The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence hadever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—theredness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness,and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stainsupon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest banwhich shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. Andthe whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidentsof half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When hisdominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand haleand light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, andwith these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. Thiswas an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’sown eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. Thiswall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces andmassy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither ofingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within.The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might biddefiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In themeantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all theappliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, therewere 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, andwhile the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prosperoentertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusualmagnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the roomsin which it was held. These were seven—an imperial suite. In manypalaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the foldingdoors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of thewhole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different, as mighthave been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. Theapartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but littlemore than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirtyyards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle ofeach wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridorwhich pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glasswhose colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations ofthe chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, forexample in blue—and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber waspurple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. Thethird was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnishedand lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth with violet.The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hungall over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpetof the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of thewindows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here werescarlet—a deep blood colour. Now in no one of the seven apartments wasthere any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that layscattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kindemanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in