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Morella by Edgar Allan Poe · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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  Speaker 1: work in the public domain. Morella by Edgar Allan Poe
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  Speaker 1: itself by itself solely, one, everlasting and single Plato sympose
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  Speaker 1: with a feeling of deep yet most singular affection. I
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  Speaker 1: regarded my friend Morella, thrown by accident into her society
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  Speaker 1: many years ago. My soul, from our first meeting burned
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  Speaker 1: with fires it had never before known. But the fires
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  Speaker 1: were not of arrows, and bitter and Tormenting to my
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  Speaker 1: spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no
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  Speaker 1: manner to find their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity.
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  Speaker 1: Yet we met, and fate bound us together at the altar,
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  Speaker 1: and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She, however,
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  Speaker 1: shunned society and attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy.
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  Speaker 1: It is a happiness to wonder, It is a happiness
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  Speaker 1: to dream. Morella's erudition was profound, as I hope to live.
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  Speaker 1: Her talents were of no common order, her powers of
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  Speaker 1: mind were gigantic. I felt this, and in many matters
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  Speaker 1: became her pupil. I soon, however, found that perhaps on
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  Speaker 1: account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a
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  Speaker 1: number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the
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  Speaker 1: mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what
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  Speaker 1: reason I could not imagine, were her favorite and constant study,
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  Speaker 1: And that in process of time they became my own,
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  Speaker 1: should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of
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  Speaker 1: habit and example. In all this, if I err not
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  Speaker 1: my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I
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  Speaker 1: forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the ideal,
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  Speaker 1: Nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read
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  Speaker 1: to be discovered unless I am greatly mistaken, either in
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  Speaker 1: my deeds or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this, I
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  Speaker 1: abandoned myself implicitly to the guidance of my wife and
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  Speaker 1: entered with an unflinching heart, into the intricacies of her studies.
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  Speaker 1: And then, then, when pouring over forbidden pages, I felt
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  Speaker 1: a forbidden spirit in kindling within me. Would Morella place
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  Speaker 1: her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from
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  Speaker 1: the ashes of a dead philosophy, some low singular words
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  Speaker 1: whose strange meaning burned themselves in upon my memory. And then,
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  Speaker 1: hour after hour would I linger by her side and
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  Speaker 1: dwell upon the music of her voice, until at length
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  Speaker 1: its melody was tainted with terror, and there fell a
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  Speaker 1: shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale and shuddered
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  Speaker 1: inwardly at those two unearthly tones. And thus joy suddenly
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  Speaker 1: faded into horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous,
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  Speaker 1: as Hinnen became Guhenna. It is unnecessary to state the
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  Speaker 1: exact character of those disquisitions, which, growing out of the
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  Speaker 1: volumes I have mentioned, formed for so long a time
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  Speaker 1: almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By the
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  Speaker 1: learned in what might be termed theological morality, they will
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  Speaker 1: be readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at
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  Speaker 1: all events be little understood. The wild pantheism of Ficta,
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  Speaker 1: the modified palyagenedia of the Pythagoreans, and above all, the
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  Speaker 1: doctrines of identity as urged by Shelling, were generally the
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  Speaker 1: points of discussion, presenting the most of beauty to the
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  Speaker 1: imaginative Morella. That identity, which is termed personal, mister Locke,
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  Speaker 1: I think truly defines to consist in the saneness of
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  Speaker 1: rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent
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  Speaker 1: essence having reason, And since there is a consciousness which
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  Speaker 1: always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all
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  Speaker 1: to be that which we call ourselves, thereby distinguishing us
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  Speaker 1: from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity.
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  Speaker 1: But the principium indiguationists. The notion of that identity which
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  Speaker 1: a death is or is not lost forever, was to
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  Speaker 1: me at all times a consideration of intense interest, not
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  Speaker 1: more from the perplexing and exciting nature of its consequences
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  Speaker 1: than from the marked and agitated manner in which Morella
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  Speaker 1: mentioned them. But indeed the time had now arrived when
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  Speaker 1: the mystery of my wife's manner oppressed me as a spell.
