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The Assignation 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, the assignation Edgar Allan Poe.
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  Speaker 1: Stay for me there, I will not fail to meet
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  Speaker 1: THEE in that hollow vale exequi on the death of
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  Speaker 1: his wife by Henry, King, Bishop of Chichester, ill fated
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  Speaker 1: and mysterious man, bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination,
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  Speaker 1: and fallen in the flames of thine own youth. Again
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  Speaker 1: in fancy, I behold THEE once more. Thy form hath
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  Speaker 1: risen before me. Not, oh, not as thou art in
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  Speaker 1: the cold valley and shadow, but as thou shouldst be,
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  Speaker 1: squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city
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  Speaker 1: of dim visions, thine own Venice, which is a star
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  Speaker 1: beloved elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of
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  Speaker 1: whose palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter
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  Speaker 1: meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes, I
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  Speaker 1: repeat it, as thou shouldst be. There are surely other
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  Speaker 1: worlds than this, other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude,
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  Speaker 1: other speculations than the speculations of the sophist, who then
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  Speaker 1: shall call thy conduct into question. Who blame thee for
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  Speaker 1: thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting
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  Speaker 1: away of life, which were but the overflowings of Thine
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  Speaker 1: everlasting energies. It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway
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  Speaker 1: there called the Ponte disa Spiri, that I met for
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  Speaker 1: the third or fourth time, the person of whom I speak.
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  Speaker 1: It is with a confused recollection that I bring to
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  Speaker 1: mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember, ah,
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  Speaker 1: how should I forget the deep midnight, the bridge of size,
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  Speaker 1: the beauty of woman, and the genius of romance that
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  Speaker 1: stalked up and down the narrow canal. It was a
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  Speaker 1: night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza
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  Speaker 1: had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The
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  Speaker 1: square of the Campanilie lay silent and deserted, and the
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  Speaker 1: lights in the old ducal palace dying fast away. I
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  Speaker 1: was returning home from the Piazetta by way of the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth
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  Speaker 1: of the Canal San Marco, a female voice from its
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  Speaker 1: recesses broke suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical
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  Speaker 1: and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang
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  Speaker 1: upon my feet, while the gondolier, letting slip his single lore,
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  Speaker 1: lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery,
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  Speaker 1: and we were consequently left to the guidance of the current,
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  Speaker 1: which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel,
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  Speaker 1: like some huge and sable feathered condor. We were slowly
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  Speaker 1: drifting down towards the bridge of size, when a thousand flambos,
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  Speaker 1: flashing from the windows and down the staircases of the
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  Speaker 1: Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into
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  Speaker 1: a livid and preternatural day. A child, slipping from the
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  Speaker 1: arms of its own mother, had fallen from an upper
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  Speaker 1: window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal.
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  Speaker 1: The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim, and
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  Speaker 1: although my own gondola was the only one in sight,
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  Speaker 1: many a stout swimmer already in the stream, was seeking
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  Speaker 1: in vain upon the surface the treasure which was to
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  Speaker 1: be found alas only within the abyss. Upon the broad
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  Speaker 1: black marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace, and
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  Speaker 1: a few steps above the water, stood a figure which
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  Speaker 1: none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It
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  Speaker 1: was the marquesa aphrodite, the adoration of all venice, the
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  Speaker 1: gayest of the gay, the most lovely, where all were beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: But still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mantoni,
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  Speaker 1: and the mother of that fair child, her first and
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  Speaker 1: only one, who now deep beneath the murky water, was
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  Speaker 1: thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and
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  Speaker 1: exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.
