Chapter 25 (2)

And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia—and again, (what marvel
that I shudder while I write?), again there reached my ears a low
sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely
detail the unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause
to relate how, time after time, until near the period of the gray
dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was repeated; how each
terrific relapse was only into a sterner and apparently more
irredeemable death; how each agony wore the aspect of a struggle
with some invisible foe; and how each struggle was succeeded by I
know not what of wild change in the personal appearance of the
corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.

The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who
had been dead, once again stirred—and now more vigorously than
hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in
its utter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or
to move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a
helpless prey to a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme
awe was perhaps the least terrible, the least consuming. The
corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more vigorously than before.
The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy into the
countenance—the limbs relaxed—and, save that the eyelids were yet
pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and draperies of
the grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I
might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then,
altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when,
arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed
eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing
that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle
of the apartment.

I trembled not—I stirred not—for a crowd of unutterable fancies
connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,
rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed—had chilled me
into stone. I stirred not—but gazed upon the apparition. There
was a mad disorder in my thoughts—a tumult unappeasable. Could
it, indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it
indeed be Rowena at all—the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady
Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The
bandage lay heavily about the mouth—but then might it not be the
mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks—there
were the roses as in her noon of life—yes, these might indeed be
the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin,
with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers?—but had she
then grown taller since her malady? What inexpressible madness
seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had reached her
feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and
there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber,
huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; _it was blacker than
the raven wings of the midnight!_ And now slowly opened the eyes
of the figure which stood before me. “Here then, at least,” I
shrieked aloud, “can I never—can I never be mistaken—these are
the full, and the black, and the wild eyes—of my lost love—of the
Lady—of the LADY LIGEIA.”

MORELLA

Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.
—PLATO—_Sympos_.

With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my
friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years
ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had
never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter
and tormenting to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I
could in no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their
vague intensity. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the
altar; and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She,
however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone
rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness
to dream.

Morella’s erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents
were of no common order—her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt
this, and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however,
found that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she
placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are
usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature.
These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her favourite
and constant study—and that in process of time they became my
own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence
of habit and example.

In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My
convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by
the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to
be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds
or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself
implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with an
unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And
then—then, when, poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden
spirit enkindling within me—would Morella place her cold hand
upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some
low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned themselves in
upon my memory. And then, hour after hour, would I linger by her
side, and dwell upon the music of her voice, until at length its
melody was tainted with terror, and there fell a shadow upon my
soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too
unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and
the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon became
Ge-Henna.

It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those
disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned,
formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of
Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed
theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the
unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The
wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified Paliggenedia of the
Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged
by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting
the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That identity
which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to
consist in the saneness of rational being. And since by person we
understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there
is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this
which makes us all to be that which we call _ourselves_—thereby
distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our
personal identity. But the _principium indivduationis_, the
notion of that identity _which at death is or is not lost
forever_—was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense
interest; not more from the perplexing and exciting nature of its
consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which
Morella mentioned them.

But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my
wife’s manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no longer bear the
touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical
language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all
this, but did not upbraid; she seemed conscious of my weakness or
my folly, and, smiling, called it Fate. She seemed, also,
conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation
of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet
was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson spot
settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale
forehead became prominent; and one instant my nature melted into
pity, but in, next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and then
my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who
gazes downward into some dreary and unfathomable abyss.

Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming
desire for the moment of Morella’s decease? I did; but the
fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days—for
many weeks and irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained
the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and,
with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days and the hours and the
bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her
gentle life declined—like shadows in the dying of the day.

But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven,
Morella called me to her bedside. There was a dim mist over all
the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich
October leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had
surely fallen.

“It is a day of days,” she said, as I approached; “a day of all
days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of
earth and life—ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and
death!”

I kissed her forehead, and she continued:

“I am dying, yet shall I live.”

“Morella!”

“The days have never been when thou couldst love me—but her whom
in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore.”

“Morella!”

“I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that
affection—ah, how little!—which thou didst feel for me, Morella.
And when my spirit departs shall the child live—thy child and
mine, Morella’s. But thy days shall be days of sorrow—that sorrow
which is the most lasting of impressions, as the cypress is the
most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over
and joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Paestum
twice in a year. Thou shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with
time, but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt
bear about with thee thy shroud on the earth, as do the Moslemin
at Mecca.”

“Morella!” I cried, “Morella! how knowest thou this?” but she
turned away her face upon the pillow and a slight tremor coming
over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.

Yet, as she had foretold, her child, to which in dying she had
given birth, which breathed not until the mother breathed no
more, her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in
stature and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who
had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent than I had
believed it possible to feel for any denizen of earth.

But, ere long the heaven of this pure affection became darkened,
and gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it in clouds. I said
the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange,
indeed, was her rapid increase in bodily size—but terrible, oh!
terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while
watching the development of her mental being. Could it be
otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the
child the adult powers and faculties of the woman?—when the
lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and when the
wisdom or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from
its full and speculative eye? When, I say, all this became
evident to my appalled senses—when I could no longer hide it from
my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled
to receive it—is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a
nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my
thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling
theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of
the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and in the
rigorous seclusion of my home, watched with an agonizing anxiety
over all which concerned the beloved.

And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her
holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and poured over her maturing
form, day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in
the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And hourly
grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more
definite, and more perplexing, and more hideously terrible in
their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother’s I could
bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect _identity_—that her
eyes were like Morella’s I could endure; but then they, too,
often looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella’s own
intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high
forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan
fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the sad musical
tones of her speech, and above all—oh! above all—in the phrases
and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the
living, I found food for consuming thought and horror—for a worm
that _would_ not die.

Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter
remained nameless upon the earth. “My child,” and “my love,” were
the designations usually prompted by a father’s affection, and
the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse.
Morella’s name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had
never spoken to the daughter;—it was impossible to speak. Indeed,
during the brief period of her existence, the latter had received
no impressions from the outward world, save such as might have
been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length
the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and
agitated condition, a present deliverance from the terrors of my
destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And
many titles of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times,
of my own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips, with
many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and the
good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried
dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound, which in its
very recollection was wont to make ebb the purple blood in
torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the
recesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the
silence of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man
the syllables—Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the
features of my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as
starting at that scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy
eyes from the earth to heaven, and falling prostrate on the black
slabs of our ancestral vault, responded—“I am here!”

Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds
within my ear, and thence like molten lead rolled hissingly into
my brain. Years—years may pass away, but the memory of that
epoch—never! Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the
vine—but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and
day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of
my fate faded from heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and
its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them
all I beheld only—Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed
but one sound within my ears, and the ripples upon the sea
murmured evermore—Morella. But she died; and with my own hands I
bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh
as I found no traces of the first in the charnel where I laid the
second, Morella.

A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS

During the fall of the year 1827, while residing near
Charlottesville, Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of
Mr. Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every
respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I
found it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his
physical relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory
account. Whence he came, I never ascertained. Even about his
age—although I call him a young gentleman—there was something
which perplexed me in no little degree. He certainly seemed
young—and he made a point of speaking about his youth—yet there
were moments when I should have had little trouble in imagining
him a hundred years of age. But in no regard was he more peculiar
than in his personal appearance. He was singularly tall and thin.
He stooped much. His limbs were exceedingly long and emaciated.
His forehead was broad and low. His complexion was absolutely
bloodless. His mouth was large and flexible, and his teeth were
more wildly uneven, although sound, than I had ever before seen
teeth in a human head. The expression of his smile, however, was
by no means unpleasing, as might be supposed; but it had no
variation whatever. It was one of profound melancholy—of a
phaseless and unceasing gloom. His eyes were abnormally large,
and round like those of a cat. The pupils, too, upon any
accession or diminution of light, underwent contraction or
dilation, just such as is observed in the feline tribe. In
moments of excitement the orbs grew bright to a degree almost
inconceivable; seeming to emit luminous rays, not of a reflected
but of an intrinsic lustre, as does a candle or the sun; yet
their ordinary condition was so totally vapid, filmy, and dull as
to convey the idea of the eyes of a long-interred corpse.

These peculiarities of person appeared to cause him much
annoyance, and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of
half explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first
heard it, impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew
accustomed to it, and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his
design rather to insinuate than directly to assert that,
physically, he had not always been what he was—that a long series
of neuralgic attacks had reduced him from a condition of more
than usual personal beauty, to that which I saw. For many years
past he had been attended by a physician, named Templeton—an old
gentleman, perhaps seventy years of age—whom he had first
encountered at Saratoga, and from whose attention, while there,
he either received, or fancied that he received, great benefit.
The result was that Bedloe, who was wealthy, had made an
arrangement with Dr. Templeton, by which the latter, in
consideration of a liberal annual allowance, had consented to
devote his time and medical experience exclusively to the care of
the invalid.

Doctor Templeton had been a traveller in his younger days, and at
Paris had become a convert, in great measure, to the doctrines of
Mesmer. It was altogether by means of magnetic remedies that he
had succeeded in alleviating the acute pains of his patient; and
this success had very naturally inspired the latter with a
certain degree of confidence in the opinions from which the
remedies had been educed. The Doctor, however, like all
enthusiasts, had struggled hard to make a thorough convert of his
pupil, and finally so far gained his point as to induce the
sufferer to submit to numerous experiments. By a frequent
repetition of these, a result had arisen, which of late days has
become so common as to attract little or no attention, but which,
at the period of which I write, had very rarely been known in
America. I mean to say, that between Doctor Templeton and Bedloe
there had grown up, little by little, a very distinct and
strongly marked rapport, or magnetic relation. I am not prepared
to assert, however, that this rapport extended beyond the limits
of the simple sleep-producing power, but this power itself had
attained great intensity. At the first attempt to induce the
magnetic somnolency, the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth
or sixth he succeeded very partially, and after long continued
effort. Only at the twelfth was the triumph complete. After this
the will of the patient succumbed rapidly to that of the
physician, so that, when I first became acquainted with the two,
sleep was brought about almost instantaneously by the mere
volition of the operator, even when the invalid was unaware of
his presence. It is only now, in the year 1845, when similar
miracles are witnessed daily by thousands, that I dare venture to
record this apparent impossibility as a matter of serious fact.

The temperature of Bedloe was, in the highest degree sensitive,
excitable, enthusiastic. His imagination was singularly vigorous
and creative; and no doubt it derived additional force from the
habitual use of morphine, which he swallowed in great quantity,
and without which he would have found it impossible to exist. It
was his practice to take a very large dose of it immediately
after breakfast each morning—or, rather, immediately after a cup
of strong coffee, for he ate nothing in the forenoon—and then set
forth alone, or attended only by a dog, upon a long ramble among
the chain of wild and dreary hills that lie westward and
southward of Charlottesville, and are there dignified by the
title of the Ragged Mountains.

Upon a dim, warm, misty day, toward the close of November, and
during the strange interregnum of the seasons which in America is
termed the Indian Summer, Mr. Bedloe departed as usual for the
hills. The day passed, and still he did not return.

About eight o’clock at night, having become seriously alarmed at
his protracted absence, we were about setting out in search of
him, when he unexpectedly made his appearance, in health no worse
than usual, and in rather more than ordinary spirits. The account
which he gave of his expedition, and of the events which had
detained him, was a singular one indeed.

“You will remember,” said he, “that it was about nine in the
morning when I left Charlottesville. I bent my steps immediately
to the mountains, and, about ten, entered a gorge which was
entirely new to me. I followed the windings of this pass with
much interest. The scenery which presented itself on all sides,
although scarcely entitled to be called grand, had about it an
indescribable and to me a delicious aspect of dreary desolation.
The solitude seemed absolutely virgin. I could not help believing
that the green sods and the gray rocks upon which I trod had been
trodden never before by the foot of a human being. So entirely
secluded, and in fact inaccessible, except through a series of
accidents, is the entrance of the ravine, that it is by no means
impossible that I was indeed the first adventurer—the very first
and sole adventurer who had ever penetrated its recesses.

“The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the
Indian Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects,
served, no doubt, to deepen the vague impressions which these
objects created. So dense was this pleasant fog that I could at
no time see more than a dozen yards of the path before me. This
path was excessively sinuous, and as the sun could not be seen, I
soon lost all idea of the direction in which I journeyed. In the
meantime the morphine had its customary effect—that of enduing
all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the
quivering of a leaf—in the hue of a blade of grass—in the shape
of a trefoil—in the humming of a bee—in the gleaming of a
dew-drop—in the breathing of the wind—in the faint odors that
came from the forest—there came a whole universe of suggestion—a
gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought.

“Busied in this, I walked on for several hours, during which the
mist deepened around me to so great an extent that at length I
was reduced to an absolute groping of the way. And now an
indescribable uneasiness possessed me—a species of nervous
hesitation and tremor. I feared to tread, lest I should be
precipitated into some abyss. I remembered, too, strange stories
told about these Ragged Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce
races of men who tenanted their groves and caverns. A thousand
vague fancies oppressed and disconcerted me—fancies the more
distressing because vague. Very suddenly my attention was
arrested by the loud beating of a drum.

