|
ACT TWO
SCENE 1
(Afternoon. MADELINE is alone and totally absorbed in dancing. She starts to recite to herself. Enter EDGAR.
MADELINE is unaware of him at first.)
MADELINE: : 'Thou art that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine -
A green isle in the sea, love -'
(She comes face-to-face with EDGAR.) Oh!
EDGAR: I'm sorry.
MADELINE: No.
EDGAR: I always seem to startle you.
MADELINE: It's all right.
EDGAR: Please forgive me.
MADELINE: I was just ...
EDGAR: Dancing.
MADELINE: Yes.
EDGAR: You dance like an angel, Madeline.
MADELINE: I know nothing of how angels dance, Edgar. Father taught me.
EDGAR: He taught you well.
MADELINE: In his last months we would dance together in the evenings - sometimes for hours.
EDGAR: Without music?
MADELINE: A servant played the violin.
EDGAR: Ah.
MADELINE: There were times when father believed that I was my mother. Then he would be overcome with a fever of
excitement - a mad excess of happiness.
EDGAR: That must have been ... disturbing for you.
MADELINE: It quickly passed ... on most occasions. Sometimes he would break off and run with a wild desperation to the
vault where mother was buried, and kneel weeping by her tomb. One night, when he had been transported by an absolute
delirium of passion, he did not return. In the morning I feared ... some nameless horror, and went to look for him. When I
reached the vault, my worst thoughts were confirmed. I found him hanging from one of the arches of the catacombs.
EDGAR: How terrible for you.
MADELINE: It was many years ago. (Pause.) Will you dance with me, Edgar?
EDGAR: Now?
MADELINE: When we go to the city.
EDGAR: The city?
MADELINE: You promised that you would take me to the city and dance with me there.
EDGAR: So I did. Of course I will, Madeline - I will dance with you as often and for as long as you wish.
MADELINE: Can we go soon?
EDGAR: I don't think -
MADELINE: You did promise.
EDGAR: I fear that Roderick would not approve.
MADELINE: Roderick is like the spectre at the feast, throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!
EDGAR: I do wish that I could find some way of cheering him.
MADELINE: Impossible. He is content to give himself up body and soul to the House of Usher. But I feel imprisoned here.
The atmosphere of gloom stifles me so that there are times when I even seem to struggle for breath.
EDGAR: The house is certainly very oppressive.
MADELINE: It is like living in some ghastly nightmare. Sometimes, after I have slept, I have difficulty in reconciling my dreamy
and incoherent feelings with the certainty of being awake. I must escape! Take me away, Edgar - away from the House of Usher!
EDGAR: I am sure that you could only benefit from leaving this house.
MADELINE: When I am with you, Edgar, my feelings are totally different from any which I have ever experienced before.
EDGAR: I know - I share your feelings, Madeline.
MADELINE: Is that really true?
EDGAR: The hours I have spent in your company have been the most delicious of my life.
MADELINE: I sense that there exists between us a sympathy ... of soul for soul.
EDGAR: When we are apart the hours are snail-paced, dreary and innumerable.
MADELINE: I think ... I feel ... I know that I am in love with you, Edgar.
EDGAR: Madeline!
MADELINE: Deeply, madly, irrevocably. Oh! I'm sorry - I shouldn't have ...
EDGAR: No! It's all right. It's all right.
MADELINE: Really?
EDGAR: Yes. Oh, yes. I love you, Madeline.
MADELINE: Oh, Edgar!
EDGAR: I have loved you since the first moment I saw you.
MADELINE: I have never been so happy! (They kiss passionately.)
EDGAR: Madeline, will you become my wife?
MADELINE: Yes! Oh, yes, Edgar!
EDGAR: My dearest!
MADELINE: We must leave straight away.
EDGAR: But Roderick -
MADELINE: Roderick must not know. He will do all that he can to prevent us.
EDGAR: We can't leave without telling him.
(Enter RODERICK.)
RODERICK: Telling him what?
MADELINE: Roderick!
RODERICK: Am I intruding? It seems to be a habit of mine where you two are concerned. Please forgive me.
MADELINE: Have you been spying on us?
RODERICK: Spying?
MADELINE: Listening at the keyhole?
RODERICK: Madeline, I should not need to remind you that my infirmity has sharpened my senses - not dulled - not destroyed
them - and that above all my sense of hearing is acute.
EDGAR: You heard?
RODERICK: I hear all things in the heaven and the earth. I hear many things in hell.
MADELINE: You are mad, Roderick - totally insane!
RODERICK: How am I mad? You see how calm I am.
MADELINE: I have read that madness frequently enables the victim to imitate the outward behaviour of one in perfect possession
of his senses.
RODERICK: You are mistaken, my dear. It is not I who have lost possession of my senses.
MADELINE: I love Edgar, and he loves me. We are leaving this house.
RODERICK: You know that you cannot leave the House of Usher, Madeline.
EDGAR: Why can she not leave?
RODERICK: (Continuing to address MADELINE.) Your illness -
MADELINE: I have no illness! The only illness is in your mind, Roderick! Edgar and I love each other.
RODERICK: Love? A fantasy of the moment - a baseless and unstable creation of the imagination.
MADELINE: No! Our love is firmly founded in our hearts.
RODERICK: It is a will o' the wisp - a rash, imprudent infatuation.
