Our halloween costumes 2012 books
- the books which, for years, had formed no small
portion of the mental existence of the invalid -
were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of
phantasm. We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et
Chartreuse of
Gresset ;
the Belphegor of Machiavelli ;
the Heaven and Hell of
Swedenborg ;
the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg ;
the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé,
and of De la
Chambre ;
the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck ; and the
City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small
octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorium_,
by the Dominican
Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in
Pomponius Mela, about
the old African Satyrs and Œgipans, over which
Usher would sit
dreaming for hours.
His chief delight, however, was found in the
perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in
quarto Gothic -
the manual of a forgotten church - the _Vigiliae
Mortuorum secundum
Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae_.
I could
not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of
its probable influence upon the hypochondriac,
when, one evening,
having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline
was no more, he
stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight,
(previously to its final interment,) in one of the
numerous vaults
within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however,
assigned for this singular proceeding, was one
which I did not feel
at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution
(so he told me) by consideration of the unusual
character of the
malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and
eager inquiries on
the part of her medical men, and of the remote and
exposed situation
of the burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I
called to mind the sinister countenance of the
person whom I met upon
the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the
house, I had no desire
to oppose what I regarded as at best but a
harmless, and by no means
an unnatural, precaution.
At the
request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we
placed it (and which had been so long unopened that
our torches, half
smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity
for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely
without means of
admission for light ; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath
that portion of the building in which was my own
sleeping apartment.
It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal
times, for the worst
purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a
place of deposit
for powder, or some other highly combustible
substance, as a portion
of its floor, and the whole interior of a long
archway through which
we reached it, were carefully sheathed with
copper. The door, of
massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected.
Its immense weight
caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it
moved upon its hinges.