“My amazement was, of course, extreme. A drum in these hills was
a thing unknown. I could not have been more surprised at the
sound of the trump of the Archangel. But a new and still more
astounding source of interest and perplexity arose. There came a
wild rattling or jingling sound, as if of a bunch of large keys,
and upon the instant a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed
past me with a shriek. He came so close to my person that I felt
his hot breath upon my face. He bore in one hand an instrument
composed of an assemblage of steel rings, and shook them
vigorously as he ran. Scarcely had he disappeared in the mist
before, panting after him, with open mouth and glaring eyes,
there darted a huge beast. I could not be mistaken in its
character. It was a hyena.

“The sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my
terrors—for I now made sure that I dreamed, and endeavored to
arouse myself to waking consciousness. I stepped boldly and
briskly forward. I rubbed my eyes. I called aloud. I pinched my
limbs. A small spring of water presented itself to my view, and
here, stooping, I bathed my hands and my head and neck. This
seemed to dissipate the equivocal sensations which had hitherto
annoyed me. I arose, as I thought, a new man, and proceeded
steadily and complacently on my unknown way.

“At length, quite overcome by exertion, and by a certain
oppressive closeness of the atmosphere, I seated myself beneath a
tree. Presently there came a feeble gleam of sunshine, and the
shadow of the leaves of the tree fell faintly but definitely upon
the grass. At this shadow I gazed wonderingly for many minutes.
Its character stupefied me with astonishment. I looked upward.
The tree was a palm.

“I now arose hurriedly, and in a state of fearful agitation—for
the fancy that I dreamed would serve me no longer. I saw—I felt
that I had perfect command of my senses—and these senses now
brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation. The
heat became all at once intolerable. A strange odor loaded the
breeze. A low, continuous murmur, like that arising from a full,
but gently flowing river, came to my ears, intermingled with the
peculiar hum of multitudinous human voices.

“While I listened in an extremity of astonishment which I need
not attempt to describe, a strong and brief gust of wind bore off
the incumbent fog as if by the wand of an enchanter.

“I found myself at the foot of a high mountain, and looking down
into a vast plain, through which wound a majestic river. On the
margin of this river stood an Eastern-looking city, such as we
read of in the Arabian Tales, but of a character even more
singular than any there described. From my position, which was
far above the level of the town, I could perceive its every nook
and corner, as if delineated on a map. The streets seemed
innumerable, and crossed each other irregularly in all
directions, but were rather long winding alleys than streets, and
absolutely swarmed with inhabitants. The houses were wildly
picturesque. On every hand was a wilderness of balconies, of
verandas, of minarets, of shrines, and fantastically carved
oriels. Bazaars abounded; and in these were displayed rich wares
in infinite variety and profusion—silks, muslins, the most
dazzling cutlery, the most magnificent jewels and gems. Besides
these things, were seen, on all sides, banners and palanquins,
litters with stately dames close-veiled, elephants gorgeously
caparisoned, idols grotesquely hewn, drums, banners, and gongs,
spears, silver and gilded maces. And amid the crowd, and the
clamor, and the general intricacy and confusion—amid the million
of black and yellow men, turbaned and robed, and of flowing
beard, there roamed a countless multitude of holy filleted bulls,
while vast legions of the filthy but sacred ape clambered,
chattering and shrieking, about the cornices of the mosques, or
clung to the minarets and oriels. From the swarming streets to
the banks of the river, there descended innumerable flights of
steps leading to bathing places, while the river itself seemed to
force a passage with difficulty through the vast fleets of
deeply-burthened ships that far and wide encountered its surface.
Beyond the limits of the city arose, in frequent majestic groups,
the palm and the cocoa, with other gigantic and weird trees of
vast age; and here and there might be seen a field of rice, the
thatched hut of a peasant, a tank, a stray temple, a gypsy camp,
or a solitary graceful maiden taking her way, with a pitcher upon
her head, to the banks of the magnificent river.

“You will say now, of course, that I dreamed; but not so. What I
saw—what I heard—what I felt—what I thought—had about it nothing
of the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of the dream. All was rigorously
self-consistent. At first, doubting that I was really awake, I
entered into a series of tests, which soon convinced me that I
really was. Now, when one dreams, and, in the dream, suspects
that he dreams, the suspicion never fails to confirm itself, and
the sleeper is almost immediately aroused. Thus Novalis errs not
in saying that ‘we are near waking when we dream that we dream.’
Had the vision occurred to me as I describe it, without my
suspecting it as a dream, then a dream it might absolutely have
been, but, occurring as it did, and suspected and tested as it
was, I am forced to class it among other phenomena.”

“In this I am not sure that you are wrong,” observed Dr.
Templeton, “but proceed. You arose and descended into the city.”

