The Necklace BY Guy de Maupassant She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land. She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings. When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken. She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after. She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery. * One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand. "Here's something for you," he said. Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these wor ...

1. The Necklace
BY Guy de Maupassant
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as
though fate had blundered over her, into a family of
artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no
means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded
by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be
married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her
tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford
any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had
married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their
beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or
family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their
nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put
the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.
She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every
delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her
house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All
these things, of which other women of her class would
not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight
of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in

2. her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless
dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers,
heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze
sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping
in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove.
She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks,
exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments,
and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for
little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and
sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's
envious longings.
When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered
with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who
took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly:
"Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined
delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls
with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests;
she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes,
murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as
one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus
chicken.
She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the

3. only things she loved; she felt that she was made for
them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be
wildly attractive and sought after.
She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused
to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she
returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret,
despair, and misery.
*
One evening her husband came home with an exultant air,
holding a large envelope in his hand.
"Here's something for you," he said.
Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on
which were these words:
"The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau
request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and
Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday,
January the 18th."
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung
the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring:

4. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out,
and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous
trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very
few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big
people there."
She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently:
"And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an
affair?"
He had not thought about it; he stammered:
"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice,
to me . . ."
He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that
his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran
slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of
her mouth.
"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?"

5. he faltered.
But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied
in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:
"Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this
party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose
wife will be turned out better than I shall."
He was heart-broken.
"Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. "What would be the
cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other
occasions as well, something very simple?"
She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and
also wondering for how large a sum she could ask
without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an
exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk.
At last she replied with some hesitation:
"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four
hundred francs."

6. He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he
had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little
shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some
friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.
Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred
francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the
money."
The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed
sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready,
however. One evening her husband said to her:
"What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the
last three days."
"I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single
stone, to wear," she replied. "I shall look absolutely
no one. I would almost rather not go to the party."
"Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of
the year. For ten francs you could get two or three
gorgeous roses."
She was not convinced.

7. "No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the
middle of a lot of rich women."
"How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see
Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some
jewels. You know her quite well enough for that."
She uttered a cry of delight.
"That's true. I never thought of it."
Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.
Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large
box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and
said:
"Choose, my dear."
First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a
Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite
workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the
mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave

8. them, to give them up. She kept on asking:
"Haven't you anything else?"
"Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like
best."
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb
diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously.
Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her
neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at
sight of herself.
Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:
"Could you lend me this, just this alone?"
"Yes, of course."
She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her
frenziedly, and went away with her treasure. The day of the
party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the
prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and

9. quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her,
inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her.
All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her.
The Minister noticed her.
She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no
thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in
the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this
universal homage and admiration, of the desires she
had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her
feminine heart.
She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight
her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room,
in company with three other men whose wives were having a
good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments
he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday
clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-
dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away,
so that she should not be noticed by the other
women putting on their costly furs.
Loisel restrained her.

10. "Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to
fetch a cab."
But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the
staircase. When they were out in the street they could not
find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers
whom they saw passing in the distance.
They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and
shivering. At last they found on the quay one of those old
nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after
dark, as though they were ashamed of their
shabbiness in the daylight.
It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and
sadly they walked up to their own apartment. It was the
end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the
office at ten.
She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her
shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the
mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no
longer round her neck!
"What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already
half undressed.

11. She turned towards him in the utmost distress.
"I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace.
. . ."
He started with astonishment.
"What! . . . Impossible!"
They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the
coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it.
"Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away
from the ball?" he asked.
"Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."
"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it
fall."
"Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the
cab?"
"No. You didn't notice it, did you?"

12. "No."
They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put
on his clothes again.
"I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I
can't find it."
And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes,
lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair,
without volition or power of thought.
Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.
He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a
reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray
of hope impelled him.
She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at
this fearful catastrophe.
Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had
discovered nothing.

13. "You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that
you've broken the clasp of her necklace and are getting
it mended. That will give us time to look about us."
She wrote at his dictation.
*
By the end of a week they had lost all hope.
Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:
"We must see about replacing the diamonds."
Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and
went to the jewellers whose name was inside. He
consulted his books.
"It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have
merely supplied the clasp."
Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for
another necklace like the first, consulting their memories,
both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.

