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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1064 ***
+
+The Masque of the Red Death
+
+by 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 towards 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. These 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 colour 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 colour of the
+windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
+scarlet—a deep blood colour. 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
+harken 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 colours 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 movable 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,
+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-coloured 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 indulged 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 rumour 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 licence 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 the 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 fro among 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 with rage.
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1064 ***