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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10007-0.txt b/10007-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32fd049 --- /dev/null +++ b/10007-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3347 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 *** +Carmilla + +by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu + +Copyright 1872 + + +Contents + + PROLOGUE + CHAPTER I. An Early Fright + CHAPTER II. A Guest + CHAPTER III. We Compare Notes + CHAPTER IV. Her Habits—A Saunter + CHAPTER V. A Wonderful Likeness + CHAPTER VI. A Very Strange Agony + CHAPTER VII. Descending + CHAPTER VIII. Search + CHAPTER IX. The Doctor + CHAPTER X. Bereaved + CHAPTER XI. The Story + CHAPTER XII. A Petition + CHAPTER XIII. The Woodman + CHAPTER XIV. The Meeting + CHAPTER XV. Ordeal and Execution + CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +I. +An Early Fright + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said “the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you +did not; the place is still warm.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +II. +A Guest + + +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. + +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. + +“General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped,” said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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. + +“And how soon does he come?” I asked. + +“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.” + +“And why?” I asked, both mortified and curious. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +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.” + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General’s letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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: + +“‘In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it—came by it.’ + + +“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.” + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs +upon the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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.” + +“I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly,” said the lady, distractedly. + +“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.” + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. +We Compare Notes + + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?” + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +“Where am I? What is this place?” and after that she said, “I don’t see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?” + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +“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.” + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +“How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon as Madame entered. “Tell +me all about her?” + +“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.” + +“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped +for a moment into the stranger’s room. + +“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame Perrodon. + +“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?” + +“No, we had not seen her.” + +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. + +“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” +asked Madame. + +“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.” + +“I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling,” said Madame. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not +need much pressing. + +“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.” + +“How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated. “It was so +unnecessary.” + +“At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +“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. + +“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. _You +are_ the lady whom I saw then.” + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +“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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV. +Her Habits—A Saunter + + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation—to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First—Her name was Carmilla. + +Second—Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third—Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_shall_ 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. + +“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.” + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how discordant that is?” + +“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. + +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—_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home.” + +“My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan’t sleep tonight if you do.” + +“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.” + +“Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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.” + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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, + +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +“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?” + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“But that very circumstance frightens one horribly,” said Carmilla. + +“How so?” inquired my father. + +“I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality.” + +“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.” + +“Creator! _Nature!_” 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.” + +“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.” + +“Doctors never did me any good,” said Carmilla. + +“Then you have been ill?” I asked. + +“More ill than ever you were,” she answered. + +“Long ago?” + +“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.” + +“You were very young then?” + +“I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?” + +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. + +“Why does your papa like to frighten us?” said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +“He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind.” + +“Are you afraid, dearest?” + +“I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were.” + +“You are afraid to die?” + +“Yes, every one is.” + +“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live +together. + +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.” + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +“Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?” + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head— + +“Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either.” + +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. + + + + +V. +A Wonderful Likeness + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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! + +“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.” + +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. + +“Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?” I asked. + +“Certainly, dear,” said he, smiling, “I’m very glad you think it so +like. + +It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is.” + +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. + +“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. + +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. + +1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.” + +“Ah!” said the lady, languidly, “so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the +beautiful landscape opened before us. + +“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost +whispered. + +“Are you glad I came?” + +“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered. + +“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.” + +She kissed me silently. + +“I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on.” + +“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, +“unless it should be with you.” + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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.” + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +“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.” + +“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine,” I said. + +“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. + +“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you.” + +“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI. +A Very Strange Agony + + +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.” + +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. + +She answered “No.” + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +“Do you think,” I said at length, “that you will ever confide fully in +me?” + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile +on me. + +“You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you.” + +“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. + +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 _hating_ me through death and after. There is +no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.” + +“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said +hastily. + +“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?” + +“No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.” + +“I almost forget, it is years ago.” + +I laughed. + +“You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” + +“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.” + +“Were you near dying?” + +“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?” + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange +agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being +asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VII. +Descending + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked +anxious. + +“By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla’s bedroom window, is haunted!” + +“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, “and who tells that story, my dear?” + +“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.” + +“So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields,” said Madame. + +“I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +“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. + +“Well, listen to me,” I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +“And had you the charm near you?” she asked, earnestly. + +“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.” + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +“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.” + +“And what do you think the charm is?” said I. + +“It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria,” she answered. + +“Then it acts only on the body?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VIII. +Search + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Last night has been a night of wonders,” she said. + +“For mercy’s sake, explain all you can.” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +“Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?” + +“Never, since I was very young indeed.” + +“But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?” + +“Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse.” + +My father smiled and nodded. + +“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?” + +“I do, but not all,” she answered. + +“And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?” + +“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.” + +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: + +“I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself”; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + + +IX. +The Doctor + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute’s reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +“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.” + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father’s face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +“Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan’t trouble you, +the doctor says, at present.” + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking +at the doctor, and he said: + +“It certainly is very odd; I don’t understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself.” + +“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?” + +“None at all,” I answered. + +“Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?” + +“Very little below my throat—here,” I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +“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.” + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +“God bless me!—so it is,” exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +“You see it now with your own eyes,” said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +“What is it?” I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +“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?” + +Is there any danger?”I urged, in great trepidation. + +“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?” + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“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?” + +“It may have been; I think it was.” + +“Ay, you see?” he added, turning to my father. “Shall I say a word to +Madame?” + +“Certainly,” said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +“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.” + +“We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know,” added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +“And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor’s direction.” + +“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.” + +“I thank you,” said the doctor. “I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening.” + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in—he had a letter in his +hand—and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“Perhaps,” he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +“Does the doctor think me very ill?” + +“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.” + +“But do tell me, papa,” I insisted, “what does he think is the matter +with me?” + +“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.” + +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. + +At twelve o’clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +X. +Bereaved + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but you would +not believe me.” + +“Why should I not?” he asked. + +“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.” + +“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. + +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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“So there are—highly interesting,” said my father. “I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?” + +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. + +“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.” + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion—with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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: + +“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!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +“About half a league,” answered my father. “Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise.” + + + + +XI. +The Story + + +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. + +“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.” + +“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,” said my father. + +“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. + +“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. + +“It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +‘nobody’ present. + +“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. + +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. + +I am now well assured that she was. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +“‘You have puzzled me utterly,’ I said, laughing. ‘Is that not enough? + +Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?’ + +“‘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.’ + +“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +“‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?’ + +“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is vain trying to +make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’ + +“‘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. + +You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’ + +“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’ + +“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she replied. + +“‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’ + +“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.’ + +“‘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?’ + +“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. + +“‘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:— + +“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?’ + +“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.’ + +“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. + +“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: + +“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.’ + +“He withdrew with a bow.” + + + + +XII. +A Petition + + +“‘Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,’ I said, with a low bow. + +“‘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?’ + +“I assured her I did not. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘She is gone,’ said Millarca, with a sigh. + +“‘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. + +“‘She did not look up,’ said the young lady, plaintively. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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.” + + + + +XIII. +The Woodman + + +“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? + +“In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +“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. + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?” asked my father. + +“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.” + +“What! see the Countess Mircalla,” exclaimed my father; “why, she has +been dead more than a century!” + +“Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,” answered the General. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“What vengeance can you mean?” asked my father, in increasing +amazement. + +“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. + +“What?” exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +“To strike her head off.” + +“Cut her head off!” + +“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: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Have you been long employed about this forest?” asked my father of the +old man. + +“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.” + +“How came the village to be deserted?” asked the General. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Can you point out where it stood?” asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +“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.” + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General’s strange story. + + + + +XIV. +The Meeting + + +“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. + +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. + +“‘Sir,’ said my first physician,’my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.’ + +“‘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. + +Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to you.’ + +“He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +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. + +“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. + +“‘And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?’ I entreated. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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? + +“Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man’s +letter. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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.” + +“But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since +Mademoiselle Carmilla entered; and she did not return.” + +She then began to call “Carmilla,” through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +“She called herself Carmilla?” asked the General, still agitated. + +“Carmilla, yes,” I answered. + +“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.” + + + + +XV. +Ordeal and Execution + + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Tomorrow,” I heard him say; “the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law.” + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from +the chapel, said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XVI. +Conclusion + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O’Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 *** 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 diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6dc0c84 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10007 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007) diff --git a/old/10007-0.txt b/old/10007-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca8b0fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10007-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3353 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 *** + + + + +Carmilla + +by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu + +Copyright 1872 + + +Contents + + PROLOGUE + CHAPTER I. An Early Fright + CHAPTER II. A Guest + CHAPTER III. We Compare Notes + CHAPTER IV. Her Habits—A Saunter + CHAPTER V. A Wonderful Likeness + CHAPTER VI. A Very Strange Agony + CHAPTER VII. Descending + CHAPTER VIII. Search + CHAPTER IX. The Doctor + CHAPTER X. Bereaved + CHAPTER XI. The Story + CHAPTER XII. A Petition + CHAPTER XIII. The Woodman + CHAPTER XIV. The Meeting + CHAPTER XV. Ordeal and Execution + CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +I. +An Early Fright + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said “the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you +did not; the place is still warm.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +II. +A Guest + + +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. + +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. + +“General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped,” said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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. + +“And how soon does he come?” I asked. + +“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.” + +“And why?” I asked, both mortified and curious. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +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.” + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General’s letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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: + +“‘In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it—came by it.’ + + +“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.” + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs +upon the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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.” + +“I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly,” said the lady, distractedly. + +“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.” + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. +We Compare Notes + + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?” + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +“Where am I? What is this place?” and after that she said, “I don’t see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?” + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +“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.” + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +“How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon as Madame entered. “Tell +me all about her?” + +“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.” + +“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped +for a moment into the stranger’s room. + +“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame Perrodon. + +“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?” + +“No, we had not seen her.” + +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. + +“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” +asked Madame. + +“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.” + +“I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling,” said Madame. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not +need much pressing. + +“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.” + +“How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated. “It was so +unnecessary.” + +“At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +“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. + +“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. _You +are_ the lady whom I saw then.” + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +“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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV. +Her Habits—A Saunter + + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation—to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First—Her name was Carmilla. + +Second—Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third—Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_shall_ 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. + +“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.” + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how discordant that is?” + +“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. + +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—_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home.” + +“My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan’t sleep tonight if you do.” + +“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.” + +“Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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.” + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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, + +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +“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?” + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“But that very circumstance frightens one horribly,” said Carmilla. + +“How so?” inquired my father. + +“I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality.” + +“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.” + +“Creator! _Nature!_” 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.” + +“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.” + +“Doctors never did me any good,” said Carmilla. + +“Then you have been ill?” I asked. + +“More ill than ever you were,” she answered. + +“Long ago?” + +“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.” + +“You were very young then?” + +“I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?” + +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. + +“Why does your papa like to frighten us?” said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +“He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind.” + +“Are you afraid, dearest?” + +“I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were.” + +“You are afraid to die?” + +“Yes, every one is.” + +“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live +together. + +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.” + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +“Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?” + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head— + +“Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either.” + +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. + + + + +V. +A Wonderful Likeness + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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! + +“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.” + +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. + +“Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?” I asked. + +“Certainly, dear,” said he, smiling, “I’m very glad you think it so +like. + +It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is.” + +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. + +“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. + +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. + +1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.” + +“Ah!” said the lady, languidly, “so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the +beautiful landscape opened before us. + +“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost +whispered. + +“Are you glad I came?” + +“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered. + +“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.” + +She kissed me silently. + +“I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on.” + +“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, +“unless it should be with you.” + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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.” + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +“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.” + +“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine,” I said. + +“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. + +“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you.” + +“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI. +A Very Strange Agony + + +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.” + +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. + +She answered “No.” + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +“Do you think,” I said at length, “that you will ever confide fully in +me?” + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile +on me. + +“You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you.” + +“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. + +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 _hating_ me through death and after. There is +no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.” + +“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said +hastily. + +“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?” + +“No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.” + +“I almost forget, it is years ago.” + +I laughed. + +“You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” + +“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.” + +“Were you near dying?” + +“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?” + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange +agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being +asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VII. +Descending + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked +anxious. + +“By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla’s bedroom window, is haunted!” + +“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, “and who tells that story, my dear?” + +“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.” + +“So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields,” said Madame. + +“I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +“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. + +“Well, listen to me,” I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +“And had you the charm near you?” she asked, earnestly. + +“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.” + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +“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.” + +“And what do you think the charm is?” said I. + +“It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria,” she answered. + +“Then it acts only on the body?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VIII. +Search + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Last night has been a night of wonders,” she said. + +“For mercy’s sake, explain all you can.” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +“Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?” + +“Never, since I was very young indeed.” + +“But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?” + +“Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse.” + +My father smiled and nodded. + +“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?” + +“I do, but not all,” she answered. + +“And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?” + +“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.” + +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: + +“I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself”; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + + +IX. +The Doctor + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute’s reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +“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.” + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father’s face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +“Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan’t trouble you, +the doctor says, at present.” + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking +at the doctor, and he said: + +“It certainly is very odd; I don’t understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself.” + +“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?” + +“None at all,” I answered. + +“Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?” + +“Very little below my throat—here,” I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +“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.” + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +“God bless me!