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The Fall of the House of Usher - Full Audiobook | Nolan Reads | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Fall of the House of Usher - Full Audiobook
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Summary
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Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" explores the psychological decay of Roderick Usher, driven by his family's history, the oppressive atmosphere of his ancestral home, and his morbid sensitivity, culminating in a terrifying and supernatural climax.
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[Applause] [Music]
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar
Allan Poe his heart was like a suspended
loot at the slightest touch it
resonated a translation from a French
poem 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 ey likee Windows
upon a few rank sedes
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 goting of the
imagination could torture into a 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 rained 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 sge and the ghastly
tree stems and the vacant ey likee
Windows nevertheless in this Mansion of
Gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn
of some weeks its proprietor rodri 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 from him which in its
wildly importunate nature had admitted
of no other than a personal reply the
message 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 forth with 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 old 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
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 way with very
trifling and very temporary variation so
Lan 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 Sun 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 should I not so
term it served mainly to accelerate the increase
increase
itself such I have long known is the
paradoxical law of all sentiments having Terror
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 W up from the decayed trees
and the gray wall and the silent Tarn a
pestilent and Mystic Vapor dull sluggish
faintly discernable and leaden hue
shaking off my spirit from 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 Ary
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 had rotted for long
years in some neglected Vault with no
disturbance from the breath of the
external there 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 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 then 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 spok
spoken while the objects around me while
the carvings of the ceilings the somber
tapestries of the walls the ebony
Blackness of the floors and the
fantasmagorical trophies which rattled
as I stroe were but matters to which or
to 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 un familiar
with a 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 all
together inaccessible from within feeble
gleams of encrimsoned light made their
way through the trellist pains 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 Ved and Fred
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 the sorrow an
air of stern deep and irredeemable Gloom
hung over over and pervaded all upon my
entrance Usher rose 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 onwe man of the world a
glance however at his countenance
convinced me of his perfect sincerity we
sat down and for some moment while he
spoke not I gazed upon him with a
feeling half of pity half of awe surely
man had never before so terribly altered
in so brief a period as rodri Usher it
was with difficulty that I could bring
myself to admit the identity of the man
being before me with the companion of my early
early
Boyhood yet the character of his face
had been at all times remarkable
a cadaverousness of complexion an eye
large liquid and luminous Beyond
comparison lips somewhat thin and very
palid but of a surpassingly beautiful
curve a nose of a delicate Hebrew model
but with a breath of nostril unusual in similar
similar
formations a finely molded chin speaking
in want of prominence of a want of moral
energy hair of a more than weblike
softness and
tenuity these features with an
inordinate expression 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 want to
convey lay so much of change that I
doubted to whom I
spoke the now ghastly palor 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 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
an
inconsistency and I soon found this to
arise from a series of feeble and futile
struggles to overcome an habitual
trepidancy an excessive nervous
agitation for something of this nature I
had indeed been prepared Ed no less by
his letter than by reminiscences of
certain boyish traits and by conclusions
deduced from his peculiar physical
confirmation 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 most intense
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 the
as he detailed them interested and
bewildered me although perhaps the terms
and the general manner of their
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 textures 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 bound
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 aberin 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 fantasm
fantasm
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 superstitious force was conveyed
in terms too shadowy here to be
reinstated an influence which some
peculiarities in the mere form and
substance of his family Mansion had by
Dent of long suffering he said obtained
over his spirit and 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 meline
for so she was called passed slowly
through a remote portion of the
apartment and without having noticed my presence
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 stuper
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
ordinary
Wess had overspread the emaciated
fingers through which trickled many passionate
passionate
tears the disease of the lady meline 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 with unusual
diagnosis hither to she had steadily
borne up against the pressure of her
malady and had not betaken herself
finally to bed but on the closing in 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 Solem
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 through a sulfurous luster
luster
overall his long improvised durges will
ring forever in my ears among other
