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William Wilson 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, William Wilson, Edgar Allan Poe,
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Speaker 1: What say of it? What say of conscience? Grim that
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Speaker 1: specter in my path? Chamberlayne's Feronida. Let me call myself
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Speaker 1: for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying
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Speaker 1: before me need not be sullied with my real appellation.
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Speaker 1: This has been already too much an object for the scorn,
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Speaker 1: for the horror, for the detestation of my race, to
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Speaker 1: the uttermost regions of the globe, have not the indignant
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Speaker 1: winds brooded its unparalleled infamy, Oh, outcast of all outcasts,
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Speaker 1: most abandoned to the earth, Art thou not forever dead
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Speaker 1: to its honors, to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?
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Speaker 1: And a cloud dense, dismal and limitless, does it not
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Speaker 1: hang eternally between thy hopes and Heaven? I would not
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Speaker 1: if I could here or to day embody a record
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Speaker 1: of my later years of unspeakable misery and unpardonable crime.
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Speaker 1: This epoch, these later years, took unto themselves, a sudden
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Speaker 1: elevation in turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present
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Speaker 1: purpose to assign men usually grow base by degrees from me.
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Speaker 1: In an instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle
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Speaker 1: from comparatively trivial wickedness. I passed, with the stride of
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Speaker 1: a giant into more than the enormities of an iligabolus.
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Speaker 1: What chance, what one event brought this evil thing to pass?
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Speaker 1: Bear with me while I relate death approaches, and the
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Speaker 1: shadow which fore runs him has thrown a softening influence
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Speaker 1: over my spirit. I long, in passing through the dim
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Speaker 1: valley for the sympathy I had nearly said, for the
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Speaker 1: pity of my fellow men. I would fain have them
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Speaker 1: believe that I have been, in some measure the slave
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Speaker 1: of circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to
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Speaker 1: seek out for me in the details I am about
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Speaker 1: to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness
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Speaker 1: of error. I would have them allow what they cannot
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Speaker 1: refrain from allowing that although temptation may have erewhile existed
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Speaker 1: as great man, was never thus at least tempted before,
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Speaker 1: certainly never thus fell? And is it therefore that he
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Speaker 1: has never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living
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Speaker 1: in a dream and am I not now dying a
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Speaker 1: victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
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Speaker 1: of all sublunary visions. I am the descendant of a
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Speaker 1: race whose imaginative and easily excitable temperament has at all
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Speaker 1: times rendered them remarkable. And in my earliest infancy I
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Speaker 1: gave evidence of having fully inherited the family character. As
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Speaker 1: I advanced in years, it was more strongly developed, becoming,
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Speaker 1: for many reasons a cause of serious disquietude to my
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Speaker 1: friends and of positive injury to myself. I grew self willed,
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Speaker 1: addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the
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Speaker 1: most ungovernable passions. Weak minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities
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Speaker 1: akin to my own. My parents could do but little
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Speaker 1: to check the evil propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble
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Speaker 1: and ill directed efforts resulted in complete failure on their part,
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Speaker 1: and of course, in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my
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Speaker 1: voice was a household law, and at an age when
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Speaker 1: few children have abandoned their leading strings, I was left
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Speaker 1: to the guidance of my own will, and became, in
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Speaker 1: all but name, the master of my own actions. My
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Speaker 1: earliest recollections of a school life are connected with a large,
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Speaker 1: rambling Elizabethan house in a misty looking village of England,
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Speaker 1: where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees,
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Speaker 1: and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth,
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Speaker 1: it was a dreamlike in spirit soothing place, that venerable
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Speaker 1: old town. At this moment in fancy, I feel the
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Speaker 1: refreshing chilliness of its deeply shadowed avenues, inhale, the fragrance
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Speaker 1: of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with under finable
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Speaker 1: delight at the deep hollow note of the church bell
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Speaker 1: breaking each hour with sullen and sudden roar. Upon the
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Speaker 1: stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic
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Speaker 1: steeple lay embedded and asleep. It gives me, perhaps as
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Speaker 1: much of pleasure as I can now in any manner experience,
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Speaker 1: to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns,
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Speaker 1: steeped in misery as I am, misery, alas only too real,
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Speaker 1: I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary,
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Speaker 1: in the weakness of a few rambling details. These moreover
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Speaker 1: utterly trivial and even ridiculous in themselves. Assume to my
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Speaker 1: fancy adventitious importance as connected with a period and a locality.
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Speaker 1: When and where I recognize the first ambiguous monitions of
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Speaker 1: the destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me
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Speaker 1: then remember the house I have said was old and irregular.
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Speaker 1: The grounds were extensive, and a high and solid brick wall,
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Speaker 1: topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass, encompassed
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Speaker 1: the whole. This prison like rampart formed the limit of
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Speaker 1: our domain. Beyond it we saw but thrice a week,
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Speaker 1: Once every Saturday afternoon, when attended by two ushers, we
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Speaker 1: were permitted to take brief walks in a body through
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Speaker 1: some of the neighboring fields, and twice during Sunday, when
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Speaker 1: we were paraded in the same formal manner to the
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Speaker 1: morning and evening service in the one church of the village.
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Speaker 1: Of this church, the principle of our school was pastor.
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Speaker 1: With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was
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Speaker 1: I wont to regard him from our remote pew in
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Speaker 1: the gallery, as with steps solemn and slow, he ascended
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Speaker 1: the pulpit, this reverend man, with countenance so demurely benign,
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Speaker 1: with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wigs
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Speaker 1: so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast. Could this
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Speaker 1: be he who, of late, with sour visage and in
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Speaker 1: snuffy habiliments, administered feral in hand the draconian laws of
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Speaker 1: the Academy, Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution.
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Speaker 1: At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more
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Speaker 1: ponderous gait. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts,
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Speaker 1: and surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep
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Speaker 1: au did it inspire? It was never open, save for
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Speaker 1: the three periodical aggressions and ingressions already mentioned. Then in
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Speaker 1: every creak of its mighty hinges we found a plenitude
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Speaker 1: of mystery, a world of matter for solemn remark or
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Speaker 1: for more solemn meditation. The extensive enclosure was irregular in form,
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Speaker 1: having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of
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Speaker 1: the largest constituted the playground. It was level and covered
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Speaker 1: with fine, hard gravel. I Well remember it had no trees,
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Speaker 1: nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course, it
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Speaker 1: was in the rear of the house. In front lay
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Speaker 1: a small parterre planted with box and other shrubs. But
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Speaker 1: through this sacred division we passed only upon rare occasions, indeed,
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Speaker 1: such as a first advent to school or final departure.
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Speaker 1: Thence or perhaps when a parent or friend having called
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Speaker 1: for us, we joyfully took our way home for the
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Speaker 1: Christmas or Midsummer holidays. But the house, how quaint an
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Speaker 1: old building was this to me, how veritably a palace
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Speaker 1: of enchantment. There was really no end to its windings,
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Speaker 1: to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult at any given
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Speaker 1: time to say with certainty upon which of its two
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Speaker 1: stories one happened to be. From each room to every other,
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Speaker 1: there were sure to be found three or four steps,
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Speaker 1: either in ascent or descent. Then the lateral branches were innumerable, inconceivable,
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Speaker 1: and so returning in upon themselves, that our most exact
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Speaker 1: ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not very
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Speaker 1: far different from those with which we pondered upon infinity.
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Speaker 1: During the five years of my residence here, I was
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Speaker 1: never able to ascertain with precision in what remote locality
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Speaker 1: lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself in some
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Speaker 1: eighteen or twenty other scholars. The school room was the
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Speaker 1: largest in the house. I could not help thinking in
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Speaker 1: the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low,
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Speaker 1: with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In
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Speaker 1: a remote and terror inspiring angle was a square enclosure
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Speaker 1: of eight or ten feet comprising the sanctum during hours
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Speaker 1: of our principle, the Reverend Doctor Bransby. It was a
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Speaker 1: solid structure with massy door sooner than open, which in
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Speaker 1: the absence of the dominie we would all have willingly
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Speaker 1: perished by the pained forte e t door. In other
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Speaker 1: angles were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced indeed,
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Speaker 1: but still greatly matters of all. One of these was
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Speaker 1: the pulpit of the classical usher, one of the English
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Speaker 1: and mathematical Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in
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Speaker 1: endless irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient and
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Speaker 1: I mourn, piled desperately with much bethumbed books and so
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Speaker 1: beseemed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque figures,
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Speaker 1: and other multiplied efforts of the knife as to have
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Speaker 1: entirely lost what little of original form might have been
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Speaker 1: their portion. In days long departed. A huge bucket with
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Speaker 1: water stood at one extremity of the room, and a
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Speaker 1: clock of stupendous dimensions at the other. Encompassed by the
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Speaker 1: massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed, yet not
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Speaker 1: in tedium or disgust the years of the third lustroom
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Speaker 1: of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no
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Speaker 1: external world of incident to occupy or amuse it, And
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Speaker 1: the apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with
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Speaker 1: more intense excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury,
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Speaker 1: or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe
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Speaker 1: that my first mental development had in it much of
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Speaker 1: the uncommon, even much of the utree upon mankind at larged.
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Speaker 1: The events of very early existence rarely leave in mature
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Speaker 1: age any definite impression. All is gray shadow, a weak
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Speaker 1: and irregular remembrance, an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and
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Speaker 1: phantasmagoric pains. With me, this is not so. In childhood.
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Speaker 1: I must have felt, with the energy of a man
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Speaker 1: what I now find stamped upon memory. And lines as vivid,
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Speaker 1: as deep, and as durable as the excerpts of the
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Speaker 1: Carthaginian metals. Yet in fact, in the fact of the
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Speaker 1: world's view, how little was there to remember. The morning's awakening,
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Speaker 1: the nightly summons to bed, the connings, the recitations, the
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Speaker 1: periodical half holidays and perambulations, the playground with its broils,
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Speaker 1: its pastimes, its intrigues. These, by a mental sorcery long forgotten,
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Speaker 1: were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world
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Speaker 1: of rich incident and universe of varied emotion of excitement,
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Speaker 1: the most passionate and spirit stirring Oh lou bon tempts
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Speaker 1: k c e cieclid affair in truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm,
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Speaker 1: and the imperiousness of my disposition soon rendered me a
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Speaker 1: marked character among my schoolmates, and by slow but natural gradations,
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Speaker 1: gave me an ascendancy over all, not greatly older than
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Speaker 1: myself over all with a single exception. This exception was
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Speaker 1: found in the person of a scholar who, although no relation,
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Speaker 1: bore the same Christian and surname as myself, a circumstance,
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Speaker 1: in fact little remarkable, for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine
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Speaker 1: was one of those every day appellations which seem, by
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Speaker 1: prescriptive right, to have been time out of mind the
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Speaker 1: common property of the mob. In this narrative, I have
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Speaker 1: therefore designated myself as William Wilson, a fictitious title not
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Speaker 1: very dissimilar to the real my namesake. Alone of those who,
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Speaker 1: in school phraseology constituted, are set presumed to compete with
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Speaker 1: me in the studies of the class, in the sports
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Speaker 1: and broils of the playground, to refuse implicit belief in
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Speaker 1: my assertions and submission to my will, indeed, to interfere
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Speaker 1: with my arbitrary dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there
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Speaker 1: is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is
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Speaker 1: the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the
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Speaker 1: less energetic spirits of its companions. Wilson's rebellion was to
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Speaker 1: me a source of the greatest embarrassment, the more so as,
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Speaker 1: in spite of the bravado with which in public I
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Speaker 1: made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I
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Speaker 1: secretly felt that I feared him, and could not help
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Speaker 1: thinking the equality which he maintained so easily with myself
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Speaker 1: a proof of his true superiority, since not to be
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Speaker 1: overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this superiority, even
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Speaker 1: this equality, was in truth acknowledged by no one but myself,
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Speaker 1: our associates, by some unaccountable blindness, seemed not even to
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Speaker 1: suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his resistance, and especially his
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Speaker 1: impertinent and dogged interference with my purposes were not more
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Speaker 1: pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute, alike of
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Speaker 1: the ambition which urged and of the passionate energy of
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Speaker 1: mind which enabled me to excel in his rivalry. He
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Speaker 1: might have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire
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Speaker 1: to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself. Although there were times
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Speaker 1: when I could not help observing with a feeling made
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Speaker 1: up of wonder, abasement, and pique, that he mingled with
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Speaker 1: his injuries, his insults, or his contradictions a certain most inappropriate,
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Speaker 1: an assuredly most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only
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Speaker 1: conceive this singular behavior to arise from a consummate self
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Speaker 1: conceit assuming the vulgar airs of patronage and protection. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: it was this latter trade in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with
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Speaker 1: our identity of name, and the mere accident of our
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Speaker 1: having entered the school upon the same day, which set
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Speaker 1: afloat the notion that we were brothers. Among the senior
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Speaker 1: classes in the academy, these do not usually inquire with
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Speaker 1: much strictness into the affairs of their juniors. I have
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Speaker 1: before said, or should have said, that Wilson was not
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Speaker 1: in the most remote degree connected with my family, but
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Speaker 1: assuredly if we had been brothers, we must have been twins.
