英语美文欣赏：爱伦坡的精神分析《威廉·威尔逊》
William WilsonLET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now
lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. This has been
already too much an object for the scorn -- for the horror -- for the
detestation of my race. To the uttermost regions of the globe have not the
indignant winds bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts
most abandoned! -- to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its
flowers, to its golden aspirations? -- and a cloud, dense, dismal, and
limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and heaven?
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later years
of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This epoch -- these later years
-- took unto themselves a sudden elevation in turpitude, whose origin alone it
is my present purpose to assign. Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in
an instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial
wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities
of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance -- what one event brought this evil thing to
pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the shadow which
foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing
through the dim valley, for the sympathy -- I had nearly said for the pity -- of
my fellow men. I would fain have them believe that I have been, in some measure,
the slave of circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out
for me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a
wilderness of error. I would have them allow -- what they cannot refrain from
allowing -- that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man
was never thus, at least, tempted before -- certainly, never thus fell. And is
it therefore that he has never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a
dream? And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the
wildest of all sublunary visions?
I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable
temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my earliest
infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the family character. As I
advanced in years it was more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a
cause of serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I
grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most
ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities
akin to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil propensities
which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in
complete failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine.
Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when few children have
abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and
became, in all but name, the master of my own actions.
My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a large,
rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of England, where were a
vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and where all the houses were
excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place,
that venerable old town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing
chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand
shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep hollow note
of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with sullen and sudden roar, upon the
stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay
imbedded and asleep.
It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner
experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns.
Steeped in misery as I am -- misery, alas! only too real -- I shall be pardoned
for seeking relief, however slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few
rambling details. These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in
themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as connected with a
period and a locality when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions
of the destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then
remember.
The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were extensive,
and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of mortar and broken glass,
encompassed the whole. This prison-like rampart formed the limit of our domain;
beyond it we saw but thrice a week -- once every Saturday afternoon, when,
attended by two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through
some of the neighbouring fields -- and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded
in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the one church
of the village. Of this church the principal of our school was pastor. With how
deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote
pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This
reverend man, with countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so
clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast, --
-could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments,
administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the academy? Oh, gigantic
paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!
At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was
riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes.
What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was never opened save for the
three periodical egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every
creak of its mighty hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery -- a world of matter
for solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation.
The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious
recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It
was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees,
nor benches, nor anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the
house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but
through this sacred division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed -- such
as a first advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent
or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas
or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house! -- how quaint an old building was this! -- to me how
veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its windings -- to
its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult, at any given time, to say
with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be. From each room
to every other there were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent
or descent. Then the lateral branches were innumerable -- inconceivable -- and
so returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to the
whole mansion were not very far different from those with which we pondered upon
infinity. During the five years of my residence here, I was never able to
ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the little sleeping
apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or twenty other scholars.
The school-room was the largest in the house -- I could not help thinking,
in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low, with pointed Gothic
windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and terror-inspiring angle was a
square enclosure of eight or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, "during hours,"
of our principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy
door, sooner than open which in the absence of the "Dominic," we would all have
willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles were two other
similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe.
One of these was the pulpit of the "classical" usher, one of the "English and
mathematical." Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless
irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn,
piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial
letters, names at full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts
of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original form might have
been their portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the other.
Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed, yet not
in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my life. The teeming
brain of childhood requires no external world of incident to occupy or amuse it;
and the apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more intense
excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from
crime. Yet I must believe that my first mental development had in it much of the
uncommon -- even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events of very
early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All is gray
shadow -- a weak and irregular remembrance -- an indistinct regathering of
feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me this is not so. In childhood
I must have felt with the energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in
lines as vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian
medals.
Yet in fact -- in the fact of the world's view -- how little was there to
remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to bed; the connings, the
recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and perambulations; the play-ground,
with its broils, its pastimes, its intrigues; -- these, by a mental sorcery long
forgotten, were made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich
incident, an universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
spirit-stirring. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!"
In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my
disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my schoolmates, and by
slow, but natural gradations, gave me an ascendancy over all not greatly older
than myself; -- over all with a single exception. This exception was found in
the person of a scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and
surname as myself; -- a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable; for,
notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those everyday appellations
which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been, time out of mind, the common
property of the mob. In this narrative I have therefore designated myself as
William Wilson, -- a fictitious title not very dissimilar to the real. My
namesake alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted "our set,"
presumed to compete with me in the studies of the class -- in the sports and
broils of the play-ground -- to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and
submission to my will -- indeed, to interfere with my arbitrary dictation in any
respect whatsoever. If there is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it
is the despotism of a master mind in boyhood over the less energetic spirits of
its companions.
Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest embarrassment; -- the
more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I made a point of
treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt that I feared him, and could
not help thinking the equality which he maintained so easily with myself, a
proof of his true superiority; since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual
struggle. Yet this superiority -- even this equality -- was in truth
acknowledged by no one but myself; our associates, by some unaccountable
blindness, seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his
resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged interference with my
purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute alike
of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind which enabled
me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been supposed actuated solely by a
whimsical desire to thwart, astonish, or mortify myself; although there were
times when I could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder,
abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his
contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most unwelcome
affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this singular behavior to
arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of patronage and
protection.
Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with our
identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the school upon
the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were brothers, among the
senior classes in the academy. These do not usually inquire with much strictness
into the affairs of their juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that
Wilson was not, in the most remote degree, connected with my family. But
assuredly if we had been brothers we must have been twins; for, after leaving
Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of
January, 1813 -- and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence; for the day is
precisely that of my own nativity.
It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned me by
the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of contradiction, I could not
bring myself to hate him altogether. We had, to be sure, nearly every day a
quarrel in which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner,
contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of
pride on my part, and a veritable dignity on his own, kept us always upon what
are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong congeniality
in our tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment which our position alone,
perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to
define, or even to describe, my real feelings towards him. They formed a motley
and heterogeneous admixture; -- some petulant animosity, which was not yet
hatred, some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity.
To the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson and
myself were the most inseparable of companions.
It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us, which
turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many, either open or covert) into
the channel of banter or practical joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect
of mere fun) rather than into a more serious and determined hostility. But my
endeavours on this head were by no means uniformly successful, even when my
plans were the most wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in
character, of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the
poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely
refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point, and
that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from constitutional
disease, would have been spared by any antagonist less at his wit's end than
myself; -- my rival had a weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which
precluded him from raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of
this defect I did not fall to take what poor advantage lay in my power.
Wilson's retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form of his
practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity first
discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a question I never
could solve; but, having discovered, he habitually practised the annoyance. I
had always felt aversion to my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not
plebeian praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of
my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with
him for bearing the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a stranger
bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be
constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the
school business, must inevitably, on account of the detestable coincidence, be
often confounded with my own.
The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every
circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between my rival
and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable fact that we were of the
same age; but I saw that we were of the same height, and I perceived that we
were even singularly alike in general contour of person and outline of feature.
I was galled, too, by the rumor touching a relationship, which had grown current
in the upper forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me, although
I scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a similarity of
mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in truth, I had no reason
to believe that (with the exception of the matter of relationship, and in the
case of Wilson himself,) this similarity had ever been made a subject of
comment, or even observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in
all its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover
in such circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be attributed,
as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.
His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in words and
in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My dress it was an easy
matter to copy; my gait and general manner were, without difficulty,
appropriated; in spite of his constitutional defect, even my voice did not
escape him. My louder tones were, of course, unattempted, but then the key, it
was identical; and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.
How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it could not
justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture to describe. I had but
one consolation -- in the fact that the imitation, apparently, was noticed by
myself alone, and that I had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic
smiles of my namesake himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the
intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had inflicted,
and was characteristically disregardful of the public applause which the success
of his witty endeavours might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed,
did not feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his
sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the
gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible; or, more possibly,
I owed my security to the master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter,
(which in a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit of his
original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of patronage
which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious interference withy my
will. This interference often took the ungracious character of advice; advice
not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance
which gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do
him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the
suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies so usual to
his immature age and seeming inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if
not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that
I might, to-day, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had I less
frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning whispers which I then
but too cordially hated and too bitterly despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his distasteful
supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what I considered his
intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the first years of our connexion as
schoolmates, my feelings in regard to him might have been easily ripened into
friendship: but, in the latter months of my residence at the academy, although
the intrusion of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated,
my sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of positive
hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made
a show of avoiding me.
It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an altercation
of violence with him, in which he was more than usually thrown off his guard,
and spoke and acted with an openness of demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I
discovered, or fancied I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general
appearance, a something which first startled, and then deeply interested me, by
bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest infancy -- wild, confused and
thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn. I cannot better
describe the sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with
difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with the being who
stood before me, at some epoch very long ago -- some point of the past even
infinitely remote. The delusion, however, faded rapidly as it came; and I
mention it at all but to define the day of the last conversation I there held
with my singular namesake.
The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several large
chambers communicating with each other, where slept the greater number of the
students. There were, however, (as must necessarily happen in a building so
awkwardly planned,) many little nooks or recesses, the odds and ends of the
structure; and these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as
dormitories; although, being the merest closets, they were capable of
accommodating but a single individual. One of these small apartments was
occupied by Wilson.
