03 - PD Goth by Various

Immerse yourself in a chilling collection of eerie tales carefully selected from the vast library of Project Gutenberg, brought to life through the captivating narration of BellonaTimes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter three of the p. D. Goth Collection. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Karina Schultz. Shadow a parable by Edgar Allan

(00:21):
poe YEA though I walk through the valley of the
shadow psalm of David, ye who read are still among
the living, But I who write, shall have long since
gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed,
strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and

(00:42):
many centuries shall pass away. Ere these memorials be seen
of men, and when seen, there will be some to disbelieve,
and some to doubt, and yet a few who will
find much to ponder upon. In the characters here graven
with a stylus of iron, the year had been a
year of terror, and of feelings more intense than terror,

(01:06):
for which there is no name upon the earth. For
many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and
wide over sea and land. The black wings of the
pestilence were spread abroad to those nevertheless cunning in the stars.
It was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect
of ill, and to me the Greek Enus, among others.

(01:30):
It was evident that now had arrived the alternation of
that seven hundred and ninety fourth year, when at the
entrance of Ares, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the
red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of
the skies, if I mistake not greatly made itself manifest,
not only in the physical orb of the Earth, but

(01:52):
in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind. Over some
flasks of the red Chian wine. Within the walls of
a noble hall in a dim city called Ptolemasis, we
sat at night a company of seven, and to our
chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door

(02:13):
of brass, and the door was fashioned by the artisan corinas, and,
being of rare workmanship, was fastened from within black draperies. Likewise,
in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon,
the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets. But the boding
and the memory of evil, they would not be so excluded.

(02:35):
There were things around us, and about of which I
can render no distinct account, things material and spiritual, heaviness
in the atmosphere, a sense of suffocation, anxiety, and above
all that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience
when the senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile

(02:55):
the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung
upon us. It hung upon our limbs, upon the household furniture,
upon the goblets from which we drank, and all things
were depressed and borne down thereby, all things save only
the flames of the seven lamps, which illumined our revel

(03:16):
uprearing themselves in tall, slender lines of light. They thus
remained burning, all pallid and motionless, and in the mirror
which their luster formed upon the round table of ebony
at which we sat, each of us there assembled beheld
the pallor of his own countenance, and the unquiet glare
in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed

(03:39):
and were merry in our proper way, which was hysterical,
and sang the songs of anacreon which are madness, and
drank deeply, although the purple wine reminded us of blood,
For there was yet another tenant to our chamber, in
the person of young Zolus dead, and at full length
he lay shrouded the genius and the demon of the scene.

(04:04):
Alas he bore no portion in our mirth, save that
his countenance distorted with the plague, and his eyes, in
which death had but half extinguished. The fire of the
pestilence seemed to take such interest in our merriment as
the dead may haply take in the merriment of those
who are to die. But although I Annos felt that

(04:25):
the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I
forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their expression, and,
gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony mirror,
sang with a loud and sonorous voice, the songs of
the Sun of Taos. But gradually my songs they ceased,
and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies

(04:48):
of the chamber, became weak and undistinguishable, and so faded away.
And lo from among those sable draperies where the sounds
of the song departed, there came forth a dark and
undefined to shadow, a shadow such as the moon when
low in heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man.
But it was the shadow neither of man nor of God,

(05:11):
nor of any familiar thing, and quivering awhile among the
draperies of the room, it at length rested in full
view upon the surface of the door of brass. But
the shadow was vague and formless and indefinite, and was
the shadow neither of man nor of God, neither God
of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God.

(05:34):
And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway and under
the arch of the entablature of the door, and moved
not nor spoke any word, But there became stationary and remained.
And the door whereupon the shadow rested, was, if I remember,
aright over against the feet of the young Zoalus, enshrouded.

(05:55):
But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow
as it came out from among the draperies, dared not
steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes and gazed
continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And
at length I and us, speaking some low words, demanded
of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation, And the

(06:16):
shadow answered, I am shadow, am. My dwelling is near
to the catacombs of Ptolemasis, and hard by those dim
planes of Refusion, which border upon the foul Coronian Canal.
And then did we the Seven start from our seats
in horror, and stand trembling and shuddering and aghast. For

(06:38):
the tones in the voice of the Shadow were not
the tones of any one being, but of a multitude
of beings, and varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable,
fell duskly upon our ears in the well remembered and
familiar accents of many thousand departed friends. End of Section three.