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  Speaker 1: She stood alone, her small, bare and silvery feet gleamed
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  Speaker 1: in the black mirror of marble beneath her, her hair
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  Speaker 1: not as yet more than half loosened for the night
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  Speaker 1: from its ball room, orrang clustered amid a shower of diamonds,
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  Speaker 1: round and round her classical head in curls like those
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  Speaker 1: of the young Hyacinth. A snowy white and gauze like
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  Speaker 1: drapery seemed to be nearly the soul covering to her
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  Speaker 1: delicate form. But the mid summer and midnight air was hot,
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  Speaker 1: sullen and still, and no motion in the statue like
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  Speaker 1: form itself stirred even the folds of that raiment of
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  Speaker 1: very vapor, which hung around it, as the heavy marble
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  Speaker 1: hangs around the nile bee. Yet strange to say, her large,
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  Speaker 1: lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave, wherein
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  Speaker 1: her brightest hope lay buried, but riveted in a widely
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  Speaker 1: different direction. The Prison of the Old Republic is, I think,
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  Speaker 1: the stateliest building in all Venice. But how could that
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  Speaker 1: lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay
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  Speaker 1: stifling her only child, yon dark, gloomy niche two yawns
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  Speaker 1: right opposite her chamber window. What then, could there be
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  Speaker 1: in its shadows, in its architecture, in its ivy, wreathed
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  Speaker 1: in solemn cornices, that the Marquesa de Mantoni had not
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  Speaker 1: wondered at a thousand times before? Nonsense? Who does not
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  Speaker 1: remember that at such a time as this, the eye,
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  Speaker 1: like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: and sees in innumerable far off places the woe, which
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  Speaker 1: is close at hand. Many steps above the Marquesa and
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  Speaker 1: within the arch of the water gate, stood in full
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  Speaker 1: dress the sadderlike figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally
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  Speaker 1: occupied in thrumbing a guitar, and seen an lie to
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  Speaker 1: the very death as at intervals he gave directions for
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  Speaker 1: the recovery of his child. Stupefied in aghast, I had
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  Speaker 1: myself no power to move from the upright position I
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  Speaker 1: had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have
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  Speaker 1: presented to the eyes of the agitated group of spectral
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  Speaker 1: and ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs.
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  Speaker 1: I floated down among them in that funereal gondola. All
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  Speaker 1: efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in
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  Speaker 1: the search were relaxing their exertions and yielding to a
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  Speaker 1: gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child,
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  Speaker 1: how much less than for the mother. But now, from
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  Speaker 1: the interior of that dark niche which has been already
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  Speaker 1: mentioned as forming a part of the old Republican prison,
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  Speaker 1: and as fronting the lattice of the Marquesa, a figure,
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  Speaker 1: muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the light, and,
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  Speaker 1: pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent,
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  Speaker 1: plunged headlong into the canal. As in an instant afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: he stood with the still living and breathing child within
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  Speaker 1: his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of
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  Speaker 1: the Marquesa. His cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became unfastened,
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  Speaker 1: and falling in folds about his feet. Discovered to the
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  Speaker 1: wonder stricken spectators, the graceful person of a very young man,
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  Speaker 1: with the sound of whose name the greater part of
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  Speaker 1: Europe was then ringing. No word spoke the deliverer, but
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  Speaker 1: the Marquesa. She will now receive her child. She will
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  Speaker 1: press it to her heart, She will cling to its
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  Speaker 1: little form and smother it with her caresses, alas another's
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  Speaker 1: arms have taken it from the stranger, another's arms have
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  Speaker 1: taken it away and borne it afar off, unnoticed into
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  Speaker 1: the palace, and the Marquesa. Her lip, her beautiful lip, trembles.
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  Speaker 1: Tears are gathering in her eyes, those eyes which, like
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  Speaker 1: plinysycanthus are soft and almost liquid. Yes, tears are gathering
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  Speaker 1: in those eyes. And see the entire woman thrills throughout
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  Speaker 1: the soul, and the statue has started into life. The
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  Speaker 1: pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom,
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  Speaker 1: the very purity of the marble feet we behold suddenly
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  Speaker 1: flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson, and a
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  Speaker 1: slight shudder quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle
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  Speaker 1: air at Napolis, about the rich silver lilies in the grass.
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  Speaker 1: Why should that lady blush to this demand? There is
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  Speaker 1: no answer except that, having left in the ear eager
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  Speaker 1: haste and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of
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  Speaker 1: her own boudoir, she has neglected to enthrall her tiny
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  Speaker 1: feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw over
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  Speaker 1: her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What
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  Speaker 1: other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing,
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  Speaker 1: For the glance of those wild, appealing eyes, For the
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  Speaker 1: unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom, for the convulsive pressure
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  Speaker 1: of that trembling hand, that hand which fell, as Mentoni
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  Speaker 1: turned into the palace accidentally upon the hand of the stranger.
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  Speaker 1: What reason could there have been for the low, the
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  Speaker 1: singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
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  Speaker 1: uttered hurriedly in bidding him. Adio thou hast conquered, she said,
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  Speaker 1: or the murmurs of the water deceived me. Thou hast conquered.