One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and immediately
after the altercation just mentioned, finding every one wrapped in sleep, I
arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through a wilderness of narrow passages
from my own bedroom to that of my rival. I had long been plotting one of those
ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been
so uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my scheme in
operation, and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of the malice with
which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving
the lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a step, and listened
to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned,
took the light, and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were around
it, which, in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when
the bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the same moment,
upon his countenance. I looked; -- and a numbness, an iciness of feeling
instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved, my knees tottered, my whole
spirit became possessed with an objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for
breath, I lowered the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these --
these the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but I
shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What was there
about them to confound me in this manner? I gazed; -- while my brain reeled with
a multitude of incoherent thoughts. Not thus he appeared -- assuredly not thus
-- in the vivacity of his waking hours. The same name! the same contour of
person! the same day of arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and
meaningless imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in
truth, within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now saw was the
result, merely, of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation?
Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed
silently from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of that old academy,
never to enter them again.
After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found
myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to enfeeble my
remembrance of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least to effect a material
change in the nature of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth --
the tragedy -- of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt the
evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder
at extent of human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination
which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism likely to
be diminished by the character of the life I led at Eton. The vortex of
thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so recklessly plunged,
washed away all but the froth of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or
serious impression, and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former
existence.
I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable profligacy here
-- a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while it eluded the vigilance of
the institution. Three years of folly, passed without profit, had but given me
rooted habits of vice, and added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily
stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small party of
the most dissolute students to a secret carousal in my chambers. We met at a
late hour of the night; for our debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted
until morning. The wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and
perhaps more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already faintly
appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly
flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast
of more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the
violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment, and by the
eager voice of a servant from without. He said that some person, apparently in
great haste, demanded to speak with me in the hall.
Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather delighted than
surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few steps brought me to the
vestibule of the building. In this low and small room there hung no lamp; and
now no light at all was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which
made its way through the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over the
threshold, I became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and
habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the one
I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled me to perceive; but
the features of his face I could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode
hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by. the arm with a gesture of petulant
impatience, whispered the words "William Wilson!" in my ear.
I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of the
stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it
between my eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement; but
it was not this which had so violently moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn
admonition in the singular, low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the
character, the tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered
syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and
struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I could recover
the use of my senses he was gone.
Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered
imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I busied
myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of morbid speculation. I
did not pretend to disguise from my perception the identity of the singular
individual who thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me
with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? -- and whence
came he? -- and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be
satisfied; merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his
family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby's academy on the afternoon of the
day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief period I ceased to think upon
the subject; my attention being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for
Oxford. Thither I soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing
me with an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge at
will in the luxury already so dear to my heart, -- to vie in profuseness of
expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the wealthiest earldoms in Great
Britain.
Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament broke
forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common restraints of decency
in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it were absurd to pause in the detail
of my extravagance. Let it suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod,
and that, giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief appendix
to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most dissolute university of
Europe.
It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly
fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts
of the gambler by profession, and, having become an adept in his despicable
science, to practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous
income at the expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such,
nevertheless, was the fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all
manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole
reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most
abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of
his senses, than have suspected of such courses, the gay, the frank, the
generous William Wilson -- the noblest and most commoner at Oxford -- him whose
follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy
-- whose errors but inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and
dashing extravagance?
I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came
to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning -- rich, said report, as
Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak
intellect, and, of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I
frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to
let him win considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my
snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention
that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a
fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him
Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to this a
better colouring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or
ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear
accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be
brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon
similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so
besotted as to fall its victim.
We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length
effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game,
too, was my favorite ecarte!. The rest of the company, interested in the extent
of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing around us as
spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part
of the evening, to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild
nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially,
but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor
to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely
what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed to double our already
extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after
my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of
pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but
prove how entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had
quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the florid
tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I perceived that it had
grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my astonishment. Glendinning had been
represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he
had as yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very
seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the
wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented itself; and,
rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my
associates, than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist,
peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my
elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the
part of Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin
under circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should
have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.
What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The pitiable
condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom over all; and, for
some moments, a profound silence was maintained, during which I could not help
feeling my cheeks tingle with the many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast
upon me by the less abandoned of the party. I will even own that an intolerable
weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden and
extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding doors of the
apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous
and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic, every candle in the
room. Their light, in dying, enabled us just to perceive that a stranger had
entered, about my own height, and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness,
however, was now total; and we could only feel that he was standing in our
midst. Before any one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into
which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper
which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I make no apology for
this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are,
beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who has to-night
won at ecarte a large sum of money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put
you upon an expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary
information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff
of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which may be found in the
somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered morning wrapper."
