The sombre exterior and the shadow
haunted hall are so ominous that we are prepared for the worst
when we enter its portals. The anticipation is half pleasurable,
half fearful, as we shudder at the thought of what may befall us
within its walls. At every turn something uncanny shakes our
overwrought nerves; the sighing of the wind, the echo of distant
footsteps, lurking shadows, gliding forms, inexplicable groans,
mysterious music torture the sensitive imagination of Emily, who
is mercilessly doomed to sleep in a deserted apartment with a
door, which, as so often in the novel of terror, bolts only on
the outside. More nerve wracking than the unburied corpse or even
than the ineffable horror concealed behind the black veil are the
imaginary, impalpable terrors that seize on Emily's tender fancy
as she crosses the hall on her way to solve the riddle of her
aunt's disappearance:
"Emily, deceived by the long shadows of the pillars and
by the catching lights between, often stopped,
imagining that she saw some person moving in the
distant obscurity...and as she passed these pillars she
feared to turn her eyes towards them, almost expecting
to see a figure start from behind their broad shaft."
Torn from the context, this passage no longer congeals us with
terror, but in its setting it conveys in a wonderfully vivid
manner the tricks of a feverish imagination.
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