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Ligeia 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, Leigia by Edgar Allan Poe,
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  Speaker 1: and the will therein leaf, which dieth not who knoweth
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  Speaker 1: the mysteries of the will with its vigor, For God
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  Speaker 1: is but a great will, pervading all things. By nature
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  Speaker 1: of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels,
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  Speaker 1: nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of
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  Speaker 1: his feeble will. Joseph Glanville. I cannot, for my soul
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  Speaker 1: remember how when or even precisely where I first became
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  Speaker 1: acquainted with the lady Lygia. Long years have since elapsed,
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  Speaker 1: and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or perhaps
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  Speaker 1: I cannot now bring these points to mind, because in truth,
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  Speaker 1: the character of my beloved her rare learning, her singular
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  Speaker 1: yet placid caste of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling
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  Speaker 1: eloquence of her low musical language, made their way into
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  Speaker 1: my heart by pay is so steadily and stealthily progressive
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  Speaker 1: that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe
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  Speaker 1: that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old,
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  Speaker 1: decaying city near the rhine of her family. I have
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  Speaker 1: surely heard her speak. That it is of a remotely
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  Speaker 1: ancient date cannot be doubted. Lygia, Lygia buried in studies,
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  Speaker 1: of a nature, more than all else adapted to deaden
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  Speaker 1: impressions of the outward world. It is by that sweet word, alone,
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  Speaker 1: by Ligia, that I bring before mine eyes and fancy
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  Speaker 1: the image of her, who is no more. And now,
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  Speaker 1: while I write a recollection, flashes upon me that I
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  Speaker 1: have never known the paternal name of her, who was
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  Speaker 1: my friend and my betrothed, and who became the partner
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  Speaker 1: of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom.
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  Speaker 1: Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligia,
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  Speaker 1: or was it a test of my strength of affection
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  Speaker 1: that I should institute no inquiries upon this point? Or
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  Speaker 1: was it rather a caprice of my own but wildly
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  Speaker 1: romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion.
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  Speaker 1: I but indistinctly recall the fact itself. What wonder that
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  Speaker 1: I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it.
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  Speaker 1: And indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled romance,
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  Speaker 1: if ever she the wan and the misty winged ash
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  Speaker 1: to feed of idolatrous Egypt presided, as they tell, over
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  Speaker 1: marriages ill omened, then most surely she presided over mine.
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  Speaker 1: There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory
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  Speaker 1: fails me not. It is the person of Lygia. In stature,
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  Speaker 1: she was tall, somewhat slender, and in her latter days
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  Speaker 1: even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty,
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  Speaker 1: the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness
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  Speaker 1: and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as
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  Speaker 1: a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance
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  Speaker 1: into my closed study, save by the dear music of
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  Speaker 1: her low, sweet voice as she placed her marble hand
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  Speaker 1: upon my shoes. In beauty of face, no maiden ever
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  Speaker 1: equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium dream,
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  Speaker 1: an airy and spirit lifting vision, more wildly divine than
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  Speaker 1: the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the
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  Speaker 1: daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that
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  Speaker 1: regular mold which we have been falsely taught to worship
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  Speaker 1: in the classical labors of the heathen. There is no
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  Speaker 1: exquisite beauty says Bacon Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all
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  Speaker 1: the forms and genera of beauty, without some strangeness in
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  Speaker 1: the proportion. Yet, although I saw that the features of
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  Speaker 1: Lygia were not of a classic regularity, although I perceived
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  Speaker 1: that her loveliness was indeed exquisite, and felt that there
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  Speaker 1: was much of strangeness pervading it, Yet I have tried
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  Speaker 1: in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace home
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  Speaker 1: my own perception of the strange. I examined the contour
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  Speaker 1: of the lofty and pale forehead. It was faultless, how
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  Speaker 1: cold Indeed, their word when applied to a majesty, so
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  Speaker 1: divine the skin, rivaling the purest eye, the commanding extent,
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  Speaker 1: and repose the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples,
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  Speaker 1: and then the raven black, the glossy, the luxuriant and
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  Speaker 1: naturally curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the
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  Speaker 1: Homeric epithet Hyacinthin. I looked at the delicate outlines of
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  Speaker 1: the nose, and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of
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  Speaker 1: the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were
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  Speaker 1: the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible
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  Speaker 1: tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils. Speaking
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  Speaker 1: the free spirit, I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was,
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  Speaker 1: indeed the triumph of all things heavenly, the magnificent turn
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  Speaker 1: of the short upper lip, the soft, voluptuous slumber of
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  Speaker 1: the under, the dimples which sported, and the color which
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  Speaker 1: spoke the teeth glancing back with a brilliancy, almost startling
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  Speaker 1: every ray of the holy light which fell upon them.
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  Speaker 1: In her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of
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  Speaker 1: all smiles, I scrutinized the formation of the chin. And
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  Speaker 1: here too I found the gentleness of breath, the softness
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  Speaker 1: and the majesty, the fullness and the spirituality of the Greek,
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  Speaker 1: the contour which the god Apollo revealed but in a
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  Speaker 1: dream to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then
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  Speaker 1: I peered into the large eyes of Lygia, for eyes
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  Speaker 1: we have no models in the remotely antique. It might
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  Speaker 1: have been too, that in these eyes of my beloved
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  Speaker 1: lay the secret to which Lord verlomuludes they were, I
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  Speaker 1: must believe, far larger than the ordinary eyes of our
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  Speaker 1: own race. They were even fuller than the fullest of
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  Speaker 1: the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nurjahat.
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  Speaker 1: Yet it was only at intervals, in moments of intense excitement,
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  Speaker 1: that this peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Lygia.
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  Speaker 1: And at such moments was her beauty in my heated fancy.
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  Speaker 1: Thus it appeared, perhaps the beauty of beings either above
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  Speaker 1: or apart from the earth, the beauty of the fabulous
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  Speaker 1: hurry of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was
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  Speaker 1: the most brilliant of black, and far over them hung
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  Speaker 1: jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline,
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  Speaker 1: had the same tint. The strangeness, however, which I found
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  Speaker 1: in the eyes, was of a nature distinct from the formation,
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  Speaker 1: or the color, or the brilliancy of the features, And
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  Speaker 1: must after all be referred to the expression ah word
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  Speaker 1: of no meaning, behind whose vast latitude of mere sound
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  Speaker 1: we intrench our ignorance of so much of the spiritual.
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  Speaker 1: The expression of the eyes of Lygia. How for long
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  Speaker 1: hours have I pondered upon it, How have I through
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  Speaker 1: the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom it.
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  Speaker 1: What was it, that, something more profound than the well
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  Speaker 1: of Democritus, which lay far within the pupils of my beloved?
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  Speaker 1: What was it? I was possessed with a passion to
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  Speaker 1: discover those eyes, those large, those shining, those divine orbs.
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  Speaker 1: They became to me twin stars of Leda, and I
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  Speaker 1: to them, devoutest of astrologers. There is no point among
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  Speaker 1: the many incomprehensible anomalies of the science of mind more
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  Speaker 1: thrillingly exciting than the fact never, I believe noticed in
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  Speaker 1: the schools, that in our endeavors to recall to memory
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  Speaker 1: something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very
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  Speaker 1: verge of remembrance, without being able in the end to remember.
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  Speaker 1: And thus, how frequently in my intense scrutiny of Lygia's
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  Speaker 1: eyes have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression,
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  Speaker 1: felt it approaching, yet not quite be mine, And so
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  Speaker 1: at length entirely depart and strange, O strangest mystery of
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  Speaker 1: all I found in the commonest objects of the universe
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  Speaker 1: a circle of analogies to that expression. I mean to
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  Speaker 1: say that subsequently to the period when Lygia's beauty passed
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  Speaker 1: into my spirit their dwelling as in a shrine. I
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  Speaker 1: derived from many existences in the material world, a sentiment
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  Speaker 1: such as I felt always aroused within me by her
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  Speaker 1: large and luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I
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  Speaker 1: define that sentiment, or analyze or even steadily view it.
