Edgar Allan Poe - Ligeia

Edgar Allan Poe has always been and will always be one of my favorite writers. And i cannot think of a better way to say goodmorning than with a story by the old master:

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth themysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great willpervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yieldhimself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through theweakness of his feeble will. --Joseph Glanvill.
I Cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, Ifirst became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have sinceelapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps,I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, thecharacter of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placidcast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of herlow musical language, made their way into my heart by paces sosteadily and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed andunknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently insome large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family -- Ihave surely heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient datecannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! in studies of a nature more thanall else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is bythat sweet word alone -- by Ligeia -- that I bring before mine eyesin fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write, arecollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternalname of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became thepartner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it aplayful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of mystrength of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon thispoint? or was it rather a caprice of my own -- a wildly romanticoffering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I butindistinctly recall the fact itself -- what wonder that I haveutterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?And, indeed, if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet ofidolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened,then most surely she presided over mine.
There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory falls me not. Itis the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender,and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt toportray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or theincomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She cameand departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance intomy closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as sheplaced her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maidenever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream -- an airyand spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasieswhich hovered vision about the slumbering souls of the daughters ofDelos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we havebeen falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of theheathen. "There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam,speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, without somestrangeness in the proportion." Yet, although I saw that the featuresof Ligeia were not of a classic regularity -- although I perceivedthat her loveliness was indeed "exquisite," and felt that there wasmuch of "strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain todetect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "thestrange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead -- itwas faultless -- how cold indeed that word when applied to a majestyso divine! -- the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commandingextent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above thetemples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant andnaturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of theHomeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines ofthe nose -- and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrewshad I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurioussmoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to theaquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the freespirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph ofall things heavenly -- the magnificent turn of the short upper lip --the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under -- the dimples whichsported, and the color which spoke -- the teeth glancing back, with abrilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fellupon them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant ofall smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin -- and here, too,I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and the majesty, thefullness and the spirituality, of the Greek -- the contour which thegod Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of theAthenian. And then I peered into the large eves of Ligeia.
For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might havebeen, too, that in these eves of my beloved lay the secret to whichLord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than theordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullestof the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet itwas only at intervals -- in moments of intense excitement -- thatthis peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. Andat such moments was her beauty -- in my heated fancy thus it appearedperhaps -- the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth-- the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbswas the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jettylashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, hadthe same tint. The "strangeness," however, which I found in the eyes,was of a nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or thebrilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to theexpression. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast latitude ofmere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of the spiritual. Theexpression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long hours have I ponderedupon it! How have I, through the whole of a midsummer night,struggled to fathom it! What was it -- that something more profoundthan the well of Democritus -- which lay far within the pupils of mybeloved? What was it? I was possessed with a passion to discover.Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs! theybecame to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest ofastrologers.
There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of thescience of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact -- never, Ibelieve, noticed in the schools -- that, in our endeavors to recallto memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon thevery verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, toremember. And thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia'seyes, have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression-- felt it approaching -- yet not quite be mine -- and so at lengthentirely depart! And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all!) I found,in the commonest objects of the universe, a circle of analogies totheat expression. I mean to say that, subsequently to the period whenLigeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine,I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentimentsuch as I felt always aroused within me by her large and luminousorbs. Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, oreven steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes inthe survey of a rapidly-growing vine -- in the contemplation of amoth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I havefelt it in the ocean; in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it inthe glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two starsin heaven -- (one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, doubleand changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra) in atelescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the feeling. Ihave been filled with it by certain sounds from stringed instruments,and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among innumerable otherinstances, I well remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill,which (perhaps merely from its quaintness -- who shall say?) neverfailed to inspire me with the sentiment; -- "And the will thereinlieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, withits vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by natureof its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor untodeath utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to trace,indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the Englishmoralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An intensity inthought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a result, or atleast an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our longintercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence of itsexistence. Of all the women whom I have ever known, she, theoutwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a preyto the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion Icould form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of thoseeyes which at once so delighted and appalled me -- by the almostmagical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her verylow voice -- and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective bycontrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which shehabitually uttered.
I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense -- such as Ihave never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeplyproficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard tothe modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault.Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because simply the mostabstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy, have I ever foundLigeia at fault? How singularly -- how thrillingly, this one point inthe nature of my wife has forced itself, at this late period only,upon my attention! I said her knowledge was such as I have neverknown in woman -- but where breathes the man who has traversed, andsuccessfully, all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematicalscience? I saw not then what I now clearly perceive, that theacquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I wassufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with achild-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world ofmetaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied duringthe earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a triumph -- withhow vivid a delight -- with how much of all that is ethereal in hope-- did I feel, as she bent over me in studies but little sought --but less known -- that delicious vista by slow degrees expandingbefore me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I mightat length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely preciousnot to be forbidden!
How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after someyears, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings tothemselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child gropingbenighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered vividlyluminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we wereimmersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambentand golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shoneless and less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeiagrew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too -- too glorious effulgence;the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave,and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled and sankimpetuously with the tides of the gentle emotion. I saw that she mustdie -- and I struggled desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael.And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to my astonishment,even more energetic than my own. There had been much in her sternnature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would havecome without its terrors; -- but not so. Words are impotent to conveyany just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestledwith the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle.would have soothed -- I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity ofher wild desire for life, -- for life -- but for life -- solace andreason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the last instance,amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shakenthe external placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle --grew more low -- yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaningof the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkenedentranced, to a melody more than mortal -- to assumptions andaspirations which mortality had never before known.
That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have beeneasily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reignedno ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully impressed withthe strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand,would she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose morethan passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved tobe so blessed by such confessions? -- how had I deserved to be socursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them,But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, thatin Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! allunmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized theprinciple of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the lifewhich was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing -- itis this eager vehemence of desire for life -- but for life -- that Ihave no power to portray -- no utterance capable of expressing.
At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composedby herself not many days before. I obeyed her. -- They were these:Lo! 'tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years!An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears,Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears,While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres.Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low,And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and goAt bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro,Flapping from out their Condor wings Invisible Wo!That motley drama! -- oh, be sure It shall not be forgot!With its Phantom chased forever more, By a crowd that seize it not,Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot,And much of Madness and more of Sin And Horror the soul of the plot.But see, amid the mimic rout, A crawling shape intrude!A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude!It writhes! -- it writhes! -- with mortal pangs The mimes become its food,And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued.Out -- out are the lights -- out all! And over each quivering form,The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm,And the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirmThat the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero the Conqueror Worm."O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending herarms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines-- "O God! O Divine Father! -- shall these things be undeviatinglyso? -- shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not partand parcel in Thee? Who -- who knoweth the mysteries of the will withits vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto deathutterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms tofall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathedher last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from herlips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished, again, the concludingwords of the passage in Glanvill -- "Man doth not yield him to theangels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of hisfeeble will."
She died; -- and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could nolonger endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim anddecaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world callswealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than ordinarilyfalls to the lot of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of wearyand aimless wandering, I purchased, and put in some repair, an abbey,which I shall not name, in one of the wildest and least frequentedportions of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of thebuilding, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholyand time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unisonwith the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into thatremote and unsocial region of the country. Yet although the externalabbey, with its verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but littlealteration, I gave way, with a child-like perversity, and perchancewith a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a display of morethan regal magnificence within. -- For such follies, even inchildhood, I had imbibed a taste and now they came back to me as ifin the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even of incipientmadness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and fantasticdraperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild cornices andfurniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted gold! Ihad become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my laborsand my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But theseabsurdities must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of that onechamber, ever accursed, whither in a moment of mental alienation, Iled from the altar as my bride -- as the successor of the unforgottenLigeia -- the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, ofTremaine.
