Chapter 25 (1)

We now found ourselves in the wide and desolate Antarctic Ocean,
in a latitude exceeding eighty-four degrees, in a frail canoe,
and with no provision but the three turtles. The long polar
winter, too, could not be considered as far distant, and it
became necessary that we should deliberate well upon the course
to be pursued. There were six or seven islands in sight belonging
to the same group, and distant from each other about five or six
leagues; but upon neither of these had we any intention to
venture. In coming from the northward in the _Jane Guy_ we had
been gradually leaving behind us the severest regions of
ice—this, however little it maybe in accordance with the
generally received notions respecting the Antarctic, was a
fact—experience would not permit us to deny. To attempt,
therefore, getting back would be folly—especially at so late a
period of the season. Only one course seemed to be left open for
hope. We resolved to steer boldly to the southward, where there
was at least a probability of discovering other lands, and more
than a probability of finding a still milder climate.

So far we had found the Antarctic, like the Arctic Ocean,
peculiarly free from violent storms or immoderately rough water;
but our canoe was, at best, of frail structure, although large,
and we set busily to work with a view of rendering her as safe as
the limited means in our possession would admit. The body of the
boat was of no better material than bark—the bark of a tree
unknown. The ribs were of a tough osier, well adapted to the
purpose for which it was used. We had fifty feet room from stem
to stern, from four to six in breadth, and in depth throughout
four feet and a half-the boats thus differing vastly in shape
from those of any other inhabitants of the Southern Ocean with
whom civilized nations are acquainted. We never did believe them
the workmanship of the ignorant islanders who owned them; and
some days after this period discovered, by questioning our
captive, that they were in fact made by the natives of a group to
the southwest of the country where we found them, having fallen
accidentally into the hands of our barbarians. What we could do
for the security of our boat was very little indeed. Several wide
rents were discovered near both ends, and these we contrived to
patch up with pieces of woollen jacket. With the help of the
superfluous paddles, of which there were a great many, we erected
a kind of framework about the bow, so as to break the force of
any seas which might threaten to fill us in that quarter. We also
set up two paddle-blades for masts, placing them opposite each
other, one by each gunwale, thus saving the necessity of a yard.
To these masts we attached a sail made of our shirts-doing this
with some difficulty, as here we could get no assistance from our
prisoner whatever, although he had been willing enough to labor
in all the other operations. The sight of the linen seemed to
affect him in a very singular manner. He could not be prevailed
upon to touch it or go near it, shuddering when we attempted to
force him, and shrieking out, _“Tekeli-li!”_

Having completed our arrangements in regard to the security of
the canoe, we now set sail to the south-southeast for the
present, with the view of weathering the most southerly of the
group in sight. This being done, we turned the bow full to the
southward. The weather could by no means be considered
disagreeable. We had a prevailing and very gentle wind from the
northward, a smooth sea, and continual daylight. No ice whatever
was to be seen; _nor did I ever see one particle of this after
leaving the parallel of Bennet’s Islet._Indeed, the temperature
of the water was here far too warm for its existence in any
quantity. Having killed the largest of our tortoises, and
obtained from him not only food but a copious supply of water, we
continued on our course, without any incident of moment, for
perhaps seven or eight days, during which period we must have
proceeded a vast distance to the southward, as the wind blew
constantly with us, and a very strong current set continually in
the direction we were pursuing.

_March 1st_. {*7}-Many unusual phenomena now—indicated that we
were entering upon a region of novelty and wonder. A high range
of light gray vapor appeared constantly in the southern horizon,
flaring up occasionally in lofty streaks, now darting from east
to west, now from west to east, and again presenting a level and
uniform summit—in short, having all the wild variations of the
Aurora Borealis. The average height of this vapor, as apparent
from our station, was about twenty-five degrees. The temperature
of the sea seemed to be increasing momentarily, and there was a
very perceptible alteration in its color.

_March 2d._-To-day by repeated questioning of our captive, we
came to the knowledge of many particulars in regard to the island
of the massacre, its inhabitants, and customs—but with these how
can I now detain the reader? I may say, however, that we learned
there were eight islands in the group—that they were governed by
a common king, named _Tsalemon_or _Psalemoun,_who resided in one
of the smallest of the islands; that the black skins forming the
dress of the warriors came from an animal of huge size to be
found only in a valley near the court of the king—that the
inhabitants of the group fabricated no other boats than the
flat-bottomed rafts; the four canoes being all of the kind in
their possession, and, these having been obtained, by mere
accident, from some large island in the southwest—that his own
name was Nu-Nu—that he had no knowledge of Bennet’s Islet—and
that the appellation of the island he had left was Tsalal. The
commencement of the words _Tsalemon_and Tsalal was given with a
prolonged hissing sound, which we found it impossible to imitate,
even after repeated endeavors, and which was precisely the same
with the note of the black bittern we had eaten up on the summit
of the hill.