MADELINE: We are to be married.
RODERICK: Married! Upon one such little step in the great staircase of human life how vast a sum of human happiness or
misery depends.
MADELINE: We are leaving together. Today! Now!
RODERICK: Madeline, you cannot escape the destiny which surrounds all members of the House of Usher.
EDGAR: We are leaving, Roderick.
RODERICK: I do not think so.
EDGAR: Why not?
RODERICK: You do not have my consent.
EDGAR: Your consent? Madeline is of age - she does not need your consent. She is her own mistress.
RODERICK: She will never be that.
EDGAR: What do you mean?
RODERICK: She will always be subject to the whims of the destroyer.
EDGAR: If anyone is obsessed with a fantasy - a will o' the wisp - it is you, Roderick. There is no destroyer beyond the one
that you have created in your own fevered imagination.
RODERICK: The destroyer is real, Edgar. Far too real. It cannot - must not - be loosed upon the rest of the world. Madeline
cannot be allowed to leave this house. She must not marry.
EDGAR: I really do not see how you can prevent her.
MADELINE: What will you do, Roderick? Wall us up in the crypt like Eleanor and her lover? Leave us to perish miserably
amid the dismal and disgusting labyrinths that lie beneath this hateful house?
RODERICK: Eleanor's father knew that he had to prevent her marriage - he knew that the destroyer must be confined within
these walls.
MADELINE: He was insane! Like you!
RODERICK: Edgar, I think you should know that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it is, has put forth, at no
period, any enduring branch. The entire family has lain in the direct line of descent - has always, with very trifling and temporary
variation, so lain. And so it must continue until it dies for ever.
EDGAR: With you and Madeline?
MADELINE: No! I am to marry Edgar!
EDGAR: With or without your blessing, Roderick.
RODERICK: My blessing?
EDGAR: Will you not wish us happiness?
RODERICK: What happiness can you hope to find in hell?
MADELINE: Your cynicism will not deter us, Roderick. We are leaving.
RODERICK: Where will you go?
MADELINE: To the city.
RODERICK: If you take Madeline there, Edgar, it will be as one of the plagues which cast the gloom of their shadows over
Egypt in the time of her desolation.
EDGAR: This is absurd, Roderick. I will not listen to any more of your wild ravings!
RODERICK: Look at Madeline, Edgar! What do you see?
EDGAR: I see the woman I love.
RODERICK: Your love blinds you.
EDGAR: Blinds me to what?
RODERICK: She is ... She carries ... a living death!
MADELINE: My brother is trying to convince you of his own insane obsession - that I am infected with the hereditary ill-health
of the Ushers - that if I marry I will pass it on to my children - to our children, Edgar.
RODERICK: Is that what you want, Edgar? To people the world with monstrous freaks of nature?
EDGAR: This is absurd!
RODERICK: Look into the past, Madeline, and see your future reflected there. See our father's body hanging from the roof of the
vault where our mother lay buried. See our grandfather poisoning our grandmother because he thought she was a witch, then
flinging himself from the highest turret of this house into the dismal waters of the tarn. See Eleanor and her lover walled up in the
crypt by a father who could not bear to see the destroyer loosed upon the world. See generation after generation of Ushers
perpetuating the evil.
MADELINE: These things have nothing to do with me! I will break free of them!
RODERICK: Never! They are prophetic glimpses of a destiny which you are bound to fulfil. You cannot marry. The evil must
die at last with us.
EDGAR: I am sorry for you, Roderick. You are insane - obsessed with your morbid fantasy of evil - obsessed with the
blood-soaked history of your family - obsessed with the House of Usher. But I will not let you reduce Madeline to the same
wretched condition. We will leave this house today.
RODERICK: You may leave when you please, Edgar. Madeline shall never go.
MADELINE: I am going to pack now. There is nothing you can do to stop me, Roderick.
RODERICK: I have no need. The house will prevent you - the House of Usher - and the Usher dead.
EDGAR: Come, Madeline. We will soon be on our way.
(Exeunt EDGAR and MADELINE. There is a faint but ominous rumbling sound, as if the house is shifting on its foundations.)
RODERICK: I hear you - grey and ancient stones - home of our forefathers - resting place for generations of the Usher dead -
you, who have lain undisturbed for centuries - silently moulding the destinies of our family. (A wailing, howling sound, as of
many tormented voices, becomes audible above the rumbling and grating of the stones.) Now you awaken, making the air
dissonant with the horrible clamour of a million throats - the wailings and the howlings of the hopeless and the damned!
(The noises grow louder. RODERICK looks round in horror, and puts his hands over his ears, then cries out and collapses into
his chair. He hastily takes the bottle of laudanum from its box and drinks some, before resting his head on the back of the chair
and closing his eyes. The rumbling and wailing sounds slowly die away, and the lights fade to blackout.)
SCENE 2
(Later the same afternoon. RODERICK is still sitting in his chair with his eyes closed and the bottle of laudanum in his hand.
Enter MADELINE.)
RODERICK: (Without looking round.) You are ready to leave?
MADELINE: Edgar is saddling his horse. One of the servants will drive me in the carriage. (She comes to sit on the settee near
RODERICK.) He will bring it back once we reach the city.
RODERICK: You think that you will find happiness in that wilderness of people?
MADELINE: I shall never find happiness here.
RODERICK: I thought you were contented with your life.
