The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe

                     THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER


                           by Edgar Allan Poe

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

       Son coeur est un luth suspendu;
       Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne.

                                 De Beranger.

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, 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 reveller upon opium —the bitter lapse into
everyday life-the hideous dropping off of the reveller 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 lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down —but with a
shudder even more thrilling than before —upon the remodelled 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 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
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 recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned,
too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all
time-honoured 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
should I 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 vapour,
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 wood-work 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
scrutinising 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 sombre 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 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 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 encrimsoned 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