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CHARACTERS
RODERICK USHER
MADELINE, his sister
EDGAR, his friend
DOCTOR
The action takes place in the House of Usher
The time is the early Nineteenth Century
ACT ONE
SCENE 1
(The action throughout is set in RODERICK USHER'S STUDIO. It is a large and lofty room. The windows are long, narrow and
pointed. Feeble gleams of light make their way through the trellised panes. The eye struggles in vain to reach the remoter
recesses of the chamber. The furniture is comfortless, antique and tattered. An easel with a canvas on it stands in a corner.
Many books and musical instruments lie scattered about.
Evening. RODERICK USHER is seated with his eyes closed as if asleep. He wears a velvet dressing-gown, which looks,
like everything else in the house, as if years of decay have taken their toll. He is a young man in his mid twenties, but his
pale, cadaverous complexion makes him look a lot older. Silence. After a moment he calls out.)
RODERICK: Come in, doctor.
(The door opens and the DOCTOR enters.)
DOCTOR: How did you ...?
RODERICK: Know you were there?
DOCTOR: I was about to knock, sir.
RODERICK: I heard you leave my sister's room.
DOCTOR: But that's ...
RODERICK: Impossible?
DOCTOR: Incredible.
RODERICK: (Motions him to sit.) How is she, doctor?
DOCTOR: Alive, sir. Recovering. Recovering remarkably quickly.
RODERICK: Poor Madeline. She was so cold - no pulse - no breath.
DOCTOR: I have never seen the like before.
RODERICK: What is your diagnosis, doctor?
DOCTOR: It is unusual - most unusual. I have read of such cases, but I have no experience of them, sir. No personal
experience. I can only surmise.
RODERICK: Well? As you surmise?
DOCTOR: I would say, sir, that Miss Usher suffers from transient affections of a partially cataleptical character.
RODERICK: Catalepsy!
DOCTOR: Yes, sir. The patient presents all the ordinary appearances of death while still alive.
RODERICK: The living death. So - it begins.
DOCTOR: Begins, sir? What begins?
RODERICK: The work of the destroyer.
DOCTOR: The destroyer? What do you mean, sir? What do you mean?
RODERICK: Doctor, I know that you are comparatively new to the area, but you are not entirely ignorant of our family's history?
DOCTOR: I have heard stories, sir. Gossip and rumour. Nothing but idle gossip and rumour. I pay little heed to them.
RODERICK: Our father hanged himself. Our grandfather poisoned our grandmother, then drowned himself in the black
waters of the tarn. Madness, murder and suicide have, time out of mind, haunted the House of Usher. Through long ages,
each generation has played out its own horror, its own tragedy. I pray that the line might end with me and Madeline.
(With sudden horror.) She could have been buried alive!
DOCTOR: Oh, no, sir!
RODERICK: The boundaries which divide life from death are at best vague. Who shall say where the one ends and the other
begins? You saw her dead, doctor.
DOCTOR: And then pronounced her restored, sir - restored to life. Her disease is but a temporary pause in the incomprehensible
mechanism. A certain period elapses, and then some unseen, mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and
the wizard wheels.
RODERICK: The silver cord is not for ever loosened, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken.
DOCTOR: Exactly so, sir.
RODERICK: But where, meantime, is the soul?
DOCTOR: Such metaphysical speculations are beyond the realms of medical science, sir.
RODERICK: To be buried alive must be the most terrible of the extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality!
DOCTOR: I ... I do believe that some such cases of suspended animation have given rise, now and then, on very rare occasions,
to premature interments.
RODERICK: Buried alive! (He shows increasing signs of nervous agitation at the horror of the vision.) The blackness of absolute
night - the stifling fumes of the damp earth - the unendurable oppression of the lungs - the clinging garments of death - the rigid
embrace of the tomb - the silence like a sea that overwhelms - the unseen presence of the conqueror worm!
DOCTOR: Calm yourself, sir! Calm yourself!
RODERICK: There can be nothing so agonising upon earth - nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost hell!
DOCTOR: The manifestations of the malady are unequivocal, sir. There can be no danger of premature interment for Miss
Usher. Not now that we know.
RODERICK: (Recovering himself.) You are right, of course, doctor. Forgive me. Will you take a glass of wine?
DOCTOR: Thank you, sir, how very generous. Indeed I will. Thank you.
(RODERICK pours two glasses of red wine from a decanter by his chair and hands one to the DOCTOR.)
RODERICK: Does Madeline know what afflicts her?
DOCTOR: Oh, no, sir, no, no, no. She believes she simply swooned - I thought it best.
RODERICK: Good. I think she should continue in that belief. The knowledge of her true condition would be insupportable to her.
I alone will bear the burden. But what can be done to cure her, doctor?
DOCTOR: It is beyond the powers of medical science, sir. The obvious and apparent character of the disease is understood,
but its immediate and predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, are still a mystery.
RODERICK: There must be something we can do.
DOCTOR: A change of air, perhaps?
RODERICK: Impossible.
DOCTOR: This house is so cold, so damp. Forgive me for saying so, sir, but it does not seem ... a healthy place.
RODERICK: It reeks of decay, you mean?
