it was this bias, perhaps, which
led him to believe that the most advantageous at least, if not the sole
legitimate field for the poetic exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods
of purely physical loveliness. Thus, it happened he became neither musician nor
poet—if we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or it might have
been that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of his idea that
in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the essential principles of
happiness on earth. Is it not indeed, possible that, while a high order of
genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed
ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have
contentedly remained “mute and inglorious?” I believe that the world has never
seen—and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest
order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never see—that full
extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the
human nature is absolutely capable.
Ellison became neither musician nor
poet; although no man lived more profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under
other circumstances than those which invested him, it is not impossible that he
would have become a painter. Sculpture, although in its nature rigorously
poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences, to have occupied, at
any time, much of his attention. And I have now mentioned all the provinces in
which the common understanding of the poetic sentiment has declared it capable
of expatiating. But Ellison maintained that the richest, the truest, and most
natural, if not altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably
neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of the poet;
yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the landscape-garden offered to
the proper Muse the most magnificent of opportunities. Here, indeed, was the
fairest field for the display of imagination in the endless combining of forms
of novel beauty; the elements to enter combination being, by a vast
superiority, the most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform
and multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he recognized the most direct and
energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in the direction or
concentration of this effort—or, more properly, in its adaptation to the eyes
which were to behold it on earth—he perceived that he should be employing the
best means—laboring to the greatest advantage—in the fulfilment, not only of
his own destiny as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had
implanted the poetic sentiment in man.
“It's adaptation to the eyes which
were to behold it on earth.” In his explanation of this phraseology, Mr.
Ellison did much toward solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:—I mean
the fact (which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of
scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such
paradises are to be found as have glowed on the canvas of Claude. In the most
enchanting of natural landscapes, there will always be found a defect or an excess—many
excesses and defects. While the component parts may defy, individually, the
highest skill of the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be
susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on the wide
surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye, looking steadily,
will not find matter of offence in what is termed the “composition” of the
landscape. And yet how unintelligible is this! In all other matters we are
justly instructed to regard nature as supreme. With her details we shrink from
competition. Who shall presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve
the proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of
sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or idealized rather
than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points
of human liveliness do more than approach the living and breathing beauty. In
landscape alone is the principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth
here, it is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I say, felt its
truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or chimera. The mathematics
afford no more absolute demonstrations than the sentiments of his art yields
the artist. He not only believes, but positively knows, that such and such
apparently arbitrary arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute the
true beauty. His reasons, however, have not yet been matured into expression.
It remains for a more profound analysis than the world has yet seen, fully to
investigate and express them. Nevertheless, he is confirmed in his instinctive
opinions by the voice of all his brethren. Let a “composition” be defective;
let an emendation be wrought in its mere arrangement of form; let this
emendation be submitted to every artist in the world; by each will its
necessity be admitted. And even far more than this: —in remedy of the defective
composition, each insulated member of the fraternity would have suggested the
identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape
arrangements alone is the physical nature susceptible of exaltation, and that,
therefore, her susceptibility of improvement at this one point, was a mystery I
had been unable to solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea
that the primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth’s
surface as to have fulfilled at all points man’s sense of perfection in the
beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this primitive intention
had been frustrated by the known geological disturbances—disturbances of form
and color—grouping, in the correction or allaying of which lies the soul of
art. The force of this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which
it involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadopted to any
purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of death. He
thus explained: —Admit the earthly immortality of man to have been the first
intention. We have then the primitive arrangement of the earth’s surface
adapted to his blissful estate, as not existent but designed. The disturbances
were the preparations for his subsequently conceived deathful condition.
“Now,” said my friend, “what we
regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such, as respects only the
moral or human point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may
possibly affect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed
at large—in mass—from some point distant from the earth’s surface, although not
beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily understood that what might
improve a closely scrutinized detail, may at the same time injure a general or
more distantly observed effect. There may be a class of beings, human once, but
now invisible to humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order—our picturesqueness
picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for whose scrutiny more especially
than our own, and for whose death-refined appreciation of the beautiful, may
have been set in array by God the wide landscape-gardens of the hemispheres.”
In the course of discussion, my
friend quoted some passages from a writer on landscape-gardening who has been
supposed to have well treated his theme:
“There are properly but two styles
of landscape-gardening, the natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the
original beauty of the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding
scenery, cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of the neighboring
land; detecting and bringing into practice those nice relations of size,
proportion, and color which, hid from the common observer, are revealed
everywhere to the experienced student of nature. The result of the natural
style of gardening, is seen rather in the absence of all defects and
incongruities—in the prevalence of a healthy harmony and order—than in the
creation of any special wonders or miracles. The artificial style has as many
varieties as there are different tastes to gratify. It has a certain general
relation to the various styles of building. There are the stately avenues and
retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various mixed old English
style, which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan
architecture. Whatever may be said against the abuses of the artificial
landscape-gardening, a mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great
beauty. This is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design,
and partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss-covered balustrade, calls up at
once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in other days. The
slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care and human interest.”
“From what I have already observed,”
said Ellison, “you will understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of
recalling the original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never so
great as that which may be introduced. Of course, everything depends on the
selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said about detecting and
bringing into practice nice relations of size, proportion, and color, is one of
those mere vagueness's of speech which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The
phrase quoted may mean anything, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the
true result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence of
all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special wonders or
miracles, is a proposition better suited to the groveling apprehension of the
herd than to the fervid dreams of the man of genius. The negative merit
suggested appertains to that hobbling criticism which, in letters, would
elevate Addison into apotheosis. In truth, while that virtue which consists in
the mere avoidance of vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can thus
be circumscribed in rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in creation, can be
apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to the merits of denial—to
the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these, the critical art can but suggest.
We may be instructed to build a “Cato,” but we are in vain told how to conceive
a Parthenon or an “Inferno.” The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished;
and the capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at creation, are
now found the loudest in applause. What, in its chrysalis condition of
principle, affronted their demure reason, never fails, in its maturity of
accomplishment, to extort admiration from their instinct of beauty.
“The author’s observations on the
artificial style,” continued Ellison, “are less objectionable. A mixture of
pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is
the reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is
incontrovertible—but there may be something beyond it. There may be an object
in keeping with the principle—an object unattainable by the means ordinarily
possessed by individuals, yet which, if attained, would lend a charm to the
landscape-garden far surpassing that which a sense of merely human interest
could bestow. A poet, having very unusual pecuniary resources, might, while
retaining the necessary idea of art or culture, or, as our author expresses it,
of interest, so imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of beauty, as
to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen that, in
bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages of interest or
design, while relieving his work of the harshness or technicality of the
worldly art. In the most rugged of wildernesses—in the most savage of the
scenes of pure nature—there is apparent the art of a creator; yet this art is
apparent to reflection only; in no respect has it the obvious force of a
feeling. Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty design to be one step
depressed—to be brought into something like harmony or consistency with the
sense of human art—to form an intermedium between the two:—let us imagine, for
example, a landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness—whose united
beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of care, or
culture, or superintendence, on the part of beings superior, yet akin to
humanity—then the sentiment of interest is preserved, while the art intervolved
is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary nature—a nature which
is not God, nor an emanation from God, but which still is nature in the sense
of the handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God.”
It was in devoting his enormous
wealth to the embodiment of a vision such as this—in the free exercise in the
open air ensured by the personal superintendence of his plans—in the unceasing
object which these plans afforded—in the high spirituality of the object—in the
contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel—in the perennial
springs with which it gratified, without possibility of satiating, that one
master passion of his soul, the thirst for beauty, above all, it was in the
sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly, whose loveliness and love enveloped his
existence in the purple atmosphere of Paradise, that Ellison thought to find,
and found, exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater
amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De
Stael.
I despair of conveying to the reader
any distinct conception of the marvels which my friend did accomplish. I wish
to describe, but am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and hesitate
between detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will be to unite the
two in their extremes.
Mr. Ellison’s first step regarded,
of course, the choice of a locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on
this point, when the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his
attention. In fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas,
when a night’s reflection induced him to abandon the idea. “Were I
misanthropic,” he said, “such a locale would suit me. The thoroughness of its
insulation and seclusion, and the difficulty of ingress and egress, would in
such case be the charm of charms; but I am not Timon. I wish the composure but
not the depression of solitude. There must remain with me a certain control over
the extent and duration of my repose. There will be frequent hours in which I
shall need, too, the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done. Let me seek,
then, a spot not far from a populous city—whose vicinity, also, will best
enable me to execute my plans.”
In search of a suitable place so
situated, Ellison travelled for several years, and I was permitted to accompany
him. A thousand spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without
hesitation, for reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We
came at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that of Aetna,
and, in Ellison’s opinion as well as my own, surpassing the far-famed view from
that mountain in all the true elements of the picturesque.
