埃德加·愛倫·坡/Edgar Allan Poe
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung up pressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I knew not how it was but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible, I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye like windows, upon a few randy sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after dream of the reveler upon opium; the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed torture into ought of the sublime. What was it I paused to think what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forded to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
那年秋天，一個天氣陰沉、昏暗而又寂靜的日子，低壓的雲層籠罩著大地。整整一天，我獨自騎著馬，在一條異常沉悶的鄉間小路上行進。暮色降臨時分，淒涼的厄謝爾宅第終於呈現在我的眼前。但是，不知出於什麽原因，第一眼望見這幢房子，我就被一種令人難以忍受的陰鬱抓住了。我說難以忍受，是因為往常即使人們看到荒山野嶺或其他令人生畏的自然景象時，也可能產生一些詩意，心中或許有幾分快感。此時此地的情景在我心中卻絲毫引不起此種感情。我看著眼前的這番景象——宅第本身、房子周圍單調的景象、光禿禿的牆壁、空空的圓窗、幾叢雜亂的茅草、幾株灰白的枯樹——心情十分沮喪。這種沮喪，無法以人世間的任何心情來比擬，除非把它比做過足鴉片煙癮的人從夢幻中回到現實生活裏的那種痛苦心情。我隻覺心中一涼，往下一沉，異常難受。還有一種揮之不去的淒涼之感，無論如何也不能激起我的興致。那麽，究竟是什麽——我停下來仔細思量——究竟是什麽使我的心緒在凝望厄謝爾宅第時如此煩亂呢？這完全是一個無法解答的謎。在我思量的時候，腦海裏充滿了模模糊糊的想法，卻無法弄得清楚明白。我隻好用那個不能令人滿意的解釋來安慰自己——盡管一些非常簡單的自然景物結合在一起，也具有影響我們的威力，但要仔細分析這種威力，卻遠在我們思考的深度範圍之外。