The Metempsychosis of Elizabeth Wilde

it is a dreary bout of winter, and the frosty air, has adopted the relative scene to a picturesque prospect of the unredeemably desolate. I am usually alone, in an abditory of personal selection, but today, I shall be with a friend, who in summoning, has exploited my obstinate industry, to unspecified cause. He is not, as traced in the letter approved to my reception, usually as hysteric as he has presently displayed in his import, and I fear unfavorable circumstance to be the diagnosis of this. My morbid account of solitude has made me unpopular to the elections of intercourse, and so I fear that this discrimination of invite, has been rendered acute by some notice of a specified aptitude on my part. My friend Arthur lives, in an old estate, erected by the munificent endowments bled from a strain, familiar enough to the pecuniary fortitude of wealth. This as singular attribute, has endorsed his family, with eccentric passions, which to the public eye, have directed their emancipation from conforming interests down to the corridors of exclusive review. I have long been his friend, and have not however viewed him as an asset, lest it were a partnership of enterprise and accommodation. Perhaps I took such a great liking to him, because a gravity of humility which could not by any chance betray, his evident sense of immeasurable altitude in the societal pedigree I mean to say, fastened us to a rapport of collective interest. Interest! My God why not call it insanity for that matter, for he has been imbued by that character which has, in the perpetuate lapse of time distinguished his household politics, and referenced with cunning alignment a fascination with my education in the science of abnormal psychology. I had taken a learning of this marvelous subject, and since adolescence, rhapsodized about the many morbid victories, which have conceived the scholarship of titular advocates such as Cotard. He alone, had become a passenger of interest, pursuing me with inquiries which denoted, strange agglomerations to his device. I fancied this the normal peculiarity of such distinctions. When I had returned from the labors of steady university years, I found that he had married, and fashioned an abode to his grotesque decoration, somewhere in Liverpool. There is no apparent designation to its aetat, but I fancy it an Anglo-Germanic tribute, which in respect to its modern incarnation of artifice, shall be deemed 'Gothic'. Only for the present, for I have not yet a profound learning of the European advance, and simulation. I am here let me advance. The butler, a young refined man shall accompany me to my counterpart, and I find in him an amicable companion and seat of my inquiry. He seems unsettled; a quiver of the lip as he seems to recite with monotonous intonations, a scripture from some subliminal desolation which is the transforming effect of despair. The words are woven thus;

"The master worries, for the Mrs. is not adequate in her preceding developments of reason, we fear she suffers some mental distress" and here the speaker pauses as if struggling to find partnership with his lungs, then with a heaving breath pursues his discourse once more, "she speaks of strange things, demons and whatnot, I implore to God that this is only a fabric of her imagination" and with a violent tone which is unusual of me I must admit, I say,

"Ofcourse not! How can you profess such profanities, demons? Clearly it must be mental, I won't have any more of your prejudice" and then calming myself upon realization, that my friend, the butler has been startled, I resume with apologizing composure,

"We must not friend, assume such a degree of fate, for we have no evidence of the preternatural" and to this, I fancy a passive nod, that seems only to entertain me, with a mask of acquiescence. I fear he has become fugitive of some pervasive influence which to my science, cannot retain plausible resorts of theology. We enter the parlor where Arthur, leaps from his ensconce abandoning a sofa to the transport of a hurried saunter. There is a struggle in his mind, evident in his unusual caution of precept and a fumbling of utterance upon the lip,

"Ah Trevor! I have not for long delighted to the presence of any denizen as I have you, it is all dire I'm afraid, and my wife does not sleep. Many pagan things have trespassed her dictation, alas come she is upstairs" and engaging my arm, he hurries us upon the spiraling ascent of the staircase. It is almost a wage-worthy labor to reach her chamber but we finally reach the threshold, where upon ingress, we find the young lady seated upon the bed embracing her knees, and sobbing. In the intervals of her inaudible chatter, I hear with intrusive brevity the words, "The demon, at night it haunts" and I immideately feel a chill, which in glacial imposition, oppresses my heart with a violent terror. It is perhaps the scanty hairs on her head and the lithic shade of her complexion which patronize this effect, but I must not dwell on this, for the nonce. In that oblivion which has arrested firmly the disturbed lady, we resign to the parlour where I'm reintroduced to the antiquated furnish of the precinct. Here I pardon myself an examination of the provenance, with regards to the architecture, and I find an unbridled fascination with the Gothic, at each accessible portion. The Catherine wheel presently casts its iridescent apparitions unto our dominion; the floral vaults assert their grandiose fortitude of the crimson demarcations, and mauve curtains descend from their lofty spectacle. The floor, in ebony trajectory remains the platform of antiquated furniture and ornaments which allude to that manifestation of the Greek. Altogether it is a fair precinct despite the largely elongated pronouncement of its century. The butler assists our woes, to what best his duty can afford, with ruby wine. As we imbibe with cold reticence, Arthur breaks the silence with the words,

"Well then, you have seen her, this is a recent development of hers, and she complains of ethereal visits upon the nocturnal hour, what be your diagnosis... schizophrenia?" And choking as the surmise begins to materialize in my mind, I address him, with an ambivalence of doubt and certainty,

"Perhaps it is too soon friend to pressure this object to our register, for I have just come and my practice has not been hitherto put to task" and to this, a slight play of a smile dances on his mouth, an uncanny sight, and he says,

"Remember when you where at that Redbrick University, I forget it pardon me, and you sent me quires yes, as to my request. Volumes of psychology, positive and abnormal?" And to this I nod, trying at all means to understand the vision of his course and then adds onto this with the words,

"I take it you do then, well I have kept those books, though I must admit they have been quite esoteric to my learning, but I take it you have not the material to commence any study with respects to my wife's condition, this shall be your aid" here he ascended from the sofa and then resuming with alacrity sentenced me to his accompaniment with the exclamation,

"Follow me, I must show you something" and once more he engages my arm, something of strange family heritage I presume and leads me down a cold hallway, unto a precinct which in all seemings of its advertisment is a library, betraying a sense of abandonment with a prevailent odor of dust. The lights which compliment its cobwebbed desolation are amber, and there are many autodidactic improvisions of paintings, alluding to figures of the literary commodity. I fancy the Von Goethe and the Byron, equiped unto the office walls among other portraits, which unfortunately cannot restore vital presence to this academy of decadence.

"You will here find many great books of sound reason and intellect, some under personal collection and others obsolete immigration. I have not perused all their inhabitants, but I am sure there are a good deal of those, which are the interest of our concern" quoth Arthur before dismissing himself unceremoniously. "The butler shall refer you to me once your study has been sufficiently sated" he says as his shadow gradually recedes into evanescence. I begin to saunter, collecting at each turn, books of relevant and somewhat personal subordination. I then resign to a table and peruse, the rudiments of the Freudian analysis, from dreams to parapraxis, until at length abandoning at will the inditement of the relevant text, I find a book, which designates (as supposed by titular attribution) the history in the blood of the family surname. This has perhaps for reasons I cannot give flesh, never frequented the eyes of Aurthur. Opening the book, as it exhales a long suppressed colony of dust particles, I read with careful intonation the glossary. Finding an invaluable topic, which is a direct inclination to Arthur's heritage and the manifesting atoms of their temperaments, I read from the chapter _The Unparalleled Strife. Here after long perusing I find a name, which arrests me unnaturally to its character, Madam Elizabeth Wilde.

"1546__The Wilde family, or rather the elders of this established community, favored in the altitude of status, know best without apology of reticence, the tragedy of Madam Elizabeth Wilde, excluded from the family heritage due to an elastic fragility of reason which, in uncommon fallibility ensured a behavioral defect. The psychology of Elizabeth has made her an unpopular tribute to these pages, but there was once a time, when her name was a herald of regality and wisdom. Such is the deplorable nature of evil, for Gerald Wilde, the earliest accountant of this tale, being her suitor of many years, has in the fragments retrieved from his memoir claimed, she complained of some haranguing of demons. Her suicide was recorded in the Wilde estate, and the note of the deceased threatened of some metempsychosis, unlisted to any reference"

Here aghast and sick with eerie unease, I hear the voice of the butler summon me, this being the best interest of Arthur, that I join him for a leisurely promenade. I respond to this, with immideate venture after hiding the strange text. I find Arthur with that pale look of struggle upon his visage, and with tacit recognition, he engages me to his residence, as we go about the bohemoth yard. He inquires of my theological purchase, and I offer him naught of solid facts, averting his attentions to nostalgias of yore. This has some effect on him, for his gait has been renewed with healthy sinew, at first stroke of the subject. As we converse, with great hilarity well into the envelope of the dawning eve, we hear the sound of the butler, unbridled and affected by some quivering horror. We ought to return to the abode soon enough!, and with this thought, we reach the stead and are escorted by the butler who refuses to surrender the chronicle. Instead he leaves us to the ornament of prelibation as we gear upstairs and find the Mrs. in her abode, having significantly aged, into an elderly woman, a semblance in uniform to the cultures of a WITCH, here she spoke, ah! How terrible her racing hiss,

"The hour is come, truly it has long been anticipated, for I have returned and no other appellation shall be more vengeful than this which is my own, Elizabeth Wilde."