DOCTOR: Exactly so, sir. It has about it the odour of old woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault.
RODERICK: The House of Usher is centuries old. Yet it still stands firm.
DOCTOR: But the fabric of the building, sir, the individual stones - they crumble and decay.
RODERICK: No portion of the masonry has ever fallen.
DOCTOR: On my way here today, sir, I observed a crack in the wall.
RODERICK: It is nothing. It is barely perceptible.
DOCTOR: But a fissure which extends from the roof to the very foundations, sir - it betokens instability.
RODERICK: It betokens, age, doctor, nothing more.
DOCTOR: But the atmosphere, sir, the atmosphere. It has no affinity with the air of heaven. I beg you, sir, I beg you to
let your sister leave.
RODERICK: It cannot be.
DOCTOR: She needs company, sir. Life and light and laughter. Where will she find them here?
RODERICK: She cannot leave the house of her forefathers.
DOCTOR: She needs companionship, sir.
RODERICK: I provide companionship, doctor.
DOCTOR: Young people of her own age.
RODERICK: I am 'of her own age'.
DOCTOR: You, sir? But I thought ...
RODERICK: I was her senior?
DOCTOR: Yes. By many years.
RODERICK: Madeline and I are twins.
DOCTOR: Twins! But you appear to be so ... um ...
RODERICK: Yes, doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes. Ah ... um .... It seems to me, sir, that you too would benefit from a change of air.
RODERICK: And why is that, doctor?
DOCTOR: Forgive me, sir, but your appearance ... your complexion ...
RODERICK: Yes, doctor? My complexion?
DOCTOR: Well ... it is almost that of a cadaver. Such ghastly pallor of the skin. And your eyes, sir ...
RODERICK: My eyes?
DOCTOR: Luminous beyond belief.
RODERICK: The eyes of a madman?
DOCTOR: No, sir, I did not mean to imply ...
RODERICK: You think me mad, doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, no, sir, no, no, no.
RODERICK: What, then?
DOCTOR: Feverish, sir. These are the symptoms of bodily illness.
RODERICK: And not a disease of the mind? Are you sure, doctor?
DOCTOR: Certain, sir.
RODERICK: How can you be certain? Mental instability has dogged the Ushers for generations. Why should I alone escape
the curse?
DOCTOR: You are the victim of too much brooding, sir. Too much melancholy brooding. Fresh air and physical exercise,
these are the best means of attaining health. Fresh air and exercise. Yes - these will rid you of your morbid fancies.
RODERICK: Are there no medicines, doctor, no potions, no drugs to rid me of my 'morbid fancies' as you call them?
DOCTOR: Well, a little tincture of laudanum might help, sir. I have your regular prescription here. It does encourage sleep.
(He produces a small bottle from his bag and hands it to RODERICK.)
RODERICK: (Staring at the bottle.) 'Sleep, the innocent sleep.'
DOCTOR: Yes, sir, it is a great restorative.
RODERICK: 'Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore nature's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.'
DOCTOR: Exactly so, sir. I could not have expressed it better myself.
RODERICK: No, doctor, I don't suppose you could. (He puts the bottle in a box on the table beside his chair.) Yet arousing
from even the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream.
DOCTOR: But generally, within a few seconds, we cannot remember what we have dreamed.
RODERICK: But sometimes we do recall those images from the gulf beyond.
DOCTOR: True, sir, very true. But such instances are the exception rather than the rule.
RODERICK: Tell me, doctor - how shall we distinguish the shadows of our dreams from those of the tomb?
DOCTOR: Come, come, sir - you grow morbid again. Fresh air and exercise are what you need. A change of air for
you and your sister is what I prescribe - it will be of far more benefit to you than any medicines or drugs.
RODERICK: The destinies of our family have for centuries been moulded by this house, doctor. We cannot break its hold
upon us now.
DOCTOR: This house is but a house, sir. Pack your bags and leave.
RODERICK: Impossible.
DOCTOR: But sir -
RODERICK: No more! Thank you, doctor, for your assistance and your advice. You may go.
DOCTOR: But, sir, Miss Usher -
RODERICK: My sister stays. And so do I. Good evening, doctor.
DOCTOR: As you wish, sir. I have done all that I can. All that I possibly can - under the circumstances. I bid you good evening, sir.
(Exit.)
RODERICK: It cannot continue. The House of Usher must die with us.
(He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. Fade.)
SCENE 2
(Afternoon. RODERICK is standing at the easel, painting. Enter MADELINE. She looks much younger than her brother,
but all her movements are slow and apathetic. She drifts over to the window and looks out.)
RODERICK: Another dull and dreary day.
MADELINE: It is so dark, so silent and oppressive.
RODERICK: It is the autumn of the year.
(MADELINE drifts over to look at RODERICK's painting.)
MADELINE: Your painting - how is it progressing?
RODERICK: Slowly - as always.
MADELINE: How are you today, Roderick?
RODERICK: (He turns to kiss her, then cleans and puts aside his brush.) My porridge tasted of salt.
The dull light tortures my eyes. The slightest sound inspires me with horror. (He goes to sit in his chair.)
MADELINE: (Kneeling beside him and resting her head on his lap.) Always the same.
RODERICK: (He strokes MADELINE's hair very gently, hardly touching it. Their conversation follows a formula which
has been repeated daily for many years.) And you, Madeline, how are you?
MADELINE: The same. An iciness. A sinking. A sickening of the heart.
RODERICK: Always the same. The prostrating power of the destroyer.
MADELINE: Last night I dreamed - and the night before - every night since the day I fainted - the same dream.
RODERICK: Do you recall your dream?
MADELINE: I am immersed in sleep when suddenly there comes an icy hand upon my forehead, and a voice whispers, 'Arise!' within my ear. (She rises and begins to act out the dream, becoming increasingly involved in reliving the experience.)
I sit erect. The darkness is total. I cannot see the figure of him who has aroused me, and whose cold hand now grasps me fiercely by the wrist.
'Who are you?' I ask.
'I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,' replies the voice. 'I was mortal, but I am a fiend. I am merciless, but am pitiful. You feel that I shudder - yet it is not with the chill of the night - of the night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How can you tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear. Come with me into the outer night, and let me unfold to you a spectacle of woe. Behold!'
I look, and the unseen figure, which grasps me by the wrist, has caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind - and from each issues the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I can see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real sleepers are fewer, by many millions, than those who slumber not at all - and there is a feeble struggling - and there is a general and sad unrest - and from out the depths of the countless pits there comes a melancholy rustling from the garments of the buried. And of those who seem tranquilly to repose, I see that a vast number have changed the rigid and uneasy position in which they had been entombed.
And the voice says to me as I gaze, 'Is this not a pitiful sight?'
But before I can find words to reply, the figure has ceased to grasp my wrist, the phosphoric lights expire, and the graves are closed with a sudden violence, while from out them arises a tumult of despairing cries, saying again: 'Is it not - O God! is it not a very pitiful sight?'
RODERICK: (Taking her in his arms and holding her to him.) Madeline! My beloved Madeline!
MADELINE: When I awake I feel that I have been upon the verge of some great secret.
RODERICK: In our dreams, we penetrate among forbidden things.
MADELINE: And afterwards an insufferable gloom pervades my spirit. (The sit down.)
RODERICK: You must forget your dream, my dearest, or it will devour you.
MADELINE; Forget? How can I forget?
RODERICK: You need a change.
MADELINE: A change of air? (Brightening.) The doctor said ...
RODERICK: A change of company.
MADELINE: What company ever comes here? Except the doctor.
RODERICK: I have written to a friend.
MADELINE: What friend?
RODERICK: He was my boon companion in boyhood.
MADELINE: (Showing increased animation.) Your boyhood friend!
RODERICK: The cheerfulness of his society will help to alleviate your malady. And mine.
MADELINE: What is his name?
RODERICK: Edgar. He was my best friend.
MADELINE: Edgar.
RODERICK: My only friend. Many years have passed since our last meeting.
MADELINE: When will he be here?
RODERICK: Perhaps tomorrow. He comes from a distant part of the country.
MADELINE: What fun we shall have. In the evenings we can play games, read plays and stories - dance.
Does your friend dance, Roderick?
RODERICK: I don't know. I think he does. He did when we were younger. But you must not tire yourself, my dear.
You know what the doctor said.
MADELINE: The doctor is a humbug. He does not know what is the matter with me. You said he told you so himself.
RODERICK: You must not overexcite yourself, Madeline.
MADELINE: My brother's friend, coming from a distant part of the country, to dance with me!
(She whirls round in the middle of the room in feverish excitement, watched anxiously by her brother. Suddenly she falters,
staggers and is about to collapse. RODERICK catches her in his arms.)
RODERICK: Madeline! (He embraces her tenderly.) My dearly beloved sister.
MADELINE: It is nothing. A slight dizziness. The excitement. I am all right.
RODERICK: You must sit down. (He leads her to the settee and sits down beside her.) There. Rest.
MADELINE: (Stroking his cheek.) My dearest brother.
RODERICK: 'Thou art that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine -
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers are mine.'
(Slowly his face comes closer to hers, as if to kiss her. Fade.)
SCENE 3
(Afternoon. RODERICK is standing at the easel, painting. Enter MADELINE. She drifts over to the window and looks out.)
RODERICK: Another dull and dreary day.
MADELINE: The clouds hang so low in the heavens. (She drifts over to look at the painting.)
Is it not finished yet?
RODERICK: No, not yet. How are you, Madeline?
MADELINE: The same. Always the same. (RODERICK turns to kiss her.) When will your friend be here?
RODERICK: Perhaps today. (He puts aside his brush and moves over to sit in his chair. MADELINE drifts to the settee and sits.)
Did you sleep in peace, my dear?
MADELINE: No. I was haunted again by the same grim vision of sepulchral terrors.
RODERICK: Always the same.
MADELINE: Will nothing ever free us from this dreary desolation?
(RODERICK turns his head as if he can hear something in the silence.)
RODERICK: Listen!
MADELINE: What is it, Roderick? What do you hear?
RODERICK: A horse.
MADELINE: Your friend! You said he might be here today. (She gets up and runs to look out of the window.) I cannot see him.
