Chapter XVI: Front Matter (16)

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell
of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial
suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and
straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the
walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is
scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have
been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments
were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little
more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty
or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right
and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic
window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the
windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose
color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the
decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the
eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue
were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments
and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was
green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was
furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth
with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black
velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the
walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material
and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows
failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
scarlet—a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments
was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden
ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the
roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or
candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that
followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy
tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through
the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus
were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But
in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that
streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes,
was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the
countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the
company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the
western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to
and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the
minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be
stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound
which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of
so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour,
the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause,
momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and
thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was
a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the
chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over
their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the
echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the
assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at
their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each
to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce
in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty
minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of
the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the
clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and
meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent
revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye
for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere
fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions
glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have
thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was
necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was
not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of
the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was
his own guiding taste which had given character to the
masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare
and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since
seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited
limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the
madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the
wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a
little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in
the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams.
And these—the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hue from the
rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the
echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock
which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment,
all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The
dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the
chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light,
half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now
again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to
the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are
now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning
away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored
panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him
whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near
clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any
which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties
of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on,
until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the
clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the
evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy
cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve
strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it
happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time,
into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled.
And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes
of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many
individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of
the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention
of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new
presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at
length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of
disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror,
and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well
be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was
nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded
Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite
decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless
which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly
lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters
of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed
now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the
stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall
and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of
the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly
to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the
closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat.
And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the
mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume
the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and
his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image
(which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to
sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was
seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder
either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened
with rage.

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near
him—“who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him
and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise,
from the battlements!”

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the
seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the prince was a bold and
robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his
hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of
pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a
slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the
intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with
deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker.
But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of
the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none
who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed
within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the
rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the
same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from
the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the
purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this
again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided
movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that
the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own
momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers,
while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had
seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had
approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of
the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the
extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted
his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped
gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards,
fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the
wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw
themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer,
whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of
the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the
grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so
violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had
come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the
revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died
each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the
flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red
Death held illimitable dominion over all.

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could;
but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so
well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that
I gave utterance to a threat. _At length_ I would be avenged;
this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness
with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must
not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed
when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally
unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such
to him who has done the wrong.

It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given
Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my
wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile
_now_ was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards he
was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on
his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso
spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the
time and opportunity—to practise imposture upon the British and
Austrian _millionaires_. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like
his countrymen, was a quack—but in the matter of old wines he was
sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I
was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely
whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the
carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me
with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man
wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and
his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so
pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done
wringing his hand.

I said to him: “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How
remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a
pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”

“How?” said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the
middle of the carnival!”

“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the
full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You
were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”

“Amontillado!”

“I have my doubts.”

“Amontillado!”

“And I must satisfy them.”

“Amontillado!”

“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a
critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—”

“Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”

“And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for
your own.”

“Come, let us go.”

“Whither?”

“To your vaults.”

“My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I
perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi—”

“I have no engagement;—come.”

“My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold
with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are
insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.”

“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing.
Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he
cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on
a mask of black silk, and drawing a _roquelaire_ closely about my
person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make
merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not
return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not
to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well
knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as
soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to
Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the
archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and
winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed.
We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together
on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap
jingled as he strode.

“The pipe,” said he.

“It is farther on,” said I; “but observe the white web-work which
gleams from these cavern walls.”

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs
that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

“Nitre?” he asked, at length.

“Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough?”

“Ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh!
ugh! ugh!”

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

“It is nothing,” he said, at last.

“Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is
precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are
happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be
responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi—”

“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill
me. I shall not die of a cough.”

“True—true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of
alarming you unnecessarily—but you should use all proper caution.
A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long
row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

“Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me
familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

“I forget your arms.”

“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a
serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

“And the motto?”

“_Nemo me impune lacessit_.”

“Good!” he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy
grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled
bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost
recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made
bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

“The nitre!” I said: “see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon
the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture
trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too
late. Your cough—”

“It is nothing,” he said; “let us go on. But first, another
draught of the Medoc.”

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a
breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and
threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not
understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement—a grotesque
one.

“You do not comprehend?” he said.

“Not I,” I replied.

“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

“How?”

“You are not of the masons.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

“You? Impossible! A mason?”

“A mason,” I replied.

“A sign,” he said.

“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the
folds of my _roquelaire_.

“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us
proceed to the Amontillado.”

“Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and
again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We
continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed
through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and
descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness
of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less
spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to
the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of
Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented
in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down,
and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a
mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the
displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in
depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It
seemed to have been constructed for no especial use in itself,
but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal
supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of
their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination
the feeble light did not enable us to see.

“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped
unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In
an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding
his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A
moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface
were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet,
horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the
other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but
the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded
to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling
the nitre. Indeed it is _very_ damp. Once more let me _implore_
you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must
first render you all the little attentions in my power.”

“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from
his astonishment.