MADELINE: I never said so.
RODERICK: I thought you loved me.
MADELINE: I do, Roderick - but I cannot wither and decay like you in this dismal mausoleum of a house (Looking at the
laudanum bottle.) - drugged by opium - tottering to a bed of poppies.
RODERICK: (Putting the bottle away in the box.) You are very pale.
MADELINE: Fresh air and sunshine will bring the colour to my cheeks.
RODERICK: There is something you should know, my dear.
MADELINE: Well?
RODERICK: Your illness -
MADELINE: I am not ill!
RODERICK: You remember when the doctor last came to see you?
MADELINE: I had swooned. It was nothing.
RODERICK: (Shaking his head.) We thought it best not to tell you.
MADELINE: Tell me what?
RODERICK: There are certain things too entirely horrible to tell.
MADELINE: What things?
RODERICK: I would have taken care of you.
MADELINE: Edgar will take care of me now.
RODERICK: He may not wish to when he knows the truth. If you had remained with me, you would never have needed to know.
But now I must tell you.
MADELINE: Tell me what? This is some trick - some fantasy of yours to keep me here. I will not listen!
RODERICK: You did not swoon.
MADELINE: I did! It was nothing more.
RODERICK: You know in your heart that it was more - much more.
MADELINE: No! There is nothing wrong with me!
RODERICK: You fell into a cataleptic trance.
MADELINE: No! I do not believe you! You are lying!
RODERICK: The doctor had no doubts upon the subject. I had thought you dead. Your lips had assumed a marble pallor -
your eyes were lustreless - there was no warmth - pulsation had ceased.
MADELINE: No!
RODERICK: I wished to spare you this, Madeline. But you are not the first of the Usher race to succumb to catalepsy.
MADELINE: It is not true!
RODERICK: Your great grandmother was entombed alive.
MADELINE: No! You are making this up.
RODERICK: It is true. To all outward appearances she seemed to be dead. Her body was kept unburied for three days, during
which it acquired a stony rigidity. The funeral was hastened, on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to be
decomposition.
MADELINE: Stop! I do not want to hear this!
RODERICK: Her coffin was deposited in the family vault. For three subsequent years it was undisturbed - locked behind the iron
door at the farthest end of the deepest vault in the catacombs. At the expiration of this term it was opened for the reception of a
sarcophagus. Alas! how fearful a shock awaited our great grandfather, who, personally, threw open the door! As its portals swung
outwardly back, some white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded
shroud.
MADELINE: No! It is a disgusting fiction!
RODERICK: A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived within two days after her entombment.
MADELINE: No! It is too horrible!
RODERICK: Her struggles within the coffin had caused it to fall from its ledge to the floor, where it was so broken as to permit
her escape. On the uppermost of the steps which lead down to the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with
which, it seemed, she had endeavoured to attract attention by striking the iron door. She probably swooned, or possibly died,
through sheer terror - and in falling, her shroud became entangled in some projecting ironwork. Thus she remained erect, and
thus she rotted.
MADELINE: No! I refuse to believe it! Why have I never heard of it before? It is a contemptible falsehood - a ghastly hoax! You
are trying to frighten me, Roderick - terrify me into staying here with you.
RODERICK: The avenues to death are numerous and strange. You were never told of this in case you suffered from the same
disease - the knowledge would have been insupportable to you, my dear. Think of your dreams, Madeline, 'of worms, of tombs,
of epitaphs'.
MADELINE: Since Edgar came I have had no dreams.
RODERICK: Think how often, upon awakening from slumber, you cannot gain, at once, thorough possession of your senses.
You frequently remain, for many minutes, bewildered and perplexed - your mental faculties in a condition of absolute abeyance.
MADELINE: All that has ceased since Edgar came.
RODERICK: I would have protected you from the fate of your great grandmother, Madeline.
MADELINE: Edgar will protect me.
RODERICK: Will he be with you every hour of every day and every night? Suppose he is away on business, and you are
smitten among strangers? You fall prostrate. All is void, and black, and silent, and nothing becomes the universe. Total
annihilation could be no more.
MADELINE: It will not happen! (She rises and moves away.)
RODERICK: Then you find yourself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first feeble and indefinite sense of existence.
You feel a torpid uneasiness - an apathetic endurance of dull pain. No care - no hope - no effort. Then, after a long interval,
a ringing in your ears. Then, after a lapse still longer, a tingling sensation in your limbs - then a seemingly eternal period of
pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings are struggling into thought.
(RODERICK rises and comes to stand close to MADELINE, watching the effect of his words on her, as she becomes increasingly
overpowered by them, her eyes glazing with horror.)
RODERICK: At length the slight quivering of an eyelid, and immediately, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which
sends the blood in torrents from your temples to your heart.
MADELINE: (Recalling her dream.) There comes an icy hand upon my forehead.
RODERICK: And now the first endeavour to remember - and as memory regains its dominion, you feel that you are not awakening
from ordinary sleep. You recollect that you have been subject to cataleptic trances. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean,
your shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim danger - the one spectral thought, which hovers over you with vast and
sable wings.
MADELINE: 'I have no name in the regions which I inhabit.'
RODERICK: For some minutes you remain without motion - you cannot summon the courage to move - you dare not make the
effort which will satisfy you of your fate. Yet there is something in your heart which whispers to you it is sure.
