1
Well...
if it isn't my good friend,
The Poet.
I can't say I'm surprised
to find you here.
Whose grave are
you visiting today?
Who's there?
Weeping at the same
grave over again?
Why didn't you choose
any of the others?
Ligeia, Annabel?
Or perhaps Berenice?
So sure Virginia
was going to be the pick
for today's tortured journey.
There's no denying
your affection for her.
What was that poem of yours?
"It was many and many a year ago
"That a maiden there lived
whom you may know
"And this maiden she lived
with no other thought...
"Than to love and
be loved by me."
What am I doing?
I recite poetry with a statue!
I must be drunk.
Or mad.
Or both.
I am hallucinating.
Should I answer this one
with another of your stanzas?
"All that we see or seem
"ls but a dream
within a dream..."
Still you have no
clue to who I am.
I am your shadow, your soul.
The object of your obsession.
Are you mad?
My obsession?
Recognize me now, Poe?
Are you feeling lonely?
Longing again for the departed?
Silence!
I came here for solitude.
Not loneliness.
Always obsessed with the dead.
A great subject
for your writings.
It is not obsession
but rather inspiration
which drives my writing.
I wouldn't define it that way.
Remember Roderick Usher?
His compulsive obsession for
his departed sister Madeline
caused such a nervous agitation
that it lead him
to an early demise.
It was brotherly love, not
obsession.
Obsession, superstition,
unrequited love.
Who do you want to convince?
It was a magical place
that filled my childhood
with visions
to stir the imagination.
And now, during the whole
of a dull, dark,
and soundless day
in the autumn of another year,
I was alone, passing through
a singularly dreary
tract of country;
and at length found myself
within reach of the
melancholy House of Usher.
I know not how it was;
but with my first glimpse
of the house after so long,
an unexpected sense
of insufferable gloom
pervaded my spirit.
What was it?
What unnerved me so
in the contemplation
of the House of Usher?
Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
had been one of my boon
companions in boyhood;
but many years had elapsed
since our last meeting.
His letter, however,
had lately reached me
in a distant part
of the country.
I scanned more narrowly
the real aspect of the building.
Its principal feature
seemed to be that
of an excessive antiquity.
The writer spoke of
acute bodily illness,
of a mental disorder
which oppressed him,
and brought an
earnest desire to see me,
as his best,
and indeed his only
personal friend, in an attempt
to alleviate some of his malady;
and I, accordingly,
obeyed forthwith
what I still considered
a very singular
and haunting summons.
I gazed upon him with a feeling
half of pity, half of awe.
Frederick!
My dear friend,
I have after all this time
been waiting for your arrival!
I at first thought it to be
an overdone cordiality.
It was with difficulty
that I could bring myself
to admit the identity of
the man being before me
with the companion
of my early boyhood.
He entered into what
he conceived to be
the nature of his malady.
The most insipid food
was alone endurable.
The odors of all flowers
proved oppressive;
his eyes were tortured
by even a faint light.
And there were but
peculiar sounds
which inspired him with horror.
I began to question
my worthiness
of being present for my friend,
who now existed in a world
of which I held no key.
I shall perish!
I dread the events
of the future!
I feel that the period
will sooner or later arrive
when I must abandon
life and reason together,
in some struggle
with the grim phantasm...
...fear.
But what do you fear, Roderick?
I must know what
is it that torments
your every moment.
I admit that
much of the peculiar gloom which
afflicts me could be traced
to a severe
and long continued illness.
I speak of my tenderly
beloved sister, Madeline.
My sole companion
for so many long years,
my last
and only relative on earth.
Roderick spoke with
such bitterness,
which made me shudder.
And yet, I could tell
of his complete devotion
towards his sister.
Madeline...
Her decease
will leave me as the last
of the ancient
race of the Ushers.
His voice trembled
as he recounted how even in
her youth, Madeline would fear
the outside world.
Roderick loved his sister
for her purity,
but the foreboding doom
was forever present.
The Usher's life of loneliness
will mean there will be no heir.
But on the closing in
of the evening of my arrival
at the house,
she succumbed
to the prostrating power
of the destroyer.
She is dead!
Madeline has died!
She has left me!
At the request of
Roderick Usher,
I personally aided him
in the arrangements
for the temporary entombment.
And now,
some days of bitter grief
having elapsed,
an observable change
came over the features of the
mental disorder of my friend.
At times, again, I was
obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable
vagaries of madness.
For I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy
for long hours,
in an attitude
of the profoundest attention,
as if listening to some
imaginary sound.
It was no wonder
that his terrifying condition
was creeping upon me,
the wild influence
of his fantastic
yet impressive superstitions.
And you have not seen it?
Then you shall!
You must!
You must behold this!
I hear it, and have heard it.
We have put her
living
in the tomb!
I now tell you
that I heard
her first feeble movements
in the hollow coffin.
I heard them many,
many days ago.
Yet I dared not,
I dared not speak!
The rending of her coffin,
and the grating of the
iron hinges of her prison,
and her struggles
within the coppered
archway of the vault!
Be calm.
It is the storm
that draws breath,
playing tricks on us both!
Is she not hurrying
to upbraid me for my haste?
Have I not heard
her footsteps on the stairs?
Do I not distinguish that heavy
and horrible
beating
of her heart?
Madman!
MADMAN!
I tell you that she now
stands without the door!
The vision before
me will stay burnt
into my very soul and haunt me
to the end of my days.
Where I gazed,
the House once stood.
I saw the mighty walls rushing
as under there was a long
tumultuous shouting sound,
like the voice of
a thousand waters
and the deep and
dank tarn at my feet
closed sullenly and silently
over the fragments
of the House of Usher.
Bravo!
In your own words he became
a victim of the very terrors
he had anticipated.
Much like you.
Don't you wish you were dead?
Why should I? I want to live.
I have more stories to tell.
Your time is up in your world.
You have nothing to lose,
no one to love.
Stop feeling guilty
for other people's death.
Virginia died in spite
of your care or your love.
Your mother succumbed
to my power
leaving you helplessly alone.
I was so young when she died...
I was denied even the
memory of her face.
Guilt never leads to any good.
If anything you are haunted...
Haunted by sorrow,
guilty not of a crime, but of
the inability to stop me...
If anything, I am guilty of
giving my readers
what they want.
A glimpse of redemption,
stories with a moral
where justice always triumphs.
Is this what you mean?
It is impossible to say how
first the idea entered my brain;
but once conceived,
it haunted me day and night.
Object,
there was none,
I loved the old man.
He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult,
and for his money,
I had no desire.
I think
it was his eye!
Yes, that was it!
One of his eyes resembled
that of a vulture.
I made up my mind
to take the life of the old man,
and thus rid myself
of the eye forever.
You should have seen
how wisely I proceeded,
with what caution and foresight
I went to work.
And every night, about midnight,
I turned the latch of
his door and opened it.
And then, when my
head was well in the room,
I undid the lantern cautiously,
oh, so cautiously.
I undid it just so much
that a single thin ray
fell upon the vulture eye.
But I found the
eye always closed;
and so
it was impossible
to do the work;
for it was not the old man
who vexed me,
but his Evil Eye.
I was never kinder
to the old man than during
the whole week
before I killed him.
And this I did for
seven long nights.
Every night, just at midnight.
But I found the
eye always closed.
Upon the eighth night
I was more than usually cautious
in opening the door.
A watch's minute hand moves
more quickly than did mine.
When I was about to
open the lantern,
my thumb slipped
upon the tin fastening.
And the old man sprang up in bed
crying out: Who's there?
He had been trying
to fancy them causeless.
He had been saying to himself:
"It is nothing
but the wind in the chimney.
It is only a mouse
crossing the floor."
But all in vain...