_March 3d._-The heat of the water was now truly remarkable, and
in color was undergoing a rapid change, being no longer
transparent, but of a milky consistency and hue. In our immediate
vicinity it was usually smooth, never so rough as to endanger the
canoe—but we were frequently surprised at perceiving, to our
right and left, at different distances, sudden and extensive
agitations of the surface; these, we at length noticed, were
always preceded by wild flickerings in the region of vapor to the
southward.

_March 4th._-To-day, with the view of widening our sail, the
breeze from the northward dying away perceptibly, I took from my
coat-pocket a white handkerchief. Nu-Nu was seated at my elbow,
and the linen accidentally flaring in his face, he became
violently affected with convulsions. These were succeeded by
drowsiness and stupor, and low murmurings of _“‘Tekeli-li!
Tekeli-li!”_

_March_5th.-The wind had entirely ceased, but it was evident that
we were still hurrying on to the southward, under the influence
of a powerful current. And now,—indeed, it would seem reasonable
that we should experience some alarm at the turn events were
taking—but we felt none. The countenance of Peters indicated
nothing of this nature, although it wore at times an expression I
could not fathom. The polar winter appeared to be coming on—but
coming without its terrors. I felt a numbness of body and mind—a
dreaminess of sensation but this was all.

_March 6th._-The gray vapor had now arisen many more degrees
above the horizon, and was gradually losing its grayness of tint.
The heat of the water was extreme, even unpleasant to the touch,
and its milky hue was more evident than ever. Today a violent
agitation of the water occurred very close to the canoe. It was
attended, as usual, with a wild flaring up of the vapor at its
summit, and a momentary division at its base. A fine white
powder, resembling ashes—but certainly not such—fell over the
canoe and over a large surface of the water, as the flickering
died away among the vapor and the commotion subsided in the sea.
Nu-Nu now threw himself on his face in the bottom of the boat,
and no persuasions could induce him to arise.

_March 7th._-This day we questioned Nu-Nu concerning the motives
of his countrymen in destroying our companions; but he appeared
to be too utterly overcome by terror to afford us any rational
reply. He still obstinately lay in the bottom of the boat; and,
upon reiterating the questions as to the motive, made use only of
idiotic gesticulations, such as raising with his forefinger the
upper lip, and displaying the teeth which lay beneath it. These
were black. We had never before seen the teeth of an inhabitant
of Tsalal.

_March 8th._-To-day there floated by us one of the white animals
whose appearance upon the beach at Tsalal had occasioned so wild
a commotion among the savages. I would have picked it up, but
there came over me a sudden listlessness, and I forbore. The heat
of the water still increased, and the hand could no longer be
endured within it. Peters spoke little, and I knew not what to
think of his apathy. Nu-Nu breathed, and no more.

_March 9th._-The whole ashy material fell now continually around
us, and in vast quantities. The range of vapor to the southward
had arisen prodigiously in the horizon, and began to assume more
distinctness of form. I can liken it to nothing but a limitless
cataract, rolling silently into the sea from some immense and
far-distant rampart in the heaven. The gigantic curtain ranged
along the whole extent of the southern horizon. It emitted no
sound.

_March 21st._-A sullen darkness now hovered above us—but from out
the milky depths of the ocean a luminous glare arose, and stole
up along the bulwarks of the boat. We were nearly overwhelmed by
the white ashy shower which settled upon us and upon the canoe,
but melted into the water as it fell. The summit of the cataract
was utterly lost in the dimness and the distance. Yet we were
evidently approaching it with a hideous velocity. At intervals
there were visible in it wide, yawning, but momentary rents, and
from out these rents, within which was a chaos of flitting and
indistinct images, there came rushing and mighty, but soundless
winds, tearing up the enkindled ocean in their course.

_March 22d._-The darkness had materially increased, relieved only
by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain
before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew
continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the
eternal _Tekeli-li!_as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon
Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but upon touching him we
found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of
the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But
there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far
larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue
of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the
snow.