MADELINE: 'I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies!' (She gasps and sways slightly.)
RODERICK: Despair - such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being - despair alone urges you, after long
irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of your eyes. The blackness of total darkness envelops you. You know that the fit is over.
You know that the crisis of your disorder has long passed. You know that you have now fully recovered the use of your visual
faculties - and yet it is dark - all dark - the intense and utter raylessness of the night that endures for evermore.
(MADELINE opens her mouth as if to cry out, but no sound comes.)
RODERICK: You try to cry out - your lips and your parched tongue move convulsively together in the attempt - but no voice
issues from your cavernous lungs, which, oppressed as if by the weight of some incumbent mountain, gasp and palpitate with
your heart, at every struggling inspiration.
(MADELINE starts swaying as if about to lose her balance. RODERICK comes behind her, putting his arms around her to support
her and speaking into her ear.)
RODERICK: You feel that you lie upon some hard substance - and by something similar your sides are also compressed.
So far you have not ventured to stir any of your limbs - but now you violently throw up your arms - they strike against solid wood,
which extends above your body no more than six inches from your face. You can no longer doubt that you repose within a coffin.
MADELINE: (Gasping for breath.) This hideousness is insufferable!
RODERICK: You breathe in the stifling fumes from the damp earth - you slowly come to the ghastly realisation that you are
beyond the remotest confines of hope. You have fallen into a trance among strangers, and they have buried you - nailed you up
in some coffin - and thrust you deep, deep, and for ever, into some nameless grave.
MADELINE: Is it not - O God! is it not a very pitiful sight?
RODERICK: Such is the allotted portion of the dead - to carry into the human heart a degree of appalling awe and horror not to
be tolerated - never to be conceived.
(MADELINE groans and sways and is only kept standing by her brother's arms round her.)
RODERICK: You feel it now, don't you, Madeline? The dizziness - the sickness - the numbness - and the cold - as the grim
darkness overspreads the earth and the light of your soul is fading - fading - fading far away - where all is void and black and silent.
(MADELINE collapses and RODERICK lowers her gently to the floor. Enter EDGAR.)
EDGAR: The horses are ready, Madeline. We can leave as soon - (He sees MADELINE.) What has happened?
RODERICK: She cannot leave now.
EDGAR: What have you done to her?
RODERICK: The emotional turmoil was too much for her.
EDGAR: (Kneeling by MADELINE and taking her in his arms.) Madeline! Madeline!
RODERICK: (Standing over them.) It is too late.
EDGAR: No! Madeline! Speak to me!
RODERICK: I warned you of her illness. You would not listen.
EDGAR: Madeline! My love!
RODERICK: She has succumbed at last to the inevitable power of the destroyer.
EDGAR: No! She is alive! Look - there is still a blush upon her cheek.
RODERICK: A final mockery.
EDGAR: She is still warm.
RODERICK: The coldness of death will soon embrace her. Feel her pulse. (EDGAR feels her pulse.) Is there the faintest
flicker? (EDGAR shakes his head. RODERICK fetches a hand mirror.)Here is a mirror - apply it to her lips. (EDGAR does so.)
Is it misted by her breath? Can you detect even the most torpid or vacillating action of her lungs?
EDGAR: (Shaking his head.) Half an hour ago she was so full of life.
RODERICK: It was the nature of her illness.
EDGAR: I should have listened to you, Roderick.
RODERICK: Why? Madeline would not.
EDGAR: I loved her.
RODERICK: And she loved you with an enthusiasm so uncompromising, so uncalculating, so utterly blind and abandoned
that her delicate heart could not for long endure the strain.
EDGAR: So, I have killed her.
RODERICK: The blame is mine. I never should have asked you here, Edgar. Come - there is nothing more for you to do.
(He helps EDGAR to his feet.)
EDGAR: My horse is ready saddled. I will fetch the doctor.
RODERICK: There is nothing he can do.
EDGAR: If nothing else, he must sign her death certificate.
RODERICK: Ah. Of course. But one of the servants can fetch him.
EDGAR: I would rather go myself.
RODERICK: As you wish.
EDGAR: I will leave at once. (He takes a last look at MADELINE and moves away towards the door.)
RODERICK: I will carry her to her room.
(Exit EDGAR. RODERICK kneels down by MADELINE, takes her in his arms and holds her close to him.)
RODERICK: It is for the best, Madeline, my dearest sister. You could never have withstood the perils that would
have encompassed you beyond these walls. You must stay here with me. I love you, my dear - what I have done has been
for love of you - what I do now, I do for love of you - what I must do hereafter will be done for love of you. (The ominous rumbling
sound and the wailing of voices become faintly audible again.) You will not be alone, my dear - unnumbered generations of the
Usher dead await you. Do you hear them? Calling to you? Calling from the gulf beyond? When you join them, you will remember
what has passed here rather as a frightful dream from which you have been happily awakened, than as events which have taken
place in sober and naked reality. Only be still, my darling sister - the time will not be long - be silent and be still - silent and still.
(He rocks her slowly in his arms. The sound and the lights fade.)
SCENE 3
(Night. RODERICK is sitting in his chair. EDGAR is standing by the window, staring blankly out into the darkness.)
EDGAR: Catalepsy.
RODERICK: The doctor told you?
EDGAR: He assumed I knew. Why didn't you tell me, Roderick?
RODERICK: I wanted to spare Madeline.
EDGAR: She didn't know?
RODERICK: No. Her dreams were already haunted by the most hideous and charnel apprehensions - fantasies that extended
their terrifying influence far into her waking hours.
EDGAR: She never told me.
RODERICK: The very thought of premature burial would have consumed her night and day. Every particle of that preternatural
energy which had so long buoyed her up would have departed like feathers before the wind, leaving her a helpless prey to the
most abject and pitiable terror. The knowledge would have destroyed her utterly.
EDGAR: But catalepsy - it means there could still be hope.
RODERICK: The doctor will tell us.
EDGAR: He has been with her such a long time.
RODERICK: He has to be absolutely certain.
EDGAR: She is too young to die.
RODERICK: Death is no respecter of age. (Pause. He calls out.) Come in, doctor.
(Enter the DOCTOR.)
DOCTOR: You anticipated my knock, sir - once again.
RODERICK: Of course I did.
EDGAR: Well, doctor? Is she still alive?
DOCTOR: I have performed the most rigorous medical tests, sir.
EDGAR: And what did you find?
DOCTOR: The closest scrutiny reveals not the slightest sign of life, sir. She breathes no longer - her pulses are still - no
muscle quivers - no nerve thrills - no artery throbs - her heart has ceased to beat.
RODERICK: So Madeline is no more.
DOCTOR: Sadly, sir, I have failed to establish any material distinction between the state of Miss Usher and what we conceive
of absolute death.
RODERICK: 'Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!
Let the bell toll! - a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.'
EDGAR: Doctor, you are absolutely certain that she is dead?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, I would say so, sir. Within the limitations of my knowledge and experience, you understand, I would
say that Miss Usher is quite unequivocally dead.
RODERICK: 'Come! let the burial rite be read - the funeral song be sung! -
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young -
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.'
DOCTOR: Quite so, sir - quite so. You have a most impressive way with words, sir - as poetic an epitaph as ever I heard.
But if I might venture to suggest ...
RODERICK: Well, doctor?
DOCTOR: Perhaps it might be prudent, sir, in consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased ...
RODERICK: Go on.
DOCTOR: Well, sir, I would suggest that Miss Usher's corpse should perhaps be preserved for a few days - a week perhaps -
or even two - just as a precaution, you understand - previously to its final interment.
EDGAR: It would be a harmless precaution, Roderick.
DOCTOR: And by no means unnatural, sir, under the circumstances. After all, there are precedents.
EDGAR: Are there, doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, sir. I would not wish to arouse false hopes, but the 'Chirurgical Journal' of Leipsig, sir, a periodical of the
highest authority and merit, records in a recent number a very singular event of the character in question.
EDGAR: Go on.
DOCTOR: It concerned an officer of artillery, sir, a man of robust health, who, being thrown from an unmanageable horse,
received a very severe contusion upon the head.
EDGAR: He suffered from catalepsy?
DOCTOR: Not to the knowledge of those who were acquainted with him, sir. He fell into a more and more hopeless state of stupor,
and, finally, it was thought that he died. The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on a Thursday. On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were thronged with visitors, and about noon an intense excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned by some one struggling beneath. Spades were hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant appeared.
EDGAR: He was alive?
DOCTOR: He was then seemingly dead - but he sat nearly erect within his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he
had partially uplifted. He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.
EDGAR: And what happened?
DOCTOR: After some hours he revived, and spoke of his agonies in the grave. It was the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery,
he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful
horrors of his position.
EDGAR: But he survived?
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, sir. It was recorded that he was doing well, and seemed to be in a fair way to ultimate recovery.
EDGAR: Then there is still hope! Do you hear, Roderick?
RODERICK: I hear.
EDGAR: Well?
RODERICK: I suppose that Madeline's coffin could be left open in one of the upper vaults for a few days, before it is finally
secured and laid to rest among her ancestors.
DOCTOR: A wise precaution, sir, if I may say so - although I would not wish to arouse any false hopes in you for Miss Usher -
I am as certain as I can be that she will not revive.
RODERICK: Thank you, doctor. And now, if you would be so kind as to excuse us?
DOCTOR: Ah, yes, of course, sir. I would not wish to intrude any longer upon your grief. No, indeed - such a tragic and untimely
loss - to be cut off in the maturity of her youth. Yes. I will see to all the official paperwork, sir - the death certificate and so forth -
yes, indeed.
EDGAR: That is most kind of you, doctor. Thank you.
DOCTOR: Well, I will bid you good night, gentlemen - or perhaps it is now good morning? Yes, indeed - good morning it most
certainly is. Good morning.
RODERICK: Goodbye, doctor.
EDGAR: And thank you.
(Exit DOCTOR.)
RODERICK: So Madeline has gone from among mankind - passed into Night through the grave.
EDGAR: Even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Madeline's soul will be born again into the Life
Eternal.
RODERICK: Will it? How can you be so sure? What if the soul remains forever in the grave - amid the wreck and chaos
of the senses as the mortal body is stricken with the deadly hand of decay?
EDGAR: You must not think like this, Roderick - it will drive you to despair.
RODERICK: To madness rather. Imagine the horror, if some consciousness remains amid the blackness and corruption -
aware of the direful change in operation upon the flesh as it falls subject to the conqueror worm. Is it not - O God! is it not a
very pitiful sight?
(RODERICK is convulsed by huge sobs, and covers his face with his hands. EDGAR looks on, helpless in his own grief. Fade.)
SCENE 4
(Evening. RODERICK is sitting in his chair, staring blankly ahead. Enter EDGAR.)
RODERICK: (Without turning.) Is it done?
EDGAR: Yes.
RODERICK: The coffin lid is secure?
EDGAR: I have screwed it down.
RODERICK: I could not bear to look upon her face.
EDGAR: She will be seen no more. (He sits.)
RODERICK: Four days - without the faintest flicker of life. Her face - it had assumed the pinched and sunken outline of a corpse.
EDGAR: She is dead.
RODERICK: And now we leave her, at last and for ever, to her sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.
EDGAR: She looked remarkably like you, Roderick. I had never seen the similarity before.
RODERICK: We were twins.
EDGAR: I didn't know.
RODERICK: There always existed between us sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature.
EDGAR: The room in which her coffin stands - what is it?
RODERICK: Part of the old donjon-keep.
EDGAR: A gloomy place - fitting, I suppose, for its purpose.
RODERICK: Apparently it was used in remote feudal times for ... the worst of purposes.
EDGAR: The floor and walls appear to be sheathed in copper.
RODERICK: In later days it was used as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance.
The door is made of iron.
EDGAR: I had difficulty closing it. The immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
RODERICK: Yes. I heard it. It was loud enough to wake the dead. (He looks for a second as if he can hear some faint sound
in the silence.)
EDGAR: The dank and musty atmosphere suggested that the chamber had not been opened for many years.
RODERICK: There are many dark and windowless chambers in this house, Edgar. Like those in a man's soul, they should be
left unopened. We will speak of this no more.
EDGAR: Of course.
RODERICK: We must occupy our minds, Edgar - to guard us from the imagination of improbable possibilities.
EDGAR: Why don't you read me some of your poetry?
RODERICK: My poetry?
EDGAR: Yes. (Picking up some papers and handing them to RODERICK.) I found this yesterday - I hope you don't mind.
RODERICK: (Taking the papers and looking at them.) 'The Haunted Palace'.
EDGAR: It made a very forcible impression upon me. I should like to hear you read it.
RODERICK: Very well. If you wish it. (He begins to read.)
'In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace -
Radiant palace - reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion -
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.'
(He suddenly stops reading and raises his head as if listening to some sound.)
EDGAR: What is it?
RODERICK: I thought I heard ...
EDGAR: What?
RODERICK: Nothing. The palpitation ... of the waters of the tarn. (Pause. He stares blankly ahead.)
EDGAR: Will you continue?
RODERICK: Continue?
EDGAR: 'The Haunted Palace'.
RODERICK: Ah! Yes. Yes - of course. (He returns to reading the poem.)
'Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law -
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.'
(He stops again, as if listening to some sound.)
EDGAR: What do you hear?
RODERICK: Nothing. The sighing ... of the wind in the lifeless branches of the trees.
(He returns to the poem, but recites most of the rest of it without looking at the paper on which it is written.)
'But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh - but smile no more.'
(He puts aside the paper and stares ahead, his mind clearly elsewhere.)
EDGAR: I was intrigued by the undercurrent of its meaning.
RODERICK: What?
EDGAR: Your poem - 'The Haunted Palace'.
RODERICK: The undercurrent of its meaning?
EDGAR: A metaphor for the onset of madness?
RODERICK: The tottering of lofty reason upon her throne. Oh, yes, Edgar - I am fully conscious of my precarious mental state.
EDGAR: Why don't you come with me when I leave?
RODERICK: Back to the city?
EDGAR: Yes. The doctors there could help you.
RODERICK: I am done with prating quacks. Listen!
EDGAR: I hear nothing.
RODERICK: The beating ...
EDGAR: Beating?
RODERICK: The beating - beating - beating of ... the wings of an owl as it circles and swoops in search of prey.
EDGAR: I know your sense of hearing is acute, Roderick, but can you really hear the wings of an owl?
RODERICK: No act or impulse is without infinite result.
EDGAR: I don't understand.
RODERICK: The owl moves its wings, and, in so doing, gives vibration to the atmosphere which engirdles it. This vibration is
indefinitely extended - like the beating of the heart within the body - till it gives impulse to every particle of the earth's air,
extending upward and onward in its influence upon all particles of all matter.
EDGAR: And all this is actuated by the movement of one owl's wings?
RODERICK: Every such impulse given the air, must, in the end, impress every individual thing that exists within the universe -
I sense them - hear them all.
EDGAR: I think it is time you went to bed, Roderick - you need to rest.
RODERICK: I will.
EDGAR: Now?
RODERICK: In a few moments. I would like to sit here for a while longer.
EDGAR: (Rising.) As you wish. Goodnight, Roderick.
RODERICK: Goodnight. Edgar. And thank you.
EDGAR: For what?
RODERICK: For being my friend.
EDGAR: Goodnight, Roderick. (Exit EDGAR.)
RODERICK: I hear it - beating - beating - beating!
(He takes a dose of laudanum. Slowly the sound of a heartbeat becomes audible. It grows louder and louder during the rest of
his speech.)
