The second room had wall hangings of that blue-red known as purple, and here the windows were purple. The first room had blue cloth hangings on the wall - and blue were its windows. The windows were of colored glass, of the same color that was used in each room. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, was a tall pointed window. Little more than one of them could be seen at one time. In many old palaces, the doors can be opened in such a way that rooms like these seven can be seen all at the same time. There were seven rooms in which Prospero’s friends danced. It was a scene of great richness, that masquerade. Everyone was asked to come dressed in fine clothes and with his eyes, or perhaps his whole face, covered by a cloth mask. It was near the end of their fifth month there that Prospero asked his friends to all to come together for a dancing party, a masquerade.

All these were within the wall, and within the wall they would be safe. Prospero had supplied everything they needed for pleasure. They would leave the outside world to care for itself. Here they could forget the sickness, the Red Death. The gentlemen, after they had entered, brought fire to heat the iron of the gate to make them close so firmly that nobody could open them. This was a large and beautiful stone building he had planned himself.

When half the people of his land had died, he called to him a thousand healthy, happy friends, and with them went far away to live in one of his palaces. And the sickness lasted, from beginning to the end, no more than half an hour.īut Prospero, the ruler of that land, was happy and strong and wise. The bright red spots upon the body and especially upon the face of the sick man made other men turn away from him, afraid to try to help. Then there was bleeding through the skin, though it was not cut or broken - and then, death!

There were sharp pains, and a sudden feeling that the mind was rushing in circles inside the head. Blood was its mark - the redness and the horror of blood. No sickness had ever been so deadly - so great a killer - or so fearful to see. The Red Death had long been feeding on the country. The story was originally adapted and recorded by the U.S. We present the short story 'The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allen Poe.

The masque of the red death story