burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less
abandoned of the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of
anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden
and extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding
doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full
extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as
if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled
us just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height,
and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;
and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any
one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this
rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten
whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I
make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am
but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true
character of the person who has to-night won at ecarte a large sum of
money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an
expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary
information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of
the cuff of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which
may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered
morning wrapper."
While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have
heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once, and
as abruptly as he had entered. Can I -- shall I describe my
sensations? -- must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned?
Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands
roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately
reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found
all the court cards essential in ecarte, and, in the pockets of my
wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings,
with the single exception that mine were of the species called,
technically, arrondees; the honours being slightly convex at the
ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides. In this
disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the length of the
pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor;
while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut
nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.
Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected me
less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with which
it was received.
"Mr. Wilson," said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet
an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, "Mr. Wilson, this is
your property." (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own
room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it off
upon reaching the scene of play.) "I presume it is supererogatory to
seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for
any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You
will see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford -- at all events,
of quitting instantly my chambers."
Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I
should have resented this galling language by immediate personal
violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested by a
fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was
of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I
shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic
invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in
matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston
reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the
folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly
bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my
arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one
presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the
minutest possible particular. The singular being who had so
disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak;
and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with
the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the
one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left
the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning
ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the
continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.
I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and
proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as
yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! -- at
Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too -- at Berlin
-- and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse
him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length
flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of
the earth I fled in vain.
And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I
demand the questions "Who is he? -- whence came he? -- and what are
his objects?" But no answer was there found. And then I scrutinized,
with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading
traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very
little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed,
that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late
crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those
schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully carried out,
might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in
truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for
natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly
denied!
I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very long
period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity
maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so
contrived it, in the execution of his varied interference with my
will, that I saw not, at any moment, the features of his face. Be
Wilson what he might, this, at least, was but the veriest of
affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an instant, have supposed
that, in my admonisher at Eton -- in the destroyer of my honor at
Oxford, -- in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my revenge at
Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or what he falsely termed my
avarice in Egypt, -- that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius,
could fall to recognise the W
illiam Wilson of my school boy days, --
the namesake, the companion, the rival, -- the hated and dreaded
rival at Dr. Bransby's? Impossible! -- But let me hasten to the last
eventful scene of the drama.
Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The
sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated
character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and
omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even terror, with which
certain other traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had
operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter
weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although
bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late
days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening
influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more
impatient of control. I began to murmur, -- to hesitate, -- to
resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with
the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a
proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the
inspiration of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret
thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would submit no
longer to be enslaved.
It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18 -- , that I attended a
masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had
indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table;
and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me
beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way through the
mazes of the company contributed not a little to the ruffling of my
temper; for I was anxiously seeking, (let me not say with what
unworthy motive) the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged
and doting Di Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she had
previously communicated to me the secret of the costume in which she
would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse of her person, I
was hurrying to make my way into her presence. -- At this moment I
felt a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered,
low, damnable whisper within my ear.
In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had
thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by tile collar. He was
attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether similar to my
own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt about the waist
with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask of black silk
entirely covered his face.
"Scoundrel!" I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every syllable
I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, "scoundrel! impostor!
accursed villain! you shall not -- you shall not dog me unto death!
Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!" -- and I broke my way from
the ball-room into a small ante-chamber adjoining -- dragging him
unresistingly with me as I went.
Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered against
the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and commanded him to
draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then, with a slight sigh, drew
in silence, and put himself upon his defence.
The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of
wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power
of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength
against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my
sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.
At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened
to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying
antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that
astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then
presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had
been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the
arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror,
-- so at first it seemed to me in my confusion -- now stood where
none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in
extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and
dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering
gait.
Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist -- it was
Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution.
His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not
a thread in all his raiment -- not a line in all the marked and
singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most
absolute identity, mine own!
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have
fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:
"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also
dead -- dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou
exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how
utterly thou hast murdered thyself."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
The Tell-Tale Heart.
TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I
heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe
how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
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.
Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think
it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture - a
pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my
blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my
mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye
forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you
should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -
with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I
went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 71