“I arose,” continued Bedloe, regarding the Doctor with an air of
profound astonishment “I arose, as you say, and descended into
the city. On my way I fell in with an immense populace, crowding
through every avenue, all in the same direction, and exhibiting
in every action the wildest excitement. Very suddenly, and by
some inconceivable impulse, I became intensely imbued with
personal interest in what was going on. I seemed to feel that I
had an important part to play, without exactly understanding what
it was. Against the crowd which environed me, however, I
experienced a deep sentiment of animosity. I shrank from amid
them, and, swiftly, by a circuitous path, reached and entered the
city. Here all was the wildest tumult and contention. A small
party of men, clad in garments half Indian, half European, and
officered by gentlemen in a uniform partly British, were engaged,
at great odds, with the swarming rabble of the alleys. I joined
the weaker party, arming myself with the weapons of a fallen
officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the nervous ferocity
of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers, and driven to
seek refuge in a species of kiosk. Here we barricaded ourselves,
and, for the present were secure. From a loop-hole near the
summit of the kiosk, I perceived a vast crowd, in furious
agitation, surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung
the river. Presently, from an upper window of this place, there
descended an effeminate-looking person, by means of a string made
of the turbans of his attendants. A boat was at hand, in which he
escaped to the opposite bank of the river.

“And now a new object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few
hurried but energetic words to my companions, and, having
succeeded in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a
frantic sally from the kiosk. We rushed amid the crowd that
surrounded it. They retreated, at first, before us. They rallied,
fought madly, and retreated again. In the mean time we were borne
far from the kiosk, and became bewildered and entangled among the
narrow streets of tall, overhanging houses, into the recesses of
which the sun had never been able to shine. The rabble pressed
impetuously upon us, harrassing us with their spears, and
overwhelming us with flights of arrows. These latter were very
remarkable, and resembled in some respects the writhing creese of
the Malay. They were made to imitate the body of a creeping
serpent, and were long and black, with a poisoned barb. One of
them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled and fell. An
instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me. I struggled—I
gasped—I died.”

“You will hardly persist _now_,” said I smiling, “that the whole
of your adventure was not a dream. You are not prepared to
maintain that you are dead?”

When I said these words, I of course expected some lively sally
from Bedloe in reply, but, to my astonishment, he hesitated,
trembled, became fearfully pallid, and remained silent. I looked
toward Templeton. He sat erect and rigid in his chair—his teeth
chattered, and his eyes were starting from their sockets.
“Proceed!” he at length said hoarsely to Bedloe.

“For many minutes,” continued the latter, “my sole sentiment—my
sole feeling—was that of darkness and nonentity, with the
consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent
and sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it
came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt—not
saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no
bodily, no visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had
departed. The tumult had ceased. The city was in comparative
repose. Beneath me lay my corpse, with the arrow in my temple,
the whole head greatly swollen and disfigured. But all these
things I felt—not saw. I took interest in nothing. Even the
corpse seemed a matter in which I had no concern. Volition I had
none, but appeared to be impelled into motion, and flitted
buoyantly out of the city, retracing the circuitous path by which
I had entered it. When I had attained that point of the ravine in
the mountains at which I had encountered the hyena, I again
experienced a shock as of a galvanic battery; the sense of
weight, of volition, of substance, returned. I became my original
self, and bent my steps eagerly homeward—but the past had not
lost the vividness of the real—and not now, even for an instant,
can I compel my understanding to regard it as a dream.”

“Nor was it,” said Templeton, with an air of deep solemnity, “yet
it would be difficult to say how otherwise it should be termed.
Let us suppose only, that the soul of the man of to-day is upon
the verge of some stupendous psychal discoveries. Let us content
ourselves with this supposition. For the rest I have some
explanation to make. Here is a watercolor drawing, which I should
have shown you before, but which an unaccountable sentiment of
horror has hitherto prevented me from showing.”

We looked at the picture which he presented. I saw nothing in it
of an extraordinary character, but its effect upon Bedloe was
prodigious. He nearly fainted as he gazed. And yet it was but a
miniature portrait—a miraculously accurate one, to be sure—of his
own very remarkable features. At least this was my thought as I
regarded it.

“You will perceive,” said Templeton, “the date of this picture—it
is here, scarcely visible, in this corner—1780. In this year was
the portrait taken. It is the likeness of a dead friend—a Mr.
Oldeb—to whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the
administration of Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years
old. When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the
miraculous similarity which existed between yourself and the
painting which induced me to accost you, to seek your friendship,
and to bring about those arrangements which resulted in my
becoming your constant companion. In accomplishing this point, I
was urged partly, and perhaps principally, by a regretful memory
of the deceased, but also, in part, by an uneasy, and not
altogether horrorless curiosity respecting yourself.

