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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:33:43 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:33:43 -0700 |
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diff --git a/10007-h/10007-h.htm b/10007-h/10007-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cd7964 --- /dev/null +++ b/10007-h/10007-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4608 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8"> + <title>Carmilla | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + +<style> + +body { margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 ***</div> + +<h1>Carmilla</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h2> + +<h4>Copyright 1872</h4> + +<hr> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PROLOGUE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. An Early Fright</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. A Guest</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. We Compare Notes</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. Her Habits—A Saunter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. A Wonderful Likeness</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. A Very Strange Agony</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. Descending</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. Search</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. The Doctor</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. Bereaved</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. The Story</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. A Petition</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. The Woodman</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. The Meeting</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. Ordeal and Execution</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="pref01"></a>PROLOGUE</h2> + +<p> +Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which follows, Doctor Hesselius has +written a rather elaborate note, which he accompanies with a reference to his +Essay on the strange subject which the MS. illuminates. +</p> + +<p> +This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay, with his usual learning and +acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one +volume of the series of that extraordinary man’s collected papers. +</p> + +<p> +As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to interest the +“laity,” I shall forestall the intelligent lady, who relates it, in +nothing; and after due consideration, I have determined, therefore, to abstain +from presenting any précis of the learned Doctor’s reasoning, or extract +from his statement on a subject which he describes as “involving, not +improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence, and its +intermediates.” +</p> + +<p> +I was anxious on discovering this paper, to reopen the correspondence commenced +by Doctor Hesselius, so many years before, with a person so clever and careful +as his informant seems to have been. Much to my regret, however, I found that +she had died in the interval. +</p> + +<p> +She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative which she communicates +in the following pages, with, so far as I can pronounce, such conscientious +particularity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap01"></a>I.<br> +An Early Fright</h2> + +<p> +In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle, or +schloss. A small income, in that part of the world, goes a great way. Eight or +nine hundred a year does wonders. Scantily enough ours would have answered +among wealthy people at home. My father is English, and I bear an English name, +although I never saw England. But here, in this lonely and primitive place, +where everything is so marvelously cheap, I really don’t see how ever so +much more money would at all materially add to our comforts, or even luxuries. +</p> + +<p> +My father was in the Austrian service, and retired upon a pension and his +patrimony, and purchased this feudal residence, and the small estate on which +it stands, a bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It stands on a slight eminence in +a forest. The road, very old and narrow, passes in front of its drawbridge, +never raised in my time, and its moat, stocked with perch, and sailed over by +many swans, and floating on its surface white fleets of water lilies. +</p> + +<p> +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, and its +Gothic chapel. +</p> + +<p> +The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before its gate, +and at the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that +winds in deep shadow through the wood. I have said that this is a very lonely +place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the road, +the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right, and +twelve to the left. The nearest inhabited village is about seven of your +English miles to the left. The nearest inhabited schloss of any historic +associations, is that of old General Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to +the right. +</p> + +<p> +I have said “the nearest <i>inhabited</i> village,” because there +is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General +Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, +now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family +of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, +in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town. +</p> + +<p> +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, +there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. +</p> <p> +I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants +of our castle. I don’t include servants, or those dependents who occupy +rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss. Listen, and wonder! My father, +who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; and I, at the date of my +story, only nineteen. Eight years have passed since then. +</p> + +<p> +I and my father constituted the family at the schloss. My mother, a Styrian +lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who had been with +me from, I might almost say, my infancy. I could not remember the time when her +fat, benignant face was not a familiar picture in my memory. +</p> + +<p> +This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care and good nature now in +part supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so +early I lost her. She made a third at our little dinner party. There was a +fourth, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a lady such as you term, I believe, a +“finishing governess.” She spoke French and German, Madame Perrodon +French and broken English, to which my father and I added English, which, +partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us, and partly from +patriotic motives, we spoke every day. The consequence was a Babel, at which +strangers used to laugh, and which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this +narrative. And there were two or three young lady friends besides, pretty +nearly of my own age, who were occasional visitors, for longer or shorter +terms; and these visits I sometimes returned. +</p> + +<p> +These were our regular social resources; but of course there were chance visits +from “neighbors” of only five or six leagues distance. My life was, +notwithstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you. +</p> + +<p> +My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you might conjecture such +sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose only parent +allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything. +</p> + +<p> +The first occurrence in my existence, which produced a terrible impression upon +my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced, was one of the very earliest +incidents of my life which I can recollect. Some people will think it so +trifling that it should not be recorded here. You will see, however, by-and-by, +why I mention it. The nursery, as it was called, though I had it all to myself, +was a large room in the upper story of the castle, with a steep oak roof. I +can’t have been more than six years old, when one night I awoke, and +looking round the room from my bed, failed to see the nursery maid. Neither was +my nurse there; and I thought myself alone. I was not frightened, for I was one +of those happy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, +of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when the +door cracks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of +a bedpost dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces. I was vexed and insulted at +finding myself, as I conceived, neglected, and I began to whimper, preparatory +to a hearty bout of roaring; when to my surprise, I saw a solemn, but very +pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady +who was kneeling, with her hands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a +kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, +and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt +immediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a +sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, +and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed on me, and then +slipped down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself under the bed. +</p> <p> +I was now for the first time frightened, and I yelled with all my might and +main. Nurse, nursery maid, housekeeper, all came running in, and hearing my +story, they made light of it, soothing me all they could meanwhile. But, child +as I was, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an unwonted look of +anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed, and about the room, and peep under +tables and pluck open cupboards; and the housekeeper whispered to the nurse: +“Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; someone <i>did</i> lie +there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm.” +</p> + +<p> +I remember the nursery maid petting me, and all three examining my chest, where +I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible +that any such thing had happened to me. +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper and the two other servants who were in charge of the nursery, +remained sitting up all night; and from that time a servant always sat up in +the nursery until I was about fourteen. +</p> + +<p> +I was very nervous for a long time after this. A doctor was called in, he was +pallid and elderly. How well I remember his long saturnine face, slightly +pitted with smallpox, and his chestnut wig. For a good while, every second day, +he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. +</p> + +<p> +The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of terror, and could +not bear to be left alone, daylight though it was, for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +I remember my father coming up and standing at the bedside, and talking +cheerfully, and asking the nurse a number of questions, and laughing very +heartily at one of the answers; and patting me on the shoulder, and kissing me, +and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream and could +not hurt me. +</p> + +<p> +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +<i>not</i> a dream; and I was <i>awfully</i> frightened. +</p> + +<p> +I was a little consoled by the nursery maid’s assuring me that it was she +who had come and looked at me, and lain down beside me in the bed, and that I +must have been half-dreaming not to have known her face. But this, though +supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy me. +</p> + +<p> +I remembered, in the course of that day, a venerable old man, in a black +cassock, coming into the room with the nurse and housekeeper, and talking a +little to them, and very kindly to me; his face was very sweet and gentle, and +he told me they were going to pray, and joined my hands together, and desired +me to say, softly, while they were praying, “Lord hear all good prayers +for us, for Jesus’ sake.” I think these were the very words, for I +often repeated them to myself, and my nurse used for years to make me say them +in my prayers. +</p> + +<p> +I remembered so well the thoughtful sweet face of that white-haired old man, in +his black cassock, as he stood in that rude, lofty, brown room, with the clumsy +furniture of a fashion three hundred years old about him, and the scanty light +entering its shadowy atmosphere through the small lattice. He kneeled, and the +three women with him, and he prayed aloud with an earnest quavering voice for, +what appeared to me, a long time. I forget all my life preceding that event, +and for some time after it is all obscure also, but the scenes I have just +described stand out vivid as the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria +surrounded by darkness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap02"></a>II.<br> +A Guest</h2> + +<p> +I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require all your +faith in my veracity to believe my story. It is not only true, nevertheless, +but truth of which I have been an eyewitness. +</p> + +<p> +It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimes did, to +take a little ramble with him along that beautiful forest vista which I have +mentioned as lying in front of the schloss. +</p> + +<p> +“General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped,” said +my father, as we pursued our walk. +</p> + +<p> +He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his arrival +next day. He was to have brought with him a young lady, his niece and ward, +Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had never seen, but whom I had heard described +as a very charming girl, and in whose society I had promised myself many happy +days. I was more disappointed than a young lady living in a town, or a bustling +neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it +promised, had furnished my day dream for many weeks. +</p> + +<p> +“And how soon does he come?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say,” he answered. +“And I am very glad now, dear, that you never knew Mademoiselle +Rheinfeldt.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why?” I asked, both mortified and curious. +</p> + +<p> +“Because the poor young lady is dead,” he replied. “I quite +forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the room when I received the +General’s letter this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his first letter, +six or seven weeks before, that she was not so well as he would wish her, but +there was nothing to suggest the remotest suspicion of danger. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is the General’s letter,” he said, handing it to me. +“I am afraid he is in great affliction; the letter appears to me to have +been written very nearly in distraction.” +</p> + +<p> +We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun +was setting with all its melancholy splendor behind the sylvan horizon, and the +stream that flows beside our home, and passes under the steep old bridge I have +mentioned, wound through many a group of noble trees, almost at our feet, +reflecting in its current the fading crimson of the sky. General +Spielsdorf’s letter was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places +so self-contradictory, that I read it twice over—the second time aloud to +my father—and was still unable to account for it, except by supposing +that grief had unsettled his mind. +</p> + +<p> +It said “I have lost my darling daughter, for as such I loved her. During +the last days of dear Bertha’s illness I was not able to write to you. +</p> + +<p> +Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +<i>all</i>, too late. She died in the peace of innocence, and in the glorious +hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality +has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a +charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been! +</p> + +<p> +I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of her sufferings. +She is gone without so much as conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the +accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining days to +tracking and extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my +righteous and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a gleam of light +to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of +superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy—all—too late. I cannot +write or talk collectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a +little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which may +possibly lead me as far as Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two months hence, +or earlier if I live, I will see you—that is, if you permit me; I will +then tell you all that I scarce dare put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, +dear friend.” +</p> + +<p> +In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha +Rheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence; I was +startled, as well as profoundly disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General’s letter to my father. +</p> + +<p> +It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon the possible +meanings of the violent and incoherent sentences which I had just been reading. +We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the road that passes the schloss +in front, and by that time the moon was shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge +we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who had come out, +without their bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined +them at the drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them the beautiful +scene. +</p> + +<p> +The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our left the +narrow road wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid +the thickening forest. At the right the same road crosses the steep and +picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which once guarded that +pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and +showing in the shadows some grey ivy-clustered rocks. +</p> + +<p> +Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, +marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there we could see +the river faintly flashing in the moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard made it +melancholy; but nothing could disturb its character of profound serenity, and +the enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect. +</p> + +<p> +My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking in silence over +the expanse beneath us. The two good governesses, standing a little way behind +us, discoursed upon the scene, and were eloquent upon the moon. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked and sighed +poetically. Mademoiselle De Lafontaine—in right of her father who was a +German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, and something of a +mystic—now declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it +was well known that it indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect of +the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, +it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvelous physical +influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was +mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on +his back, with his face full in the light on the moon, had wakened, after a +dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly +drawn to one side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its +equilibrium. +</p> + +<p> +“The moon, this night,” she said, “is full of idyllic and +magnetic influence—and see, when you look behind you at the front of the +schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendor, as if +unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests.” +</p> + +<p> +There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk +ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, +pleased with the tinkle of the ladies’ conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“I have got into one of my moping moods tonight,” said my father, +after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our +English, he used to read aloud, he said: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘In truth I know not why I am so sad.