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🟡 Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 1 (Full Audiobook) | Edgar Allan Poe (Part 2 of 2) · Occult & Supernatural Audiobooks: Forbidden Rituals, Esoteric Texts & Paranormal Tales

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  Speaker 1: About five feet eight inches. He is of a well-knit
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  Speaker 1: and compact frame of body, neither robust nor remarkably otherwise,
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  Speaker 1: but it is the singularity of the expression which reigns
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  Speaker 1: upon the face. It is the intense, the wonderful, the
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  Speaker 1: thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme. which
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  Speaker 1: excites within my spirit a sense, a sentiment ineffable. His forehead,
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  Speaker 1: although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp
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  Speaker 1: of a myriad of years. His grey hairs are records
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  Speaker 1: of the past, and his greyer eyes are sibyls of
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  Speaker 1: the future. The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange,
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  Speaker 1: iron-clasped folios and mouldering instruments of science and obsolete, long-forgotten charts.
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  Speaker 1: His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he
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  Speaker 1: poured with a fiery, unquiet eye over a paper which
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  Speaker 1: I took to be a commission and which, at all events,
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  Speaker 1: bore the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself,
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  Speaker 1: as did the first seaman, whom I saw in the hold,
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  Speaker 1: some low, peevish syllables of a foreign tongue. And although
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  Speaker 1: the speaker was close at my elbow, his voice seemed
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  Speaker 1: to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.
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  Speaker 1: The ship and all in it are imbued with the
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  Speaker 1: spirit of Elde. The crew glide to and fro like
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  Speaker 1: the ghosts of buried centuries. Their eyes have an eager
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  Speaker 1: and uneasy meaning, and when their fingers fall athwart my
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  Speaker 1: path in the wild glare of the battle lanterns, I
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  Speaker 1: feel as I have never felt before, although I have
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  Speaker 1: been all my life a dealer in antiquities. and have
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  Speaker 1: imbibed the shadows of fallen columns of Baalbek and Tadmor
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  Speaker 1: and Persepolis until my very soul has become a ruin.
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  Speaker 1: When I look around me, I feel ashamed of my
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  Speaker 1: former apprehensions. If I trembled at the blast which is
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  Speaker 1: hitherto attended us, shall I not stand aghast at a
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  Speaker 1: warring of wind and ocean to convey any idea of
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  Speaker 1: which the words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective.
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  Speaker 1: All in the immediate vicinity of the ship is the
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  Speaker 1: blackness of eternal night and a chaos of foamless water.
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  Speaker 1: But about a league on either side of us may
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  Speaker 1: be seen indistinctly and at intervals different. stupendous ramparts of
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  Speaker 1: ice towering away into the desolate sky and looking like
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  Speaker 1: the walls of the universe. As I imagined, the ship
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  Speaker 1: proves to be in a current if that appellation can
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  Speaker 1: properly be given to a tired witch howling and shrieking
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  Speaker 1: by the white ice thunders on to the southward with
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  Speaker 1: a velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract. To
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  Speaker 1: conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly impossible.
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  Speaker 1: Yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful
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  Speaker 1: regions predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me
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  Speaker 1: to the most hideous aspect of death, It is evident
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  Speaker 1: that we are hurrying onward to some exciting knowledge, some
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  Speaker 1: never-to-be-imparted secret whose attainment is destruction. Perhaps the current leads
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  Speaker 1: us to the southern pole itself. It must be confessed
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  Speaker 1: that a supposition apparently so wild has every probability in
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  Speaker 1: its favour. the crew paced the deck with unquiet and
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  Speaker 1: tremulous step. But there is, upon their countenances, an expression
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  Speaker 1: more of the eagerness of hope than of the apathy
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  Speaker 1: of despair. In the meantime, the wind is still in
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  Speaker 1: our poop, and as we carry a crowd of canvas,
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  Speaker 1: the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: horror upon horror. The ice opens suddenly to the right
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  Speaker 1: and to the left, and we are whirling dizzily in
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  Speaker 1: immense concentric circles round and round the borders of a
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  Speaker 1: gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in
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  Speaker 1: the darkness and the distance. But little time will be
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  Speaker 1: left me to ponder upon my destiny. The circles rapidly
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  Speaker 1: grow small. We are plunging madly within the grasp of
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  Speaker 1: the whirlpool. And amid a roaring and bellowing and thundering
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  Speaker 1: of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering, O God,
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  Speaker 1: and going down. Note, the manuscript found in a bottle says,
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  Speaker 1: was originally published in 1831, and it was not until
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  Speaker 1: many years afterwards that I became acquainted with the maps
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  Speaker 1: of Mercator, in which the ocean is represented as rushing
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  Speaker 1: by four mouths into the northern polar gulf to be
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  Speaker 1: absorbed into the bowels of the earth, the pole itself
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  Speaker 1: being represented by a black rock towering to a prodigious height.
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  Speaker 1: End of manuscript found in a bottle.
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  Speaker 2: Section 19 of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition,
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  Speaker 2: Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 2: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 2: please visit LibriVox.org. The Chateau into which my valet had
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  Speaker 2: ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in
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  Speaker 2: my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the
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  Speaker 2: open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom
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  Speaker 2: and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Apennines,
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  Speaker 2: not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe.
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  Speaker 2: To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned.
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  Speaker 2: We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least
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  Speaker 2: sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of
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  Speaker 2: the building, its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique.
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  Speaker 2: Its walls were hung with tapestry, and bedecked with manifold
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  Speaker 2: and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number
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  Speaker 2: of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque.
