Ligeia E-book

                                 1838

                                LIGEIA

                          by Edgar Allan Poe








Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)



                                        LIGEIA
-
  And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will
pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield
himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the
weakness of his feeble will.
  -                                             Joseph Glanvill.
-
  I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where,
I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since
elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps,
I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the
character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid
cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low
musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily
and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown.
Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large,
old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family- I have surely heard
her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted.
Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than all else
adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by that
sweet word alone- by Ligeia- that I bring before mine eyes in fancy
the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write, a
recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal
name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became the
partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a
playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my
strength of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon this
point? or was it rather a caprice of my own- a wildly romantic
offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but
indistinctly recall the fact itself- what wonder that I have utterly
forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it? And,
indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Romance- if ever she,
the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt,
presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then most surely
she presided over mine.
  There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not.
It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat
slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain
attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or
the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She
came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance
into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as
she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no
maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream- an
airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies
which hovered vision about the slumbering souls of the daughters of
Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have
been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen.
"There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking
truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, "without some
strangeness in the proportion." Yet, although I saw that the
features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity- although I
perceived that her loveliness was indeed "exquisite," and felt that
there was much of "strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain
to detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "the
strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead- it
was faultless- how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so
divine!- the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding extent
and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples;
and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and
naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric
epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose-
and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld
a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of
surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the
same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded
the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly-
the magnificent turn of the short upper lip- the soft, voluptuous
slumber of the under- the dimples which sported, and the color which
spoke- the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling,
every ray of the holy light which fell upon them in her serene and
placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all smiles. I scrutinized the
formation of the chin- and here, too, I found the gentleness of
breadth, the softness and the majesty, the fullness and the
spirituality, of the Greek- the contour which the god Apollo revealed
but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian. And then I
peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.
  For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have
been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to which
Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than the
ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest
of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it
was only at intervals- in moments of intense excitement- that this
peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at
such moments was her beauty- in my heated fancy thus it appeared
perhaps- the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth-
the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was
the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of
great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same
tint. The "strangeness," however, which I found in the eyes, was of a
nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the brilliancy of
the features, and must, after all, be referred to the expression.
Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast latitude of mere sound we
intrench our ignorance of so much of the spiritual. The expression of
the eyes of Ligeia! How for long hours have I pondered upon it! How
have I, through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled to fathom
it! What was it- that something more profound than the well of
Democritus- which lay far within the pupils of my beloved? What was
it? I was possessed with a passion to discover. Those eyes! those
large, those shining, those divine orbs! they became to me twin stars
of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers.
                                                              
