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{{1842-02:
}}  YE who read
are still
among
the living {{1840-01: , // 1842-02:
; }} but I who write shall have long since gone my way
into the
region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret
things
be known, and many centuries shall pass away ere these memorials be
seen
of men. And when seen there will be some to disbelieve, and some to
doubt,
and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here
graven with a stylus of iron. The year had been a year of terror,
and of
feelings
more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For
many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea
and
land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those,
nevertheless,
cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an
aspect
of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that
now
had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth
year
when, at the entrance of Aries, the [page 154:]
planet
Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The
peculiar
spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest,
not
only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations,
and meditations of mankind. Over some flasks of the red Chian
wine, within
the
walls of a noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at
night,
a company of seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a
lofty door of brass: and the door was fashioned by the artizan
Corinnos,
and, being of rare workmanship, was fastened from within. Black
draperies,
likewise, in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the
lurid
stars, and the peopleless streets — but the boding and the memory of
Evil,
they would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of
which I can render no distinct account — things material and spiritual {{1840-01: .
Heaviness // 1842-02: — heaviness }} in the
atmosphere — a sense of suffocation — anxiety — and
above
all, that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when
the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of
thought
lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs — upon
the household furniture — upon the goblets from which we drank; and all
things were depressed, and borne down thereby — all things save only
the
flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel. Uprearing
themselves
in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained burning all pallid
and
motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre formed [page
155:] upon the round table of ebony at which we sat, each of
us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the
unquiet
glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were
merry
in our proper way — which was hysterical; and sang the songs of
Anacreon
— which are madness; and drank deeply — although the purple wine
reminded
us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in the
person
of young Zoilus. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded — the
genius
and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save
that his countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes in which
Death had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to
take
such interest in our merriment as the dead may haply take in the
merriment
of those who are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of
the
departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the
bitterness
of their expression, and, gazing down steadily into the depths of the
ebony
mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the son of
Teios.
But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off
among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and
indistinguishable,
and so fainted away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the
sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined
shadow
— a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the
figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man, nor of God, nor
of any [page 156:] familiar thing. And quivering
awhile
among the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon
the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and
formless,
and indefinitive, and was the shadow neither of man nor God — neither
God
of Greece, nor God of Chaldæa, nor any Egyptian God. And the
shadow
rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature
of
the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became
stationary
and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I
remember
aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded. But we,
the
seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out from among
the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes,
and
gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length
I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling
and its appellation. And the shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my
dwelling
is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of
Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then did we,
the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and
shuddering,
and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones
of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their
cadences
from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well
remembered
and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends. |
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