<br> +It wearies me: you say it wearies you;<br> +But how I got it—came by it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were hanging +over us. I suppose the poor General’s afflicted letter has had something +to do with it.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the +road, arrested our attention. +</p> + +<p> +They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking the bridge, and +very soon the equipage emerged from that point. Two horsemen first crossed the +bridge, then came a carriage drawn by four horses, and two men rode behind. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to be the traveling carriage of a person of rank; and we were all +immediately absorbed in watching that very unusual spectacle. It became, in a +few moments, greatly more interesting, for just as the carriage had passed the +summit of the steep bridge, one of the leaders, taking fright, communicated his +panic to the rest, and after a plunge or two, the whole team broke into a wild +gallop together, and dashing between the horsemen who rode in front, came +thundering along the road towards us with the speed of a hurricane. +</p> + +<p> +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, long-drawn +screams of a female voice from the carriage window. +</p> + +<p> +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest with +various ejaculations of terror. +</p> + +<p> +Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castle drawbridge, on +the route they were coming, there stands by the roadside a magnificent lime +tree, on the other stands an ancient stone cross, at sight of which the horses, +now going at a pace that was perfectly frightful, swerved so as to bring the +wheel over the projecting roots of the tree. +</p> + +<p> +I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my +head away; at the same moment I heard a cry from my lady friends, who had gone +on a little. +</p> + +<p> +Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter confusion. Two of the +horses were on the ground, the carriage lay upon its side with two wheels in +the air; the men were busy removing the traces, and a lady with a commanding +air and figure had got out, and stood with clasped hands, raising the +handkerchief that was in them every now and then to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Through the carriage door was now lifted a young lady, who appeared to be +lifeless. My dear old father was already beside the elder lady, with his hat in +his hand, evidently tendering his aid and the resources of his schloss. The +lady did not appear to hear him, or to have eyes for anything but the slender +girl who was being placed against the slope of the bank. +</p> + +<p> +I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she was certainly not +dead. My father, who piqued himself on being something of a physician, had just +had his fingers on her wrist and assured the lady, who declared herself her +mother, that her pulse, though faint and irregular, was undoubtedly still +distinguishable. The lady clasped her hands and looked upward, as if in a +momentary transport of gratitude; but immediately she broke out again in that +theatrical way which is, I believe, natural to some people. +</p> + +<p> +She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of life, and must have +been handsome; she was tall, but not thin, and dressed in black velvet, and +looked rather pale, but with a proud and commanding countenance, though now +agitated strangely. +</p> + +<p> +“Who was ever being so born to calamity?” I heard her say, with +clasped hands, as I came up. “Here am I, on a journey of life and death, +in prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My child will not +have recovered sufficiently to resume her route for who can say how long. I +must leave her: I cannot, dare not, delay. How far on, sir, can you tell, is +the nearest village? I must leave her there; and shall not see my darling, or +even hear of her till my return, three months hence.” +</p> + +<p> +I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his ear: “Oh! +papa, pray ask her to let her stay with us—it would be so delightful. Do, +pray.” +</p> + +<p> +“If Madame will entrust her child to the care of my daughter, and of her +good gouvernante, Madame Perrodon, and permit her to remain as our guest, under +my charge, until her return, it will confer a distinction and an obligation +upon us, and we shall treat her with all the care and devotion which so sacred +a trust deserves.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly,” said the lady, distractedly. +</p> + +<p> +“It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great kindness at +the moment when we most need it. My daughter has just been disappointed by a +cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she had long anticipated a great deal +of happiness. If you confide this young lady to our care it will be her best +consolation. The nearest village on your route is distant, and affords no such +inn as you could think of placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her to +continue her journey for any considerable distance without danger. If, as you +say, you cannot suspend your journey, you must part with her tonight, and +nowhere could you do so with more honest assurances of care and tenderness than +here.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something in this lady’s air and appearance so distinguished +and even imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as to impress one, quite +apart from the dignity of her equipage, with a conviction that she was a person +of consequence. +</p> + +<p> +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the horses, +quite tractable, in the traces again. +</p> + +<p> +The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not quite so +affectionate as one might have anticipated from the beginning of the scene; +then she beckoned slightly to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with +him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and stern countenance, not +at all like that with which she had hitherto spoken. +</p> + +<p> +I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive the change, +and also unspeakably curious to learn what it could be that she was speaking, +almost in his ear, with so much earnestness and rapidity. +</p> + +<p> +Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus employed, then she +turned, and a few steps brought her to where her daughter lay, supported by +Madame Perrodon. She kneeled beside her for a moment and whispered, as Madame +supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then hastily kissing her she stepped +into her carriage, the door was closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped +up behind, the outriders spurred on, the postilions cracked their whips, the +horses plunged and broke suddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon +again to become a gallop, and the carriage whirled away, followed at the same +rapid pace by the two horsemen in the rear. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap03"></a>III.<br> +We Compare Notes</h2> + +<p> +We followed the <i>cortege</i> with our eyes until it was swiftly lost to sight +in the misty wood; and the very sound of the hoofs and the wheels died away in +the silent night air. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure had not been an illusion of a +moment but the young lady, who just at that moment opened her eyes. I could not +see, for her face was turned from me, but she raised her head, evidently +looking about her, and I heard a very sweet voice ask complainingly, +“Where is mamma?” +</p> + +<p> +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. +</p> + +<p> +I then heard her ask: +</p> + +<p> +“Where am I? What is this place?” and after that she said, “I +don’t see the carriage; and Matska, where is she?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame answered all her questions in so far as she understood them; and +gradually the young lady remembered how the misadventure came about, and was +glad to hear that no one in, or in attendance on, the carriage was hurt; and on +learning that her mamma had left her here, till her return in about three +months, she wept. +</p> + +<p> +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t approach, one at a time is as much as she can at present +converse with; a very little excitement would possibly overpower her +now.” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her room and +see her. +</p> + +<p> +My father in the meantime had sent a servant on horseback for the physician, +who lived about two leagues away; and a bedroom was being prepared for the +young lady’s reception. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and she was conducted forthwith to +her room. The room we usually sat in as our drawing room is long, having four +windows, that looked over the moat and drawbridge, upon the forest scene I have +just described. +</p> + +<p> +It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved cabinets, and the chairs +are cushioned with crimson Utrecht velvet. The walls are covered with tapestry, +and surrounded with great gold frames, the figures being as large as life, in +ancient and very curious costume, and the subjects represented are hunting, +hawking, and generally festive. It is not too stately to be extremely +comfortable; and here we had our tea, for with his usual patriotic leanings he +insisted that the national beverage should make its appearance regularly with +our coffee and chocolate. +</p> + +<p> +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine were both of our party. The +young stranger had hardly lain down in her bed when she sank into a deep sleep; +and those ladies had left her in the care of a servant. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon as Madame entered. +“Tell me all about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I like her extremely,” answered Madame, “she is, I almost +think, the prettiest creature I ever saw; about your age, and so gentle and +nice.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Mademoiselle, who had +peeped for a moment into the stranger’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame Perrodon. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after it was set up again, who +did not get out,” inquired Mademoiselle, “but only looked from the +window?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, we had not seen her.” +</p> + +<p> +Then she described a hideous black woman, with a sort of colored turban on her +head, and who was gazing all the time from the carriage window, nodding and +grinning derisively towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes and large white +eyeballs, and her teeth set as if in fury. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” +asked Madame. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said my father, who had just come in, “ugly, hang-dog +looking fellows as ever I beheld in my life. I hope they mayn’t rob the +poor lady in the forest. They are clever rogues, however; they got everything +to rights in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling,” said +Madame. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides looking wicked, their faces were so strangely lean, and dark, +and sullen. I am very curious, I own; but I dare say the young lady will tell +you all about it tomorrow, if she is sufficiently recovered.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she will,” said my father, with a mysterious +smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he knew more about it than he cared +to tell us. +</p> + +<p> +This made us all the more inquisitive as to what had passed between him and the +lady in the black velvet, in the brief but earnest interview that had +immediately preceded her departure. +</p> + +<p> +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need much +pressing. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no particular reason why I should not tell you. She expressed a +reluctance to trouble us with the care of her daughter, saying she was in +delicate health, and nervous, but not subject to any kind of seizure—she +volunteered that—nor to any illusion; being, in fact, perfectly +sane.” +</p> + +<p> +“How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated. “It was so +unnecessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“At all events it <i>was</i> said,” he laughed, “and as you +wish to know all that passed, which was indeed very little, I tell you. She +then said, ‘I am making a long journey of <i>vital</i> +importance—she emphasized the word—rapid and secret; I shall return +for my child in three months; in the meantime, she will be silent as to who we +are, whence we come, and whither we are traveling.’ That is all she said. +She spoke very pure French. When she said the word ‘secret,’ she +paused for a few seconds, looking sternly, her eyes fixed on mine. I fancy she +makes a great point of that. You saw how quickly she was gone. I hope I have +not done a very foolish thing, in taking charge of the young lady.” +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to see and talk to her; and only +waiting till the doctor should give me leave. You, who live in towns, can have +no idea how great an event the introduction of a new friend is, in such a +solitude as surrounded us. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o’clock; but I could no more +have gone to my bed and slept, than I could have overtaken, on foot, the +carriage in which the princess in black velvet had driven away. +</p> + +<p> +When the physician came down to the drawing room, it was to report very +favorably upon his patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse quite regular, +apparently perfectly well. She had sustained no injury, and the little shock to +her nerves had passed away quite harmlessly. There could be no harm certainly +in my seeing her, if we both wished it; and, with this permission I sent, +forthwith, to know whether she would allow me to visit her for a few minutes in +her room. +</p> + +<p> +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. +</p> + +<p> +Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the schloss. It was, perhaps, +a little stately. There was a somber piece of tapestry opposite the foot of the +bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom; and other solemn +classic scenes were displayed, a little faded, upon the other walls. But there +was gold carving, and rich and varied color enough in the other decorations of +the room, to more than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry. +</p> + +<p> +There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her slender pretty +figure enveloped in the soft silk dressing gown, embroidered with flowers, and +lined with thick quilted silk, which her mother had thrown over her feet as she +lay upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just begun my little +greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and made me recoil a step or two from +before her? I will tell you. +</p> + +<p> +I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night, which +remained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had for so many years so often +ruminated with horror, when no one suspected of what I was thinking. +</p> + +<p> +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the same +melancholy expression. +</p> + +<p> +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of recognition. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I could +not. +</p> + +<p> +“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Twelve years ago, I saw your +face in a dream, and it has haunted me ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful indeed!” I repeated, overcoming with an effort the +horror that had for a time suspended my utterances. “Twelve years ago, in +vision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. It has +remained before my eyes ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +Her smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied strange in it, was gone, and it +and her dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty and intelligent. +</p> + +<p> +I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein which hospitality indicated, +to bid her welcome, and to tell her how much pleasure her accidental arrival +had given us all, and especially what a happiness it was to me. +</p> + +<p> +I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the +situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers +upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, +and blushed. +</p> + +<p> +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still wondering; +and she said: +</p> + +<p> +“I must tell you my vision about you; it is so very strange that you and +I should have had, each of the other so vivid a dream, that each should have +seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when of course we both were mere +children. I was a child, about six years old, and I awoke from a confused and +troubled dream, and found myself in a room, unlike my nursery, wainscoted +clumsily in some dark wood, and with cupboards and bedsteads, and chairs, and +benches placed about it. The beds were, I thought, all empty, and the room +itself without anyone but myself in it; and I, after looking about me for some +time, and admiring especially an iron candlestick with two branches, which I +should certainly know again, crept under one of the beds to reach the window; +but as I got from under the bed, I heard someone crying; and looking up, while +I was still upon my knees, I saw you—most assuredly you—as I see +you now; a beautiful young lady, with golden hair and large blue eyes, and +lips—your lips—you as you are here. +</p> + +<p> +“Your looks won me; I climbed on the bed and put my arms about you, and I +think we both fell asleep. I was aroused by a scream; you were sitting up +screaming. I was frightened, and slipped down upon the ground, and, it seemed +to me, lost consciousness for a moment; and when I came to myself, I was again +in my nursery at home. Your face I have never forgotten since. I could not be +misled by mere resemblance. <i>You are</i> the lady whom I saw then.” +</p> + +<p> +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to the +undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know which should be most afraid of the other,” she +said, again smiling—“If you were less pretty I think I should be +very much afraid of you, but being as you are, and you and I both so young, I +feel only that I have made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already +a right to your intimacy; at all events it does seem as if we were destined, +from our earliest childhood, to be friends. I wonder whether you feel as +strangely drawn towards me as I do to you; I have never had a +friend—shall I find one now?” She sighed, and her fine dark eyes +gazed passionately on me. +</p> + +<p> +Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger. I +did feel, as she said, “drawn towards her,” but there was also +something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of +attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful +and so indescribably engaging. +</p> + +<p> +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, and +hastened to bid her good night. +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor thinks,” I added, “that you ought to have a maid +to sit up with you tonight; one of ours is waiting, and you will find her a +very useful and quiet creature.” +</p> + +<p> +“How kind of you, but I could not sleep, I never could with an attendant +in the room. I shan’t require any assistance—and, shall I confess +my weakness, I am haunted with a terror of robbers. Our house was robbed once, +and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It has become a +habit—and you look so kind I know you will forgive me. I see there is a +key in the lock.” +</p> + +<p> +She held me close in her pretty arms for a moment and whispered in my ear, +“Good night, darling, it is very hard to part with you, but good night; +tomorrow, but not early, I shall see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her fine eyes followed me with a +fond and melancholy gaze, and she murmured again “Good night, dear +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Young people like, and even love, on impulse. I was flattered by the evident, +though as yet undeserved, fondness she showed me. I liked the confidence with +which she at once received me. She was determined that we should be very near +friends. +</p> + +<p> +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that is to +say, in many respects. +</p> + +<p> +Her looks lost nothing in daylight—she was certainly the most beautiful +creature I had ever seen, and the unpleasant remembrance of the face presented +in my early dream, had lost the effect of the first unexpected recognition. +</p> + +<p> +She confessed that she had experienced a similar shock on seeing me, and +precisely the same faint antipathy that had mingled with my admiration of her. +We now laughed together over our momentary horrors. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap04"></a>IV.<br> +Her Habits—A Saunter</h2> + +<p> +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. +</p> + +<p> +There were some that did not please me so well. +</p> + +<p> +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing her. +</p> + +<p> +She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were +languid—very languid—indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to +indicate an invalid. Her complexion was rich and brilliant; her features were +small and beautifully formed; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was +quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when it was +down about her shoulders; I have often placed my hands under it, and laughed +with wonder at its weight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a +rich very dark brown, with something of gold. I loved to let it down, tumbling +with its own weight, as, in her room, she lay back in her chair talking in her +sweet low voice, I used to fold and braid it, and spread it out and play with +it. Heavens! If I had but known all! +</p> + +<p> +I said there were particulars which did not please me. I have told you that her +confidence won me the first night I saw her; but I found that she exercised +with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything in fact connected +with her life, plans, and people, an ever wakeful reserve. I dare say I was +unreasonable, perhaps I was wrong; I dare say I ought to have respected the +solemn injunction laid upon my father by the stately lady in black velvet. But +curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, +with patience, that hers should be baffled by another. What harm could it do +anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to know? Had she no trust in my +good sense or honor? Why would she not believe me when I assured her, so +solemnly, that I would not divulge one syllable of what she told me to any +mortal breathing. +</p> + +<p> +There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling +melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot say we quarreled upon this point, for she would not quarrel upon any. +It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, but I really +could not help it; and I might just as well have let it alone. +</p> + +<p> +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation—to +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: +</p> + +<p> +First—Her name was Carmilla. +</p> + +<p> +Second—Her family was very ancient and noble. +</p> + +<p> +Third—Her home lay in the direction of the west. +</p> + +<p> +She would not tell me the name of her family, nor their armorial bearings, nor +the name of their estate, nor even that of the country they lived in. +</p> + +<p> +You are not to suppose that I worried her incessantly on these subjects. I +watched opportunity, and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries. Once or +twice, indeed, I did attack her more directly. But no matter what my tactics, +utter failure was invariably the result. Reproaches and caresses were all lost +upon her. But I must add this, that her evasion was conducted with so pretty a +melancholy and deprecation, with so many, and even passionate declarations of +her liking for me, and trust in my honor, and with so many promises that I +should at last know all, that I could not find it in my heart long to be +offended with her. +</p> + +<p> +She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her +cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little +heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my +strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with +yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and +you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I +draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the +rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no +more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her +trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. +</p> + +<p> +From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence, I must +allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me. +Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance +into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover myself when she withdrew her +arms. +</p> + +<p> +In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I experienced a strange +tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague +sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such +scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also +of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to +explain the feeling. +</p> + +<p> +I now write, after an interval of more than ten years, with a trembling hand, +with a confused and horrible recollection of certain occurrences and +situations, in the ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing; though +with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of the main current of my story. +</p> + +<p> +But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which +our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused, that are of all others +the most vaguely and dimly remembered. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would +take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; +blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing +so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was +like the ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet +over-powering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips +traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, +“You are mine, you <i>shall</i> be mine, you and I are one for +ever.” Then she had thrown herself back in her chair, with her small +hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we related,” I used to ask; “what can you mean by all +this? I remind you perhaps of someone whom you love; but you must not, I hate +it; I don’t know you—I don’t know myself when you look so and +talk so.” +</p> + +<p> +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. +</p> + +<p> +Respecting these very extraordinary manifestations I strove in vain to form any +satisfactory theory—I could not refer them to affectation or trick. It +was unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct and emotion. +Was she, notwithstanding her mother’s volunteered denial, subject to +brief visitations of insanity; or was there here a disguise and a romance? I +had read in old storybooks of such things. What if a boyish lover had found his +way into the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade, with the +assistance of a clever old adventuress. But there were many things against this +hypothesis, highly interesting as it was to my vanity. +</p> + +<p> +I could boast of no little attentions such as masculine gallantry delights to +offer. Between these passionate moments there were long intervals of +commonplace, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy, during which, except that I +detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire, following me, at times I might +have been as nothing to her. Except in these brief periods of mysterious +excitement her ways were girlish; and there was always a languor about her, +quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state of health. +</p> + +<p> +In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps not so singular in the opinion of +a town lady like you, as they appeared to us rustic people. She used to come +down very late, generally not till one o’clock, she would then take a cup +of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went out for a walk, which was a mere +saunter, and she seemed, almost immediately, exhausted, and either returned to +the schloss or sat on one of the benches that were placed, here and there, +among the trees. This was a bodily languor in which her mind did not +sympathize. She was always an animated talker, and very intelligent. +</p> + +<p> +She sometimes alluded for a moment to her own home, or mentioned an adventure +or situation, or an early recollection, which indicated a people of strange +manners, and described customs of which we knew nothing. I gathered from these +chance hints that her native country was much more remote than I had at first +fancied. +</p> + +<p> +As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a funeral passed us by. It was +that of a pretty young girl, whom I had often seen, the daughter of one of the +rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking behind the coffin of his +darling; she was his only child, and he looked quite heartbroken. +</p> + +<p> +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral hymn. +</p> + +<p> +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they were very +sweetly singing. +</p> + +<p> +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. +</p> + +<p> +She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how discordant that +is?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it very sweet, on the contrary,” I answered, vexed at the +interruption, and very uncomfortable, lest the people who composed the little +procession should observe and resent what was passing. +</p> + +<p> +I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again interrupted. “You pierce +my ears,” said Carmilla, almost angrily, and stopping her ears with her +tiny fingers. “Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are +the same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why you must +die—<i>everyone</i> must die; and all are happier when they do. Come +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today.” +</p> + +<p> +“She? I don’t trouble my head about peasants. I don’t know +who she is,” answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago, and +has been dying ever since, till yesterday, when she expired.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan’t sleep tonight if you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all this looks very like +it,” I continued. “The swineherd’s young wife died only a +week ago, and she thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her +bed, and nearly strangled her. Papa says such horrible fancies do accompany +some forms of fever. She was quite well the day before. She sank afterwards, +and died before a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>her</i> funeral is over, I hope, and <i>her</i> hymn sung; and +our ears shan’t be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me +nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand; press it +hard-hard-harder.” +</p> + +<p> +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. +</p> + +<p> +She sat down. Her face underwent a change that alarmed and even terrified me +for a moment. It darkened, and became horribly livid; her teeth and hands were +clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon +the ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a continued shudder as +irrepressible as ague. All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with +which she was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of +suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided. “There! +That comes of strangling people with hymns!” she said at last. +“Hold me, hold me still. It is passing away.” +</p> + +<p> +And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissipate the somber impression which +the spectacle had left upon me, she became unusually animated and chatty; and +so we got home. +</p> + +<p> +This was the first time I had seen her exhibit any definable symptoms of that +delicacy of health which her mother had spoken of. It was the first time, also, +I had seen her exhibit anything like temper. +</p> + +<p> +Both passed away like a summer cloud; and never but once afterwards did I +witness on her part a momentary sign of anger. I will tell you how it happened. +</p> + +<p> +She and I were looking out of one of the long drawing room windows, when there +entered the courtyard, over the drawbridge, a figure of a wanderer whom I knew +very well. He used to visit the schloss generally twice a year. +</p> + +<p> +It was the figure of a hunchback, with the sharp lean features that generally +accompany deformity. He wore a pointed black beard, and he was smiling from ear +to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, +and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all +manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic lantern, and two boxes, which I +well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These +monsters used to make my father laugh. They were compounded of parts of +monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together +with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box of conjuring +apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several other +mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in +his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog, that followed at his heels, but +stopped short, suspiciously at the drawbridge, and in a little while began to +howl dismally. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the courtyard, raised +his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments +very volubly in execrable French, and German not much better. +</p> + +<p> +Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air to which he sang +with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity, that made me +laugh, in spite of the dog’s howling. +</p> + +<p> +Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations, and his hat in +his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that never took +breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and the +resources of the various arts which he placed at our service, and the +curiosities and entertainments which it was in his power, at our bidding, to +display. +</p> + +<p> +“Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, +which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods,” he said +dropping his hat on the pavement. “They are dying of it right and left +and here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may +laugh in his face.” +</p> + +<p> +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and +diagrams upon them. +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. +</p> + +<p> +He was looking up, and we were smiling down upon him, amused; at least, I can +answer for myself. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in our faces, seemed +to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity, +</p> + +<p> +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd little +steel instruments. +</p> + +<p> +“See here, my lady,” he said, displaying it, and addressing me, +“I profess, among other things less useful, the art of dentistry. Plague +take the dog!” he interpolated. “Silence, beast! He howls so that +your ladyships can scarcely hear a word. Your noble friend, the young lady at +your right, has the sharpest tooth,—long, thin, pointed, like an awl, +like a needle; ha, ha! With my sharp and long sight, as I look up, I have seen +it distinctly; now if it happens to hurt the young lady, and I think it must, +here am I, here are my file, my punch, my nippers; I will make it round and +blunt, if her ladyship pleases; no longer the tooth of a fish, but of a +beautiful young lady as she is. Hey? Is the young lady displeased? Have I been +too bold? Have I offended her?” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the window. +</p> + +<p> +“How dares that mountebank insult us so? Where is your father? I shall +demand redress from him. My father would have had the wretch tied up to the +pump, and flogged with a cart whip, and burnt to the bones with the cattle +brand!” +</p> + +<p> +She retired from the window a step or two, and sat down, and had hardly lost +sight of the offender, when her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen, and +she gradually recovered her usual tone, and seemed to forget the little +hunchback and his follies. +</p> + +<p> +My father was out of spirits that evening. On coming in he told us that there +had been another case very similar to the two fatal ones which had lately +occurred. The sister of a young peasant on his estate, only a mile away, was +very ill, had been, as she described it, attacked very nearly in the same way, +and was now slowly but steadily sinking. +</p> + +<p> +“All this,” said my father, “is strictly referable to natural +causes. These poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and so +repeat in imagination the images of terror that have infested their +neighbors.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that very circumstance frightens one horribly,” said Carmilla. +</p> + +<p> +“How so?” inquired my father. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as bad +as reality.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are in God’s hands: nothing can happen without his permission, +and all will end well for those who love him. He is our faithful creator; He +has made us all, and will take care of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Creator! <i>Nature!</i>” said the young lady in answer to my +gentle father. “And this disease that invades the country is natural. +Nature. All things proceed from Nature—don’t they? All things in +the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? +I think so.” +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor said he would come here today,” said my father, after a +silence. “I want to know what he thinks about it, and what he thinks we +had better do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctors never did me any good,” said Carmilla. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have been ill?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“More ill than ever you were,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Long ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very illness; but I forget all +but my pain and weakness, and they were not so bad as are suffered in other +diseases.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were very young then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a +friend?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed her arm round my waist lovingly, +and led me out of the room. My father was busy over some papers near the +window. +</p> + +<p> +“Why does your papa like to frighten us?” said the pretty girl with +a sigh and a little shudder. +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you afraid, dearest?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my being +attacked as those poor people were.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are afraid to die?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, every one is.” +</p> + +<p> +“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live +together. +</p> + +<p> +Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies +when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, +don’t you see—each with their peculiar propensities, necessities +and structure. So says Monsieur Buffon, in his big book, in the next +room.” +</p> + +<p> +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some time. +</p> + +<p> +He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, he wore powder, and shaved his pale +face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and papa emerged from the room together, and I +heard papa laugh, and say as they came out: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to hippogriffs +and dragons?