Analyse du personnage Lady Madeleine (document en anglais)

It was especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch-while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room-of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest swayed fitfully t and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless .An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I lifted myself upon the pillows, and ,peering earnestly within the intense darkness  of the chamber, hearkened-I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me-to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and from through the apartment.

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was ,as usual ,cadaverously wan-but ,moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes-an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour .His air appalled me-but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

‘And you have not seen it?’ he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence- ‘you have not seen it? –but, stay! You shall.’ Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving  the life-like velocity with which they flew

- This extract is a build-up to the climax of the story, The Fall of the House of Usher. The narrator has been invited by his old friend, Mr. Usher to relieve him of what he consider careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this- yet we had not glimpse of the moon or stars- nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapour ,as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly

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