things I hold painfully in my mind a
certain singular perversion and
amplification of the wild air of the
last Walts of Von Weber from the
paintings over which his elaborate fancy
brooded and which grew Touch by touch
into vagueness 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 uce 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 an
overa attention if ever mortal painted
an idea that mortal was rodri 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 canvas an intensity of Intolerable
awe no shadow of which felt I ever yet
in the contemplation of the certainly
glowing yet two concrete reveries of
fantasmagorico rigidly in the spirit of
abstraction may be shadowed forth
although Fe feily 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
inappropriate
Splendor I have just spoken of that
morbid condition of the auditory nerve
which rendered all music intolerable to
the sufferer with the exception of
certain effects of strange to
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 the
performances but the fervid facility of his
his
impromptu 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 partial
movements of the highest artificial
excitement the words of one of these rap
cidies I have easily remembered I was
perhaps the more forcibly impressed with
it as he gave it because in the under or
Mystic current 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 in the greenest of our
valleys by good angels tenanted once a
fair and stately Palace radiant Palace
reared its head in the Monarch thoughts
Dominion it stood there never sarap
spread opinion over fabric half so fair
banners yellow glorious golden on its
roof did float and
flow this all this was in the olden time
long AG ago and every gentle air that
died in that sweet day along the
rampart's plumed and palad a winged odor
went away Wanderers in that Happy Valley
through two luminous Windows saw Spirits
moving musically to aut's well tuned law
round about a throne were sitting poor
fog jeene in state his glory well
befitting the ruler of the realm was
seen and all with pearl and Ruby glowing
was the Fair Palace door through which
came flowing flowing
flowing and sparkling ever more a troop
of Echoes whose sweet Duty was to sing
in voices of surpassing beauty the wit
and wisdom of their King but evil things
in Robes of Sorrow assailed the
Monarch's High estate ah let us mourn
for never tomorrow 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
inomed and travelers now within that
Valley through the red Litt Windows see
vast forms that move
fantastically to a discordant
Melody while like a rapid ghastly river
through the pale door a hideous th wrong
rush out forever and laugh but smile no
more I will remember that suggestions
arising from this ballad led us into a
train of thought wherein there became
manifest an opinion of ushers which I
mention not so much on account of its
novelty for other men have thought thus
as on account of the pertinency with
which he maintained it this opinion in
its general form was 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 in
organization I lack words to express the
full extent where the earnest abandon of his
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
sentients had been there he imagined
fulfilled in the method of cocation 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 the
reduplication in the Still Waters of the
Tarn it's 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 importent 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 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 the character of
fantasm we poured together over such
works as The Verve esart Truse of gret
the bagor of mavelli the Heaven and Hell of
of
swedenborg the Subterranean Voyage of
Nicholas clim by
Holberg the chiromancy of Robert flood
of JEA indin and of deambra the Journey
Into the Blue distance of tiek and the
City of the sun of
Campanella one favorite volume was a
small octavo edition of The dorium
Inquisitor by the Dominican imik
dejon and there were passages in
pomponius Mela about the old African
seders and Egyptians 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 Corto Gothic
the manual of a forgotten Church the
vigil morum suum Korum Ecclesia
magun 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
meline was no more he stated his
intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight previously to its final
internment 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
inment the body having been en coffined
we to 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 the 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
Don joh 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
grading sound as it moved upon its
hinges having deposited our mournful
burden upon trestles within this region
of horror we partially turned to inside
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 all always
existed between them our glances however
rested not long upon the dead for we
could not regard her
uned the disease which had thus inomed
the lady in the maturity of Youth had
left as usual in all maladies of a
strictly catalytical character the
mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom
and the face and that suspiciously
lingering smile upon the lips which is
so terrible in death we placed and
screwed down the lid and having secured
the door of iron made our way with toy
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
vanished
his ordinary occupations were neglected
or forgotten he roamed from chamber to
chamber with hurried unequal and
objectless step the palor of his
countenance had assumed if possible a
more ghastly Hue but the luminousness of
his eye had utterly gone out the once
occasional huskiness of his tone was
heard no more and a tremulous Quaver as
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
influence of his own fantastic yet impressive
impressive
superstitions it was especially upon
retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or Eighth Day after placing the
lady meline within the Don John 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 of the gloomy Furniture of
the room of the dark and tattered
draperies which tortured into motion by
the breath of a rising Tempest swayed
fitfully to and fro upon the walls and
rustled uneasily about the decorations
of the bed but my efforts were fruitless
an impressible Tremor gradually pervaded
my frame and at length there sat upon my
very heart and 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 dark of the chamber
