Le Marchand de Sable : le podcast pour s'endormir · Engle

Metzengerstein - Histoires Extraordinaires - Edgar Allan Poe

·22 min·2 clips

The tapestry horse's head turns, its eyes glowing red as it stares directly at the terrified baron.

1. 'Le Marchand de Sable' reads Poe's 'Metzengerstein' from the 'Histoires Extraordinaires' series, a gothic tale set in 19th-century Hungary. 2. The narrator (unnamed) frames the story around the doctrine of metempsychosis — the transmigration of souls — which he describes as a well-established secret belief in Hungary at the time. 3. The episode's central question: does the soul of Count Wilhelm von Berlifitzing transmigrate into the horse the baron takes as his own, fulfilling the prophecy against the Metzengerstein family? 4. The story begins with an ancient prophecy: 'A great name will fall from a terrible fall, when the mortality of Metzengerstein will triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing' — dividing two neighboring noble families for centuries. 5. Wilhelm von Berlifitzing is described as an elderly, infirm man with an obsessive passion for horses and a violent hatred of the Metzengerstein family. 6. Frederick von Metzengerstein, 18 years old, inherits his father's vast estate and within three days earns a reputation for debauchery that 'surpassed even Herod.' 7. On the fourth night after his father's death, fire breaks out in the Berlifitzing stables — and opinion unanimously attributes this arson to Metzengerstein. 8. While the stables burn, the young baron stands alone in the palace's tapestry hall, staring at a painting of an enormous fire-coloured horse whose rider is being killed by a Metzengerstein ancestor. 9. Unable to look away, he notices the tapestry horse's head has slowly turned toward him — 'thing horrible' — its neck extended, its previously blank eyes now glowing burning red, teeth bared. 10. He flees to the palace entrance where three grooms struggle with a gigantic fire-coloured horse bearing the branded initials WVB — Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing — and carrying scorch marks from the Berlifitzing fire. 11. The baron claims the horse, noting only that 'a rider like Frederick de Metzengerstein might be able to tame even the devil from the Berlifitzing stables.' 12. Count Berlifitzing dies the same night, burned alive trying to save his favourite hunting horses. 13. The baron withdraws from all society; he rides the horse continuously, day and night, sick or healthy, in calm and storm, developing an attachment 'of a horrible and counter-natural tenderness.' 14. No one except the baron himself can tend or even enter the horse's stable; the grooms who first captured it cannot confirm they ever touched it directly. 15. A small page claims that Metzengerstein always trembles imperceptibly when mounting the horse and shows an expression of triumphing wickedness on his return. 16. The prophecy is read at the story's end as literally fulfilled: the horse carries the baron, screaming, into his own burning palace. 17. The tone is slow, gothic, and dreamlike — the French narration builds dread through long descriptive sentences and a detached, fatalistic register. 18. The episode is a solo reading without commentary; the French text is read with minimal affect, enhancing the hypnagogic quality. 19. Listeners who enjoy gothic short fiction, Poe's supernatural horror, or European literary darkness as sleep audio will find this episode suited to them. 20. Listeners seeking dynamic narration, English-language content, or non-fiction will find this episode unsuitable.

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