As I thought, the ship proves to be in a current, if I may say so. It runs on to the southward with a speed of a waterfall.
The horrors of my sensations is indescribable. Yet I feel curious about where we are going. Obviously, we are on the verge of a great discovery. Perhaps this current leads us to the southern pole itself; there are many signs in favor of that[41].
The crew nervously walk around. But it feels like they are full of hope rather than the apathy of despair.
In the meantime, the wind still carries us from the bottom to the top and vice versa[42]. Oh, horror upon horror! Suddenly the ice opens to the right and to the left. We are whirling dizzily in immense circles. The walls of ice are now lost in the darkness and the distance. The circles rapidly grow small – we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool and – oh God! – going down.
William Wilson
Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. It is not my real name. That name is an object for the scorn, for the horror of all. Did not wind carry my infamous name to all regions of the globe? Am I not forever dead to the world? Does not a dark cloud hang eternally between my hopes and heaven?
Men usually become bad by degrees[43]. But from me, all my goodness dropped in a single moment, as if I dropped a coat. From little acts of weakness I passed, in one giant step, into pure evil. I will tell what one event brought me into this. Death is near, and its shadow softened my soul. I desire for the sympathy and pity of other men. I wish them to believe that I was the slave of circumstances beyond human control. I believe no other man was ever tempted as me, and no other man ever fell as down as me. Was not I living in a dream? Am I not dying from the horror of this dream?
My family is well-known for its choleric temper. I inherited the family temper and, as I grew older, it became stronger. My friends had hard times dealing with my bad character and the hurt it did me was great. I grew stubborn and always wanted people to do things my way. My parents, weak in mind and body, could never stop me from doing the wildest things. Their weak attempts to do so always failed which made me saw no authority in them. In our house, my voice was a law. Unlike other children, I was the master of my own actions.
I spent my early years in a small, misty-looking village of England. My school was in a large, very old house that stood among a great number of big trees. All of the houses there were very old. In truth, that old town was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place. I remember the freshening coolness of its streets, the smell of its thousand bushes and the feeling I had whenever I heard the church bell. I enjoy recalling these memories – as much as it possible to enjoy something in my suffering. Not only it gives me pleasure, but is important in the understanding of my following fate. Let me then remember.
The house, as I said, was old and wide. Its territory was large and surrounded by a solid brick wall. Three times a week we were allowed to go beyond this wall. On Saturday, we took brief walks through some of the neighboring fields, and on Sunday, we went twice to the only church of the village. The head-teacher of our school was also the head of the church. With a spirit of deep wonder I used to watch him there! In church, it was a man whose face seemed to be the embodiment of modesty[44] and whose clothes were glossy out of cleanness. In school, this same man stood with a stern face and clothes far from clean and was ready to strike us for disobeying him. Oh, this paradox is too great for my mind!
I well remember our playground behind the house. There were no trees, nor benches; the ground was as hard as stone. In front of the house there was a small garden, but we hardly ever visited it. We went through this garden only when we first arrived in the school or finally departed from it.
But the house! It was truly a palace to me. There was really no end to it. It was always hard to say on which of two floors I happened to be. There were three or four steps either up or down from each room to every other. The rooms branched into each other, and these branches were too many to count. During the five years I was there, I always had trouble to explain someone how to find the room where I and some other twenty boys lived. The schoolroom was the largest in the house – and I could not help thinking so, in the world. It was very long and low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a far corner was the office of our head-teacher, Mr. Bransby. The door of the office was thick and heavy, and no one ever would dare to open it in Mr. Bransby absence.
Five years passed between the massy walls of this academy. Interestingly, a child does not need the outside world to be amused. As a child, I found more pleasure in monotony of the school than as a young man in riches or an older man in crimes. Usually people do not remember their early life but I remember mine clearly.
I was different from other boys. My hot temper separated me from them. Slowly but naturally I gained control over all not greatly older than myself. But there was an exception. This exception was a boy who had the same name as myself although was not related to me. He was the only one who would not follow my commands.
We were constantly competing with each other. I always acted as if I do not care about him but the truth was that I was afraid of him. Although it seemed no one even noticed the battle between us, he always tried to stop me from things I wanted to do. The strangest of all was his manner with which he did it. It was somewhat affectionate. I thought his manner meant to show that he was better than I was.
Maybe this and the fact that we shared the same name, made some boys from the senior classes think we are brothers. As I mentioned earlier, that Wilson was not connected to my family. But if he were, we would be twins – as I once discovered he was born the same day as me, he nineteenth of January, 1813.
In spite of our constant competing and anxiety it gave me, I could not hate him. Almost every day we quarreled and every time I came out a winner. But somehow his manner made me feel that he was the true winner. I had mixed feelings toward him; something between love and hatred, fear and respect.
I tried to make everyone laugh at him. I tried to cause him pain, pretending I am just fooling around. But my attempts often failed, as it seemed there was nothing in him to make fun of. Actually, there was, but no one ever would use it against him – no one except me. He was able to speak only in a very, very soft, low voice, and I never missed an opportunity to bring that fact up.
Wilson usually fought back. He, too, knew my weak spot. He somehow sensed I had a strong distaste for my name. I hated that too many people bore the same name. I felt like it took my personality away, and I hated when our schoolfellows mistook my actions for his and his actions for mine. But the truth was we indeed were alike in mind and body. I knew he knew that too and he used that as a weapon. He perfectly copied my dress and my walk; he could not copy my voice – but he perfectly copied my tone.
I cannot describe how much this most careful picture of myself annoyed me. My only consolation was that no one else noticed that. I was the only one who saw Wilson’s strange and knowing smiles. He seemed to laugh within himself watching me in anger. He did not care no one laughed with him. The fact that no one on school participated in his design[45] was a mystery to me for many anxious months.
As I said before, he always tried to stop me from doing things I wanted to do. He spoke to me in the tone of patronage, which I hated. As I got older, my resistance to his unwanted advice grew. But I have to admit, his moral sense and worldly wisdom were always far keener than my own. I also have to admit that I could be a batter, and thus a happier man, if only I rejected his advices less frequently. Every day I showed more and more openly that I did not want to listen to anything he told me. This made him avoid me or, at least, pretend to do so.
It was about the same period when during a regular quarrel he had something peculiar in his manner. First it startled me, and then deeply interested me. Somehow he brought to my mind the pictures of my earliest years. Those pictures were half-lighted and not clear. I had a feeling that I knew this