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Speaker 1: For after leaving Doctor Bransby's I casually learned that my
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Speaker 1: namesake was born on the nineteenth of January eighteen thirteen,
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Speaker 1: and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence, for the day
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Speaker 1: is precisely that of my own nativity. It may seem
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Speaker 1: strange that, in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned me
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Speaker 1: by the rivalry of Wilson and his intolerable spirit of contradiction,
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Speaker 1: I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We
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Speaker 1: had to be sure nearly every day a quarrel in which,
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Speaker 1: yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he in some
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Speaker 1: manner contrived to make me feel that it was he
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Speaker 1: who had deserved it. Yet a sense of pride on
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Speaker 1: my part and a veritable dignity on his own kept
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Speaker 1: us always upon what are called speaking terms. While there
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Speaker 1: were many points of strong congeniality in our tempers operating
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Speaker 1: to awake me in a sentiment which our position alone
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Speaker 1: perhaps prevented from ripening into friendship, it is difficult, indeed,
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Speaker 1: to define or even to describe my real feelings towards him.
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Speaker 1: They formed a motley and heterogeneous admixture, some petulant animosity
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Speaker 1: which was not yet hatred, some esteem, more respect, much fear,
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Speaker 1: with a world of uneasy curiosity. To the moralist, it
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Speaker 1: will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and
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Speaker 1: myself were the most inseparable of companions. It was no
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Speaker 1: doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us which
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Speaker 1: turned all my attacks upon him, and they were many
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Speaker 1: either open or covert into the channel of banter or
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Speaker 1: practical joke, giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun,
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Speaker 1: rather than into a more serious and determined hostility. But
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Speaker 1: my endeavors on this head were by no means uniformly successful,
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Speaker 1: even when my plans were the most wittily concocted for
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Speaker 1: my namesake, had much about him in character of that
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Speaker 1: unassuming and quiet austerity, which, while enjoying the poignancy of
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Speaker 1: its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself,
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Speaker 1: and absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed,
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Speaker 1: but one vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal
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Speaker 1: peculiarity arising perhaps from constitutional disease, would have been spared
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Speaker 1: by any antagonist less at his WIT's end than myself.
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Speaker 1: My rival had a weakness in a focal or guttural organs,
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Speaker 1: which precluded him from raising his voice at any time
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Speaker 1: above a very low whisper. Of this defect, I did
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Speaker 1: not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my power.
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Speaker 1: Wilson's retaliations in kind were many, and there was one
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Speaker 1: form of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure.
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Speaker 1: How his sagacity first discovered at all, that so petty
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Speaker 1: a thing would vex me is a question I never
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Speaker 1: could solve. But having discovered he habitually practiced the annoyance,
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Speaker 1: I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and
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Speaker 1: its very common, if not to be in prenoman the
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Speaker 1: words were venom in my ears. And when, upon the
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Speaker 1: day of my arrival, a second William Wilson came also
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Speaker 1: to the academy, I felt angry with him for bearing
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Speaker 1: the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a
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Speaker 1: stranger bore it. Who would be the cause of its
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Speaker 1: twofold repetition, who would be constantly in my presence, and
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Speaker 1: whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the school business, must, inevitably,
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Speaker 1: on account of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with
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Speaker 1: my own. The feeling of vexation, thus engendered grew stronger
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Speaker 1: with every circumstance tending to show resemblance moral or physical
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Speaker 1: between my rival and myself. I had not then discovered
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Speaker 1: the remarkable fact that we were of the same age,
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Speaker 1: but I saw that we were of the same height,
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Speaker 1: and I perceived that we were even singularly alike in
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Speaker 1: general contour of person and outline of feature. I was
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Speaker 1: galled too by the rumor touching a relationship which had
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Speaker 1: grown current in the upper forms. In a word, nothing
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Speaker 1: could more seriously disturb me, although I scrupulously concealed such
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Speaker 1: disturbance than any allusion to a similarity of mine, person
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Speaker 1: or condition existing between us. But in truth I had
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Speaker 1: no reason to believe that, with the exception of the
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Speaker 1: matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,
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Speaker 1: this similarity had ever been made a subject of comment,
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Speaker 1: or even observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he
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Speaker 1: observed it in all its bearings, and as fixedly as
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Speaker 1: I was apparent, But that he could discover, in such
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Speaker 1: circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance can only be attributed,
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Speaker 1: as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.
18:32
Speaker 1: His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself,
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Speaker 1: lay both in words and in actions, And most admirably
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Speaker 1: did he play his part. My dress it was an
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Speaker 1: easy matter to copy, My gait and general manner were
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Speaker 1: without difficulty appropriated. In spite of his constitutional defect. Even
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Speaker 1: my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were,
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Speaker 1: of course unattempted. But then the key, it was identical,
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Speaker 1: and his singular whisper it grew the very echo of
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Speaker 1: my own. How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me,
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Speaker 1: for it could not justly be termed a caricature. I
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Speaker 1: will not now venture to describe. I had but one
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Speaker 1: consolation in the fact that the imitation apparently was noticed
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Speaker 1: by myself alone, and that I had to endure only
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Speaker 1: the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake, himself.
