The Fall of the House of Usher
"Would you have a car to drive me to Usher's home tonight?"
In this derelict manor, Sir Roderick held his wife Madeline in a strange prison, dominating
by his tyrannical nervousness.
"Oh, no! For all the gold of your Lordship I will not make a step closer to my horse!"
The overwhelming melancholy surrounding Usher seemed supernatural.
"The medicine"
The disease of Lady Madeline, wife of Roderick Usher, had long baffled the skill of her physicians.
A curious heredity urged each Usher to passionately devote himself to painting
a portrait of his wife.
"This is where she is alive!"
"Dear Roderick, you burn with fever!"
"His Grace is feeling tired and prays that you excuse his absence from the table."
"This is where she is alive!"
The strange passion to paint seizes Roderick again.
He thought only of being alone with Madeline, his unique model.
How to dismiss the now unwelcome visitor?
Twisted as if by a storm, the family tree of Usher threatened the last survivor of
the race, Roderick, with the most fatal genes.
"Your concern touches me, my only friend. But take care of yourself as well.
A short walk will do you good before rest."
Roderick's brush was like a magic wand. With each stroke the portrait became
more lively, but Madeline grew more pale.
The young woman seemed to give the painted image the forces she had lost.
"In truth, it is life itself!"
Haunted by all the mysteries, Roderick had long meditated the theories of Magnetism.
"I tell you, Doctor! She can't be dead!"
"She will not leave me! We bury her right here!"
"I forbid..... Do you hear, I forbid you to nail it shut.."
Since the burial of Madeline, hours, days passed in a frightening monotony,
in an overwhelming silence.
Every nerve tensed, Roderick seems to watch some unknown sign.
The slightest noise exasperates him..........
Roderick dare not repeat this mad force that suffocates him....
.....Madeline...
The night promised to be stormy and charged with electricity.
"There is a two-fold Silence; one is the corporate Silence; dread him not.
But should some urgent fate bring thee to meet his shadow, nameless elf that haunteth
the lone regions where hath trod no foot of man... commend thyself to God!"
"Do you hear him now?!"
"Roderick, you should not see this! Come distract yourself instead with some reading."
"And Ethelred uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the
plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily,
he so cracked, and ripped...
"And Ethelred threw his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which
fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh,
and withal so piercing..."
"And the brave champion now approached valorously over the silver pavement of
the castle to where the shield was upon the wall, which in sooth, tarried not for his
full coming, but fell down at his feet with a mighty great and terrible..."
"We've buried her alive in the tomb!"
THE END