Chapter 8
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 fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty, great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as if 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 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 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 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_."
NOTES
[1] _The Fall of the House of Usher_ was written in 1839 and published at the end of the same year in his Tales of the Grotesque and of the Arabesque.
[2] 70: Motto de Béranger. Popular French lyric poet (1780-1857). "His heart is a suspended lute; as soon as it is touched it resounds."
[3] 71:23 tarn. A small mountain lake.
[4] 76:7 ennuyé. Mentally wearied or bored.
[5] 78:11 bounden. An archaic word.
[6] 79:19 Dread. Reading of the first edition, "Her figure, her air, her features,—all, in their very minutest development, were those—were identically (I can use no other sufficient term), were identically those of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me. A feeling of stupor," etc.
[7] 80:16 Improvisations. Extemporaneous composition of poetry or music.
[8] 81:4 von Weber. The celebrated German composer (1786-1826).
[9] 81:20 Fuseli. An artist and professor of painting at the Royal Academy in London (1741-1825).
[10] 82:24 "The Haunted Palace." First published in the _Baltimore Museum_ for April, 1839.
[11] 83:18 Porphyrogene. Of royal birth.
[12] 84:16 for other men. Watson, Dr. Percival, and especially the Bishop of Llandaff. See "Chemical Essays," Vol. V.
[13] 85:16 Ververt et Chartreuse. Two poems by Jean Baptiste Cresset (1709-1777).
[Footenote 14] 85:17 Belphegor. Satire on Marriage by Machiavelli (1469-1527).
[15] 85:17 Heaven and Hell. Extracts from "Arcana Coelestia" by Swedenborg (1688-1772).
[16] 85:18 Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm. A celebrated poem by Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754).
[17] 85:19 Chiromancy. Palmistry applied to the future. Poe refers rather to physiognomy. The book was written by the English mystic, Robert Fludd (1574-1637).
[18] 85:19 Jean d'Indaginé and De la Chambre. Two continental writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively.
[19] 85:21 Tieck. A great German romanticist (1773-1853).
[20] 85:21 City of the Sun. A sketch of an ideal state by Campanella (1568-1639).
[21] 85:23 Directorium Inquisitorium. A detailed account of the methods of the Inquisition by Cironne, inquisitor-general for Castile, in 1356.
[22] 85:24 Pomponius Mela. Spanish geographer in the first century A.D. Author of "De Chorographia," the earliest extant account of the geography of the ancient world.
[23] 85:25 Oegipans. An epithet applied to Pan.
[24] 85:30 Vigiliae Mortuorum. No such book is known.
[25] 90:30 Mad Trist. No such book is known.
[26] 91:29 alarummed. Alarmed.
[27] 92:25 had fain. In the sense of was glad.
BIOGRAPHY
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. His parents, who were actors, died before their son was three years old. Mr. Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant, adopted the child and gave him a splendid home. How scantily Poe appreciated and improved the advantages of this kindness he himself confesses in a letter to Lowell in 1844. "I have been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things to give any continuous effort to anything—to be consistent in anything. My life has been _whim_—impulse—passion—a longing for solitude—a scorn of all things present in an earnest desire for the future." He was a dreamer who had a fair chance to be happy, but he flung the opportunity away. He was a spoiled child who remained ignorant of life even unto his death.
He entered the University of Virginia in 1826, where his conduct was so bad that he was, after a year, removed from the college. This action broke the strong friendship Mr. Allan had long held for his adopted son. Poe, urged by a hot temper or possibly by a remorse for his actions, ran away and enlisted in the regular army. In 1829 Mr. Allan became partially reconciled with Poe, and again came to his assistance. In 1830 Poe entered West Point, but was there only a short time when he was dismissed for wilful neglect of duty.
Following this dismissal Poe went to Baltimore, where he did hack work for newspapers. This was the beginning of a process of writing that has brought him high rank and an imperishable honor. His narrative is clear, compressed, and powerful, and throughout his writings choice symbols abound. He was fond of themes of death, insanity, and terror. The wonder of it all is that this struggling, poverty-stricken craftsman, irregular in his habits of living, using only negative life and shadowy abstractions, should, from out his disordered fancies, weave stories and poems of such undying beauty and force.
Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Her health was always delicate and her death confirmed Poe's tendency toward dissipation. His life was filled with dire poverty and a hard struggle for a livelihood. His home relations were happy. The last years of his life were spent at Fordham, a suburb of New York. He died in a Baltimore hospital, October 7, 1849.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
_Introduction to American Literature_, Brander Matthews.
_Studies in American Literature_, Charles Noble.
_Introduction to American Literature_, F.V.N. Painter.
_Life of Poe_, Richard Henry Stoddard.
_Edgar Allan Poe_, G.E. Woodberry.