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Speaker 1: Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended effect,
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Speaker 1: he seemed to chuckle in secret over the stain he
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Speaker 1: had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public applause
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Speaker 1: which the success of his witty endeavors might have so
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Speaker 1: easily elicited. That the school indeed did not feel his design,
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Speaker 1: perceived its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer was for
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Speaker 1: many anxious months a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: the gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible,
19:52
Speaker 1: or more possibly I owed my security to the master
19:55
Speaker 1: heir of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter which in
19:58
Speaker 1: a painting is all the opturnse can see, gave but
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Speaker 1: the full spirit of his original. For my individual contemplation
20:04
Speaker 1: and chagrin, I have already more than once spoken of
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Speaker 1: the disgusting air of patronage which he assumed toward me,
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Speaker 1: and of his frequent officious interference with my will. This
20:15
Speaker 1: interference often took the ungracious character of advice, advice not
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Speaker 1: openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received it with
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Speaker 1: a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in years.
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Speaker 1: Yet at this distant day, let me do him the
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Speaker 1: simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion
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Speaker 1: when the suggestions of my rival were on the side
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Speaker 1: of those errors or follies so usual to his immature
20:38
Speaker 1: age and seeming inexperience, that his moral sense, at least,
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Speaker 1: if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was far
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Speaker 1: keener than my own, And that I might to day
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Speaker 1: have been a better and thus a happier man, had
20:51
Speaker 1: I less frequently rejected the councils embodied in those meaning
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Speaker 1: whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too
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Speaker 1: bitterly despised. As it was, I at length grew restive
21:01
Speaker 1: in the extreme under his distasteful supervision, and daily resented
21:05
Speaker 1: more and more openly what I considered his intolerable arrogance.
21:09
Speaker 1: I have said that in the first years of our
21:11
Speaker 1: connection as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to him might
21:14
Speaker 1: have been easily ripened into friendship. But in the latter
21:17
Speaker 1: months of my residence at the Academy, although the intrusion
21:20
Speaker 1: of his ordinary manner had beyond doubt, in some measure
21:24
Speaker 1: abetted my sentiments in nearly similar proportion, purtook very much
21:29
Speaker 1: of positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think,
21:34
Speaker 1: and afterwards avoided or made a show of avoiding me.
21:38
Speaker 1: It was about the same period, if I remember aright,
21:41
Speaker 1: that in an altercation of violence with him, in which
21:44
Speaker 1: he was more than usually thrown off his guard and
21:46
Speaker 1: spoke and acted with an openness of demeanor rather foreign
21:49
Speaker 1: to his nature, I discovered, or fancied, I discovered in
21:53
Speaker 1: his accent, his air, and general appearance, a something which
21:57
Speaker 1: first startled and then deeply interested me, by bringing to
22:01
Speaker 1: mind dim visions of my earliest infancy, wild, confused and
22:05
Speaker 1: thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn.
22:09
Speaker 1: I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than
22:12
Speaker 1: by saying that I could with difficulty shake off the
22:14
Speaker 1: belief of my having been acquainted with the being who
22:16
Speaker 1: stood before me at some epoch very long ago, some
22:20
Speaker 1: point of the past, even infinitely remote. The delusion however,
22:24
Speaker 1: faded rapidly as it came, and I mention it at all,
22:27
Speaker 1: but to define the day of the last conversation either
22:30
Speaker 1: held with my singular namesake. The huge old house, with
22:34
Speaker 1: its countless subdivisions, had several large chambers, communicating with each
22:38
Speaker 1: other where slept the greater number of the students. There were, however,
22:43
Speaker 1: as must necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned,
22:46
Speaker 1: many little knooks or recesses the odds and ends of
22:49
Speaker 1: the structure, and these the economic ingenuity of doctor Bransby
22:53
Speaker 1: had also fitted up as dormitories, although being the merest
22:57
Speaker 1: closets they were capable of accommodating but a single individual.
23:01
Speaker 1: One of these small apartments was occupied by Wilson one night,
23:06
Speaker 1: about the close of my fifth year at the school,
23:08
Speaker 1: and immediately after the altercation just mentioned. Finding every one
23:12
Speaker 1: wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed and lamp in hand,
23:16
Speaker 1: stole through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own
23:19
Speaker 1: bedroom to that of my rival. I had long been
23:22
Speaker 1: plotting one of those ill natured pieces of practical wit
23:25
Speaker 1: at his expense, in which I had hitherto been so
23:27
Speaker 1: uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention now to put my
23:32
Speaker 1: scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him feel
23:35
Speaker 1: the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued.
23:38
Speaker 1: Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp
23:42
Speaker 1: with a shade over it. On the outside. I advanced
23:46
Speaker 1: a step and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing.
23:50
Speaker 1: Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light,
23:53
Speaker 1: and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were
23:57
Speaker 1: around it, which, in the prosecution of my plan, I
24:00
Speaker 1: slowly and quietly withdrew. When the bright rays fell vividly
24:03
Speaker 1: upon the sleeper and my eyes at the same moment
24:07
Speaker 1: upon his countenance, I looked, and a numbness, an iciness
24:11
Speaker 1: of feeling, instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved, my
24:16
Speaker 1: knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an objectless
24:19
Speaker 1: yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered the lamp
24:24
Speaker 1: in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these these
24:28
Speaker 1: the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw indeed that they
24:32
Speaker 1: were his. But I shook, as if with a fit
24:34
Speaker 1: of the ague and fancying they were not what was
24:38
Speaker 1: there about them to confound me? In this manner I gazed,
24:42
Speaker 1: while my brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts.
