The Oval Portrait

Edgar Allan Poe

The chateau
into which my valet had ventured
to make forcible entrance,
rather than permit me,
in my desperately wounded condition,
to pass a night in the open air,
was one of those piles
of commingled gloom and grandeur
which have so long frowned
among the Appennines,
not less in fact
than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe.
To all appearance
it had been 
temporarily and very lately abandoned.
We established ourselves
in one of the smallest
and least sumptuously
furnished apartments.
It lay
in a remote turret of the building.
Its decorations were rich,
yet tattered and antique.
Its walls were hung with tapestry
and bedecked with manifold
and multiform armorial trophies,
together with an unusually great number
of very spirited modern paintings
in frames of rich golden arabesque.

In these paintings,
which depended from the walls
not only in their main surfaces,
but in very many nooks
which the bizarre architecture
of the chateau
rendered necessary
— in these paintings 
 my incipient delirium,
perhaps,
had caused me to take deep interest;
so that I bade Pedro
to close the heavy shutters of the room
— since it was already night — 
to light the tongues
of a tall candelabrum
which stood by the head of my bed
— and to throw open far and wide
the fringed curtains of black velvet
which enveloped the bed itself.
I wished all this done
that I might resign myself,
if not to sleep,
at least alternately
to the contemplation of these pictures,
and the perusal of a small volume
which had been found
upon the pillow,
and which purported to criticise
and describe them.

Long
— long I read — 
and devoutly, devotedly
I gazed.
Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by,
and the deep midnight came.
The position of the candelabrum
displeased me,
and outreaching my hand with difficulty,
rather than disturb my slumbering valet,
I placed it so 
as to throw its rays more fully
upon the book.

But the action
produced an effect altogether
unanticipated.
The rays of the numerous candles
(for there were many)
now fell within a niche of the room 
which had hitherto been thrown 
into deep shade
by one of the bed-posts.
I thus saw in vivid light
a picture
all unnoticed before.
It was the portrait
of a young girl
just ripening into womanhood.
I glanced at the painting hurriedly,
and then closed my eyes.
Why I did this
was not at first apparent
even to my own perception.
But while my lids remained thus shut,
I ran over in my mind
 my reason for so shutting them.
It was an impulsive movement
to gain time for thought
— to make sure
that my vision
had not deceived me — 
to calm and subdue my fancy
for a more sober
and more certain gaze.
In a very few moments
I again looked fixedly
at the painting.

That I now saw aright
I could not
and would not doubt;
for the first flashing of the candles
upon that canvas
had seemed to dissipate
the dreamy stupor
which was stealing over my senses,
and to startle me at once
into waking life.

The portrait, I have already said,
was that of a young girl.
It was a mere head and shoulders,
done in what is technically termed
a vignette manner;
much in the style
of the favorite heads of Sully.
The arms,
the bosom
and even the ends of the radiant hair,
melted imperceptibly
into the vague yet deep shadow
which formed the back-ground
of the whole.
The frame was oval,
richly gilded and filagreed in Moresque.
As a thing of art
nothing could be more admirable
than the painting itself.
But it could have been neither
the execution of the work,
nor the immortal beauty
of the countenance,
which had so suddenly
and so vehemently moved me.
Least of all,
could it have been that my fancy,
shaken from its half slumber,
had mistaken the head
for that of a living person.

I saw at once
that the peculiarities of the design,
of the vignetting, and of the frame,
must have instantly dispelled such idea
— must have prevented 
even its momentary entertainment.
Thinking earnestly upon these points,
I remained, for an hour perhaps,
half sitting, half reclining,
with my vision riveted upon the portrait.
At length,
satisfied
with the true secret of its effect,
I fell back within the bed.
I had found the spell of the picture
in an absolute life-likeliness
of expression,
which, at first startling,
finally confounded,
subdued and appalled me.
With deep and reverent awe
I replaced the candelabrum
in its former position.
The cause of my deep agitation
being thus shut from view,
I sought eagerly the volume
which discussed the paintings
and their histories.
Turning to the number
which designated the oval portrait,
I there read
the vague and quaint words
which follow:

“She was a maiden of rarest beauty,
and not more lovely than full of glee.
And evil was the hour when she saw,
and loved, and wedded the painter.
He, passionate, studious, austere,
and having already a bride in his Art;
she a maiden of rarest beauty,
and not more lovely than full of glee;
all light and smiles,
and frolicsome as the young fawn;
loving and cherishing all things;
hating only the Art which was her rival;
dreading only the pallet and brushes
and other untoward instruments
which deprived her 
of the countenance of her lover.
It was thus a terrible thing
for this lady to hear the painter
speak of his desire
to portray even his young bride.
But she was humble and obedient,
and sat meekly for many weeks
in the dark high turret-chamber
where the light dripped
upon the pale canvas
only from overhead.
But he, the painter,
took glory in his work,
which went on from hour to hour,
and from day to day.
And he was a passionate, and wild,
and moody man,
who became lost in reveries;
so that he would not see
that the light which fell so ghastlily
in that lone turret withered the health
and the spirits of his bride,
who pined visibly to all but him.

Yet she smiled on and still on,
uncomplainingly,
because she saw that the painter,
(who had high renown,)
took a fervid and burning pleasure
in his task,
and wrought day and night
to depict her
who so loved him,
yet who grew daily
more dispirited and weak.
And in sooth
 some who beheld the portrait
spoke of its resemblance in low words,
as of a mighty marvel,
and a proof not less
of the power of the painter
than of his deep love for her
whom he depicted so surpassingly well.
But at length,
as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion,
there were admitted none into the turret;
for the painter
had grown wild
with the ardor of his work,
and turned his eyes
from the canvas
rarely,
even to regard
the countenance of his wife.
And he would not see
that the tints
which he spread upon the canvas
were drawn from the cheeks of her
who sat beside him.
And when many weeks had passed,
and but little remained to do,
save one brush upon the mouth
and one tint upon the eye,
the spirit of the lady
again flickered up as the flame
within the socket of the lamp.
And then the brush was given,
and then the tint was placed;
 and, for one moment,
the painter stood entranced
before the work
which he had wrought;
but in the next,
 while he yet gazed,
he grew tremulous and very pallid,
and aghast,
and crying with a loud voice, 
‘This is indeed Life itself!’
 turned suddenly to regard his beloved:
— She was dead! ”