  There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the
science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact- never, I
believe, noticed in the schools- that, in our endeavors to recall to
memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the
very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to
remember. And thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's
eyes, have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression-
felt it approaching- yet not quite be mine- and so at length entirely
depart! And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the
commonest objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to that
expression. I mean to say that, subsequently to the period when
Ligeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine,
I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentiment
such as I felt always aroused within me by her large and luminous
orbs. Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or
even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in
the survey of a rapidly-growing vine- in the contemplation of a moth,
a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have felt it in
the ocean; in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it in the glances
of unusually aged people. And there are one or two stars in heaven-
(one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, double and changeable,
to be found near the large star in Lyra) in a telescopic scrutiny of
which I have been made aware of the feeling. I have been filled with
it by certain sounds from stringed instruments, and not unfrequently
by passages from books. Among innumerable other instances, I well
remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps
merely from its quaintness- who shall say?) never failed to inspire me
with the sentiment;- "And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who
knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a
great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth
not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through
the weakness of his feeble will."
  Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to
trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the
English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An
intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a
result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which, during
our long intercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence
of its existence. Of all the women whom I have ever known, she, the
outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey
to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I
could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes
which at once so delighted and appalled me- by the almost magical
melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice-
and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with
her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually
uttered.
  I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense- such as I
have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply
proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to
the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault. Indeed
upon any theme of the most admired, because simply the most abstruse
of the boasted erudition of the academy, have I ever found Ligeia at
fault? How singularly- how thrillingly, this one point in the nature
of my wife has forced itself, at this late period only, upon my
attention! I said her knowledge was such as I have never known in
woman- but where breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully,
all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I
saw not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of
Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of
her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a child-like confidence,
to her guidance through the chaotic world of metaphysical
investigation at which I was most busily occupied during the earlier
years of our marriage. With how vast a triumph- with how vivid a
delight- with how much of all that is ethereal in hope- did I feel,
as she bent over me in studies but little sought- but less known- that
delicious vista by slow degrees expanding before me, down whose long,
gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might at length pass onward to the
goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden!
  How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some
years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves
and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted.
Her presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many
mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting
the radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew
duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less
frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The
wild eyes blazed with a too- too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers
became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave, and the blue veins
upon the lofty forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of
the gentle emotion. I saw that she must die- and I struggled
desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the
passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic than my
own. There had been much in her stern nature to impress me with the
belief that, to her, death would have come without its terrors;- but
not so. Words are impotent to convey any just idea of the fierceness
of resistance with which she wrestled with the Shadow. I groaned in
anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I would have soothed- I would have
reasoned; but, in the intensity of her wild desire for life,- for
life- but for life- solace and reason were the uttermost of folly.
Yet not until the last instance, amid the most convulsive writhings of
her fierce spirit, was shaken the external placidity of her demeanor.
Her voice grew more gentle- grew more low- yet I would not wish to
dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain
reeled as I hearkened entranced, to a melody more than mortal- to
assumptions and aspirations which mortality had never before known.
  That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been
easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no
ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully impressed with the
strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would
she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than
passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so
blessed by such confessions?- how had I deserved to be so cursed with
the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them? But upon
this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in
Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited,
all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the principle of her
longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life which was now
fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing- it is this eager
vehemence of desire for life- but for life- that I have no power to
portray- no utterance capable of expressing.
                                                             
  At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed
by herself not many days before. I obeyed her.- They were these:
-
    Lo! 'tis a gala night
       Within the lonesome latter years!
    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
       In veils, and drowned in tears,
    Sit in a theatre, to see
       A play of hopes and fears,
    While the orchestra breathes fitfully
       The music of the spheres.
-
    Mimes, in the form of God on high,
       Mutter and mumble low,
    And hither and thither fly-
       Mere puppets they, who come and go
    At bidding of vast formless things
       That shift the scenery to and fro,
    Flapping from out their Condor wings
       Invisible Wo!
-
    That motley drama!- oh, be sure
       It shall not be forgot!
    With its Phantom chased forever more,
       By a crowd that seize it not,
    Through a circle that ever returneth in
       To the self-same spot,
    And much of Madness and more of Sin
       And Horror the soul of the plot.
-
    But see, amid the mimic rout,
       A crawling shape intrude!
    A blood-red thing that writhes from out
       The scenic solitude!
    It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
       The mimes become its food,
    And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
       In human gore imbued.
                                                             