RODERICK: You will.
MADELINE: When?
RODERICK: Soon. Very soon.
MADELINE: Did you tell him about me?
RODERICK: No. He knows nothing of you, my dear.
MADELINE: (With increasing animation.) There he is! I can see your friend! He has reigned his horse to the brink of the
tarn. He is young.
RODERICK: He is the same age as me, my dear. Remember? We were at school together.
MADELINE: He is handsome.
RODERICK: No sorrow has yet marred his life.
MADELINE: He is looking up at the house.
RODERICK: The House of Usher. An ancient house.
MADELINE: His face seems troubled.
RODERICK: He looks upon a melancholy sight. Bleak walls with vacant eye-like windows. A few rank sedges and white
trunks of decayed trees. The discoloration of ages. How observant is he, I wonder? Does he perceive the minute fungi that
overspread the whole exterior, and hang in a fine tangled webwork from our eaves?
MADELINE: He is gazing down at the reflection of the house in the tarn.
RODERICK: Inverted images of grey sedge and ghastly tree-stems and vacant, eye-like windows. What shadowy
fancies does he grapple with?
MADELINE: Does he feel the insufferable gloom? The utter depression of soul?
RODERICK: Like the after-dream of a reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil -
an unredeemed dreariness of thought, which no goading of the imagination can torture into aught of the sublime.
MADELINE: He is riding over the causeway to the house. A servant is taking his horse - he is entering the Gothic archway of the
hall. (She moves away from the window, now there is no more to see.)
RODERICK: I hear his steps upon the ebon blackness of the floors. I hear the echoes from the carvings of the vaulted, fretted
ceilings. I hear him brush against the sombre tapestries of the walls. Phantasmagoric armorial trophies rattle as he strides by
them, What fancies do they stir in his imagination? He is here.
(EDGAR enters the room. RODERICK rises to greet him.)
EDGAR: (Uncertain.) Roderick?
RODERICK: Edgar. My friend.
EDGAR: Roderick! (Holding out his hand.)
RODERICK: (Shaking his hand.) I greet you with my usual vivacious warmth.
EDGAR: Which has much in it of the constrained effort of ennui.
RODERICK: But perfectly sincere.
MADELINE: My brother's boyhood friend.
RODERICK: My sister, Madeline. My sole companion for many long years.
EDGAR: Your sister? I never knew you had a sister, Roderick. And such a beautiful sister. (He kisses her hand.)
MADELINE: Please - sit down. You cannot conceive the joy I expect - we both expect - from your visit. (They sit.)
EDGAR: I received your letter three days ago, Roderick.
RODERICK: And you came so quickly.
EDGAR: What a wildly importunate letter it was!
RODERICK: I had such an earnest desire to see you.
EDGAR: No room for hesitation - I obeyed your summons at once.
RODERICK: Thank you, Edgar. (To MADELINE.) As boys at school we were inseparable.
EDGAR: Yet only now do I realise how little I know of you, my friend.
MADELINE: Roderick has always been excessively reserved. (She rises and pours a glass of wine for each of them.)
EDGAR: You have a sister, and I never knew.
RODERICK: Forgive me, my friend.
(MADELINE hands the wine to EDGAR and RODERICK, then sits.)
EDGAR: Thank you.
MADELINE: I saw you approach, Edgar. May I call you Edgar?
EDGAR: Of course ... Madeline.
MADELINE: You stopped by the tarn. What were you thinking?
EDGAR: A ridiculous fancy.
MADELINE: Of what nature?
EDGAR: It was quite unnerving. I imagined there was a peculiar atmosphere that seemed to hang about the mansion -
about the whole domain.
RODERICK: It was not your imagination, Edgar.
MADELINE: It is always with us.
RODERICK: A pestilent and mystic vapour which reeks up from the decayed trees as they sigh in uneasy slumbers, from the
grey and watchful walls and turrets, from the leaden-hued and silent waters of the tarn. These are all but members of one vast,
animate and sentient whole which is the House of Usher.
EDGAR: I know that there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power to affect us with sorrowful
impressions, but you talk as if the house has a life of its own. Surely you do not believe such shadowy fancies? Inanimate
stones do not have a soul.
RODERICK: The analysis of such things lies well beyond our depth.
EDGAR: Perhaps.
RODERICK: But man, in the blindness of his self-esteem, is madly mistaken if he believes that his temporal or future destinies
are of more moment in the universe than the clod of earth which he tills, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason
than that he does not behold it in operation.
EDGAR: Such fancies are tinged with what the everyday world would term the fantastic.
RODERICK: It is a mystery all insoluble. This house has made me what I am - what you see me now. You stare at me, my
friend. Is it with pity or with awe?
EDGAR: I have never seen a man so terribly altered as you, Roderick. Your letter showed evidence of nervous agitation, but I
did not expect ... I hardly recognised you as my friend.
RODERICK: My malady is constitutional - hereditary - a family evil. It arises from generations of inbreeding - cousin marrying
cousin - undeviating transmission from sire to son.
MADELINE: It is an evil for which we despair to find a cure.
EDGAR: How does it display itself?
RODERICK: In a host of unnatural sensations.
