Fall of the House of Usher, excerpt By Edgar Allan Poe
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted
me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality-of

the constrained effort of the ennuyél man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance
convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not,
gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly
altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to
admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the
character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye
large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostri
unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want
of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity;-these features, with an
inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily
to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features,
and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom !
spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things
startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in
its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort,
connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
Bored
How did the narrator feel upon seeing Roderick Usher? A. Afraid, distressed, alarmed.
B. Angry, Disgusted, Betrayed
C. Confused, Worried, Surprised
D. Bored Distracted Unamused