Horror and Fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to the story I have to tell? I will not. Besides, I have other reasons for concealment. 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 themselvesâthat is, of their falsity, or of their probabilityâI say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulityâas La BruyĂ©re says of all our unhappinessââvient de ne pouvoir etre seuls.â
But there were some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to absurdity. Theyâthe Hungariansâdiffered very essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example. âThe soul,â said the formerâI give the words of an acute and intelligent Parisianâne demeure quâun seul fois dans un corps sensible: au resteâun cheval, un chien, un homme mĂȘme nâ est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux.â
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. Indeed, at the era of this history, it was observed by an old crone of haggard and sinister appearance, that âfire and water might sooner mingle than a Berlifitzing clasp the hand of a Metzengerstein.â The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecyââA lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, like the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.â
To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But more trivial causes have given riseâand that no long while agoâto 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 friendsâand the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the Chateau Metzengerstein. Least of all was the more than feudal magnificence thus discovered calculated 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 implyâif it implied any thingâa final triumph on the part of the already more powerful house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter animosity on the side of the weaker and less influential.
Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although honorably and 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 Gââ, died young. His mother, the Lady Mary, followed quickly after. Frederick was, at that time, in his fifteenth year. In a city fifteen years are no long periodâa child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in a wildernessâin so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.
The beautiful Lady Mary! How could she die?âand of consumption! But it is a path I have prayed to follow. I would wish all I love to perish of that gentle disease. How glorious! to depart in the hey-day of the young bloodâthe heart all passionâthe imagination all fireâamid the remembrances of happier daysâin the fall of the yearâand so be buried up forever in the gorgeous autumnal leaves!
Thus died the Lady Mary. The young Baron Frederick stood without a living relative by the coffin of his dead mother. He placed his hand upon her placid forehead. No shudder came over his delicate frameâno sigh from his flinty bosom. Heartless, self-willed, and impetuous from his childhood, he had reached the age of which I speak through a career of unfeeling, wanton, and reckless dissipation; and a barrier had long since arisen in the channel of all holy thoughts and gentle recollections.
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 numberâof these the chief in point of splendor and extent was the âChateau Metzengerstein.â The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly definedâbut his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles.
Upon the succession of a proprietor so youngâwith a character so well knownâto a fortune so unparalleledâlittle 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 debaucheriesâflagrant treacheriesâunheard-of atrocitiesâgave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no servile submission on their partâno punctilios of conscience on his ownâwere thenceforward to prove any security against the remorseless and bloody 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 instantaneously added the crime of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the Baronâs 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 kingâor restrained with the fiat of papal supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-Enemy. There, the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengersteinâtheir muscular war-courses plunging over the carcass of a fallen foeâstartled 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 Berlifitzingâor perhaps pondered upon some more novelâsome more decided act of audacityâhis 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-likeâwhile farther back its discomfitted rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.
On Frederickâs lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became aware of the direction his glance had, without his consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the contrary he could by no means account for the singular, intense, and overwhelming anxiety which appeared falling like a shroud 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 spellâthe 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 kind of compulsory and desperate 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 momentaryâhis 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 sepulchral 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 shadowâas he staggered awhile upon the thresholdâassuming 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 Chateau he encountered three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril of their lives, they were restraining the unnatural and convulsive plunges of a gigantic and fiery-colored horse.
âWhose horse? Where did you get him?â 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.
âHe is your own property, Sireââreplied one of the equerriesââat 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 Countâs stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray. But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creatureâwhich is strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames.â
âThe letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his foreheadââinterrupted a second equerryââI supposed them, of course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzingâbut all at the Castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse.â
âExtremely singular!â said the young Baron, with a musing air, and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his wordsââHe is, as you say, a remarkable horseâa prodigious horse! although, as you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable characterââLet him be mine, however,â he added, after a pauseââperhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.â
âYou are mistaken, my lordâthe horse, as I think we mentioned, is not from the stables of the Count. If such were the case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble of your family.â
âTrue!â observed the Baron drilyâand at that instant a page of the bed chamber came from the Chateau with a heightened color, and precipitate step. He whispered into his masterâs ear an account of the miraculous and 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 characterâbut 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.
âHave you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter Berlifitzing?â said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after the affair of the page, the huge and mysterious steed which that nobleman had adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled and supernatural fury, down the long avenue which extended from the Chateau to the stables of Metzengerstein.
âNo!ââsaid the Baron, turning abruptly towards the speakerââdead! say you?â
âIt is indeed true, my lordâand, to a noble of your name, will be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence.â
A rapid smile of a peculiar and unintelligible meaning shot over the beautiful countenance of the listenerââHow died he?â
âIn his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames.â
âIânâdâeâeâdâ!ââejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.
âIndeedâârepeated the vassal.
âShocking!â 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 behaviour disappointed every expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of many a manĆuvering mammaâwhile his habits and manners, 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 companionlessâunless, 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 inââWill the Baron honor our festivals with his presence?â âWill the Baron join us in a hunting of the boar?â âMetzengerstein does not huntâââMetzengerstein will not attendââwere the haughty and laconic answers.
These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious nobility. Such invitations became less cordialâless frequentâin time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count Berlifitzing, was even heard to express a hopeââthat 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.â 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 parentsâforgetting, 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 againâamong whom may be mentioned the family physicianâdid 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 Baronâs perverse attachment to his lately-acquired chargerâan attachment which seemed to attain new strength from every fresh example of the animalâs ferocious and demonlike propensitiesâat length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noonâat the dead hour of nightâin sickness or in healthâin calm or in tempestâin moonlight or in shadowâthe young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with the spirit of his own.
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 extensive 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 horse as he fled from the conflagration at Berlifitzing, had succeeded in arresting his course, by means of a chain-bridle and nooseâyet 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 stee...