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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 or
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 protected 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 their 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 reverie 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 fete; 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 was 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,
half-subdued 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 out-Heroded 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 role, stalked to and froamong the waltzers) he
was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder
either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his
brow reddened withrage.
"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him --"who dares insult us
with this 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 nameless
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, ere
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
afterwards, 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.
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