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  Speaker 1: One hour after sunrise, we shall meet. So let it
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  Speaker 1: be the tumult had subsided, the lights had died away
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  Speaker 1: within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized,
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  Speaker 1: stood alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation,
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  Speaker 1: and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola.
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  Speaker 1: I could not do less than offer him the service
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  Speaker 1: of my own, and he accepted the civility. Having obtained
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  Speaker 1: an ore at the water gate, we proceeded together to
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  Speaker 1: his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self possession and
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  Speaker 1: spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great
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  Speaker 1: apparent cordiality. There are some subjects upon which I take
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  Speaker 1: pleasure in being minute the person of the Stranger, let
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  Speaker 1: me call him by this title, who to all the
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  Speaker 1: world was still a stranger. The person of the Stranger
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  Speaker 1: is one of these subjects. In height, he might have
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  Speaker 1: been below rather than above the medium size, although there
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  Speaker 1: were moments of intense passion when his frame actually expanded
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  Speaker 1: and belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of
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  Speaker 1: his figure promised more of that ready activity which he
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  Speaker 1: evinced at the bridge of size, than of that herculean
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  Speaker 1: strength which he has been known to wield without an effort,
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  Speaker 1: upon occasions of more dangerous emergency, with the mouth and
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  Speaker 1: chin of a deity singular, wild, full liquid eyes whose
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  Speaker 1: shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet,
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  Speaker 1: and a profusion of curling black hair, from which a
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  Speaker 1: forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all light
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  Speaker 1: and ivory. His were features than which I have seen,
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  Speaker 1: none more classically regular, except perhaps the marble ones of
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  Speaker 1: the Emperor Commtus. Yet his countenance was nevertheless one of
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  Speaker 1: those which all men have seen at some period of
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  Speaker 1: their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had
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  Speaker 1: no peculiar it had no settled, predominant expression to be
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  Speaker 1: fastened upon the memory a countenance seen and instantly forgotten,
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  Speaker 1: but forgotten with a vague and never ceasing desire of
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  Speaker 1: recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each
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  Speaker 1: rapid passion failed at any time to throw its own
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  Speaker 1: distinct image upon the mirror of that face, but that
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  Speaker 1: the mirror mirror like retained no vestige of the passion
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  Speaker 1: when the passion had departed. Upon leaving him on the
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  Speaker 1: night of our adventure, he solicited me in what I
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  Speaker 1: thought an urgent manner to call upon him. Very early
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  Speaker 1: the next morning, shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly
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  Speaker 1: at his palazzo, one of those huge structures of gloomy
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  Speaker 1: yet fantastic pomp which tower above the waters of the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was
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  Speaker 1: shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics into an
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  Speaker 1: apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with
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  Speaker 1: an actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with luxuriousness.
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  Speaker 1: I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken
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  Speaker 1: of his possessions in terms which I had even ventured
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  Speaker 1: to call terms of ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed
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  Speaker 1: about me, I could not bring myself to believe that
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  Speaker 1: the wealth of any subject in Europe could have supplied
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  Speaker 1: the princely magnificence which burned and blazed around. Although, as
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  Speaker 1: I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was
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  Speaker 1: still brilliantly lighted up. I judge, from this circumstance, as
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  Speaker 1: well as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance
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  Speaker 1: of my friend, that he had not retired to bed
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  Speaker 1: during the whole of the preceding night. In the architecture
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  Speaker 1: and embellishments of the chamber. The evident design had been
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  Speaker 1: to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to
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  Speaker 1: the decora of what is technically called keeping, or to
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  Speaker 1: the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to
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  Speaker 1: object and rested upon none, neither the grotesques of the
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  Speaker 1: Greek painters, nor the sculptures of the best Italian days,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: nor the huge carvings of untutored egypt. Rich draperies in
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  Speaker 1: every part of the room trembled to the vibration of low,
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  Speaker 1: melancholy music whose origin was not to be discovered. The
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  Speaker 1: senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes wreaking up
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  Speaker 1: from strange convolute sensors, together with multitudinous flaring and flickering
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  Speaker 1: tongues of emerald and violet fire. The rays of the
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  Speaker 1: newly risen sun poured in upon the whole through windows,
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  Speaker 1: formed each of a single pane of crimson tinted glass,
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  Speaker 1: glancing to and fro in a thousand reflections from kurt
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  Speaker 1: which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of molten silver.
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  Speaker 1: The beams of natural glory mingled at length, fitfully with
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  Speaker 1: the artificial light, and lay weltering in subdued masses upon
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  Speaker 1: a carpet of rich liquid looking cloth of chilly gold.