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head— +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of +the resources of either.” +</p> + +<p> +And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I did not then know what the doctor +had been broaching, but I think I guess it now. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap05"></a>V.<br> +A Wonderful Likeness</h2> + +<p> +This evening there arrived from Gratz the grave, dark-faced son of the picture +cleaner, with a horse and cart laden with two large packing cases, having many +pictures in each. It was a journey of ten leagues, and whenever a messenger +arrived at the schloss from our little capital of Gratz, we used to crowd about +him in the hall, to hear the news. +</p> + +<p> +This arrival created in our secluded quarters quite a sensation. The cases +remained in the hall, and the messenger was taken charge of by the servants +till he had eaten his supper. Then with assistants, and armed with hammer, +ripping chisel, and turnscrew, he met us in the hall, where we had assembled to +witness the unpacking of the cases. +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after the other the old pictures, +nearly all portraits, which had undergone the process of renovation, were +brought to light. My mother was of an old Hungarian family, and most of these +pictures, which were about to be restored to their places, had come to us +through her. +</p> + +<p> +My father had a list in his hand, from which he read, as the artist rummaged +out the corresponding numbers. I don’t know that the pictures were very +good, but they were, undoubtedly, very old, and some of them very curious also. +They had, for the most part, the merit of being now seen by me, I may say, for +the first time; for the smoke and dust of time had all but obliterated them. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a picture that I have not seen yet,” said my father. +“In one corner, at the top of it, is the name, as well as I could read, +‘Marcia Karnstein,’ and the date ‘1698’; and I am +curious to see how it has turned out.” +</p> + +<p> +I remembered it; it was a small picture, about a foot and a half high, and +nearly square, without a frame; but it was so blackened by age that I could not +make it out. +</p> + +<p> +The artist now produced it, with evident pride. It was quite beautiful; it was +startling; it seemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla! +</p> + +<p> +“Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle. Here you are, living, +smiling, ready to speak, in this picture. Isn’t it beautiful, Papa? And +see, even the little mole on her throat.” +</p> + +<p> +My father laughed, and said “Certainly it is a wonderful likeness,” +but he looked away, and to my surprise seemed but little struck by it, and went +on talking to the picture cleaner, who was also something of an artist, and +discoursed with intelligence about the portraits or other works, which his art +had just brought into light and color, while I was more and more lost in wonder +the more I looked at the picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, dear,” said he, smiling, “I’m very glad you +think it so like. +</p> + +<p> +It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is.” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech, did not seem to hear it. +She was leaning back in her seat, her fine eyes under their long lashes gazing +on me in contemplation, and she smiled in a kind of rapture. +</p> + +<p> +“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. +</p> + +<p> +It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mircalla, +Countess Karnstein, and this is a little coronet over and underneath A.D. +</p> + +<p> +1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said the lady, languidly, “so am I, I think, a very +long descent, very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?” +</p> + +<p> +“None who bear the name, I believe. The family were ruined, I believe, in +some civil wars, long ago, but the ruins of the castle are only about three +miles away.” +</p> + +<p> +“How interesting!” she said, languidly. “But see what +beautiful moonlight!” She glanced through the hall door, which stood a +little open. “Suppose you take a little ramble round the court, and look +down at the road and river.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She sighed; smiling. +</p> + +<p> +She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. +</p> + +<p> +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. +</p> + +<p> +“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost +whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you glad I came?” +</p> + +<p> +“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your +room,” she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my +waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. “How romantic you +are, Carmilla,” I said. “Whenever you tell me your story, it will +be made up chiefly of some one great romance.” +</p> + +<p> +She kissed me silently. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, +“unless it should be with you.” +</p> + +<p> +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! +</p> + +<p> +Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and +hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a +hand that trembled. +</p> + +<p> +Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “Darling, darling,” she +murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.” +</p> + +<p> +I started from her. +</p> + +<p> +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and +a face colorless and apathetic. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a chill in the air, dear?” she said drowsily. “I +almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come +in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few +minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we +approached the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I +asked. +</p> + +<p> +I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with the +strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” I added, “if he +thought you were ever so little ill, without immediately letting us know. We +have a very skilful doctor near us, the physician who was with papa +today.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he is. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I am +quite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me, but a little weakness. +</p> + +<p> +People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walk as far +as a child of three years old: and every now and then the little strength I +have falters, and I become as you have just seen me. But after all I am very +easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly myself. See how I have +recovered.” +</p> + +<p> +So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a great deal, and very animated she +was; and the remainder of that evening passed without any recurrence of what I +called her infatuations. I mean her crazy talk and looks, which embarrassed, +and even frightened me. +</p> + +<p> +But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, +and seemed to startle even Carmilla’s languid nature into momentary +energy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap06"></a>VI.<br> +A Very Strange Agony</h2> + +<p> +When we got into the drawing room, and had sat down to our coffee and +chocolate, although Carmilla did not take any, she seemed quite herself again, +and Madame, and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, joined us, and made a little card +party, in the course of which papa came in for what he called his “dish +of tea.” +</p> + +<p> +When the game was over he sat down beside Carmilla on the sofa, and asked her, +a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. +</p> + +<p> +She answered “No.” +</p> + +<p> +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot tell,” she answered ambiguously, “but I have been +thinking of leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to +me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a +carriage tomorrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately +find her, although I dare not yet tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you must not dream of any such thing,” exclaimed my father, to +my great relief. “We can’t afford to lose you so, and I won’t +consent to your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so +good as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I +should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her: but this evening the +accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our +neighborhood, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the +responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. But I shall do +my best; and one thing is certain, that you must not think of leaving us +without her distinct direction to that effect. We should suffer too much in +parting from you to consent to it easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your hospitality,” she +answered, smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have +seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful chateau, under +your care, and in the society of your dear daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and pleased +at her little speech. +</p> + +<p> +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with her while +she was preparing for bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think,” I said at length, “that you will ever confide +fully in me?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on me. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t +answer pleasantly; I ought not to have asked you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were quite right to ask me that, or anything. You do not know how +dear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great to look +for. +</p> + +<p> +But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare not tell my story yet, +even to you. The time is very near when you shall know everything. You will +think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the +more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving +me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me. and <i>hating</i> me +through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic +nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,” I +said hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for +your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Were you ever at a ball?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I almost forget, it is years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as +divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but +transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made +its colours faint. I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here,” +she touched her breast, “and never was the same since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you near dying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very—a cruel love—strange love, that would have taken +my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood. Let us go +to sleep now; I feel so lazy. How can I get up just now and lock my +door?” +</p> + +<p> +She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her rich wavy hair, under her +cheek, her little head upon the pillow, and her glittering eyes followed me +wherever I moved, with a kind of shy smile that I could not decipher. +</p> + +<p> +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable sensation. +</p> + +<p> +I often wondered whether our pretty guest ever said her prayers. I certainly +had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never came down until +long after our family prayers were over, and at night she never left the +drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in the hall. +</p> + +<p> +If it had not been that it had casually come out in one of our careless talks +that she had been baptised, I should have doubted her being a Christian. +Religion was a subject on which I had never heard her speak a word. If I had +known the world better, this particular neglect or antipathy would not have so +much surprised me. +</p> + +<p> +The precautions of nervous people are infectious, and persons of a like +temperament are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them. I had adopted +Carmilla’s habit of locking her bedroom door, having taken into my head +all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders and prowling assassins. I had +also adopted her precaution of making a brief search through her room, to +satisfy herself that no lurking assassin or robber was “ensconced.” +</p> + +<p> +These wise measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was +burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, and which +nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. +</p> + +<p> +Thus fortifed I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone +walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their +exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. +</p> + +<p> +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. +</p> + +<p> +But I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as +I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I +had seen it last, except that it was very dark, and I saw something moving +round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. +But I soon saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. +It appeared to me about four or five feet long for it measured fully the length +of the hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with +the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, +although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and +the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no +longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. +The two broad eyes approached my face, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as +if two large needles darted, an inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked +with a scream. The room was lighted by the candle that burnt there all through +the night, and I saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed, a little +at the right side. It was in a dark loose dress, and its hair was down and +covered its shoulders. A block of stone could not have been more still. There +was not the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the figure +appeared to have changed its place, and was now nearer the door; then, close to +it, the door opened, and it passed out. +</p> + +<p> +I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move. My first thought was that +Carmilla had been playing me a trick, and that I had forgotten to secure my +door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on the inside. I was +afraid to open it—I was horrified. I sprang into my bed and covered my +head up in the bedclothes, and lay there more dead than alive till morning. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap07"></a>VII.<br> +Descending</h2> + +<p> +It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I +recall the occurrence of that night. It was no such transitory terror as a +dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to +the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. +</p> + +<p> +I could not bear next day to be alone for a moment. I should have told papa, +but for two opposite reasons. At one time I thought he would laugh at my story, +and I could not bear its being treated as a jest; and at another I thought he +might fancy that I had been attacked by the mysterious complaint which had +invaded our neighborhood. I had myself no misgiving of the kind, and as he had +been rather an invalid for some time, I was afraid of alarming him. +</p> + +<p> +I was comfortable enough with my good-natured companions, Madame Perrodon, and +the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both perceived that I was out of +spirits and nervous, and at length I told them what lay so heavy at my heart. +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the long lime tree +walk, behind Carmilla’s bedroom window, is haunted!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, “and who tells that story, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Martin says that he came up twice, when the old yard gate was being +repaired, before sunrise, and twice saw the same female figure walking down the +lime tree avenue.” +</p> + +<p> +“So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields,” said Madame. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see fool +more frightened.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must not say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see down +that walk from her room window,” I interposed, “and she is, if +possible, a greater coward than I.” +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. +</p> + +<p> +“I was so frightened last night,” she said, so soon as were +together, “and I am sure I should have seen something dreadful if it had +not been for that charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I called +such hard names. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed, and I +awoke in a perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds, I saw a dark +figure near the chimneypiece, but I felt under my pillow for my charm, and the +moment my fingers touched it, the figure disappeared, and I felt quite certain, +only that I had it by me, that something frightful would have made its +appearance, and, perhaps, throttled me, as it did those poor people we heard +of. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, listen to me,” I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. +</p> + +<p> +“And had you the charm near you?” she asked, earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the drawing room, but I shall +certainly take it with me tonight, as you have so much faith in it.” +</p> + +<p> +At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or even understand, how I overcame +my horror so effectually as to lie alone in my room that night. I remember +distinctly that I pinned the charm to my pillow. I fell asleep almost +immediately, and slept even more soundly than usual all night. +</p> + +<p> +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and dreamless. +</p> + +<p> +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, did not +exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I told you so,” said Carmilla, when I described my quiet +sleep, “I had such delightful sleep myself last night; I pinned the charm +to the breast of my nightdress. It was too far away the night before. I am +quite sure it was all fancy, except the dreams. I used to think that evil +spirits made dreams, but our doctor told me it is no such thing. Only a fever +passing by, or some other malady, as they often do, he said, knocks at the +door, and not being able to get in, passes on, with that alarm.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you think the charm is?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it acts only on the body?