APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/poe/wlmwilson/WLMWILSON

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                      1839

                 WILLIAM WILSON

               by Edgar Allan Poe

      What say of it? what say (of) CONSCIENCE grim,
      That spectre in my path?
                        Chamberlayne's Pharronida.


LET 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 celling 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-