The Masque of the Red Death


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