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  Speaker 1: I could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers,
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  Speaker 1: nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the
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  Speaker 1: luster of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this,
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  Speaker 1: but did not upbraid. She seemed conscious of my weakness
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  Speaker 1: or my folly, and smiling called it fate. She seemed
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  Speaker 1: also conscious of a cause to me unknown for the
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  Speaker 1: gradual alienation of my regard, But she gave me no
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  Speaker 1: hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman,
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  Speaker 1: and pined away daily In time, the crimson spot settled
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  Speaker 1: steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the
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  Speaker 1: pale forehead became prominent, and one instant my nature melted
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  Speaker 1: into pity. But in next I met the glance of
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  Speaker 1: her meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became giddy,
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  Speaker 1: with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into some
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  Speaker 1: dreary and unfathomable abyss. Shall I then say that I
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  Speaker 1: longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment
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  Speaker 1: of Morella's decease. I did, But the fragile spirit clung
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  Speaker 1: to its tenement of clay for many days, for many weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery
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  Speaker 1: over my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and
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  Speaker 1: with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days and
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  Speaker 1: the hours and the bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen
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  Speaker 1: and lengthen, as her gentle life declined like shadows in
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  Speaker 1: the dying of the day. But one autumnal evening, when
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  Speaker 1: the winds lay still in heaven, Morella called me to
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  Speaker 1: her bedside. There was a dim mist over all the earth,
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  Speaker 1: and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the
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  Speaker 1: rich october leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the
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  Speaker 1: firmament had surely fallen. It is a day of days,
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  Speaker 1: she said, as I approached, a day of all days,
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  Speaker 1: either to live or die. It is a fair day
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  Speaker 1: for the suns of earth and life. Ah, more fair
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  Speaker 1: for the daughters of heaven and death. I kissed her forehead,
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  Speaker 1: and she continued, I am dying, Yet shall I live, Morella.
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  Speaker 1: The days have never been when thou couldst love me,
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  Speaker 1: but her whom in life thou didst abhor. In death,
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  Speaker 1: thou shalt adore Morella. I repeat that I am dying,
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  Speaker 1: but within me is a pledge of that affection. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: how little which thou didst feel for me, Morella. And
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  Speaker 1: when my spirit departs, shall the child live? Thy child
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  Speaker 1: and mine morellas. But thy days shall be days of sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions, as
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  Speaker 1: the cypress is the most enduring of trees. For the
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  Speaker 1: hours of thy happiness are over. In joy is not
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  Speaker 1: gathered twice in a life, as the roses of piecedem
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  Speaker 1: twice in a year. Thou shalt no longer then play
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  Speaker 1: the tie in with time. But being ignorant of the
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  Speaker 1: myrtle and the vine, thou shalt bear about with thee
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  Speaker 1: thy shroud on the earth, as do the mosleman at
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  Speaker 1: Mecca Morella, I cried, Morella, how knowest thou this? But
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  Speaker 1: she turned away, her face upon the pillow, and a
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  Speaker 1: slight tremor coming over her limbs. She thus died, and
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  Speaker 1: I heard her voice no more yet, as she had
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  Speaker 1: foretold her child, to which in dying she had given birth,
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  Speaker 1: which breathed not until the mother breathed no more. Her child,
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  Speaker 1: a daughter, lived, and she grew strangely in stature and intellect,
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  Speaker 1: and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed.