“In your detail of the vision which presented itself to you amid
the hills, you have described, with the minutest accuracy, the
Indian city of Benares, upon the Holy River. The riots, the
combat, the massacre, were the actual events of the insurrection
of Cheyte Sing, which took place in 1780, when Hastings was put
in imminent peril of his life. The man escaping by the string of
turbans was Cheyte Sing himself. The party in the kiosk were
sepoys and British officers, headed by Hastings. Of this party I
was one, and did all I could to prevent the rash and fatal sally
of the officer who fell, in the crowded alleys, by the poisoned
arrow of a Bengalee. That officer was my dearest friend. It was
Oldeb. You will perceive by these manuscripts,” (here the speaker
produced a note-book in which several pages appeared to have been
freshly written,) “that at the very period in which you fancied
these things amid the hills, I was engaged in detailing them upon
paper here at home.”

In about a week after this conversation, the following paragraphs
appeared in a Charlottesville paper:

“We have the painful duty of announcing the death of Mr. Augustus
Bedlo, a gentleman whose amiable manners and many virtues have
long endeared him to the citizens of Charlottesville.

“Mr. B., for some years past, has been subject to neuralgia,
which has often threatened to terminate fatally; but this can be
regarded only as the mediate cause of his decease. The proximate
cause was one of especial singularity. In an excursion to the
Ragged Mountains, a few days since, a slight cold and fever were
contracted, attended with great determination of blood to the
head. To relieve this, Dr. Templeton resorted to topical
bleeding. Leeches were applied to the temples. In a fearfully
brief period the patient died, when it appeared that in the jar
containing the leeches, had been introduced, by accident, one of
the venomous vermicular sangsues which are now and then found in
the neighboring ponds. This creature fastened itself upon a small
artery in the right temple. Its close resemblance to the
medicinal leech caused the mistake to be overlooked until too
late.

“N. B.—The poisonous sangsue of Charlottesville may always be
distinguished from the medicinal leech by its blackness, and
especially by its writhing or vermicular motions, which very
nearly resemble those of a snake.”

I was speaking with the editor of the paper in question, upon the
topic of this remarkable accident, when it occurred to me to ask
how it happened that the name of the deceased had been given as
Bedlo.

“I presume,” I said, “you have authority for this spelling, but I
have always supposed the name to be written with an e at the
end.”

“Authority?—no,” he replied. “It is a mere typographical error.
The name is Bedlo with an e, all the world over, and I never knew
it to be spelt otherwise in my life.”

“Then,” said I mutteringly, as I turned upon my heel, “then
indeed has it come to pass that one truth is stranger than any
fiction—for Bedloe, without the e, what is it but Oldeb
conversed! And this man tells me that it is a typographical
error.”

THE SPECTACLES

Many years ago, it was the fashion to ridicule the idea of “love
at first sight;” but those who think, not less than those who
feel deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern
discoveries, indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or
magnetoesthetics, render it probable that the most natural, and,
consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections
are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy—in
a word, that the brightest and most enduring of the psychal
fetters are those which are riveted by a glance. The confession I
am about to make will add another to the already almost
innumerable instances of the truth of the position.

My story requires that I should be somewhat minute. I am still a
very young man—not yet twenty-two years of age. My name, at
present, is a very usual and rather plebeian one—Simpson. I say
“at present;” for it is only lately that I have been so
called—having legislatively adopted this surname within the last
year in order to receive a large inheritance left me by a distant
male relative, Adolphus Simpson, Esq. The bequest was conditioned
upon my taking the name of the testator,—the family, not the
Christian name; my Christian name is Napoleon Bonaparte—or, more
properly, these are my first and middle appellations.

I assumed the name, Simpson, with some reluctance, as in my true
patronym, Froissart, I felt a very pardonable pride—believing
that I could trace a descent from the immortal author of the
“Chronicles.” While on the subject of names, by the bye, I may
mention a singular coincidence of sound attending the names of
some of my immediate predecessors. My father was a Monsieur
Froissart, of Paris. His wife—my mother, whom he married at
fifteen—was a Mademoiselle Croissart, eldest daughter of
Croissart the banker, whose wife, again, being only sixteen when
married, was the eldest daughter of one Victor Voissart. Monsieur
Voissart, very singularly, had married a lady of similar name—a
Mademoiselle Moissart. She, too, was quite a child when married;
and her mother, also, Madame Moissart, was only fourteen when led
to the altar. These early marriages are usual in France. Here,
however, are Moissart, Voissart, Croissart, and Froissart, all in
the direct line of descent. My own name, though, as I say, became
Simpson, by act of Legislature, and with so much repugnance on my
part, that, at one period, I actually hesitated about accepting
the legacy with the useless and annoying proviso attached.

As to personal endowments, I am by no means deficient. On the
contrary, I believe that I am well made, and possess what nine
tenths of the world would call a handsome face. In height I am
five feet eleven. My hair is black and curling. My nose is
sufficiently good. My eyes are large and gray; and although, in
fact they are weak to a very inconvenient degree, still no defect
in this regard would be suspected from their appearance. The
weakness itself, however, has always much annoyed me, and I have
resorted to every remedy—short of wearing glasses. Being youthful
and good-looking, I naturally dislike these, and have resolutely
refused to employ them. I know nothing, indeed, which so
disfigures the countenance of a young person, or so impresses
every feature with an air of demureness, if not altogether of
sanctimoniousness and of age. An eyeglass, on the other hand, has
a savor of downright foppery and affectation. I have hitherto
managed as well as I could without either. But something too much
of these merely personal details, which, after all, are of little
importance. I will content myself with saying, in addition, that
my temperament is sanguine, rash, ardent, enthusiastic—and that
all my life I have been a devoted admirer of the women.

One night last winter I entered a box at the P—— Theatre, in
company with a friend, Mr. Talbot. It was an opera night, and the
bills presented a very rare attraction, so that the house was
excessively crowded. We were in time, however, to obtain the
front seats which had been reserved for us, and into which, with
some little difficulty, we elbowed our way.

For two hours my companion, who was a musical fanatico, gave his
undivided attention to the stage; and, in the meantime, I amused
myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part,
of the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this
point, I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they
were arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes
which had escaped my observation.

If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the intense
emotion with which I regarded this figure. It was that of a
female, the most exquisite I had ever beheld. The face was so far
turned toward the stage that, for some minutes, I could not
obtain a view of it—but the form was divine; no other word can
sufficiently express its magnificent proportion—and even the term
“divine” seems ridiculously feeble as I write it.

The magic of a lovely form in woman—the necromancy of female
gracefulness—was always a power which I had found it impossible
to resist, but here was grace personified, incarnate, the beau
ideal of my wildest and most enthusiastic visions. The figure,
almost all of which the construction of the box permitted to be
seen, was somewhat above the medium height, and nearly
approached, without positively reaching, the majestic. Its
perfect fullness and tournure were delicious. The head, of which
only the back was visible, rivalled in outline that of the Greek
Psyche, and was rather displayed than concealed by an elegant cap
of _gaze äérienne_, which put me in mind of the _ventum textilem_
of Apuleius. The right arm hung over the balustrade of the box,
and thrilled every nerve of my frame with its exquisite symmetry.
Its upper portion was draperied by one of the loose open sleeves
now in fashion. This extended but little below the elbow. Beneath
it was worn an under one of some frail material, close-fitting,
and terminated by a cuff of rich lace, which fell gracefully over
the top of the hand, revealing only the delicate fingers, upon
one of which sparkled a diamond ring, which I at once saw was of
extraordinary value. The admirable roundness of the wrist was
well set off by a bracelet which encircled it, and which also was
ornamented and clasped by a magnificent aigrette of
jewels—telling, in words that could not be mistaken, at once of
the wealth and fastidious taste of the wearer.

I gazed at this queenly apparition for at least half an hour, as
if I had been suddenly converted to stone; and, during this
period, I felt the full force and truth of all that has been said
or sung concerning “love at first sight.” My feelings were
totally different from any which I had hitherto experienced, in
the presence of even the most celebrated specimens of female
loveliness. An unaccountable, and what I am compelled to consider
a magnetic, sympathy of soul for soul, seemed to rivet, not only
my vision, but my whole powers of thought and feeling, upon the
admirable object before me. I saw—I felt—I knew that I was
deeply, madly, irrevocably in love—and this even before seeing
the face of the person beloved. So intense, indeed, was the
passion that consumed me, that I really believe it would have
received little if any abatement had the features, yet unseen,
proved of merely ordinary character; so anomalous is the nature
of the only true love—of the love at first sight—and so little
really dependent is it upon the external conditions which only
seem to create and control it.

