The Fall of the House of Usher: Selected Stories / Падение дома Ашеров: Избранные рассказы

Ведущий редактор О. И. Подосенова

Художник Е. Ю. Чернова

Художественный редактор А. А. Неклюдова

Технический редактор А. Б. Ткаченко

Корректор Е. Г. Шабалова

Компьютерная вёрстка Д. В. Лемеш

© Загородняя И. Б., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2024

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2024

In the consideration of the faculties and impulses of the human soul, the phrenologists[1] have failed to notice an inclination which exists as a radical and primitive feeling.

With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I believe that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the only unconquerable force which impels us to do it. This tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake[2] does not admit analysis.

We stand on the edge of a cliff. We look into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to step back. Inexplicably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness, and horror combine in a cloud of unnamable feeling. Gradually this cloud takes shape. It is just a thought, although a fearful one. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the fall from such a height. And this fall – for the very reason that it involves the most frightening of all images of death and suffering in our imagination – we now desire it. And because our reason violently demands that we step back from the edge, we approach it. There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering on the edge of a cliff, thus meditates a plunge. If there is no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to jump backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Examining such actions, we find that they result only from the spirit of the Perverse. We commit them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle; and we might consider this perverseness as a direct provocation of the archfiend[3], if it did not do good from time to time.

I have said so much to explain to you why I am here, why I am in this cell of the condemned. Now, you will easily see that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

I thoroughly prepared the crime. For weeks, for months, I thought about the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length,[4] reading some French memoirs, I found a story of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency[5] of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill- ventilated. But I need not annoy you with details. I need not describe the easy tricks by which I substituted, in his bedroom candle-stand, a wax candle of my own making, for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's verdict was – “Death by the visitation of God.[6]”

I have inherited his estate, and all went well with me for years. The idea of detection never entered my brain. I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime. As I reflected upon my absolute security, a sense of deep satisfaction arose in my bosom. For a very long time, I was accustomed to enjoy this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages received from my sin. However, at length, there arrived an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling gradually turned into a haunting and annoying thought. It annoyed because it haunted. I could not get rid of it even for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of some unimpressive parts from an opera. In this manner, I constantly caught myself thinking about my security, and repeating the phrase, “I am safe.”

One day, walking along the streets, I stopped myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary words. In a fit of petulance[7], I changed them thus: “I am safe – I am safe – yes – if I am not fool enough to make open confession!”

As soon as I spoke these words, I felt an icy chill creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, (whose nature I have explained), and I remembered well that I had never resisted their attacks successfully. And now my own casual suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder, confronted me, as if the ghost of my victim.

At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I walked vigorously – faster – still faster – at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, I well understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still quickened my pace. I ran like a madman through the crowded streets. At length, the people became alarmed and pursued me. I felt then my fate. A rough voice resounded in my ears – a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned – I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.