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  Speaker 1: I recognized it. Let me repeat, sometimes in the survey
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  Speaker 1: of a rapidly growing vine, in the contemplation of a moth,
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  Speaker 1: a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I
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  Speaker 1: have felt it in the ocean, in the falling of
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  Speaker 1: a meteor. I have felt it in the glances of
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  Speaker 1: unusually aged people. And there are one or two stars
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  Speaker 1: in heaven, one especially a star of the sixth magnitude,
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  Speaker 1: double and changeable, to be found near the large star
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  Speaker 1: in Lyra. In a telescopic scrutiny of which I have
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  Speaker 1: been made aware of the feeling, I have been filled
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  Speaker 1: with it by certain sounds from stringed instruments, and not
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  Speaker 1: unfrequently by passages from books. Among innumerable other instances. I
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  Speaker 1: well remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanville, which,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps merely from its quaintness, who shall say never failed
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  Speaker 1: to inspire me with the sentiment and the will therein leaf,
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  Speaker 1: which dieth not who knoweth the mysteries of the will
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  Speaker 1: with its vigor, For God is but a great will,
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  Speaker 1: pervading all things. By nature of its intentness. Man doth
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  Speaker 1: not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly,
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  Speaker 1: save only through the weakness of his feeble will. Length
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  Speaker 1: of years and subsequent reflection have enabled me to trace, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: some remote connection between this passage in the English Moralist
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  Speaker 1: and a portion of the character of Lygia. An intensity
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  Speaker 1: in thought, action, or speech was possibly in her or
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  Speaker 1: result or at least an index of that gigantic volition, which,
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  Speaker 1: during our long intercourse failed to give other and more
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  Speaker 1: immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom
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  Speaker 1: I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever
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  Speaker 1: placid Lygia, was the most violently a prey to the
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  Speaker 1: tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I
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  Speaker 1: could or no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of
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  Speaker 1: those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me,
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  Speaker 1: by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness, and placidity of
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  Speaker 1: her very low voice, and by the fierce energy rendered
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  Speaker 1: doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance of
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  Speaker 1: the wild words which she habitually uttered. I have spoken
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  Speaker 1: of the learning of Ligia. It was immense, such as
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  Speaker 1: I have never known in woman in the classical tongues.
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  Speaker 1: Was she deeply proficient, And as far as my own
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  Speaker 1: acquaintance extended in regard to the modern dialects of Europe,
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  Speaker 1: I have never known her at fault, indeed upon any
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  Speaker 1: theme of the most admired, because simply the most abstruse
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  Speaker 1: of the boasted erudition of the academy have I ever
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  Speaker 1: found Lygia at fault. How singularly, how thrillingly, this one
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  Speaker 1: point in the nature of my wife has forced itself
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  Speaker 1: at this late period only upon my attention. I said,
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  Speaker 1: her knowledge was such as I have never known in woman.
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  Speaker 1: But where breeds the man who has traversed and successfully
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  Speaker 1: all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science.
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  Speaker 1: I saw not then what I now clearly perceive. That
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  Speaker 1: the acquisitions of Lygia were gigantic, were astounding. Yet I
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  Speaker 1: was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself
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  Speaker 1: with a childlike confidence to her guidance through the chaotic
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  Speaker 1: world of metaphysical investigation, at which I was most busily
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  Speaker 1: occupied during the earlier years of our marriage. With how
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  Speaker 1: vast a triumph, with how vivid a delight? With how
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  Speaker 1: much of all that is ethereal in hope? Did I feel,
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  Speaker 1: as she bent over me in studies, But little sought,
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  Speaker 1: but less known, that delicious vista, by slow degrees expanding
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  Speaker 1: before me, down whose long, gorgeous and all untrodden path
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  Speaker 1: I might at length pass onward to the goal of
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  Speaker 1: a wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden. How poignant,
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  Speaker 1: then must have been the grief with which, after some
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  Speaker 1: years I beheld my well grounded expectations take wings to
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  Speaker 1: themselves and fly away without ligia. I was but as
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  Speaker 1: a child, groping benight it. Her presence, her readings alone,
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  Speaker 1: rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in
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  Speaker 1: which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant luster of her eyes.