There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration ofthat bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me. Where werethe souls of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst ofgold, they permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment sobedecked, a maiden and a daughter so beloved? I have said that Iminutely remember the details of the chamber -- yet I am sadlyforgetful on topics of deep moment -- and here there was no system,no keeping, in the fantastic display, to take hold upon the memory.The room lay in a high turret of the castellated abbey, waspentagonal in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying the wholesouthern face of the pentagon was the sole window -- an immense sheetof unbroken glass from Venice -- a single pane, and tinted of aleaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon, passingthrough it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the objects within. Overthe upper portion of this huge window, extended the trellice-work ofan aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of the turret. Theceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, andelaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens ofa semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most centralrecess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain ofgold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic inpattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there writhedin and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continualsuccession of parti-colored fires.
Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were invarious stations about -- and there was the couch, too -- bridalcouch -- of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony,with a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamberstood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombsof the kings over against Luxor, with their aged lids full ofimmemorial sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas!the chief phantasy of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height --even unproportionably so -- were hung from summit to foot, in vastfolds, with a heavy and massive-looking tapestry -- tapestry of amaterial which was found alike as a carpet on the floor, as acovering for the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for the bed,and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains which partially shadedthe window. The material was the richest cloth of gold. It wasspotted all over, at irregular intervals, with arabesque figures,about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns ofthe most jetty black. But these figures partook of the true characterof the arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view. By acontrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very remote periodof antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one enteringthe room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but upona farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and step bystep, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himselfsurrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belongto the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers ofthe monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by theartificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behindthe draperies -- giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
In halls such as these -- in a bridal chamber such as this -- Ipassed, with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the firstmonth of our marriage -- passed them with but little disquietude.That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper -- that sheshunned me and loved me but little -- I could not help perceiving;but it gave me rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with ahatred belonging more to demon than to man. My memory flew back, (oh,with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the august,the beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of herpurity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of herpassionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully andfreely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In theexcitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in theshackles of the drug) I would call aloud upon her name, during thesilence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens byday, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, theconsuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could restore herto the pathway she had abandoned -- ah, could it be forever? -- uponthe earth.
About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the LadyRowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery wasslow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and inher perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and ofmotions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concludedhad no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in thephantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at lengthconvalescent -- finally well. Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere asecond more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering;and from this attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogetherrecovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarmingcharacter, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike theknowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With theincrease of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken toosure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human means, Icould not fall to observe a similar increase in the nervousirritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by trivialcauses of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently andpertinaciously, of the sounds -- of the slight sounds -- and of theunusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerlyalluded.
One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed thisdistressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention.She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had beenwatching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, theworkings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebonybed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke,in an earnest low whisper, of sounds which she then heard, but whichI could not hear -- of motions which she then saw, but which I couldnot perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries,and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I could not allbelieve) that those almost inarticulate breathings, and those verygentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the naturaleffects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions toreassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and noattendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited adecanter of light wine which had been ordered by her physicians, andhastened across the chamber to procure it. But, as I stepped beneaththe light of the censer, two circumstances of a startling natureattracted my attention. I had felt that some palpable althoughinvisible object had passed lightly by my person; and I saw thatthere lay upon the golden carpet, in the very middle of the richlustre thrown from the censer, a shadow -- a faint, indefinite shadowof angelic aspect -- such as might be fancied for the shadow of ashade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose ofopium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them toRowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and pouredout a gobletful, which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. Shehad now partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself,while I sank upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon herperson. It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentlefootfall upon the carpet, and near the couch; and in a secondthereafter, as Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips,I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as iffrom some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three orfour large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If this I saw-- not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly, and Iforbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after all, Iconsidered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid imagination,rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the opium, andby the hour.
Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediatelysubsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for theworse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the thirdsubsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb,and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body, in thatfantastic chamber which had received her as my bride. -- Wildvisions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me. I gazedwith unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, uponthe varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of theparti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as Icalled to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spotbeneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces ofthe shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing withgreater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figureupon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia --and then came back upon my heart, with the turbulent violence of aflood, the whole of that unutterable wo with which I had regarded herthus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full ofbitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remainedgazing upon the body of Rowena.
It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I hadtaken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,startled me from my revery. -- I felt that it came from the bed ofebony -- the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitiousterror -- but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained myvision to detect any motion in the corpse -- but there was not theslightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I hadheard the noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. Iresolutely and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body.Many minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending tothrow light upon the mystery. At length it became evident that aslight, a very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge of color hadflushed up within the cheeks, and along the sunken small veins of theeyelids. Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for whichthe language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, Ifelt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet asense of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I couldno longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations --that Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediateexertion be made; yet turret was altogether apart from the portion ofthe abbey tenanted by the servants -- there were none within call --I had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the roomfor many minutes -- and this I could not venture to do. I thereforestruggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering.In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had takenplace; the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving awanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doublyshrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; arepulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface ofthe body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately supervened.I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been sostartlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate wakingvisions of Ligeia.
An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second timeaware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. Ilistened -- in extremity of horror. The sound came again -- it was asigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw -- distinctly saw -- a tremor uponthe lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a brightline of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom withthe profound awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt thatmy vision grew dim, that my reason wandered; and it was only by aviolent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself to thetask which duty thus once more had pointed out. There was now apartial glow upon the forehead and upon the cheek and throat; aperceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there was even a slightpulsation at the heart. The lady lived; and with redoubled ardor Ibetook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed thetemples and the hands, and used every exertion which experience, andno little. medical reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, thecolor fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression ofthe dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took uponitself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, thesunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which hasbeen, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.
And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia -- and again, (what marvelthat I shudder while I write,) again there reached my ears a low sobfrom the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail theunspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how,time after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideousdrama of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse wasonly into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how eachagony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and howeach struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in thepersonal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who hadbeen dead, once again stirred -- and now more vigorously thanhitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in itsutter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or tomove, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless preyto a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps theleast terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred,and now more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up withunwonted energy into the countenance -- the limbs relaxed -- and,save that the eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that thebandages and draperies of the grave still imparted their charnelcharacter to the figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeedshaken off, utterly, the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not,even then, altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer,when, arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closedeyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thingthat was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle ofthe apartment.
I trembled not -- I stirred not -- for a crowd of unutterable fanciesconnected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed -- had chilled meinto stone. I stirred not -- but gazed upon the apparition. There wasa mad disorder in my thoughts -- a tumult unappeasable. Could it,indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it indeed beRowena at all -- the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanionof Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavilyabout the mouth -- but then might it not be the mouth of thebreathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks-there were the roses as inher noon of life -- yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of theliving Lady of Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as inhealth, might it not be hers? -- but had she then grown taller sinceher malady? What inexpressible madness seized me with that thought?One bound, and I had reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, shelet fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which hadconfined it, and there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere ofthe chamber, huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; it was blackerthan the raven wings of the midnight! And now slowly opened the eyesof the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least," Ishrieked aloud, "can I never -- can I never be mistaken -- these arethe full, and the black, and the wild eyes -- of my lost love -- ofthe lady -- of the LADY LIGEIA."