—so it is,” exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +“You see it now with your own eyes,” said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +“What is it?” I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +“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?” + +Is there any danger?”I urged, in great trepidation. + +“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?” + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“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?” + +“It may have been; I think it was.” + +“Ay, you see?” he added, turning to my father. “Shall I say a word to +Madame?” + +“Certainly,” said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +“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.” + +“We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know,” added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +“And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor’s direction.” + +“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.” + +“I thank you,” said the doctor. “I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening.” + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in—he had a letter in his +hand—and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“Perhaps,” he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +“Does the doctor think me very ill?” + +“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.” + +“But do tell me, papa,” I insisted, “what does he think is the matter +with me?” + +“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.” + +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. + +At twelve o’clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +X. +Bereaved + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but you would +not believe me.” + +“Why should I not?” he asked. + +“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.” + +“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. + +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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“So there are—highly interesting,” said my father. “I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?” + +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. + +“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.” + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion—with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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: + +“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!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +“About half a league,” answered my father. “Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise.” + + + + +XI. +The Story + + +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. + +“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.” + +“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,” said my father. + +“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. + +“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. + +“It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +‘nobody’ present. + +“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. + +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. + +I am now well assured that she was. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +“‘You have puzzled me utterly,’ I said, laughing. ‘Is that not enough? + +Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?’ + +“‘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.’ + +“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +“‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?’ + +“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is vain trying to +make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’ + +“‘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. + +You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’ + +“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’ + +“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she replied. + +“‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’ + +“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.’ + +“‘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?’ + +“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. + +“‘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:— + +“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?’ + +“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.’ + +“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. + +“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: + +“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.’ + +“He withdrew with a bow.” + + + + +XII. +A Petition + + +“‘Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,’ I said, with a low bow. + +“‘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?’ + +“I assured her I did not. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘She is gone,’ said Millarca, with a sigh. + +“‘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. + +“‘She did not look up,’ said the young lady, plaintively. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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.” + + + + +XIII. +The Woodman + + +“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? + +“In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +“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. + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?” asked my father. + +“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.” + +“What! see the Countess Mircalla,” exclaimed my father; “why, she has +been dead more than a century!” + +“Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,” answered the General. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“What vengeance can you mean?” asked my father, in increasing +amazement. + +“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. + +“What?” exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +“To strike her head off.” + +“Cut her head off!” + +“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: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Have you been long employed about this forest?” asked my father of the +old man. + +“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.” + +“How came the village to be deserted?” asked the General. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Can you point out where it stood?” asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +“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.” + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General’s strange story. + + + + +XIV. +The Meeting + + +“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. + +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. + +“‘Sir,’ said my first physician,’my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.’ + +“‘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. + +Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to you.’ + +“He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +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. + +“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. + +“‘And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?’ I entreated. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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? + +“Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man’s +letter. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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.” + +“But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since +Mademoiselle Carmilla entered; and she did not return.” + +She then began to call “Carmilla,” through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +“She called herself Carmilla?” asked the General, still agitated. + +“Carmilla, yes,” I answered. + +“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.” + + + + +XV. +Ordeal and Execution + + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Tomorrow,” I heard him say; “the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law.” + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from +the chapel, said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XVI. +Conclusion + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O’Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10007 *** diff --git a/old/10007-h/10007-h.htm b/old/10007-h/10007-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cd7964 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/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/old/10007-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/10007-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd4f22c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10007-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/old/old/10007-8.txt b/old/old/10007-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f22466 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/10007-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3695 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] +[Date last updated: December 1, 2004] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 prcis 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." + +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. + +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_. + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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. + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + "'In truth I know not why I am so sad. + It wearies me: you say it wearies you; + But how I got it--came by it.' + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling," said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ 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. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa," I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007-8.txt or 10007-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 prcis 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." + +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. + +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._ + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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 + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + +"'In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it--came by it.' + + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling--said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ be mine, you and I +are one for ever." Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with +her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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 +castle brand!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +And so the 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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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 this, the physician who was with papa today." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"I remember everything 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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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 +encompass the apparition. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. Sometime 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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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 someone 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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa" I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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 +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"I have been a woodman here," he answered in his patois, "under the +forester, all my days; so has my rather 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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well +as a leaned 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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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 someone hallucination. I was so miserable, however, +that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions of +the letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. 