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  Speaker 1: Letters lambent and golden grew duller than Saturnian lead. And
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  Speaker 1: now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the
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  Speaker 1: pages over which I poured, Elijia grew ill, the wild
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  Speaker 1: eyes blazed with a two too glorious effulgence. The pale
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  Speaker 1: fingers became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave,
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  Speaker 1: and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled and
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  Speaker 1: sank impetuously with the tides of the gentle emotion. I
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  Speaker 1: saw that she must die, and I struggled desperately in
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  Speaker 1: spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the
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  Speaker 1: passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic than
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  Speaker 1: my own. There had been much in her stern nature
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  Speaker 1: to impress me with the belief that to her death
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  Speaker 1: would have come without its terrors. But not so. Words
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  Speaker 1: are impotent to convey any just idea of the fierceness
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  Speaker 1: of resistance with which she wrestled with the shadow. I
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  Speaker 1: groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I would have soothed,
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  Speaker 1: I would have reasoned, but in the intensity of her
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  Speaker 1: wild desire for life, for life, but for life, solace
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  Speaker 1: and reason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the
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  Speaker 1: last instance, amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit,
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  Speaker 1: was shaken the external placidity of her demeanor, her voice
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  Speaker 1: grew more gentle, grew more low. Yet I would not
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  Speaker 1: wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly
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  Speaker 1: uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened, entranced to
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  Speaker 1: a melody more than mortal, to assumptions and aspirations which
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  Speaker 1: mortality had never before known. That she loved me, I
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  Speaker 1: should not have doubted, and I might have been easily
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  Speaker 1: aware that in a bosom such as hers, love would
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  Speaker 1: have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only was
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  Speaker 1: I fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For
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  Speaker 1: long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before
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  Speaker 1: me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate
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  Speaker 1: devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be
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  Speaker 1: so blessed by such confessions? How had I deserved to
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  Speaker 1: be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in
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  Speaker 1: the hour of her making them? But upon this subject
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  Speaker 1: I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only that
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  Speaker 1: in Lygia's more than womanly abandonment to a love alas
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  Speaker 1: all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the
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  Speaker 1: principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire
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  Speaker 1: for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away.
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  Speaker 1: It is this wild longing, It is this eager vehemence
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  Speaker 1: of desire for life, but for life, that I have
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  Speaker 1: no power to portray, no utterance capable of expressing. At
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  Speaker 1: high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning
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  Speaker 1: me peremptorily to her side, she bade me repeat certain
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  Speaker 1: verses composed by herself not many days before I obeyed her.
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  Speaker 1: They were these lo tis a gallant night within the
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  Speaker 1: lonesome latter years. An angel throng booinged, bedight in veils
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  Speaker 1: and drowned in tears, sit in a theater to see
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  Speaker 1: a play of hopes and fears, while the orchestra breathes
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  Speaker 1: fitfully the music of the spheres mimes in the form
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  Speaker 1: of God on high, mutter and mumble low, and hither
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  Speaker 1: and thither fly mere puppets, they who come and go
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  Speaker 1: at bidding of vast, formless things that shift the scenery
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  Speaker 1: to and fro, flapping from out their condor wings invisible wall.
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  Speaker 1: That motley drama, Oh, be sure it shall not be
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  Speaker 1: forgot with its phantom chaste for evermore by a crowd
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  Speaker 1: that sees it not through a circle that ever returneth
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  Speaker 1: into the self same spot, and much of madness, and
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  Speaker 1: more of sin and horror the soul of the plot.
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  Speaker 1: But see amid the mimic route, a crawling shape intrude,
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  Speaker 1: a blood red thing that writhes from out the scenic solitude.
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  Speaker 1: It writhes, it writhes with mortal pangs. The mimes become
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  Speaker 1: its food, and the seraphs sob at vermin fangs in
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  Speaker 1: human gore imbued out. Out are the lights out all
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  Speaker 1: and over each quivering form the curtain. A funeral pall
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  Speaker 1: comes down with the rush of a storm, and the
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  Speaker 1: angels all pallid and wan uprising unveiling, affirm that the
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  Speaker 1: play is the tragedy man and its hero the conqueror worm,
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  Speaker 1: O God, half shrieked Ligia, leaping to her feet and
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  Speaker 1: extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement. As I
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  Speaker 1: made an end of these lines, O God, O Divine Father,
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  Speaker 1: shall these things be undeviatingly, so shall this conqueror be
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  Speaker 1: not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in
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  Speaker 1: thee who who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with
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  Speaker 1: its vigor. Man doth not yield him to the angels,
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  Speaker 1: nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of
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  Speaker 1: his feeble will. And now, as if exhausted with emotion,
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  Speaker 1: she suffered her white arms to fall, and returned solemnly
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  Speaker 1: to her bed of death. And as she breathed her
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  Speaker 1: last size, there came mingled with them, a low murmur
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  Speaker 1: from her lips. I bent to them my ear and
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  Speaker 1: distinguished again the concluding words of the passage in Glanville.
