Эдгар Аллан По
The Fall of the House of Usher: Selected Stories / Падение дома Ашеров: Избранные рассказы

Ведущий редактор О. И. Подосенова

Художник Е. Ю. Чернова

Художественный редактор А. А. Неклюдова

Технический редактор А. Б. Ткаченко

Корректор Е. Г. Шабалова

Компьютерная вёрстка Д. В. Лемеш

© Загородняя И. Б., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2024

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2024

* * *

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

In the consideration of the faculties and impulses of the human soul, the phrenologists[1] have failed to notice an inclination which exists as a radical and primitive feeling.

With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I believe that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the only unconquerable force which impels us to do it. This tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake[2] does not admit analysis.

We stand on the edge of a cliff. We look into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to step back. Inexplicably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness, and horror combine in a cloud of unnamable feeling. Gradually this cloud takes shape. It is just a thought, although a fearful one. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the fall from such a height. And this fall – for the very reason that it involves the most frightening of all images of death and suffering in our imagination – we now desire it. And because our reason violently demands that we step back from the edge, we approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering on the edge of a cliff, thus meditates a plunge. If there is no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to jump backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Examining such actions, we find that they result only from the spirit of the Perverse. We commit them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle; and we might consider this perverseness as a direct provocation of the archfiend[3], if it did not do good from time to time.

I have said so much to explain to you why I am here, why I am in this cell of the condemned. Now, you will easily see that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

I thoroughly prepared the crime. For weeks, for months, I thought about the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length,[4] reading some French memoirs, I found a story of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency[5] 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 annoy you with details. I need not describe the easy tricks by which I substituted, in his bedroom candle-stand, a wax candle 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.[6]”

I have inherited his estate, and all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never entered my brain. I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. As I reflected upon my absolute security, a sense of deep satisfaction arose in my bosom. For a very long time, I was accustomed to enjoy this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages received from my sin. However, at length, there arrived an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling gradually turned into a haunting and annoying thought. It annoyed because it haunted. I could not get rid of it even 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 some unimpressive parts from an opera. In this manner, I constantly caught myself thinking about my security, and repeating the phrase, “I am safe.”

One day, walking along the streets, I stopped myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary words. In a fit of petulance[7], I changed them thus: “I am safe – I am safe – yes – if I am not fool enough to make open confession!”

As soon as I spoke these words, I felt an icy chill creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, (whose nature I have explained), and I remembered well that I had never resisted their attacks successfully. And now my own casual suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder, confronted me, as if the ghost of my victim.

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, I well understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still quickened my pace. I ran like a madman through the crowded streets. At length, the people became alarmed and pursued me. I felt then my fate. 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 upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.

They say that I spoke distinctly, but with passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the brief, but expressive sentences that handed me over to the hangman and to hell.

I told the people all that was necessary for the death sentence[8], and then I fainted.

But why shall I say more? Today I wear these chains, and am here! Tomorrow I shall be free! – but where?

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

During the dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a dreary country area; and at last found myself not far from the melancholy House of Usher. With the first sight of the building, I had a sense of unbearable gloom. I looked upon the scene before me – upon the house, its bleak walls, and the vacant eye-like windows – with an utter depression of soul. I rode to the steep shore of a small black lake that lay by the dwelling, and looked down – but with a shudder even more thrilling than before – upon the inverted images of the frightening tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, I was going to spend some weeks in this mansion of gloom. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my good friends in boyhood; but many years had passed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country – a letter from him – which had admitted only a personal reply. The writer spoke of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only friend. The manner in which all this was said allowed me no hesitation, and I went to see him.

Although, as boys, we had been close friends, yet I really knew little of Roderick Usher, because he was very reserved. I was aware, however, that his family was very ancient and noted for its love for music and, lately, repeated deeds of charity. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that his entire family lay in the direct line of descent[9].

Now I scanned more closely the building. It was very old and the whole exterior was covered with web hanging from the eaves. There was a barely visible crack, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the waters of the small lake.

Noticing these things, I rode over a short path to the house. A servant took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. Then a valet conducted me, in silence, through many dark passages to the studio of his master. Much that I saw on the way heightened, I know not how, my vague anxiety. The carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries of the walls, the ebon[10] blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric trophies which rattled as I walked, were the things to which I had been accustomed from my childhood. But those ordinary images provoked unfamiliar fancies. On one of the staircases, I met the doctor of the family. He nervously greeted me and passed on. The valet now opened a door and led me to his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty[11]. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed. Dark draperies hung on the walls. The furniture was comfortless, antique, and shabby. Many books and musical instruments lay about, but they did not give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.

When I entered the room, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying, and greeted me cordially. A glance at him convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he did not speak, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of horror. Surely, Roderick Usher had terribly altered, and in such a brief period! He had always been pale with large eyes and thin lips of a beautiful curve. The now frightening paleness of the skin, and the now miraculous[12] luster of the eye, above all things scared me.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with his attempts to overcome an excessive nervous agitation. His voice varied rapidly from a trembling indecision to that abrupt expression, which may be observed in the drunkard, or the eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.

