The Masque of the Red Death

Every hour, in the last and blackest room, a great ebony clock strikes, and the whole masquerade stops dead: the orchestra falls silent and the waltzers freeze mid-turn, until the chimes die away and a light, embarrassed laughter returns. Outside the walls a plague called the Red Death has half emptied the country, and Prince Prospero has welded shut the gates of his abbey on a thousand chosen friends, leaving the the world to see to itself. Inside, Poe builds the party as seven rooms in a winding suite, each drenched in a single colour, from blue through purple, green, orange, white and violet to a last chamber hung in black velvet and lit through panes the colour of blood. The story is only a few pages long, and every one of them glows like a brazier behind stained glass. Then, as the clock begins on midnight, the revellers notice a masked guest no one remembers inviting. Few stories have said so beautifully that no wall is thick enough, and that the hour sounds for every dancer in the room.