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  Speaker 1: Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
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  Speaker 1: death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.
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  Speaker 1: She died, and I crushed into the very dust with sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: could no longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling
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  Speaker 1: in the dim and decaying city by the Rhine. I
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  Speaker 1: had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Leigia
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  Speaker 1: had brought me far more, very, far more than ordinarily
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  Speaker 1: falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months therefore,
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  Speaker 1: of weary and aimless wandering, I purchased and put in
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  Speaker 1: some repair an abbey which I shall not name, in
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  Speaker 1: one of the wildest and least frequented portions of fair England.
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  Speaker 1: The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost
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  Speaker 1: savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time
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  Speaker 1: honored memories connected with both had much in unison with
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  Speaker 1: the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into
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  Speaker 1: that remote and unsocial region of the country. Yet, although
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  Speaker 1: the external abbey, with its verdant decay hanging about it,
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  Speaker 1: suffered but little alteration, I gave way with a childlike perversity,
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  Speaker 1: and perchance, with a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows,
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  Speaker 1: to a display of more than regal magnificence within. For
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  Speaker 1: such follies, even in childhood I had imbibed a taste,
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  Speaker 1: and now they came back to me as if in
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  Speaker 1: the dotage of grief. Alas I feel how much even
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  Speaker 1: of incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous
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  Speaker 1: and fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in
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  Speaker 1: the wild cornices and furniture, in the bedlam patterns of
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  Speaker 1: the carpets of tufted gold. I had become a bounden
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: slave in the trammels of Opium, and my labors and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But
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  Speaker 1: these absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, whither in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: a moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: as my bride, as the successor of the unforgotten Ligia,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the fair haired and blue eyed lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Where were the souls of the haughty family of the bride,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: when through thirst of gold they permitted to pass the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: threshold of an apartment sobedecked a maiden and a daughter
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: so beloved. I have said that I minutely remember the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: details of the chamber, Yet I am sadly forgetful on
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: topics of deep moment, And here there was no system,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: no keeping in the fantastic display to take hold upon
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the memory. The room lay in a high turret of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in shape and of capacious size.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Occupying the whole southern face of the pentagon was the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: sole window, an immense sheet of unbroken glass from venice
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a single pane, and tinted of a letter, so that
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the rays of either the sun or moon passing through
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: it fell with a ghastly luster on the objects within.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Over the upper portion of this huge window extended the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: trellis work of an aged vine, which clambered up the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: massy walls of the turret. The ceiling of gloomy looking
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: oak was excessively lofty, vaulted and elaborately fretted with the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi Gothic semi
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: dritical device. From out, the most central recess of this
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: melancholy vaulting depended by a single chain of gold with
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: long links. A huge censor of the same metal, saracenic
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: writhed in and out of them, as if endued with
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a serpent vitality. A continual succession of parti colored fires.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Some few ottomans and golden candelabra of Eastern figure were
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: in various stations about, And there was the couch two
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: bridal couch of an Indian model, and low and sculptured
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: of solid ebony, with a pall like canopy above in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: each of the angles of the chamber stood on end
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the gigantic sarcophagus of black granite from the tombs of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the kings, over against Luxor, with their aged lids full
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of immemorial sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: lay alas the chief fantasy of all. The lofty walls,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: gigantic in height, even unproportionably so, were hung from summit
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to foot in vast folds with a heavy and massive
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: looking tapestry. Tapestry of a material which was found alike
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: as a carpet on the floor, as a covering for
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: which partially shaded the window. The material was the richest
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: cloth of gold. It was spotted all over at irregular
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: intervals with Arabesque figures about a foot in diameter, and
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: But these figures partook of the true character of the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: by a contrivance now common and indeed traceable to a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: very remote period of antiquity. They were made changeable in aspect.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: To one entering the room, they bore the appearance of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: simple monstrosities, but upon a farther advance this appearance gradually departed,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and step by step, as the visitor moved his station
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in the chamber, he saw himself surrounded by an endless
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: succession of the ghastly forms which belonged to the superstition
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the draperies, giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whole in halls such as these. In a bridal chamber
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: such as this, I passed with the Lady of Tremaine.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: The unhallowed hours of the first month of our marriage
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: passed them with but little disquietude. That my wife dreaded
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the fierce moodiness of my temper, that she shunned me