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  Speaker 1: Ha ha ha ha ha ha, laughed the proprietor, motioning
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  Speaker 1: me to a seat as I entered the room, and
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  Speaker 1: throwing himself back at full length upon an ottoman I see,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: said he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile myself
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  Speaker 1: to the by ensiiance of so singular a welcome. I see.
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  Speaker 1: You are astonished at my apartment, at my statues, my pictures,
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  Speaker 1: my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery. Absolutely drunk
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  Speaker 1: eh with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit
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  Speaker 1: of cordiality, pardon me for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared
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  Speaker 1: so utterly astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous
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  Speaker 1: that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths. Sir
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Thomas Moore, a very fine man, was Sir Thomas Moore.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Sir Thomas Moore died laughing. You remember, also in the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: absurdities of revisious textor there is a long list of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: characters who came to the same magnificent end. Do you know, however,
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  Speaker 1: continued he musingly, that at Sparta, which is now Palaiochori.
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  Speaker 1: At Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind
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  Speaker 1: of socle upon which are still legible the letters lambda
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: alph as, I'm you. They are undoubtedly part of gamma
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: epsel and lambd alph a zaimu alpha. Now at Sparta
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: How exceedingly strange that the altar of laughter should have
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: survived all the others. But in the present instance, he
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: resumed with a sne regular alteration of voice and manner.
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  Speaker 1: I have no right to be merry at your expense.
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  Speaker 1: You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything
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  Speaker 1: so fine as this my little regal cabinet. My other
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: apartments are by no means of the same order, mere
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion, is
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  Speaker 1: it not? Yet? This has but to be seen to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: become the rage, that is with those who could afford
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: against any such profanation, with one exception. You are the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: only human being besides myself and my valet, who has
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts since
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they have been bedizened. As you see, I bowed in
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: acknowledgment for the overpowering sense of splendor and perfume and music,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: together with the unexpected eccentricity of his address and manner,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: prevented me from expressing in words my appreciation of what
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I might have construed into a compliment. Here he resumed,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: arising and leaning on my arm as he soldered around
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  Speaker 1: the apartment. Here are paintings from the Greeks to Chimabue,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and from Chimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen,
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  Speaker 1: as you see, with little deference to the opinions of virtue.
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  Speaker 1: They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: as this. Here too are some chefs derve of the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: unknown great, and here unfinished designs by men celebrated in
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: has left to silence and to me, what think you,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: said he turning abruptly as he spoke, What think you
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of this madonna dela Piada? It is Guido's own, I said,
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  Speaker 1: with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for I have
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. It is Guido's own?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: How could you have obtained it? She is undoubtedly in painting.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: What the venus is in sculpture, ha said he thoughtfully,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the venus, the beautiful venus, the venus of the Medici,
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  Speaker 1: She of the diminutive head and the gilded hair part
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  Speaker 1: of the left arm. Here his voice dropped so as
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to be heard with difficulty. And all the right are restorations,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And in the coquetry of that right arm lies I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: think the quintessence of all affectation. Give me the Canova.
