The Masque of the Red Death FEATURING Humanfobia - Exquisite Corpses

[00:00:06] 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.

[00:00:28] 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.

[00:00:38] And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

[00:00:47] But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hail

[00:00:57] and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusions of one of his castellated abbeys.

[00:01:07] This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the Prince's own eccentric yet august taste.

[00:01:15] A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers have entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers, and welded the bolts.

[00:01:26] They resolved to leave the means, neither of ingress or egress, to the sudden impulses of despair or a frenzy from within.

[00:01:37] The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions, the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion.

[00:01:44] The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime, it was folly to grieve or think. The Prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.

[00:01:54] There were buffoons. There were improvisatory. There were ballet dancers. There were musicians. There was beauty. There was wine.

[00:02:02] All these, and security were within. Without was the Red Death.

[00:02:09] 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 mass ball of the most unusual magnificence.

[00:02:27] It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. It was in this apartment also, that there stood against the western wall a gigantic clock of ebony.

[00:02:42] 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.

[00:03:11] And thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions, and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company.

[00:03:20] 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 reverie or meditation.

[00:03:33] But when the echoes had fully ceased, the 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.

[00:03:45] But the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion. And then after the lapse of sixty minutes, which embraced three thousand and six hundred seconds of the time that flies, there came yet another chiming of the clock.

[00:04:00] And then for the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

[00:04:09] 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 colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster.

[00:04:28] There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him, to be sure he was not.

[00:04:40] But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverish into the heart of life, and the revel went whirlingly on until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock.

[00:05:22] The attention of no single individual before, and the rumor of his new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz or murmur, expressive of disprovation and surprise.

[00:05:37] Then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

[00:05:50] In an assembly of phantasm such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation.

[00:05:58] In truth, the masquerade license 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.

[00:06:09] There were cords in the hearts of the most reckless, which cannot be touched without emotion.

[00:06:15] Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

[00:06:23] The whole company indeed seemed now deeply, to feel that in the costume and bearing the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed.

[00:06:32] The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.

[00:06:39] The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse

[00:06:45] that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the chief.

[00:06:50] And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved by the mad revelers around.

[00:06:56] But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death.

[00:07:01] His vesture was dabbled in blood, and his broad brow with all the features of the face was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

[00:07:11] When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image, which with a slow and solemn movement,

[00:07:17] as if more fully to sustain its role stalked to and fro among the waltzers.

[00:07:24] He was seen to be convulsed in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste.

[00:07:30] But in the next his brow reddened with rage,

[00:07:33] Who dares? he demanded hoarsely.

[00:07:35] Of the courtiers who stood near him, who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?

[00:07:40] Seize him and unmask him,

[00:07:42] That we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise for the battlements.

[00:07:48] It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince as he uttered these words.

[00:07:54] They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly,

[00:07:56] For the Prince was a bold and robust man,

[00:07:59] And the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

[00:08:11] It was in the blue room where stood the Prince with a group of pale courtiers by his side.

[00:08:16] At first he spoke.

[00:08:18] There was a slight rush of movement of his group in the direction of the intruder,

[00:08:22] Who at the moment was also near at hand.

[00:08:24] And now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker.

[00:08:30] But from a certain nameless awe,

[00:08:32] With which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party,

[00:08:36] There were found none who put forth hand to seize him.

[00:08:40] So that unimpeded he passed within a yard of the Prince's person,

[00:08:44] And while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse,

[00:08:49] Shrank from the centers of the room to the walls.

[00:08:52] He made his way uninterruptedly,

[00:08:55] But with the same solemn and measured step which he had distinguished him from the first,

[00:08:59] Through the blue chamber into the purple,

[00:09:02] Through the purple into the green,

[00:09:03] Through the green to the orange,

[00:09:06] Through this again to the white,

[00:09:08] And even thence to the violet air,

[00:09:10] A decided movement had been made to arrest him.

[00:09:14] It was then, however, the Prince,

[00:09:16] Maddening with rage,

[00:09:18] And the shame of his own momentary cowardice,

[00:09:20] Rushed hurriedly through the six chambers.

[00:09:23] While none followed him on account,

[00:09:24] Of a deadly terror that had seized upon all.

[00:09:28] He bore aloft the drawn dagger,

[00:09:30] And approached in rapid impetuosity,

[00:09:33] To within three or four feet of the retreating figure.

[00:09:36] When the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment,

[00:09:40] Turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.

[00:09:44] There was a sharp cry,

[00:09:46] And the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet,

[00:09:50] Upon which instantly afterwards,

[00:09:52] Fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero.

[00:09:57] Then summoning the wild courage of this fair,

[00:09:59] A throng of revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment.

[00:10:03] And seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect,

[00:10:07] And motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock,

[00:10:11] Gassed in an utterable horror,

[00:10:14] At finding the grave,

[00:10:15] Cerements,

[00:10:17] And corpse-like masks,

[00:10:18] Which they handled with so violent a rudeness,

[00:10:22] Untenaded by any tangible form.

[00:10:28] And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.

[00:10:31] He had come like a thief in the night,

[00:10:34] And one by one dropped the revelers

[00:10:37] In the blood-bedewed halls of the revel,

[00:10:39] And died each in the despairing posture of his fall,

[00:10:43] And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay,

[00:10:48] And the flames of the tripods expired,

[00:10:51] And darkness and decay,

[00:10:54] And the Red Death held in limitable dominion,

[00:10:58] Over all composed the mask of the Red Death.

[00:11:09] And, uh, I hope you see the similarities

[00:11:13] In this horror tale,

[00:11:15] In these times that we live in.

[00:11:18] Some of the stories,

[00:11:20] So read it all for yourself if you want to pull.

[00:11:26] Special thanks to Sorcery,

[00:11:28] And Human Phobia.

[00:11:30] Their record, Exquisite Corpses,

[00:11:32] Has played the background to this tale.

[00:11:37] Happy Halloween, BBF Family.