“True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of
which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered
a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and
with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the
entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I
discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great
measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low
moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was _not_ the cry of
a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I
laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I
heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for
several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with
the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the
bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel,
and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the
seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my
breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the
mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from
the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently
back. For a brief moment I hesitated—I trembled. Unsheathing my
rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the
thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the
solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached
the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I
re-echoed—I aided—I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I
did this, and the clamorer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had
completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had
finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained
but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled
with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position.
But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected
the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I
had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The
voice said—

“Ha! ha! ha!—he! he!—a very good joke indeed—an excellent jest.
We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo—he! he!
he!—over our wine—he! he! he!”

“The Amontillado!” I said.

“He! he! he!—he! he! he!—yes, the Amontillado. But is it not
getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the
Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”

“Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”

“_For the love of God, Montressor!_”

“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew
impatient. I called aloud—

“Fortunato!”

No answer. I called again—

“Fortunato!”

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture
and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a
jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the
dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor.
I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up.
Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.
For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. _In pace
requiescat!_

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

In the consideration of the faculties and impulses—of the prima
mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make
room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a
radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally
overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the
pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We have
suffered its existence to escape our senses, solely through want
of belief—of faith;—whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith
in the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply
because of its supererogation. We saw no need of the impulse—for
the propensity. We could not perceive its necessity. We could not
understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the
notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded itself;—we could not
have understood in what manner it might be made to further the
objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be
denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all
metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual
or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man,
set himself to imagine designs—to dictate purposes to God. Having
thus fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah,
out of these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind.
In the matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined,
naturally enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man
should eat. We then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness,
and this organ is the scourge with which the Deity compels man,
will-I nill-I, into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be
God’s will that man should continue his species, we discovered an
organ of amativeness, forthwith. And so with combativeness, with
ideality, with causality, with constructiveness,—so, in short,
with every organ, whether representing a propensity, a moral
sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect. And in these
arrangements of the Principia of human action, the Spurzheimites,
whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but
followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors;
deducing and establishing every thing from the preconceived
destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of his
Creator.

It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify
(if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or
occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than
upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended
him to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how
then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into
being? If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures,
how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation?

Induction, _a posteriori_, would have brought phrenology to
admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a
paradoxical something, which we may call _perverseness_, for want
of a more characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in
fact, a _mobile_ without motive, a motive not _motivirt_. Through
its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this
shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far
modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we
act, for the reason that we should _not_. In theory, no reason
can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more
strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes
absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe,
than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is
often the one unconquerable _force_ which impels us, and alone
impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency
to do wrong for the wrong’s sake, admit of analysis, or
resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
impulse—elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we
persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them,
our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily
springs from the combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will
show the fallacy of this idea. The phrenological combativeness
has for its essence, the necessity of self-defence. It is our
safeguard against injury. Its principle regards our well-being;
and thus the desire to be well is excited simultaneously with its
development. It follows, that the desire to be well must be
excited simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a
modification of combativeness, but in the case of that something
which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not
aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.

An appeal to one’s own heart is, after all, the best reply to the
sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and
thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire
to tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware
that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he is
usually curt, precise, and clear; the most laconic and luminous
language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue; it is only
with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he
dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet,
the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and
parentheses this anger may be engendered. That single thought is
enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire,
the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the
deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of
all consequences) is indulged.

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We
know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important
crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy
and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence
the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our
whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day,
and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no
answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no
comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a
more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very
increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively
fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving
gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is
at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within
us,—of the definite with the indefinite—of the substance with the
shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the
shadow which prevails,—we struggle in vain. The clock strikes,
and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the
chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It
flies—it disappears—we are free. The old energy returns. We will
labor now. Alas, it is too late!

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we
grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the
danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and
dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable
feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud
assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which
arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud
upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability, a shape,
far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet
it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills
the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight
of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our
sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a
height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very
reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of
all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering
which have ever presented themselves to our imagination—for this
very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our
reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the
edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge, for a
moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for
reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say,
that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we
fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the
abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate
them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this
there is no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem
this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it
not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good.

I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question—that I may explain to you why I am here—that I may
assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect
of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting
this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might
either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble,
have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am
one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a
more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered
upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes,
because their accomplishment involved a _chance_ of detection. At
length, in reading some French memoirs, I found an account of a
nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the
agency of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my
fancy at once. I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed. I
knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But
I need not vex you with impertinent details. I need not describe
the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room
candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making for the one which I
there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed,
and the coroner’s verdict was—“Death by the visitation of God.”

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The
idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of
the fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no
shadow of a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or
even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a
sentiment of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon
my absolute security. For a very long period of time I was
accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded me more real
delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my
sin. But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the
pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations,
into a haunting and harassing thought. It harassed because it
haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It is
quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our
ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary
song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be
the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera
air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually
catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low
undertone, the phrase, “I am safe.”

One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself
in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables.
In a fit of petulance, I remodelled them thus: “I am safe—I am
safe—yes—if I be not fool enough to make open confession!”

No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill
creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of
perversity (whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain),
and I remembered well that in no instance I had successfully
resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion
that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of
which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of
him whom I had murdered—and beckoned me on to death.

At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the
soul. I walked vigorously—faster—still faster—at length I ran. I
felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of
thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too
well understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I
still quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the
crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm,
and pursued me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I
have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice
resounded in my ears—a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I
turned—I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the
pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and
then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad
palm upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from
my soul.

