However, they react in the same way again when the next hour strikes. After it has finished striking, all of those present laugh at themselves for being frightened by a clock. Each time that the clock strikes, the musicians stop playing and the guests stop dancing.
The black room also contains an ebony clock which makes a strange and frightening sound every time it strikes the hour. The effect of the firelight coming through the scarlet window into the black room is so frightening that very few of the Prince's guests dare enter it. There are no candles or any lights inside any of the seven rooms, the only light comes from fires in braziers in the hallway. Each room has a stained glass window of the same color as its furnishings, except for the black room which has a window of scarlet glass. The first room is blue, the second is purple, the third is green, the fourth is orange, the fifth is white, the sixth is violet and the seventh is black. The ball takes place in a suite of seven rooms, each one of which is primarily decorated and furnished in one color. Some six months after the arrival of Prince Prospero's guests, a masked ball is held for them. 1935 illustration by the British artist Arthur Rackham. The Red Death takes the life of Prince Prospero. For several months, the Prince and the other nobles continue to live happily inside the abbey, while people continue to die from the Red Death outside. There is sufficient food and drink for the Prince's guest and musicians, dancers, actors and clowns to entertain them. After Prince Prospero's guests have arrived, bolts on the abbey's doors are welded shut, making it impossible for anyone to get in or out. He believes that his home, a former abbey which has been converted into a fortress, will provide him with adequate protection from the plague and he invites a large number of knights and ladies to join him there. Half of Prince Prospero's subjects have died from the disease but the Prince, a man of unusual tastes whom some believe to be mad, is unconcerned. Those who are infected bleed profusely form their skin, especially their faces, before they die. The Red Death is the name of an infectious disease which cuases people to die within thirty minutes.
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