"Das ovale Porträt" Hörbuch Thriller für Erwachsene von Edgar Allan Poe

Hello and nice to have you here. I am Rico. Stories are great. A man comes after a fight with his servant in a recently abandoned castle. They rent an old but splendid room to spend the night. The man is heavily taken and uses his intoxicating smoke as a painkiller. Is that the reason why he gets lost in the view of a painting? If you don't want to miss a story and haven't subscribed to the channel yet, then subscribe to it and activate the bell. And now have fun listening. The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe I was in an extraordinary, intense and long-lasting fever. All remedies that could be found in this unreal area of ​​the Alps had been unsuccessfully used and finally exhausted. What was to be done? My servant and only companion in the abandoned castle was too unthoughtful and too clumsy to let me down. I had already lost too much blood in the fight with the bandits. I couldn't send my servant for help either and stay here alone and helpless. Then I finally remembered a packet of opium that I had to find in my tobacco and the hookah pipe. I had adopted the habit of smoking the tobacco mixed with the poison in Constantinople. Pedro handed me the tobacco box. I searched and found the narcotic. But when I wanted to cut off a piece, I felt that I had to think about it first. When smoking, it didn't matter how much opium was added to the tobacco. As usual, I had filled half of the pipe with a mixture of opium and cut tobacco. Equal amounts of both. For a while I was able to smoke this mixture completely without feeling any special consequences. At other times, I had hardly smoked two-thirds of this dose when I already felt disturbing signs of mental confusion that warned me to continue smoking. But the effect of the poison only increased gradually. And so I was able to avoid any serious danger by following that first warning. However, the case was different here. I had never swallowed opium before. Laudanum and morphine had occasionally been taken from me and I had no reason to hesitate against these substances. But I had never used concentrated opium. Pedro knew as little as I did which dose to take. And so in this urgent and important case, I was completely left to my own devices. Nevertheless, I did not feel any special unrest, because I had decided to proceed gradually in the application of this drug. First, I wanted to take a very small dose. If it turned out to be ineffective, I would take the second, equally large dose, and so on, until I felt a relapse of the fever and would find the sleep that was so urgent and necessary, whose blessings my dawdling senses had not enjoyed for almost a week. Without a doubt, it was this mental confusion, the dull delirium that was already burdening me, the cause that I did not perceive my conclusion as wrong, but remained so blind, here, where no normal measure could serve me as a reference point, to look at anything for large or small. At that moment, I had no slightest idea that what I considered an extraordinarily small quantum of opium was actually an excessively large one. On the contrary. I remember well that I simply estimated the piece that I wanted to take according to its size ratio to the whole lump that I held in my hand, and in this comparison the portion that I swallowed was actually only a very small part. The lock into which my servant dared to enter to make me, who was badly wounded and was in a state of despair, unable to bring the night under the open sky, was a grandiose, gloomy building that had probably been staring grimly into the mountains for a long time. Apparently, it had to have been abandoned for some time, and only recently. We had settled in a room of a tower a little away from the main building. The furnishings of the room were rich, but old and worn out. The walls were covered with carpets and with numerous and manifold war-like trophies, as well as with a large number of lively paintings in richly ornamented golden frames. These pictures, which not only hung on the four walls, but also in all the corners and niches that had caused the bizarre architecture of the castle tower, these pictures interested me most vividly, probably as a result of my initial delirium. I therefore asked Pedro to close the heavy windows, for it was already night. The lights of a high candelabra, which stood at the end of my bed, were to be lit, and the frayed curtains of black velvet, which encircled the bed, were to be pulled back far. I arranged all this so that, if not for sleep, at least for the viewing of these pictures and for the reading of a little book, which I had found on the pillow, and which contained a description and appraisal of the pictures. I read for a long, long time, and I looked intently. The glorious hours fled, and deep midnight drew near. I wanted to give the candelabra a slightly different position, and in order not to wake up my slumbering servant, I stretched out my hand and made the light so that its rays fell fully on my book. The change, however, had an unexpected success. The rays of the numerous candles now fell into a niche of the room, which had been lying in the deep shadow of a mighty bedpost. So