Source: OnLine Literature

John Polidori - The Vampyre

Here's another horror story by one of the masters, John Polidori. If we only had the time to read everything these great storytellers have written, we'd all be happier readers today. Anyway, let us just - for the time being - only read about The Vampyre:

It happened that in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon London winter, there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the ton a nobleman more remarkable for his singularities, than his rank. He gazed upon the mirth around him, as if he could not participate therein. Apparently, the light laughter of the fair only attracted his attention, that he might by a look quell it and throw fear into those breasts where thoughtlessness reigned. Those who felt this sensation of awe, could not explain whence it arose: some attributed it to the dead grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to penetrate, and at one glance to pierce through to the inward workings of the heart; but fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray that weighed upon the skin it could not pass. His peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house; all wished to see him, and those who had been accustomed to violent excitement, and now felt the weight of ennui, were pleased at having something in their presence capable of engaging their attention. In spite of the deadly hue of his face, which never gained a wanner tint, either from the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and outline were beautiful, many of the female hunters after notoriety attempted to win his attentions, and gain, at least, some marks of what they might term affection: Lady Mercer, who had been the mockery of every monster shewn in drawing-rooms since her marriage, threw herself in his way, and did all but put on the dress of a mountebank, to attract his notice - though in vain; - when she stood before him, though his eyes were apparently fixed upon hers, still it seemed as if they were unperceived; - even her unappalled impudence was baffled, and she left the field. But though the common adultress could not influence even the guidance of his eyes, it was not that the female sex was indifferent to him: yet such was the apparent caution with which he spoke to the virtuous wife and innocent daughter, that few knew he ever addressed himself to females. He had, however, the reputation of a winning tongue; and whether it was that it even overcame the dread of his singular character, or that they were moved by his apparent hatred of vice, he was as often among those females who form the boast of their sex from their domestic virtues, as among those who sully it by their vices.
About the same time, there came to London a young gentleman of the name of Aubrey: he was an orphan left with an only sister in the possession of great wealth, by parents who died while he was yet in childhood. Left also to himself by guardians, who thought it their duty merely to take care of his fortune, while they relinquished the more important charge of his mind to the care of mercenary subalterns, he cultivated more his imagination than his judgment. He had, hence, that high romantic feeling of honour and candour, which daily ruins so many milliners' apprentices. He believed all to sympathise with virtue, and thought that vice was thrown in by Providence merely for the picturesque effect of the scene, as we see in romances: he thought that the misery of a cottage merely consisted in the vesting of clothes, which were as warm, but which were better adapted to the painter's eye by their irregular folds and various coloured patches. He thought, in fine, that the dreams of poets were the realities of life. He was handsome, frank, and rich: for these reasons, upon his entering into the gay circles, many mothers surrounded him, striving which should describe with least truth their languishing or romping favourites: the daughters at the same time, by their brightening countenances when he approached, and by their sparkling eyes, when he opened his lips, soon led him into false notions of his talents and his merit. Attached as he was to the romance of his solitary hours, he was startled at finding, that, except in the tallow and wax candles that flickered, not from the presence of a ghost, but from want of snuffing, there was no foundation in real life for any of that congeries of pleasing pictures and descriptions contained in those volumes, from which he had formed his study. Finding, however, some compensation in his gratified vanity, he was about to relinquish his dreams, when the extraordinary being we have above described, crossed him in his career. He watched him; and the very impossibility of forming an idea of the character of a man entirely absorbed in himself, who gave few other signs of his observation of external objects, than the tacit assent to their existence, implied by the avoidance of their contact: allowing his imagination to picture every thing that flattered its propensity to extravagant ideas, he soon formed this object into the hero of a romance, and determined to observe the offspring of his fancy, rather than the person before him. He became acquainted with him, paid him attentions, and so far advanced upon his notice, that his presence was always recognised. He gradually learnt that Lord Ruthven's affairs were embarrassed, and soon found, from the notes of preparation in __ Street, that he was about to travel. Desirous of gaining some information respecting this singular character, who, till now, had only whetted his curiosity, he hinted to his guardians, that it was time for him to perform the tour, which for many generations has been thought necessary to enable the young to take some rapid steps in the career of vice towards putting themselves upon an equality with the aged, and not allowing them to appear as if fallen from the skies, whenever scandalous intrigues are mentioned as the subjects of pleasantry or of praise, according to the degree of skill shewn in carrying them on. They consented: and Aubrey immediately mentioning his intentions to Lord Ruthven, was surprised to receive from him a proposal to join him. Flattered such a mark of esteem from him, who, apparently, had nothing in common with other men, he gladly accepted it, and in a few days they had passed the circling waters.
Hitherto, Aubrey had had no opportunity of studying Lord Ruthven's character, and now he found, that, though many more of his actions were exposed to his view, the results offered different conclusions from the apparent motives to his conduct. His companion was profuse in his liberality; - the idle, the vagabond, and the beggar, received from his hand more than enough to relieve their immediate wants. But Aubrey could not avoid remarking, that it was not upon the virtuous, reduced to indigence by the misfortunes attendant even upon virtue, that he bestowed his alms; - these were sent from the door with hardly suppressed sneers; but when the profligate came to ask something, not to relieve his wants, but to allow him to wallow in his lust, to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent away with rich charity. This was, however, attributed by him to the greater importunity of the vicious, which generally prevails over the retiring bashfulness of the virtuous indigent. There was one circumstance about the charity of his Lordship, which was still more impressed upon his mind: all those upon whom it was bestowed, inevitably found that there was a curse upon it, for they were all either led to the scaffold, or sunk to the lowest and the most abject misery. At Brussels and other towns through which they passed, Aubrey was surprised at the apparent eagerness with which his companion sought for the centres of all fashionable vice; there he entered into all the spirit of the faro table: he betted and always gambled with success, except where the known sharper was his antagonist, and then he lost even more than he gained; but it was always with the same unchanging face, with which he generally watched the society around: it was not, however, so when he encountered the rash youthful novice, or the luckless father of a numerous family; then his very wish seemed fortune's law - this apparent abstractedness of mind was laid aside, and his eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half-dead mouse. In every town, he left the formerly affluent youth, torn from the circle he adorned, cursing, in the solitude of a dungeon, the fate that had drawn him within the reach of this fiend; whilst many a father sat frantic, amidst the speaking looks of mute hungry children, without a single farthing of his late immense wealth, wherewith to buy even sufficient to satisfy their present craving. Yet he took no money from the gambling table; but immediately lost, to the ruiner of many, the last gilder he had just snatched from the convulsive grasp of the innocent: this might but be the result of a certain degree of knowledge, which was not, however, capable of combating the cunning of the more experienced. Aubrey often wished to represent this to his friend, and beg him to resign that charity and pleasure which proved the ruin of all, and did not tend to his own profit; but he delayed it - for each day he hoped his friend would give him some opportunity of speaking frankly and openly to him; however, this never occurred. Lord Ruthven in his carriage, and amidst the various wild and rich scenes of nature, was always the same: his eye spoke less than his lip; and though Aubrey was near the object of his curiosity, he obtained no greater gratification from it than the constant excitement of vainly wishing to break that mystery, which to his exalted imagination began to assume the appearance of something supernatural.
They soon arrived at Rome, and Aubrey for a time lost sight of his companion; he left him in daily attendance upon the morning circle of an Italian countess, whilst he went in search of the memorials of another almost deserted city. Whilst he was thus engaged, letters arrived from England, which he opened with eager impatience; the first was from his sister, breathing nothing but affection; the others were from his guardians, the latter astonished him; if it had before entered into his imagination that there was an evil power resident in his companion these seemed to give him almost sufficient reason for the belief. His guardians insisted upon his immediately leaving his friend, and urged that his character was dreadfully vicious, for that the possession of irresistible powers of seduction, rendered his licentious habits more dangerous to society. It had been discovered, that his contempt for the adultress had not originated in hatred of her character; but that he had required, to enhance his gratification, that his victim, the partner of his guilt, should be hurled from the pinnacle of unsullied virtue, down to the lowest abyss of infamy and degradation: in fine, that all those females whom he had sought, apparently on account of their virtue, had, since his departure, thrown even the mask aside, and had not scrupled to expose the whole deformity of their vices to the public gaze. Aubrey determined upon leaving one, whose character had not shown a single bright point on which to rest the eye. He resolved to invent some plausible pretext for abandoning him altogether, purposing, in the mean while, to watch him more closely, and to let no slight circumstances pass by unnoticed. He entered into the same circle, and soon perceived, that his Lordship was endeavouring to work upon the inexperience of the daughter of the lady whose house he chiefly frequented. In Italy, it is seldom that an unmarried female is met with in society; he was therefore obliged to carry on his plans in secret; but Aubrey's eye followed him in all his windings, and soon discovered that an assignation had been appointed, which would most likely end in the ruin of an innocent, though thoughtless girl. Losing no time, he entered the apartment of Lord Ruthven, and abruptly asked him his intentions with respect to the lady, informing him at the same time that he was aware of his being about to meet her that very night. Lord Ruthven answered, that his intentions were such as he supposed all would have upon such an occasion; and upon being pressed whether he intended to marry her, merely laughed. Aubrey retired; and, immediately writing a note, to say, that from that moment he must decline accompanying his Lordship in the remainder of their proposed tour, he ordered his servant to seek other apartments, and calling upon the mother of the lady informed her of all he knew, not only with regard to her daughter, but also concerning the character of his Lordship. The assignation was prevented. Lord Ruthven next day merely sent his servant to notify his complete assent to a separation; but did not hint any suspicion of his plans having been foiled by Aubrey's interposition.