_Makers of English Fiction_, W.J. Dawson.
"Art of Poe, _Independent_, 66: 157-8. January 21, 1909.
"Dual Personality," _Current Literature_, 43: 287-8.
CRITICISMS
Some critics have maintained that Poe is our only original genius in American Literature. Lowell wrote in his _Fable for Critics_:—
"There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge."
Whatever judgments the various critics may give of Poe and his writings, they must all agree that he is original. He is a clever writer in a limited field. His writings have a glow and burnish that have their origin in his fondness for sensations, color, and vividness of details. He loves mystery and terror,—not the fancies and fears of a child, but overwrought nerves. His material is unreal, and remote from ordinary life. His characters are abnormal, and the world they live in is exceptional. He is inventive, original in arranging his material, and shallow but keen in his thinking.
He believed that art and life have little in common, and in his writings seemed to be unmoved by friendship, loyalty, patriotism, courage, self-sacrifice or any of the great positive attributes of life that make living worth while. His writings lack the human touch, tenderness, and the buoyancy of sympathy. He is an artist who does his work with a clear-cut, hard finish. His choice of words, vivid pictures, and clearly evolved plots make his writings excellent studies for any one who wishes to develop literary appreciation and to learn to write.
GENERAL REFERENCES
_Studies and Appreciations_, L.E. Gates.
_American Prose Masters_, William Crary Brownwell.
_The Short Story in English_, Henry Seidel Canby.
_Edgar Poe_, R.H. Button.
_Inquiries and Opinions_, Brander Matthews.
"Life of Edgar Allan Poe," _Nation_, 89: 100-110.
"Weird Genius," _Cosmopolitan_, 46:243-252.
COLLATERAL READINGS
_Ligeia_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_The Cask of Amontillado_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_The Assignation_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_Ms. Pound in Bottle_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_The Black Cat_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_Berenice_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_The Tell-Tale Heart_, Edgar Allan Poe.
_The White Old Maid_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
_Moonlight_ ("Odd Number"), Guy de Maupassant.
_A Journey_, Edith Wharton.
_The Brushwood Boy_, Rudyard Kipling.
_At the Pit's Mouth_, Rudyard Kipling.
THE GOLD-BUG[1]
_By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)_
What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
—_All in the Wrong_.[2]
Many years ago I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot[3] family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.
This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie[4] stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.
In the utmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship, for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens—his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdam.[5] In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted[6] before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.
The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks—my residence being at that time in Charleston, a distance of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and re-passage were very far behind those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked the door, and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an over-coat, took an armchair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts.
Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else shall I term them?—of enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's assistance, a _scarabaeus_[7] which he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished to have my opinion on the morrow.
"And why not to-night?" I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of _scarabaei_ at the devil.
"Ah, if I had only known you were here!" said Legrand, "but it's so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G——, from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!"
"What!—sunrise?"
"Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the size of a large hickory-nut—with two jet-black spots near one extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other. The _antennae[8]_ are—"
"Dey ain't _no_ tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' on you," here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goolebug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, 'sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby a bug in my life."
"Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded; "is that any reason for your letting the birds burn? The color"—here he turned to me—"is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales emit—but of this you cannot judge till to-morrow. In the meantime I can give you some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none.
"Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer;" and he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he did this I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I received, it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits. When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.
"Well!" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, "this _is_ a strange _scarabaeus_, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a death's-head—which, it more nearly resembles than, anything else that has come under _my_ observation."
"A death's-head!" echoed Legrand. "Oh—yes—well, it has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a mouth—and then the shape of the whole is oval."
"Perhaps so," said I; "but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of its personal appearance."
"Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—_should_ do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead."
"But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I; "this is a very passable _skull_—indeed, I may say that it is a very _excellent_ skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your _scarabaeus_ must be the queerest _scarabaeus_ in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume, you will call the bug _scarabaeus caput hominis_,[9] or something of that kind—there are many similar titles in the natural histories. But where are the _antennae_ you spoke of?"
"The _antennae_!" said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably warm upon the subject; "I am sure you must see the _antennae_. I made them as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I presume that is sufficient."
"Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have—still I don't see them;" and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill-humor puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively _no antennae_ visible, and the whole _did_ bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a death's-head.
He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of the paper, turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from, his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality.
It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his man Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had befallen my friend.
"Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now?—how is your master?"
"Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought be."
"Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?"
"Dar! dat's it!—him nebber 'plain of notin'—but him berry sick for all dat."
"_Very_ sick, Jupiter!—why didn't you say so at once? Is he confined to bed?"
"No, dat he ain't!—he ain't 'find nowhar—dat's just whar de shoe pinch—my mind is got to be berry hebby 'bout poor Massa Will."