While I was thus wrapped in admiration of this lovely vision, a
sudden disturbance among the audience caused her to turn her head
partially toward me, so that I beheld the entire profile of the
face. Its beauty even exceeded my anticipations—and yet there was
something about it which disappointed me without my being able to
tell exactly what it was. I said “disappointed,” but this is not
altogether the word. My sentiments were at once quieted and
exalted. They partook less of transport and more of calm
enthusiasm—of enthusiastic repose. This state of feeling arose,
perhaps, from the Madonna-like and matronly air of the face; and
yet I at once understood that it could not have arisen entirely
from this. There was something else—some mystery which I could
not develope—some expression about the countenance which slightly
disturbed me while it greatly heightened my interest. In fact, I
was just in that condition of mind which prepares a young and
susceptible man for any act of extravagance. Had the lady been
alone, I should undoubtedly have entered her box and accosted her
at all hazards; but, fortunately, she was attended by two
companions—a gentleman, and a strikingly beautiful woman, to all
appearance a few years younger than herself.

I revolved in my mind a thousand schemes by which I might obtain,
hereafter, an introduction to the elder lady, or, for the
present, at all events, a more distinct view of her beauty. I
would have removed my position to one nearer her own, but the
crowded state of the theatre rendered this impossible; and the
stern decrees of Fashion had, of late, imperatively prohibited
the use of the opera-glass in a case such as this, even had I
been so fortunate as to have one with me—but I had not—and was
thus in despair.

At length I bethought me of applying to my companion.

“Talbot,” I said, “you have an opera-glass. Let me have it.”

“An opera-glass!—no!—what do you suppose I would be doing with an
opera-glass?” Here he turned impatiently toward the stage.

“But, Talbot,” I continued, pulling him by the shoulder, “listen
to me will you? Do you see the stage-box?—there!—no, the next.—
Did you ever behold as lovely a woman?”

“She is very beautiful, no doubt,” he said.

“I wonder who she can be?”

“Why, in the name of all that is angelic, don’t you know who she
is? ‘Not to know her argues yourself unknown.’ She is the
celebrated Madame Lalande—the beauty of the day par excellence,
and the talk of the whole town. Immensely wealthy too—a widow,
and a great match—has just arrived from Paris.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yes; I have the honor.”

“Will you introduce me?”

“Assuredly, with the greatest pleasure; when shall it be?”

“To-morrow, at one, I will call upon you at B—’s.”

“Very good; and now do hold your tongue, if you can.”

In this latter respect I was forced to take Talbot’s advice; for
he remained obstinately deaf to every further question or
suggestion, and occupied himself exclusively for the rest of the
evening with what was transacting upon the stage.

In the meantime I kept my eyes riveted on Madame Lalande, and at
length had the good fortune to obtain a full front view of her
face. It was exquisitely lovely—this, of course, my heart had
told me before, even had not Talbot fully satisfied me upon the
point—but still the unintelligible something disturbed me. I
finally concluded that my senses were impressed by a certain air
of gravity, sadness, or, still more properly, of weariness, which
took something from the youth and freshness of the countenance,
only to endow it with a seraphic tenderness and majesty, and
thus, of course, to my enthusiastic and romantic temperment, with
an interest tenfold.

While I thus feasted my eyes, I perceived, at last, to my great
trepidation, by an almost imperceptible start on the part of the
lady, that she had become suddenly aware of the intensity of my
gaze. Still, I was absolutely fascinated, and could not withdraw
it, even for an instant. She turned aside her face, and again I
saw only the chiselled contour of the back portion of the head.
After some minutes, as if urged by curiosity to see if I was
still looking, she gradually brought her face again around and
again encountered my burning gaze. Her large dark eyes fell
instantly, and a deep blush mantled her cheek. But what was my
astonishment at perceiving that she not only did not a second
time avert her head, but that she actually took from her girdle a
double eyeglass—elevated it—adjusted it—and then regarded me
through it, intently and deliberately, for the space of several
minutes.

Had a thunderbolt fallen at my feet I could not have been more
thoroughly astounded—astounded only—not offended or disgusted in
the slightest degree; although an action so bold in any other
woman would have been likely to offend or disgust. But the whole
thing was done with so much quietude—so much nonchalance—so much
repose—with so evident an air of the highest breeding, in
short—that nothing of mere effrontery was perceptible, and my
sole sentiments were those of admiration and surprise.

I observed that, upon her first elevation of the glass, she had
seemed satisfied with a momentary inspection of my person, and
was withdrawing the instrument, when, as if struck by a second
thought, she resumed it, and so continued to regard me with fixed
attention for the space of several minutes—for five minutes, at
the very least, I am sure.

This action, so remarkable in an American theatre, attracted very
general observation, and gave rise to an indefinite movement, or
buzz, among the audience, which for a moment filled me with
confusion, but produced no visible effect upon the countenance of
Madame Lalande.