Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of

  demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I

  discovered, in his accent, his air, and general appearance, a

  something which first startled, and then deeply interested me, by

  bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest infancy -- wild, confused

  and thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn.

  I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by

  saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having

  been acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch

  very long ago -- some point of the past even infinitely remote. The

  delusion, however, faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all

  but to define the day of the last conversation I there held with my

  singular namesake.

  The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several

  large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the greater

  number of the students. There were, however, (as must necessarily

  happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many little nooks or

  recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and these the economic

  ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as dormitories; although,

  being the merest closets, they were capable of accommodating but a

  single individual. One of these small apartments was occupied by

  Wilson.

  One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and

  immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every one

  wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through

  a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that of my

  rival. I had long been plotting one of those ill-natured pieces of

  practical wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been so

  uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my scheme in

  operation, and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of the

  malice with which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I

  noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the

  outside. I advanced a step, and listened to the sound of his tranquil

  breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light,

  and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were around it,

  which, in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew,

  when the bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at

  the same moment, upon his countenance. I looked; -- and a numbness,

  an iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,

  my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an

  objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered the

  lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these -- these the

  lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but

  I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What

  was there about them to confound me in this manner? I gazed; -- while

  my brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts. Not thus he

  appeared -- assuredly not thus -- in the vivacity of his waking

  hours. The same name! the same contour of person! the same day of

  arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless imitation

  of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in truth,

  within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now saw was the

  result, merely, of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation?

  Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp,

  passed silently from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of

  that old academy, never to enter them again.

  After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found

  myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to

  enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least

  to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings with which

  I remembered them. The truth -- the tragedy -- of the drama was no

  more. I could now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses; and

  seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder at extent of

  human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination

  which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this species of

  scepticism likely to be diminished by the character of the life I led

  at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so

  immediately and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth

  of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression,

  and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.

  I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable

  profligacy here -- a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while

  it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly,

  passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and

  added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily stature, when,

  after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small party of the

  most dissolute students to a secret carousal in my chambers. We met

  at a late hour of the night; for our debaucheries were to be

  faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed freely, and

  there were not wanting other and perhaps more dangerous seductions;

  so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while

  our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with

  cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of

  more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted

  by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the

  apartment, and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said

  that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with

  me in the hall.

  Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather

  delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few

  steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this low and

  small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted,

  save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through

  the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over the threshold, I

  became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and

  habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion

  of the one I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled

  me to perceive; but the features of his face I could not distinguish.

  Upon my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by.

  the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words

  "William Wilson!" in my ear.

  I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of

  the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as

  he held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with

  unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had so violently

  moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular,

  low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the

  tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered

&
nbsp; syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone

  days, and struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery.

  Ere I could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

  Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered

  imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed,

  I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of

  morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception

  the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly

  interfered with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated

  counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? -- and whence came he? --

  and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be

  satisfied; merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden

  accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby's

  academy on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But

  in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention

  being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I

  soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with

  an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge

  at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart, -- to vie in

  profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the

  wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

  Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament

  broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common

  restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it

  were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it

  suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,

  giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief

  appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most

  dissolute university of Europe.

  It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so

  utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance

  with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become

  an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a

  means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the

  weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the

  fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and

  honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole

  reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed,

  among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed

  the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such

  courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson -- the

  noblest and most commoner at Oxford -- him whose follies (said his

  parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy -- whose

  errors but inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and

  dashing extravagance?

  I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there

  came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning -- rich,

  said report, as Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily

  acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked

  him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in

  play, and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to let him win

  considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares.

  At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention

  that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a

  fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who,

  to do him Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my

  design. To give to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have

  assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful

  that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and

  originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be

  brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so

  customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder

  how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

  We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length

  effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist.

  The game, too, was my favorite ecarte!. The rest of the company,

  interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards,

  and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been

  induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink

  deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of

  manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but

  could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my

  debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port,

  he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed

  to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of

  reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him

  into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance,

  did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how

  entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had

  quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing

  the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I

  perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my

  astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries

  as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost,

  although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously

  annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the

  wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented

  itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own

  character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested

  motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of

  the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company,

  and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,

  gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under

  circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all,

  should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

  What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The

  pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom

  over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was maintained,

  during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many