RODERICK: Would that I were cursed with the curse of silence! The waters of the tarn, and the wind in the trees, and the wings
of the owl are silent - I hear not the slightest murmur from among them - nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast illimitable
universe - but only a low, dull, quick beating sound. (He taps out the regular beat of the heartbeat with his fingers on the arm of
his chair.) I know that sound too well - it is the beating of her heart! A hellish tattoo - it grows louder and louder every instant -
her terror must be extreme - it grows louder every moment! At this dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of this house,
the beating grows louder still and louder! Surely the heart must burst! Oh, God, what can I do? I dare not - dare not speak!
(The heartbeat becomes deafening. He puts his hands over his ears and cries out.) Is it possible that no one else can hear
the beating of her heart?
(Blackout. Silence.)
SCENE 5
(Night. A flicker of lightning, followed after a pause by a distant roll of thunder. RODERICK is seated in his chair with an open
book in his hand, staring into vacancy. Enter EDGAR, in his shirtsleeves.)
RODERICK: (Without looking round.) Edgar?
EDGAR: I couldn't sleep.
RODERICK: A storm is approaching.
EDGAR: Did it wake you?
RODERICK: I have not slept since ... how many nights is it now?
EDGAR: Since what?
RODERICK: Since she was sealed for ever in her coffin.
EDGAR: This is the third night.
RODERICK: So long? Three days and nights - sleep comes not near my couch - the hours wane and wane away - and still
I hear it!
EDGAR: Hear what, Roderick? Your attention has been riveted for days upon some imaginary sound. What is it? What do
you think you hear?
RODERICK: Nothing! (He puts aside his book.)
EDGAR: There must be something. (He comes to sit near RODERICK.)
RODERICK: I hear the sound of ...
EDGAR: What?
(The sound of thunder - closer than before.)
RODERICK: The beating ... beating ... (He shakes his head.)
EDGAR: What beating?
RODERICK: The dark and tattered draperies - swaying fitfully to and fro upon the walls - tortured into motion by the breath
of the rising tempest.
EDGAR: You have done nothing for the last three days but roam aimlessly from chamber to chamber - or sit for hours with
your gaze fixed upon vacancy.
RODERICK: My mind is ... agitated ... beyond endurance.
EDGAR: By what?
RODERICK: I cannot say.
EDGAR: By some oppressive secret?
RODERICK: I dare not speak.
EDGAR: You must tell me.
RODERICK: I have not the necessary courage. (Looking at EDGAR for the first time.) Why are you here?
EDGAR: I told you - I could not sleep. I thought I heard -
RODERICK: What?
EDGAR: I don't know - some sound - low and indefinite - it must have been the approaching storm - unless, like you, I am
becoming subject to the bewildering influence of this gloomy house.
(Lightning and a loud rumble of thunder. RODERICK gets up and goes over to the window. He is illuminated from outside by
an unnatural glow of light.)
RODERICK: Do you see it?
EDGAR: (Going to join him.) What?
RODERICK: Look!
EDGAR: I see a tempestuous night.
RODERICK: But wildly singular in its terror and its beauty! Look at the clouds!
EDGAR: They are exceedingly dense.
RODERICK: See how they fly - careering from all points against each other - but they do not pass away into the distance -
see how they press upon the turrets of the house!
EDGAR: The wind keeps altering its direction.
RODERICK: A whirlwind is collecting its force - here - in our vicinity.
EDGAR: Apparently so.
RODERICK: How can we perceive these things? There is no glimpse of the moon or stars - no flashing forth of the lightning -
but see how the under surface of the clouds, as well as everything immediately around us, is glowing in the unnatural light!
EDGAR: Some gaseous exhalation - arising from the rank miasma of the tarn.
RODERICK: It hangs about this mansion like a ghastly, luminous shroud!
EDGAR: Come, Roderick - you must not - you shall not behold this!
(EDGAR leads the terrified RODERICK firmly from the window to sit again in his chair. Another flash of lightning, followed by a
peal of thunder.)
RODERICK: What is their origin - if not the unendurable horror within?
EDGAR: What horror?
RODERICK: The incubus which sits upon my heart!
EDGAR: This terror is utterly causeless - the vagaries of madness!
RODERICK: I hear it still!
EDGAR: These appearances, which so bewilder you, are not uncommon - they are merely electrical phenomena.
(Another flash of lightning and roll of thunder.)
RODERICK: Stay with me, Edgar!
EDGAR: It's all right, Roderick - I will not leave you. (He picks up the book RODERICK had been holding, and opens it.) Here,
let us read.
RODERICK: I cannot read tonight.
EDGAR: Then I will read, and you shall listen - and so we shall pass away this terrible night together.
RODERICK: (Trying to focus his mind on what EDGAR is doing.) What is that book?
EDGAR: You were holding it when I came in. The 'Mad Trist' of Sir Launcelot Canning.
RODERICK: The 'Mad Trist'.
EDGAR: Where were you? Is this your marker?
(Lightning and a roll of thunder.)
RODERICK: (Wildly overstraining his interest in the book.) I had reached that portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero,
having sought in vain for peacable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force.
EDGAR: Very well. (Lightning and a roll of thunder.) Ah, here it is. (He begins to read.) 'And Ethelred, who was of a doughty
heart, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, but fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with
blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand. And now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked,
and ripped and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the forest.'
