The Masqued Red Death - Edgar Allan Poe

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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

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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

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from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men.
And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease
were the incident of half an hour. But the Prince
Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions

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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

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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.

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They resolved to leave means now either 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

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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,

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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

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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

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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,

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as might have been expected from the Duke's love of
the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the
the vision embraced but little more than one at a time.
There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards,

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 sweet there stood opposite to each window
a heavy tripod bearing a brazier of fire that projected

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 waltz's perforce ceased their evolutions,
and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company.

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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.

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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

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and six hundred seconds of the time flies, there came
yet another chiming of the clock. And then were the
same disconcert and tremulous ness and meditation as before. But
in spite of these things it was a gay and

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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 luster. There are some

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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 a ca of this great fete,

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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 Ernani. There were
Arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies,

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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, disgusted to and fro In the seven Chambers
there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these

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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.

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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

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they depart. And now again the music swells, and the
dreams live and rive 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

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of the maskers who venture, for the night is waning away,
and theirs 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
back from the near clock of Ebony, a muffled peal,

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more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who
indulge in the more remote gayeties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them
beat feverishly the heart of life, and the revel went

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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 waltzers were quieted,
and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before.

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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

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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.

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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

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assembly of phanfasms such as I have painted, it may
well be supposed that no ordinary appearance should have excited
such sensation. In truth, the masquerade license of the night
was nearly unlimited, but the figure in question had out

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heroded herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the
princes 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

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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 the stranger, neither
wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt,

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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,

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if not approved by the mad revelers round. 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

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the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image, which, with
a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to
sustain its roll, 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

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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 wall. He made
his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured
step which had distinguished him from the first, through the

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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

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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

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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

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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

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the shadow of the Ebony Clock, gasped in unutterable horror
at finding the grave severments 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

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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

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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 Mask of the Red Death

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by Edgar Allan Poe