“I am aware,” said the traveler, as
he drew a sigh of deep delight after gazing on this scene, entranced, for
nearly an hour, “I know that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the most
fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama is indeed glorious, and I
should rejoice in it but for the excess of its glory. The taste of all the
architects I have ever known leads them, for the sake of ‘prospect,’ to put up
buildings on hill tops. The error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods, but
especially in that of extent, startles, excites—and then fatigues, depresses.
For the occasional scene nothing can be better—for the constant view nothing
worse. And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur is
that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is at war with
the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion—the sentiment and sense which we
seek to humor in ‘retiring to the country.’ In looking from the summit of a mountain
we cannot help feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant
prospects as a pestilence.”
It was not until toward the close of
the fourth year of our search that we found a locality with which Ellison
professed himself satisfied. It is, of course, where was the locality. The late
death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open to certain classes
of visitors, has given to Arnhem a species of secret and subdued if not solemn
celebrity, similar in kind, although infinitely superior in degree, to that
which so long distinguished Foothill.
The usual approach to Arnhem was by
the river. The visitor left the city in the early morning. During the forenoon
he passed between shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of rolling
meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that of merely
pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of retirement—this again in
a consciousness of solitude. As the evening approached, the channel grew narrower,
the banks more and more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich,
more profuse, and more somber foliage. The water increased in transparency. The
stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its gleaming surface
be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At every instant the vessel
seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable
walls of foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor—the keel balancing
itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some accident
having been turned upside down, floated in constant company with the
substantial one, for the purpose of sustaining it. The channel now became a
gorge—although the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely
because the language has no word which better represents the most striking—not
the most distinctive—feature of the scene. The character of gorge was
maintained only in the height and parallelism of the shores; it was lost
altogether in their other traits. The walls of the ravine (through which the
clear water still tranquilly flowed) arose to an elevation of a hundred and
occasionally of a hundred and fifty feet, and inclined so much toward each
other as, in a great measure, to shut out the light of day; while the long
plume-like moss which depended densely from the intertwining shrubberies
overhead, gave the whole chasm an air of funereal gloom. The windings became
more frequent and intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon
themselves, so that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction. He was,
moreover, enwrap in an exquisite sense of the strange. The thought of nature remained,
but her character seemed to have undergone modification, there was a weird
symmetry, a thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her works. Not a
dead branch—not a withered leaf—not a stray pebble—not a patch of the brown
earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water welled up against the clean
granite, or the unblemished moss, with a sharpness of outline that delighted
while it bewildered the eye.
Having threaded the mazes of this
channel for some hours, the gloom deepening every moment, a sharp and
unexpected turn of the vessel brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven,
into a circular basin of very considerable extent when compared with the width
of the gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter and girt in at all
points but one—that immediately fronting the vessel as it entered—by hills
equal in general height to the walls of the chasm, although of a thoroughly
different character. Their sides sloped from the water’s edge at an angle of
some forty-five degrees, and they were clothed from base to summit—not a
perceptible point escaping—in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms;
scarcely a green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating
color. This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the water that the
bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round alabaster
pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses—that is to say, whenever the eye
could permit itself not to see, far down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate
blooming of the hills. On these latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of
any size. The impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness,
warmth, color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness,
voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that suggested dreams
of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and fastidious; but
as the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction with
the water to its vague termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud, it
became, indeed, difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies,
sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.
The visitor, shooting suddenly into
this bay from out the gloom of the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the
full orb of the declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below
the horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination of an
otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm-like rift in the hills.
But here the voyager quits the
vessel which has borne him so far, and descends into a light canoe of ivory,
stained with arabesque devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The
poop and beak of this boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so
that the general form is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the surface
of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On its ermined floor reposes a
single feathery paddle of satinwood; but no oarsmen or attendant is to be seen.
The guest is bidden to be of good cheer—that the fates will take care of him.
The larger vessel disappears, and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies
apparently motionless in the middle of the lake. While he considers what course
to pursue, however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It
slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It advances
with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the slight ripples it
creates seem to break about the ivory side in divinest melody-seem to offer the
only possible explanation of the soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen
origin the bewildered voyager looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the
rocky gate of the vista is approached, so that its depths can be more
distinctly seen. To the right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and
luxuriantly wooded. It is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite
cleanness where the bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one
token of the usual river debris. To the left the character of the scene is
softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes upward from the
stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of grass of a texture
resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy of green which would
bear comparison with the tint of the purest emerald. This plateau varies in
width from ten to three hundred yards; reaching from the river-bank to a wall,
fifty feet high, which extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the
general direction of the river, until lost in the distance to the westward.
This wall is of one continuous rock and has been formed by cutting
perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of the stream’s southern bank, but no
trace of the labor has been suffered to remain. The chiseled stone has the hue
of ages, and is profusely overhung and overspread with the ivy, the coral
honeysuckle, the eglantine, and the clematis. The uniformity of the top and
bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of gigantic
height, growing singly or in small groups, both along the plateau and in the
domain behind the wall, but in close proximity to it; so that frequent limbs
(of the black walnut especially) reach over and dip their pendent extremities
into the water. Farther back within the domain, the vision is impeded by an
impenetrable screen of foliage.
These things are observed during the
canoe’s gradual approach to what I have called the gate of the vista. On
drawing nearer to this, however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new
outlet from the bay is discovered to the left—in which direction the wall is
also seen to sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down this
new opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream, accompanied by
the wall, still bends to the left, until both are swallowed up by the leaves.
The boat, nevertheless, glides
magically into the winding channel; and here the shore opposite the wall is
found to resemble that opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty hills,
rising occasionally into mountains, and covered with vegetation in wild
luxuriance, still shut in the scene.
Floating gently onward, but with a
velocity slightly augmented, the voyager, after many short turns, finds his
progress apparently barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold,
elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of the now
fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the whole surrounding
forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty wall; which here appears
to cross the river at right angles. In a few moments, however, it is seen that
the main body of the water still sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the
left, the wall following it as before, while a stream of considerable volume,
diverging from the principal one, makes its way, with a slight ripple, under
the door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser
channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and musically
expanded. The boat glides between them and commences a rapid descent into a
vast Amphitheatre entirely be girt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved
by a gleaming river throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the
whole Paradise of Arnhem bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing
melody; there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor,—there is a
dream-like intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern trees—bosky
shrubberies—flocks of golden and crimson birds—lily-fringed lakes—meadows of
violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses—long intertangled lines of
silver streamlets—and, up springing confusedly from amid all, a mass of
semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture sustaining itself by miracle in
mid-air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and
pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the
Fairies, of the Genii and of the Gnomes.
LANDOR’S COTTAGE
A Pendant to “The
Domain of Arnhem”
DURING A pedestrian trip last
summer, through one or two of the river counties of New York, I found myself,
as the day declined, somewhat embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The
land undulated very remarkably; and my path, for the last hour, had wound about
and about so confusedly, in its effort to keep in the valleys, that I no longer
knew in what direction lay the sweet village of B——, where I had determined to
stop for the night. The sun had scarcely shone—strictly speaking—during the
day, which nevertheless, had been unpleasantly warm. A smoky mist, resembling
that of the Indian summer, enveloped all things, and of course, added to my
uncertainty. Not that I cared much about the matter. If I did not hit upon the
village before sunset, or even before dark, it was more than possible that a
little Dutch farmhouse, or something of that kind, would soon make its
appearance—although, in fact, the neighborhood (perhaps on account of being
more picturesque than fertile) was very sparsely inhabited. At all events, with
my knapsack for a pillow, and my hound as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air
was just the thing which would have amused me. I sauntered on, therefore, quite
at ease—Ponto taking charge of my gun—until at length, just as I had begun to
consider whether the numerous little glades that led hither and thither, were
intended to be paths at all, I was conducted by one of them into an
unquestionable carriage track. There could be no mistaking it. The traces of
light wheels were evident; and although the tall shrubberies and overgrown
undergrowth met overhead, there was no obstruction whatever below, even to the
passage of a Virginian mountain wagon—the most aspiring vehicle, I take it, of
its kind. The road, however, except in being open through the wood—if wood be
not too weighty a name for such an assemblage of light trees—and except in the
particulars of evident wheel-tracks—bore no resemblance to any road I had
before seen. The tracks of which I speak were but faintly perceptible—having
been impressed upon the firm, yet pleasantly moist surface of—what looked more
like green Genoese velvet than anything else. It was grass, clearly—but grass
such as we seldom see out of England—so short, so thick, so even, and so vivid
in color. Not a single impediment lay in the wheel-route—not even a chip or dead
twig. The stones that once obstructed the way had been carefully placed—not
thrown-along the sides of the lane, to define its boundaries at bottom with a
kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque definition. Clumps
of wildflowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, in the interspaces.
What to make of all this, of course
I knew not. Here was art undoubtedly—that did not surprise me—all roads, in the
ordinary sense, are works of art; nor can I say that there was much to wonder
at in the mere excess of art manifested; all that seemed to have been done,
might have been done here—with such natural “capabilities” (as they have it in
the books on Landscape Gardening)—with very little labor and expense. No; it
was not the amount but the character of the art which caused me to take a seat
on one of the blossomy stones and gaze up and down this fairy-like avenue for
half an hour or more in bewildered admiration. One thing became more and more
evident the longer I gazed: an artist, and one with a most scrupulous eye for
form, had superintended all these arrangements. The greatest care had been
taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and graceful on the one hand,
and the picturesque, in the true sense of the Italian term, on the other. There
were few straight, and no long uninterrupted lines. The same effect of
curvature or of color appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one
point of view. Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of
“composition,” in which the most fastidiously critical taste could scarcely
have suggested an emendation.
I had turned to the right as I
entered this road, and now, arising, I continued in the same direction. The
path was so serpentine, that at no moment could I trace its course for more
than two or three paces in advance. Its character did not undergo any material
change.
Presently the murmur of water fell
gently upon my ear—and in a few moments afterward, as I turned with the road
somewhat more abruptly than hitherto, I became aware that a building of some
kind lay at the foot of a gentle declivity just before me. I could see nothing
distinctly on account of the mist which occupied all the little valley below. A
gentle breeze, however, now arose, as the sun was about descending; and while I
remained standing on the brow of the slope, the fog gradually became dissipated
into wreaths, and so floated over the scene.
As it came fully into view—thus
gradually as I describe it—piece by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of
water, and here again the summit of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying
that the whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under the
name of “vanishing pictures.”
By the time, however, that the fog
had thoroughly disappeared, the sun had made its way down behind the gentle
hills, and thence, as if with a slight chasses to the south, had come again
fully into sight, glaring with a purplish luster through a chasm that entered
the valley from the west. Suddenly, therefore—and as if by the hand of
magic—this whole valley and everything in it became brilliantly visible.
The first coup devil, as the sun
slid into the position described, impressed me very much as I have been
impressed, when a boy, by the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical
spectacle or melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was wanting; for the
sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange and purple; while the
vivid green of the grass in the valley was reflected more or less upon all
objects from the curtain of vapor that still hung overhead, as if loth to take
its total departure from a scene so enchantingly beautiful.
The little vale into which I thus
peered down from under the fog canopy could not have been more than four
hundred yards long; while in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and
fifty or perhaps two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern extremity,
opening out as it tended southwardly, but with no very precise regularity. The
widest portion was within eighty yards of the southern extreme. The slopes which
encompassed the vale could not fairly be called hills, unless at their northern
face. Here a precipitous ledge of granite arose to a height of some ninety
feet; and, as I have mentioned, the valley at this point was not more than
fifty feet wide; but as the visitor proceeded southwardly from the cliff, he
found on his right hand and on his left, declivities at once less high, less
precipitous, and less rocky. All, in a word, sloped and softened to the south;
and yet the whole vale was engirdled by eminences, high, except at two points.
One of these I have already spoken of. It lay considerably to the north of
west, and was where the setting sun made its way, as I have before described,
into the Amphitheatre, through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the granite
embankment; this fissure might have been ten yards wide at its widest point, so
far as the eye could trace it. It seemed to lead up, up like a natural causeway,
into the recesses of unexplored mountains and forests. The other opening was
directly at the southern end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were
nothing more than gentle inclinations, extending from east to west about one
hundred and fifty yards. In the middle of this extent was a depression, level
with the ordinary floor of the valley. As regards vegetation, as well as in
respect to everything else, the scene softened and sloped to the south. To the
north—on the craggy precipice—a few paces from the verge—up sprang the
magnificent trunks of numerous hickories, black walnuts, and chestnuts,
interspersed with occasional oak, and the strong lateral branches thrown out by
the walnuts especially, spread far over the edge of the cliff. Proceeding
southwardly, the explorer saw, at first, the same class of trees, but less and
less lofty and Salvatore's in character; then he saw the gentler elm, succeeded
by the sassafras and locust—these again by the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa,
and maple—these yet again by still more graceful and more modest varieties. The
whole face of the southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alone—an
occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. In the bottom of the valley
itself— (for it must be borne in mind that the vegetation hitherto mentioned
grew only on the cliffs or hillsides)—were to be seen three insulated trees.
One was an elm of fine size and exquisite form: it stood guard over the
southern gate of the vale. Another was a hickory, much larger than the elm, and
altogether a much finer tree, although both were exceedingly beautiful: it
seemed to have taken charge of the northwestern entrance, springing from a
group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine, and throwing its graceful body,
at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out into the sunshine of the Amphitheatre.
About thirty yards east of this tree stood, however, the pride of the valley,
and beyond all question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless,
perhaps, among the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee. It was a triple-stemmed
tulip-tree—the Liriodendron Aulopiform—one of the natural order of magnolias.
Its three trunks separated from the parent at about three feet from the soil,
and diverging very slightly and gradually, were not more than four feet apart
at the point where the largest stem shot out into foliage: this was at an
elevation of about eighty feet. The whole height of the principal division was
one hundred and twenty feet. Nothing can surpass in beauty the form, or the
glossy, vivid green of the leaves of the tulip-tree. In the present instance
they were fully eight inches wide; but their glory was altogether eclipsed by
the gorgeous splendor of the profuse blossoms. Conceive, closely congregated, a
million of the largest and most resplendent tulips! Only thus can the reader
get any idea of the picture I would convey. And then the stately grace of the
clean, delicately granulated columnar stems, the largest four feet in diameter,
at twenty from the ground. The innumerable blossoms, mingling with those of
other trees scarcely less beautiful, although infinitely less majestic, filled
the valley with more than Arabian perfumes.
The general floor of the Amphitheatre
was grass of the same character as that I had found in the road; if anything,
more deliciously soft, thick, velvety, and miraculously green. It was hard to
conceive how all this beauty had been attained.
I have spoken of two openings into
the vale. From the one to the northwest issued a rivulet, which came, gently
murmuring and slightly foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed against the
group of rocks out of which sprang the insulated hickory. Here, after
encircling the tree, it passed on a little to the north of east, leaving the
tulip tree some twenty feet to the south, and making no decided alteration in
its course until it came near the midway between the eastern and western
boundaries of the valley. At this point, after a series of sweeps, it turned
off at right angles and pursued a generally southern direction meandering as it
went—until it became lost in a small lake of irregular figure (although roughly
oval), that lay gleaming near the lower extremity of the vale. This lakelet
was, perhaps, a hundred yards in diameter at its widest part. No crystal could be
clearer than its waters. Its bottom, which could be distinctly seen, consisted
altogether, of pebbles brilliantly white. Its banks, of the emerald grass
already described, rounded, rather than sloped, off into the clear heaven
below; and so clear was this heaven, so perfectly, at times, did it reflect all
objects above it, that where the true bank ended and where the mimic one
commenced, it was a point of no little difficulty to determine. The trout, and
some other varieties of fish, with which this pond seemed to be almost
inconveniently crowded, had all the appearance of veritable flying-fish. It was
almost impossible to believe that they were not absolutely suspended in the
air. A light birch canoe that lay placidly on the water, was reflected in its minutest
fibers with a fidelity unsurpassed by the most exquisitely polished mirror. A
small island, fairly laughing with flowers in full bloom, and affording little
more space than just enough for a picturesque little building, seemingly a
fowl-house—arose from the lake not far from its northern shore—to which it was
connected by means of an inconceivably light-looking and yet very primitive
bridge. It was formed of a single, broad and thick plank of the tulip wood.
This was forty feet long and spanned the interval between shore and shore with
a slight but very perceptible arch, preventing all oscillation. From the
southern extreme of the lake issued a continuation of the rivulet, which, after
meandering for, perhaps, thirty yards, finally passed through the “depression”
(already described) in the middle of the southern declivity, and tumbling down
a sheer precipice of a hundred feet, made its devious and unnoticed way to the
Hudson.
The lake was deep—at some points
thirty feet—but the rivulet seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was
about eight. Its bottom and banks were as those of the pond—if a defect could
have been attributed, in point of picturesqueness, it was that of excessive
neatness.
The expanse of the green turf was
relieved, here and there, by an occasional showy shrub, such as the hydrangea,
or the common snowball, or the aromatic syringa; or, more frequently, by a
clump of geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties. These latter grew
in pots which were carefully buried in the soil, to give the plants the
appearance of being indigenous. Besides all this, the lawn’s velvet was exquisitely
spotted with sheep—a considerable flock of which roamed about the vale, in
company with three tamed deer, and a vast number of brilliantly-plumed ducks. A
very large mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals, each
and all.