NOTE

THE circumstances connected with the late sudden and distressing
death of Mr. Pym are already well known to the public through the
medium of the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining
chapters which were to have completed his narrative, and which
were retained by him, while the above were in type, for the
purpose of revision, have been irrecoverably lost through the
accident by which he perished himself. This, however, may prove
not to be the case, and the papers, if ultimately found, will be
given to the public.

No means have been left untried to remedy the deficiency. The
gentleman whose name is mentioned in the preface, and who, from
the statement there made, might be supposed able to fill the
vacuum, has declined the task—this, for satisfactory reasons
connected with the general inaccuracy of the details afforded
him, and his disbelief in the entire truth of the latter portions
of the narration. Peters, from whom some information might be
expected, is still alive, and a resident of Illinois, but cannot
be met with at present. He may hereafter be found, and will, no
doubt, afford material for a conclusion of Mr. Pym’s account.

The loss of two or three final chapters (for there were but two
or three) is the more deeply to be regretted, as it can not be
doubted they contained matter relative to the Pole itself, or at
least to regions in its very near proximity; and as, too, the
statements of the author in relation to these regions may shortly
be verified or contradicted by means of the governmental
expedition now preparing for the Southern Ocean.

On one point in the narrative some remarks may well be offered;
and it would afford the writer of this appendix much pleasure if
what he may here observe should have a tendency to throw credit,
in any degree, upon the very singular pages now published. We
allude to the chasms found in the island of Tsalal, and to the
whole of the figures upon pages 245-47 {of the printed
edition—ed.}.

(Note: No figures were included with this text)

Mr. Pym has given the figures of the chasms without comment, and
speaks decidedly of the _indentures_found at the extremity of the
most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful
resemblance to alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being
positively _not such. _This assertion is made in a manner so
simple, and sustained by a species of demonstration so conclusive
(viz., the fitting of the projections of the fragments found
among the dust into the indentures upon the wall), that we are
forced to believe the writer in earnest; and no reasonable reader
should suppose otherwise. But as the facts in relation to all the
figures are most singular (especially when taken in connection
with statements made in the body of the narrative), it may be as
well to say a word or two concerning them all—this, too, the more
especially as the facts in question have, beyond doubt, escaped
the attention of Mr. Poe.

Figure 1, then, figure 2, figure 3, and figure 5, when conjoined
with one another in the precise order which the chasms themselves
presented, and when deprived of the small lateral branches or
arches (which, it will be remembered, served only as a means of
communication between the main chambers, and were of totally
distinct character), constitute an Ethiopian verbal root—the root
“To be shady,’—whence all the inflections of shadow or darkness.

In regard to the “left or most northwardly” of the indentures in
figure 4, it is more than probable that the opinion of Peters was
correct, and that the hieroglyphical appearance was really the
work of art, and intended as the representation of a human form.
The delineation is before the reader, and he may, or may not,
perceive the resemblance suggested; but the rest of the
indentures afford strong confirmation of Peters’ idea. The upper
range is evidently the Arabic verbal root “To be white,” whence
all the inflections of brilliancy and whiteness. The lower range
is not so immediately perspicuous. The characters are somewhat
broken and disjointed; nevertheless, it can not be doubted that,
in their perfect state, they formed the full Egyptian word, “The
region of the south.” It should be observed that these
interpretations confirm the opinion of Peters in regard to the
“most northwardly” of the figures. The arm is outstretched toward
the south.

Conclusions such as these open a wide field for speculation and
exciting conjecture. They should be regarded, perhaps, in
connection with some of the most faintly detailed incidents of
the narrative; although in no visible manner is this chain of
connection complete. Tekeli-li! was the cry of the affrighted
natives of Tsalal upon discovering the carcase of the
_white_animal picked up at sea. This also was the shuddering
exclamatives of Tsalal upon discovering the carcass of the
_white_materials in possession of Mr. Pym. This also was the
shriek of the swift-flying, _white, _and gigantic birds which
issued from the vapory _white_curtain of the South. Nothing
_white_was to be found at Tsalal, and nothing otherwise in the
subsequent voyage to the region beyond. It is not impossible that
“Tsalal,” the appellation of the island of the chasms, may be
found, upon minute philological scrutiny, to betray either some
alliance with the chasms themselves, or some reference to the
Ethiopian characters so mysteriously written in their windings.

_“I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the
dust within the rock.”_

NOTES TO THE THIRD VOLUME

{*1} Whaling vessels are usually fitted with iron oil-tanks—why
the _Grampus_ was not I have never been able to ascertain.

