The Fall of the House of Usher PDF

Gothic Short Stories The Fall of the House of Usher The Fall of the House of Usher increasing gloom as we walked. On one of the staircases,...

Gothic Short Stories The Fall of the House of Usher The Fall of the House of Usher increasing gloom as we walked. On one of the staircases, I met the Edgar Allan Poe doctor of the family. I thought he looked both cunning and perplexed. He stopped to speak with me a moment and then went I rode on a horse one dull, dark and soundless day in autumn 35 on. until I came to the melancholy House of Usher. I do not know why but I felt an intolerable gloom. I say intolerable because there was Finally the valet opened the door of the studio. It was very large nothing poetic or beautiful about this scene, only the dreary house and high. There were many pieces of furniture, but they were all 5 on the edge of a cliff over a black lake surrounded by dead and comfortless, antique and tattered. Many books and musical rotting trees. instruments lay about the room too. An air of deep and hopeless 40 gloom hung over and pervaded all. Still, I was planning to spend some weeks here. Its owner, Roderick Usher, had been one of my closest childhood friends even When I came in, Roderick Usher got up from a sofa, and greeted though I had not seen him for many years. However, he had sent me me warmly. We then sat down, and for some moments, while he did 10 a letter. He wrote me of a mental disease that oppressed him and a not speak, I looked at him with pity and fear. Surely, no man had great desire to see me, his only personal friend. He hoped that my ever changed in so short a period as had Roderick Usher! I could company would make him feel better. So, I had to come. 45 hardly believe that he was the same person who had been my boyhood friend. The ghastly pallor of his skin and the miraculous Although, we had been very close as boys, I knew very little shine of his eyes shocked me and even frightened me. His hair, about my friend because he was so reserved. I knew, however, that which he had allowed to grow, floated rather than fell about his 15 he came from a very ancient family famous for both its wonderful face. works of art and its great acts of charity. 50 My friend’s actions were incoherent and inconsistent: at times he I had also learned too, a very remarkable fact, that the entire was full of great energy and at times he was sullen. In this way he Usher family lay in the direct line of descent. So it was that for spoke about his great desire to see me and his disease. He said that centuries the patrimony of the family had been handed down from it was a constitutional and family evil, and that he did not think he 20 father to son, and that the peasants of that region called both the would find a cure. He suffered from an extreme acuteness of the family itself and the family mansion the ‘House of Usher’. 55 senses. He could only endure the most insipid food; he could wear The house itself was incredibly old and it was greatly discoloured only clothing of a certain texture; the odours of all flowers were by time. Strangely, even though individual stones were ruined and oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there crumbling, no portion of the house had fallen. In fact, the building were only a few special sounds (and these from stringed 25 did not look unstable. However, if you looked very carefully you instruments) which did not inspire him with horror. could see a very thin crack; it ran from the roof of the building in 60 He was also completely dependent on an unusual kind of terror. front and made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it ‘I will perish and die,’ he said, ‘I must perish in this horrible became lost in the dark waters of the lake. madness. I am not afraid of danger but I am afraid of its effect After observing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the terror. I feel that sooner or later I must abandon life and reason 30 house. A servant took my horse, and a valet led me to the studio of together in this battle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.’ his master through many dark and intricate passages. I felt an 11  Gothic Short Stories The Fall of the House of Usher 65 He also believed that the gloomy house itself and the dark lake because of the strange nature of his sister’s disease, his distrust of had a great effect on his existence. her doctors and the great distance of the cemetery. He admitted, however, that much of his sadness came from the 100 So, I helped Usher with this temporary burial of his sister in the long illness and the approaching death of his beloved sister - his only family vault, which was deep underground, directly below my companion for many years and his last and only relative on earth. bedroom. In feudal times this vault had been a dungeon and later it 70 ‘Her death,’ he said, ‘would make me the last of the ancient race of was used as a deposit for gunpowder. the Ushers.’ While he spoke, his sister, the lady Madeline, walked When we had placed the coffin in the vault, we lifted up the lid to slowly through the other end of the studio, and, without seeing me, 105 look at her face. The first thing I noticed was the great similarity disappeared. between the brother and sister. Usher, guessing my thoughts, told None of Madeline’s doctors had been able to help her. She me that he and the deceased had been twins, and that there had 75 suffered from apathy, a gradual wasting away of her person and always been a strange understanding between them. frequent attacks of catalepsy. Until then she had fought the disease, Still, we could not look at her for long without fear. This woman but that evening she finally gave up, and I learned that the glimpse I 110 who had died so young still had a faint colour, and a strange smile had of her would probably be my last – that the lady, at least while which is so terrible in death; this is not unusual for those who have living, would be seen by me no more. died of some form of catalepsy. So, we put back the lid of the coffin 80 For the next few days we did not mention her name, and during and returned to our rooms above. this time I tried to make my friend feel better. We painted and read ✻✻✻✻✻✻✻✻✻✻ together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of Several days later I began to see a great change in my friend. He his playing the guitar. 115 no longer read, painted or played music. He wandered around the One of his paintings was particularly striking. It presented the mansion and his pallor increased. His voice shook when he spoke, as 85 interior of an immensely long and rectangular tunnel with low walls if from extreme terror. At times I thought that my friend was that were smooth, white and without decoration. You could see that fighting to tell me some oppressive secret. Other times I thought it was far below the earth. It had no window, nor any other light. that he was just mad because he stared into space for hours, as if he Still, the whole was full of a ghastly and inappropriate splendour. 120 were listening to some imaginary sound. It is no wonder that his He also told me his strange belief that not only did plants have condition terrified - that it infected me. Slowly I myself began to 90 feelings but also inorganic things as well. He believed that the home believe his fantastic superstitions. of his ancestors was somehow alive. The result of this could be seen Then on the seventh or eighth night after placing Madeline in the in the silent, persistent and terrible influence which for centuries vault I felt the full power of these feelings. It was stormy outside and had shaped the destinies of his family and which made him what I 125 I could not sleep. I tried to convince myself that my feelings came now saw. from the gloomy furniture of the room in the dark. Then, for some 95 One evening Usher told me that Madeline had died. He was strange reason, I began to pay attention to some low and indistinct going to keep her body in a family vault for two weeks before sounds. I could not stand it any more and began to walk back and burying her in the family cemetery. He had decided to do this forth in my room. A few minutes later Usher entered my room 12