Then, there came to my ears
a low, dull, quick sound
such as the watch makes
when enveloped in cotton.
I knew that sound well.
It was the beating
of the old man's heart.
Meantime the hellish tattoo
of the heart increased.
It grew quicker and quicker,
louder and louder,
every instant.
The old man's hour had come!
He shrieked once, only once.
The old man was dead.
His eye would
trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad,
you will think so no longer
when I describe
the wise precautions I took
for the concealment of the body.
First of all I
dismembered the corpse,
I then took up three planks
from the flooring
and deposited all
between the scantlings.
I then replaced the boards
so cleverly, so cunningly,
that no human eye could have
detected anything wrong.
There entered three men,
who introduced themselves
as officers of the police.
A shriek had been heard by
a neighbor during the night
and they had been deputed
to search the premises.
I bid the gentleman welcome.
The shriek, I said,
was my own in a dream.
The old man, I mentioned,
was absent in the country.
The officers were satisfied,
my manner had convinced them.
But, ere long,
I felt myself getting pale
and wished them gone.
My head ached
and I fancied a
ringing in my ears.
I found that the noise
was not within my ears.
I gasped for breath,
and yet the officers
heard it not.
Why would they not be gone?
Oh God!
What could I do?
Was it possible they heard not?
No!... No!
They heard;
they suspected!
THEY KNEW!
They were making mockery
of my horror.
"Villains!"
I shrieked, "I admit the deed!
"Tear up the planks!
"Here,
"here!
"It is the beating
"of his hideous heart!"
So you presume
everyone is guilty
of some unfathomable crime?
A crime that should
remain unpunished?
I feel flattered.
Your obsession with death is to
my ears like a sweet love song.
What do you mean, obsession?
Come with me,
don't delay for another second.
Being alive in this world
brings you more unbearable pain
and suffering than those
who wish to sleep forever
even as you try to extend life
beyond my sweet embrace.
I remember vaguely,
once I wrote about a doctor.
Someone who challenged you.
My attention, for
the last three years,
had been repeatedly drawn
to the subject of Mesmerism.
In Boston, a 13-year-old
child under hypnosis
could diagnose his own illness,
one which his own doctors
could not determine.
And in India, a paraplegic,
placed in a similar
hypnotic state,
managed to take some steps!
Imagine, Mr. Valdemar,
the progress that Mesmerism
offers to science!
My friend,
I respect your enthusiasm,
but for my part, I can't disavow
my skepticism
about the future of hypnosis.
Our table is waiting for
us at the Black Swan.
In addition, it
seems that no person
has as yet been mesmerized
in articulo mortis.
What a great testimony
will that be,
witnessing the transition
between life and death.
My friend, if you promise
to change the subject,
I am ready to volunteer myself
to this experiment
at the time of my death.
Really?
Yes, but rest assured,
I have no intention
of dying anytime soon!
It is now rather more
than seven months
since last time I talked
with M. Valdemar.
Phthisis has attacked my lungs.
They give me a few
months at most.
M. Valdemar,
do you remember your promise?
I beg your pardon?
Yes, the idea may seem absurd,
but think of all you
have to gain now.
No...
I don't know.
Allow me to consider it.
Valdemar, you are condemned.
You have no family or home.
What have you to lose?
Promise me you will
think about it.
Very well,
lam in your hands.
It was finally arranged between
us that he would send for me
about twenty-four
hours before the period
announced by his physicians
as that of his decease.
I received this note
within half an hour
after it was written,
and in fifteen minutes more,
I was in the dying
man's chamber.
It was about five
minutes to eight when,
taking the patient's hand,
I begged him to state
as distinctly as he could
to Dr. L whether he
was entirely willing
that I should make the
experiment of mesmerizing him
in his then condition.
Yes, I wish to be mesmerized.
I fear you have
deferred it too long.
At five minutes before eleven,
I perceived unequivocal signs
of the mesmeric influence.