24:46
Speaker 1: Not thus he appeared, assuredly, Not thus in the vivacity
24:50
Speaker 1: of his waking hours, the same name, the same contour
24:54
Speaker 1: of person, the same day of arrival at the academy,
24:59
Speaker 1: And then and his dogged and meaningless imitation of my gait,
25:02
Speaker 1: my voice, my habits, and my manner. Was it, in truth,
25:07
Speaker 1: within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now
25:10
Speaker 1: saw was the result merely of the habitual practice of
25:14
Speaker 1: this sarcastic imitation. AWE stricken, and with a creeping shudder,
25:18
Speaker 1: I extinguished the lamp, passed silently from the chamber, and
25:22
Speaker 1: left at once the halls of that old academy, never
25:25
Speaker 1: to enter them again. After a lapse of some months
25:29
Speaker 1: spent at home in mere idleness, I found myself a
25:32
Speaker 1: student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to
25:36
Speaker 1: enfeeble my remembrance of the events at doctor Bransby's, or
25:39
Speaker 1: at least to effect a material change in the nature
25:41
Speaker 1: of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth,
25:45
Speaker 1: the tragedy of the drama was no more. I could
25:49
Speaker 1: now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses,
25:52
Speaker 1: and seldom called up the subject at all, but with
25:54
Speaker 1: wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at
25:57
Speaker 1: the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily possessed.
26:01
Speaker 1: Neither was this species of skepticism likely to be diminished
26:04
Speaker 1: by the character of the life I led at Eden,
26:08
Speaker 1: The vortex of thoughtless folly into which either so immediately
26:11
Speaker 1: and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth
26:14
Speaker 1: of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or
26:17
Speaker 1: serious impression, and left to memory only the various levities
26:21
Speaker 1: of a former existence. I do not wish, however, to
26:25
Speaker 1: trace the course of my miserable profligacy here, a profligacy
26:28
Speaker 1: which set it defiance the laws while it eluded the
26:31
Speaker 1: vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly passed without profit,
26:36
Speaker 1: had but given me rooted habits of vice, and added
26:40
Speaker 1: in a somewhat unusual degree to my bodily stature. When
26:43
Speaker 1: after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small
26:46
Speaker 1: party of the most dissolute students to a secret carousal
26:49
Speaker 1: in my chambers. We met at a late hour of
26:53
Speaker 1: the night, for our debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted
26:56
Speaker 1: until morning. The wine flowed freely, and there were not
26:59
Speaker 1: one other and perhaps more dangerous seductions, so that the
27:03
Speaker 1: gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east. While
27:05
Speaker 1: our delirious extravagance was at its height, madly flushed with
27:10
Speaker 1: cards and intoxication. I was in the act of insisting
27:13
Speaker 1: upon a toast of more than wanted profanity, when my
27:15
Speaker 1: attention was suddenly diverted by the violent, although partial, unclosing
27:19
Speaker 1: of the door of the apartment, and by the eager
27:22
Speaker 1: voice of a servant from without. He said that some person,
27:25
Speaker 1: apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me in
27:28
Speaker 1: the hall. Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather
27:33
Speaker 1: delighted than surprised me, I staggered forward at once, and
27:37
Speaker 1: a few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building.
27:41
Speaker 1: In this low and small room there hung no lamp,
27:44
Speaker 1: and now no light at all was admitted, save that
27:47
Speaker 1: of the exceedingly feeble dawn, which made its way through
27:49
Speaker 1: the semicircular window. As I put my foot over the threshold,
27:54
Speaker 1: I became aware of the figure of a youth about
27:56
Speaker 1: my own height, inhabited in a white cursy mere morning
27:59
Speaker 1: frock cut the novel fashion of the one I myself
28:01
Speaker 1: wore at the moment. This, the faint light enabled me
28:05
Speaker 1: to perceive, but the features of his face I could
28:07
Speaker 1: not distinguish. Upon my entering, he strode hurriedly up to me, and,
28:12
Speaker 1: seizing me by the arm, with a gesture of petulant impatience,
28:16
Speaker 1: whispered the words William Wilson. In my ear, I grew
28:20
Speaker 1: perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the
28:24
Speaker 1: manner of the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of
28:26
Speaker 1: his uplifted finger as he held it between my eyes,
28:29
Speaker 1: and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement. But
28:32
Speaker 1: it was not this which had so violently moved me.
28:36
Speaker 1: It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low,
28:39
Speaker 1: hissing utterance. And above all it was the character, the tone,
28:44
Speaker 1: the key of those few simple and familiar yet whispered
28:48
Speaker 1: syllables which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days,
28:52
Speaker 1: and struck upon my soul with the shock of a
28:54
Speaker 1: galvanic battery. Ere I could recover the use of my senses,
28:58
Speaker 1: he was gone. Although this event failed not of a
29:01
Speaker 1: vivid effect upon my disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent
29:05
Speaker 1: as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I busied myself in
29:09
Speaker 1: earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of morbid speculation.
29:14
Speaker 1: I did not pretend to disguise from my perception the
29:17
Speaker 1: identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly interfered with
29:20
Speaker 1: my affairs and harassed me with his insinuated counsel. But
29:24
Speaker 1: who and what was this Wilson? And whence came he?
29:27
Speaker 1: And what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points
29:31
Speaker 1: could I be satisfied, merely ascertaining in regard to him
29:35
Speaker 1: that a sudden accident in his family had caused his
29:37
Speaker 1: removal from doctor Bransby's academy on the afternoon of the
29:40
Speaker 1: day in which I myself had eloped. But in a
29:44
Speaker 1: brief period I ceased to think upon the subject, my
29:46
Speaker 1: attention being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford.
29:51
Speaker 1: Thither I soon went the uncalculating vanity of my parents,
29:54
Speaker 1: furnishing me with an outfit and annual establishment which would
29:58
Speaker 1: enable me to indulge it while in the lucky already
30:00
Speaker 1: so dear to my heart to vie in profuseness of
30:03
Speaker 1: expenditure with the haughtiest airs of the wealthiest earldoms in
30:06
Speaker 1: Great Britain. Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional
30:11
Speaker 1: temperament broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even
30:14
Speaker 1: the common restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of
30:17
Speaker 1: my revels. But it were absurd to pause in the
30:21
Speaker 1: detail of my extravagance. Let it suffice that among spendthrifts
30:25
Speaker 1: I out Herod Herod, and that giving name to a
30:28
Speaker 1: multitude of novel follies, I added no brief appendix to
30:32
Speaker 1: the long catalog of vices than usual in the most
30:34
Speaker 1: dissolute university of Europe. It could hardly be credited, however,
30:39
Speaker 1: that I had even here so utterly fallen from the
30:42
Speaker 1: gentlemanly estate as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts
30:46
Speaker 1: of the gambler by profession, and having become an adept
30:49
Speaker 1: in his despicable science, to practice it habitually as a
30:53
Speaker 1: means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense
30:56
Speaker 1: of the weak minded among my fellow collegians. Such, nevertheless,
31:01
Speaker 1: was the fact, and the very enormity of this offense
31:04
Speaker 1: against all manly and honorable sentiment, proved beyond doubt the main,
31:08
Speaker 1: if not the sole, reason of the impunity with which
31:11
Speaker 1: it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates,
31:16
Speaker 1: would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his
31:19
Speaker 1: senses than have suspected of such courses. The gay, the frank,
31:24
Speaker 1: the generous William Wilson, the noblest and most liberal commoner
31:27
Speaker 1: at Oxford, Him whose follies, said his parasites, were but
31:31
Speaker 1: the follies of youth and unbridled fancy, whose errors but
31:34
Speaker 1: animitable whim, whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance.
31:40
Speaker 1: I had been now two years successfully busied in this way,
31:43
Speaker 1: when there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman,
31:46
Speaker 1: glendening Rich, said, report as Herod's atticus. His riches too
31:51
Speaker 1: as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect,
31:55
Speaker 1: and of course marked him as a fitting subject for
31:58
Speaker 1: my skill. I frequently engaged him in play, and contrived,
32:03
Speaker 1: with the gambler's usual art, to let him win considerable sums,
32:07
Speaker 1: the more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length,
32:11
Speaker 1: my schemes being ripe, I met him with the full
32:14
Speaker 1: intention that this meeting should be final and decisive at
32:17
Speaker 1: the chambers of a fellow commoner, mister Preston, equally intimate
32:21
Speaker 1: with both, but who to do him justice, entertained not
32:24
Speaker 1: even a remote suspicion of my design to give to
32:28
Speaker 1: this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled
32:30
Speaker 1: a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously
32:33
Speaker 1: careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental and
32:36
Speaker 1: originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself to
32:40
Speaker 1: be brief upon a vile topic. None of the low
32:43
Speaker 1: finesse was omitted so customary upon similar occasions, that it
32:47
Speaker 1: is a just matter for wonder how any are still found,
32:49
Speaker 1: so besought it as to fall its victim. We had
32:52
Speaker 1: protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had
32:55
Speaker 1: at length effected the maneuver of getting Glendening as my
32:57
Speaker 1: sole antagonist. The game, too was my favorite e CARTI
33:03
Speaker 1: the rest of the company interested in the extent of
33:06
Speaker 1: our play, had abandoned their own cards and were standing
33:09
Speaker 1: around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced
33:13
Speaker 1: by my artifices in the early part of the evening
33:16
Speaker 1: to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt or played with a
33:20
Speaker 1: wild nervousness, of manner for which his intoxication I thought
33:24
Speaker 1: might partially but could not altogether account. In a very
33:28
Speaker 1: short period he had become my debtor to a large amount. When,
33:31
Speaker 1: having taken a long draft of port, he did precisely
33:34
Speaker 1: what I had been coolly anticipating. He proposed to double
33:37
Speaker 1: our already extravagant stakes with a well feigned show of reluctance.
33:42
Speaker 1: And not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him
33:45
Speaker 1: into some angry words which gave a color of peaque
33:47
Speaker 1: to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course,
33:52
Speaker 1: did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils.
33:56
Speaker 1: In less than an hour he had quadrupled his debt.
33:59
Speaker 1: For some time time, his countenance had been losing the
34:01
Speaker 1: florid tinge lended by the wine, But now, to my astonishment,
34:05
Speaker 1: I perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful,
34:09
Speaker 1: I say, to my astonishment, Glendening had been represented to
34:13
Speaker 1: my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy, and the sums which
34:17
Speaker 1: he had as yet lost, although in themselves vast could not,
34:20
Speaker 1: I supposed very seriously annoy much less so violently affect
34:24
Speaker 1: him that he was overcome by the wine just swallowed.
34:28
Speaker 1: Was the idea which most readily presented itself, And rather
34:32
Speaker 1: with a view to the preservation of my own character
34:34
Speaker 1: in the eyes of my associates, than from any less
34:37
Speaker 1: interested motive, I was about to insist peremptorily upon a
34:41
Speaker 1: discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my elbow
34:45
Speaker 1: from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair
34:48
Speaker 1: on the part of Glendening, gave me to understand that
34:51
Speaker 1: I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering
34:55
Speaker 1: him an object for the pity of all, should have
34:57
Speaker 1: protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.
35:00
Speaker 1: What now might have been my conduct, it is difficult
35:03
Speaker 1: to say. The pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown
35:06
Speaker 1: an air of embarrassed gloom over all, and for some moments,
35:10
Speaker 1: a profound silence was maintained, during which I could not
35:14
Speaker 1: help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many burning glances
35:17
Speaker 1: of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less
35:19
Speaker 1: abandoned of the party. I will even own that an
35:22
Speaker 1: intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted
35:25
Speaker 1: from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary interruption which ensued.
35:30
Speaker 1: The wide, heavy, folding doors of the apartment were all
35:33
Speaker 1: at once thrown open to their full extent, with a
35:36
Speaker 1: vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic,
35:40
Speaker 1: every candle in the room. Their light in dying, enabled
35:44
Speaker 1: us just to perceive that a stranger had entered about
35:47
Speaker 1: my own height and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however,
35:52
Speaker 1: was now total, and we could only feel that he
35:54
Speaker 1: was standing in our midst. Before any one of us
35:57
Speaker 1: could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this rudeness
36:01
Speaker 1: had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder. Gentlemen,
36:05
Speaker 1: he said, in a low, distinct and never to be
36:08
Speaker 1: forgotten whisper, which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones. Gentlemen,
36:12
Speaker 1: I make no apology for this behavior, because in thus
36:15
Speaker 1: behaving I am but fulfilling a duty. You are beyond
36:20
Speaker 1: doubt uninformed of the true character of the person who
36:22
Speaker 1: has to night one at e carte a large sum
36:25
Speaker 1: of money from Lord Glendening. I will therefore put you
36:28
Speaker 1: upon an expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very
36:31
Speaker 1: necessary information. Please to examine at your leisure the inner
36:36
Speaker 1: linings of the cuff of his left sleeve, and the
36:39
Speaker 1: several little packages which may be found in the somewhat
36:41
Speaker 1: capacious pockets of his embroidered morning wrapper. While he spoke,
36:46
Speaker 1: so profound was the stillness that one might have heard
36:48
Speaker 1: a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed
36:52
Speaker 1: at once, and as abruptly as he had entered. Can
36:56
Speaker 1: I shall I describe my sensations? Must I say that
37:00
Speaker 1: I felt all the horrors of the damned? Most assuredly?