{*2} The case of the brig _Polly_, of Boston, is one so much in
point, and her fate, in many respects, so remarkably similar to
our own, that I cannot forbear alluding to it here. This vessel,
of one hundred and thirty tons burden, sailed from Boston, with a
cargo of lumber and provisions, for Santa Croix, on the twelfth
of December, 1811, under the command of Captain Casneau. There
were eight souls on board besides the captain—the mate, four
seamen, and the cook, together with a Mr. Hunt, and a negro girl
belonging to him. On the fifteenth, having cleared the shoal of
Georges, she sprung a leak in a gale of wind from the southeast,
and was finally capsized; but, the masts going by the board, she
afterward righted. They remained in this situation, without fire,
and with very little provision, for the period of one hundred and
ninety-one days (from December the fifteenth to June the
twentieth), when Captain Casneau and Samuel Badger, the only
survivors, were taken off the wreck by the Fame, of Hull, Captain
Featherstone, bound home from Rio Janeiro. When picked up, they
were in latitude 28 degrees N., longitude 13 degrees W., having
drifted above two thousand miles! On the ninth of July the Fame
fell in with the brig Dromero, Captain Perkins, who landed the
two sufferers in Kennebeck. The narrative from which we gather
these details ends in the following words:

“It is natural to inquire how they could float such a vast
distance, upon the most frequented part of the Atlantic, and not
be discovered all this time. They were passed by more than a
dozen sail, one of which came so nigh them that they could
distinctly see the people on deck and on the rigging looking at
them; but, to the inexpressible disappointment of the starving
and freezing men, they stifled the dictates of compassion,
hoisted sail, and cruelly abandoned them to their fate.”

{*3} Among the vessels which at various times have professed to
meet with the Auroras may be mentioned the ship San Miguel, in
1769; the ship Aurora, in 1774; the brig Pearl, in 1779; and the
ship Dolores, in 1790. They all agree in giving the mean latitude
fifty-three degrees south.

{*4} The terms morning and evening, which I have made use of to
avoid confusion in my narrative, as far as possible, must not, of
course, be taken in their ordinary sense. For a long time past we
had had no night at all, the daylight being continual. The dates
throughout are according to nautical time, and the bearing must
be understood as per compass. I would also remark, in this place,
that I cannot, in the first portion of what is here written,
pretend to strict accuracy in respect to dates, or latitudes and
longitudes, having kept no regular journal until after the period
of which this first portion treats. In many instances I have
relied altogether upon memory.

{*5} This day was rendered remarkable by our observing in the
south several huge wreaths of the grayish vapour I have spoken
of.

{*6} The marl was also black; indeed, we noticed no light colored
substances of any kind upon the island.

{*7}For obvious reasons I cannot pretend to strict accuracy in
these dates. They are given principally with a view to perspicity
of narrative, and as set down in my pencil memorandum.

LIGEIA

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great
will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth
not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save
only through the weakness of his feeble will.—_Joseph Glanvill_.

I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely
where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years
have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much
suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind,
because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare
learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the
thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language,
made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily
progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I
believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large,
old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family—I have surely
heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be
doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than
all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it
is by that sweet word alone—by Ligeia—that I bring before mine
eyes in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I
write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the
paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who
became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my
bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was
it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no
inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own—a
wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate
devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself—what wonder
that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated
or attended it? And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is
entitled _Romance_—if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged
_Ashtophet_ of idolatrous 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 fails me
not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall,
somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I
would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of
her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of
her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made
aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music
of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my
shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was
the radiance of an opium-dream—an airy and spirit-lifting vision
more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the
slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were
not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to
worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “There is no
exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of
all the forms and genera of beauty, “without some strangeness in
the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia
were not of a classic regularity—although I perceived that her
loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt that there was much
of “strangeness” pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect
the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of “the
strange.” I examined the contour of the lofty and pale
forehead—it was faultless—how cold indeed that word when applied
to a majesty so divine!—the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the
commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the
regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy,
the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the
full force of the Homeric epithet, “hyacinthine!” I looked at the
delicate outlines of the nose—and nowhere but in the graceful
medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection.
There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same
scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same
harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded
the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things
heavenly—the magnificent turn of the short upper lip—the soft,
voluptuous slumber of the under—the dimples which sported, and
the color which spoke—the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy
almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell upon
them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all
smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin—and here, too, I
found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and the majesty,
the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek—the contour which
the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of
the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.