When I had accomplished this,
it was fully midnight,
and I requested the
gentlemen present
to examine
M. Valdemar's condition.
The patient's extremities
were of an icy coldness.
Still, the general appearance
was not that of death.
Monsieur Valdemar,
are you asleep?
Yes,
I am asleep now.
Do not wake me!
Let me die so!
It was now the opinion,
or rather the wish,
of the physicians,
that M. Valdemar should be
suffered to remain undisturbed
in his present apparently
tranquil condition,
until death should supervene,
and this,
it was now generally agreed,
must take place
within a few minutes.
I concluded, however,
to speak to him
once more.
Monsieur Valdemar,
do you still sleep?
Yes,
no.
I have been sleeping
and now...
Now...
I am dead.
It was evident that,
so far, death,
or what is usually termed death,
had been arrested
by the mesmeric process.
The experiment is completed.
But... are we sure he's dead?
You've heard it like me, right?
Is your scientific mind
restricted
by that which you can only see
or hear yourself?
From this period
until the close of last week,
an interval of
nearly seven months,
we continued to make daily calls
at M. Valdemar's house.
I managed to convince my
colleagues to leave M. Valdemar
in this state and
to monitor him.
First, we confined ourselves
to simple daily observations.
But soon, we were obliged
to face the facts.
Gentlemen,
we are not advancing our work.
These observations
are too superficial.
You still wish to
dissect the subject
like a laboratory animal.
Without going that far,
we can engage in
some light tests.
You are mistaken! I...
What are you suggesting, Dr. L?
Well, we could always...
let it be.
There is nothing further
to be done.
All of the subject's vital
functions are inert.
He has stopped breathing, his
heart no longer beats, yet...
in seven months, decomposition
has not attacked his body
and no treatment has
cured his illness.
Medically, M. Valdemar is dead.
Let's wake him up.
You're talking nonsense!
These thoughts are sacrilege!
Insanity!
You would not agree
to put him in this state
and now you refuse
to release him from it?
I...
Let it go my friend,
Dr. P is right.
M. Valdemar is legally dead.
All we can do now
is to offer him a decent burial.
It was on Friday last
that we finally resolved
to make the experiment
of awakening,
or attempting to awaken him.
For the purpose of
relieving M. Valdemar
from the mesmeric trance,
I made use of the
customary passes.
These, for a time,
were unsuccessful.
M. Valdemar,
can you explain to us what your
feelings or wishes are now?
For God's sake!
Quick! Quick!
Put me to sleep!
Or Waken me! Quick!
I say to you that I am dead!
Dead!
Dead!!!
For what really
occurred, however,
it is quite impossible
that any living human
could have been prepared.
And as I can see, he lost...
lost to me.
He was so close...
so close to sparing M. Valdemar
from your fatal embrace.
Was that a crime?
A crime against fate.
And your sentence
was a life of endless sorrow.
Stop with your
tortured mind games.
There is nothing worse than
imagining your own death.
Isn't it?
Nothing worse than
to fear eternity.
I wrote a story once.
A tale about someone
who relived the hell
of dying a thousand deaths.
Perhaps a mirror where you
saw yourself reflected,
every image
a different death.
I was sick...
sick to death with
that long agony.
And when they unbound me, I felt
that my senses were leaving me.
The sentence...
the dread sentence of death...
was the last of
distinct accentuation
which reached my ears.
After that,
the sound of the inquisitorial
voices seemed merged
into one dreamy
indeterminate hum.
I heard no more.
Yet, for a while,
I saw the lips of the judges.
I saw them pronouncing
the syllables of my name,
and I shuddered
because I heard no sound.
The tall candles sank
into nothingness;
their flames went out.
The blackness of darkness
supervened.
All sensations appeared
swallowed up in a mad
rushing descent as of the soul
into Hades.
Then silence, and stillness,
night were the universe.
After this I call to mind
flatness and dampness;
and then all the
madness of a memory
which busies itself
among forbidden things.
