Fall of the House of Usher(厄西亚房子的倒塌)

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The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of

Usher

Edgar Allen Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher

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-pleasureable, 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 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 grey 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

The Fall of the House of Usher

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 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.

The Fall of the House of Usher

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 supersition--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 grey 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 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

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TheFalloftheHouseofUsher1TheFalloftheHouseofUsherEdgarAllenPoeTheFalloftheHouseofUsher2Duringthewholeofadull,dark,andsoundlessdayintheautumnoftheyear,whenthecloudshungoppressivelylowintheheavens,Ihadbeenpassingalone,onhorseback,throughasingularlydrearytractofcountry;andatlengthfoundmyself,astheshade...

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Fall of the House of Usher(厄西亚房子的倒塌)

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