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  Speaker 2: In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only
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  Speaker 2: in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which
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  Speaker 2: the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary, in these
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  Speaker 2: paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take
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  Speaker 2: deep interest, so that I bade Pedro to close the
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  Speaker 2: heavy shutters of the room, since it was already night,
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  Speaker 2: to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood
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  Speaker 2: by the head of my bed, and to throw open
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  Speaker 2: far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which
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  Speaker 2: enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that
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  Speaker 2: I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at least
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  Speaker 2: alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal
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  Speaker 2: of a small volume which had been found upon the pillow,
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  Speaker 2: and which purported to criticize and describe them. Long, long
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  Speaker 2: I read, and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously
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  Speaker 2: the hours flew by, and the deep midnight came. The
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  Speaker 2: position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand
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  Speaker 2: with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed
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  Speaker 2: it so as to throw its rays more fully upon
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  Speaker 2: the book. But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated.
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  Speaker 2: The rays of the numerous candles— for there were many— now
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  Speaker 2: fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto
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  Speaker 2: been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-posts.
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  Speaker 2: I thus saw, in vivid light, a picture all unnoticed before.
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  Speaker 2: It was the portrait of a young girl, just ripening
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  Speaker 2: into womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then
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  Speaker 2: closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at
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  Speaker 2: first apparent even to my own perception, but while my
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  Speaker 2: lids remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind
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  Speaker 2: my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive
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  Speaker 2: movement to gain time for thought, to make sure that
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  Speaker 2: my vision had not deceived me, to calm— and subdue
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  Speaker 2: my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze.
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  Speaker 2: In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at
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  Speaker 2: the painting. That I now saw aright I could not
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  Speaker 2: and would not doubt, for the first flashing of the
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  Speaker 2: candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy
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  Speaker 2: stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle
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  Speaker 2: me at once into waking life. The portrait, I have
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  Speaker 2: already said, was that of a young girl. It was
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  Speaker 2: a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically
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  Speaker 2: termed a vignette manner, much in the style of the
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  Speaker 2: favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even
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  Speaker 2: the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the
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  Speaker 2: vague yet deep shadow which formed the background of the whole.
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  Speaker 2: The frame was oval, richly gilded, and filigreed and moresque.
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  Speaker 2: As a thing of art, nothing could be more admirable
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  Speaker 2: than the painting itself, but it could have been neither
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  Speaker 2: the execution of the work nor the immortal beauty of
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  Speaker 2: the countenance which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me.
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  Speaker 2: Least of all could it have been that my fancy,
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  Speaker 2: shaken from its half-slumber, had mistaken the head for that
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  Speaker 2: of a living person. I saw at once that the
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  Speaker 2: peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of the frame,
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  Speaker 2: must have instantly dispelled such idea, must have prevented even
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  Speaker 2: its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained
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  Speaker 2: for an hour, perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my
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  Speaker 2: vision riveted upon the portrait. At length, satisfied with the
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  Speaker 2: true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed.
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  Speaker 2: I had found the spell of the picture in an
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  Speaker 2: absolute life-likeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded, subdued,
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  Speaker 2: and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe, I replaced
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  Speaker 2: the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my
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  Speaker 2: deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly
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  Speaker 2: the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning
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  Speaker 2: to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there
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  Speaker 2: read the vague and quaint words which follow. She was
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  Speaker 2: a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than
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  Speaker 2: full of glee. And evil was the hour when she
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  Speaker 2: saw and loved and wedded the painter.
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  Speaker 1: He.
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  Speaker 2: passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his art,
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  Speaker 2: she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely
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  Speaker 2: than full of glee, all light and smiles, and frolicsome
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  Speaker 2: as the young fawn, loving and cherishing all things, hating
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  Speaker 2: only the art which was her rival, dreading only the
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  Speaker 2: palette and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her
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  Speaker 2: of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a
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  Speaker 2: terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak
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  Speaker 2: of his desire to portray even his young bride. But
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  Speaker 2: she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many
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  Speaker 2: weeks in the dark, high turret chamber, where the light
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  Speaker 2: dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he,
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  Speaker 2: the painter, took glory in his work, which went on
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  Speaker 2: from hour to hour and from day to day, and
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  Speaker 2: he was a passionate and wild and moody man. who
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  Speaker 2: became lost in reveries, so that he would not see
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  Speaker 2: that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone
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  Speaker 2: turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride,
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  Speaker 2: who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled
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  Speaker 2: on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the
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  Speaker 2: painter who had high renown took a fervid and burning
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  Speaker 2: pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to
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  Speaker 2: depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily
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  Speaker 2: more dispirited and weak and in sooth some who beheld
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  Speaker 2: the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as
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  Speaker 2: of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of
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  Speaker 2: the power of the painter than of his deep love
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  Speaker 2: for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length,
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  Speaker 2: as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there admitted
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  Speaker 2: none into the turret, for the painter had grown wild
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  Speaker 2: with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes
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  Speaker 2: from canvas merely even to regard the countenance of his wife,
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  Speaker 2: and he would not see that the tints which he
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  Speaker 2: spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of
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  Speaker 2: her who sat beside him. And when many weeks had passed,
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  Speaker 2: and but little remained to do, save one brush upon
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  Speaker 2: the mouth, and one tint upon the eye, the spirit
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  Speaker 2: of the lady again flickered up as the flame within
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  Speaker 2: the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given,
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  Speaker 2: and then the tint was placed. And, for one moment,
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  Speaker 2: the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought.
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  Speaker 2: But in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew
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  Speaker 2: tremulous and very pallid and aghast, crying with a loud voice,
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  Speaker 2: This is indeed life itself! turned suddenly to regard his beloved.
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  Speaker 1: She was dead.
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  Speaker 2: End of the works of Edgar Allan Poe Raven Edition,
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  Speaker 2: Volume 1