First Things First…
I read this once before, a few years ago, when I started reading Poe’s complete works, but I didn’t get far. I’ve considered Poe my favorite author since I first read something by him (probably “The Raven” in eighth grade). But I actually haven’t read all that many of his works. So I’m excited to dig into them for Geeksbury.
As for this story, I remember thinking it was just okay. I know it has something to do with a horse, but beyond that, it kind of escapes me. So, let’s see what’s up…
2 Things I Like
2. The Living Tapestry
I don’t know how to explain exactly what happens with the tapestry Frederick becomes enamored with. I don’t think it’s actually alive, but that’s what it looks like. And it keeps him spellbound.
As a fire rages at his rival’s castle next door, Frederick can’t avert his eyes from this one tapestry depicting “an enormous, and unnaturally colored horse… belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his rival… 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.”
Now here’s where things get weirder…
Frederick’s attention is finally diverted by the commotion outside. But when he turns back to the tapestry, he finds that it’s shifted. The horse, instead of having its neck arched over the body of its rider, now has it fully extended and is looking directly at Frederick. Even worse…
“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.”
So this horse in the tapestry seems almost alive, and almost human.
I think what’s happening is Count Berlifitzing, the head of his rival house, whose estate his property borders and who has just died, has his soul reincarnated in this horse.
The first paragraph of the story mentions Metempsychosis, which is “the transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death,” according to Wikipedia.
And now this horse just suddenly shows up after this guy has died. No one knows where it came from. And—probably most on the nose—Berlifitzing’s initials, W.V.B., are branded on the horse’s forehead.
1. The Two Sides of Obsession
After his experience seeing the tapestry move, and then discovering the same horse from the tapestry outside in the flesh, Frederick claims it.
Then he becomes obsessed with it.
He rides all hours of the day and night. He begins to ignore the goings-on of his home, his people, and the neighborhood. He alienates everyone around him.
It’s an unhealthy relationship with this horse. But that’s not the end of it.
Despite his obsession, only “an insignificant and misshapen little page” ever noticed anything beyond Frederick’s affection for the horse.
This page noticed “that his master never vaulted into the saddle, without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder,” and that his expression and body language every time he returned from a ride signified something that more closely resembled disgust.
I like the push/pull of this relationship… that it’s ugly and harmful to Frederick, but his obsession won’t let him turn away from it. More than anything else, this is what makes it feel like a horror story.
0 Things I’m Mixed On
2 Things I Don’t Like
2. This Is How We’re Starting?
The first two paragraphs of the story each end with a foreign phrase. And as I said already, the first paragraph mentions Metempsychosis but doesn’t explain what it is.
That’s a lot to have to stop and google immediately when I’m trying to get into a story.
Maybe people in Poe’s time would’ve been more likely to have known what these things mean. But to me, this opening doesn’t get the story off to a strong start.
1. Smoke Horse
Now here’s the perfect bookend to the last point–I also don’t like how the story ends.
Frederick goes for a midnight ride. And when he and the horse return to Palace Metzengerstein, it’s consumed in flames.
Also, Frederick is in rough shape, with no control over the horse and with “lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through in the intensity of terror.”
So the horse charges inside, and the fire dies out almost instantly. I think it’s safe to assume Frederick dies. And a cloud of smoke in the shape of a massive horse settles over the ruined palace.
The last line plays it like it’s supposed to be this shocking moment. But I don’t know—the smoky horse just seems like a lame ending.
Maybe if a cloud of smoke in the shape of Berlifitzing appeared and gave a clearer indication—without coming right out and saying it—that it really was his soul in the horse, I would’ve liked it better. But making it the shape of a horse doesn’t reveal anything new or secret, so it didn’t give me a reason to care.
Tim Matassa