-
    Out- out are the lights- out all!
       And over each quivering form,
    The curtain, a funeral pall,
       Comes down with the rush of a storm,
    And the angels, all pallid and wan,
       Uprising, unveiling, affirm
    That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
       And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
-
  "O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her
arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines-
"O God! O Divine Father!- shall these things be undeviatingly so?-
shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel
in Thee? Who- who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor?
Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save
only through the weakness of his feeble will."
  And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms
to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she
breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur
from her lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished, again, the
concluding words of the passage in Glanvill- "Man doth not yield him
to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness
of his feeble will."
  She died;- and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no
longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and
decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls
wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than ordinarily
falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary
and aimless wandering, I purchased, and put in some repair, an abbey,
which I shall not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented
portions of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the
building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy
and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison with
the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote
and unsocial region of the country. Yet although the external abbey,
with its verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but little
alteration, I gave way, with a child-like perversity, and perchance
with a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a display of more than
regal magnificence within.- For such follies, even in childhood, I had
imbibed a taste and now they came back to me as if in the dotage of
grief. Alas, I feel how much even of incipient madness might have been
discovered in the gorgeous and fantastic draperies, in the solemn
carvings of Egypt, in the wild cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam
patterns of the carpets of tufted gold! I had become a bounden slave
in the trammels of opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a
coloring from my dreams. But these absurdities must not pause to
detail. Let me speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, whither
in a moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar as my bride- as
the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia- the fair-haired and blue-eyed
Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine.
  There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration of
that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me. Where were the
souls of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst of
gold, they permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment so
bedecked, a maiden and a daughter so beloved? I have said that I
minutely remember the details of the chamber- yet I am sadly forgetful
on topics of deep moment- and here there was no system, no keeping, in
the fantastic display, to take hold upon the memory. The room lay in a
high turret of the castellated abbey, was pentagonal in shape, and of
capacious size. Occupying the whole southern face of the pentagon was
the sole window- an immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice- a
single pane, and tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either
the sun or moon, passing through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the
objects within. Over the upper portion of this huge window, extended
the trellice-work of an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls
of the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively
lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with the wildest and most
grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out
the most central recess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a
single chain of gold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal,
Saracenic in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that
there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent
vitality, a continual succession of parti-colored fires.
                                                             
  Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in
various stations about- and there was the couch, too- bridal couch- of
an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony, with a
pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber stood on
end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the
kings over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of immemorial
sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas! the chief
phantasy of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height- even
unproportionably so- were hung from summit to foot, in vast folds,
with a heavy and massive-looking tapestry- tapestry of a material
which was found alike as a carpet on the floor, as a covering for the
ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for the bed, and as the
gorgeous volutes of the curtains which partially shaded the window.
The material was the richest cloth of gold. It was spotted all over,
at irregular intervals, with arabesque figures, about a foot in
diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty
black. But these figures partook of the true character of the
arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view. By a
contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period
of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering the
room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but upon a
farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and step by step,
as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself
surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong
to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of
the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the
artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind
the draperies- giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
  In halls such as these- in a bridal chamber such as this- I passed,
with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first month of
our marriage- passed them with but little disquietude. That my wife
dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper- that she shunned me and
loved me but little- I could not help perceiving; but it gave me
rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging
more to demon than to man. My memory flew back, (oh, with what
intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the
beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of her purity, of
her wisdom, of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of her passionate, her
idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully and freely burn with
more than all the fires of her own. In the excitement of my opium
dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug) I
would call aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night, or
among the sheltered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the
wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the consuming ardor of my longing
for the departed, I could restore her to the pathway she had
abandoned- ah, could it be forever?- upon the earth.
  About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady
Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was
slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in
her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of
motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded had
no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the
phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length
convalescent- finally well. Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a
second more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering;
and from this attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether
recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming
character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the increase
of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken too sure hold
upon her constitution to be eradicated by human means, I could not
fail to observe a similar increase in the nervous irritation of her
temperament, and in her excitability by trivial causes of fear. She
spoke again, and now more frequently and pertinaciously, of the
sounds- of the slight sounds- and of the unusual motions among the
tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.
  One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention.
She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been
watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the
workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony
bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke,
in an earnest low whisper, of sounds which she then heard, but which
I could not hear- of motions which she then saw, but which I could
not perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries,
and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I could not all
believe) that those almost inarticulate breathings, and those very
gentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural
effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,
overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to reassure
her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and no attendants
were within call. I remembered where was deposited a decanter of light
wine which had been ordered by her physicians, and hastened across the
chamber to procure it. But, as I stepped beneath the light of the
censer, two circumstances of a startling nature attracted my
attention. I had felt that some palpable although invisible object had
passed lightly by my person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden
carpet, in the very middle of the rich lustre thrown from the censer,
a shadow- a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect- such as might
be fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the
excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these things but
little, nor spoke of them to Rowena. Having found the wine, I
recrossed the chamber, and poured out a gobletful, which I held to the
lips of the fainting lady. She had now partially recovered, however,
and took the vessel herself, while I sank upon an ottoman near me,
with my eyes fastened upon her person. It was then that I became
distinctly aware of a gentle footfall upon the carpet, and near the
couch; and in a second thereafter, as Rowena was in the act of raising
the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall
within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the atmosphere
of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored
fluid. If this I saw- not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine
unhesitatingly, and I forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which
must, after all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid
imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by
the opium, and by the hour.
  Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately
subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the worse
took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the third
subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb,
and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body, in that
fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride.- Wild visions,
opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me. I gazed with
unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon the
varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the
parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I
called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot
beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of
the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with
greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure
upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia- and
then came back upon my heart, with the turbulent violence of a flood,
the whole of that unutterable wo with which I had regarded her thus
enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter
thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon
the body of Rowena.
                                                             
