Page:MU KPB 015 Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination.pdf/293



ORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to the story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the. Of the doctrines themselves—that is, of their falsity, or of their probability—I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity as La Bruyére says of all our unhappiness) “vient de ne pouvoir être seuls.”

But there were some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to absurdity. They—the Hungarians—differed very essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example. “The soul,” said the former—I give the words of an acute and intelligent Parisian—"ne demeure qu’une seule fois dans un corps sensible: au reste—un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n’est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux.”

The families at Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at variance for centuries. Never before were two houses, so illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy—“A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzensgerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.”

To be sure, the words themselves had little or no meaning. But more trivial causes have given rise—and that no long while ago—to consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbours are seldom friends; and the inhabitants of the Castle Berliftzing might look from their lofty buttresses into the very windows of the Palace Metzengerstein, Least of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable feelings of