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  Speaker 1: The Apollo, too, is a copy. There can be no
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  Speaker 1: doubt of it. Blind fool that I am, who cannot
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  Speaker 1: behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo, I cannot help
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  Speaker 1: pity me. I cannot help preferring the antonas. Was it
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: not Socrates who said that the statuary found his statue
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: in the block of marble? Then michael Angelo was by
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: no means original in his couplet non hai alattimo artista
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: alcan concetto che and marmo solo in a s e
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: non circumscriber, it has been, or should be remarked, that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: in the manner of the true gentleman, we are always
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: aware of a difference from the bearing of the vulgar,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: without being at once precisely able to determine in what
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more fully
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can I
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: pervading even his most trivial actions, intruding upon his moments
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of dalliance, and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: a degree of nervous sunction in action and in speech,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: all times unaccountable, and upon some occasions z filled me
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: with alarm. Frequently two pausing in the middle of a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, He seemed to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: momentary expectation of a visitor, or to sounds which must
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: have had existence in his imagination alone. It was during
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: one of these reveries or pauses of apparent abstraction, that,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Position's beautiful tragedy the or Fail, the first native Italian
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: tragedy which lay near me upon an Ottoman, I discovered
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the end of the third act, a passage of the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: most heart stirring excitement, A passage which, although tainted with impurity,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: no woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: with fresh tears, and upon the opposite interleaf were the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: following English lines, written in a hand so very different
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: some difficulty in recognizing it as a his own. Thou
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: wast that all to me, love for which my soul
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: did pine, a green isle in the sea, Love a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: fountain and a shrine, all wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and all the flowers were mine. Ah dream too bright
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to last, AH starry hope that didst arise, but to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: be overcast. A voice from out the future cries onward.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But o'er the past dim gulf, my spirit hovering lies, mute, motionless,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: aghast for alas alas with me, the light of life
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: is o'er no more, no more, no more. Such language
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: holds the solemn sea to the sands upon the shore
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: shall bloom the thunder blasted tree, or the stricken eagle sore.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Now all my hours are trances, and all my nightly
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: dreams are where the dark eye glances, and where thy
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: footstep gleams in what ethereal dances by what Italian streams
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: alas for that accursed time they bore the o'er the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: billow from love to titled age and Crime, and an
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: unholy pillow from me and from our misty clime were
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: weeps the silver willow. That these lines were written in English,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a language with which I had not believed their author acquainted,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: afforded me little matter. For surprise. I was too well
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: aware of the extent of his acquirements and of the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: singular pleasure he took in concealing them from observation to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: be astonished at any similar discovery. But the place of date,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I must confess, occasion me no little amazement. It had
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: been originally written London, and afterwards carefully overscored, not however,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: so effectually as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I say this occasioned me no little amazement, For I
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: well remember that, in a former conversation with a friend
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I particularly inquired if he had at any time met
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: in London, the Marquesa de Mantoni, who for some years
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: previous to her marriage had resided in that city. When
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: his answer, if I mistake not gave me to understand
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I might as well here mention that I have more
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: than once heard, without of course giving credit to a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: report involving so many improbabilities, that the person of whom
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I speak was not only by birth, but an education
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: an Englishman. There is one painting, said he, without being
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: aware of my notice of the tragedy. There is still
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: one painting which you have not seen, And throwing aside
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a drapery, he discovered a full length portrait of the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: marquesa aphrodite human art could have done no more in
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of the Ducal Palace stood before me once again. But
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: over with smiles, there still lurked incomprehensible anomaly, that fitful
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: over her bosom. With her left she pointed downward to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a curiously fashioned vase. One small fairy foot alone visible
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: barely touched the earth, and scarcely discernible. In the brilliant
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: a pair of the most delicately imagined wings. My glance
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: fell from the painting to the figure of my friend,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and the vigorous words of Chapman's Bussy d'ambois quivered instinctively
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: upon my lips. He is up there, like a Roman statue.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: He will stand till death hath made him marble. Come,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: he said, at length, turning towards a table of richly
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: enameled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be Johannesburger. Come,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: he said, abruptly. Let us drink. It is early, but
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: let us drink. It is indeed early, he continued, musingly,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise. It is
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: indeed early, but what matters it? Let us drink, Let
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: us pour out an offering to yon solemn sun which
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in rapid succession several goblets of the wine to dream.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: He continued, resuming the tone of his desultory conversation as
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: he held up to the rich light of a censer
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: one of the magnificent vases. To dream has been the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: business of my life. I have therefore framed for myself,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: as you see, a bower of dreams in the heart
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of Venice. Could I have erected a better you? Behold
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: around you? It is true a medley of architectural embellishments.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the Sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets of gold.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Proprieties
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of place, and especially of time are the bugbears which
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent. Once I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: was myself a decorist, but that sublimation of folly has
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: pulled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: for my purpose. Like these Arabesque censers, my spirit is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: real dreams, whither I am now rapidly departing. He here paused, abruptly,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to a sound which I could not hear. At length.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Erecting his frame, he looked upwards and ejaculated the lines
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of the Bishop of Chichester. Stay for me there. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: will not fail to meet thee in that hollow vale.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: he threw himself at full length upon an ottoman. A
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to anticipate a second disturbance when a page of Montoni's
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: household burst into the room and faltered out, in a voice,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: choking with emotion, the incoherent words my mistress, my mistress, poisoned, poisoned,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Oh beautiful, oh beautiful, aphrodite. Bewildered, I flew to the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: ottoman and endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid, his
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: lips were livid, his lately beaming eyes were riveted. In death,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I staggered back towards the table. My hand fell upon
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: a cracked and blackened goblet, and the consciousness of the
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.