Summary
The events of the narrative take place in the unnamed kingdom where the fatal epidemic called “the Red Death” spreads and kills most of its population. The illness proves to be most fatal and once the victim falls ill no cure will neither heal nor even cease the pain and bleeding caused by the “pestilence”. The overall duration of the disease is no more than half of an hour.
Prince Prospero along with loyal companions from among his knights, in order to elude the contagion, resolves to retire to one of his secluded and fortified abbeys which is abundantly supplied with all the necessary provisions. The Prince invited all kinds of entertainers: jesters, actors, ballet-dancers, musicians to turn the stay at the castle into the mere feast and celebration.
At the end of the six month isolation when the epidemic reached its climax and was raging violently on the outside, Prince decided to entertain his guests with the spectacular masquerade. The whole event was held in seven rooms, which were grotesquely decorated with the fabric and ornaments of different colors and shades. The tripods from the adjacent corridor illuminated the rooms. Each rooms` window had a single-colored, tinted glass, thus a unique color filled every room. After the clocks had struck midnight, revellers` attention turned to the silhouette that suddenly appeared amid the feast. The figure was tall, slender and covered with cerements; the mask, which strongly resembled the countenance of a corpse, hid its face. Its garbs were sprinkled with blood signifying the pestilence of The Red Death.
The Prince commands to apprehend and unmask the intruder in order to see his face and hang him in the morning for the crime of “blasphemous mockery”. However, none of prince`s courtiers are brave enough to seize the “mummer” as they seem to be struck with awe and horror that emanates from the figure. The Prince decides to arrest the intruder himself but the very moment he approaches the figure he utters a shrill cry and falls dead. The crowd immediately attempts to seize the dark figure, but they discover that they grasped only clothes and mask while the intruder himself has mysteriously vanished. Within a few moments, each of the revellers falls dead, struck by the Red Death.
“A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”
Summary
The story describes the reminiscence of an unknown narrator about his companion Mr.Augustus Bedloe. Mr.Bedloe was a wealthy man of unidentified age who suffered the disease of neuralgia and had to use the service of a physician Dr. Templeton. The narrator recites the story of an unusual event that happened during one of Mr.Bedloe`s customary morning walks to the nearby hills called “The Ragged Mountains”.
Having reached the hills Augustus soon discovers a secluded gorge filled with “peculiar mist”. After a few hours of aimless ramble through the mist, he hears “a loud beating of the drum” and in a moment a half-naked man sweeps past him followed by the huge hyena. As the visions change around Bedloe, he finds himself near the high mountain, looking at a vast “Eastern-looking” city located on the edge of the river. Tumult and commotion of unknown nature fills the city. After entering the city, motivated by the strange impulse, Bedloe joins a group of military officers and soldiers in order to resist a riotous crowd armed with spears and arrows. Following a short encounter, Bedloe gets an arrow wound and dies shortly. During the next minutes, he experiences the state of “darkness and nonentity” after which he rises up and glances at his own corpse. In the following moments, he retraces his path back to the gorge where his visions began. There, he finally shapes into his original physical form.
Having heard the details of this bizarre vision Dr.Templeton explains, that Augustus has just re-told, with an utmost accuracy, the actual event that occurred in 1780 in the Indian city of Benares and that Templeton himself, along with his friend Mr.Oldeb, took part in the suppression of the revolt. Templeton notes a striking resemblance of Oldeb and Bedloe, and in proof of his words shows Augustus the picture of Mr.Oldeb. The doctor says that, in his visions, Bedloe experienced the last minutes of Mr.Oldeb`s life.
The story ends with the short note from the local newspaper announcing Mr.Bedloe`s decease. The circumstances of death are described as most unfortunate. When Dr. Templeton applied a usual procedure of leech bloodletting in order to reduce the blood pressure to the head, one of the leeches turned out to be of a venomous kind, causing an immediate death of the patient.
In the concluding part of the story, the narrator during the conversation with the editor of the newspaper points out a mistake in the Bedloe`s last name, as in the article it was spelled “Bedlo” instead of “Bedloe”, to which the editor replied that it had been a mere typographical error. After that, the narrator realizes that “Bedlo” without e is a converted version of Oldeb.
Works Cited
1. Poe, Edgar A. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems with Selected Essays. Lexington, KY: Createspace, 2010. Print.