Along the eastern and western
cliffs—where, toward the upper portion of the Amphitheatre, the boundaries were
precipitous—grew ivy in great profusion—so that only here and there could even
a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained. The northern precipice, in like
manner, was almost entirely clothed by grapevines of rare luxuriance; some
springing from the soil at the base of the cliff, and others from ledges on its
face.
The slight elevation which formed
the lower boundary of this little domain, was crowned by a neat stone wall, of enough
height to prevent the escape of the deer. Nothing of the fence kind was
observable elsewhere; for nowhere else was an artificial enclosure needed:—any
stray sheep, for example, which should attempt to make its way out of the vale
by means of the ravine, would find its progress arrested, after a few yards’
advance, by the precipitous ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that
had arrested my attention as I first drew near the domain. In short, the only
ingress or egress was through a gate occupying a rocky pass in the road, a few
paces below the point at which I stopped to reconnoiter the scene.
I have described the brook as
meandering very irregularly through the whole of its course. Its two general
directions, as I have said, were first from west to east, and then from north
to south. At the turn, the stream, sweeping backward, made an almost circular
loop, to form a peninsula which was very nearly an island, and which included
about the sixteenth of an acre. On this peninsula stood a dwelling-house—and
when I say that this house, like the infernal terrace seen by Vitec, “teat dune
architecture inconnu dans les annals de la Terre,” I mean, merely, that its
tout ensemble struck me with the keenest sense of combined novelty and
propriety—in a word, of poetry—(for, than in the words just employed, I could
scarcely give, of poetry in the abstract, a more rigorous definition)—and I do
not mean that merely outré was perceptible in any respect.
In fact, nothing could well be simpler—more
utterly unpretending than this cottage. Its marvelous effect lay altogether in
its artistic arrangement as a picture. I could have fancied, while I looked at
it, that some eminent landscape-painter had built it with his brush.
The point of view from which I first
saw the valley, was not altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from
which to survey the house. I will therefore describe it as I afterwards saw
it—from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the Amphitheatre.
The main building was about
twenty-four feet long and sixteen broads—certainly not more. Its total height,
from the ground to the apex of the roof, could not have exceeded eighteen feet.
To the west end of this structure was attached one about a third smaller in all
its proportions:—the line of its front standing back about two yards from that
of the larger house, and the line of its roof, of course, being considerably
depressed below that of the roof adjoining. At right angles to these buildings,
and from the rear of the main one—not exactly in the middle—extended a third
compartment, very small—being, in general, one-third less than the western
wing. The roofs of the two larger were very steep—sweeping down from the
ridge-beam with a long concave curve and extending at least four feet beyond
the walls in front, to form the roofs of two piazzas. These latter roofs, of
course, needed no support; but as they had the air of needing it, slight and
perfectly plain pillars were inserted at the corners alone. The roof of the
northern wing was merely an extension of a portion of the main roof. Between
the chief building and western wing arose a very tall and rather slender square
chimney of hard Dutch bricks, alternately black and red: —a slight cornice of
projecting bricks at the top. Over the gables the roofs also projected very much:
—in the main building about four feet to the east and two to the west. The
principal door was not exactly in the main division, being a little to the
east—while the two windows were to the west. These latter did not extend to the
floor but were much longer and narrower than usual—they had single shutters
like doors—the panes were of lozenge form, but quite large. The door itself had
its upper half of glass, also in lozenge panes—a movable shutter secured it at
night. The door to the west wing was in its gable, and quite simple—a single
window looked out to the south. There was no external door to the north wing,
and it also had only one window to the east.
The blank wall of the eastern gable
was relieved by stairs (with a balustrade) running diagonally across it—the
ascent being from the south. Under cover of the widely projecting eave these
steps gave access to a door leading to the garret, or rather loft—for it was
lighted only by a single window to the north and seemed to have been intended
as a storeroom.
The piazzas of the main building and
western wing had no floors, as is usual; but at the doors and at each window,
large, flat irregular slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious turf,
affording comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of the same
material—not nicely adapted, but with the velvety sod filling frequent
intervals between the stones, led hither and thither from the house, to a
crystal spring about five paces off, to the road, or to one or two out-houses
that lay to the north, beyond the brook, and were thoroughly concealed by a few
locusts and catalpas.
Not more than six steps from the
main door of the cottage stood the dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so
clothed from head to foot in the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required
no little scrutiny to determine what manner of sweet thing it could be. From
various arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds. In one, a large wicker
cylinder with a ring at top, reveled a mockingbird; in another an oriole; in a
third the impudent bobo2148link—while three or four more delicate prisons were
loudly vocal with canaries.
The pillars of the piazza were
enwreathed in jasmine and sweet honeysuckle; while from the angle formed by the
main structure and its west wing, in front, sprang a grapevine of unexampled
luxuriance. Scorning all restraint, it had clambered first to the lower
roof—then to the higher; and along the ridge of this latter it continued to
writhe on, throwing out tendrils to the right and left, until at length it
fairly attained the east gable, and fell trailing over the stairs.
The whole house, with its wings, was
constructed of the old-fashioned Dutch shingles—broad, and with unrounded
corners. It is a peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the
appearance of being wider at bottom than at top—after the manner of Egyptian
architecture; and in the present instance, this exceedingly picturesque effect
was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous flowers that almost encompassed the base
of the buildings.
The shingles were painted a dull
gray; and the happiness with which this neutral tint melted into the vivid
green of the tulip tree leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage, can
readily be conceived by an artist.
From the position near the stone
wall, as described, the buildings were seen at great advantage—for the
southeastern angle was thrown forward—so that the eye took in at once the whole
of the two fronts, with the picturesque eastern gable, and at the same time
obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the northern wing, with parts of a pretty
roof to the spring-house, and nearly half of a light bridge that spanned the
brook in the near vicinity of the main buildings.
I did not remain very long on the
brow of the hill, although long enough to make a thorough survey of the scene
at my feet. It was clear that I had wandered from the road to the village, and
I had thus good traveler's excuse to open the gate before me, and inquire my
way, at all events; so, without more ado, I proceeded.
The road, after passing the gate,
seemed to lie upon a natural ledge, sloping gradually down along the face of
the north-eastern cliffs. It led me on to the foot of the northern precipice,
and thence over the bridge, round by the eastern gable to the front door. In
this progress, I took notice that no sight of the outhouses could be obtained.
As I turned the corner of the gable,
the mastiff bounded towards me in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole
air of a tiger. I held him out my hand, however, in token of amity—and I never
yet knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to his courtesy. He not
only shut his mouth and wagged his tail, but absolutely offered me his
paw—afterward extending his civilities to Ponto.
As no bell was discernible, I rapped
with my stick against the door, which stood half open. Instantly a figure
advanced to the threshold—that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of
age—slender, or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium height. As she
approached, with a certain modest decision of step altogether indescribable. I
said to myself, “Surely here I have found the perfection of natural, in
contradistinction from artificial grace.” The second impression which she made
on me, but by far the more vivid of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So intense
an expression of romance, perhaps I should call it, or of unworldliness, as
that which gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so sunk into my heart of
hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of the eye,
wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the most powerful, if not
absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest in woman. “Romance,”
provided my readers fully comprehended what I would here imply by the word— “romance”
and “womanliness” seem to me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly
loves in woman, is simply her womanhood. The eyes of Annie (I heard someone
from the interior call her “Annie, darling!”) were “spiritual grey;” her hair,
a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her.
At her most courteous of
invitations, I entered—passing first into a tolerably wide vestibule. Having
come mainly to observe, I took notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a
window, such as those in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into
the principal room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me to see a small
apartment, just the size of the vestibule, arranged as a study, and having a
large bow window looking out to the north.
Passing into the parlor, I found
myself with Mr. Landor—for this, I afterwards found, was his name. He was
civil, even cordial in his manner, but just then, I was more intent on
observing the arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me,
than the personal appearance of the tenant.
The north wing, I now saw, was a bedchamber,
its door opened into the parlor. West of this door was a single window, looking
toward the brook. At the west end of the parlor, were a fireplace, and a door
leading into the west wing—probably a kitchen.
Nothing could be more rigorously
simple than the furniture of the parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of
excellent texture—a white ground, spotted with small circular green figures. At
the windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet muslin: they were tolerably
full, and hung decisively, perhaps rather formally in sharp, parallel plaits to
the floor—just to the floor. The walls were prepared with a French paper of
great delicacy, a silver ground, with a faint green cord running zigzag
throughout. Its expanse was relieved merely by three of Julien’s exquisite
lithographs a trois crayons, fastened to the wall without frames. One of these
drawings was a scene of Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was
a “carnival piece,” spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek female
head—a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an expression so provokingly
indeterminate, never before arrested my attention.
The more substantial furniture
consisted of a round table, a few chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and
a sofa, or rather “settee;” its material was plain maple painted a creamy
white, slightly interstriae with green; the seat of cane. The chairs and table
were “to match,” but the forms of all had evidently been designed by the same
brain which planned “the grounds;” it is impossible to conceive anything more
graceful.
