Doomwright

The Fall of the House of Usher — DOOMWRIGHT

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER — album cover, a cracked gothic mansion mirrored in a still black tarn beneath a red moon
Chamber death-doom · after Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, 1839

The Fall of the House of Usher

A visitor answers a summons to a decaying house and its last, failing heir. Together they seal the man's sister in the vault — too soon. In the House of Usher the buried do not stay buried, and the house falls with the family into the black tarn.

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The Argument

A traveller rides to the House of Usher, a crumbling mansion mirrored in a black tarn, answering the summons of a boyhood friend — Roderick Usher, last of the line, sick with a nameless dread and a terror of his own senses.

In the house lingers Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, wasting from a disease no physician can name. When she seems to die, the two men seal her body in a vault deep beneath the house — and Roderick begins to unravel, listening to sounds no one else will admit they hear.

For days the house tightens around them. Then, on a storming night, Roderick confesses the unbearable truth: they buried her alive, and he has heard her stirring in the vault for days. The door opens. Madeline stands there, bloodied, and falls upon her brother, and the two die together.

The visitor flees into the storm, and behind him the fissure that always ran down the face of the house splits wide. The House of Usher — mansion and bloodline as one — cracks apart and sinks without a sound into the tarn that had always waited to receive it.

The house and the last of its blood fall together, and the black water closes over both.

Eight movements

The Fall of the House of Usher, in full

Three presences carry the record — the Narrator, our witness, in a deep cavernous guttural; Roderick, the failing heir, in a frail cracking rasp; and Madeline, who is never a clean voice at all — the sick viola is hers, until one buried, wordless rasp at the door.

IThe Approachwords
The whole day dull, the sky hung low I came at last where the causeway ends A house of grey and a lake of black And a dread no reason comprehends I looked upon the empty windows The rank sedge and the pale decay And felt a sinking, a soul-sickness No poet's words could charm away There is a crack from roof to water A fissure thin along the stone The house still stands, but something in it Has learned to suffer and to groan The tarn beneath gave back its image A second house, drowned and reversed I crossed the causeway to my boyhood friend And entered the house that bore the curse
IIThe Last of the Usherswords
Roderick My senses are a torment to me The light is knives, the sound is glass I taste the rot inside the timber I feel the hours as they pass He was my friend in boyhood summers Now grey and thin, a candle spent He feared no thing that he could name to me Only that fear itself was imminent Roderick The house itself has grown around us The stones remember, and they wait We are the last, my sister and I Two threads left of a dying fate No branch, no heir, no line continuing The name and the house are one and the same And when the last of us has fallen The walls will fall to end the name Roderick I shall not die of any illness I shall die of the thing I dread The terror has no shape or reason I only know I go unfed
IIIThe Lady Madelinewords
She passed the far end of the chamber And did not turn, and did not speak A figure thin as winter branches A wasting no physician's art could break Roderick The doctors name it and are helpless A settled apathy, a slow decline A stiffening that mimics dying She fades a little more each time I saw her once and then no longer That night the illness laid her down Her brother's twin, his mirror image The last two Ushers going down Roderick When she is gone I will be single One half of one divided thing There is no Usher but as two of us And half a bell can only ring
IVThe Sealing of the Vaultwords
Roderick We will not give her to the graveyard The doctors watch, they want to know We will keep her in the house that bore her In the vault where the old dead go We carried her down through the deep stone Below my sleeping chamber's floor A copper coffin, a crypt of iron And screwed the lid, and barred the door I looked upon her face a last time And started at the faint warm bloom The lingering red upon her features The mockery of a smile in that tomb Roderick A common thing in her condition The illness leaves its color late Turn the last screw and set the iron And leave her to her sleeping state We climbed again into the living And left the dead below the stone But something in me would not settle For the color of that face had grown
VThe House Tightenswords
The days that followed were a fever He roamed the halls with staring eyes He listened at the walls for something He would not name and could not disguise Roderick Do you not hear it in the timber? Do you not feel the house draw tight? The stones are pressing, breathing, waiting Something is moving in the night I told him it was wind and vermin I told myself the same, and lied For under all the house's silence A slow thing knocked, and would not die Roderick The house and I are bound together Its walls are nerves, its stones are mine When it grows sick, I sicken with it We share one blood, one breaking spine No sleep would come to me that seventh night The storm outside began to rise And in the dark beneath my chamber Something drew its first breath in the crypt
VIThe Sounds Belowwords
To calm him I began to read aloud An old romance, a knight, a door he tore And as I read the tearing of the metal A tearing answered from below the floor I read the dragon's shriek of dying And from the vault a grating cry replied I told myself the storm had made it But Roderick sat and rocked and sighed Roderick I hear it, I have heard it for days now The scratching and the muffled moan I did not dare, I did not dare to speak it We put her living in the stone Roderick We screwed her down, we barred the iron And she has clawed for seven days I hear her heartbeat in the timber I hear her rising through the ways He turned his eyes toward the chamber door As though the dark itself would speak And in the pause between the thunder We heard the hinges start to creak
VIIShe Is Standing at the Doorwords
The door swung wide upon the darkness And there upon the threshold stood The lady Madeline of Usher In her shroud, and streaked with blood She had not died within the copper She woke inside the barred-up stone For seven days she tore against it And clawed her way back up alone Madeline A buried, wordless rasp — then silence. She fell upon him where he trembled And bore her brother to the floor Two Ushers dying in each other The twin, the mirror, and no more Roderick I told you, I have always told you The terror had no need of breath It only waited in the marrow For the mirror to bring the death And I, the one who came a witness Rose from the chair and fled the room For both of them lay dead together And the house had become a tomb
VIIIThe House Falls into the Tarnwords
I fled the house across the causeway The storm had torn the clouds apart And a wild red moon burned through the fissure That split the building to its heart The crack that ran from roof to water Widened as I turned to see The walls drew breath and came asunder The house of Usher ceased to be It fell in silence to the tarn's edge The stones went down without a cry The black lake closed above the ruin And gave no ripple to the sky No Usher left, no house, no bloodline No name to carry, none to tell But one who came and saw the ending And rode away, and did not dwell
The Illuminations

Eight scenes from the fall

Title card — A decaying gothic mansion mirrored in a black tarn at the end of a long causeway, red light behind it, captioned 'I · The Approach'
A dying house, and a dying friend, at the end of the causeway.I · The Approach
Title card — A frail man slumped in a chair in a ruined hall, a blood-red window and cold hearth, captioned 'II · The Last of the Ushers'
Roderick Usher, last of the line, sick with a nameless dread.II · The Last of the Ushers
Title card — A pale wasting woman drifting down a ruined corridor, captioned 'III · The Lady Madeline'
Madeline, wasting from a disease no physician can name.III · The Lady Madeline
Title card — A robed figure closing a heavy iron vault door on a coffin lit red within, captioned 'IV · The Sealing of the Vault'
They seal her body in the vault — too soon.IV · The Sealing of the Vault
Title card — A lone figure in a vast cracked hall closing in around them, a fissure running the floor, captioned 'V · The House Tightens'
For days the house tightens around them.V · The House Tightens
Title card — A man bent listening as clawing hands rise from a glowing crack in the floor, captioned 'VI · The Sounds Below'
Sounds no one else will admit they hear.VI · The Sounds Below
Title card — A bloodied woman standing in a red-lit doorway as a man recoils on the floor, captioned 'VII · She Is Standing at the Door'
The door opens — and Madeline is standing there.VII · She Is Standing at the Door
Title card — A great gothic house split down the middle beneath a blood moon, sinking into the water, captioned 'VIII · The House Falls into the Tarn'
The house and the last of its blood fall together into the tarn.VIII · The House Falls into the Tarn