The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
The "Red Death" had long devastated the country.
No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.
Blood was its Avatar and its seal - the redness and
the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden
dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores,
with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body
and especially upon the face of the victim, were the
pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the
sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure,
progress, and termination of the disease, were the
incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and
sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated,
he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted
friends from among the knights and dames of his court,
and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one
of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and
magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's
own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty
wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The
courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy
hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave
means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses
of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was
amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers
might bid defiance to contagion. The external world
could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly
to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all
the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there
were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there
were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All
these and security were within. Without was the "Red
Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month
of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most
furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained
his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual
magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first
let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There
were seven - an imperial suite. In many palaces, however,
such suites form a long and straight vista, while the
folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either
hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely
impeded. Here the case was very different; as might
have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre.
The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the
vision embraced but little more than one at a time.
There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards,
and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left,
in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic
window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued
the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained
glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing
hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it
opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for
example, in blue - and vividly blue were its windows.
The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and
tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third
was green throughout, and so were the casements. The
fourth was furnished and lighted with orange - the
fifth with white - the sixth with violet. The seventh
apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries
that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls,
falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material
and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the
windows failed to correspond with the decorations.
The panes here were scarlet - a deep blood color. Now
in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp
or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments
that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the
roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from
lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in
the corridors that followed the suite, there stood,
opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a
brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the
tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And
thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic
appearances. But in the western or black chamber the
effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark
hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly
in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the
countenances of those who entered, that there were
few of the company bold enough to set foot within its
precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against
the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum
swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang;
and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face,
and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the
brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and
loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar
a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour,
the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to
pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken
to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased
the evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of
the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the
clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew
pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands
over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation.
But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter
at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked
at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness
and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other,
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in
them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse
of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and
six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there
came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were
the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation
as before.
But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent
revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had
a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the
decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery,
and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There
are some who would have thought him mad. His followers
felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and
see and touch him to be sure that he was not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments
of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great
fête; and it was his own guiding taste which
had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they
were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and
piquancy and phantasm - much of what has been since
seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures
with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious
fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much
of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre,
something of the terrible, and not a little of that
which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the
seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude
of dreams. And these - the dreams - writhed in and
about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild
music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their
steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which
stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment,
all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the
clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But
the echoes of the chime die away - they have endured
but an instant - and a light, halfsubdued laughter
floats after them as they depart. And now again the
music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
windows through which stream the rays from the tripods.
But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the
seven there are now none of the maskers who venture;
for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier
light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness
of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot
falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near
clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic
than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the
more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and
in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the
revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced
the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the
music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of
the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy
cessation of all things as before. But now there were
twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock;
and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought
crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the
thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too,
it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of
the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there
were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure
to become aware of the presence of a masked figure
which had arrested the attention of no single individual
before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread
itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from
the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of
disapprobation and surprise - then, finally, of terror,
of horror, and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted,
it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance
could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade
license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the
figure in question had outHeroded Herod, and gone beyond
the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless
which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with
the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally
jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel
that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither
wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and
gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments
of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was
made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty
in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have
been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers
around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume
the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled
in blood - and his broad brow, with all the features
of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral
image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if
more fully to sustain its rôle, stalked to and
fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed,
in the first moment with a strong shudder either of
terror or distaste; bur, in the next, his brow reddened
with rage.
"Who dares" - he demanded hoarsely of the
courtiers who stood near him - "who dares insult
us with his blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask
him - that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise,
from the battlements!"
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood
the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They
rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly,
for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music
had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with
a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as
he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this
group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the
moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate
and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker.
But from a certain awe with which the mad assumptions
of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were
found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that,
unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's
person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one
impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the
walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the
same solemn and measured step which had distinguished
him from the first, through the blue chamber to the
purple - through the purple to the green - through
the green to the orange - through this again to the
white - and even thence to the violet, where a decided
movement had been made to arrest him. It was then,
however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage
and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed
hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed
him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon
all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached,
in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet
of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained
the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly
and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry -
and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet,
upon which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate in
death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild
courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once
threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing
the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless
within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable
horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like
mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness,
untenanted by any tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.
He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one
dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of
their revel, and died each in the despairing posture
of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out
with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of
the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the
Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
Fra The Masque of the Red Death, Bantam Pathfinder Edition, Bantam Books, New York, 1964.
17. april, 2000.
Index