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not flash -- and the clouds hung motionless -- and the waters sunk to their level and remained -- and the trees
ceased to rock -- and the water-lilies sighed no more -- and the murmur was heard no longer from among
them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the
rock, and they were changed; -- and the characters were SILENCE.
"And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his countenance was wan with terror. And,
hurriedly, he raised his head from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there was no voice
throughout the vast illimitable desert, and the characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man
shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld him no more."
Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi -- in the iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi.
Therein, I say, are glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty sea -- and of the Genii
that over-ruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much lore too in the sayings which
were said by the Sybils; and holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around
Dodona -- but, as Allah liveth, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of the
tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all! And as the Demon made an end of his story, he fell back within
the cavity of the tomb and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me because I could
not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of
the Demon, and looked at him steadily in the face.
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Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor 64
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 or 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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]