For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have
been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to
which Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger
than the ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller
than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley
of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervals—in moments of intense
excitement—that this peculiarity became more than slightly
noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was her beauty—in my
heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps—the beauty of beings either
above or apart from the earth—the beauty of the fabulous Houri of
the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,
and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows,
slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The
“strangeness,” however, which I found in the eyes, was of a
nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the
brilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to
the expression. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast
latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of
the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long
hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a
midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it—that
something more profound than the well of Democritus—which lay far
within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I was possessed
with a passion to discover. Those eyes! those large, those
shining, those divine orbs! they became to me twin stars of Leda,
and I to them devoutest of astrologers.

There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of
the science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the
fact—never, I believe, noticed in the schools—that, in our
endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often
find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being
able, in the end, to remember. And thus how frequently, in my
intense scrutiny of Ligeia’s eyes, have I felt approaching the
full knowledge of their expression—felt it approaching—yet not
quite be mine—and so at length entirely depart! And (strange, oh
strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest objects of
the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I mean to
say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia’s beauty passed
into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from
many existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt
always aroused within me by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not
the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even
steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in
the survey of a rapidly-growing vine—in the contemplation of a
moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have
felt it in the ocean—in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it
in the glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two
stars in heaven—(one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude,
double and changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra)
in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the
feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from
stringed instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from
books. Among innumerable other instances, I well remember
something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely
from its quaintness—who shall say?) never failed to inspire me
with the sentiment: “And the will therein lieth, which dieth not.
Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is
but a great will pervading all things by nature of its
intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death
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
English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An
intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a
result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which,
during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more
immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom I have
ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was
the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern
passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by
the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted
and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation,
distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the
fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her
manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually
uttered.

I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense—such as I
have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she
deeply proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in
regard to the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her
at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because
simply the most abstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy,
have I ever found Ligeia at fault? How singularly—how
thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife has forced
itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said her
knowledge was such as I have never known in woman—but where
breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the
wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw
not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of
Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently
aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a
child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world
of metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied
during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a
triumph—with how 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
expanding before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden
path, I might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too
divinely precious not to be forbidden!

How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after
some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to
themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child
groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered
vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in
which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes,
letters, lambent and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And
now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over
which I pored. Ligeia grew 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 sank impetuously with the tides of the
gentle emotion. I saw that she must die—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 stern nature to impress
me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without
its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey any just
idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with
the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I
would have soothed—I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity
of her wild desire for life,—for life—but for life—solace and
reason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the last instance,
amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was
shaken the external placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew
more gentle—grew more low—yet I would not wish to dwell upon the
wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I
hearkened, entranced, to a melody more than mortal—to assumptions
and aspirations which mortality had never before known.

That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have
been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have
reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully
impressed with the strength of her affection. For long hours,
detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing
of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to
idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such
confessions?—how had I deserved to be so cursed 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, that in
Ligeia’s more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all
unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the
principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the
life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild
longing—it is this eager vehemence of desire for life—but for
life—that I have 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
composed by 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 go
At 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, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

“O God!” half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending
her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of
these lines—“O God! O Divine Father!—shall these things be
undeviatingly so?—shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are
we not part and parcel in Thee? Who—who knoweth the mysteries of
the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels,
nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his
feeble will.”

And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white
arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as
she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low
murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished,
again, the concluding words of the passage in Glanvill—“Man doth
not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only
through the weakness of his feeble will.”

She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no
longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and
decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls
wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than
ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months,
therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I purchased, and put
in some repair, an abbey, which I shall not name, in one of the
wildest and least frequented portions of fair England. The gloomy
and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of
the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored memories
connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of
utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and
unsocial region of the country. Yet although the external abbey,
with its verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but little
alteration, I gave way, with a child-like perversity, and
perchance with a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a
display of more than regal magnificence within. For such follies,
even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste and now they came back
to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even of
incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and
fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild
cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of
tufted gold! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of
opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my
dreams. But these absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me
speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, whither in a
moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar as my bride—as
the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia—the fair-haired and
blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine.