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly; you don’t suppose that evil spirits are frightened by +bits of ribbon, or the perfumes of a druggist’s shop? No, these +complaints, wandering in the air, begin by trying the nerves, and so infect the +brain, but before they can seize upon you, the antidote repels them. That I am +sure is what the charm has done for us. It is nothing magical, it is simply +natural. +</p> + +<p> +I should have been happier if I could have quite agreed with Carmilla, but I +did my best, and the impression was a little losing its force. +</p> + +<p> +For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same +lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. +A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have +interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly +sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me. If it was +sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. +</p> + +<p> +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, or to +have the doctor sent for. +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla became more devoted to me than ever, and her strange paroxysms of +languid adoration more frequent. She used to gloat on me with increasing ardor +the more my strength and spirits waned. This always shocked me like a momentary +glare of insanity. +</p> + +<p> +Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of the strangest +illness under which mortal ever suffered. There was an unaccountable +fascination in its earlier symptoms that more than reconciled me to the +incapacitating effect of that stage of the malady. This fascination increased +for a time, until it reached a certain point, when gradually a sense of the +horrible mingled itself with it, deepening, as you shall hear, until it +discolored and perverted the whole state of my life. +</p> + +<p> +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near the +turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. +</p> + +<p> +Certain vague and strange sensations visited me in my sleep. The prevailing one +was of that pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we feel in bathing, when we +move against the current of a river. This was soon accompanied by dreams that +seemed interminable, and were so vague that I could never recollect their +scenery and persons, or any one connected portion of their action. But they +left an awful impression, and a sense of exhaustion, as if I had passed through +a long period of great mental exertion and danger. +</p> + +<p> +After all these dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of having been in +a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom I could not see; +and especially of one clear voice, of a female’s, very deep, that spoke +as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always the same sensation of +indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand +was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips +kissed me, and longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat, +but there the caress fixed itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and +fell rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of +strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my +senses left me and I became unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. +</p> + +<p> +My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown +pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had +long felt began to display itself in my countenance. +</p> + +<p> +My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an obstinacy which now +seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that I was quite well. +</p> + +<p> +In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could complain of no bodily +derangement. My complaint seemed to be one of the imagination, or the nerves, +and, horrible as my sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbid reserve, very +nearly to myself. +</p> + +<p> +It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called the oupire, +for I had now been suffering for three weeks, and they were seldom ill for much +more than three days, when death put an end to their miseries. +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no means of so +alarming a kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming. Had I been +capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked aid and advice on +my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me, and my +perceptions were benumbed. +</p> + +<p> +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd discovery. +</p> + +<p> +One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard +one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible, which said, +</p> + +<p> +“Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin.” At the same time +a light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, near the foot of +my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in one +great stain of blood. +</p> + +<p> +I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the one idea that Carmilla was being +murdered. I remember springing from my bed, and my next recollection is that of +standing on the lobby, crying for help. +</p> + +<p> +Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out of their rooms in alarm; a lamp +burned always on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the cause of my +terror. +</p> + +<p> +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door. Our knocking was +unanswered. +</p> + +<p> +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all was +vain. +</p> + +<p> +We all grew frightened, for the door was locked. We hurried back, in panic, to +my room. There we rang the bell long and furiously. If my father’s room +had been at that side of the house, we would have called him up at once to our +aid. But, alas! he was quite out of hearing, and to reach him involved an +excursion for which we none of us had courage. +</p> + +<p> +Servants, however, soon came running up the stairs; I had got on my dressing +gown and slippers meanwhile, and my companions were already similarly +furnished. Recognizing the voices of the servants on the lobby, we sallied out +together; and having renewed, as fruitlessly, our summons at Carmilla’s +door, I ordered the men to force the lock. They did so, and we stood, holding +our lights aloft, in the doorway, and so stared into the room. +</p> + +<p> +We called her by name; but there was still no reply. We looked round the room. +Everything was undisturbed. It was exactly in the state in which I had left it +on bidding her good night. But Carmilla was gone. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap08"></a>VIII.<br> +Search</h2> + +<p> +At sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except for our violent entrance, we +began to cool a little, and soon recovered our senses sufficiently to dismiss +the men. It had struck Mademoiselle that possibly Carmilla had been wakened by +the uproar at her door, and in her first panic had jumped from her bed, and hid +herself in a press, or behind a curtain, from which she could not, of course, +emerge until the majordomo and his myrmidons had withdrawn. We now recommenced +our search, and began to call her name again. +</p> + +<p> +It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and agitation increased. We examined +the windows, but they were secured. I implored of Carmilla, if she had +concealed herself, to play this cruel trick no longer—to come out and to +end our anxieties. It was all useless. I was by this time convinced that she +was not in the room, nor in the dressing room, the door of which was still +locked on this side. She could not have passed it. I was utterly puzzled. Had +Carmilla discovered one of those secret passages which the old housekeeper said +were known to exist in the schloss, although the tradition of their exact +situation had been lost? A little time would, no doubt, explain +all—utterly perplexed as, for the present, we were. +</p> + +<p> +It was past four o’clock, and I preferred passing the remaining hours of +darkness in Madame’s room. Daylight brought no solution of the +difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +The whole household, with my father at its head, was in a state of agitation +next morning. Every part of the chateau was searched. The grounds were +explored. No trace of the missing lady could be discovered. The stream was +about to be dragged; my father was in distraction; what a tale to have to tell +the poor girl’s mother on her return. I, too, was almost beside myself, +though my grief was quite of a different kind. +</p> + +<p> +The morning was passed in alarm and excitement. It was now one o’clock, +and still no tidings. I ran up to Carmilla’s room, and found her standing +at her dressing table. I was astounded. I could not believe my eyes. She +beckoned me to her with her pretty finger, in silence. Her face expressed +extreme fear. +</p> + +<p> +I ran to her in an ecstasy of joy; I kissed and embraced her again and again. I +ran to the bell and rang it vehemently, to bring others to the spot who might +at once relieve my father’s anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Carmilla, what has become of you all this time? We have been in +agonies of anxiety about you,” I exclaimed. “Where have you been? +How did you come back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Last night has been a night of wonders,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“For mercy’s sake, explain all you can.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was past two last night,” she said, “when I went to sleep +as usual in my bed, with my doors locked, that of the dressing room, and that +opening upon the gallery. My sleep was uninterrupted, and, so far as I know, +dreamless; but I woke just now on the sofa in the dressing room there, and I +found the door between the rooms open, and the other door forced. How could all +this have happened without my being wakened? It must have been accompanied with +a great deal of noise, and I am particularly easily wakened; and how could I +have been carried out of my bed without my sleep having been interrupted, I +whom the slightest stir startles?” +</p> + +<p> +By this time, Madame, Mademoiselle, my father, and a number of the servants +were in the room. Carmilla was, of course, overwhelmed with inquiries, +congratulations, and welcomes. She had but one story to tell, and seemed the +least able of all the party to suggest any way of accounting for what had +happened. +</p> + +<p> +My father took a turn up and down the room, thinking. I saw Carmilla’s +eye follow him for a moment with a sly, dark glance. +</p> + +<p> +When my father had sent the servants away, Mademoiselle having gone in search +of a little bottle of valerian and salvolatile, and there being no one now in +the room with Carmilla, except my father, Madame, and myself, he came to her +thoughtfully, took her hand very kindly, led her to the sofa, and sat down +beside her. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who can have a better right?” she said. “Ask what you +please, and I will tell you everything. But my story is simply one of +bewilderment and darkness. I know absolutely nothing. Put any question you +please, but you know, of course, the limitations mamma has placed me +under.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perfectly, my dear child. I need not approach the topics on which she +desires our silence. Now, the marvel of last night consists in your having been +removed from your bed and your room, without being wakened, and this removal +having occurred apparently while the windows were still secured, and the two +doors locked upon the inside. I will tell you my theory and ask you a +question.” +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were listening +breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, since I was very young indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +My father smiled and nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what has happened is this. You got up in your sleep, unlocked the +door, not leaving the key, as usual, in the lock, but taking it out and locking +it on the outside; you again took the key out, and carried it away with you to +some one of the five-and-twenty rooms on this floor, or perhaps upstairs or +downstairs. There are so many rooms and closets, so much heavy furniture, and +such accumulations of lumber, that it would require a week to search this old +house thoroughly. Do you see, now, what I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, but not all,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in the +dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?” +</p> + +<p> +“She came there after you had searched it, still in her sleep, and at +last awoke spontaneously, and was as much surprised to find herself where she +was as any one else. I wish all mysteries were as easily and innocently +explained as yours, Carmilla,” he said, laughing. “And so we may +congratulate ourselves on the certainty that the most natural explanation of +the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, no tampering with locks, no +burglars, or poisoners, or witches—nothing that need alarm Carmilla, or +anyone else, for our safety.” +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful than her +tints. Her beauty was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languor that was +peculiar to her. I think my father was silently contrasting her looks with +mine, for he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself”; and he +sighed. +</p> + +<p> +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap09"></a>IX.<br> +The Doctor</h2> +<p> +As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping in her room, my father +arranged that a servant should sleep outside her door, so that she would not +attempt to make another such excursion without being arrested at her own door. +</p> + +<p> +That night passed quietly; and next morning early, the doctor, whom my father +had sent for without telling me a word about it, arrived to see me. +</p> + +<p> +Madame accompanied me to the library; and there the grave little doctor, with +white hair and spectacles, whom I mentioned before, was waiting to receive me. +</p> + +<p> +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. +</p> + +<p> +We were standing, he and I, in the recess of one of the windows, facing one +another. When my statement was over, he leaned with his shoulders against the +wall, and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly, with an interest in which was a +dash of horror. +</p> + +<p> +After a minute’s reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. +</p> + +<p> +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say, doctor, you are going to tell me that I am an old fool for +having brought you here; I hope I am.” +</p> + +<p> +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, beckoned +him to him. +</p> + +<p> +He and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where I had just +conferred with the physician. It seemed an earnest and argumentative +conversation. The room is very large, and I and Madame stood together, burning +with curiosity, at the farther end. Not a word could we hear, however, for they +spoke in a very low tone, and the deep recess of the window quite concealed the +doctor from view, and very nearly my father, whose foot, arm, and shoulder only +could we see; and the voices were, I suppose, all the less audible for the sort +of closet which the thick wall and window formed. +</p> + +<p> +After a time my father’s face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan’t trouble +you, the doctor says, at present.” +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly I approached, for the first time a little alarmed; for, although I +felt very weak, I did not feel ill; and strength, one always fancies, is a +thing that may be picked up when we please. +</p> + +<p> +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at the +doctor, and he said: +</p> + +<p> +“It certainly is very odd; I don’t understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mentioned a sensation like that of two needles piercing the skin, +somewhere about your neck, on the night when you experienced your first +horrible dream. Is there still any soreness?” +</p> + +<p> +“None at all,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little below my throat—here,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you can satisfy yourself,” said the doctor. “You +won’t mind your papa’s lowering your dress a very little. It is +necessary, to detect a symptom of the complaint under which you have been +suffering.” +</p> + +<p> +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless me!—so it is,” exclaimed my father, growing pale. +</p> + +<p> +“You see it now with your own eyes,” said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, my dear young lady, but a small blue spot, about the size of +the tip of your little finger; and now,” he continued, turning to papa, +“the question is what is best to be done?” +</p> + +<p> +Is there any danger?”I urged, in great trepidation. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust not, my dear,” answered the doctor. “I don’t +see why you should not recover. I don’t see why you should not begin +immediately to get better. That is the point at which the sense of +strangulation begins?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And—recollect as well as you can—the same point was a kind +of center of that thrill which you described just now, like the current of a +cold stream running against you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It may have been; I think it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, you see?” he added, turning to my father. “Shall I say a +word to Madame?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said my father. +</p> + +<p> +He called Madame to him, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I find my young friend here far from well. It won’t be of any +great consequence, I hope; but it will be necessary that some steps be taken, +which I will explain by-and-by; but in the meantime, Madame, you will be so +good as not to let Miss Laura be alone for one moment. That is the only +direction I need give for the present. It is indispensable.” +</p> + +<p> +“We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know,” added my father. +</p> + +<p> +Madame satisfied him eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor’s +direction.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have to ask your opinion upon another patient, whose symptoms +slightly resemble those of my daughter, that have just been detailed to +you—very much milder in degree, but I believe quite of the same sort. She +is a young lady—our guest; but as you say you will be passing this way +again this evening, you can’t do better than take your supper here, and +you can then see her. She does not come down till the afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you,” said the doctor. “I shall be with you, then, +at about seven this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +And then they repeated their directions to me and to Madame, and with this +parting charge my father left us, and walked out with the doctor; and I saw +them pacing together up and down between the road and the moat, on the grassy +platform in front of the castle, evidently absorbed in earnest conversation. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his leave, and +ride away eastward through the forest. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the letters, +and dismount and hand the bag to my father. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, Madame and I were both busy, lost in conjecture as to the +reasons of the singular and earnest direction which the doctor and my father +had concurred in imposing. Madame, as she afterwards told me, was afraid the +doctor apprehended a sudden seizure, and that, without prompt assistance, I +might either lose my life in a fit, or at least be seriously hurt. +</p> + +<p> +The interpretation did not strike me; and I fancied, perhaps luckily for my +nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply to secure a companion, who +would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eating unripe fruit, or doing any +of the fifty foolish things to which young people are supposed to be prone. +</p> + +<p> +About half an hour after my father came in—he had a letter in his +hand—and said: +</p> + +<p> +“This letter had been delayed; it is from General Spielsdorf. He might +have been here yesterday, he may not come till tomorrow or he may be here +today.” +</p> + +<p> +He put the open letter into my hand; but he did not look pleased, as he used +when a guest, especially one so much loved as the General, was coming. +</p> + +<p> +On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him at the bottom of the Red Sea. +There was plainly something on his mind which he did not choose to divulge. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, darling, will you tell me this?” said I, suddenly laying my +hand on his arm, and looking, I am sure, imploringly in his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Does the doctor think me very ill?