hearkened I know not why except that an
intensive Spirit prompted me to certain
low and indefinite sounds which came
through the pauses of the Storm at long
inter intervals I knew not whence
overpowered by an intense sentiment of
horror unaccountable yet
unendurable I threw on my clothes with
haste for I felt that I should sleep no
more during the night and endeavored to
arouse myself from the pitiable
condition into which I had fallen by
pacing rapidly to and fro through the
apartment I had taken but few turns in
this manner
when a light step on an adjoining
staircase arrested my attention I
presently recognized it as that of Usher
in an instant afterward he wrapped with
a gentle touch at my door and entered
bearing a lamp his countenance was as
usual cadaverous 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 lifelike
velocity with which they flew careering
from all points against each other
without passing away into the distance I
say that even their exceeding density
did not prevent our perceiving this
yet we had no glimpse of the moon or
Stars nor was there any flashing forth
of the lightning but the under surfaces
of the huge masses of agitated 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 in
routed the
Mansion you must not you shall not
behold this said I shuttering 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 lelot caning but I had
called it a favorite of ushers more in
sad justest than in Earnest for in truth
there's little in its UNC and
unimaginative prolixity which could have
had interest for the lofty and spiritual
ideality of my friend it was however the
only book immediately at hand and I
indulged a vague hope that the
excitement which now agitated the
hypochondriac might find relief for the
history of mental disorder is full of
similar anomalies even in the
extremeness of the Folly which I should
read could I have judged indeed by the
wild overstrained air of vivacity with
which he hearkened or apparently
hearkened to the words of the tale I
might well have congratulated myself
upon the success of my design I had
arrived at that well-known portion of
the story where Ethel 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 quote and Ethel
who was by nature of a Dy heart and who
was now Mighty with all on account of
the powerfulness of the wine which he
had drunken waited no longer to hold
parlay with the hermit who in sooth was
of an obstinate and maliceful turn but
feeling the rain upon his shoulders and
fearing the rising of the Tempest
uplifted his mace outright and with
blows made quickly room in the plankings
of the door for his gauntleted hand and
now pulling therewith sturdily he so
cracked and ripped and tore all AER that
the noise of the dry and Hollow sounding
wood aara
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 Lancelot 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
comingled noises of the still increasing
storm the sound in itself had nothing
surely which should have interested or
disturbed me I continued the story quote
but the good Champion Ethel red now
entering within the door was sore
enraged and amazed to perceive no signal
of the maliceful hermit but instead
thereof a dragon of a scaly and
prodigious demeanor and of a fiery
tongue which sat in 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 in
written who entereth herein a conqueror
hath been who slayeth the dragon The
Shield he shall win and Ethel red
uplifted his m face and struck upon the
head of the Dragon which fell before him
and gave up his pesty breath with a
shriek so horrid and harsh and with all
so piercing that Ethel red 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 preceded
I found it impossible to say a low and
apparently distant but harsh protracted
and most unusual screaming or gring
sound the exact counterpart of what my
fancy had already conjured up for the
dragon's unnatural shriek as descri Red
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 ing
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
Lancelot which thus preceded quote and
now the champion having escaped from the
terrible Fury of the Dragon bethinking
himself of the Brazen shield and of the
breaking up of the enchantment which was
upon it removed the carcass from out of
the way before him and approached
valorously over the silver pavement of
the castle to where the shield was upon
the wall which in sooth tarried not for
his full coming but fell down at his
feet upon the silver floor with a mighty
great and terrible ringing
sound no sooner had these syllables
passed my lips then as if a shield of
brass had indeed at the moment Fallen
heavily upon a floor of silver I became
aware of a distinct Hollow metallic and
clangorous yet apparently muffled
reverberation completely unnerved I
leapt 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 rained 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 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 cute I now
tell you that I heard her first feeble
movements in the hollow often I heard
them many many days ago yet I dared not
I dared not speak and now tonight Ethel
R the breaking of the hermit's door and
the death Cry Of The Dragon and the
clanger of The Shield say rather the
rening of her coffin and the grading of
the iron hinges of her prison and her
struggles within the coppered archway of
the Vault oh wither shall I fly will she
not be here and on is she not hurrying
to uaid me for my haste have I not heard
her footsteps on the stair do I not
distinguish that heavy and horrible
beating of her heart madman here he
sprang furiously to his feet and
shrieked out his syllables as if in the
effort he were giving up his soul madman
I tell you that she now stands without
the door as if in the Supernatural
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 meline of Usher there was blood
upon her white robes and the evidence of
some bitter struggle upon every portion
of her emaciated frame for a moment she
remained trembling and reeling to and
fro upon the
threshold then with a low moaning cry
fell heavily inward upon the person of
her brother and in her violent and now
final death agonies bore him to the
floor a corpse and a victim to the
Terrors he had
anticipated from that chamber and from
that Mansion I fled a gast 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 shown vividly through that
once barely discernable 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
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
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