I now saw a picture that had been lost to me, suddenly in its fullest light. It was the portrait of a boy of a womanizing girl. I looked hastily at the picture and then closed my eyes. At first it was not clear to me why I did this, but while I kept my eyes closed, I thought about the cause for this. I had made this movement quite impulsively to gain time for reflection, to gain the firm conviction that my eyes had not deceived me, to gather and soothe my thoughts before I would dare to take a more firm, concrete action. A moment later, I looked at the picture openly and sharply. I could no longer doubt that I was awake and fully in my senses, because already earlier, when the first flickering candlelight fell on this canvas, I was awakened out of the dreamlike serenity that had engulfed my senses. The picture was, as I said, the portrait of a young girl. The painting in the form of a medallion of Sully's popular portraits only showed the head and shoulders. The arms, the bust and the shining hair melted unnoticeably with the indeterminate but deep shadows that formed the background of the whole. The oval frame consisted of richly gold-plated carvings. This painting was an admirable work of art, but neither the excellent execution of the painting nor the supernatural beauty of the portrait head could have taken me so unexpectedly and deeply. The assumption was even less justified that my so suddenly awakened fantasy had made this head the face of a living person. I immediately saw that both the drawing itself and its frame had to disperse such thoughts instantaneously. Yes, I couldn't let them arise at all. I sank into reflection about these questions and lay there for about an hour, half excited, looking at the painting. Finally, when I had found the true secret of its strange effect, he said, I sank back into the pillow. The magic of this strange painting seemed to me to be in absolute authenticity of the expression. The expression that had surprised me at first, then confused, frightened and overwhelmed me. Full of deep, fearful shyness, I pushed the candelabra back to its former place. And now that the object of my unrest had withdrawn my gaze, I eagerly grasped for the little book that dealt with the painting and its story. I picked up the number that led to the oval portrait and read the wonderful words there. She was a girl of the rarest beauty and just as cheerful and zealous as charming. And evil was the hour when she saw and loved the painter whom she had married. He, passionately taught, serious and dark, his art like that of a lover, she, a girl of the rarest beauty and just as cheerful and zealous as charming. Just like a young deer, only light and smiling and playful cheerfulness, she loved all things, loved, kissed all things and hated only art, hated only her rivals, despised only palette and brush and all the things that made her jealous of her beloved. It was terrible for her when the painter expressed his desire to want to portray even her, his young wife. But she was humble and obedient and patiently sat for many weeks in the high, dark tower room in which only a pale light came in from above. And the painter drank bliss from his work, the progress from hour to hour and from day to day. And he was a passionate and wonderful and cheerful man who could completely lose himself in fantasies. And he did not want to see that the ghostly light in the old, lonely tower teased the health and will of his young wife. She sighed, but she always smiled and always without complaining. Because she saw that her husband, this famous painter, drew a glowing, indescribable joy from his work and day and night he tried to complete the painting. The painting of her, who loved him unconditionally and became more and more weak every day. And in truth, some who saw the portrait roared in soft words his likeness. And it was as if one were talking about a strange, powerful miracle that was a proof both for the painter's ability and for his deep love for her, which he had met so well beyond measure. But finally, when the work drew closer to its completion, no one was left in the tower room anymore. Because the painter was almost in a great daze of work and rarely turned his eyes away from the canvas and even rarely looked his wife in the eye. And he did not want to see that the blooming colors he painted on the canvas, the cheeks of the loved ones who sat next to him, were taken away. And when many weeks had passed and only little was left to do, only a brush stroke on the mouth, a gleam on the eye, the young woman's desire for life flickered again, like the flame in the extinguishing lamp flickering again. And then the brush stroke was made and the gleam was applied. And for a moment the painter stood in awe of the work that he had created. But the next moment he began to tremble and he faded and ran for his breath. And without turning his gaze away from his work, he shouted out loud, ''Truly, this is the living life itself!'' And he turned around to look at his beloved. She was dead. Thank you for listening. If you liked the story and you are not sleeping yet, I would be happy about a thumbs up and a comment. And if you can't sleep yet, you can find another story here. See you soon.