The masque of the Red Death
by
Edgar Allen 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. Therc were sharp pains, and sudden
dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.
The scarlet stains upon the body and espccially 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 discase, 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 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 ever 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 zwindows. 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 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 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 glittcr 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
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 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 last, 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.
Thc mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the
countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny rnust have
had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this inight 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, is if more fully to sustain its rôle,
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 - thatwe 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
roems 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
afterward, 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 there 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.
(Poe, Edgar Allen: "Selected Tales" Harmondsworth 1994, page 192 sq.)
* * *
Dear readers,
You will probably ask yourself why this parable of the American poet
Edgar Allan Poe) appears in our journal. I think it's because both in
its basic approach as well in the particular point of view expressed in
certain passages, a striking analogy can be made to general spiritual
conditions today.
The world is dying - but not from a plague or a pestilence. No! Since
Vatican II it has become a spiritual wasteland. It is dried out and
waiting for the rain of salvific grace. But there is no means of
healing its wounds - because salvation ist no more. After the
'Reforms', the real streams of saving grace, hitherto flowing through
the sacraments of the Church constantly being dispensed, have been
depleted and stopped. Salvation has been effectively blocked!
Buchanan) defines the reasons for this in his book "The Death of the
West" as follows: "It is the dissolution of the Faith, of Christianity,
which is the direct cause of the death of our culture, of nations and
of this civilization".
And we, who fancy ourselves invulnerable to this dissolution because we
still possess the true Faith, we, who have ready access to the channels
of grace, we who can always tap on line supplies (!) of grace at
will - dare to consider ourselves immune to contagion from the
pestilence rampant today! The (so-called) humanistic apostasy does not
concern us! Aren't we secure in our own Catholic co-coons, or isles
- (in our 'Blue Rooms')?
However, can we really believe ourselves to be so securely isolated as
all that? Aren't we simply deluding ourselves overlooking the dangers
in which we find ourselves? Is the 'security blanket' of grace we throw
over our shoulders indeed as secure as we would like to believe? Is it
not feasible that we are merely hiding our heads in the sand like the
proverbial ostrich - deliberately refusing to see the abyss opening up
on all sides about us? Let us bear in mind the prophetic allusion of
Matthew (24,21-22): "..for there will be distress then such as has not
been since the beginning of the world, and can never be again. There
would have been no hope left for any human creature, if the number of
those days had not been curtailed; but those days wil be cut short, for
the sake of the elect."
These words should effectively deflate all our pretentiousness and make
us very humble. Yet for all that, incorrigible triumphalists see
loopholes even here: for them, it goes without saying, that having
remained true to the tenets of the Faith they will be the 'Elect' or
the 'Chosen ones'-
Can we not consider the 'Prince' in E.A. Poe's parable who relies on
his own strength to be like each one of us who brags of his own
'orthodoxy'? And are such ones not already infected by this pestilence
with its accompanying stench of spiritual sepsis inevitably leading to
their dissolutiont?
The only 'illusion of security' we can allow ourselves to entertain is
called "Belief in God's Mercy'. God grants His mercy to those who
humbly serve Him in order that His "will may be done on earth as it is
in heaven."
Eberhard Heller
(translated by Emilia Vaiciulis)
* * *
EINSICHT in Internet
Dear Reader,
now you can find the EINSICHT under the following two adresses:
www.einsicht-online.org
and: www.einsicht-aktuell.de
(for the new issues since 2004)
There you will find all issues of EINSICHT from april 1971 to devember
2003 as pdf-files. For reading the pdf-files you need Adobe Reader
(version 5 and higher), which you can download from Adobe via Internet:
(www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.htm).
New adress of the editor:
Freundeskreis der Una Voce e.V., Riedhofweg 4, D - 82544 Egling
Adress of the redaction: Dr. Eberhard Heller, Riedhofweg 4, D - 82544 Egling,
Tel./Fax: 0049/8171/28816
|