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  Speaker 1: And I loved her with a love more fervent than
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  Speaker 1: I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen
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  Speaker 1: of earth. But ere long the heaven of this pure
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  Speaker 1: affection became darkened, and gloom and horror and grief swept
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  Speaker 1: over it in clouds. I said. The child grew strangely
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  Speaker 1: in stature and intelligence. Strange indeed was her rapid increase
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  Speaker 1: in bodily size. But terrible, oh terrible, were the tumultuous
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  Speaker 1: thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of
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  Speaker 1: her mental being. Could it be otherwise? When I daily
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  Speaker 1: discovered in the conceptions of the child, the adult powers
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  Speaker 1: and faculties of the woman, when the lesslessons of experience
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  Speaker 1: fell from the lips of infancy, and when the wisdom
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  Speaker 1: or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from
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  Speaker 1: its full and speculative eye. When I say all this
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  Speaker 1: became evident to my appalled senses, when I could no
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  Speaker 1: longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off
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  Speaker 1: from those perceptions which trembled to receive it, is it
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  Speaker 1: to be wondered at that suspicions of a nature fearful
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  Speaker 1: and exciting crept in upon my spirit, Or that my
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  Speaker 1: thoughts fell back, aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling
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  Speaker 1: theories of the entombed Morella. I snatched from the scrutiny
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  Speaker 1: of the world, a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and,
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  Speaker 1: in the rigorous seclusion of my home, watched with an
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  Speaker 1: agonizing anxiety over all which concerned the beloved. And as
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  Speaker 1: years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon
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  Speaker 1: her holy and mild, an eloquent face, and poured over
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  Speaker 1: her maturing form. Day after day did I discover new
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  Speaker 1: points of resemblance in the child to her mother, the
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  Speaker 1: melancholy and the dead, and hourly grew darker these shadows
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  Speaker 1: of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more perplexing,
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  Speaker 1: and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her
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  Speaker 1: smile was like her mother's, I could bear, but then
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  Speaker 1: I shuddered at its too perfect identity. That her eyes
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  Speaker 1: were like Morella's, I could endure, But then they too
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  Speaker 1: often looked down into the depths of my soul with
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  Speaker 1: Morella's own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour
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  Speaker 1: of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the
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  Speaker 1: silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein,
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  Speaker 1: and in the sad musical tones of her speech, and
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  Speaker 1: above all, oh above all, in the phrases and expressions
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  Speaker 1: of the dead, on the lips of the loved and
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  Speaker 1: the living, I found food for consuming thought, and horror
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  Speaker 1: for a worm that would not die. Thus passed away, too,
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  Speaker 1: lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter remained
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  Speaker 1: nameless upon the earth. My child and my love were
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  Speaker 1: the designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the
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  Speaker 1: rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's
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  Speaker 1: name died with her at her death. Of the mother.
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  Speaker 1: I had never spoken to the daughter. It was impossible
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  Speaker 1: to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existence,
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  Speaker 1: the latter had received no impressions from the outward world,
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  Speaker 1: save such as might have been afforded by the narrow
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  Speaker 1: limits of her privacy. But at length, the ceremony of
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  Speaker 1: baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition,
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  Speaker 1: a present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And
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  Speaker 1: at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name, and
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  Speaker 1: many titles of the wise and beautiful of old and
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  Speaker 1: modern times, of my own and foreign lands came thronging
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  Speaker 1: to my lips, with many, many fair titles of the gentle,
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  Speaker 1: and the happy and the good. What prompted me then
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  Speaker 1: to disturb the memory of the buried dead? What daemon
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  Speaker 1: urged me to breathe that sound, which, in its very
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  Speaker 1: recollection was wont to make ebb the purple blood and
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  Speaker 1: torrents from the temples to the heart. What fiend spoke
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  Speaker 1: from the recesses of my soul. When amid those dim aisles,
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  Speaker 1: and in the silence of the night, I whispered within
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  Speaker 1: the years of the Holy Man, the syllables Morella, what
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  Speaker 1: more than fiend, convulsed the features of my child and
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  Speaker 1: overspread them with hues of death. As starting at that
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  Speaker 1: scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the
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  Speaker 1: earth to heaven, and, falling prostrate on the black slabs
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  Speaker 1: of our ancestral vault, responded, I am here, distinct, coldly,
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  Speaker 1: calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds within my ear,
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  Speaker 1: and thence, like molten lead, rolled hissingly into my brain.
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  Speaker 1: Years years may pass away, but the memory of that
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  Speaker 1: epoch never Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers
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  Speaker 1: and the vine. But the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed
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  Speaker 1: me night and day, and I kept no reckoning of
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  Speaker 1: time or place. And the stars of my fate faded
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  Speaker 1: from heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and its
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  Speaker 1: figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them
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  Speaker 1: all I beheld only Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed,
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  Speaker 1: but once sound within my ears, and the ripples upon
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  Speaker 1: the sea murmured evermore Morella. But she died, and with
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  Speaker 1: my own hands I bore her to the tomb. And
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  Speaker 1: I laughed with a long and bitter laugh, as I
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  Speaker 1: found no traces of the first in a charnel where
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  Speaker 1: I laid the second. Morella