Having left Rome, Aubrey directed his steps towards Greece, and crossing the Peninsula, soon found himself at Athens. He then fixed residence in the house of a Greek; and soon occupied himself in tracing the faded records of ancient glory upon monuments that apparently, ashamed of chronicling the deeds of freemen only before slaves, had hidden themselves beneath the sheltering soil or many coloured lichen. Under the same roof as himself, existed a being, so beautiful and delicate, that she might have formed the model for a painter, wishing to portray on canvass the promised hope of the faithful in Mahomet's paradise, save that her eyes spoke too much mind for any one to think she could belong to those who had no souls. As she danced upon the plain, or tripped along the mountain's side, one would have thought the gazelle a poor type of her beauties; for who would have exchanged her eye, apparently the eye of animated nature, for that sleepy luxurious look of the animal suited but to the taste of an epicure. The light step of Ianthe often accompanied Aubrey in his search after antiquities, and often would the unconscious girl, engaged in the pursuit of a Kashmere butterfly, show the whole beauty of her form, boating as it were upon the wind, to the eager gaze of him, who forgot the letters he had just decyphered upon an almost effaced tablet, in the contemplation of her sylph-like figure. Often would her tresses falling, as she flitted around, exhibit in the sun's ray such delicately brilliant and swiftly fading hues, as might well excuse the forgetfulness of the antiquary, who let escape from his mind the very object he had before thought of vital importance to the proper interpretation of a passage in Pausanias. But why attempt to describe charms which all feel, but none can appreciate? - It was innocence, youth, and beauty, unaffected by crowded drawing-rooms and stifling balls. Whilst he drew those remains of which he wished to preserve a memorial for his future hours, she would stand by, and watch the magic effects of his pencil, in tracing the scenes of her native place; she would then describe to him the circling dance upon the open plain, would paint to him in all the glowing colours of youthful memory, the marriage pomp she remembered viewing in her infancy; and then, turning to subjects that had evidently made a greater impression upon her mind, would tell him all the supernatural tales of her nurse. Her earnestness and apparent belief of what she narrated, excited the interest even of Aubrey; and often as she told him the tale of the living vampyre, who had passed years amidst his friends, and dearest ties, forced every year, by feeding upon the life of a lovely female to prolong his existence for the ensuing months, his blood would run cold, whilst he attempted to laugh her out of such idle and horrible fantasies; but Ianthe cited to him the names of old men, who had at last detected one living among themselves, after several of their near relatives and children had been found marked with the stamp of the fiend's appetite; and when she found him so incredulous, she begged of him to believe her, for it had been remarked, that those who had dared to question their existence, always had some proof given, which obliged them, with grief and heartbreaking, to confess it was true. She detailed to him the traditional appearance of these monsters, and his horror was increased by hearing a pretty accurate description of Lord Ruthven; he, however, still persisted in persuading her, that there could be no truth in her fears, though at the same time he wondered at the many coincidences which had all tended to excite a belief in the supernatural power of Lord Ruthven.
Aubrey began to attach himself more and more to Ianthe; her innocence, so contrasted with all the affected virtues of the women among whom he had sought for his vision of romance, won his heart and while he ridiculed the idea of a young man of English habits, marrying an uneducated Greek girl, still he found himself more and more attached to the almost fairy form before him. He would tear himself at times from her, and, forming a plan for some antiquarian research, would depart, determined not to return until his object was attained; but he always found it impossible to fix his attention upon the ruins around him, whilst in his mind he retained an image that seemed alone the rightful possessor of his thoughts. Ianthe was unconscious of his love, and was ever the same frank infantile being he had first known. She always seemed to part from him with reluctance; but it was because she had no longer any one with whom she could visit her favourite haunts, whilst her guardian was occupied in sketching or uncovering some fragment which had yet escaped the destructive hand of time. She had appealed to her parents on the subject of Vampyres, and they both, with several present, affirmed their existence, pale with horror at the very name. Soon after, Aubrey determined to proceed upon one of his excursions, which was to detain him for a few hours; when they heard the name of the place, they all at once begged of him not to return at night, as he must necessarily pass through a wood, where no Greek would ever remain, after the day had closed, upon any consideration. They described it as the resort of the vampyres in their nocturnal orgies and denounced the most heavy evils as impending upon him who dared to cross their path. Aubrey made light of their representations, and tried to laugh them out of the idea; but when he saw them shudder at his daring thus to mock a superior, infernal power, the very name of which apparently made their blood freeze, he was silent. Next morning Aubrey set off upon his excursion unattended; he was surprised to observe the melancholy face of his host, and was concerned to find that his words, mocking the belief of those horrible fiends, had inspired them with such terror. When he was about to depart, Ianthe came to the side of his horse, and earnestly begged of him to return, ere night allowed the power of these beings to be put in action; - he promised. He was, however, so occupied in his research, that he did not perceive that day-light would soon end, and that in the horizon there was one of those specks which, in the warmer climates, so rapidly gather into a tremendous mass, and pour all their rage upon the devoted country. - He at last, however, mounted his horse, determined to make up by speed for his delay: but it was too late. Twilight, in these southern climates, is almost unknown; immediately the sun sets, night begins: and ere he had advanced far, the power of the storm was above - its echoing thunders had scarcely an interval of rest; - its thick heavy rain forced its way through the canopying foliage, whilst the blue forked lightning seemed to fall and radiate at his very feet. Suddenly his horse took fright, and he was carried with dreadful rapidity through the entangled forest. The animal at last, through fatigue, stopped, and he found, by the glare of lightning, that he was in the neighbourhood of a hovel that hardly lifted itself up from the masses of dead leaves and brushwood which surrounded it. Dismounting, he approached, hoping to find some one to guide him to the town, or at least trusting to obtain shelter from the pelting of the storm. As he approached, the thunders, for a moment silent, allowed him to hear the dreadful shrieks of a woman mingling with the stifled, exultant mockery of a laugh, continued in one almost unbroken sound; - he was startled: but, roused by the thunder which again rolled over his head, he, with a sudden effort, forced open the door of the hut. He found himself in utter darkness: the sound, however, guided him. He was apparently unperceived; for, though he called, still the sounds continued, and no notice was taken of him. He found himself in contact with some one, whom he immediately seized; when a voice cried, "Again baffled!" to which a loud laugh succeeded; and he felt himself grappled by one whose strength seemed superhuman: determined to sell his life as dearly as he could, he struggled; but it was in vain: he was lifted from his feet and hurled with enormous force against the ground: - his enemy threw himself upon him, and kneeling upon his breast, had placed his hands upon his throat when the glare of many torches penetrating through the hole that gave light in the day, disturbed him; - he instantly rose, and, leaving his prey, rushed through the door, and in a moment the crashing of branches, as he broke through the wood, was no longer heard. The storm was now still; and Aubrey, incapable of moving, was soon heard by those without. They entered; the light of their torches fell upon mud walls, and the thatch loaded on every individual straw with heavy flakes of soot. At the desire of Aubrey they searched for her who had attracted him by her cries; he was again left in darkness; but what was his horror, when the light of the torches once more burst upon him, to perceive the airy form of his fair conductress brought in a lifeless corpse. He shut his eyes, hoping that it was but a vision arising from his disturbed imagination; but he again saw the same form, when he unclosed them, stretched by his side. There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness about her face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there: - upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein: - to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, "A Vampyre! a Vampyre!" A litter was quickly formed, and Aubrey was laid by the side of her who had lately been to him the object of so many bright and fairy visions, now fallen; with the flower of life that had died within her. He knew not what his thoughts were - his mind was benumbed and seemed to shun reflection and take refuge in vacancy; - he held almost unconsciously in his hand a naked dagger of a particular construction, which had been found in the hut. They were soon met by different parties who had been engaged in the search of her whom a mother had missed. Their lamentable cries as they approached the city, forewarned the parents of some dreadful catastrophe. - To describe their grief would be impossible; but when they ascertained the cause of their child's death, they looked at Aubrey and pointed to the corpse. They were inconsolable; both died brokenhearted.
Aubrey being put to bed was seized with a most violent fever, and was often delirious; in these intervals he would call upon Lord Ruthven and upon Ianthe - by some unaccountable combination he seemed to beg of his former companion to spare the being he loved. At other times he would imprecate maledictions upon his head, and curse him as her destroyer. Lord Ruthven chanced at this time to arrive at Athens, and from whatever motive, upon hearing of the state of Aubrey, immediately placed himself in the same house, and became his constant attendant. When the latter recovered from his delirium, he was horrified and startled at the sight of him whose image he had now combined with that of a Vampyre; but Lord Ruthven, by his kind words, implying almost repentance for the fault that had caused their separation, and still more by the attention, anxiety, and care which he showed, soon reconciled him to his presence. His lordship seemed quite changed; he no longer appeared that apathetic being who had so astonished Aubrey; but as soon as his convalescence began to be rapid, he again gradually retired into the same state of mind, and Aubrey perceived no difference from the former man, except that at times he was surprised to meet his gaze fixed intently upon him, with a smile of malicious exultation playing upon his lips: he knew not why, but this smile haunted him. During the last stage of the invalid's recovery, Lord Ruthven was apparently engaged in watching the tideless waves raised by the cooling breeze, or in marking the progress of those orbs, circling, like our world, the moveless sun; - indeed, he appeared to wish to avoid the eyes of all. Aubrey's mind, by this shock, was much weakened, and that elasticity of spirit which had once so distinguished him now seemed to have fled for ever. He was now as much a lover of solitude and silence as Lord Ruthven; but much as he wished for solitude, his mind could not find it in the neighbourhood of Athens; if he sought it amidst the ruins he had formerly frequented, Ianthe's form stood by his side; - if he sought it in the woods, her light step would appear wandering amidst the underwood, in quest of the modest violet; then suddenly turning round, would show, to his wild imagination, her pale face and wounded throat, with a meek smile upon her lips. He determined to fly scenes, every feature of which created such bitter associations in his mind. He proposed to Lord Ruthven, to whom he held himself bound by the tender care he had taken of him during his illness, that they should visit those parts of Greece neither had yet seen. They travelled in every direction, and sought every spot to which a recollection could be attached: but though they thus hastened from place to place, yet they seemed not to heed what they gazed upon. They heard much of robbers, but they gradually began to slight these reports, which they imagined were only the invention of individuals, whose interest it was to excite the generosity of those whom they defended from pretended dangers. In consequence of thus neglecting the advice of the inhabitants, on one occasion they travelled with only a few guards, more to serve as guides than as a defence. Upon entering, however, a narrow defile, at the bottom of which was the bed of a torrent, with large masses of rock brought down from the neighbouring precipices, they had reason to repent their negligence; for scarcely were the whole of the party engaged in the narrow pass, when they were startled by the whistling of bullets close to their heads, and by the echoed report of several guns. In an instant their guards had left them, and, placing themselves behind rocks, had begun to fire in the direction whence the report came. Lord Ruthven and Aubrey, imitating their example, retired for a moment behind the sheltering turn of the defile: but ashamed of being thus detained by a foe, who with insulting shouts bade them advance, and being exposed to unresisting slaughter, if any of the robbers should climb above and take them in the rear, they determined at once to rush forward in search of the enemy. Hardly had they lost the shelter of rock, when Lord Ruthven received a shot in the shoulder, which brought him to the ground. Aubrey hastened to his assistance; and, no longer heeding the contest or his own peril, was soon surprised by seeing the robbers' faces around him - his guards having, upon Lord Ruthven's being wounded, immediately thrown up their arms and surrendered.
By promises of great reward, Aubrey soon induced them to convey his wounded friend to a neighbouring cabin; and having agreed upon a ransom, he was no more disturbed by their presence - they being content merely to guard the entrance till their comrade should return with the promised sum, for which he had an order. Lord Ruthven's strength rapidly decreased; in two days mortification ensued, and death seemed advancing with hasty steps. His conduct and appearance had not changed; he seemed as unconscious of pain as he had been of the objects about him: but towards the close of the last evening, his mind became apparently uneasy, and his eye often fixed upon Aubrey, who was induced to offer his assistance with more than usual earnestness - "Assist me! you may save me - you may do more than that - I mean not life, I heed the death of my existence as little as that of the passing day; but you may save my honour, your friend's honour." - "How? tell me how? I would do any thing," replied Aubrey. - "I need but little, my life ebbs apace - I cannot explain the whole - but if you would conceal all you know of me, my honour were free from stain in the world's mouth - and if my death were unknown for some time in England - I - I - but life." - "It shall not be known." - "Swear!" cried the dying man raising himself with exultant violence. "Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may happen, or whatever you may see." - His eyes seemed bursting from their sockets; "I swear!" said Aubrey; he sunk laughing upon his pillow, and breathed no more. Aubrey retired to rest, but did not sleep; the many circumstances attending his acquaintance with this man rose upon his mind, and he knew not why; when he remembered his oath a cold shivering came over him, as if from the presentiment of something horrible awaiting him. Rising early in the morning, he was about to enter the hovel in which he had left the corpse, when a robber met him, and informed him that it was no longer there, having been conveyed by himself and comrades, upon his retiring, to the pinnacle of a neighbouring mount, according to a promise they had given his lordship, that it should be exposed to the first cold ray of the moon that rose after his death. Aubrey astonished, and taking several of the men, determined to go and bury it upon the spot where it lay. But, when he had mounted to the summit he found no trace of either the corpse or the clothes, though the robbers swore they pointed out the identical rock on which they had laid the body. For a time his mind was bewildered in conjectures, but he at last returned, convinced that they had buried the corpse for the sake of the clothes.
Weary of a country in which he had met with such terrible misfortunes, and in which all apparently conspired to heighten that superstitious melancholy that had seized upon his mind, he resolved to leave it, and soon arrived at Smyrna. While waiting for a vessel to convey him to Otranto, or to Naples, he occupied himself in arranging those effects he had with him belonging to Lord Ruthven. Amongst other things there was a case containing several weapons of offence, more or less adapted to ensure the death of the victim. There were several daggers and ataghans. Whilst turning them over, and examining their curious forms, what was his surprise at finding a sheath apparently ornamented in the same style as the dagger discovered in the fatal hut; - he shuddered; hastening to gain further proof, he found the weapon, and his horror may be imagined when he discovered that it fitted, though peculiarly shaped, the sheath he held in his hand. His eyes seemed to need no further certainty - they seemed gazing to be bound to the dagger, yet still he wished to disbelieve; but the particular form, the same varying tints upon the haft and sheath were alike in splendour on both, and left no room for doubt; there were also drops of blood on each. He left Smyrna, and on his way home, at Rome, his first inquiries were concerning the lady he had attempted to snatch from Lord Ruthven's seductive arts. Her parents were in distress, their fortune ruined, and she had not been heard of since the departure of his lordship. Aubrey's mind became almost broken under so many repeated horrors; he was afraid that this lady had fallen a victim to the destroyer of Ianthe. He became morose and silent; and his only occupation consisted in urging the speed of the postilions, as if he were going to save the life of some one he held dear. He arrived at Calais; a breeze, which seemed obedient to his will, soon wafted him to the English shores; and he hastened to the mansion of his fathers, and there, for a moment, appeared to lose, in the embraces and caresses of his sister, all memory of the past. If she before, by her infantine caresses, had gained his affection, now that the woman began to appear, she was still more attaching as a companion.
Miss Aubrey had not that winning grace which gains the gaze and applause of the drawing-room assemblies. There was none of that light brilliancy which only exists in the heated atmosphere of a crowded apartment. Her blue eye was never lit up by the levity of the mind beneath. There was a melancholy charm about it which did not seem to arise from misfortune, but from some feeling within, that appeared to indicate a soul conscious of a brighter realm. Her step was not that light footing, which strays where'er a butterfly or a colour may attract - it was sedate and pensive. When alone, her face was never brightened by the smile of joy; but when her brother breathed to her his affection, and would in her presence forget those griefs she knew destroyed his rest, who would have exchanged her smile for that of the voluptuary? It seemed as if those eyes, that face were then playing in the light of their own native sphere. She was yet only eighteen, and had not been presented to the world, it having been thought by her guardians more fit that her presentation should be delayed until her brother's return from the continent, when he might be her protector. It was now, therefore, resolved that the next drawing-room, which was fast approaching, should be the epoch of her entry into the "busy scene." Aubrey would rather have remained in the mansion of his fathers, and feed upon the melancholy which overpowered him. He could not feel interest about the frivolities of fashionable strangers, when his mind had been so torn by the events he had witnessed; but he determined to sacrifice his own comfort to the protection of his sister. They soon arrived in town, and prepared for the next day, which had been announced as a drawing- room. The crowd was excessive - a drawing-room had not been held for long time, and all who were anxious to bask in the smile of royalty, hastened thither. Aubrey was there with his sister. While he was standing in a corner by himself, heedless of all around him, engaged in the remembrance that the first time he had seen Lord Ruthven was in that very place - he felt himself suddenly seized by the arm, and a voice he recognized too well, sounded in his ear - "Remember your oath." He had hardly courage to turn, fearful of seeing a spectre that would blast him, when he perceived, at a little distance, the same figure which had attracted his notice on this spot upon his first entry into society. He gazed till his limbs almost refusing to bear their weight, he was obliged to take the arm of a friend, and forcing a passage through the crowd, he threw himself into his carriage, and was driven home. He paced the room with hurried steps, and fixed his hands upon his head, as if he were afraid his thoughts were bursting from his brain. Lord Ruthven again before him - circumstances started up in dreadful array - the dagger - his oath. - He roused himself, he could not believe it possible - the dead rise again! - He thought his imagination had conjured up the image his mind was resting upon. It was impossible that it could be real - he determined, therefore, to go again into society; for though he attempted to ask concerning Lord Ruthven, the name hung upon his lips and he could not succeed in gaining information. He went a few nights after with his sister to the assembly of a near relation. Leaving her under the protection of a matron, he retired into a recess, and there gave himself up to his own devouring thoughts. Perceiving, at last, that many were leaving, he roused himself, and entering another room, found his sister surrounded by several, apparently in earnest conversation; he attempted to pass and get near her, when one, whom he requested to move, turned round, and revealed to him those features he most abhorred. He sprang forward, seized his sister's arm, and, with hurried step, forced her towards the street: at the door he found himself impeded by the crowd of servants who were waiting for their lords; and while he was engaged in passing them, he again heard that voice whisper close to him - "Remember your oath!" - He did not dare to turn, but, hurrying his sister, soon reached home.
Aubrey became almost distracted. If before his mind had been absorbed by one subject, how much more completely was it engrossed now that the certainty of the monster's living again pressed upon his thoughts. His sister's attentions were now unheeded, and it was in vain that she intreated him to explain to her what had caused his abrupt conduct. He only uttered a few words, and those terrified her. The more he thought, the more he was bewildered. His oath startled him; - was he then to allow this monster to roam, bearing ruin upon his breath, amidst all he held dear, and not avert its progress? His very sister might have been touched by him. But even if he were to break his oath, and disclose his suspicions, who would believe him? He thought of employing his own hand to free the world from such a wretch; but death, he remembered, had been already mocked. For days he remained in state; shut up in his room, he saw no one, and ate only when his sister came, who, with eyes streaming with tears, besought him, for her sake, to support nature. At last, no longer capable of bearing stillness and solitude, he left his house, roamed from street to street, anxious to fly that image which haunted him. His dress became neglected, and he wandered, as often exposed to the noon-day sun as to the mid-night damps. He was no longer to be recognized; at first he returned with evening to the house; but at last he laid him down to rest wherever fatigue overtook him. His sister, anxious for his safety, employed people to follow him; but they were soon distanced by him who fled from a pursuer swifter than any - from thought. His conduct, however, suddenly changed. Struck with the idea that he left by his absence the whole of his friends, with a fiend amongst them, of whose presence they were unconscious, he determined to enter again into society, and watch him closely, anxious to forewarn, in spite of his oath, all whom Lord Ruthven approached with intimacy. But when he entered into a room, his haggard and suspicious looks were so striking, his inward shuddering so visible, that his sister was at last obliged to beg of him to abstain from seeking, for her sake, a society which affected him so strongly. When, however, remonstrance proved unavailing, the guardians thought proper to interpose, and, fearing that his mind was becoming alienated, they thought it high time to resume again that trust which had been before imposed upon them by Aubrey's parents.
Desirous of saving him from the injuries and sufferings he had daily encountered in his wanderings, and of preventing him from exposing to the general eye those marks of what they considered folly, they engaged a physician to reside in the house, and take constant care of him. He hardly appeared to notice it, so completely was his mind absorbed by one terrible subject. His incoherence became at last so great that he was confined to his chamber. There he would often lie for days, incapable of being roused. He had become emaciated, his eyes had attained a glassy lustre; - the only sign of affection and recollection remaining displayed itself upon the entry of his sister; then he would sometimes start, and, seizing her hands, with looks that severely afflicted her, he would desire her not to touch him. "Oh, do not touch him - if your love for me is aught, do not go near him!" When, however, she inquired to whom he referred, his only answer was, "True! true!" and again he sank into a state, whence not even she could rouse him. This lasted many months: gradually, however, as the year was passing, his incoherences became less frequent, and his mind threw off a portion of its gloom, whilst his guardians observed, that several times in the day he would count upon his fingers a definite number, and then smile. The time had nearly elapsed, when, upon the last day of the year, one of his guardians entering his room, began to converse with his physician upon the melancholy circumstance of Aubrey's being in so awful a situation, when his sister was going next day to be married. Instantly Aubrey's attention was attracted; he asked anxiously to whom. Glad of this mark of returning intellect, of which they feared he had been deprived, they mentioned the name of the Earl of Marsden. Thinking this was a young Earl whom he had met with in society, Aubrey seemed pleased, and astonished them still more by his expressing his intention to be present at the nuptials, and desiring to see his sister. They answered not, but in a few minutes his sister was with him. He was apparently again capable of being affected by the influence of her lovely smile; for he pressed her to his breast, and kissed her cheek, wet with tears, flowing at the thought of her brother's being once more alive to the feelings of affection. He began to speak with all his wonted warmth, and to congratulate her upon her marriage with a person so distinguished for rank and every accomplishment; when he suddenly perceived a locket upon her breast; opening it, what was his surprise at beholding the features of the monster who had so long influenced his life. He seized the portrait in a paroxysm of rage, and trampled it under foot. Upon her asking him why he thus destroyed the resemblance of her future husband, he looked as if he did not understand her; - then seizing her hands, and gazing on her with a frantic expression of countenance, he bade her swear that she would never wed this monster, for he - But he could not advance - it seemed as if that voice again bade him remember his oath - he turned suddenly round, thinking Lord Ruthven was near him but saw no one. In the meantime the guardians and physician, who had heard the whole, and thought this was but a return of his disorder, entered, and forcing him from Miss Aubrey, desired her to leave him. He fell upon his knees to them, he implored, he begged of them to delay but for one day. They, attributing this to the insanity they imagined had taken possession of his mind endeavoured to pacify him, and retired.
Lord Ruthven had called the morning after the drawing-room, and had been refused with every one else. When he heard of Aubrey's ill health, he readily understood himself to be the cause of it; but when he learned that he was deemed insane, his exultation and pleasure could hardly be concealed from those among whom he had gained this information. He hastened to the house of his former companion, and, by constant attendance, and the pretence of great affection for the brother and interest in his fate, he gradually won the ear of Miss Aubrey. Who could resist his power? His tongue had dangers and toils to recount - could speak of himself as of an individual having no sympathy with any being on the crowded earth, save with her to whom he addressed himself; - could tell how, since he knew her, his existence had begun to seem worthy of preservation, if it were merely that he might listen her soothing accents; - in fine, he knew so well how to use the serpent's art, or such was the will of fate, that he gained her affections. The title of the elder branch falling at length to him, he obtained an important embassy, which served as an excuse for hastening the marriage (in spite of her brother's deranged state), which was to take place the very day before his departure for the continent. Aubrey, when he was left by the physician and his guardians, attempted to bribe the servants, but in vain. He asked for pen and paper; it was given him; he wrote a letter to his sister, conjuring her, as she valued her own happiness, her own honour, and the honour of those now in the grave, who once held her in their arms as their hope and the hope of their house, to delay but for a few hours that marriage, on which he denounced the most heavy curses. The servants promised they would deliver it; but giving it to the physician, he thought it better not to harass any more the mind of Miss Aubrey by, what he considered, the ravings of a maniac. Night passed on without rest to the busy inmates of the house; and Aubrey heard, with a horror that may more easily be conceived than described, the notes of busy preparation. Morning came, and the sound of carriages broke upon his ear. Aubrey grew almost frantic. The curiosity of the servants at last overcame their vigilance; they gradually stole away, leaving him in the custody of an helpless old woman. He seized the opportunity, with one bound was out of the room, and in a moment found himself in the apartment where all were nearly assembled. Lord Ruthven was the first to perceive him: he immediately approached, and, taking his arm by force, hurried him from the room, speechless with rage. When on the staircase, Lord Ruthven whispered in his ear - "Remember your oath, and know, if not my bride to day, your sister is dishonoured. Women are frail!" So saying, he pushed him towards his attendants, who, roused by the old woman, had come in search of him. Aubrey could no longer support himself; his rage not finding vent, had broken a blood-vessel, and he was conveyed to bed. This was not mentioned to his sister, who was not present when he entered, as the physician was afraid of agitating her. The marriage was solemnized, and the bride and bridegroom left London.
Aubrey's weakness increased; the effusion of blood produced symptoms of the near approach of death. He desired his sister's guardians might be called, and when the midnight hour had struck, he related composedly what the reader has perused - he died immediately after. The guardians hastened to protect Miss Aubrey; but when they arrived, it was too late. Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey's sister had glutted the thirst of a Vampyre!

