The narrative of "Bluebeard" revolves around a man of tremendous wealth and horrific reputation who also suffers from a curious and unusual disfigurement: his beard is blue. His reputation is based upon the fact that he has married several times and each of the wives has mysteriously disappeared. Now he is looking to add to his collection, and the object of his admiration is either of the two daughters of a nearby lady of ostentatious means. Both are used to leisure and luxury and want to marry a man of means capable of allowing for that transition. Unfortunately, both are repulsed by blue beards.
Opulence and mirth win out in the end, however, as the younger sister learns to control her gag reflex in light of the promise of great riches. Soon after the sister marries the man everyone has come to call Blue Beard, he is called away on business, leaving her alone in his mansion for the first time with all access to all his treasures without his presence. All his treasures save what lies behind one locked door, that is. He leaves the key behind but also leaves with a sinister warning against using the key for entry into the room while he is away.
Of course, leaving the key is the key. Fatima proves to be “Plagued by curiosity” and predictably disobeys the one admonition and request made by her husband. She uses the key to open the lock; behind the door she discovers a chamber in which a pool of blood reflects the dead bodies her predecessors, who are all hanging lifeless against the cold wall.
Horror-struck, she turns to quickly exist and makes the fatal mistake of dropping the key into the pool of blood. The stain will not wash away no matter how hard she tries, and remains there like a guilty conscience waiting to be discovered by Blue Beard when he returns. When her husband does return from his business trip, he inevitably discovers the evidence of her transgression and summarily tries and judges her guilty with a sentence of death. She asks for one request before the execution is delivered so she can join her overly curious sisters on the wall of shame behind the locked door.
The request is for one half-hour to say her prayers, but during the interim she actually calls out for her sister—Anne—to alert their brothers of her need for rescue. The brothers arrive just as Blue Beard is about separate his wife’s head from her body with a sword. Instead, it is his body that becomes home to the blade. The wife becomes the sole heir to all her husband’s treasures, which she shares with her sister Anne and her brothers.