Thus he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the comfort he expected me to bring him. Then he started speaking of the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a family evil[13], and he failed to find a remedy for that. He immediately added that it was a mere nervous affection[14], which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in many unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he described them, interested and bewildered me. He suffered much from the acuteness of the senses. He could eat only the bland food; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the smells of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and he could bear only sounds from stringed instruments.

I found he was a slave to a strange kind of terror. “I must die in this terrible madness,” said he. “I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I have, indeed, no hatred of danger, I dead the terror – the effect[15] of danger. I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason[16] together, in some struggle with the terrible phantasm, FEAR.”

I learned, moreover, another unusual feature of his mental condition. He had certain superstitious impressions about the house where he lived. He feared an influence of his family mansion which had power over his soul – the gray walls and towers, and the gloomy lake into which they all looked down.

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the strange gloom, which thus affected him, was connected with an illness of his tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. “Her death,” he said, “would leave me the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote part of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence,[17] disappeared.

I watched her with an utter astonishment mixed with dread; and yet I found it impossible to explain such feelings.

The disease of the lady Madeline had long confused her physicians. A settled apathy, losing weight, and frequent attacks of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis.

For several days, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself. During this period I was trying to relieve the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his guitar. And thus, as a closer intimacy admitted me into the recesses of his spirit[18], I realized the uselessness of my attempts to cheer his mind from which darkness, as if an inherent quality, poured upon all objects of the universe.

I have just spoken of that strange condition of the auditory nerve which made all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain stringed instruments. Thus he chose the guitar, which gave birth to the fantastic character of his performances.

Once, after playing the guitar, he said he believed that all vegetable things have the ability to feel. Moreover, he believed that everything around him – the gray stones of the house, the fungi which overspread them, and the rotten trees which stood near the house – produced terrible influence which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him – what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.

Our books were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with[19] his ideas – the “Heaven and Hell” of Swedenborg; the “Chiromancy” of Robert Flud and so on. Usher's chief delight, however, was found in the reading of a very rare and curious book – the manual of a forgotten church – the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae[20].

I was thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, Usher informed me that the lady Madeline died, and stated his intention of preserving her corpse for two weeks (before its final burial) in one of the vaults in the building. The simple reason, however, for this strange proceeding was the unusual character of the malady of the lady, of certain inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote location of the burial ground of the family.

At the request of Usher, I personally helped him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. We two alone bore the body in the coffin to its rest. The vault in which we placed it was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light. The door was of massive iron. Its huge weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

We partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the lady. A striking similarity between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention[21]; and Usher, reading my mind, told me that the lady and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a barely understandable nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead – for we could not look at her without a feeling of awe. The disease had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, a faint blush upon the face, and that smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, locked the door of iron, and went upstairs.

A few days passed. My friend wandered from chamber to chamber with hurried and objectless step. He became even paler. There were times, indeed, when I thought his constantly agitated mind was struggling with some oppressive secret. I saw him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, with the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified – that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influence of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the vault, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off[22] the nervousness which had control over me. But my efforts were fruitless. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, inexplicable yet intolerable, I threw on my clothes with haste, and tried to arouse myself from the miserable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro[23] through the apartment.

Soon a light step on the staircase arrested my attention. I recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant he tapped on my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. There was a kind of mad hilarity in his eyes. His air[24] appalled me – but anything was better than the solitude which I had so long tolerated, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, “You have not then seen it? – But stay! You shall.[25]” Thus speaking, he hurried to one of the windows, and threw it open to the storm.

The impulsive fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a stormy yet unusually beautiful night. There were frequent and violent changes in the direction of the wind; and the huge density of the low clouds did not prevent our observing the terrible speed with which they flew from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their huge density did not prevent our observing this – yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars – nor was there any flash of lightning. But the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible mist hung about and covered the mansion.

“You must not watch this!” said I to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. “These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon. Let us close this window – the air is chilling. Here is one of your favorite books. I will read and you will listen – and so we will pass away this terrible night together.”

The antique volume which I had taken up was the “Mad Trist”[26] of Sir Launcelot Canning. I had a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief in the extremeness of the madness which I should read.

I had arrived at that well-known fragment of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the romance, trying in vain to get into the dwelling of the hermit peacefully, gets inside by force. Here are the words of the narrative:

“And Ethelred, who had a brave heart, and who was now mighty because of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who was very stubborn. Feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the storm, uplifted his mace[27]

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Notes

1

Френологи – специалисты по френологии, псевдонауке в современном понимании, основным положением которой является утверждение о взаимосвязи между психикой человека и строением поверхности его черепа.

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2

поступать неправильно ради самого поступка

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3

враг рода человеческого, сатана

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4

Наконец

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5

через посредство

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6

зд. скоропостижная смерть

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7

В припадке раздражения

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8

смертный приговор

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9

его род продолжался только по прямой линии

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10

эбеновый

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11

с высоким потолком

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12

зд. сверхъестественный

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13

проклятие их семьи

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14

нервная болезнь

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15

следствие

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16

зд. рассудок

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17

не заметив моего присутствия

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18

глубины его духа

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19

в строгом соответствии

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20

(лат.) Бдения по усопшим согласно хору магунтинской церкви

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21

приковало моё внимание

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22

побороть логическими рассуждениями

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23

взад-вперёд

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24

вид

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25

Ты непременно увидишь.

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26

«Безумная печаль»

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27

(ист.) булава

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