While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have heard a
pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once, and as abruptly as he
had entered. Can I -- shall I describe my sensations? -- must I say that I felt
all the horrors of the damned? Most assuredly I had little time given for
reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were
immediately reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found
all the court cards essential in ecarte, and, in the pockets of my wrapper, a
number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings, with the single
exception that mine were of the species called, technically, arrondees; the
honours being slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at
the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the length
of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor; while
the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut nothing for his
victim which may count in the records of the game.
Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected me less
than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with which it was
received.
"Mr. Wilson," said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet an
exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, "Mr. Wilson, this is your property."
(The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own room, I had thrown a cloak over
my dressing wrapper, putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) "I presume
it is supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter
smile) for any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You
will see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford -- at all events, of quitting
instantly my chambers."
Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I should
have resented this galling language by immediate personal violence, had not my
whole attention been at the moment arrested by a fact of the most startling
character. The cloak which I had worn was of a rare description of fur; how
rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too,
was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of
coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston
reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the folding
doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon
terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where I had no doubt
unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented me was but its exact
counterpart in every, in even the minutest possible particular. The singular
being who had so disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a
cloak; and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the
exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the one offered me
by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left the apartment with a
resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning ere dawn of day, commenced a
hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror and
of shame.
I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and proved,
indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as yet only begun.
Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh evidence of the detestable
interest taken by this Wilson in my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no
relief. Villain! -- at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an
officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too -- at
Berlin -- and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him
within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee,
panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled
in vain.
And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I
demand the questions "Who is he? -- whence came he? -- and what are his
objects?" But no answer was there found. And then I scrutinized, with a minute
scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading traits of his impertinent
supervision. But even here there was very little upon which to base a
conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied
instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so crossed it except
to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully carried
out, might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in truth,
for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for natural rights of
self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!
I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very long period
of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity maintaining his whim
of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so contrived it, in the execution of
his varied interference with my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the
features of his face. Be Wilson what he might, this, at least, was but the
veriest of affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an instant, have supposed
that, in my admonisher at Eton -- in the destroyer of my honor at Oxford, -- in
him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my revenge at Paris, my passionate love at
Naples, or what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt, -- that in this, my
arch-enemy and evil genius, could fall to recognise the William Wilson of my
school boy days, -- the namesake, the companion, the rival, -- the hated and
dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby's? Impossible! -- But let me hasten to the last
eventful scene of the drama.
Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The
sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated character,
the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson, added
to a feeling of even terror, with which certain other traits in his nature and
assumptions inspired me, had operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of
my own utter weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although
bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had
given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary
temper rendered me more and more impatient of control. I began to murmur, -- to
hesitate, -- to resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that,
with the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a
proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the inspiration
of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and
desperate resolution that I would submit no longer to be enslaved.
It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18 -- , that I attended a masquerade
in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had indulged more freely
than usual in the excesses of the wine-table; and now the suffocating atmosphere
of the crowded rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of
forcing my way through the mazes of the company contributed not a little to the
ruffling of my temper; for I was anxiously seeking, (let me not say with what
unworthy motive) the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting
Di Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she had previously communicated
to me the secret of the costume in which she would be habited, and now, having
caught a glimpse of her person, I was hurrying to make my way into her presence.
-- At this moment I felt a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that
ever-remembered, low, damnable whisper within my ear.
In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had thus
interrupted me, and seized him violently by tile collar. He was attired, as I
had expected, in a costume altogether similar to my own; wearing a Spanish cloak
of blue velvet, begirt about the waist with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier.
A mask of black silk entirely covered his face.
"Scoundrel!" I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every syllable I
uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, "scoundrel! impostor! accursed villain!
you shall not -- you shall not dog me unto death! Follow me, or I stab you where
you stand!" -- and I broke my way from the ball-room into a small ante-chamber
adjoining -- dragging him unresistingly with me as I went.
Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered against the
wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and commanded him to draw. He
hesitated but for an instant; then, with a slight sigh, drew in silence, and put
himself upon his defence.
The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of wild
excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power of a multitude.
In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength against the wainscoting, and
thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly
through and through his bosom.
At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened to
prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But
what human language can adequately portray that astonishment, that horror which
possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which
I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change
in the arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror, --
so at first it seemed to me in my confusion -- now stood where none had been
perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own
image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with
a feeble and tottering gait.
Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist -- it was
Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and
cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not a thread in all his
raiment -- not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of his face
which was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine own!
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have
fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:
"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead --
dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou exist -- and, in my
death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered
thyself."
THE END.
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