On the table were a few books, a
large, square, crystal bottle of some novel perfume, a plain ground-glass
astral (not solar) lamp with an Italian shade, and a large vase of resplendently
blooming flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous colors and delicate odor formed
the sole mere decoration of the apartment. The fireplace was nearly filled with
a vase of brilliant geranium. On a triangular shelf in each angle of the room
stood also a similar vase, varied only as to its lovely contents. One or two
smaller bouquets adorned the mantel, and late violets clustered about the open
windows.
It is not the purpose of this work
to do more than give in detail, a picture of Mr. Landor’s residence—as I found
it. How he made it what it was—and why—with some particulars of Mr. Landor
himself—may, possibly form the subject of another article.
WILLIAM WILSON
What say of it?
what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectra in my
path?
Chamberlain's
Phoronid.
LET me call myself, for the present,
William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my
real appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn—for
the horror—for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost regions of the
globe have not the indignant winds bruited its unparalleled infamy. Oh, outcast
of all outcasts most abandoned!—to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its
honors, to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?—and a cloud, dense, dismal,
and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and heaven?
I would not, if I could, here or
to-day, embody a record of my later years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable
crime. This epoch—these later years—took unto themselves a sudden elevation in
turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men usually
grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a
mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I passed, with the stride of a
giant, into more than the enormities of an Elagabalus. What chance—what one
event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death
approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence
over my spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy—I
had nearly said for the pity—of my fellow men. I would fain have them believe
that I have been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human
control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I am about to
give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error. I would have
them allow—what they cannot refrain from allowing—that, although temptation may
have erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted
before—certainly, never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus
suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not now dying a
victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions?
I am the descendant of a race whose
imaginative and easily excitable temperament has always rendered them
remarkable; and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully
inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly
developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude to my
friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the
wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded,
and beset with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could do
but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble
and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of
course, in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law;
and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was
left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of
my own actions.
My earliest recollections of a
school-life relate to a large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking
village of England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and
where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dream-like
and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this moment, in fancy, I
feel the refreshing chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the
fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable
delight, at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with
sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the
fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.
It gives me, perhaps, as much of
pleasure as I can now in any manner experience, to dwell upon minute
recollections of the school and its concerns. Steeped in misery as I am—misery,
alas! only too real—I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and
temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly
trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious
importance, as connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognize
the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so fully
overshadowed me. Let me then remember.
The house, I have said, was old and
irregular. The grounds were extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped
with a bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a week—once
every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers, we were permitted to
take brief walks in a body through some of the neighboring fields—and twice during
Sunday, when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and
evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church the principal
of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I
want to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and
slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely
benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig so minutely
powdered, so rigid and so vast,—-could this be he who, of late, with sour
visage, and in snuff habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian
laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!
At an angle of the ponderous wall
frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts and
surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it
inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and
ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we
found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more
solemn meditation.
The extensive enclosure was
irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of
the largest constituted the playground. It was level and covered with fine hard
gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar
within it. Of course, it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small
parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred division
we passed only upon rare occasions indeed—such as a first advent to school or
final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having called for
us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house! —how quaint an old
building was this! —to me how veritably a palace of enchantment! There was
really no end to its windings—to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was
difficult, at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two stories
one happened to be. From each room to every other there were sure to be found
three or four steps either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches were
innumerable—inconceivable—and so returning in upon themselves, that our most
exact ideas regarding the whole mansion were not very far different from those
with which we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence
here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay
the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty
other scholars.
The schoolroom was the largest in
the house—I could not help thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow,
and dismally low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote
and terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet,
comprising the sanctum, “during hours,” of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Brans
by. It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the
absence of the “Dominic,” we would all have willingly perished by the pine
forte et dare. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far less
reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of these was the
pulpit of the “classical” usher, one of the “English and mathematical.”
Interspersed about the room, crossing and reclosing in endless irregularity,
were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled
desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so be seamed with initial letters,
names at full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts of the
knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have been
their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the other.
Encompassed by the massy walls of
this venerable academy, I passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of
the third lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no
external world of incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal
monotony of a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper
youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must
believe that my first mental development had in it much of the uncommon—even
much of the outré. Upon mankind at large the events of very early existence
rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray shadow—a weak
and irregular remembrance—an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and
phantasmagoric pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt
with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid,
as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian medals.
Yet in fact—in the fact of the
world’s view—how little was there to remember! The morning’s awakening, the
nightly summons to bed; the cunnings, the recitations; the periodical
half-holidays, and perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its
pastimes, its intrigues;—these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made
to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an universe of
varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and spirit-stirring. “Oh, le
bon temps, que cue siècle de far!”
In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm,
and the imperiousness of my disposition, soon rendered me a marked character
among my schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an
ascendancy overall not greatly older than myself;—over all with a single
exception. This exception was found in the person of a scholar, who, although
no relation, bore the same Christian and surname as myself;—a circumstance, in
fact, little remarkable; for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of
those everyday appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been,
time out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have
therefore designated myself as William Wilson, —a fictitious title not very
dissimilar to the real. My namesake alone, of those who in school phraseology
constituted “our set,” presumed to compete with me in the studies of the
class—in the sports and broils of the play-ground—to refuse implicit belief in
my assertions, and submission to my will—indeed, to interfere with my arbitrary
dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there is on earth a supreme and
unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the
less energetic spirits of its companions.
Wilson’s rebellion was to me a
source of the greatest embarrassment;—the more so as, in spite of the bravado
with which in public I made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly
felt that I feared him, and could not help thinking the equality which he
maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority; since not to
be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this superiority—even this
equality—was in truth acknowledged by only me; our associates, by some
unaccountable blindness, seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his
competition, his resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged
interference with my purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared
to be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy
of mind which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed
actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself;
although there were times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up
of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his
insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly
most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this singular
behavior to arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of
patronage and protection.
Perhaps it was this latter trait in
Wilson’s conduct, conjoined with our identity of name, and the mere accident of
our having entered the school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion
that we were brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not
usually inquire with much strictness into the affairs of their juniors. I have
before said, or should have said, that Wilson was not, in the most remote
degree, connected with my family. But assuredly if we had been brothers we must
have been twins; for, after leaving Dr. Barnaby's, I casually learned that my
namesake was born on the nineteenth of January, 1813—and this is a somewhat
remarkable coincidence; for the day is precisely that of my own nativity.
It may seem strange that despite the
continual anxiety occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable
spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We
had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me publicly the
palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he
who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride on my part, and a veritable dignity
on his own, kept us always upon what are called “speaking terms,” while there
were many points of strong congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake me
in a sentiment which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into
friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my real
feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous admixture; —some
petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some esteem, more respect, much
fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity. To the moralist it will be unnecessary
to say, in addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of
companions.
It was no doubt the anomalous state
of affairs existing between us, which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they
were many, either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke
(giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into a more
serious and determined hostility. But my endeavors on this head were by no
means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most wittily concocted;
for my namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and quiet
austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of
Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find,
indeed, but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity,
arising, perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any
antagonist less at his wit’s end than myself;—my rival had a weakness in the
faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his voice at any
time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did not fail to take what poor
advantage lay in my power.
Wilson’s retaliations in kind were
many; and there was one form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond
measure. How his sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would
vex me, is a question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he
habitually practiced the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly
patronymic, and it's very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words were
venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second William Wilson
came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the name, and
doubly disgusted with the name because a stranger bore it, who would be the
cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my presence, and
whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the school business, must
inevitably, on account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with
my own.
The feeling of vexation thus
engendered grew stronger with every circumstance tending to show resemblance,
moral or physical, between my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the
remarkable fact that we were of the same age; but I saw that we were of the
same height, and I perceived that we were even singularly alike in general
contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the rumor
touching a relationship, which had grown current in the upper forms. In a word,
nothing could more seriously disturb me, (although I scrupulously concealed
such disturbance,) than any allusion to a similarity of mind, person, or
condition existing between us. But, in truth, I had no reason to believe that
(with the exception of the matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson
himself,) this similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even
observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings,
and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such
circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be attributed, as I
said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.
His cue, which was to perfect an
imitation of myself, lay both in words and in actions; and most admirably did
he play his part. My dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general
manner were, without difficulty, appropriated; despite his constitutional
defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were, of course, attempted,
but then the key, it was identical; and his singular whisper, it grew the very
echo of my own.
How greatly this most exquisite
portraiture harassed me, (for it could not justly be termed a caricature,) I
will not now venture to describe. I had but one consolation—in the fact that
the imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to
endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake himself.
Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended effect, he seemed to
chuckle in secret over the sting he had inflicted and was characteristically
disregardful of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavors
might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his
design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for
many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his
copy rendered it not so readily perceptible; or, more possibly, I owed my
security to the master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, (which
in a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit of his
original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken
of the disgusting air of patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his
frequent officious interference with my will. This interference often took the
ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given but hinted or
insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in
years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple justice to
acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the suggestions of my rival were
on the side of those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming
inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general talents and
worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day, have been
a better, and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels
embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too
bitterly despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive
in the extreme under his distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and
more openly what I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in
the first years of our connection as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to him
might have been easily ripened into friendship: but, in the latter months of my
residence at the academy, although the intrusion of his ordinary manner had,
beyond doubt, in some measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar
proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw
this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.
It was about the same period, if I
remember aright, that, in an altercation of violence with him, in which he was
more than usually thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of
demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I discovered,
in his accent, his air, and general appearance, a something which first startled,
and then deeply interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest
infancy—wild, confused and thronging memories of a time when memory herself was
yet unborn. I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by
saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having been
acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago—some
point of the past even infinitely remote. The delusion, however, faded rapidly
as it came; and I mention it at all but to define the day of the last
conversation I there held with my singular namesake.
The huge old house, with its
countless subdivisions, had several large chambers communicating with each other,
where slept the greater number of the students. There were, however, (as must
necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many little nooks or
recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and these the economic ingenuity
of Dr. Brans by had also fitted up as dormitories; although, being the merest closets,
they were capable of accommodating but a single individual. One of these small
apartments was occupied by Wilson.
One night, about the close of my
fifth year at the school, and immediately after the altercation just mentioned,
finding every one wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole
through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that of my
rival. I had long been plotting one of those ill-natured pieces of practical
wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It
was my intention, now, to put my scheme in operation, and I resolved to make
him feel the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued. Having reached
his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on
the outside. I advanced a step and listened to the sound of his tranquil
breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light, and with it
again approached the bed. Close curtains were around it, which, in the
prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the bright rays
fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the same moment, upon his
countenance. I looked; —and a numbness, an iciness of feeling instantly
pervaded my frame. My breast heaved, my knees tottered, my whole spirit became
possessed with an objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I
lowered the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these—these the
lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but I shook as
if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What was there about them
to confound me in this manner? I gazed; —while my brain reeled with a multitude
of incoherent thoughts. Not thus he appeared—assuredly not thus—in the vivacity
of his waking hours. The same name! the same contour of person! the same day of
arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless imitation of my
gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds
of human possibility, that what I now saw was the result, merely, of the
habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awe-stricken, and with a
creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently from the chamber,
and left, at once, the halls of that old academy, never to enter them again.
After a lapse of some months, spent
at home in mere idleness, I found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval
had been enough to enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr. Barnaby's, or
at least to affect a material change in the nature of the feelings with which I
remembered them. The truth—the tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could now
find room to doubt the evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject
at all but with wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at the vivid
force of the imagination which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this
species of skepticism likely to be diminished by the character of the life I
led at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately
and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past hours,
engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and left to memory only the
varies levities of a former existence.
I do not wish, however, to trace the
course of my miserable profligacy here—a profligacy which set at defiance the
laws, while it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly,
passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and added, in a
somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily stature, when, after a week of soulless
dissipation, I invited a small party of the most dissolute students to a secret
carousal in my chambers. We met at a late hour of the night; for our
debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed
freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps more dangerous seductions;
so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while our
delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and
intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted
profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the violent, although
partial unclosing of the door of the apartment, and by the eager voice of a
servant from without. He said that some person, apparently in great haste,
demanded to speak with me in the hall.
Wildly excited with wine, the
unexpected interruption rather delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward
at once, and a few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this
low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted,
save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through the
semi-circular window. As I put my foot over the threshold, I became aware of
the figure of a youth about my own height, and habited in a white kerseymere
morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the moment.
This the faint light enabled me to perceive; but the features of his face I
could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and,
seizing me by the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the
words “William Wilson!” in my ear.
I grew perfectly sober in an
instant. There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the tremulous
shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my eyes and the light,
which filled me with unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had so
violently moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular,
low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the
key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered syllables, which came
with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and struck upon my soul with
the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I could recover the use of my senses he
was gone.
Although this event failed not of a
vivid effect upon my disordered imagination yet was it evanescent as vivid. For
some weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a
cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception
the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly interfered with
my affairs and harassed me with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was
this Wilson? —and whence came he? —and what were his purposes? Upon neither of
these points could I be satisfied; merely ascertaining, regarding him, that a
sudden accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Barnaby's academy
on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief period,
I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all absorbed in a
contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon went; the uncalculating
vanity of my parents furnishing me with an outfit and annual establishment,
which would enable me to indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my
heart,—to vie in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.
Excited by such appliances to vice,
my constitutional temperament broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned
even the common restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But
it was absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it suffice, that
among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that, giving name to a multitude of
novel follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue of vices than
usual in the most dissolute university of Europe.
It could hardly be credited,
however, that I had, even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate,
as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and,
having become an adept in his despicable science, to practice it habitually as
a means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the
weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And
the very enormity of this offence against all manly and honorable sentiment
proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason of the impunity with
which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates, would
not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have
suspected of such courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson—the
noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford—him whose follies (said his
parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy—whose errors but
inimitable whim—whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance?
I had been now two years
successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young
parvenu nobleman, Glendinning—rich, said report, as Heroes Atticus—his riches,
too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course,
marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in play,
and contrived, with the gambler’s usual art, to let him win considerable sums,
the more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being
ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be final and
decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate
with both, but who, to do him Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion
of my design. To give to this a better coloring, I had contrived to have
assembled a party of some eight or ten and was solicitously careful that the
introduction of cards should appear accidental and originate in the proposal of
my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low
finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just
matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.
We had protracted our sitting far
into the night, and I had at length effected the man oeuvre of getting
Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite cerate! The
rest of the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their
own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been
induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink deeply, now
shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for which his
intoxication, I thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In
a very short period, he had become my debtor to a large amount, when, having
taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly
anticipating—he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a
well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had
seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance,
did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey
was in my toils; in less than an hour he had quadrupled his debt. For some time,
his countenance had been losing the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now,
to my astonishment, I perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I
say to my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries
as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had yet lost, although in
themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so
violently affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the
idea which most readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the
preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any
less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance
of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an
ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to
understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering
him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill
offices even of a fiend.
What now might have been my conduct
it is difficult to say. The pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of
embarrassed gloom over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was
maintained, during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the
many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less abandoned of
the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief
instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary interruption which
ensued. The wide, heavy folding doors of the apartment were all at once thrown
open, to their full extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished,
as if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us
just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height, and closely
muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total; and we could only
feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any one of us could recover from
the extreme astonishment into which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the
voice of the intruder.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in a low,
distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow
of my bones, “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behavior, because in thus
behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the
true character of the person who has to-night won at create a large sum of money
from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious and
decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information. Please to examine,
at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his left sleeve, and the
several little packages which may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of
his embroidered morning wrapper.”
While he spoke, so profound was the
stillness that one might have heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he
departed at once, and as abruptly as he had entered. Can I—shall I describe my sensations?
—must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned? Most assuredly I had
little time given for reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the spot,
and lights were immediately reproduced. A search ensued. In the lining of my
sleeve were found all the court cards essential in cerate, and, in the pockets
of my wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings,
with the single exception that mine were of the species called, technically, arranges;
the honors being slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex
at the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the
length of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor;
while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut nothing for
his victim which may count in the records of the game.
Any burst of indignation upon this
discovery would have affected me less than the silent contempt, or the
sarcastic composure, with which it was received.
“Mr. Wilson,” said our host,
stooping to remove from beneath his feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare
furs, “Mr. Wilson, this is your property.” (The weather was cold; and, upon
quitting my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it
off upon reaching the scene of play.) “I presume it is supererogatory to seek
here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for any farther
evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You will see the necessity,
I hope, of quitting Oxford—at all events, of quitting instantly my chambers.”
Abased, humbled to the dust as I
then was, it is probable that I should have resented this galling language by
immediate personal violence, had not my whole attention been now arrested by a
fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was of a rare
description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to
say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious
to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous nature. When,
therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor,
and near the folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly
bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm,
(where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented me was
but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest possible particular.
The singular being who had so disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I
remembered, in a cloak; and none had been worn at all by any of the members of
our party except for myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the one
offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left the apartment
with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning ere dawn of day, commenced
a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror
and of shame.
I fled in vain. My evil destiny
pursued me as if in exultation, and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its
mysterious dominion had yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I
had fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! —at Rome, with
how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me
and my ambition! At Vienna, too—at Berlin—and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I
not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did
I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of
the earth I fled in vain.
And again, and again, in secret
communion with my own spirit, would I demand the questions “Who is he? —whence
came he? —and what are his objects?” But no answer was there found. And then I
scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the
leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very
little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed, that, in no
one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he
so crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions,
which, if fully carried out, might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor
justification this, in truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor
indemnity for natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly
denied!
I had also been forced to notice
that my tormentor, for a very long period of time, (while scrupulously and with
miraculous dexterity maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with
myself,) had so contrived it, in the execution of his varied interference with
my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the features of his face. Be Wilson
what he might, this, at least, was but the varies of affectation, or of folly.
Could he, for an instant, have supposed that, in my admonisher at Eton—in the
destroyer of my honor at Oxford,—in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my
revenge at Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or what he falsely termed my
avarice in Egypt,—that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius, could fail to recognize
the William Wilson of my school boy days,—the namesake, the companion, the
rival,—the hated and dreaded rival at Dr. Barnaby's? Impossible! —But let me
hasten to the last eventful scene of the drama.
Thus far I had succumbed supinely to
this imperious domination. The sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually
regarded the elevated character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence
and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even terror, with which
certain other traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had operated,
hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter weakness and helplessness,
and to suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to his
arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and
its maddening influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more
impatient of control. I began to murmur, —to hesitate, —to resist. And was it
only fancy which induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own
firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution? Be this as
it may, I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope, and at length
nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would
submit no longer to be enslaved.
It was at Rome, during the Carnival
of 18—, that I attended a masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke di Broglie.
I had indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table; and
now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me beyond
endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way through the mazes of the
company contributed not a little to the ruffling of my temper; for I was
anxiously seeking, (let me not say with what unworthy motive) the young, the
gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di Broglie. With a too
unscrupulous confidence she had previously communicated to me the secret of the
costume in which she would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse of her
person, I was hurrying to make my way into her presence.—At this moment I felt
a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable
whisper within my ear.
In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I
turned at once upon him who had thus interrupted me and seized him violently by
the collar. He was attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether like my
own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, be girt about the waist with a
crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask of black silk entirely covered his
face.
“Scoundrel!” I said, in a voice
husky with rage, while every syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury,
“scoundrel! impostor! accursed villain! you shall not—you shall not dog me unto
death! Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!”—and I broke my way from the
ball-room into a small ante-chamber adjoining—dragging him unresistingly with
me as I went.
Upon entering, I thrust him
furiously from me. He staggered against the wall, while I closed the door with
an oath, and commanded him to draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then, with
a slight sigh, drew in silence, and put himself upon his defense.
The contest was brief indeed. I was
frantic with every species of wild excitement and felt within my single arm the
energy and power of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer
strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my
sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.
At that instant some person tried
the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately
returned to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray
that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then
presented to view? The moment in which I averted my eyes had been enough to
produce, apparently, a material changes in the arrangements at the upper or
farther end of the room. A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my
confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped
up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and
dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.
Thus, it appeared, I say, but was
not. It was my antagonist—it was Wilson, who then stood before me in the
agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them,
upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all the marked
and singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute
identity, mine own!
It was Wilson; but he spoke no
longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while
he said:
“You have conquered, and I yield.
Yet, henceforward art thou also dead dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope!
In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own,
how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”
THE TELL-TALE HEART.
TRUE! —nervous—very, very dreadfully
nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had
sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many
things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how
calmly I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first
the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had
never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I
think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture—a pale blue
eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so,
by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man,
and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me
mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how
wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—with what
dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the
whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the
latch of his door and opened it—oh so gently! And then, when I had made an
opening enough for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that
no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to
see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly—very, very slowly, so that
I might not disturb the old man’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole
head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!
would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in
the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so cautiously—cautiously (for the
hinges creaked)—I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the
vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights—every night just at
midnight—but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the
work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every
morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke
courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he
has passed the night. So, you see he would have been a very profound old man,
indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while
he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more
than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more
quickly than did mine. Never that night had I felt the extent of my own
powers—of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To
think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to
dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he
heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think
that I drew back—but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick
darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and
so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it
on steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to
open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man
sprang up in bed, crying out— “Who’s there?”
I kept quite still and said nothing.
For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime, I did not hear
him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; —just as I have
done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
Presently I heard a slight groan,
and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of
grief—oh, no! —it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the
soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at
midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom,
deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew
it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at
heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise,
when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him.
He had been trying to fancy them causeless but could not. He had been saying to
himself— “It is nothing but the wind in the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing
the floor,” or “It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.” Yes, he
had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found
all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with
his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither
saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very
patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little a very,
very little crevice in the lantern. So, I opened it—you cannot imagine how
stealthily, stealthily—until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of
the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.
It was open—wide, wide open—and I
grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull
blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but
I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed
the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what
you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?—now, I say, there
came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped
in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s
heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier
into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept
still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily
I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant.
The old man’s terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder
every moment! —do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so, I am.
And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house,
so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some
minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder,
louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me—the
sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man’s hour had come! With a loud
yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once—once
only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over
him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes,
the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would
not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I
removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I
placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no
pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will
think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment
of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First, I
dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the
flooring of the chamber and deposited all between the scantlings. I then
replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even
his—could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to wash out—no stain
of any kind—no bloodspot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had
caught all—ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these
labors, it was four o’clock—still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the
hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a
light heart, —for what had I known to fear? There entered three men, who
introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A
shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play
had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they
(the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.
I smiled, —for what had I to fear? I
bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old
man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the
house. I bade them search—search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I
showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my
confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from
their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph,
placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the
victim.
The officers were satisfied. My
manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I
answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt
myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing
in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more
distinct:—It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get
rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness—until, at length,
I found that the noise was not within my ears.
No doubt I now grew very pale; —but
I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound
increased—and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a
sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet
the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but the noise
steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with
violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be
gone? I paced the floor to and from with heavy strides, as if excited to fury
by the observations of the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what
could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been
sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and
continually increased. It grew louder—louder—louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly
and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! —no, no! They heard!
—they suspected! —they knew! —they were making a mockery of my horror! -this I
thought, and this, I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything
was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles
no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now—again! —hark! louder!
louder! louder! louder!
“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble
no more! I admit the deed! —tear up the planks! here, here! —It is the beating
of his hideous heart!”
BERENICE
Décevant mimis modaux, si sépulcre amicale
visita rem, curas
mesa aliquant reelevates.
—Ebon Zakat.
MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness
of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues
are as various as the hues of that arch—as distinct too, yet as intimately
blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from
beauty I have derived a 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 of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish
of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which
might have been.
My baptismal name is Egeus; that of
my family I will not mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more
time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a
race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars—in the character of the
family mansion—in the frescos of the chief saloon—in the tapestries of the
dormitories—in the chiseling of some buttresses in the armory—but more
especially in the gallery of antique paintings—in the fashion of the library
chamber—and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library’s
contents—there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.
The recollections of my earliest
years relate to that chamber, and with its volumes—of which latter I will say
no more. Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say
that I had not lived before—that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it?
—let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There
is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms—of spiritual and meaning eyes—of
sounds, musical yet sad—a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like
a shadow—vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the
impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall
exist.
In that chamber was I born. Thus
awaking from the long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once
into the very regions of fairy land—into a palace of imagination—into the wild
dominions of monastic thought and erudition—it is not singular that I gazed
around me with a startled and ardent eye—that I loitered away my boyhood in
books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as years
rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my
fathers—it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my
life—wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my
commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as
visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, not
the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed that existence utterly
and solely in itself.
Berenice and I were cousins, and we
grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew—I, ill of
health, and buried in gloom—she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy;
hers, the ramble on the hill-side—mine the studies of the cloister; I, living
within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intense and
painful meditation—she, roaming carelessly through life, with no thought of the
shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice!
—I call upon her name—Berenice! —and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand
tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image
before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh,
gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnhem! Oh,
Naiad among its fountains! And then—then all is mystery and terror, and a tale
which should not be told. Disease—a fatal disease, fell like the simoom upon
her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over
her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the
most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the
destroyer came and went! —and the victim—where is she? I knew her not—or knew
her no longer as Berenice.
Among the numerous train of maladies
superinduced by that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so
horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned
as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy not
unfrequently terminating in trance itself—trance very nearly resembling
positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was in most instances,
startlingly abrupt. In the meantime my own disease—for I have been told that I
should call it by no other appellation—my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon
me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary
form—hourly and momently gaining vigor—and at length obtaining over me the most
incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in
a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science
termed the attentive. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I
fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the
merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest
with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically)
busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary
objects of the universe.
To muse for long unwearied hours,
with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the
typography of a book; to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer’s
day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to
lose myself, 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 a flower; to
repeat, monotonously, some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent
repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense
of motion or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long
and obstinately persevered in: such were a few of the most common and least
pernicious vagaries induced by a condition 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 morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own
nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character with that ruminating
propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of
ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme
condition, or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and essentially
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 deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom,
until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the
incitement, or first cause of his musings, entirely vanished and forgotten. In
my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming,
through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance.
Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciously returning in
upon the original object as a center. The meditations were never pleasurable;
and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out
of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the
prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of mind more
particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said before, the attentive, and
are, with the daydreamer, the speculative.
My books, at this epoch, if they did
not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived,
largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic
qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise
of the noble Italian, Coleus Seconds Curio, “De Amplitude Beata Regin Dei;” St.
Austin’s great work, the “City of God;” and Tertullian’s “De Carne Christi,” in
which the paradoxical sentence “Motus Est Dei fillies; credible Est quiz inept Est:
et sedulous recredit; cerium Est quiz impossible Est,” occupied my undivided
time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.
Thus it will appear that, shaken
from its balance only by trivial things, my reason bore resemblance to that
ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephaestion, which steadily resisting the
attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds,
trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a
careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration
produced by her unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Berenice, would
afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation
whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any
degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed,
gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and
gentle life, I did not fail to ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon the
wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly
brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my
disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar circumstances, to
the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own character, my disorder reveled in
the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of
Berenice—in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal
identity.
During the brightest days of her
unparalleled beauty, most surely, I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly
of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions
always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning—among the
trellised shadows of the forest at noonday—and in the silence of my library at
night—she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her—not as the living and
breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the
earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to
admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the 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 to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an
evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage.
And at length the period of our
nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year—one
of those unseasonably warm, 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 of the library. But, uplifting my eyes, I saw that Berenice stood
before me.
Was it my own excited imagination—or
the misty influence of the atmosphere—or the uncertain twilight of the
chamber—or the gray draperies which fell around her figure—that caused in it so
vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word; and
I—not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my
frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity
pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time
breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation
was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single
line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.
The forehead was high, and very
pale, and singularly placid; and the once jetty hair fell partially over it,
and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid
yellow, and jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the
reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and lusterless,
and seemingly pupil less, and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to
the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of
peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves 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 my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from
the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be
driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on their
surface—not a shade on their enamel—not an indenture in their edges—but what
that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them
now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! —the teeth! —they
were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long,
narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in
the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of
my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible
influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts
but for the teeth. For these I longed with a Phronsie desire. All other matters
and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation.
They—they alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole
individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in every
light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I
dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused
upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in
imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the
lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle it has been well
said, “Que to us sees pas taint des sentiments,” and of Berenice I more
seriously believed que touts sees dents taint des ideas. Des ideas! —ah here
was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! Des ideas! —ah therefore it was that
I coveted them so madly! I felt that their possession could alone ever restore
me to peace, in giving me back to reason.
And the evening closed in upon me
thus—and then the darkness came, and tarried, and went—and the day again
dawned—and the mists of a second night were now gathering around—and still I
sat motionless in that solitary room—and still I sat buried in meditation—and
still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy, as, with
the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights
and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of
horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled
voices, intermingled with many low meanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from
my seat and throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in
the antechamber a 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 the closing in on the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the
preparations for the burial were completed.
I found myself sitting in the
library, and again sitting there alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from
a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was aware,
that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that
dreary period which intervened I had no positive, at least no definite
comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror—horror more horrible from
being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in
the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and
unintelligible recollections. I strived to decipher them, but in vain; while
ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing
shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a
deed—what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes
of the chamber answered me, — “what was it?”
On the table beside me burned a
lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I
had seen it frequently before, for it 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 were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length
dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The
words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebon Zakat: — “Dice ant
mihi so dales are sepulchral amice vizirate, cures mesa aliquant for legates.”
Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end,
and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?
There came a light tap at the
library door—and, pale as the tenant of a tomb, 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 said he? —some broken sentences I heard. He told of a
wild cry disturbing the silence of the night—of the gathering together of the
household—of a search in the direction of the sound; and then his tones grew
thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave—of a disfigured
body enshrouded, yet still breathing—still palpitating—still alive!
He pointed to garments; —they were
muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it
was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some
object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade. With
a shriek I bounded to the table and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I
could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fell
heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there
rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two
small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and from about
the floor.
ELEONORA
Sub conservation formal
specific salve anima.
Raymond Lully.
I AM come of a race noted for vigor
of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not
yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether
much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease
of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream
only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and
thrill, in awakening, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great
secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom, which is of good, and
more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however,
rudderless or compass less into the vast ocean of the “light ineffable,” and
again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, “aggresse sunt mare tenebrous,
quid in eon asset exploratory.”
We will say, then, that I am mad. I
grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental
existence—the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to
the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life—and a condition of
shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of what
constitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of
the earlier period, believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give
only such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye
cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus.
She whom I loved in youth, and of
whom I now pen calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter
of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my
cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley
of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came upon that vale; for
it lay away up among a range of giant hills that hung beetling around about it,
shutting out the sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in
its vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting back,
with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to
death the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus, it was that we
lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley I, and my
cousin, and her mother.
From the dim regions beyond the
mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow
and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily
about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge,
among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the
“River of Silence”; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No
murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly
pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at
all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on
gloriously forever.
The margin of the river, and of the
many dazzling rivulets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as
well as the spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths of
the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom,—these spots,
not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river to the mountains
that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short,
perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the
yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red
asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the
love and of the glory of God.
And, here and there, in groves about
this grass, like wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall
slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that
peered at noonday into the center of the valley. Their mark was speckled with
the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother than all
save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge
leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying with
the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of Syria doing homage
to their sovereign the Sun.
Hand in hand about this valley, for
fifteen years, roamed I with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It
was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth
of my own, that we sat, locked in each other’s embrace, beneath the serpent-like
trees, and looked down within the water of the River of Silence at our images
therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and our words
even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from
that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of
our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race,
came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and
together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burn
out upon the trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the
green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away,
there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life
arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay
glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver
fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by little, a
murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more divine than that of
the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a
voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated
out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us,
sank, day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of the
mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as
if forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.
The loveliness of Eleonora was that
of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life
she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which
animated her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked
together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass and discoursed of the mighty
changes which had lately taken place therein.
At length, having spoken one day, in
tears, of the last sad change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward
dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our
converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Shiraz, the same images are found
occurring, again and again, in every impressive variation of phrase.
She had seen that the finger of
Death was upon her bosom—that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in
loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight, by the banks
of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her in the
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy recesses,
transferring the love which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of
the outer and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at
the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I
would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth—that I would in no
manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout
affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the
Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I
invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Elusion should I prove traitorous to that
promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit
me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at
my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her breast;
and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow,
(for what was she but a child?) and it made easy to her the bed of her death.
And she said to me, not many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of
what I had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that
spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her return to me visibly in
the watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed, beyond the power of
the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least, give me frequent indications
of her presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which
I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words
upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first
epoch of my own.
Thus far I have faithfully said. But
as I pass the barrier in Time’s path, formed by the death of my beloved, and
proceed with the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over
my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. —Years
dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the
Many-Colored Grass; but a second change had come upon all things. The
star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the trees and appeared no more.
The tints of the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels
withered away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark,
eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And
Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his
scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with
all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and
silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our domain and
bedecked the sweet river never again. And the lulling melody that had been
softer than the wind-harp of Aeolus, and more divine than all save the voice of
Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower,
until the stream returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its
original silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud prose, and, abandoning
the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the regions of
Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
Yet the promises of Eleonora were
not forgotten; for I heard the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the
angels; and streams of a holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley;
and at lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow
came unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often the
night air, and once—oh, but once only! I was awakened from a slumber, like the
slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips upon my own.
But the void within my heart
refused, even thus, to be filled. I longed for the love which had before filled
it to overflowing. At length the valley pained me through its memories of
Eleonora, and I left it forever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of
the world.
I found myself within a strange
city, where all things might have served to blot from recollection the sweet
dreams I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pumps
and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the
radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But my soul
had proved true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of Eleonora
were still given me in the silent hours of the night. Suddenly these
manifestations they ceased, and the world grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood
aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations
which beset me; for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land,
into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole
recreant heart yielded at once—at whose footstool I bowed down without a
struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What, indeed,
was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervor,
and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I
poured out my whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde?—Oh,
bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none
other.—Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down into the depths
of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them—and of her.
I wedded; —nor dreaded the curse I
had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited upon me. And once—but once
again in the silence of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs
which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice,
saying:
“Sleep in peace!—for the Spirit of
Love reigned and ruled, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is
Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in
Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora.”
THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE VOLUME II
Reviewed by bsm
on
February 21, 2020
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