  It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had
taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,
startled me from my revery.- I felt that it came from the bed of
ebony- the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious
terror- but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision
to detect any motion in the corpse- but there was not the slightest
perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I had heard the
noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely
and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many
minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw
light upon the mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a
very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up
within the cheeks, and along the sunken small veins of the eyelids.
Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for which the
language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt
my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense
of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could no
longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations- that
Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion be
made; yet turret was altogether apart from the portion of the abbey
tenanted by the servants- there were none within call- I had no means
of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes-
and this I could not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my
endeavors to call back the spirit still hovering. In a short period it
was certain, however, that a relapse had taken place; the color
disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more
than that of marble; the lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up
in the ghastly expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and
coldness overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual
rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a shudder
upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly aroused, and again
gave myself up to passionate waking visions of Ligeia.
  An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second
time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I
listened- in extremity of horror. The sound came again- it was a sigh.
Rushing to the corpse, I saw- distinctly saw- a tremor upon the lips.
In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright line of the
pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with the profound
awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that my vision grew
dim, that my reason wandered; and it was only by a violent effort that
I at length succeeded in nerving myself to the task which duty thus
once more had pointed out. There was now a partial glow upon the
forehead and upon the cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded
the whole frame; there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The
lady lived; and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of
restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands, and used
every exertion which experience, and no little medical reading, could
suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled, the pulsation ceased,
the lips resumed the expression of the dead, and, in an instant
afterward, the whole body took upon itself the icy chilliness, the
livid hue, the intense rigidity, the sunken outline, and all the
loathsome peculiarities of that which has been, for many days, a
tenant of the tomb.
  And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia- and again, (what marvel
that I shudder while I write?) again there reached my ears a low sob
from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail the
unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how,
time after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous
drama of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was
only into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each
agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how
each struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the
personal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
  The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had
been dead, once again stirred- and now more vigorously than hitherto,
although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its utter
hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and
remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl
of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least
terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now
more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted
energy into the countenance- the limbs relaxed- and, save that the
eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and
draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the
figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off,
utterly, the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then,
altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising
from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with
the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded
advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of the apartment.
  I trembled not- I stirred not- for a crowd of unutterable fancies
connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,
rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed- had chilled me into
stone. I stirred not- but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad
disorder in my thoughts- a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be
the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it indeed be Rowena at
all- the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of
Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about
the mouth- but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of
Tremaine? And the cheeks- there were the roses as in her noon of life-
yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of
Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not
be hers?- but had she then grown taller since her malady? What
inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I
had reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her
head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and
there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber, huge
masses of long and dishevelled hair; it was blacker than the raven
wings of the midnight! And now slowly opened the eyes of the figure
which stood before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I
never- can I never be mistaken- these are the full, and the black, and
the wild eyes- of my lost love- of the lady- of the LADY LIGEIA."
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                               THE END