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Page 10
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 afterwards 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 demeanour. 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 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 favourite 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 favourite
of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there
is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could
have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my
friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and
I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated
the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of
the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by
the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I
might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for
peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to
make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the
words of the narrative run thus:
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who
was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine
which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the
hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn,
but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising
of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made
quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted
hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and
hollow-sounding wood alarmed 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:
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