MADELINE: For Roderick, it is a morbid acuteness of the senses.
RODERICK: The most insipid food is alone endurable to me.
MADELINE: My brother can wear only garments of the softest texture.
RODERICK: The odours of all flowers are oppressive to me, and my eyes are tortured by even a faint light.
MADELINE: Only the most delicate sounds from stringed instruments do not inspire him with horror.
RODERICK: (He rises and paces about with excessive nervous agitation.) I dread the events of the future.
EDGAR: But why?
RODERICK: Not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may
operate upon the intolerable agitation of my soul. I have no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.
EDGAR: The consciousness of terror serves but to accelerate its increase. Such is the paradoxical law of all such sentiments.
RODERICK: I shall perish. I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost.
MADELINE: No, Roderick!
RODERICK: In this unnerved - in this pitiable condition - I feel that the moment will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon
life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, fear.
MADELINE: There is nothing to fear, beloved brother. I am here. (She seats him in his chair.)
EDGAR: You must leave this house.
RODERICK: Never. I cannot. I am enchained.
EDGAR: By what? You must not be a slave to superstition.
RODERICK: Only here can I exist - in the House of Usher. It is my life. The grey walls are my flesh - the grim tarn is my
blood - this room is my heart.
EDGAR: Their gloom afflicts you. The pestilent vapours from the tarn seep into your body and your mind. They are destroying
you, Roderick. Free yourself from them and you will soon be well.
MADELINE: (Moving to sit near EDGAR.) Your presence, Edgar, will alleviate my brother's melancholy.
You will cheer us both.
RODERICK: It is futile to attempt to cheer a mind from which darkness pours forth upon all objects of the moral and
physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom.
EDGAR: You must leave this house. You both must. Its gloomy atmosphere is destroying you.
MADELINE: The doctor did say that a change of air -
RODERICK: The doctor is a fool!
EDGAR: Take heed of his advice.
RODERICK: It cannot be.
MADELINE: We could go away - to the city. The city with its crowds of people - its lights and laughter and joyful music -
the ebb and flow of teeming, dancing life! Do you dance, Edgar? Will you take me to the city and dance with me there?
EDGAR: I should be delighted to, Madeline.
RODERICK: No!
MADELINE: Just for a few days, Roderick.
EDGAR: What harm could it do?
RODERICK: You must rest, Madeline.
MADELINE: I am not tired.
RODERICK: You have not been well, my dear. The doctor said you needed rest.
MADELINE: The doctor is a fool. You said so yourself.
RODERICK: Madeline, my dear, you are tired. You do not know what you are saying. You must go to your room. You must rest.
MADELINE: I must rest. Very well, Roderick. Goodnight. (She kisses him gently.) Goodnight, Edgar. Promise that you
will dance with me?
EDGAR: I promise. Goodnight, Madeline.
MADELINE: I must rest. (She passes from the room.)
RODERICK: Madeline is my last and only relative on earth.
EDGAR: For her own good you must let her leave this house.
RODERICK: She cannot.
EDGAR: Why not?
RODERICK: She is too weak to travel. The horror of her long-continued illness is far more severe, more palpable than my own.
EDGAR: What illness? She seemed in perfect health to me.
RODERICK: Her spirit flickers like the flame within the lamp, and yet she grows daily more dispirited and weak.
EDGAR: I didn't realise.
RODERICK: We never speak of it.
EDGAR: I understand.
RODERICK: Not openly.
EDGAR: Of course. What does her doctor say?
RODERICK: It has long baffled his skill. She has borne it all, refusing to take to her bed. But a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, will eventually bring her to the grave.
(EDGAR shakes his head sadly. Fade.)
SCENE 4
(Morning. RODERICK is standing at the easel, painting. Enter EDGAR.)
RODERICK: Another dull and dreary day.
EDGAR: (Glancing out of the window.) The weather is bound to improve eventually. Good morning, Roderick.
RODERICK: Always the optimist. Good morning, Edgar.
EDGAR: I see that you still paint.
RODERICK: It helps to pass the tedious hours of my existence.
EDGAR: You were always a much better artist than I was. (Going to look at RODERICK's work.)
You haven't changed. The same arresting images. The same technique. I was always amazed at the careless way in
which you seemed almost to throw your paint upon the canvas.
RODERICK: I remember how our headmaster - what was his name?
EDGAR: The Reverend Dr. Bransby
RODERICK: Yes - of course. He used to dismiss my paintings as 'the phantasmagoric abstractions of a hypochondriac'.
EDGAR: He was a shallow, pompous ass.
RODERICK: With an inflated sense of his own consequence.
EDGAR: He did think you were rather eccentric.
RODERICK: He thought I was mad. But the question is still to be settled, whether madness is not the loftiest intelligence -
whether much that is glorious - all that is profound - does not spring from disease of thought - from moods of mind exalted
at the expense of the general intellect.
EDGAR: A depressing thought - for those of us who like to think that we are sane. But your paintings always impressed me,
Roderick - and everyone else who saw them.
RODERICK: Many of my ancestors have produced works of art far more exalted than mine.
EDGAR: I have not seen Madeline this morning.
RODERICK: She rarely rises before noon.
(Enter MADELINE.)
MADELINE: (Bright and cheerful.) Well, today she has risen before noon. Good morning, Edgar.
EDGAR: Good morning, Madeline.
RODERICK: How are you, my dear?
MADELINE: In excellent spirits, thank you, Roderick. (Looking out of the window.) The clouds are thinning.
Perhaps we shall see the sun today.
RODERICK: No dreams?
MADELINE: None that I can remember. Are you still working at that painting?
RODERICK: Yes, my dear.
MADELINE: (Moving over to them.) I do wish you would hurry up and finish it - I don't much care for it.
RODERICK: You have never said so before, Madeline.
MADELINE: What do you make of it, Edgar?
EDGAR: I was always a great admirer of Roderick's work at school.
MADELINE: Look at it. The interior of some immensely long tunnel - no outlet, no torch or source of light - yet a
flood of intense rays bathe the whole thing in a ghastly and quite inappropriate splendour.
EDGAR: You always seem to paint mystical scenes or abstract ideas, Roderick - never life - never people.
RODERICK: (Pointing with his brush.) You see that painting?
EDGAR: The portrait?
RODERICK: Yes.
EDGAR: Is it Madeline?
RODERICK: No - and yes.
MADELINE: She was our mother.
RODERICK: Also called Madeline.
EDGAR: She was very beautiful - so much like you.
MADELINE: Thank you, Edgar.
EDGAR: Did you paint that, Roderick?
RODERICK: No. Our father painted it.
EDGAR: He was very talented. The picture is incredibly lifelike.
RODERICK: It destroyed our mother.
EDGAR: The picture?
RODERICK: Yes.
EDGAR: How?
RODERICK: Our father was obsessed with his Art - a passionate, wild and moody man.
MADELINE: It is said that mother was all light and smiles when she married him, loving and cherishing all things - hating only
the Art which was her rival.
RODERICK: After they had been married for a year, and she had given birth to us, our father expressed a desire to paint her
portrait.
MADELINE: She dreaded the thought, but was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks, smiling uncomplainingly,
because she saw that father, whom she so loved, took a burning pleasure in his task. But her health and spirits withered away,
and she pined visibly to all but him.
RODERICK: At length, the labour drew near to its conclusion, and our father would not see that the tints which he spread upon
the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and the final tint was
given to the lips and eyes, he stood entranced before his work, saying 'This is Life itself!'
MADELINE: Then he turned to regard his beloved wife. She was dead.
EDGAR: I am sorry.
RODERICK: That is why I never try to paint people - to paint Life.
EDGAR: But surely your mother died from some terrible wasting disease - like consumption?
RODERICK: That was the diagnosis of her doctors.
MADELINE: But father believed that his portrait had drained her life from her. He never painted again.
EDGAR: What happened to you after your mother's death?
MADELINE: We were raised by a succession of nursemaids. None of them remained very long in this house.
RODERICK: As soon as I was old enough I was sent away to school.
EDGAR: I remember the day you arrived - so lost and alone.
RODERICK: You were my saviour, Edgar - my only true friend.
MADELINE: I remained here with father. As I grew older he claimed to discover in me more and more points of resemblance
to mother. In the end he could endure no longer the living reminder of her whom he had lost - the wife he believed his Art had
destroyed - so he hanged himself.
RODERICK: That was when I was summoned back here from school.
EDGAR: I remember your abrupt departure. We had intended to go to university together.
RODERICK: We have both remained here ever since.
(A shaft of sunlight cuts through the window. RODERICK holds up his hand to shield his eyes, and moves into the shadows.)
EDGAR: Look! The sun is breaking through the clouds. Shall we go out for a walk?
MADELINE: What a wonderful idea! Come, Roderick, let us walk to the village.
RODERICK: Madeline, my dear, you are not strong enough.
MADELINE: Nonsense! I am quite capable of putting one foot in front of the other.
RODERICK: The doctor said you should rest.
MADELINE: He also extolled the benefits of fresh air and exercise.
EDGAR: I am sure it would do you both good.
MADELINE: Do let us go, Roderick.
RODERICK: No, Madeline. You know I cannot endure the sunlight. I shall stay here and finish this picture - which you
dislike so much.
MADELINE: Very well. Edgar will take me to the village, won't you, Edgar?
EDGAR: It would be an honour, Madeline - and a very great pleasure.
RODERICK: Madeline, I wish you would not go.
MADELINE: (Ignoring him.) Come along, Edgar. I will fetch my bonnet and cloak. (Exit.)
EDGAR: (To RODERICK.)You need have no fear, Roderick. I shall take the greatest care of your sister. (Exit.)
(RODERICK watches them go, then stares at his painting for a moment with a look of pain. He takes the canvas from the
easel and flings it into a corner. Then he goes to sit in his chair, takes the bottle of laudanum from the box on the table, stares
at it for a moment, drinks some, then puts the bottle away again.)
RODERICK: 'Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!" - but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!'
(He rests his head back and closes his eyes. Fade.)
SCENE 5
(Evening. MADELINE is sitting alone, reading a book. EDGAR enters and comes to look over her shoulder.
MADELINE is unaware of him until he speaks.)
EDGAR: What are you reading?
(MADELINE cries out and drops her book.)
MADELINE: Edgar!
EDGAR: I'm sorry. Did I startle you?
MADELINE: I didn't hear you come in.
(EDGAR comes round to pick up the book. They kneel down simultaneously to retrieve it.)
EDGAR: Here, let me help you.
MADELINE: Please don't bother.
EDGAR: (Picking up the book and looking at the cover.) 'Romeo and Juliet'.
MADELINE: My favourite play.
EDGAR: (Handing her the book.) I saw it acted once.
MADELINE: In a theatre? How wonderful!
EDGAR: Have you never seen it?
MADELINE: I have never been to a theatre.
EDGAR: That can easily be remedied. (Pause. They stare at each other, smiling. Then EDGAR gets to his feet,
and holds out his hand to assist MADELINE.) Here - allow me.
MADELINE: Will you take me to the theatre, Edgar?
EDGAR: Of course, Madeline. As soon as you are well enough.
MADELINE: There really is nothing wrong with me.
EDGAR: Roderick told me -
MADELINE: An occasional spell of dizziness - one fainting fit - and Roderick thinks that I am afflicted with his own malady.
He has a morbid obsession with the family's hereditary ill-health.
EDGAR: I must admit that you seem in perfect health to me.
MADELINE: I am. I really am. You are glad you came to us?
EDGAR: Very glad. I did enjoy our walk this morning.
MADELINE: So did I. I have never felt so alive as I do with you, Edgar.
EDGAR: I am happy to be of service to you, Madeline. I only wish I could have a more positive influence upon Roderick,
and alleviate the unhealthy excess of his more morbid apprehensions.
MADELINE: (Sitting on the settee.) It is so many years since he ventured forth from this house that he has lost all interest
in the outside world. (Holding out her hand to EDGAR, who sits beside her.) I want to go abroad, Edgar, to breathe the free air
of heaven, to move among the swirling life of the city, to think upon other subjects than disease and death.
EDGAR: I do suspect that Roderick's brooding melancholy is rather the cause than the consequence of his ill health.
MADELINE: He is content to pass his days and nights here, in the airy radiance of an opium-dream.
EDGAR: Opium?
MADELINE: Oh, yes. (She goes to the table by Roderick's chair, opens the box and takes out the bottle of laudanum.)
He calls it 'medicine' - he thinks I don't know. Have you not observed how his actions alternate between intense excitement
and dismal sullenness - how his voice varies rapidly from energetic command to tremulous indecision?
(She returns the bottle to the box.)
EDGAR: Even as a boy his moods were often wildly inconsistent.
MADELINE: They have intensified with the passage of the years - and a dependence upon opium.
EDGAR: I didn't know.
MADELINE: Why should you? (Returning to sit by EDGAR.) But enough of Roderick. Will you read with me?
Will you be my Romeo?
EDGAR: At your request, Madeline, I will be anything. What scene were you reading?
MADELINE: (She opens the book.) The Capulet feast - the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet. Here.
(They share the text, each holding it with one hand, sitting close together.)
EDGAR: 'If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.'
MADELINE: 'Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.'
EDGAR: 'Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?'
MADELINE: ' Ay pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.'
EDGAR: 'O then dear saint, let lips do what hands do,
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.'
MADELINE: 'Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.'
EDGAR: ' Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.'
MADELINE: That's where they kiss for the first time.
(She looks at EDGAR and smiles. He looks at her. Slowly they come together and kiss, gently and briefly.
Pause, as they look into each other's eyes. Then MADELINE draws them back to the text.) It's your line.
EDGAR: Sorry. Yes ... um ... (He searches for the line.)
MADELINE: There. (She points to the line.)
EDGAR: Yes. Right. Um ...
'Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.'
MADELINE: 'Then have my lips the sin that they have took.'
EDGAR: 'Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged.
Give me my sin again.'
(He looks at MADELINE. She smiles. They kiss again, a little longer this time. When they separate, MADELINE says
the next line without looking at the book.)
MADELINE: 'You kiss by th' book.'
(They look at each other for a moment longer, then come together in an increasingly passionate kiss, letting the book fall
to the floor. Enter RODERICK. He stares at them for a second before speaking.)
RODERICK: Did you enjoy your excursion to the village this morning?
(EDGAR and MADELINE separate. EDGAR gets up to move away towards the easel.)
MADELINE: (Irritated by his intrusion.) Roderick! (She picks up the book.)
EDGAR: Our walk? Yes ... yes ... we ... um ... it was very pleasant. (Looking at the empty easel.)
Did you ... um ... did you finish your painting, Roderick?
RODERICK: I decided I didn't much care for it.
EDGAR: Oh. I'm sorry. I thought it was ... very striking.
MADELINE: So what did you do, Roderick? Take some of your 'medicine' and dream away the day?
RODERICK: They who dream by day have knowledge of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
They learn something, if only in snatches, of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil.
In their grey visions, they penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the eternal. (He sits in his chair.)
MADELINE: What about the finite - the temporal - the here-and-now?
RODERICK: Why don't you tell me? What have you been doing this evening?
EDGAR: Reading.
MADELINE: 'Romeo and Juliet'.