37:03
Speaker 1: I had little time given for reflection. Many hands roughly
37:07
Speaker 1: seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately re procured.
37:12
Speaker 1: A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were
37:15
Speaker 1: found all the court cards essential in a carta, and
37:19
Speaker 1: in the pockets of my wrapper a number of packs
37:21
Speaker 1: facsimiles of those used at our sittings, with the single
37:24
Speaker 1: exception that mine were of the species called technically Arrande's,
37:29
Speaker 1: the honors being slightly convex at the ends, the lower
37:33
Speaker 1: cards slightly convex at the sides. In this disposition, the
37:37
Speaker 1: dup who cuts, as customary at the length of the
37:40
Speaker 1: pack will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist in honor,
37:44
Speaker 1: while the gambler cutting at the breadth will as certainly
37:47
Speaker 1: cut nothing for his victim, which may count in the
37:49
Speaker 1: records of the game. Any burst of indignation upon this
37:53
Speaker 1: discovery would have affected me less than the silent contempt
37:56
Speaker 1: or the sarcastic composure with which it was received. Mister Wilson, said,
38:01
Speaker 1: our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet an
38:04
Speaker 1: exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs. Mister Wilson, this is
38:08
Speaker 1: your property. The weather was cold, and upon quitting my
38:12
Speaker 1: own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper,
38:15
Speaker 1: putting it off. Upon reaching the scene of play, I
38:19
Speaker 1: presume it is supererogatory to seek here, eyeing the folds
38:22
Speaker 1: of the garment with a bitter smile, for any farther
38:25
Speaker 1: evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You
38:30
Speaker 1: will see the necessity I hope of quitting Oxford at
38:33
Speaker 1: all events, of quitting instantly my chambers a bast humble
38:38
Speaker 1: to the dust, as I then was, it is probable
38:41
Speaker 1: that I should have resented this galling language by immediate
38:43
Speaker 1: personal violence, had not my whole attention been at the
38:46
Speaker 1: moment arrested by a fact of the most startling character.
38:50
Speaker 1: The cloak which I had worn was of a rare
38:52
Speaker 1: description of fur, how rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall
38:56
Speaker 1: not venture to say its fashion, too, was of my
39:00
Speaker 1: own fantastic invention, for I was fastidious to an absurd
39:04
Speaker 1: degree of coxcombery in matters of this frivolous nature. When
39:08
Speaker 1: therefore mister Preston reached me that which he had picked
39:11
Speaker 1: up upon the floor and near the folding doors of
39:14
Speaker 1: the apartment, it was with an astonishment, nearly bordering upon terror,
39:17
Speaker 1: that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm,
39:20
Speaker 1: where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it, and that
39:24
Speaker 1: the one presented me was but its exact counterpart in
39:27
Speaker 1: every in even the minutest possible particular. The singular being
39:31
Speaker 1: who had so disastrously exposed me had been muffled, I
39:35
Speaker 1: remembered in a cloak, and none had been worn at
39:37
Speaker 1: all by any of the members of our party. With
39:39
Speaker 1: the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I
39:44
Speaker 1: took the one offered me by Preston, placed it unnoticed
39:48
Speaker 1: over my own, left the apartment with a resolute scowl
39:51
Speaker 1: of defiance, and next morning ere dawn of day commenced
39:54
Speaker 1: a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent. In a
39:57
Speaker 1: perfect agony of horror and of shame, I fled in vain.
40:02
Speaker 1: My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and
40:05
Speaker 1: proved indeed that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had
40:09
Speaker 1: as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in
40:13
Speaker 1: Paris air, I had fresh evidence of the detestable interest
40:16
Speaker 1: taken by this Wilson in my concerns. Years flew while
40:20
Speaker 1: I experienced no relief. Villain at Rome, with how untimely,
40:26
Speaker 1: yet with how spectral and officiousness, stepped he in between
40:29
Speaker 1: me and my ambition. At Vienna, too, at Berlin, and
40:34
Speaker 1: at Moscow, where in truth had I not bitter cause
40:38
Speaker 1: to curse him? Within my heart from his inscrutable tyranny.
40:42
Speaker 1: Did I at length flee, panic stricken as from a pestilence,
40:46
Speaker 1: And to the very ends of the earth. I fled
40:48
Speaker 1: in vain, and again and again, in secret communion with
40:52
Speaker 1: my own spirit. Would I demand the questions who is he?
