'The Fall of the House of Usher,' by Edgar Allan Poe, Part Three

01The Fall of the House of Usher, Part 3.

02I was visiting an old friend of mine, Roderick Usher, in his old stone house, his palace, where a feeling of death hung on the air.

03I saw how fear was pressing on his heart and mind.

04Now his only sister, the Lady Madeline, had died.

05And we had put her body in its resting place, in a room inside the cold walls of the palace.

06A damp, dark vault.

07A fearful place.

08As we looked down upon her face, I saw that there was a strong likeness between the two.

09Indeed, said Usher, we were born on the same day, and the tie between us has always been strong.

10We did not long look down at her, for fear and wonder filled our hearts.

11There was still a little color in her face, and there seemed to be a smile on her lips.

12We closed the heavy iron door and returned to the rooms above, which were hardly less gloomy than the vault.

13And now a change came in the sickness of my friend's mind.

14He went from room to room in a hurried step.

15His face was, if possible, whiter and more ghastly than before, and the light in his eyes had gone.

16The trembling in his voice seemed to show the greatest fear.

17At times he sat looking at nothing for hours, as if listening to some sound I could not hear.

18I felt his condition slowly, but certainly gaining power over me.

19I felt that his wild ideas were becoming fixed in my own mind.

20As I was going to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after we placed the Lady Madeline within the vault, I experienced the full power of such feelings.

21Sleep did not come.

22While the hours passed, my mind fought against the nervousness.

23I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings which in a rising wind moved on the walls.

24But my efforts were useless.

25A trembling I could not stop filled my body, and fear without reason caught my heart.

26I sat up, looking into the darkness of my own room, listening.

27I do not know why.

28To certain low sounds which came when the storm was quiet.

29A feeling of horror lay upon me, like a heavy weight.

30I put on my clothes and began walking nervously around the room.

31I had been walking for a very short time when I heard a light step coming toward my door.

32I knew it was Usher.

33In a moment I saw him at my door, as usual, very white, but there was a wild laugh in his eyes.

34Even so, I was glad to have his company.

35And have you not seen it?

36He said.

37He hurried to one of the windows and opened it to the storm.

38The force of the entering wind nearly lifted us from our feet.

39It was, indeed, a stormy but beautiful night, and wildly strange.

40The heavy, low-hanging clouds which seemed to press down upon the house flew from all directions against each other, always returning and never passing away in the distance.

41With their great thickness they cut off all light from the moon and the stars.

42But we could see them because they were lighted from below by the air itself, which we could see rising from the dark lake and from the stones of the house itself.

43You must not, you shall not look at this, I said to Usher, as I led him from the window to his seat.

44This appearance, which surprises you so, has been seen in other places, too.

45Perhaps the lake is the cause.

46Let us close this window.

47The air is cold.

48Here is one of the stories you like best.

49I will read, and you shall listen, and thus we will live through this fearful night together.

50The old book which I had picked up was one written by a fool for fools to read, and it was not, in truth, one that Usher liked.

51It was, however, the only one within easy reach.

52He seemed to listen quietly.

53Then I came to a part of the story in which a man, a strong man, full of wine, begins to break down a door, and the sound of the dry wood as it breaks can be heard through all the forest around him.

54Here I stopped, for it seemed to me that from some very distant part of the house sounds came to my ears like those of which I had been reading.

55It must have been this likeness that had made me notice them, for the sounds themselves, with the storm still increasing, were nothing to stop or interest me.

56I continued the story, and read how the man, now entering through the broken door, discovers a strange and terrible animal of the kind so often found in these old stories.

57He strikes it, and it falls, with such a cry that he has to close his ears with his hands.

58Here again, I stopped.

59There could be no doubt this time I did hear a distant sound, very much like the cry of an animal in the story.

60I tried to control myself so that my friend would see nothing of what I felt.

61I was not certain that he had heard the sound, although he had clearly changed in some way.

62He had slowly moved his chair so that I could not see him well.

63I did see that his lips were moving as if he were speaking to himself.

64His head had dropped forward, but I knew he was not asleep, for his eyes were open, and he was moving his body from side to side.

65I began reading again, and quickly came to a part of the story where a heavy piece of iron falls on a stone floor with a ringing sound.

66These words had just passed my lips when I heard clearly, but from far away, a loud ringing sound, as if something of iron had indeed fallen heavily upon a stone floor, or as if an iron door had closed.

67I lost control of myself completely and jumped up from my chair.

68Usher still sat moving a little from side to side.

69His eyes were turned to the floor.

70I rushed to his chair.

71As I placed my hand on his shoulder, I felt that his whole body was trembling.

72A sickly smile touched his lips.

73He spoke in a low, quick, and nervous voice, as if he did not know I was there.

74Yes, he said.

75I heard it.

76Many minutes, many hours, many days have I heard it.

77But I did not dare to speak.

78We have put her living in the vault.

79Did I not say that my senses were too strong?

80I heard her first movements many days ago, yet I did not dare to speak.

81And now that story.

82But the sounds were hers.

83Oh, where shall I run?

84She is coming, coming to ask why I put her there too soon.

85I hear her footsteps on the stairs.

86I hear the heavy beating of her heart.

87Here he jumped up and cried as if he were giving up his soul.

88I tell you, she now stands at the door.

89The great door to which he was pointing now slowly opened.

90It was the work of the rushing wind, perhaps.

91But no.

92Outside that door a shape did stand.

93The tall figure in its grave clothes of the Lady Madeline of Usher.

94There was blood upon her white dress.

95And the signs of her terrible efforts to escape were upon every part of her thin form.

96For a moment she remained trembling at the door.

97Then with a low cry she fell heavily in upon her brother.

98In her pain as she died at last she carried him down with her.

99Down to the floor.

100Down to the floor.

101He too was dead.

102Killed by his own fear.

103I rushed from the room.

104I rushed from the house.

105I ran.

106The storm was around me in all its strength as I crossed the bridge.

107Suddenly a wild light moved along the ground at my feet.

108And I turned to see where it could have come from.

109For only the great house and its darkness were behind me.

110The light was that of the full moon.

111Of a blood-red moon which was now shining through that break in the front wall.

112That crack which I thought I had seen when I first saw the palace.

113Then only a little crack.

114It now widened as I watched.

115A strong wind came rushing over me.

116The whole face of the moon appeared.

117I saw the great walls falling apart.

118There was a long and stormy shouting sound.

119And the deep black lake closed darkly over all that remained of the house of Usher.

120The whole face of the moon was around me.

121The whole face of the moon was around me.

122The whole face of the moon was around me.

123The whole face of the moon was around me.

124The whole face of the moon was around me.

125The whole face of the moon was around me.

126The whole face of the moon was around me.