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken, you will be quite well +again, at least, on the high road to a complete recovery, in a day or +two,” he answered, a little dryly. “I wish our good friend, the +General, had chosen any other time; that is, I wish you had been perfectly well +to receive him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do tell me, papa,” I insisted, “what does he think is +the matter with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing; you must not plague me with questions,” he answered, with +more irritation than I ever remember him to have displayed before; and seeing +that I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me, and added, “You shall +know all about it in a day or two; that is, all that I know. In the meantime +you are not to trouble your head about it.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and left the room, but came back before I had done wondering and +puzzling over the oddity of all this; it was merely to say that he was going to +Karnstein, and had ordered the carriage to be ready at twelve, and that I and +Madame should accompany him; he was going to see the priest who lived near +those picturesque grounds, upon business, and as Carmilla had never seen them, +she could follow, when she came down, with Mademoiselle, who would bring +materials for what you call a picnic, which might be laid for us in the ruined +castle. +</p> + +<p> +At twelve o’clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. +</p> + +<p> +Passing the drawbridge we turn to the right, and follow the road over the steep +Gothic bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village and ruined castle of +Karnstein. +</p> + +<p> +No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The ground breaks into gentle hills +and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute of the +comparative formality which artificial planting and early culture and pruning +impart. +</p> + +<p> +The irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its course, and +cause it to wind beautifully round the sides of broken hollows and the steeper +sides of the hills, among varieties of ground almost inexhaustible. +</p> + +<p> +Turning one of these points, we suddenly encountered our old friend, the +General, riding towards us, attended by a mounted servant. His portmanteaus +were following in a hired wagon, such as we term a cart. +</p> + +<p> +The General dismounted as we pulled up, and, after the usual greetings, was +easily persuaded to accept the vacant seat in the carriage and send his horse +on with his servant to the schloss. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap10"></a>X.<br> +Bereaved</h2> + +<p> +It was about ten months since we had last seen him: but that time had sufficed +to make an alteration of years in his appearance. He had grown thinner; +something of gloom and anxiety had taken the place of that cordial serenity +which used to characterize his features. His dark blue eyes, always +penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light from under his shaggy grey +eyebrows. It was not such a change as grief alone usually induces, and angrier +passions seemed to have had their share in bringing it about. +</p> + +<p> +We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with his +usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he had +sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out in +a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the “hellish +arts” to which she had fallen a victim, and expressing, with more +exasperation than piety, his wonder that Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an +indulgence of the lusts and malignity of hell. +</p> + +<p> +My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary had befallen, +asked him, if not too painful to him, to detail the circumstances which he +thought justified the strong terms in which he expressed himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but +you would not believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I not?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” he answered testily, “you believe in nothing but +what consists with your own prejudices and illusions. I remember when I was +like you, but I have learned better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you +suppose. +</p> + +<p> +Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for what you +believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to respect your +conclusions.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a +belief in the marvelous—for what I have experienced is +marvelous—and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that +which ran counter, diametrically, to all my theories. I have been made the dupe +of a preternatural conspiracy.” +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General’s +penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General, with, as I +thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity. +</p> + +<p> +The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily and curiously into +the glades and vistas of the woods that were opening before us. +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?” he said. “Yes, it +is a lucky coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to +inspect them. I have a special object in exploring. There is a ruined chapel, +ain’t there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?” +</p> + +<p> +“So there are—highly interesting,” said my father. “I +hope you are thinking of claiming the title and estates?” +</p> + +<p> +My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh, or even +the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend’s joke; on the contrary, he +looked grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter that stirred his anger and +horror. +</p> + +<p> +“Something very different,” he said, gruffly. “I mean to +unearth some of those fine people. I hope, by God’s blessing, to +accomplish a pious sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain +monsters, and enable honest people to sleep in their beds without being +assailed by murderers. I have strange things to tell you, my dear friend, such +as I myself would have scouted as incredible a few months since.” +</p> + +<p> +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion—with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“The house of Karnstein,” he said, “has been long extinct: a +hundred years at least. My dear wife was maternally descended from the +Karnsteins. But the name and title have long ceased to exist. The castle is a +ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty years since the smoke of a +chimney was seen there; not a roof left.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you; a +great deal that will astonish you. But I had better relate everything in the +order in which it occurred,” said the General. “You saw my dear +ward—my child, I may call her. No creature could have been more +beautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite +lovely,” said my father. “I was grieved and shocked more than I can +tell you, my dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you.” +</p> + +<p> +He took the General’s hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tears +gathered in the old soldier’s eyes. He did not seek to conceal them. He +said: +</p> + +<p> +“We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless +as I am. She had become an object of very near interest to me, and repaid my +care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life happy. That is all +gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by +God’s mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and +to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor +child in the spring of her hopes and beauty!” +</p> + +<p> +“You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it +occurred,” said my father. “Pray do; I assure you that it is not +mere curiosity that prompts me.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by which the +General had come, diverges from the road which we were traveling to Karnstein. +</p> + +<p> +“How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General, looking +anxiously forward. +</p> + +<p> +“About half a league,” answered my father. “Pray let us hear +the story you were so good as to promise.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap11"></a>XI.<br> +The Story</h2> + +<p> +With all my heart,” said the General, with an effort; and after a short +pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest +narratives I ever heard. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you +had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter.” Here +he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. “In the meantime we had an +invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six +leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series of fetes +which, you remember, were given by him in honor of his illustrious visitor, the +Grand Duke Charles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,” said my father. +</p> + +<p> +“Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has +Aladdin’s lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a +magnificent masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with +colored lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never +witnessed. And such music—music, you know, is my weakness—such +ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world, and the +finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas in Europe. As +you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds, the moon-lighted +chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of windows, you would suddenly +hear these ravishing voices stealing from the silence of some grove, or rising +from boats upon the lake. I felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back +into the romance and poetry of my early youth. +</p> + +<p> +“When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to +the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked ball, +you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of the kind I +never saw before. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +‘nobody’ present. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her +excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features, always +lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but wearing a mask, who +appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen +her, earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and again, for a few minutes, +walking near us, on the terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A +lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a +person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon. +</p> + +<p> +Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much more +certain upon the question whether she was really watching my poor darling. +</p> + +<p> +I am now well assured that she was. +</p> + +<p> +“We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing, +and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I was standing +near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and the younger took the +chair next my ward; while her companion stood beside me, and for a little time +addressed herself, in a low tone, to her charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and in +the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a conversation +with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She referred to many scenes +where she had met me—at Court, and at distinguished houses. She alluded +to little incidents which I had long ceased to think of, but which, I found, +had only lain in abeyance in my memory, for they instantly started into life at +her touch. +</p> + +<p> +“I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment. +She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The knowledge +she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but unaccountable; and +she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity, and in +seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity, from one conjecture to another. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name +of Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the same ease and +grace, got into conversation with my ward. +</p> + +<p> +“She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old +acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered +practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated +very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her with laughing +criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed at my poor +child’s fun. She was very witty and lively when she pleased, and after a +time they had grown very good friends, and the young stranger lowered her mask, +displaying a remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it before, neither had +my dear child. But though it was new to us, the features were so engaging, as +well as lovely, that it was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. +My poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, +unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her +heart to her. +</p> + +<p> +“In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. +</p> + +<p> +“‘You have puzzled me utterly,’ I said, laughing. ‘Is +that not enough? +</p> + +<p> +Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Can any request be more unreasonable?’ she replied. +‘Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should +recognize me? Years make changes.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather +melancholy little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you +know that a sight of my face would help you?’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is +vain trying to make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since +you saw me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter; +I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to +be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me. +</p> + +<p> +You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a +surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘At all events, you won’t deny this,’ I said, +‘that being honored by your permission to converse, I ought to know how +to address you. Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?’ +</p> + +<p> +“She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another +evasion—if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every +circumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with the profoundest +cunning, as liable to be modified by accident. +</p> + +<p> +“‘As to that,’ she began; but she was interrupted, almost as +she opened her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly +elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the most +deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no masquerade—in the +plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but with a +courtly and unusually low bow:— +</p> + +<p> +“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which +may interest her?’ +</p> + +<p> +“The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of silence; +she then said to me, ‘Keep my place for me, General; I shall return when +I have said a few words.’ +</p> + +<p> +“And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside +with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently very +earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and I lost them +for some minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the +identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of +turning about and joining in the conversation between my pretty ward and the +Countess’s daughter, and trying whether, by the time she returned, I +might not have a surprise in store for her, by having her name, title, chateau, +and estates at my fingers’ ends. But at this moment she returned, +accompanied by the pale man in black, who said: +</p> + +<p> +“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is +at the door.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He withdrew with a bow.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap12"></a>XII.<br> +A Petition</h2> + +<p> +“‘Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,’ I said, with a low bow. +</p> + +<p> +“‘It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very +unlucky his speaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?’ +</p> + +<p> +“I assured her I did not. +</p> + +<p> +“‘You shall know me,’ she said, ‘but not at present. We +are older and better friends than, perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare +myself. I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I have +been making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you for an hour or two, and +renew a friendship which I never think of without a thousand pleasant +recollections. This moment a piece of news has reached me like a thunderbolt. I +must set out now, and travel by a devious route, nearly a hundred miles, with +all the dispatch I can possibly make. My perplexities multiply. I am only +deterred by the compulsory reserve I practice as to my name from making a very +singular request of you. My poor child has not quite recovered her strength. +Her horse fell with her, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her +nerves have not yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must +on no account exert herself for some time to come. We came here, in +consequence, by very easy stages—hardly six leagues a day. I must now +travel day and night, on a mission of life and death—a mission the +critical and momentous nature of which I shall be able to explain to you when +we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the necessity of any +concealment.’ +</p> + +<p> +“She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a person +from whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seeking a favor. +</p> + +<p> +This was only in manner, and, as it seemed, quite unconsciously. Than the terms +in which it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It was simply +that I would consent to take charge of her daughter during her absence. +</p> + +<p> +“This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say, an audacious +request. She in some sort disarmed me, by stating and admitting everything that +could be urged against it, and throwing herself entirely upon my chivalry. At +the same moment, by a fatality that seems to have predetermined all that +happened, my poor child came to my side, and, in an undertone, besought me to +invite her new friend, Millarca, to pay us a visit. She had just been sounding +her, and thought, if her mamma would allow her, she would like it extremely. +</p> + +<p> +“At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until, at +least, we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to think in. The two +ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and beautiful face +of the young lady, about which there was something extremely engaging, as well +as the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me; and, quite overpowered, +I submitted, and undertook, too easily, the care of the young lady, whom her +mother called Millarca. +</p> + +<p> +“The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who listened with grave attention +while she told her, in general terms, how suddenly and peremptorily she had +been summoned, and also of the arrangement she had made for her under my care, +adding that I was one of her earliest and most valued friends. +</p> + +<p> +“I made, of course, such speeches as the case seemed to call for, and +found myself, on reflection, in a position which I did not half like. +</p> + +<p> +“The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. +</p> + +<p> +“The demeanor of this gentleman was such as to impress me with the +conviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more importance than her +modest title alone might have led me to assume. +</p> + +<p> +“Her last charge to me was that no attempt was to be made to learn more +about her than I might have already guessed, until her return. Our +distinguished host, whose guest she was, knew her reasons. +</p> + +<p> +“‘But here,’ she said, ‘neither I nor my daughter could +safely remain for more than a day. I removed my mask imprudently for a moment, +about an hour ago, and, too late, I fancied you saw me. So I resolved to seek +an opportunity of talking a little to you. Had I found that you had seen me, I +would have thrown myself on your high sense of honor to keep my secret some +weeks. As it is, I am satisfied that you did not see me; but if you now +suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect, who I am, I commit myself, in like +manner, entirely to your honor. My daughter will observe the same secrecy, and +I well know that you will, from time to time, remind her, lest she should +thoughtlessly disclose it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“She whispered a few words to her daughter, kissed her hurriedly twice, +and went away, accompanied by the pale gentleman in black, and disappeared in +the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“‘In the next room,’ said Millarca, ‘there is a window +that looks upon the hall door. I should like to see the last of mamma, and to +kiss my hand to her.’ +</p> + +<p> +“We assented, of course, and accompanied her to the window. We looked +out, and saw a handsome old-fashioned carriage, with a troop of couriers and +footmen. We saw the slim figure of the pale gentleman in black, as he held a +thick velvet cloak, and placed it about her shoulders and threw the hood over +her head. She nodded to him, and just touched his hand with hers. He bowed low +repeatedly as the door closed, and the carriage began to move. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She is gone,’ said Millarca, with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She is gone,’ I repeated to myself, for the first +time—in the hurried moments that had elapsed since my +consent—reflecting upon the folly of my act. +</p> + +<p> +“‘She did not look up,’ said the young lady, plaintively. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Countess had taken off her mask, perhaps, and did not care to +show her face,’ I said; ‘and she could not know that you were in +the window.’ +</p> + +<p> +“She sighed, and looked in my face. She was so beautiful that I relented. +I was sorry I had for a moment repented of my hospitality, and I determined to +make her amends for the unavowed churlishness of my reception. +</p> + +<p> +“The young lady, replacing her mask, joined my ward in persuading me to +return to the grounds, where the concert was soon to be renewed. We did so, and +walked up and down the terrace that lies under the castle windows. +</p> + +<p> +Millarca became very intimate with us, and amused us with lively descriptions +and stories of most of the great people whom we saw upon the terrace. I liked +her more and more every minute. Her gossip without being ill-natured, was +extremely diverting to me, who had been so long out of the great world. I +thought what life she would give to our sometimes lonely evenings at home. +</p> + +<p> +“This ball was not over until the morning sun had almost reached the +horizon. It pleased the Grand Duke to dance till then, so loyal people could +not go away, or think of bed. +</p> + +<p> +“We had just got through a crowded saloon, when my ward asked me what had +become of Millarca. I thought she had been by her side, and she fancied she was +by mine. The fact was, we had lost her. +</p> + +<p> +“All my efforts to find her were vain. I feared that she had mistaken, in +the confusion of a momentary separation from us, other people for her new +friends, and had, possibly, pursued and lost them in the extensive grounds +which were thrown open to us. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, in its full force, I recognized a new folly in my having undertaken +the charge of a young lady without so much as knowing her name; and fettered as +I was by promises, of the reasons for imposing which I knew nothing, I could +not even point my inquiries by saying that the missing young lady was the +daughter of the Countess who had taken her departure a few hours before. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning broke. It was clear daylight before I gave up my search. It was +not till near two o’clock next day that we heard anything of my missing +charge. +</p> + +<p> +“At about that time a servant knocked at my niece’s door, to say +that he had been earnestly requested by a young lady, who appeared to be in +great distress, to make out where she could find the General Baron Spielsdorf +and the young lady his daughter, in whose charge she had been left by her +mother. +</p> + +<p> +“There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the slight inaccuracy, that our +young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven we had lost her! +</p> + +<p> +“She told my poor child a story to account for her having failed to +recover us for so long. Very late, she said, she had got to the +housekeeper’s bedroom in despair of finding us, and had then fallen into +a deep sleep which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed to recruit her strength +after the fatigues of the ball. +</p> + +<p> +“That day Millarca came home with us. I was only too happy, after all, to +have secured so charming a companion for my dear girl.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap13"></a>XIII.<br> +The Woodman</h2> + +<p> +“There soon, however, appeared some drawbacks. In the first place, +Millarca complained of extreme languor—the weakness that remained after +her late illness—and she never emerged from her room till the afternoon +was pretty far advanced. In the next place, it was accidentally discovered, +although she always locked her door on the inside, and never disturbed the key +from its place till she admitted the maid to assist at her toilet, that she was +undoubtedly sometimes absent from her room in the very early morning, and at +various times later in the day, before she wished it to be understood that she +was stirring. She was repeatedly seen from the windows of the schloss, in the +first faint grey of the morning, walking through the trees, in an easterly +direction, and looking like a person in a trance. This convinced me that she +walked in her sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did she +pass out from her room, leaving the door locked on the inside? How did she +escape from the house without unbarring door or window? +</p> + +<p> +“In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child began to lose her looks and health, and that in a manner +so mysterious, and even horrible, that I became thoroughly frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she fancied, by a +specter, sometimes resembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of a beast, +indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of her bed, from side to side. +</p> + +<p> +Lastly came sensations. One, not unpleasant, but very peculiar, she said, +resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast. At a later time, she +felt something like a pair of large needles pierce her, a little below the +throat, with a very sharp pain. A few nights after, followed a gradual and +convulsive sense of strangulation; then came unconsciousness.” +</p> + +<p> +I could hear distinctly every word the kind old General was saying, because by +this time we were driving upon the short grass that spreads on either side of +the road as you approach the roofless village which had not shown the smoke of +a chimney for more than half a century. +</p> + +<p> +You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard my own symptoms so exactly +described in those which had been experienced by the poor girl who, but for the +catastrophe which followed, would have been at that moment a visitor at my +father’s chateau. You may suppose, also, how I felt as I heard him detail +habits and mysterious peculiarities which were, in fact, those of our beautiful +guest, Carmilla! +</p> + +<p> +A vista opened in the forest; we were on a sudden under the chimneys and gables +of the ruined village, and the towers and battlements of the dismantled castle, +round which gigantic trees are grouped, overhung us from a slight eminence. +</p> + +<p> +In a frightened dream I got down from the carriage, and in silence, for we had +each abundant matter for thinking; we soon mounted the ascent, and were among +the spacious chambers, winding stairs, and dark corridors of the castle. +</p> + +<p> +“And this was once the palatial residence of the Karnsteins!” said +the old General at length, as from a great window he looked out across the +village, and saw the wide, undulating expanse of forest. “It was a bad +family, and here its bloodstained annals were written,” he continued. +“It is hard that they should, after death, continue to plague the human +race with their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the Karnsteins, down +there.” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed down to the grey walls of the Gothic building partly visible through +the foliage, a little way down the steep. “And I hear the axe of a +woodman,” he added, “busy among the trees that surround it; he +possibly may give us the information of which I am in search, and point out the +grave of Mircalla, Countess of Karnstein. These rustics preserve the local +traditions of great families, whose stories die out among the rich and titled +so soon as the families themselves become extinct.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; should +you like to see it?” asked my father. +</p> + +<p> +“Time enough, dear friend,” replied the General. “I believe +that I have seen the original; and one motive which has led me to you earlier +than I at first intended, was to explore the chapel which we are now +approaching.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! see the Countess Mircalla,” exclaimed my father; “why, +she has been dead more than a century!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,” answered the General. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess, General, you puzzle me utterly,” replied my father, +looking at him, I fancied, for a moment with a return of the suspicion I +detected before. But although there was anger and detestation, at times, in the +old General’s manner, there was nothing flighty. +</p> + +<p> +“There remains to me,” he said, as we passed under the heavy arch +of the Gothic church—for its dimensions would have justified its being so +styled—“but one object which can interest me during the few years +that remain to me on earth, and that is to wreak on her the vengeance which, I +thank God, may still be accomplished by a mortal arm.” +</p> + +<p> +“What vengeance can you mean?” asked my father, in increasing +amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, to decapitate the monster,” he answered, with a fierce +flush, and a stamp that echoed mournfully through the hollow ruin, and his +clenched hand was at the same moment raised, as if it grasped the handle of an +axe, while he shook it ferociously in the air. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“To strike her head off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut her head off!” +</p> + +<p> +“Aye, with a hatchet, with a spade, or with anything that can cleave +through her murderous throat. You shall hear,” he answered, trembling +with rage. And hurrying forward he said: +</p> + +<p> +“That beam will answer for a seat; your dear child is fatigued; let her +be seated, and I will, in a few sentences, close my dreadful story.” +</p> + +<p> +The squared block of wood, which lay on the grass-grown pavement of the chapel, +formed a bench on which I was very glad to seat myself, and in the meantime the +General called to the woodman, who had been removing some boughs which leaned +upon the old walls; and, axe in hand, the hardy old fellow stood before us. +</p> + +<p> +He could not tell us anything of these monuments; but there was an old man, he +said, a ranger of this forest, at present sojourning in the house of the +priest, about two miles away, who could point out every monument of the old +Karnstein family; and, for a trifle, he undertook to bring him back with him, +if we would lend him one of our horses, in little more than half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been long employed about this forest?” asked my father of +the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been a woodman here,” he answered in his patois, +“under the forester, all my days; so has my father before me, and so on, +as many generations as I can count up. I could show you the very house in the +village here, in which my ancestors lived.” +</p> + +<p> +“How came the village to be deserted?” asked the General. +</p> + +<p> +“It was troubled by revenants, sir; several were tracked to their graves, +there detected by the usual tests, and extinguished in the usual way, by +decapitation, by the stake, and by burning; but not until many of the villagers +were killed. +</p> + +<p> +“But after all these proceedings according to law,” he +continued—“so many graves opened, and so many vampires deprived of +their horrible animation—the village was not relieved. But a Moravian +nobleman, who happened to be traveling this way, heard how matters were, and +being skilled—as many people are in his country—in such affairs, he +offered to deliver the village from its tormentor. He did so thus: There being +a bright moon that night, he ascended, shortly after sunset, the towers of the +chapel here, from whence he could distinctly see the churchyard beneath him; +you can see it from that window. From this point he watched until he saw the +vampire come out of his grave, and place near it the linen clothes in which he +had been folded, and then glide away towards the village to plague its +inhabitants. +</p> + +<p> +“The stranger, having seen all this, came down from the steeple, took the +linen wrappings of the vampire, and carried them up to the top of the tower, +which he again mounted. When the vampire returned from his prowlings and missed +his clothes, he cried furiously to the Moravian, whom he saw at the summit of +the tower, and who, in reply, beckoned him to ascend and take them. Whereupon +the vampire, accepting his invitation, began to climb the steeple, and so soon +as he had reached the battlements, the Moravian, with a stroke of his sword, +clove his skull in twain, hurling him down to the churchyard, whither, +descending by the winding stairs, the stranger followed and cut his head off, +and next day delivered it and the body to the villagers, who duly impaled and +burnt them. +</p> + +<p> +“This Moravian nobleman had authority from the then head of the family to +remove the tomb of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, which he did effectually, so +that in a little while its site was quite forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you point out where it stood?” asked the General, eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +The forester shook his head, and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a soul living could tell you that now,” he said; +“besides, they say her body was removed; but no one is sure of that +either.” +</p> + +<p> +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, leaving +us to hear the remainder of the General’s strange story. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap14"></a>XIV.<br> +The Meeting</h2> + +<p> +“My beloved child,” he resumed, “was now growing rapidly +worse. The physician who attended her had failed to produce the slightest +impression on her disease, for such I then supposed it to be. He saw my alarm, +and suggested a consultation. I called in an abler physician, from Gratz. +</p> + +<p> +Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well as a +learned man. Having seen my poor ward together, they withdrew to my library to +confer and discuss. I, from the adjoining room, where I awaited their summons, +heard these two gentlemen’s voices raised in something sharper than a +strictly philosophical discussion. I knocked at the door and entered. I found +the old physician from Gratz maintaining his theory. His rival was combating it +with undisguised ridicule, accompanied with bursts of laughter. This unseemly +manifestation subsided and the altercation ended on my entrance. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Sir,’ said my first physician,’my learned brother +seems to think that you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pardon me,’ said the old physician from Gratz, looking +displeased, ‘I shall state my own view of the case in my own way another +time. I grieve, Monsieur le General, that by my skill and science I can be of +no use. +</p> + +<p> +Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. +</p> + +<p> +Profoundly disappointed, I made my bow, and as I turned to go, the other doctor +pointed over his shoulder to his companion who was writing, and then, with a +shrug, significantly touched his forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“This consultation, then, left me precisely where I was. I walked out +into the grounds, all but distracted. The doctor from Gratz, in ten or fifteen +minutes, overtook me. He apologized for having followed me, but said that he +could not conscientiously take his leave without a few words more. He told me +that he could not be mistaken; no natural disease exhibited the same symptoms; +and that death was already very near. There remained, however, a day, or +possibly two, of life. If the fatal seizure were at once arrested, with great +care and skill her strength might possibly return. But all hung now upon the +confines of the irrevocable. One more assault might extinguish the last spark +of vitality which is, every moment, ready to die. +</p> + +<p> +“‘And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?’ I +entreated. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I have stated all fully in this note, which I place in your hands +upon the distinct condition that you send for the nearest clergyman, and open +my letter in his presence, and on no account read it till he is with you; you +would despise it else, and it is a matter of life and death. Should the priest +fail you, then, indeed, you may read it.’ +</p> + +<p> +“He asked me, before taking his leave finally, whether I would wish to +see a man curiously learned upon the very subject, which, after I had read his +letter, would probably interest me above all others, and he urged me earnestly +to invite him to visit him there; and so took his leave. +</p> + +<p> +“The ecclesiastic was absent, and I read the letter by myself. At another +time, or in another case, it might have excited my ridicule. But into what +quackeries will not people rush for a last chance, where all accustomed means +have failed, and the life of a beloved object is at stake? +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man’s +letter. +</p> + +<p> +It was monstrous enough to have consigned him to a madhouse. He said that the +patient was suffering from the visits of a vampire! The punctures which she +described as having occurred near the throat, were, he insisted, the insertion +of those two long, thin, and sharp teeth which, it is well known, are peculiar +to vampires; and there could be no doubt, he added, as to the well-defined +presence of the small livid mark which all concurred in describing as that +induced by the demon’s lips, and every symptom described by the sufferer +was in exact conformity with those recorded in every case of a similar +visitation. +</p> + +<p> +“Being myself wholly skeptical as to the existence of any such portent as +the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good doctor furnished, in my +opinion, but another instance of learning and intelligence oddly associated +with some one hallucination. I was so miserable, however, that, rather than try +nothing, I acted upon the instructions of the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“I concealed myself in the dark dressing room, that opened upon the poor +patient’s room, in which a candle was burning, and watched there till she +was fast asleep. I stood at the door, peeping through the small crevice, my +sword laid on the table beside me, as my directions prescribed, until, a little +after one, I saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to +me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor +girl’s throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating +mass. +</p> + +<p> +“For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now sprang forward, with my +sword in my hand. The black creature suddenly contracted towards the foot of +the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the floor about a yard below the foot +of the bed, with a glare of skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw +Millarca. Speculating I know not what, I struck at her instantly with my sword; +but I saw her standing near the door, unscathed. Horrified, I pursued, and +struck again. She was gone; and my sword flew to shivers against the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t describe to you all that passed on that horrible night. +The whole house was up and stirring. The specter Millarca was gone. But her +victim was sinking fast, and before the morning dawned, she died.” +</p> + +<p> +The old General was agitated. We did not speak to him. My father walked to some +little distance, and began reading the inscriptions on the tombstones; and thus +occupied, he strolled into the door of a side chapel to prosecute his +researches. The General leaned against the wall, dried his eyes, and sighed +heavily. I was relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and Madame, who were +at that moment approaching. The voices died away. +</p> + +<p> +In this solitude, having just listened to so strange a story, connected, as it +was, with the great and titled dead, whose monuments were moldering among the +dust and ivy round us, and every incident of which bore so awfully upon my own +mysterious case—in this haunted spot, darkened by the towering foliage +that rose on every side, dense and high above its noiseless walls—a +horror began to steal over me, and my heart sank as I thought that my friends +were, after all, not about to enter and disturb this triste and ominous scene. +</p> + +<p> +The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. +</p> + +<p> +Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by one of those demoniacal +grotesques in which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carving +delights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and figure of Carmilla enter the +shadowy chapel. +</p> + +<p> +I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded smiling, in answer to her +peculiarly engaging smile; when with a cry, the old man by my side caught up +the woodman’s hatchet, and started forward. On seeing him a brutalized +change came over her features. It was an instantaneous and horrible +transformation, as she made a crouching step backwards. Before I could utter a +scream, he struck at her with all his force, but she dived under his blow, and +unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the wrist. He struggled for a moment +to release his arm, but his hand opened, the axe fell to the ground, and the +girl was gone. +</p> + +<p> +He staggered against the wall. His grey hair stood upon his head, and a +moisture shone over his face, as if he were at the point of death. +</p> + +<p> +The frightful scene had passed in a moment. The first thing I recollect after, +is Madame standing before me, and impatiently repeating again and again, the +question, “Where is Mademoiselle Carmilla?” +</p> + +<p> +I answered at length, “I don’t know—I can’t +tell—she went there,” and I pointed to the door through which +Madame had just entered; “only a minute or two since.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return.” +</p> + +<p> +She then began to call “Carmilla,” through every door and passage +and from the windows, but no answer came. +</p> + +<p> +“She called herself Carmilla?” asked the General, still agitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Carmilla, yes,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Aye,” he said; “that is Millarca. That is the same person +who long ago was called Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Depart from this accursed +ground, my poor child, as quickly as you can. Drive to the clergyman’s +house, and stay there till we come. Begone! May you never behold Carmilla more; +you will not find her here.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap15"></a>XV.<br> +Ordeal and Execution</h2> + +<p> +As he spoke one of the strangest looking men I ever beheld entered the chapel +at the door through which Carmilla had made her entrance and her exit. He was +tall, narrow-chested, stooping, with high shoulders, and dressed in black. His +face was brown and dried in with deep furrows; he wore an oddly-shaped hat with +a broad leaf. His hair, long and grizzled, hung on his shoulders. He wore a +pair of gold spectacles, and walked slowly, with an odd shambling gait, with +his face sometimes turned up to the sky, and sometimes bowed down towards the +ground, seemed to wear a perpetual smile; his long thin arms were swinging, and +his lank hands, in old black gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving and +gesticulating in utter abstraction. +</p> + +<p> +“The very man!” exclaimed the General, advancing with manifest +delight. “My dear Baron, how happy I am to see you, I had no hope of +meeting you so soon.” He signed to my father, who had by this time +returned, and leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he called the Baron to +meet him. He introduced him formally, and they at once entered into earnest +conversation. The stranger took a roll of paper from his pocket, and spread it +on the worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a pencil case in his +fingers, with which he traced imaginary lines from point to point on the paper, +which from their often glancing from it, together, at certain points of the +building, I concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He accompanied, what I may +term, his lecture, with occasional readings from a dirty little book, whose +yellow leaves were closely written over. +</p> + +<p> +They sauntered together down the side aisle, opposite to the spot where I was +standing, conversing as they went; then they began measuring distances by +paces, and finally they all stood together, facing a piece of the sidewall, +which they began to examine with great minuteness; pulling off the ivy that +clung over it, and rapping the plaster with the ends of their sticks, scraping +here, and knocking there. At length they ascertained the existence of a broad +marble tablet, with letters carved in relief upon it. +</p> + +<p> +With the assistance of the woodman, who soon returned, a monumental +inscription, and carved escutcheon, were disclosed. They proved to be those of +the long lost monument of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. +</p> + +<p> +The old General, though not I fear given to the praying mood, raised his hands +and eyes to heaven, in mute thanksgiving for some moments. +</p> + +<p> +“Tomorrow,” I heard him say; “the commissioner will be here, +and the Inquisition will be held according to law.” +</p> + +<p> +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have described, he +shook him warmly by both hands and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Baron, how can I thank you? How can we all thank you? You will have +delivered this region from a plague that has scourged its inhabitants for more +than a century. The horrible enemy, thank God, is at last tracked.” +</p> + +<p> +My father led the stranger aside, and the General followed. I know that he had +led them out of hearing, that he might relate my case, and I saw them glance +often quickly at me, as the discussion proceeded. +</p> + +<p> +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: +</p> + +<p> +“It is time to return, but before we go home, we must add to our party +the good priest, who lives but a little way from this; and persuade him to +accompany us to the schloss.” +</p> + +<p> +In this quest we were successful: and I was glad, being unspeakably fatigued +when we reached home. But my satisfaction was changed to dismay, on discovering +that there were no tidings of Carmilla. Of the scene that had occurred in the +ruined chapel, no explanation was offered to me, and it was clear that it was a +secret which my father for the present determined to keep from me. +</p> + +<p> +The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remembrance of the scene more +horrible to me. The arrangements for the night were singular. Two servants, and +Madame were to sit up in my room that night; and the ecclesiastic with my +father kept watch in the adjoining dressing room. +</p> + +<p> +The priest had performed certain solemn rites that night, the purport of which +I did not understand any more than I comprehended the reason of this +extraordinary precaution taken for my safety during sleep. +</p> + +<p> +I saw all clearly a few days later. +</p> + +<p> +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my nightly +sufferings. +</p> + +<p> +You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails in Upper +and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in +Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, of the Vampire. +</p> + +<p> +If human testimony, taken with every care and solemnity, judicially, before +commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, all chosen for +integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports more voluminous perhaps +than exist upon any one other class of cases, is worth anything, it is +difficult to deny, or even to doubt the existence of such a phenomenon as the +Vampire. +</p> + +<p> +For my part I have heard no theory by which to explain what I myself have +witnessed and experienced, other than that supplied by the ancient and +well-attested belief of the country. +</p> + +<p> +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of Karnstein. +</p> + +<p> +The grave of the Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General and my father +recognized each his perfidious and beautiful guest, in the face now disclosed +to view. The features, though a hundred and fifty years had passed since her +funeral, were tinted with the warmth of life. Her eyes were open; no cadaverous +smell exhaled from the coffin. The two medical men, one officially present, the +other on the part of the promoter of the inquiry, attested the marvelous fact +that there was a faint but appreciable respiration, and a corresponding action +of the heart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the +leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body +lay immersed. +</p> + +<p> +Here then, were all the admitted signs and proofs of vampirism. The body, +therefore, in accordance with the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp +stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at +the moment, in all respects such as might escape from a living person in the +last agony. Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed from +the severed neck. The body and head was next placed on a pile of wood, and +reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river and borne away, and that +territory has never since been plagued by the visits of a vampire. +</p> + +<p> +My father has a copy of the report of the Imperial Commission, with the +signatures of all who were present at these proceedings, attached in +verification of the statement. It is from this official paper that I have +summarized my account of this last shocking scene. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap16"></a>XVI.<br> +Conclusion</h2> + +<p> +I write all this you suppose with composure. But far from it; I cannot think of +it without agitation. Nothing but your earnest desire so repeatedly expressed, +could have induced me to sit down to a task that has unstrung my nerves for +months to come, and reinduced a shadow of the unspeakable horror which years +after my deliverance continued to make my days and nights dreadful, and +solitude insupportably terrific. +</p> + +<p> +Let me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to whose curious +lore we were indebted for the discovery of the Countess Mircalla’s grave. +</p> + +<p> +He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere pittance, which +was all that remained to him of the once princely estates of his family, in +Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the minute and laborious investigation of +the marvelously authenticated tradition of Vampirism. He had at his +fingers’ ends all the great and little works upon the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Magia Posthuma,” “Phlegon de Mirabilibus,” +“Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis,” “Philosophicae et +Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris,” by John Christofer Herenberg; and +a thousand others, among which I remember only a few of those which he lent to +my father. He had a voluminous digest of all the judicial cases, from which he +had extracted a system of principles that appear to govern—some always, +and others occasionally only—the condition of the vampire. I may mention, +in passing, that the deadly pallor attributed to that sort of revenants, is a +mere melodramatic fiction. They present, in the grave, and when they show +themselves in human society, the appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to +light in their coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms that are enumerated as +those which proved the vampire-life of the long-dead Countess Karnstein. +</p> + +<p> +How they escape from their graves and return to them for certain hours every +day, without displacing the clay or leaving any trace of disturbance in the +state of the coffin or the cerements, has always been admitted to be utterly +inexplicable. The amphibious existence of the vampire is sustained by daily +renewed slumber in the grave. Its horrible lust for living blood supplies the +vigor of its waking existence. The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an +engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In +pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for +access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will +never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of +its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its +murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the +gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to yearn for +something like sympathy and consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to its +object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single +feast. +</p> + +<p> +The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain situations, to special +conditions. In the particular instance of which I have given you a relation, +Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name which, if not her real one, should at +least reproduce, without the omission or addition of a single letter, those, as +we say, anagrammatically, which compose it. +</p> + +<p> +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. +</p> + +<p> +My father related to the Baron Vordenburg, who remained with us for two or +three weeks after the expulsion of Carmilla, the story about the Moravian +nobleman and the vampire at Karnstein churchyard, and then he asked the Baron +how he had discovered the exact position of the long-concealed tomb of the +Countess Mircalla? The Baron’s grotesque features puckered up into a +mysterious smile; he looked down, still smiling on his worn spectacle case and +fumbled with it. Then looking up, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I have many journals, and other papers, written by that remarkable man; +the most curious among them is one treating of the visit of which you speak, to +Karnstein. The tradition, of course, discolors and distorts a little. He might +have been termed a Moravian nobleman, for he had changed his abode to that +territory, and was, beside, a noble. But he was, in truth, a native of Upper +Styria. It is enough to say that in very early youth he had been a passionate +and favored lover of the beautiful Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Her early +death plunged him into inconsolable grief. It is the nature of vampires to +increase and multiply, but according to an ascertained and ghostly law. +</p> + +<p> +“Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free from that pest. How does +it begin, and how does it multiply itself? I will tell you. A person, more or +less wicked, puts an end to himself. A suicide, under certain circumstances, +becomes a vampire. That specter visits living people in their slumbers; they +die, and almost invariably, in the grave, develop into vampires. This happened +in the case of the beautiful Mircalla, who was haunted by one of those demons. +My ancestor, Vordenburg, whose title I still bear, soon discovered this, and in +the course of the studies to which he devoted himself, learned a great deal +more. +</p> + +<p> +“Among other things, he concluded that suspicion of vampirism would +probably fall, sooner or later, upon the dead Countess, who in life had been +his idol. He conceived a horror, be she what she might, of her remains being +profaned by the outrage of a posthumous execution. He has left a curious paper +to prove that the vampire, on its expulsion from its amphibious existence, is +projected into a far more horrible life; and he resolved to save his once +beloved Mircalla from this. +</p> + +<p> +“He adopted the stratagem of a journey here, a pretended removal of her +remains, and a real obliteration of her monument. When age had stolen upon him, +and from the vale of years, he looked back on the scenes he was leaving, he +considered, in a different spirit, what he had done, and a horror took +possession of him. He made the tracings and notes which have guided me to the +very spot, and drew up a confession of the deception that he had practiced. If +he had intended any further action in this matter, death prevented him; and the +hand of a remote descendant has, too late for many, directed the pursuit to the +lair of the beast.” +</p> + +<p> +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: +</p> + +<p> +“One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand. The slender hand of +Mircalla closed like a vice of steel on the General’s wrist when he +raised the hatchet to strike. But its power is not confined to its grasp; it +leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, if ever, recovered +from.” +</p> + +<p> +The following Spring my father took me a tour through Italy. We remained away +for more than a year. It was long before the terror of recent events subsided; +and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous +alternations—sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes +the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have +started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door. +</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p class="letter"> +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu<br> +<br> +The Cock and Anchor<br> +Torlogh O’Brien<br> +The House by the Churchyard<br> +Uncle Silas<br> +Checkmate<br> +Carmilla<br> +The Wyvern Mystery<br> +Guy Deverell<br> +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery<br> +The Chronicles of Golden Friars<br> +In a Glass Darkly<br> +The Purcell Papers<br> +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories<br> +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories<br> +Madam Growl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery<br> +Green Tea and Other Stories<br> +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius<br> +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu<br> +The Best Horror Stories<br> +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories<br> +Ghost Stories and Mysteries<br> +The Hours After Midnight<br> +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries<br> +Ghost and Horror Stories<br> +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones<br> +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery<br> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + + diff --git a/10007-h/images/cover.jpg b/10007-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd4f22c --- /dev/null +++ b/10007-h/images/cover.jpg |
