埃德加·爱伦·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，一个天气阴沉、昏暗而又寂静的日子，低压的云层笼罩着大地。整整一天，我独自骑着马，在一条异常沉闷的乡间小路上行进。暮色降临时分，凄凉的厄谢尔宅第终于呈现在我的眼前。但是，不知出于什么原因，第一眼望见这幢房子，我就被一种令人难以忍受的阴郁抓住了。我说难以忍受，是因为往常即使人们看到荒山野岭或其他令人生畏的自然景象时，也可能产生一些诗意，心中或许有几分快感。此时此地的情景在我心中却丝毫引不起此种感情。我看着眼前的这番景象——宅第本身、房子周围单调的景象、光秃秃的墙壁、空空的圆窗、几丛杂乱的茅草、几株灰白的枯树——心情十分沮丧。这种沮丧，无法以人世间的任何心情来比拟，除非把它比做过足鸦片烟瘾的人从梦幻中回到现实生活里的那种痛苦心情。我只觉心中一凉，往下一沉，异常难受。还有一种挥之不去的凄凉之感，无论如何也不能激起我的兴致。那么，究竟是什么——我停下来仔细思量——究竟是什么使我的心绪在凝望厄谢尔宅第时如此烦乱呢？这完全是一个无法解答的谜。在我思量的时候，脑海里充满了模模糊糊的想法，却无法弄得清楚明白。我只好用那个不能令人满意的解释来安慰自己——尽管一些非常简单的自然景物结合在一起，也具有影响我们的威力，但要仔细分析这种威力，却远在我们思考的深度范围之外。