So far, I had not
opened my eyes.
I dreaded the first glance
at objects around me.
My worst thoughts, then,
were confirmed.
The blackness of eternal night
encompassed me.
I struggled for breath.
The atmosphere was
intolerably close.
But where
and in what state was I?
The condemned to death, I knew,
perished usually
at the autos-da-fe,
and one of
these had been held
on the very night
of the day of my trial.
Had I been remanded
to my dungeon,
to await the next
sacrifice, which
would not take
place for many months?
And now,
there came thronging
upon my recollection
a thousand vague rumors
of the horrors of Toledo.
Of the dungeons
there had been
strange things narrated,
strange, and too
ghastly to repeat.
Was I left to
perish of starvation
in this subterranean
world of darkness;
or what fate,
perhaps even more fearful,
awaited me?
My outstretched hands at length
encountered some solid
obstruction.
It was a wall,
I followed it up.
This process, however,
afforded me no means
of ascertaining
the dimensions of my dungeon.
Another step before my fall,
and the world had
seen me no more.
And the death just avoided,
was of that very character
which I had regarded
as fabulous and frivolous
in the tales regarding
the Inquisition.
To the victims of its tyranny,
there was the choice of death
with its direst physical
agonies,
or death with its most hideous
moral horrors.
I had been reserved
for the latter.
I was consumed with
intolerable thirst.
This thirst it appeared to be
the design of my persecutors
to stimulate:
for the food in
the dish was meat
pungently seasoned.
It must have been drugged;
for scarcely had I drunk,
before I became
irresistibly drowsy.
I could no longer doubt
the doom prepared for me
by monkish ingenuity in torture.
My cognizance of the pit
had become known
to the inquisitorial.
Having failed to fall,
it was no part of the demon plan
to hurl me into the abyss,
and thus a different and a
milder destruction awaited me.
I counted the rushing
vibrations of the steel!
Inch by inch...
line by line...
with a descent only appreciable
at intervals that seemed ages.
Down... steadily down it crept.
Down... certainly,
relentlessly down!
It vibrated within three inches
of my bosom!
I prayed for its
more speedy descent.
I grew frantically mad,
and struggled
to force myself upward
against the sweep
of the fearful scimitar.
For the moment, at least,
I was free.
Free! And in the grasp
of the Inquisition!
Free!
I had but escaped death
in one form of agony,
to be delivered unto worse
than death in some other.
For a wild moment,
did my spirit refuse
to comprehend the meaning
of what I saw.
Any horror but this!
Any death but that of the pit!
Might I have not known
that into the pit
it was the object
of the burning iron to urge me?
Could I resist its glow?
There was a discordant hum
of human voices!
There was a loud blast.
The French army
had entered Toledo.
The Inquisition was in
the hands of its enemies.
You have devoted
so many pages to my name,
caressing my face
with your poems,
kissing my lips with your prose.
All veiled love letters
addressed to me.
You fear me
and yet you are
insatiably attracted.
Come with me. It's time.
No, it cannot be.
I don't want to be forgotten.
I was buried in a common grave.
My writings were
forgotten for years.
You are already dead.
How could you remember
your own death...
unless you have succumbed
to my embrace?
Your life is not
worth living anymore.
It is time
to meet your own ghosts,
the people you loved
and lost forever.
Come now, Poe.
You love me!
You've been a corpse
walking amongst the living
for a long time, Edgar.
It must have been
quite a strain.
Maybe you're right.
Sometimes I think the only thing
that kept me from you
was my beating heart.
Look at your final act.
They all succumb to my prowess.
The poor, the weak;
the rich, the powerful.
Everybody bows before me.
I offer you one last chance.
Who dares insult us with
this blasphemous mockery?
I don't want my work
to be lost forever.
My work is eternal.
I want that eternity.
I want to be sure
my words will survive me,
that they will be
never lost in time.
That, my friend,
nevermore.