The Bloody Chamber (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

“The Bloody Chamber” begins with the narrator on her wedding night, traveling by train from Paris to her new home. Her husband is asleep near her, and she, a young pianist, lies sleepless, not knowing what to expect of her married life. She recounts their speedy courtship. Her husband, a marquis who is much older than she and much richer than she, had three wives before her — an opera diva, an artist’s model, and a countess — all of whom died under mysterious circumstances.

The couple disembarks the train at dawn and are taken to the Marquis’s castle, which is on an island. However, the husband must attend to some business before they can commence their honeymoon. While he is gone, she discovers an out-of-tune piano in the conservatory and a library that includes many volumes of pornography. Her husband returns to find her perusing these volumes and brings her back to the “maternal bed.” He puts his grandmother’s ruby choker around her neck and they consummate the marriage.

Later, they are awakened by the telephone, and her husband is called away to New York on urgent business. Against her protests, he prepares to de part. He leaves her the keys to every cabinet and room in the castle. He tells her of the treasures that await her viewing, but also informs her that there is one small key that she must not use. “Every man must have one secret,” he explains and makes her promise not to enter the room “at the foot of the west tower.”

After he leaves, the narrator has a restless night alone. She spends the next day practicing the piano and wandering through various rooms. An hour before dinner, she realizes that she has nothing to do all evening. She calls her mother and but is unable to articulate her misery and breaks into tears. In order to distract herself, she decides to open the doors to all the rooms and starts with the Marquis’s office. She searches through his business files and desk drawers, searching for clues to his character. In a secret compartment, she discovers a file marked “Personal.” In this file are three love notes from his past wives. In these short notes, the Marquis’s fourth wife catches a glimpse of the personalities of these women and some “traces of the heart” of their husband. She decides to go to the forbidden room, where she hopes to find out about his soul.

There she finds her husband’s first three wives, all murdered. The opera singer has been strangled, and the model is hanging from a wall. The most recent wife, the countess, has been penetrated by the spikes of the Iron Maiden. Startled, the narrator drops the key to the torture chamber, and it falls into a pool of blood. She quickly picks it up and flees the gruesome scene.

In her bedroom, she tries to think of a way to escape the castle. She tries to call her mother, but the phone is dead. She tries to comfort herself by turning to her music. Suddenly, she hears a thump in the hallway. It is Jean-Yves, the blind piano-tuner, who has been listening outside the door. She tells him everything. In turn, he tells her that local legends have hinted at these horrors.

At dawn, they hear a car approaching. It is the Marquis. They try to wash the blood from the key, but it is enchanted and permanently stained. Jean-Yves submits to her entreaties to be left alone to face her husband. After exposing her futile attempt to hide the key, the Marquis seizes it and presses the key to her forehead, leaving a mark indicating that she will be sacrificed.

Having dismissed the servants, he intends to behead her. He calls her down to the courtyard. She stalls because, in the distance, she can hear a horse approaching. Its rider, she later finds out, is her courageous mother whose instincts had told her that her daughter was in danger. Just as the Marquis raises his sword, the mother shoots him dead. “The Bloody Chamber” ends with the mother, daughter, and piano tuner living happily ever after. They convert the castle into a school for the blind, and the narrator runs a music school. She is forever thankful that her companion, the piano tuner, cannot see the mark left on her forehead because she views it as a mark of shame.