The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now
      miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even
      awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
      unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather
      than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect
      its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity. In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
      incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from
      a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual
      trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this
      nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by
      reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions
      deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied
      rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits
      seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
      concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding
      enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated
      guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard,
      or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his
      most intense excitement. It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
      earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to
      afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to
      be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional
      and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a
      remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which
      would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of
      unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them,
      interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and
      the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered
      much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food
      was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain
      texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were
      tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar
      sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not
      inspire him with horror. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I
      shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the
      events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I
      shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident,
      which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I
      have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute
      effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I
      feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must
      abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim
      phantasm, FEAR.”

      I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
      equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental
      condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions
      in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many
      years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence
      whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here
      to be re-stated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere
      form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long
      sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the
      _physique_ of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn
      into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about
      upon the _morale_ of his existence. He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
      peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
      natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and
      long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching
      dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for
      long years—his last and only relative on earth. “Her decease,” he
      said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave
      him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
      of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she
      called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment,
      and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded
      her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread—and yet I
      found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of
      stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought
      instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he
      had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that
      a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated
      fingers through which trickled many passionate tears. The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of
      her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the
      person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially
      cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she
      had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had
      not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the
      evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother
      told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating
      power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had
      obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should
      obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me
      no more. For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
      Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest
      endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted
      and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild
      improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and
      still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the
      recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the
      futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness,
      as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects
      of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of
      gloom. I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I
      thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher.