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

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  while I sank upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her

  person. It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle

  footfall upon the carpet, and near the couch; and in a second

  thereafter, as Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips,

  I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if

  from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or

  four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If this I saw

  -- not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly, and I

  forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after all, I

  considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid imagination,

  rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the opium, and

  by the hour.

  Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately

  subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the

  worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the third

  subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb,

  and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body, in that

  fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride. -- Wild

  visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me. I gazed

  with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon

  the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the

  parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I

  called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot

  beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of

  the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with

  greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure

  upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia --

  and then came back upon my heart, with the turbulent violence of a

  flood, the whole of that unutterable wo with which I had regarded her

  thus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of

  bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained

  gazing upon the body of Rowena.

  It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had

  taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,

  startled me from my revery. -- I felt that it came from the bed of

  ebony -- the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious

  terror -- but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my

  vision to detect any motion in the corpse -- but there was not the

  slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I had

  heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I

  resolutely and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body.

  Many minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to

  throw light upon the mystery. At length it became evident that a

  slight, a very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge of color had

  flushed up within the cheeks, and along the sunken small veins of the

  eyelids. Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for which

  the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, I

  felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a

  sense of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could

  no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations --

  that Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate

  exertion be made; yet turret was altogether apart from the portion of

  the abbey tenanted by the servants -- there were none within call --

  I had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room

  for many minutes -- and this I could not venture to do. I therefore

  struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering.

  In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had taken

  place; the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a

  wanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doubly

  shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a

  repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of

  the body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately supervened.

  I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been so

  startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking

  visions of Ligeia.

  An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second time

  aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I

  listened -- in extremity of horror. The sound came again -- it was a

  sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw -- distinctly saw -- a tremor upon

  the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright

  line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with

  the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that

  my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered; and it was only by a

  violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself to the

  task which duty thus once more had pointed out. There was now a

  partial glow upon the forehead and upon the cheek and throat; a

  perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there was even a slight

  pulsation at the heart. The lady lived; and with redoubled ardor I

  betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the

  temples and the hands, and used every exertion which experience, and

  no little. medical reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the

  color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of

  the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon

  itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, the

  sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which has

  been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.

  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

&
nbsp; 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."

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  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 for ever, 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
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  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 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