RODERICK: Ah! - 'From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.'
In man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of bliss. Horror and fatality have stalked abroad in all ages,
overreaching the wide horizon like a rainbow.
MADELINE: Like a rainbow? How is it, Roderick, that from beauty you can only derive a simile of sorrow?
RODERICK: Sorrow is born out of joy. Evil is a consequence of good.
MADELINE: The memory of past sorrow - is it not present joy?
RODERICK: The memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which
might have been.
EDGAR: (Returning to sit by MADELINE.) But surely each of us has in our possession the elements of happiness?
RODERICK: Do you really believe that any man may be happy in the present darkness and madness of the world?
EDGAR: Yes, I do.
RODERICK: And where is a man to find such exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity?
EDGAR: In love. (He glances at MADELINE.) In the sympathy of a woman, whose loveliness and love envelops
his existence in the atmosphere of Paradise.
RODERICK: Be careful, Edgar - you begin to wax poetical.
MADELINE: Why must you always sneer at love, Roderick?
RODERICK: Several centuries ago, one of our distant ancestors, Eleanor Usher, fell desperately in love - with a poet,
who came from a distant part of the country. Her father was opposed to their union, so when the couple disappeared,
everyone naturally assumed that they had eloped together. A search was instituted, but no trace of them was ever discovered.
MADELINE: (Getting up and moving away.) I don't care for this story.
RODERICK: It is a story of love - like 'Romeo and Juliet'.
EDGAR: What happened?
RODERICK: Fifteen years after the disappearance of Eleanor and her poet, the father lay on his deathbed. He called his
son to him - Eleanor's brother - and made a confession. Eleanor and her poet, he said, had not eloped - they had never left
the house.
EDGAR: But how could that be?
RODERICK: In the vaults beneath this house lie the catacombs of the Ushers, where all our ancestors lie in uneasy slumbers.
Long walls of piled skeletons lead to their inmost recesses, where no member of the family would ever choose to venture.
'There,' said the father, 'you will find your sister and her lover.' He gave his son directions, and the young man took servants
with flaming torches and descended the long and winding staircase to the damp vaults. They passed the walls of piled skeletons,
descended further, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused their
torches to glow rather than flame. Three walls of this crypt were lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead.
From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay scattered upon the damp earth. Following the instructions of
his father, the young man had the servants tear down this wall, which stood between two of the colossal supports of the roof
of the catacombs. They found a concealed recess, in which two skeletons were fettered to the granite wall. The remnants of
their clothes and jewellery left no doubt as to who they were - Eleanor and her poet lover.
EDGAR: Rather than let them marry, the father had ...?
RODERICK: Walled them up alive.
MADELINE: It is a horrible story!
EDGAR: How could any man do such a thing?
MADELINE: He was insane!
EDGAR: But why kill his daughter? Why not simply dispose of her lover?
RODERICK: That had been his original intention. But legend has it that Eleanor, waiting in her room for her lover to come and carry
her away, heard his cries from deep beneath the house.
EDGAR: How was that possible?
RODERICK: She had inherited that morbid condition of the auditory nerve from which I also suffer. She heard her lover's despairing
cries, and made her way down to the crypt, where she found her father about his hellish task. He now had no alternative but to force
his daughter to join her lover - they died together in the darkness of the same tomb.
MADELINE: It is the most revolting story of any in our dismal family history!
RODERICK: The House of Usher has an importunate and terrible influence over us all. No one in the direct line of descent has
ever married outside the family. The male heirs always marry their cousins - those who are of the Usher blood. The women,
if they marry at all, do the same.
MADELINE: (Screaming, causing RODERICK to wince with pain and put his hands over his ears.) I hate this family!
I hate this house! I hate you, Roderick! (She runs sobbing from the room.)
EDGAR: (Rising to follow her.) Madeline!
RODERICK: (Restraining him.) Let her go, Edgar. It is a hard burden for her to bear.
EDGAR: But why should she not marry whomever she chooses?
RODERICK: She cannot marry at all.
EDGAR: Why not?
RODERICK: Her illness.
EDGAR: I have seen no signs of illness in Madeline.
RODERICK: The intensity of her wild desire for life defies all reason.
EDGAR: But I do see signs of obsession in you, Roderick.
RODERICK: Obsession?
EDGAR: Yes. In the force of your persuasion that this house holds a sentient and malign power over its inhabitants.
RODERICK: It is no accident that through the long lapse of centuries, the family and the family mansion have become
so identified in the minds of the local peasantry as to merge them together under the single appellation of the 'House of Usher'.
Many of my family have scoffed as you do, Edgar, but the vapours from the tarn seep into their blood, the dust from the stones
penetrates the pores of their flesh, and they all become as one with the house, and subject to the power of the destroyer.
Madeline cannot escape. Soon she will succumb to the evil - and her death will leave me, hopeless and frail, the last of the
ancient race of the Ushers. And then I, too, will pass away, and the building will crumble into the tarn, and nothing will remain
of the House of Usher.
(EDGAR shakes his head in despair, rises and goes. RODERICK takes a dose of laudanum, leans back in his chair
and closes his eyes.)
CURTAIN
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