The Imp of the Perverse
by Edgar Allan Poe
IN THE consideration of the faculties and impulses -- of the prima
mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make
room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical,
primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all
the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the
reason, we have all overlooked it. We have suffered its existence to
escape our senses, solely through want of belief -- of faith; --
whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in the Kabbala. The idea
of it has never occurred to us, simply because of its supererogation.
We saw no need of the impulse -- for the propensity. We could not
perceive its necessity. We could not understand, that is to say, we
could not have understood, had the notion of this primum mobile ever
obtruded itself; -- we could not have understood in what manner it
might be made to further the objects of humanity, either temporal or
eternal. It cannot be denied that phrenology and, in great measure,
all metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual
or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man, set
himself to imagine designs -- to dictate purposes to God. Having thus
fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of
these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the
matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally
enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat. We
then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is
the scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man
should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality,
with constructiveness, -- so, in short, with every organ, whether
representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the
pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the principia of human
action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon
the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their
predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from the
preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects
of his Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify
(if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or
occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than
upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended
him to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how
then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?
If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures, how then
in his substantive moods and phases of creation?
Induction, a posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit,
as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical
something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more
characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile
without motive, a motive not motivir. Through its promptings we
act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as
a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as
to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we
should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in
fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain
conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain
that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any
action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and
alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming
tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or
resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
impulse-elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist
in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct
is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the
combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of
this idea. The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the
necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard against injury. Its
principle regards our well-being; and thus the desire to be well is
excited simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the
desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle
which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the
case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be
well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment
exists.
An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to
the sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and
thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire
to tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware
that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he is usually
curt, precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language
is struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with
difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he
dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the
thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses
this anger may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The
impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to
an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret
and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all
consequences) is indulged.
We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know
that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of
our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We
glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the
anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire.
It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until
to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,
using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow
arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but
with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a
positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This
craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action
is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us,
-- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the
shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow
which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the
knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note
to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears
-- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it
is too late!
We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we
grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.
Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness
and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By
gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as
did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the
Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge,
there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any
genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although
a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with
the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of
what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a
fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation
-- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and
loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and
suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination --
for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because
our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we
the most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge
of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in
any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but
urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot.
If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden
effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge,
and are destroyed.
Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them
because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no
intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness
a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally
known to operate in furtherance of good.
I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question, that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign
to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause
for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of
the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have
misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me
mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many
uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.
It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more
thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the
means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their
accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading
some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness
that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle
accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my
victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment
was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with
impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by
which I substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light
of my own making for the one which I there found. The next
morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's
verdict was -- "Death by the visitation of God."
Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The
idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of
the fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no
shadow of a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or even
to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment
of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute
security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel
in this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the
mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at
length an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by
scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing
thought. It harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid
of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed
with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the
burthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from
an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself
be good, or the opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last,
I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security, and
repeating, in a low undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."
One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in
the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a
fit of petulance, I remodelled them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe
-- yes -- if I be not fool enough to make open confession!"
No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep
to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity,
(whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and I
remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted
their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might
possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been
guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had
murdered -- and beckoned me on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul.
I walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I
felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of
thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well
understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still
quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded
thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued
me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my
tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears
-- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped
for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation;
I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend,
I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long
imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.
They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked
emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before
concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to
the hangman and to hell.
Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.
But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am here!
To-morrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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