40:55
Speaker 1: Whence came he? And what are his objects? But no
40:59
Speaker 1: answer was there found. And then I scrutinized, with a
41:03
Speaker 1: minute scrutiny, the forms and the methods, and the leading
41:07
Speaker 1: traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was
41:11
Speaker 1: very little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed,
41:16
Speaker 1: that in no one of the multiplied instances in which
41:18
Speaker 1: he had of late crossed my path, had he so
41:21
Speaker 1: crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb
41:24
Speaker 1: those actions, which, if fully carried out, might have resulted
41:28
Speaker 1: in bitter mischief, poor justification. This in truth, for an
41:33
Speaker 1: authority so imperiously assumed, poor indemnity for natural rights of
41:38
Speaker 1: self agency, so pernaciously, so insultingly denied. I had also
41:43
Speaker 1: been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very
41:46
Speaker 1: long period of time, while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity,
41:50
Speaker 1: maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with myself,
41:53
Speaker 1: had so contrived it in the execution of his varied
41:56
Speaker 1: interference with my will, that I saw not at any
42:00
Speaker 1: moment the features of his face be Wilson. What he
42:03
Speaker 1: might this at least was but the veriest of affectation
42:07
Speaker 1: or of folly. Could he, for an instant have supposed
42:11
Speaker 1: that in my admonishor at Eton, in the destroyer of
42:14
Speaker 1: my honor at Oxford, in him who thwarted my ambition
42:17
Speaker 1: at Rome, my revenge at Paris, my passionate love at Naples,
42:21
Speaker 1: or what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt, that
42:24
Speaker 1: in this my arch enemy and evil genius could fail
42:28
Speaker 1: to recognize the William Wilson of my schoolboy days, the namesake,
42:32
Speaker 1: the companion, the rival, the hated and dreaded rival at
42:36
Speaker 1: Doctor Bransby's impossible, but let me hasten to the last
42:40
Speaker 1: eventful scene of the drama. Thus far I had succumbed
42:44
Speaker 1: supinely to this imperious domination, the sentiment of deep awe
42:48
Speaker 1: with which I habitually regarded the elevated character, the majestic wisdom,
42:53
Speaker 1: the apparent omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson added to a
42:56
Speaker 1: feeling of even terror, with which certain other traits in
42:59
Speaker 1: his nature and assumptions inspired me. Had operated hitherto to
43:04
Speaker 1: impress me with an idea of my own utter weakness
43:06
Speaker 1: and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant,
43:10
Speaker 1: submission to his arbitrary will. But of late days I
43:15
Speaker 1: had given myself up entirely to wine, and its maddening
43:18
Speaker 1: influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more
43:21
Speaker 1: impatient of control. I began to murmur, to hesitate, to resist,
43:27
Speaker 1: And was it only fancy which induced me to believe
43:30
Speaker 1: that with the increase of my own firmness, that of
43:32
Speaker 1: my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution. Be this as it may,
43:37
Speaker 1: I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope,
43:40
Speaker 1: and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern
43:43
Speaker 1: and desperate resolution that I would submit no longer to
43:45
Speaker 1: be enslaved. It was at Rome, during the Carnival of
43:49
Speaker 1: eighteen that I attended a masquerade in the palazzo of
43:52
Speaker 1: the Neapolitan Duke di Broglio. I had indulged more freely
43:56
Speaker 1: than usual in the excesses of the wine table, and
43:59
Speaker 1: now the son deffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated
44:02
Speaker 1: me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way
44:07
Speaker 1: through the mazes of the company, contributed not a little
44:09
Speaker 1: to the ruffling of my temper, for I was anxiously seeking,
44:12
Speaker 1: let me not say, with what unworthy motive, the young,
44:16
Speaker 1: the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting
44:18
Speaker 1: de Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence, she had previously
44:23
Speaker 1: communicated to me the secret of the costume in which
44:25
Speaker 1: she would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse
44:28
Speaker 1: of her person, I was hurrying to make my way
44:30
Speaker 1: into her presence. At this moment I felt a light
44:34
Speaker 1: hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever remembered low
44:37
Speaker 1: damnable whisper within my ear. In an absolute frenzy of wrath,
44:42
Speaker 1: I turned at once upon him who had thus interrupted me,
44:45
Speaker 1: and seized him violently by the collar. He was attired,
44:49
Speaker 1: as I had expected, in a costume altogether similar to
44:52
Speaker 1: my own, wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt
44:55
Speaker 1: about the waist with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier.
44:59
Speaker 1: A mass of black silk entirely covered his face. Scoundrel,
45:05
Speaker 1: I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every
45:08
Speaker 1: syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury. Scoundrel,
45:12
Speaker 1: impostor a cursed villain, Ye shall not, ye shall not
45:18
Speaker 1: dog me unto death? Follow me, or I stab you
45:21
Speaker 1: where you stand. And I broke my way from the
45:26
Speaker 1: ball room into a small ante chamber adjoining, dragging him
45:29
Speaker 1: unresistingly with me. As I went upon entering, I thrust
45:33
Speaker 1: him furiously from me. He staggered against the wall, while
45:37
Speaker 1: I closed the door with an oath and commanded him
45:40
Speaker 1: to draw. He hesitated but for an instant, then, with
45:44
Speaker 1: a slight sigh, drew in silence and put himself upon
45:47
Speaker 1: his defense. The contest was brief, Indeed, I was frantic
45:53
Speaker 1: with every species of wild excitement, and felt within my
45:56
Speaker 1: single arm the energy and power of a multitude. In
46:00
Speaker 1: a few seconds, I forced him by sheer strength against
46:02
Speaker 1: the wainscoting, and thus getting him at mercy, plunged my
46:06
Speaker 1: sword with brute ferocity repeatedly through and through his bosom.
46:10
Speaker 1: At that instant, some person tried the latch of the door,
46:14
Speaker 1: I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned
46:17
Speaker 1: to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately
46:22
Speaker 1: portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the
46:25
Speaker 1: spectacle then presented to view the brief moment in which
46:29
Speaker 1: I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce apparently
46:32
Speaker 1: a material change in the arrangements. At the upper or
46:35
Speaker 1: farther end of the room, a large mirror, So at
46:38
Speaker 1: first it seemed to me, in my confusion, now stood
46:41
Speaker 1: where none had been perceptible before, And as I stepped
46:44
Speaker 1: up to it, in extremity of terror, mine own image,
46:47
Speaker 1: but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced
46:50
Speaker 1: to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait. Thus
46:53
Speaker 1: it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist.
46:58
Speaker 1: It was Wilson, who then stood before me in the
47:01
Speaker 1: agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay where
47:05
Speaker 1: he had thrown them upon the floor. Not a thread
47:08
Speaker 1: in all his raiment, not a line in all the
47:11
Speaker 1: marked and singular lineaments of his face, which was not
47:14
Speaker 1: even in the most absolute identity mine own. It was Wilson,
47:18
Speaker 1: But he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I
47:21
Speaker 1: could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said,
47:24
Speaker 1: you have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou
47:28
Speaker 1: also dead, dead to the world, to heaven and to hope.
47:32
Speaker 1: In me didst thou exist? And in my death see
47:36
Speaker 1: by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou
47:39
Speaker 1: hast murdered thyself.