The Mask of the Red Death - Graham's Magazine, May 1842 — reading text

herself personally, to give him a decided She sighed. Was she thinking of the tardiness of refusal. Although I was but the heir of a commoner the duke? I thought so, and sighed too. She looked —of a wealthy and ancient family it is true ; and he up suddenly, with her large full eyes fixed on me, was the possessor of a dukedom, she had loved me, ff oa VS Oo e as if she would read my very soul; while a deep as I had loved her, from the first moment we had roseate blush suffused her face and crimsoned even met. The duke had been backed by herparents, but her shoulders and bosom. There was something in when we both waited on them, and told them that s’ So that look that changed the whole current of my con- our happiness depended on their consent, they sacri- th victions, and bid me hope. In the impulse of the ficed rank to the peace of their daughter, and gave moment, I took her hand. Again that conscious it without reluctance. Before winter came the Lady blush rushed over her cheek and bosom; but this Katharine was my Bribe. J. H. D. tir CENTRE HARBOR, N. i. Tus town is situated on one of the three bays the highlands back of the town. The place itself is jutting out at the north-western extremity of Lake small, and lies immediately beneath the gazer’s feet; Winnipiseogee—a sheet of water situated near the but the lake, diversified with its green islands, and centre of New Hampshire, and celebrated for its shut in by its rolling hills, instantly arrests the eye. picturesque beauty. The lake is diversified with In the quiet of a summer noon, or under a clear innumerable islands and promontories. It is seen, moonlit sky, there is a depth of repose brooding over perhaps, to the best advantage from Red Hill, whence the scene which seems akin to magic. a magic landscape of hill, island and water stretches The lake is, in some places, unfathomable, but far away beneath the beholder’s feet. The name of abounds with fish. At present it boasts little naviga- Winnipiseogee signifies in the Indian language “ the tion, for the comparatively thinly scattered popula- beautiful lake.” tion on its borders has not yet ruffled its quiet waters The view from Centre Harbor has always won the with the keels of commerce. It is yet protected admiration of tourists, there being a quiet beauty from the ravages of utilitarianism ; and the lover of about it which few can resist. The best view is from the picturesque will pray that it may long continue so.  THE MASK OF THE RED DEATH. A FANTASY. BY EDGAR A. POE. Tue “Red Death” had long devastated the coun- was very different; as might have been expected try. No pestilence had been ever so fatal, or so from the dnke’s love of the dizarre. The apart- hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal—the ments were so irregularly disposed that the vision redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp embraced but little more than one ata time. There pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleed- was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and ings at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, upon the body and especially upon the face of the in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic victim, were the pest-ban which shut him out from window looked out upon a closed corridor which the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. pursued the windings of the suite. These windows And the whole seizure, progress and termination of were of stained glass whose color varied in accord- the disease were the incidents of half an hour. ance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless, the chamber into which it opened. That at the and sagacious. When his dominions were half de- eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue— populated, he summoned to his presence a thousand, and vividly blue were its windows. The second hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and dames of his court, and with these retired to the and here the panes were purple. The third was deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. green throughout, and so were the casements. The This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the fourth was furnished and litten with orange—the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august fifth with white—the sixth with violet. The seventh taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapes- had gates ofiron. The courtiers, having entered, tries that hung all over the ceiling and down the brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of same material and hue. But, in this chamber only, ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair the color of the windows failed to correspond with from without or of frenzy from within. The abbey the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a was amply provisioned. "With such precautions the deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apart- courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The ex- ments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the ternal world could take care of itself. In the mean- profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to time it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince and fro or depended from the roof. There was no had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors ballét-dancers, there were musicians, there were that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each cards, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brasier of fire and security were within. Without was the “ Red that projected its rays through the tinted glass and Death.” so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appear- month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged ances. But inthe western or black chamber the ef- most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero en- fect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark tertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly the most unusual magnificence. It was a voluptuous in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon scene that masquerade. the countenances of those who entered, that there But first let me tell of the’rooms in which it was were few of the company bold enough to set foot held. There were seven—an imperial suite. In many within its precincts at all. palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight It was in this apartment, also, that there stood vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. the walls on either hand, so that the view of the Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, mo- whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case notonous clang; and when its minute-hand made the 22%  fe 258 GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE. Mee circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier ATALANTA _-memnssniananmneasmninteinitiat ne AIL there came forth from the brazen lungs of the clock light through the blood-colored panes ; and the black- a sound which was clear and loud and deep and ness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musi- near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly cians in the orchestra were constrained to pause, emphatic than any which reaches their ears who momently, in their performance, to hearken to the indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other sound ; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their apartments. evolutions ; and there was a brief disconcert of the But these other apartments were densely crowded, whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew the revel went whirlingly on, until at length was pale, and that the more aged and sedate passed their sounded the twelfth hour upon the clock. And then hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or the music ceased, as I have told; andthe evolutions meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, of the waltzers were quieted ; and there was an un- a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly ; the easy cessation of all things as before. But now there musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the their own