There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration
of that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me. Where
were the souls of the haughty family of the bride, when, through
thirst of gold, they permitted to pass the threshold of an
apartment so bedecked, a maiden and a daughter so beloved? I have
said that I minutely remember the details of the chamber—yet I am
sadly forgetful 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, was pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying
the whole southern face of the pentagon was the sole window—an
immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice—a single pane, and
tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or
moon, passing through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the
objects within. Over the upper portion of this huge window,
extended the trellice-work of an aged vine, which clambered up
the massy walls of the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-looking
oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with
the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic,
semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of this
melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with
long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in
pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there
writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality,
a continual succession of parti-colored fires.

Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were
in various stations about—and there was the couch, too—bridal
couch—of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony,
with a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the
chamber stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite,
from the tombs of the kings over against Luxor, with their aged
lids full of immemorial 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 vast folds, with a heavy and massive-looking
tapestry—tapestry of a material which was found alike as a carpet
on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed,
as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the
curtains which partially shaded the window. The material was the
richest cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular
intervals, with arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and
wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black. But
these figures partook of the true character of the arabesque only
when regarded from a single point of view. By a contrivance now
common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period of
antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering
the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but
upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and
step by step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he
saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly
forms which belong to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in
the guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was
vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong
continual current of wind behind the draperies—giving a hideous
and uneasy animation to the whole.

In halls such as these—in a bridal chamber such as this—I passed,
with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first
month of our marriage—passed them with but little disquietude.
That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper—that she
shunned me and loved me but little—I could not help perceiving;
but it gave me rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with
a hatred 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 her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her
ethereal nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now,
then, did my spirit fully and freely burn with more than all the
fires of her own. In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was
habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug) I would call
aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night, or among
the sheltered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the
wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the consuming ardor of my
longing for the departed, I could restore her to the pathway she
had abandoned—ah, could it be forever?—upon the earth.

About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the
Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her
recovery was slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her
nights uneasy; and in her perturbed state of half-slumber, she
spoke of sounds, and of motions, in and about the chamber of the
turret, which I concluded had no origin save in the distemper of
her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric influences of the
chamber itself. She became at length convalescent—finally well.
Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a second more violent
disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this
attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether
recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming
character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the
increase of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken
too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human
means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the
nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by
trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently
and pertinaciously, of the sounds—of the slight sounds—and of the
unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly
alluded.

One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my
attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I
had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague
terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the
side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She
partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low whisper, of sounds
which she then heard, but which I could not hear—of motions which
she then saw, but which I could not perceive. The wind was
rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to show her
(what, let me confess it, I could not all believe) that those
almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations
of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of
that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,
overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to
reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and
no attendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited
a decanter of light wine which had been ordered by her
physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it. But,
as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two circumstances
of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt that
some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my
person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the
very middle of the rich lustre thrown from the censer, a shadow—a
faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect—such as might be
fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the
excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these
things but little, nor spoke of them to Rowena. Having found the
wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured out a gobletful, which
I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now partially
recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank
upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person.
It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall
upon the carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter,
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 if
from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three
or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If
this I saw—not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly,
and I forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after
all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid
imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady,
by the opium, and by the hour.

Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately
subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the
worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the
third subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for
the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body,
in that fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride.
Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me.
I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the
room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the
writhing of the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My
eyes then fell, as I called to mind the circumstances of a former
night, to the spot beneath the glare of the censer where I had
seen the faint traces of the shadow. It was there, however, no
longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I turned my glances
to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon me
a thousand memories of Ligeia—and then came back upon my heart,
with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
unutterable woe with which I had regarded her thus enshrouded.
The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts
of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the
body of Rowena.

It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I
had taken 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 of ebony—the bed of death. I listened in an agony of
superstitious terror—but there was no repetition of the sound. I
strained my vision to detect any motion in the corpse—but there
was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been
deceived. I had heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was
awakened within me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my
attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any
circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the mystery. At
length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and barely
noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality
has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease
to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty
finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could no longer
doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations—that
Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion
be made; yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of
the abbey tenanted by the servants—there were none within call—I
had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room
for many minutes—and this I could not venture to do. I therefore
struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill
hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a
relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid
and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly
expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness
overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual
rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a
shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly
aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions of
Ligeia.

An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second
time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the
bed. I listened—in extremity of horror. The sound came again—it
was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw—distinctly saw—a tremor
upon the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a
bright line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my
bosom with the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there
alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered;
and it was only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in
nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had pointed
out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame;
there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady lived;
and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of
restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands, and
used every exertion which experience, and no little medical
reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled,
the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the
dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon
itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity,
the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that
which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.