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 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 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 can not 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 .