They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with
marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of
interruption before concluding the brief but pregnant sentences
that consigned me to the hangman and to hell.

Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.

But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am
_here!_ To-morrow I shall be fetterless!—_but where?_

THE ISLAND OF THE FAY

Nullus enim locus sine genio est.—_Servius_.

“La musique,” says Marmontel, in those “Contes Moraux” (*1) which
in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling “Moral
Tales,” as if in mockery of their spirit—“la musique est le seul
des talents qui jouissent de lui-même; tous les autres veulent
des temoins.” He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet
sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any
other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete
enjoyment, where there is no second party to appreciate its
exercise. And it is only in common with other talents that it
produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea
which the raconteur has either failed to entertain clearly, or
has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of point,
is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of
music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively
alone. The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by
those who love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual
uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen
mortality and perhaps only one—which owes even more than does
music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the
happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In
truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon
earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me, at least, the
presence—not of human life only, but of life in any other form
than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are
voiceless—is a stain upon the landscape—is at war with the genius
of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the
gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests
that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains
that look down upon all,—I love to regard these as themselves but
the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole—a
whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and
most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets;
whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign is the
sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God;
whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in
immensity, whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own
cognizance of the animalculae which infest the brain—a being
which we, in consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material
much in the same manner as these animalculae must thus regard us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on
every hand—notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the
priesthood—that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important
consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which
the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without
collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms
of those bodies are accurately such as, within a given surface,
to include the greatest possible amount of matter;—while the
surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser
population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces
otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an
object with God, that space itself is infinite; for there may be
an infinity of matter to fill it. And since we see clearly that
the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle—indeed, as
far as our judgments extend, the leading principle in the
operations of Deity,—it is scarcely logical to imagine it
confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it,
and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within
cycle without end,—yet all revolving around one far-distant
centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically suppose in
the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater,
and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring,
through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or
future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that
vast “clod of the valley” which he tills and contemns, and to
which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he
does not behold it in operation. (*2)

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my
meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers
and the ocean, a tinge of what the everyday world would not fail
to term fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many,
and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with
which I have strayed through many a dim, deep valley, or gazed
into the reflected Heaven of many a bright lake, has been an
interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and
gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman was it who said in allusion
to the well-known work of Zimmerman, that, “la solitude est une
belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la
solitude est une belle chose?” The epigram cannot be gainsayed;
but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant
region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and
melancholy tarn writhing or sleeping within all—that I chanced
upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in
the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf, beneath the
branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I
contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon
it—such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

On all sides—save to the west, where the sun was about
sinking—arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river
which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost
to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be
absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east—while
in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length
and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and
continuously into the valley, a rich golden and crimson waterfall
from the sunset fountains of the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in,
one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the
bosom of the stream.

So blended bank and shadow there
That each seemed pendulous in air—

so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely
possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf
its crystal dominion began.

My position enabled me to include in a single view both the
eastern and western extremities of the islet; and I observed a
singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all
one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed
beneath the eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with
flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and
asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful,
erect—bright, slender, and graceful,—of Eastern figure and
foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There
seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no
airs blew from out the heavens, yet every thing had motion
through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable
butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings.
(*4)

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest
shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded
all things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form
and attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral
shapes that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death.
The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its
blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many
small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that
had the aspect of graves, but were not; although over and all
about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shade of the
trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself
therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I
fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower,
separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and
thus became absorbed by the stream; while other shadows issued
momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors
thus entombed.

This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it,
and I lost myself forthwith in revery. “If ever island were
enchanted,” said I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of
the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are
these green tombs theirs?—or do they yield up their sweet lives
as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste
away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little, their
existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow,
exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting
tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker
by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the
death which engulfs it?”

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly
to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the
island, bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of
the bark of the sycamore—flakes which, in their multiform
positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have
converted into anything it pleased—while I thus mused, it
appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom
I had been pondering made its way slowly into the darkness from
out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect
in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom
of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams,
her attitude seemed indicative of joy—but sorrow deformed it as
she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at
length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. “The
revolution which has just been made by the Fay,” continued I,
musingly, “is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has
floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year
nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she came
into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in
the dark water, making its blackness more black.”

And again the boat appeared and the Fay; but about the attitude
of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of
elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the
gloom (which deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from
her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness.
And again and again she made the circuit of the island, (while
the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into
the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew
feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage
into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became
whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had
utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self,
went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony
flood—and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for
darkness fell over all things and I beheld her magical figure no
more.

THE ASSIGNATION

Stay for me there! I will not fail.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.

(_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester_.)

Ill-fated and mysterious man!—bewildered in the brilliancy of
thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own
youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath
risen before me!—not—oh! not as thou art—in the cold valley and
shadow—but as thou _shouldst be_—squandering away a life of
magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own
Venice—which is a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide
windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and
bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I
repeat it—as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds
than this—other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude—other
speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall
call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary
hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life,
which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?

It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the
_Ponte di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the
person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I
bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I
remember—ah! how should I forget?—the deep midnight, the Bridge
of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the Genius of Romance that
stalked up and down the narrow canal.