Source: East of the Web
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Book Choice: The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (Oxford World's Classics)

H.P. Lovecraft: Celephais

Well, here's another great story from one of the old masters. What's there to say about Mr H.P. Lovecraft that's not been already said? Just read and enjoy:
In a dream Kuranes saw the city in the valley, and the seacoast beyond, andthe snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail outof the harbour toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky. In a dream itwas also that he came by his name of Kuranes, for when awake he was called byanother name. Perhaps it was natural for him to dream a new name; for he was thelast of his family, and alone among the indifferent millions of London, so therewere not many to speak to him and to remind him who he had been. His money andlands were gone, and he did not care for the ways of the people about him, butpreferred to dream and write of his dreams. What he wrote was laughed at bythose to whom he showed it, so that after a time he kept his writings tohimself, and finally ceased to write. The more he withdrew from the world abouthim, the more wonderful became his dreams; and it would have been quite futileto try to describe them on paper. Kuranes was not modern, and did not think likeothers who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes ofmyth and to show in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranessought for beauty alone. When truth and experience failed to reveal it, hesought it in fancy and illusion, and found it on his very doorstep, amid thenebulous memories of childhood tales and dreams. There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in thestories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, wethink but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we aredulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But some of us awake in the nightwith strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing inthe sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretchdown to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroesthat ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then weknow that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonderwhich was ours before we were wise and unhappy. Kuranes came very suddenly upon his old world of childhood. He had beendreaming of the house where he had been born; the great stone house covered withivy, where thirteen generations of his ancestors had lived, and where he hadhoped to die. It was moonlight, and he had stolen out into the fragrant summernight, through the gardens, down the terraces, past the great oaks of the park,and along the long white road to the village. The village seemed very old, eatenaway at the edge like the moon which had commenced to wane, and Kuranes wonderedwhether the peaked roofs of the small houses hid sleep or death. In the streetswere spears of long grass, and the window-panes on either side broken or ifimilystaring. Kuranes had not lingered, but had plodded on as though summoned towardsome goal. He dared not disobey the summons for fear it might prove an illusionlike the urges and aspirations of waking life, which do not lead to any goal.Then he had been drawn down a lane that led off from the village street towardthe channel cliffs, and had come to the end of things—to the precipice and theabyss where all the village and all the world fell abruptly into the unechoingemptiness of infinity, and where even the sky ahead was empty and unit by thecrumbling moon and the peering stars. Faith had urged him on, over the precipiceand into the gulf, where he had floated down, down, down; past dark, shapeless,undreamed dreams, faintly glowing spheres that may have been partly dreameddreams, and laughing winged things that seemed to mock the dreamers of all theworlds. Then a rift seemed to open in the darkness before him, and he saw thecity of the valley, glistening radiantly far, far below, with a background ofsea and sky, and a snowcapped mountain near the shore. Kuranes had awakened the very moment he beheld the city, yet he knew fromhis brief glance that it was none other than Celephais, in the Valley ofOoth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills where his spirit had dwelt all theeternity of an hour one summer afternoon very long ago, when he had slipt awayfrom his nurse and let the warm sea-breeze lull him to sleep as he watched theclouds from the cliff near the village. He had protested then, when they hadfound him, waked him, and carried him home, for just as he was aroused he hadbeen about to sail in a golden galley for those alluring regions where the seameets the sky. And now he was equally resentful of awaking, for he had found hisfabulous city after forty weary years. But three nights afterward Kuranes came again to Celephais. As before, hedreamed first of the village that was asleep or dead, and of the abyss downwhich one must float silently; then the rift appeared again, and he beheld theglittering minarets of the city, and saw the graceful galleys riding at anchorin the blue harbour, and watched the gingko trees of Mount Man swaying in thesea-breeze. But this time he was not snatched away, and like a winged beingsettled gradually over a grassy hillside till finally his feet rested gently onthe turf. He had indeed come back to the Valley of Ooth-Nargai and the splendidcity of Celephais. Down the hill amid scented grasses and brilliant flowers walked Kuranes,over the bubbling Naraxa on the small wooden bridge where he had carved his nameso many years ago, and through the whispering grove to the great stone bridge bythe city gate. All was as of old, nor were the marble walls discoloured, nor thepolished bronze statues upon them tarnished. And Kuranes saw that he need nottremble lest the things he knew be vanished; for even the sentries on theramparts were the same, and still as young as he remembered them. When heentered the city, past the bronze gates and over the onyx pavements, themerchants and camel-drivers greeted him as if he had never been away; and it Wasthe same at the turquoise temple of Nath-Horthath, where the orchid-wreathedpriests told him that there is no time in Ooth-Nargai, but only perpetual youth.Then Kuranes walked through the Street of Pillars to the seaward wall, wheregathered the traders and sailors, and strange men from the regions where the seameets the sky. There he stayed long, gazing out over the bright harbour wherethe ripples sparkled beneath an unknown sun, and where rode lightly the galleysfrom far places over the water. And he gazed also upon Mount Man rising regallyfrom the shore, its lower slopes green with swaying trees and its white summittouching the sky. More than ever Kuranes wished to sail in a galley to the far places of whichhe had heard so many strange tales, and he sought again the captain who hadagreed to carry him so long ago. He found the man, Athib, sitting on the samechest of spice he had sat upon before, and Athib seemed not to realize that anytime had passed. Then the two rowed to a galley in the harbour, and givingorders to the oarmen, commenced to sail out into the billowy Cerenarian Sea thatleads to the sky. For several days they glided undulatingly over the water, tillfinally they came to the horizon, where the sea meets the sky. Here the galleypaused not at all, but floated easily in the blue of the sky among fleecy cloudstinted with rose. And far beneath the keel Kuranes could see strange lands andrivers and cities of surpassing beauty, spread indolently in the sunshine whichseemed never to lessen or disappear. At length Athib told him that their journeywas near its end, and that they would soon enter the harbour of Serannian, thepink marble city of the clouds, which is built on that ethereal coast where thewest wind flows into the sky; but as the highest of the city’s carven towerscame into sight there was a sound somewhere in space, and Kuranes awaked in hisLondon garret. For many months after that Kuranes sought the marvellous city of Celephaisand its sky-bound galleys in vain; and though his dreams carried him to manygorgeous and unheard-of places, no one whom he met could tell him how to findOoth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills. One night he went flying over darkmountains where there were faint, lone campfires at great distances apart, andstrange, shaggy herds with tinkling bells on the leaders, and in the wildestpart of this hilly country, so remote that few men could ever have seen it, hefound a hideously ancient wall or causeway of stone zigzagging along the ridgesand