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and loved me but little I could not help perceiving.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But it gave me rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to man.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: My memory flew back, Oh, with what intensity of regret,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to Lygia, the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I reveled in recollections of her purity, of her wisdom,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of her passionate, her
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: idolatrous love. Now then did my spirit fully and freely
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: burn with more than all the fires of her own
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in the excitement of my opium dreams. For I was
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug. I would
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: call aloud upon her name during the silence of the night,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by day,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: as if through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: restore her to the pathway she had abandoned. Ah, could
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it be forever upon the earth. About the commencement of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the second month of the marriage, the lady Rowena was
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was slow.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy, and
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: in her perturbed state of half slumber, she spoke of
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: sounds and of motions in and about the chamber of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the turret, which I concluded had no origin save in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: influences of the chamber itself. She became at length convalescent,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: finally well, Yet but a brief period elapsed ere a
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: second more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of suffering, and from this attack her frame, at all
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were after this
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: epoch of alarming character and of more alarming recurrence, defying
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: With the increase of the chronic disease, which had thus
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: apparently taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: eradicated by human means, I could not fail to observe
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: a similar increase in the nervous irritaation of her temperament
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and in her excitability. By trivial causes of fear. She
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: spoke again, and now more frequently and pertinaciously, of the sounds,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: of the slight sounds, and of the unusual motions among
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the tapestries to which she had formerly alluded. One night
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: near the closing in of September. She pressed this distressing
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention. She
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: side of her ebony bed upon one of the ottomans
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of India. She partly arose and spoke in an earnest,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: low whisper, of sounds which she then heard, but which
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I could not hear, of motions which she then saw,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: but which I could not perceive. The wind was rushing
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to show her
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: what let me confess it. I could not all believe
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that those almost inner articulate breathings, and those very gentle
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: variations of the figures upon the wall were but the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: natural effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a deadly pallor overspreading her face had proved to me
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that my exertions to reassure her would be fruitless. She
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: appeared to be fainting, and no attendants were within call.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I remembered where was deposited a decanter of light wine,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: which had been ordered by her physicians, and hastened across
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the chamber to procure it. But as I stepped beneath
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the light of the censer, two circumstances of a startling
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: nature attracted my attention. I had felt that some palpable,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: although invisible, object had passed lightly by my person, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the very middle of the rich luster, thrown from the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: censer a shadow, a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: such as might be fancied for the shadow of a shade.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: dose of opium, and heated these things, but little nor
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: spoke of them to Rowena. Having found the wine, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: recrossed the chamber and poured out a gobletful, which I
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: now partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I sank upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: fastened upon her person. It was then that I became
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the carpet, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: near the couch, and in a second thereafter, as Rowena
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: was in the act of raising the wine to her lips,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw fall
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If this I
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: saw not so, Rowena she swallowed the wine unhesitatingly, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a vivid imagination rendered morbidly active by the terror of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the lady, by the opium, and by the hour. Yet
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I cannot conceal it from my own perception that immediately
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: subsequent to the fall of the ruby drops, a rapid
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: change for the worst took place in the disorder of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: my wife, so that on the third subsequent night, the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: on the fourth I sat alone with her shrouded body
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: in that fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Wild visions opium engendered flitted shadow like before me. I
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of the room, upon the varying figures of the drapery,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and upon the writhing of the party colored fires in
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I called
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: spot beneath the glare of the censer, where I had
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: seen the faint traces of the shadow. It was there, however,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: no longer, and breathing with greater freedom, I turned my
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: glances to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Lygia, and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: then came back upon my heart with the turbulent violence
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of a flood, the whole of that unutterable woe with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: which I had regarded her thus enshrouded. The night, waned
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and still with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the one only and supremely beloved. I remained gazing upon
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the body of Rowena. It might have been midnight, or
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: perhaps earlier or later, for I had taken no note
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of time. When a sob low, gentle, but very distinct,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: startled me from my reverie. I felt that it came
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: from the bed of ebony the bed of death. I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: listened in an agony of superstitious terror, but there was
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: detect any motion in the corpse, but there was not
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I had heard the noise, however, faint, and my soul
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: was awakened within me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: circumstance occurred, tending to throw light upon the mystery. At length,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: it became evident that a slight, a very feeble and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: barely noticeable tinge of color, had flushed up within the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: cheeks and along the sunken small veins of the eyelids,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: through a species of unutterable horror and awe for which
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to restore my self possession. I could no longer doubt
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that we had been precipitate in our preparations, that Rowena
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion be made.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the abbey tenanted by the servants. There were none within call.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I had no means of summoning them to my aid
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: without leaving the room for many minutes, and this I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: could not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering. In
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: a short period, it was certain, however, that a relapse
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: had taken place. The color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: leaving a oneness even more than that of marble. The
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: lips became doubly shriveled and pinched up in the ghastly
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: expression of death. A repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the surface of the body, and all the usual rigorous
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: illness immediately supervened. I fell back, with a shudder upon
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the couch from which I had been so startlingly aroused,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions of Lygia.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: An hour thus elapsed, when could it be possible I
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: was a second time aware of some vague sound issuing
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: from the region of the bed I listened in extremity
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of horror. The sound came again. It was a sigh
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: rushing to the corpse. I saw, distinctly saw a tremor
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: upon the lips. In a minute afterward, they relaxed, disclosing
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a bright line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: in my bosom with the profound awe which had hitherto
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew dim,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: that my reason wandered, And it was only by a
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: to the task which duty thus once more had pointed out.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: There was now a partial glow upon the forehead, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: upon the cheek and throat. A perceptible warmth pervaded the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: whole frame. There was even a slight pulsation at the heart.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: The lady lived, and with redoubled ardor I betook myself
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: temples and the hands, and used every exertion which experience
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and no little medical reading could suggest. But in vain
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Suddenly the color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the expression of the dead, and in an instant afterward
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the whole body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: livid hue, the intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the loathsome peculiarities of that which has been for many
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: days a tenant of the tomb. And again I sunk
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: into visions of Lygia. And again what marvel that I
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: shudder while I write again, there reached my ears a
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: low sob from the region of the ebony bed. But
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: why shall I minutely detail the unspeakable horrors of that night?
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Why shall I pause to relate how time after time,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: drama of revivification was repeated, How each terrific relapse was
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: only into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death. How
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: each agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: invisible foe, And how each struggle was succeeded by I
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: know not what of wild change in the personal appearance
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of the corpse. Let me hurry to a conclusion. The
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: greater part of the fearful Knight had worn away, and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: she who had been dead once again stirred, and now
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: more vigorously than hitherto, Although arousing from a dissolution more
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: appalling in its utter hopelessness than any, I had long
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: ceased to struggle or to move, and remained sitting rigidly
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: violent emotions, of which extreme all was perhaps the lead,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: least terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and now more vigorously than before. The hues of life
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: flushed up with unwonted energy into the countenance. The limbs relaxed,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and save that the eyelids were yet pressed heavily together,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and that the bandages and draperies of the grave still
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: imparted their charnel character to the figure. I might have
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off utterly the fetters
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of death. But if this idea was not even then
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer. When
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: horizing from the bed, tottering with feeble steps, with closed eyes,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the middle of the apartment. I trembled, not, I stirred,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: not for a crowd of unutterable fancies connected with the air,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the stature, the demeanor of the figure rushing hurriedly through
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: My brain had paralyzed, had chilled me into stone. I
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: stirred not, but gazed upon the apparition. There was a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: mad disorder in my thoughts, a tumult unappeasable. Could it
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: indeed be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: indeed be Rowena at all? The fair haired, the blue
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: eyed lady, Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine. Why why should I
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the mouth. But
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: then might it not be the mouth of the breathing
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Lady of Tremaine. And the cheeks there were the roses
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: as in her noon of life? Yes, these might indeed
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And the chin with its dimples as in health. Might
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it not be hers? But had she then grown taller
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: since her malady? What inexpressible madness seized me? With that thought?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: One bound? And I had reached her feet. Shrinking from
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: my touch, she let fall from her head unloosened the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: ghastly serments which had confined it, and there streamed forth
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber, huge man masses
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of long and disheveled hair. It was blacker than the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: raven wings of the midnight, and now slowly opened the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: eyes of the figure which stood before me. Here, then,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: at least, I shrieked aloud. Can I never can I
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: never be mistaken? These are the full and the black
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and the wild eyes of my lost love, of the lady,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of the lady Lygia.