— Plato: Sympos.
WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting4 to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity5. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the altar, and I never spoke6 of passion nor thought of love. She, however, shunned7 society, and, attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness to dream.
Morella’s erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were of no common order — her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however, found that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere8 dross9 of the early German literature. These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her favourite and constant study — and that in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example.
In all this, if I err10 not, my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself implicitly11 to the guidance of my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And then — then, when poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling within me — would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her voice, until at length its melody was tainted12 with terror, and there fell a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered13 inwardly at those too unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous14, as Hinnon became Ge-Henna.
It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified Paliggenedia of the Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines15 of Identity as urged by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That identity which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to consist in the saneness16 of rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves, thereby17 distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. But the principium indivduationis, the notion of that identity which at death is or is not lost for ever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest; not more from the perplexing and exciting nature of its consequences, than from the marked and agitated18 manner in which Morella mentioned them.
But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife’s manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan19 fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the lustre20 of her melancholy21 eyes. And she knew all this, but did not upbraid22; she seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly23, and, smiling, called it fate. She seemed also conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation24 of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson25 spot settled steadily26 upon the cheek, and the blue veins27 upon the pale forehead became prominent; and one instant my nature melted into pity, but in, next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary28 and unfathomable abyss.
Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morella’s decease? I did; but the fragile spirit clung to its tenement29 of clay for many days, for many weeks and irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and, with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days and the hours and the bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen30 and lengthen as her gentle life declined, like shadows in the dying of the day.
But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven, Morella called me to her bedside. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich October leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament31 had surely fallen.
“It is a day of days,” she said, as I approached; “a day of all days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of earth and life — ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and death!”
I kissed her forehead, and she continued:
“I am dying, yet shall I live.”
“Morella!”
“The days have never been when thou couldst love me — but her whom in life thou didst abhor32, in death thou shalt adore.”
“Morella!”
“I repeat I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that affection — ah, how little! — which thou didst feel for me, Morella. And when my spirit departs shall the child live — thy child and mine, Morella’s . But thy days shall be days of sorrow — that sorrow which is the most lasting3 of impressions, as the cypress33 is the most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over and joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Paestum twice in a year. Thou shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with time, but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt bear about with thee thy shroud34 on the earth, as do the Moslemin at Mecca.”
“Morella!” I cried, “Morella! how knowest thou this?” but she turned away her face upon the pillow and a slight tremor35 coming over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.
Yet, as she had foretold36, her child, to which in dying she had given birth, which breathed not until the mother breathed no more, her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in stature37 and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent38 than I had believed it possible to feel for any denizen39 of earth.
But, ere long the heaven of this pure affection became darkened, and gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it in clouds. I said the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange, indeed, was her rapid increase in bodily size, but terrible, oh! terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and faculties40 of the woman? when the lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy41? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity42 I found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative43 eye? When, I say, all this beeame evident to my appalled44 senses, when I could no longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled to receive it, is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny45 of the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and in the rigorous seclusion46 of my home, watched with an agonizing47 anxiety over all which concerned the beloved.
And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent48 face, and poured over her maturing form, day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And hourly grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more perplexing, and more hideously49 terrible in their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother’s I could bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect identity, that her eyes were like Morella’s I could endure; but then they, too, often looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella’s own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the sad musical tones of her speech, and above all — oh, above all, in the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror, for a worm that would not die.
Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter remained nameless upon the earth. “My child,” and “my love,” were the designations usually prompted by a father’s affection, and the rigid50 seclusion of her days precluded51 all other intercourse52. Morella’s name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the daughter, it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period of her existence, the latter had received no impressions from the outward world, save such as might have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my own and foreign lands, came thronging53 to my lips, with many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried dead? What demon54 urged me to breathe that sound, which in its very recollection was wont55 to make ebb56 the purple blood in torrents57 from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the recesses58 of my soul, when amid those dim aisles59, and in the silence of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man the syllables60 — Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of my child, and overspread them with hues61 of death, as starting at that scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, and falling prostrate62 on the black slabs63 of our ancestral vault64, responded — “I am here!”
Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds within my ear, and thence like molten lead rolled hissingly into my brain. Years — years may pass away, but the memory of that epoch65 never. Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine — but the hemlock66 and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld67 only — Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and the ripples68 upon the sea murmured evermore — Morella. But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the channel where I laid the second. — Morella.
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1
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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2
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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3
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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6
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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7
shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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dross
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| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
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10
err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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12
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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13
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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14
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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15
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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16
saneness
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| n.心智健全，稳健 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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18
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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21
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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22
upbraid
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| v.斥责，责骂，责备 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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24
alienation
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| n.疏远；离间；异化 | |
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25
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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26
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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27
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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28
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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29
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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30
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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32
abhor
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| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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34
shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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35
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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36
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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38
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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39
denizen
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| n.居民，外籍居民 | |
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40
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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41
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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42
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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43
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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44
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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45
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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46
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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47
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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48
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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49
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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50
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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51
precluded
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| v.阻止( preclude的过去式和过去分词 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
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52
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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53
thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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54
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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55
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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56
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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57
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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58
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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59
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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60
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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61
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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62
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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63
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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64
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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65
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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66
hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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67
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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68
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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