valleys; too gigantic ever to have risen by human hands, and of such alength that neither end of it could be seen. Beyond that wall in the grey dawnhe came to a land of quaint gardens and cherry trees, and when the sun rose hebeheld such beauty of red and white flowers, green foliage and lawns, whitepaths, diamond brooks, blue lakelets, carven bridges, and red-roofed pagodas,that he for a moment forgot Celephais in sheer delight. But he remembered itagain when he walked down a white path toward a red-roofed pagoda, and wouldhave questioned the people of this land about it, had he not found that therewere no people there, but only birds and bees and butterflies. On another nightKuranes walked up a damp stone spiral stairway endlessly, and came to a towerwindow overlooking a mighty plain and river lit by the full moon; and in thesilent city that spread away from the river bank he thought he beheld somefeature or arrangement which he had known before. He would have descended andasked the way to OothNargai had not a fearsome aurora sputtered up from someremote place beyond the horizon, showing the ruin and antiquity of the city, andthe stagnation of the reedy river, and the death lying upon that land, as it hadlain since King Kynaratholis came home from his conquests to find the vengeanceof the gods. So Kuranes sought fruitlessly for the marvellous city of Celephais and itsgalleys that sail to Serannian in the sky, meanwhile seeing many wonders andonce barely escaping from the high-priest not to be described, which wears ayellow silken mask over its face and dwells all alone in a prehistoric stonemonastery in the cold desert plateau of Leng. In time he grew so impatient ofthe bleak intervals of day that he began buying drugs in order to increase hisperiods of sleep. Hasheesh helped a great deal, and once sent him to a part ofspace where form does not exist, but where glowing gases study the secrets ofexistence. And a violet-coloured gas told him that this part of space wasoutside what he had called infinity. The gas had not heard of planets andorganisms before, but identified Kuranes merely as one from the infinity wherematter, energy, and gravitation exist. Kuranes was now very anxious to return tominaret-studded Celephais, and increased his doses of drugs; but eventually hehad no more money left, and could buy no drugs. Then one summer day he wasturned out of his garret, and wandered aimlessly through the streets, driftingover a bridge to a place where the houses grew thinner and thinner. And it wasthere that fulfillment came, and he met the cortege of knights come fromCelephais to bear him thither forever. Handsome knights they were, astride roan horses and clad in shining armourwith tabards of cloth-of-gold curiously emblazoned. So numerous were they, thatKuranes almost mistook them for an army, but they were sent in his honour; sinceit was he who had created Ooth-Nargai in his dreams, on which account he was nowto be appointed its chief god for evermore. Then they gave Kuranes a horse andplaced him at the head of the cavalcade, and all rode majestically through thedowns of Surrey and onward toward the region where Kuranes and his ancestorswere born. It was very strange, but as the riders went on they seemed to gallopback through Time; for whenever they passed through a village in the twilightthey saw only such houses and villagers as Chaucer or men before him might haveseen, and sometimes they saw knights on horseback with small companies ofretainers. When it grew dark they travelled more swiftly, till soon they wereflying uncannily as if in the air. In the dim dawn they came upon the villagewhich Kuranes had seen alive in his childhood, and asleep or dead in his dreams.It was alive now, and early villagers curtsied as the horsemen clattered downthe street and turned off into the lane that ends in the abyss of dreams.Kuranes had previously entered that abyss only at night, and wondered what itwould look like by day; so he watched anxiously as the column approached itsbrink. Just as they galloped up the rising ground to the precipice a goldenglare came somewhere out of the west and hid all the landscape in effulgentdraperies. The abyss was a seething chaos of roseate and cerulean splendour, andinvisible voices sang exultantly as the knightly entourage plunged over the edgeand floated gracefully down past glittering clouds and silvery coruscations.Endlessly down the horsemen floated, their chargers pawing the aether as ifgalloping over golden sands; and then the luminous vapours spread apart toreveal a greater brightness, the brightness of the city Celephais, and the seacoast beyond, and the snowy peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily paintedgalleys that sail out of the harbour toward distant regions where the sea meetsthe sky. And Kuranes reigned thereafter over Ooth-Nargai and all the neighboringregions of dream, and held his court alternately in Celephais and in thecloud-fashioned Serannian. He reigns there still, and will reign happily forever, though below the cliffs at Innsmouth the channel tides played mockinglywith the body of a tramp who had stumbled through the half-deserted village atdawn; played mockingly, and cast it upon the rocks by ivy-covered Trevor Towers,where a notably fat and especially offensive millionaire brewer enjoys thepurchased atmosphere of extinct nobility.

For a short bio and lots of information about the author visit this link

Book Choice: H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)

Edgar Allan Poe - Eleonora

Edgar Allan Poe is not only one of the best poets of all time, but also a great storyteller and the father of "crime literature". When you have a Poe story infront of you, you know for certain that reading pleasure is close at hand. Here's one of his shorts:

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that is glorious- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi."
We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence -- the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events forming the first epoch of my life -- and a condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the recollection of what constitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus.
She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting back, with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley -- I, and my cousin, and her mother.
From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.
The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom, -- these spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of God.
And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.
Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.
The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein.
At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive variation of phrase.
She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom -- that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight, by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth -- that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own.
Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in Times path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. -- Years dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled within the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the lulling melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Aeolus, and more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and, abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams of a holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often the night air, and once -- oh, but once only! I was awakened from a slumber, like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips upon my own.
But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and I left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of the world.
I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of the night. Suddenly these manifestations they ceased, and the world grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me; for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at once -- at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? -- Oh, bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none other. -- Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them -- and of her.
I wedded; -- nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited upon me. And once -- but once again in the silence of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying:
"Sleep in peace! -- for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora."

Source: Online Literature
Link: Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore