The Masque Of The Red Death By Edgar Allan Poe

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe is a classic horror story about a prince who attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his fortress abbey where he holds a masquerade ball and discovers an uninvited guest. Narrated by Jane Watson.
Music: Mysterious Music by Samuel Francis Johnson from Canva Pro

Transcript

Welcome to Jane's Dreamy Bookshelf. Tonight, I'll be reading a classic horror story by Edgar Allan Poe. A prince attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his fortress abbey, Where he holds a masquerade ball with an uninvited guest. I hope you enjoy it. The Mask 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. In the whole seizure, Progress and termination of the disease were the incidence 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 lighthearted 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 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 why 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 you 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 bazaar. 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 close 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 firelight 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, An 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 embraced 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 decorum of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fury, And his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There were 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 fet, And it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There was 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 appalls, 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 worryingly 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 reveled, And thus, Too, It happened, Perhaps, That before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sank 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, Then arose at length from the whole company a buzz or murmur, Expressive of disapprobation and surprise, And 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 knight was nearly unlimited, But the figure in question had out-herited 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 revelers 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 a 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 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, 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 centers 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. 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 revelers 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 ceremonies and the 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 revelers 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.