14. In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of
diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they
were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were
allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.
They begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And
they arranged matters on the understanding that it
would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first
one were found before the end of February.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his
father. He intended to borrow the rest.
He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five
hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there.
He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did
business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-
lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his
existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he
could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the
future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the
prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture,
he went to get the new necklace and put down upon
the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

15. When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame
Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice:
"You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have
needed it."
She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she
had noticed the substitution, what would she have
thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken
her for a thief?
*
Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty.
From the very first she played her part heroically. This
fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was
dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a
garret under the roof.
She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful
duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing
out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans.
She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-
cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she
took the dustbin down into the street and carried up

16. the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad
like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the
grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted,
fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.
Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time
gained.
Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a
merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying
at twopence-halfpenny a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything,
the usurer's charges and the accumulation of
superimposed interest.
Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the
other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households.
Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were
red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped
all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when
her husband was at the office, she sat down by the
window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at

17. which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.
What would have happened if she had never lost those
jewels. Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how
fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!
One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-
Elysees to freshen herself after the labours of the
week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a
child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still
young, still beautiful, still attractive.
Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she
speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had
paid, she would tell her all. Why not?
She went up to her. "Good morning, Jeanne."
The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being
thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman. "But . . .
Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be
making a mistake."
"No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel."

18. Her friend uttered a cry. "Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how
you have changed! . . ."
"Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and
many sorrows . . . and all on your account."
"On my account! . . . How was that?"
"You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the
ball at the Ministry?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I lost it."
"How could you? Why, you brought it back."
"I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten
years we have been paying for it. You realise it wasn't
easy for us; we had no money. . . . Well, it's paid for at last, and
I'm glad indeed."
Madame Forestier had halted. "You say you bought a
diamond necklace to replace mine?"

19. "Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."
And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands. "Oh,
my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was
worth at the very most five hundred francs! . . . "
SECTION8.3
SECTION 8.4
T h e M a s q u e o f t h e R e d D e a t h
b y E d g a r A l l a n P o e
( 1 8 5 0 )
THE “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so
hideous. Blood was its Avator and its seal — the redness and
the horror of blood. There were sharp

20. 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 g
it in. This wall had gates of iron. The
courtiers, having entered, brought furnac
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 a
was amply provisioned. With such
precautions the courtiers might bid defiance
to contagion. The external world could ta
care of itself. In the meantime it was fo
to grieve, or to think. The prince had
provided all the appliances of pleasure.
There were
irdled

21. es
bbey
ke
lly
buffoons, there were
improvisatori, there were ballet-dancer
there were musicians, there was Beauty,
there was wine. All these and security w
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 folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on
either hand, so that the view of the whole
extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as
might have been expected from the
s,
ere

22. The Masque of the Red Death | 1
duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly
disposed that the vision embraced but
little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every
twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a
novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a
tall and narrow Gothic window looked
out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the
suite. These windows were of stained
glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue
of the decorations of the chamber into
which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for
example, in blue — and vividly blue were
its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments
and tapestries, and here the panes were
purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the
casements. The fourth was furnished and
lighted with orange — the fifth with white — the sixth with
violet. The seventh apartment was closely
shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling
and down the walls, falling in heavy
folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this
chamber only, the color of the windows
failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
scarlet — a deep blood color. Now in no
one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum,
amid the profusion of golden
ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the
roof. There was no light of any kind
emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers.
But in the corridors that followed the
suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod,
bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its

23. rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the
room. And thus were produced a multitude
of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black
chamber the effect of the fire-light that
streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted
panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and
produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who
entered, that there were few of the
company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the
western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. 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; and
thus the waltzers perforce ceased their
evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay
company; 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 revery or meditation.
But when the echoes had fully ceased, a
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, that the next chiming of
the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then,
after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which
embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time
that flies,) there came yet another chiming

24. of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and
tremulousness and meditation as before.
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 lustre.
There are some who would have
thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was
necessary to hear and see and touch him to
be sure that he was not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments
of the seven chambers, upon occasion of
this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given
character to the masqueraders. Be sure
they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and
piquancy and phantasm — much of what
has been since seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures
with unsuited limbs and appointments.
There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions.
There were much of the beautiful, much of
the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and
not a little of that which might have
excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked,
in fact, a multitude of dreams. And
these — the dreams — writhed in and about, taking hue from
the rooms, and causing the wild music of
The Masque of the Red Death | 2
the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon,
there strikes the ebony clock which stands in

25. the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and
all is silent save the voice of the clock.
The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the
chime die away — they have endured
but an instant — and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after
them as they depart. And now again the
music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more
merrily than ever, taking hue from the
many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the
tripods. But to the chamber which lies
most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the
maskers who venture; for the night is waning
away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored
panes; and the blackness of the sable
drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable
carpet, there comes from the near clock of
ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which
reaches their ears who indulge in the
more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in
them beat feverishly the heart of life. And
the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced
the sounding of midnight upon the clock.
And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of
the waltzers were quieted; and there
was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there
were twelve strokes to be sounded by the
bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of
thought crept, with more of time, into the
meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And
thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before
the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence,
there were many individuals in the crowd
who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a
masked figure which had arrested the

26. attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this
new presence having spread itself
whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole
company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of
disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror,
and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may
well be supposed that no ordinary
appearance could have excited such sensation. 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. There are chords in the hearts of
the most reckless which cannot be
touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom
life and death are equally jests, there are
matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company,
indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in
the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor
propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt,
and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.
The mask which concealed the visage
was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse that the closest scrutiny must
have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might
have been endured, if not approved, by
the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to
assume the type of the Red Death. His
vesture was dabbled in blood — and his broad brow, with all the
features of the face, was besprinkled
with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral
image (which with a slow and solemn
movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro

27. among the waltzers) he was seen to be
convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of
terror or distaste; but, in the next, his
brow reddened with rage.
“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who
stood near him — “who dares insult us
with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him —
that we may know whom we have to
hang at sunrise, from the battlements!”
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words.
They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly — for
the prince was a bold and robust man,
and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
The Masque of the Red Death | 3
It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group
of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as
he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in
the direction of the intruder, who, at the
moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and
stately step, made closer approach to the
speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad
assumptions of the mummer had inspired
the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to
seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed
within a yard of the prince's person; and, while the vast
assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from
the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way
uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and

28. measured step which had distinguished him from the first,
through the blue chamber to the purple —
through the purple to the green — through the green to the
orange — through this again to the white —
and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been
made to arrest him. It was then,
however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the
shame of his own momentary
cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while
none followed him on account of a deadly
terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger,
and had approached, in rapid impetuosity,
to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the
latter, having attained the extremity of the
velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.
There was a sharp cry — and the dagger
dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly
afterwards, fell prostrate in death the
Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair,
a throng of the revellers at once threw
themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer,
whose tall figure stood erect and
motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave
cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so
violent a rudeness, untenanted by any
tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.
He had come like a thief in the night.
And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed
halls of their revel, and died each in the
despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock
went out with that of the last of the gay.
And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay
and the Red Death held illimitable

29. dominion over all.
V o c a b u l a r y W o r d s
avator:
An old spelling of “avatar”, an incarnation in human form.
Today, avatars are graphic
representation of people in chat rooms or online forums.
bedewed:
To wet with or as if with dew.
buffoons:
Clowns, ludicrous figures.
candelabrum:
A candlestick with multiple branches allowing it to hold a
number of candles. Also spelled
“candelabra”.
castellated:
Having battlements and high walls like a castle.
decorum:
Propriety and good taste in conduct or appearance.
disapprobation:
Condemnation. The act or state of disapproving.
fete:
A lavish often outdoor entertainment, a large elaborate party.
The Masque of the Red Death | 4

30. habiliment:
Clothing. The dress characteristic of an occupation or occasion.
Hernani:
A famous play written in 1830 by French dramatist Victor
Hugo.
The play was classified as “Romantic” and was opposed by
people who were referred to as
“Classicists”. On opening night, Hugo was determined to fill the
auditorium with his fans so he
handed out special “red” tickets. Loyal groups were seated next
to anyone that might be tempted
to try to hiss the cast off the stage. The auditorium turned into a
spectacular field of battle;
Liberals versus Royalists, Romantics versus Classicists, free
expression versus aesthetical
conformism and the young versus the old.
Read More >
Herod:
“Herod the Great” was the King of Judea around the time of
Christ's birth (0 BC). He was known
for his extravagance.
Herod was also known for his violence and cruelty. He executed
his wife after she had 5 of his
children. Later, he had his brother-in-law and a couple of his
sons executed. In the Bible,
Matthew's gospel describes how Herod had all children under 2
years old killed, in an attempt to
prevent the birth of the Messiah.

31. improvisatori:
Those that improvise, like actors or poets.
mummer:
Actor, one who goes merrymaking in disguise during festivals.
phantasm:
Illusion, ghost, a product of fantasy, a mental representation of
a real object.
revel:
A wild party or celebration.
sagacious:
Having or showing keen discernment, sound judgment, and
farsightedness. Shrewd.
The Masque of the Red Death | 5
http://www.hugo-online.org/050300.htm
The Masque of the Red Death