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.
The narrator rightly calls into question the coherence of this statement. Which “lofty name” is going to fall is definitely left unclear, and exactly how “mortality” triumphs over “immortality” doesn’t seem to make sense, which he dismisses by saying, “To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning,” before moving on to more of the history between the two clans. The patriarch of the Berlifitzing family is Wilhelm, an old man at the end of his life while young Frederick, all of fifteen years old, has inherited the Metzengerstein fortune after the death of his mother and father. For three days after the funeral Frederick unleashes unbridled debauchery on the estate, which the narrator compares to the excesses of Caligula, much to the dismay of the neighboring Berlifitzing clan. On the fourth night the Berlifitzing stables are set on fire, which everyone assumes was arson and instigated by Frederick.
But Frederick is actually in one of the upper rooms of the mansion. He becomes enthralled by the tapestries on the wall that tell the history of his family, one scene in particular of a large horse owned by the Berlifitzings and whose master is being killed by a Metzengerstein. Though lost in thought, he becomes increasingly aware of the commotion outside, but as he makes for the stairs he notices that the head of the horse has suddenly changed positions and is now looking directly at him. Unnerved, he pulls open the door and when his shadow assumes the exact shape of the murderer on the tapestry he becomes even more shaken, almost glad to get outside to be dealing with whatever tumult awaits him. It seems that the servants were able to capture a large horse that had escaped from the Berlifitzing stables, but when they tried to return it they were informed that the other family had no such horse. And that isn’t even the strangest part; the horse looked exactly like the one in the tapestry. Add to that a servant informing Frederick that the horse in the tapestry had burned to ash and it is clear something very bizarre is happening.
What it is, of course, is that the old baron Wilhelm had died during the night and his soul is now in possession of the horse. From that night onward the horse manages to compel Frederick to ride him constantly, at all hours of the day and night. The climax of the story is equally strange, but also involves another fire--as does Lovecraft’s story--and actually makes sense of the ancient curse as it seems to have come to pass exactly as foretold. The example of metempsychosis in Lovecraft’s “The Tomb” is not as clear-cut, and there is room for doubt, especially as the narrator himself is the one who has taken on the attributes of his ancestor and yet still seems to retain his own personality. Poe’s story has no such ambiguity. In fact, the horse has the initials of Wilhelm Berlifitzing seemingly burned on his forehead, and as a result Frederick refuses to even name the horse. But where the transmigration of Berlifitzing’s soul to the horse is explained, what remains unclear is Frederick’s obsession with the horse, his inability to stay away from it, attempting to break it when all the while it is actually doing the same to Frederick instead.
The aspect of Poe’s story that is very different than the way Lovecraft would approach his later tale is the inability of his protagonist to escape history or to alter his destiny. Frederick, at only fifteen years old, has inherited the entirety of his parent’s estate and the onus of baron hood along with it. Poe’s narrator tries to deflect this fact by going out of his way to say that Frederick hasn’t suffered because of this. “In a city, fifteen years are no long period; but in a wilderness—in so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, the pendulum vibrates with a deeper meaning.” But in an essay on the story by Jerome DeNiccid, he makes a particularly cogent point when he identifies the real effect this has on Frederick. “Childhood, as a time of forging identity, does not exist; rather, identity is bequeathed, intact, from the past.” Frederick isn’t just fifteen-year-old Frederick anymore, he is now the Baron Metzengerstein and he is suddenly a part of history rather than someone living in it. Thinking back, now the prophesy about the families becomes something that Frederick can’t escape, and this explains his fixation on the tapestry. When the shadow places him over the murderer, he has become as woven into this fabric as his ancestors are.
What’s interesting is the narrative shift that Poe engages in at this point in order to achieve his most chilling effects. The opening section of the narrative is from the point of view of a modern narrator telling the story of the Metzengersteins and the Berlifitzings, conveying the curse complete with its incoherencies, much as an historian would have to do. But when the story shifts to Frederick himself, in the upper tapestry room, suddenly the narrative changes to his viewpoint, and the reader is now able to share his thoughts and feelings. After he has encountered the horse, however, with its transmigrated soul of Wilhelm Berlifitzing inside, the narration shifts back to a completely objective point of view in order to present the frightening and dramatic conclusion. And this fits beautifully into the unreliability of the narrator as a whole. Whenever the narrator becomes dismissive of anything, that is what the reader should pay attention to which is, of course, exactly the effect that Poe is going for. It’s an effect Poe would use often, and its use in his first published story is only fitting. “Metzengerstein,” while seemingly simplistic, is nevertheless an engaging and artfully crafted tale of the macabre.
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