Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe (good books for 7th graders .TXT) 📕

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 Conversation of Eiros and Charmion

Πυρ σοι προσοισω.

I will bring fire to thee.

—⁠Euripides, Androm. Eiros

Why do you call me Eiros?

Charmion

So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.

Eiros

This is indeed no dream!

Charmion

Dreams are with us no more; but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you looking lifelike and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired and, tomorrow, I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.

Eiros

True, I feel no stupor, none at all. The wild sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice of many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception of the new.

Charmion

A few days will remove all this;⁠—but I fully understand you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you undergo⁠—yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.

Eiros

In Aidenn?

Charmion

In Aidenn.

Eiros

Oh God!⁠—pity me, Charmion!⁠—I am overburthened with the majesty of all things⁠—of the unknown now known⁠—of the speculative Future merged in the august and certain Present.

Charmion

Grapple not now with such thoughts. Tomorrow we will speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward⁠—but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so fearfully perished.

Eiros

Most fearfully, fearfully!⁠—this is indeed no dream.

Charmion

Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

Eiros

Mourned, Charmion?⁠—oh deeply. To that last hour of all, there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.

Charmion

And that last hour⁠—speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave⁠—at that period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day.

Eiros

The individual calamity was as you say entirely unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire, as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter, without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were accurately known. That among them we should look for the agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been, of late days, strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this announcement was generally received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at perihelion, would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or three astronomers, of secondary note, who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe an assertion which their intellect so long employed among worldly considerations could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge lied not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not, at first, seemingly rapid; nor was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded and all interests absorbed in a growing discussion, instituted by the philosophic, in respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned now gave their intellect⁠—their soul⁠—to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought⁠—they panted for right views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength