In the world of art there are many indisputable masterworks. True masterpieces that transcend the art world. Van Gothe’s Sunflowers. DeVince’s Mono Lisa. Vermeer’s Girl with a pearl earring. Goya’s The nude Maja, Giorgione’s The Sleeping Venus, that one by Monet everyone raves about, though I don’t see it myself, blurred landscapes with indistinct figures I ask you…

Fiction too has masterpieces, be it novels or short stories. Stories that are transcendent. Stories that are a slice of perfection, true and wonderous things. A perfect collection of the perfect words to convey a perfect story that becomes at once timeless and indisputable.

As I have oft stated that the quest of any writer should be for the perfect sentence. That no such beast exists, or at least that it is near imposable to achieve and is ultimately a futile endeavor should not dissuade the writer from seeking it. I have got close, once or twice. There are moments I think I have succeeded in my goal, but they are mirages in the desert. They draw you on with the promise of water, but your thirst remains unquenched.

There is no such thing as perfection, there is no perfect sentence, there is certainly no perfect story. At least not one that flowed out of my fingers as they scampered across a keyboard. But if such a beast does exist it is The Masque of the Red Death.

Two thousand four hundred and forty five words of exquisite, concise beautiful perfection.

Our own Dear Edgar wrote more than one story that could be considered a masterpiece, The Tell Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, Berenice to some extent and others. He certainly wrote many that could almost be considered such. But in my opinion none of them surpass this one. In The Masque of the Red Death not a word is wasted, or found wanting. Unlike many of his stories there is no meandering start or over done back story. The tale is told, a tale for the ages, one both complex and full of dark gothic imagery, but at the same time a tale of beautiful simplicity. A tale a reader can impose meaning upon and relate to as they might a contemporary piece even over 180 years since it was first published.

There have been countless adaptations, audio, cinematic, comic books, and the masked figure of red death turns up in countless ways through out pop culture. The figure of the red death is nigh on ubiquitous. While the idea of Prince Prospero gathering his wealthy noble friends and locking them all inside an abbey, whence they can party with excess, safe from harm while a deadly plague ravages the poor is one awash with modern echoes.

Boris Johnsons held parties in Downing Street while Covid ran rampant. The poor suffer while the rich drank wine in their ivory towers… The modern nobility, the billionaires, living in their private walled estates, their abbeys. If civilization starts to fall we all know who will be locked outside the walls and who will be within. Perhaps in that lays the long last appeal of the masterpiece. The prince, and all his rich sycophants that sought through wealth and privilege their own survival, while the poor died beyond the walls of their sanctuary, die of the same plague as those they cast to their fates.

His wealth did not save him, for in the end all are equal… to the Red Death.

The story, briefly for those who do not know it, is thus. Prince Prospero as I say, gathered his friend in an abbey, having first provisioned it to out last the plague that ravages the land. A plague called the Red Death because it causes those who contract it to bleed out of their skin. Once inside he has his guards bolt and weld the gates shut. Then he proceeds to have a party, several parties indeed a party every eve for six months while the plague ravages those beyond his walls.

 The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballêt-dancers, there were musicians, there were cards, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the Red Death.

After six months of parties the experience starts to wane, so he decides to spice things up with a masque ball. A ball spread through seven rooms each of a different coloured theme, blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and the final room the black room illuminated with scarlet light, in which stands a clock, counting down the hours and chiming them in.

When the clock strikes midnight and the twelve tolls ring through the seven rooms a new figure is seen to join the masque. A figure dressed in a blood splattered funeral shroud, as if mocking the world beyond the walls, or worse those within. The prince is outraged, declaring the figure should be ceased so he may be hung at dawn for the impertinence of his costume. But fear spreads through the court and none dare approach the ghastly figure as it progresses through the rooms to the final chamber. Prospero gives chase , drawing a dagger to kill the offender who so mocks his court, but as he approaches he falls to the floor and dies in blood. The guests surge towards the figure, and try to grab him but the shroud and mask fall away revealing no one within. Then the courtiers begin to fall, and in a few moments the whole court succumb to the red death.

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 dominion over all.

It is a dark tale, a haunting tale, a tale that tells us in the end all of us die. That fate can not be cheated, before death all are equal and wealth and privilege will not save you. But dark or not it is as perfect a short story as you could imagine.

Many read into the symbolism with in the story, the seven rooms are widely considered to represent the seven stages of life birth to death, the clock marks time and death is inevitable. That it can be read as an allegory is not in doubt, but in essence this is all just backdrop to the story, a frame in which to mount the painting.

A FLOCK OF RAVENS EVERMORE…

SHOULD YOU READ IT: You mean you haven’t? Go read it now. Oh you have? Go read it again.. You have read it many times? Okay go seek out the reading by Christopher Lee on You tube, and listen to the perfect story read by the perfect narrator… www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymiHGQH54yQ

BLUFFERS FACT: Aside the masterful Christopher Lee version there is a beautiful version recorded by Basil Rathbone, the Shakespearian actor who was the authors first choice to play Rhett Buttler in Gone With the Wind. Basil was an actor of the old school who is best remembered now for his masterful portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in 15 movies in the 40’s and 50’s, (16 is you count The Great Mouse Detective). Sherlock Holmes of course owe his existence in part to Dear Edgars detective Auguste Dupin.