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Metzengerstein By Edgar Allan Poe
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METZENGERSTEIN

Pestis eram vivus - moriens tua mors ero.

                -- _Martin Luther_

    HORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why
then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say,
that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior
of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the
Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves - that is, of their
falsity, or of their probability - I say nothing. I assert, however,
that much of our incredulity - as La Bruyere says of all our
unhappiness - "_vient de ne pouvoir être seuls_." {*1}

    But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which
were fast verging to absurdity. They - the Hungarians - differed very
essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, "_The
soul_," said the former - I give the words of an acute and
intelligent Parisian - "_ne demeure qu'un seul fois dans un corps
sensible: au reste - un cheval, un chien, un homme meme, n'est que la
ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._"

    The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at
variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so illustrious,
mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The origin of this enmity
seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy - "A lofty name
shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the
mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of
Berlifitzing."

    To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But
more trivial causes have given rise - and that no long while ago - to
consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were
contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a
busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom friends; and the
inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty
buttresses, into the very windows of the palace Metzengerstein. Least
of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus discovered, a
tendency to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less
wealthy Berlifitzings. What wonder then, that the words, however
silly, of that prediction, should have succeeded in setting and
keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by
every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to
imply - if it implied anything - a final triumph on the part of the
already more powerful house; and was of course remembered with the
more bitter animosity by the weaker and less influential.

    Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at
the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man, remarkable
for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal antipathy to
the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of horses, and of
hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age, nor mental
incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the dangers of the
chase.

    Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet
of age. His father, the Minister G--, died young. His mother, the Lady 
Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that time, in his
fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long period - a child
may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in a wilderness - in
so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, fifteen years
have a far deeper meaning.

    From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of
his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former, entered
immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were seldom held
before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were without number. The
chief in point of splendor and extent was the "Chateau
Metzengerstein." The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly
defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles.

    Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so
well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was
afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed, for
the space of three days, the behavior of the heir out-heroded Herod,
and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most enthusiastic
admirers. Shameful debaucheries - flagrant treacheries - unheard-of
atrocities - gave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no
servile submission on their part - no punctilios of conscience on his
own - were thenceforward to prove any security against the
remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula. On the night of the fourth
day, the stables of the castle Berlifitzing were discovered to be on
fire; and the unanimous opinion of the neighborhood added the crime
of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the Baron's
misdemeanors and enormities.

    But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young
nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast and
desolate upper apartment of the family palace of Metzengerstein. The
rich although faded tapestry hangings which swung gloomily upon the
walls, represented the shadowy and majestic forms of a thousand
illustrious ancestors. _Here_, rich-ermined priests, and pontifical
dignitaries, familiarly seated with the autocrat and the sovereign,
put a veto on the wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the
fiat of papal supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy.
_There_, the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein -
their muscular war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen
foes - startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression;
and _here_, again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames
of days gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the
strains of imaginary melody.

    But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the
gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing - or
perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of
audacity - his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an
enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the tapestry
as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his rival. The
horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood motionless and
statue-like - while farther back, its discomfited rider perished by
the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

    On Frederick's lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became
aware of the direction which his glance had, without his
consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the contrary, he
could by no means account for the overwhelming anxiety which appeared
falling like a pall upon his senses. It was with difficulty that he
reconciled his dreamy and incoherent feelings with the certainty of
being awake. The longer he gazed the more absorbing became the spell
- the more impossible did it appear that he could ever withdraw his
glance from the fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without
becoming suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he
diverted his attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the
flaming stables upon the windows of the apartment.

    The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned
mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment, the
head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its
position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in compassion,
over the prostrate body of its lord, was now extended, at full
length, in the direction of the Baron. The eyes, before invisible,
now wore an energetic and human expression, while they gleamed with a
fiery and unusual red; and the distended lips of the apparently
enraged horse left in full view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.

    Stupified with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door.
As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the
chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the quivering
tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow - as he staggered
awhile upon the threshold - assuming the exact position, and
precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless and triumphant
murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

    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."

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