Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into

  the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered

  three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril of

  their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a

  gigantic and fiery-colored horse.

  "Whose horse? Where did you get him?" demanded the youth, in a

  querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware that

  the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very

  counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

  "He is your own property, sire," replied one of the equerries,

  "at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying, all

  smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of the Castle

  Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the old Count's stud

  of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray. But the grooms there

  disclaim any title to the creature; which is strange, since he bears

  evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames.

  "The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his

  forehead," interrupted a second equerry, "I supposed them, of course,

  to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing - but all at the

  castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse."

  "Extremely singular!" said the young Baron, with a musing air,

  and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. "He is, as

  you say, a remarkable horse - a prodigious horse! although, as you

  very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable character, let

  him be mine, however," he added, after a pause, "perhaps a rider like

  Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even the devil from the stables

  of Berlifitzing."

  "You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned,

  is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such had been the case, we

  know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble

  of your family."

  "True!" observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of

  the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color, and a

  precipitate step. He whispered into his master's ear an account of

  the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry, in an

  apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time, into

  particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but from the

  low tone of voice in which these latter were communicated, nothing

  escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of the equerries.

  The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a

  variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure, and

  an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance,

  as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be

  immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own possession.

  "Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter

  Berlifitzing?" said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after the

  departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had adopted

  as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury, down the long

  avenue which extended from the chateau to the stables of

  Metzengerstein.

  "No!" said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, "dead!

  say you?"

  "It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will

  be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence."

  A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. "How

  died he?"

  "In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his

  hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames."

  "I-n-d-e-e-d-!" ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and

  deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

  "Indeed;" repeated the vassal.

  "Shocking!" said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the

  chateau.

  From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward

  demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von Metzengerstein.

  Indeed, his behavior disappointed every expectation, and proved

  little in accordance with the views of many a manoeuvering mamma;

  while his habits and manner, still less than formerly, offered any

  thing congenial with those of the neighboring aristocracy. He was

  never to be seen beyond the limits of his own domain, and, in this

  wide and social world, was utterly companionless - unless, indeed,

  that unnatural, impetuous, and fiery-colored horse, which he

  henceforward continually bestrode, had any mysterious right to the

  title of his friend.

  Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long

  time, however, periodically came in. "Will the Baron honor our

  festivals with his presence?" "Will the Baron join us in a hunting of

  the boar?" - "Metzengerstein does not hunt;" "Metzengerstein will not

  attend," were the haughty and laconic answers.

  These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious

  nobility. Such invitations became less cordial - less frequent - in

  time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count

  Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope "that the Baron might

  be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the

  company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since

  he preferred the society of a horse." This to be sure was a very

  silly explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly

  unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be

  unusually energetic.

  The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the

  conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the

  untimely loss of his parents - forgetting, however, his atrocious and

  reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding that

  bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty

  idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again (among them may be

  mentioned the family physician) did not hesitate in speaking of

  morbid melancholy, and hereditary ill-health; while dark hints, of a

  more equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.

  Indeed, the Baron's perverse attachment to his lately-acquired

  charger - an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from

  every fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demon-like

  propensities - at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a

  hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon - at the dead hour

  of night - in sickness or in health - in calm or in tempest - the

  young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that colossal

  horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with his own

  spirit.

  There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late

  events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of

  the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space passed

  over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and was found to

  exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest expectations of the

  most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no particular _name_ for

 
the animal, although all the rest in his collection were

  distinguished by characteristic appellations. His stable, too, was

  appointed at a distance from the rest; and with regard to grooming

  and other necessary offices, none but the owner in person had

  ventured to officiate, or even to enter the enclosure of that

  particular stall. It was also to be observed, that although the three

  grooms, who had caught the steed as he fled from the conflagration at

  Berlifitzing, had succeeded in arresting his course, by means of a

  chain-bridle and noose - yet no one of the three could with any

  certainty affirm that he had, during that dangerous struggle, or at

  any period thereafter, actually placed his hand upon the body of the

  beast. Instances of peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble

  and high-spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting

  unreasonable attention - especially among men who, daily trained to

  the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the

  sagacity of a horse - but there were certain circumstances which

  intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and phlegmatic;

  and it is said there were times when the animal caused the gaping

  crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from the deep and

  impressive meaning of his terrible stamp - times when the young

  Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the rapid and

  searching expression of his earnest and human-looking eye.

  Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to

  doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on the

  part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his horse; at

  least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little page, whose

  deformities were in everybody's way, and whose opinions were of the

  least possible importance. He - if his ideas are worth mentioning at

  all - had the effrontery to assert that his master never vaulted into

  the saddle without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder,

  and that, upon his return from every long-continued and habitual

  ride, an expression of triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in

  his countenance.

  One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy

  slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and, mounting in

  hot haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An occurrence

  so common attracted no particular attention, but his return was

  looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his domestics, when,

  after some hours' absence, the stupendous and magnificent battlements

  of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were discovered crackling and rocking

  to their very foundation, under the influence of a dense and livid

  mass of ungovernable fire.

  As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a

  progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building were

  evidently futile, the astonished neighborhood stood idly around in

  silent and pathetic wonder. But a new and fearful object soon

  rivetted the attention of the multitude, and proved how much more

  intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the

  contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most

  appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

  Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the

  main entrance of the Chateau Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an

  unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an impetuosity

  which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest.

  The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part,

  uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive struggle

  of his frame, gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but no sound,

  save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were

  bitten through and through in the intensity of terror. One instant,

  and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the

  roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds - another, and,

  clearing at a single plunge the gate-way and the moat, the steed

  bounded far up the tottering staircases of the palace, and, with its

  rider, disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

  The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm

  sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building like a

  shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth

  a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke settled

  heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of - _a

  horse_.

  ~~~ End of Text ~~~

  ======

  THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER

  DURING the autumn of 18--, while on a tour through the extreme

  southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles of a

  certain Maison de Sante or private mad-house, about which I had heard

  much in Paris from my medical friends. As I had never visited a place

  of the kind, I thought the opportunity too good to be lost; and so

  proposed to my travelling companion (a gentleman with whom I had made

  casual acquaintance a few days before) that we should turn aside, for

  an hour or so, and look through the establishment. To this he

  objected -- pleading haste in the first place, and, in the second, a

  very usual horror at the sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however,

  not to let any mere courtesy towards himself interfere with the

  gratification of my curiosity, and said that he would ride on

  leisurely, so that I might overtake him during the day, or, at all

  events, during the next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that

  there might be some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises,

  and mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact,

  unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur

  Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty

  might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private

  mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For

  himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the acquaintance of

  Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride up to the door and

  introduce me; although his feelings on the subject of lunacy would

  not permit of his entering the house.