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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
pannels 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
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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."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
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SILENCE -- A FABLE
ALCMAN. The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are silent.
"LISTEN to me," said the Demon as he placed his hand upon my head. "The region of which I speak is a
dreary region in Libya, by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.
"The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow not onwards to the sea, but palpitate
forever and forever beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles
on either side of the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one unto the other in
that solitude, and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting
heads. And there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out from among them like the rushing of subterrene
water. And they sigh one unto the other.
"But there is a boundary to their realm -- the boundary of the dark, horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves
about the Hebrides, the low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind throughout the heaven.
And the tall primeval trees rock eternally hither and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their
high summits, one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in
perturbed slumber. And overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray clouds rush westwardly forever, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]