(RODERICK starts, and EDGAR pauses, as a distant cracking and ripping sound echoes that described in the story.)
RODERICK: No! It is impossible! - The rattling of the casements - the ordinary noises of the still increasing storm!
EDGAR: A coincidence - nothing more.
RODERICK: Nothing more. Continue with the story.
EDGAR: 'But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within, was amazed to perceive a dragon which sat on guard. And
Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him with a shriek so horrid and harsh - '
(From somewhere in the depths of the house comes a protracted screeching or grating sound. RODERICK puts his hands over
his ears.)
RODERICK: Did you not hear it?
EDGAR: Another coincidence.
RODERICK: (Removing his hands from his ears.) I heard it.
EDGAR: Extraordinary maybe - but a coincidence.
RODERICK: I have heard it - long - long - long - many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it.
EDGAR: What?
RODERICK: I dared not - oh pity me, miserable wretch that I am! - I dared not - I dared not speak!
EDGAR: Speak of what? Roderick! What have you heard?
RODERICK: We have put her living in the tomb!
EDGAR: Madeline?
RODERICK: She lives and breathes - her heart beats - beats - beats!
EDGAR: Impossible!
RODERICK: Did I not say my senses were acute?
EDGAR: This is insanity!
RODERICK: I tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard the first palpitation as her
consciousness returned - her first sighing breath - the terrified beating of her heart as she realised where she was! I heard them -
many days ago - yet I dared not - I dared not speak!
(Lightning and thunder.)
EDGAR: You are giving way to terror, Roderick, brought on by the storm and the story - the breaking of the hermit's door, and
the death-cry of the dragon -
RODERICK: Say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison door!
EDGAR: A hideous fantasy! Even if it were true, she would not have the strength!
RODERICK: Terror gives her the strength! Oh whither shall I fly?
EDGAR: Roderick! Listen to me! Madeline is dead!
RODERICK: No! She will be here at any moment!
(Lightning and thunder.)
EDGAR: The dead cannot rise from their graves!
RODERICK: Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish
that heavy and horrible beating - beating - beating of her terrified heart?
EDGAR: This is a wild fantasy, Roderick!
RODERICK: Madman! (He springs to his feet, turns to face the door, and shrieks out, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul.)
Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!
(There is a prolonged flashing of lightning accompanied by a simultaneous and deafening peal of thunder. The door opens to
reveal the enshrouded figure of MADELINE standing in the opening. There is blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of
some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remains trembling and reeling to and fro
upon the threshold, then she staggers into the room, upstage between RODERICK and EDGAR.)
EDGAR: (With horror.) Madeline!
(MADELINE looks blankly towards EDGAR.)
RODERICK: (Tenderly.) Madeline, my love.
(MADELINE turns towards RODERICK, takes another faltering step, then sways as if about to collapse. RODERICK goes
quickly to her and supports her in his arms.)
MADELINE: 'How if when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me - '
(There is another, even more vivid flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder, followed by a loud rumbling and crashing
noise of masonry falling. EDGAR goes to look out of the window.)
RODERICK: Forgive me, Madeline, my beloved.
EDGAR: The lightning has struck the house!
MADELINE: 'Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?'
RODERICK: I am here, my love. I shall never leave you now.
(The rumbling and crashing of falling masonry grows louder.)
EDGAR: We must get out! The crack in the wall is widening! The house is on fire!
(The flickering of flames gradually becomes visible. MADELINE breaks away from RODERICK to act out Juliet's vision.
EDGAR watches her with horror, RODERICK with the deepest compassion.)
MADELINE: 'Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking - what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals hearing them run mad -
O if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers' joints,
And in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?'
RODERICK: Madeline! Stop! (He takes her in his arms again.) There is nothing to fear now, my dearest. It is over.
You are safe. Safe with me.
(MADELINE collapses. RODERICK lowers her gently to the floor and cradles her closely in his arms.)
EDGAR: Roderick! we must leave! Before it is too late! The house is doomed!
(The rumbling and crashing of falling masonry are now almost continuous, smoke begins to pour into the room, and the
flickering light of the flames grows more intense.)
RODERICK: It has always been doomed - from the moment the first stone was laid.
EDGAR: Roderick! Come on!
RODERICK: I cannot leave. I am enchained. Thus - thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost.
EDGAR: But Madeline -
RODERICK: Madeline is now beyond all help or harm.
EDGAR: Save your own life, Roderick!
RODERICK: No, Edgar. Save yourself from the wrath of the storm - from the flames of the fire - from the fierce breath of the
whirlwind! You are not subject to the Usher curse! Flee from this chamber! Flee from this house! Go! Before you are consumed!
(EDGAR pauses helplessly for a second. The noise of falling masonry redoubles, and he turns to flee from the room.
RODERICK continues to hold the body of MADELINE in his arms as the sound of many wailing, howling voices becomes
audible above the other noises.)
RODERICK: The terror has passed now, Madeline - for both of us. We will be together for eternity. The Usher dead are
calling to us - can you hear them? We will soon become as one with them. The house will die with us - the walls already
rush asunder - the tumultuous waters of the deep, dank tarn will soon flood in and close forever over us - over the last fragments
of the House of Usher!
(The lightning becomes almost continuous, while the smoke and flames envelop the room. The noise of thunder, rending,
falling masonry, wailing voices and rushing waters become deafening ... )
CURTAIN
|