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Sheridan LeFanu + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<table width="80%" align="center"> + <tr> + <td> + <h1 align="center">Carmilla</h1> + <h3 align="center">J. Sheridan LeFanu<br /> + <br /> + Copyright 1872</h3> <br /> + <br /> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<br /> + +<b>PROLOGUE</b> + +<p><i>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. +<br /><br /> +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. +<br /><br /> +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." +<br /><br /> +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. +<br /><br /> +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.</i></p> + + + +<h2>I</h2> + + +<p><b>An Early Fright</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>II</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Guest</b></p> + +<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> + +"'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.'<br /> + +<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!</p> + +<p>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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>III</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>We Compare Notes</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>IV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Her Habits--A Saunter</b></p> + +<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 has 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 castle 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 the 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>V</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Wonderful Likeness</b></p> + +<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 this, 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Very Strange Agony</b></p> + +<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 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Descending</b></p> + +<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 encompass 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. Sometime 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Search</b></p> + +<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 someone 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>IX</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Doctor</b></p> + +<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 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>X</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Bereaved</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Story</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Petition</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Woodman</b></p> + +<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 +rather 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Meeting</b></p> + +<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 leaned 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 someone 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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Ordeal and Execution</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Conclusion</b></p> + +<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%;" /> +<b>Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu</b><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 /> + + </td> + </tr> +</table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007-h.htm or 10007-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Sheridan LeFanu + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] +[Date last updated: September 5, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + +<table width="80%" align="center"> + <tr> + <td> + <h1 align="center">Carmilla</h1> + <h3 align="center">J. Sheridan LeFanu<br /> + <br /> + Copyright 1872</h3> <br /> + <br /> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<br /> + +<b>PROLOGUE</b> + +<p><i>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. +<br /><br /> +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. +<br /><br /> +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." +<br /><br /> +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. +<br /><br /> +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</i>.</p> + + + +<h2>I</h2> + + +<p><b>An Early Fright</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>II</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Guest</b></p> + +<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> + +"'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.'<br /> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>III</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>We Compare Notes</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>IV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Her Habits--A Saunter</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>V</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Wonderful Likeness</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Very Strange Agony</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Descending</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Search</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>IX</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Doctor</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>X</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Bereaved</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Story</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>A Petition</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Woodman</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Meeting</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XV</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Ordeal and Execution</b></p> + +<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> + + +<br /><br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /><br /> +<h2>XVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p><b>Conclusion</b></p> + +<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%;" /> +<b>Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu</b><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 /> + + </td> + </tr> +</table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007-h.htm or 10007-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] +[Date last updated: December 1, 2004] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 precis 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." + +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. + +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_. + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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. + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + "'In truth I know not why I am so sad. + It wearies me: you say it wearies you; + But how I got it--came by it.' + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling," said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ 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. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa," I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007.txt or 10007.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 precis 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." + +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. + +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._ + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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 + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + +"'In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it--came by it.' + + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling--said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ be mine, you and I +are one for ever." Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with +her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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 +castle brand!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +And so the 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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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 this, the physician who was with papa today." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"I remember everything 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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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 +encompass the apparition. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. Sometime 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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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 someone 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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa" I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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 +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"I have been a woodman here," he answered in his patois, "under the +forester, all my days; so has my rather 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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well +as a leaned 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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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 someone hallucination. I was so miserable, however, +that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions of +the letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007.txt or 10007.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 prcis 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." + +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. + +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._ + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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 + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + +"'In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it--came by it.' + + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling--said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ be mine, you and I +are one for ever." Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with +her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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 +castle brand!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +And so the 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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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 this, the physician who was with papa today." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"I remember everything 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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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 +encompass the apparition. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. Sometime 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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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 someone 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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa" I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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 +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"I have been a woodman here," he answered in his patois, "under the +forester, all my days; so has my rather 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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well +as a leaned 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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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 someone hallucination. I was so miserable, however, +that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions of +the letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [EBook #10007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +CARMILLA + +J. Sheridan LeFanu + +1872 + + + +PROLOGUE + +_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. + +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. + +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 precis 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." + +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. + +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._ + + + +I + +_An Early Fright_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the +place is still warm." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +II + +_A Guest_ + +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. + +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. + +"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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 + +"And how soon does he come?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +"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." + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General's letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + + +"'In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it--came by it.' + + +"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." + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon +the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly. + +"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." + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +III + +_We Compare Notes_ + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?" + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?" + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +"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." + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tell +me all about her?" + +"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." + +"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for +a moment into the stranger's room. + +"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. + +"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?" + +"No, we had not seen her." + +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. + +"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?" +asked Madame. + +"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." + +"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling--said Madame. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not need +much pressing. + +"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." + +"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary." + +"At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +"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. + +"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. _You are_ +the lady whom I saw then." + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +"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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + +IV + +_Her Habits--A Saunter_ + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First--Her name was Carmilla. + +Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _shall_ be mine, you and I +are one for ever." Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with +her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. + +"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." + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?" + +"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. + +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--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home." + +"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do." + +"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." + +"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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." + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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. +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +"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?" + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +"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 +castle brand!" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said Carmilla. + +"How so?" inquired my father. + +"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality." + +"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." + +"Creator! _Nature!_" 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." + +"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." + +"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla. + +"Then you have been ill?" I asked. + +"More ill than ever you were," she answered. + +"Long ago?" + +"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." + +"You were very young then?" + +"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?" + +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. + +"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind." + +"Are you afraid, dearest?" + +"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were." + +"You are afraid to die?" + +"Yes, every one is." + +"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live +together. + +"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." + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?" + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head-- + +"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either." + +And so the 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. + + + +V + +_A Wonderful Likeness_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +"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." + +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. + +"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. + +"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it so +like. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is." + +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. + +"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. 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. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, +mamma was." + +"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is so like the night you came to us," I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful +landscape opened before us. + +"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almost +whispered. + +"Are you glad I came?" + +"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. + +"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." + +She kissed me silently. + +"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on." + +"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, +"unless it should be with you." + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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." + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +"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." + +"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine," I said. + +"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. + +"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you." + +"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. + +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. + +"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 this, the physician who was with papa today." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + + + +VI + +_A Very Strange Agony_ + +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." + +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. + +She answered "No." + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in +me?" + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on +me. + +"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you." + +"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. 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 _hating_ me through death and after. There +is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature." + +"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again," I said +hastily. + +"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?" + +"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be." + +"I almost forget, it is years ago." + +I laughed. + +"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet." + +"I remember everything 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." + +"Were you near dying?" + +"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?" + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Thus fortified 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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + +VII + +_Descending_ + +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 +encompass the apparition. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. + +"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?" + +"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." + +"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields," said Madame. + +"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened." + +"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." + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +"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 chimney-piece, 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. + +"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. + +"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." + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +"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." + +"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. + +"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria," she answered. + +"Then it acts only on the body?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. Sometime 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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, +"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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +VIII + +_Search_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Last night has been a night of wonders," she said. + +"For mercy's sake, explain all you can." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?" + +"Never, since I was very young indeed." + +"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?" + +"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse." + +My father smiled and nodded. + +"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 someone 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?" + +"I do, but not all," she answered. + +"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?" + +"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." + +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: + +"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + +IX + +_The Doctor_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +"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." + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, the +doctor says, at present." + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking at +the doctor, and he said: + +"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself." + +"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?" + +"None at all," I answered. + +"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?" + +"Very little below my throat--here," I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +"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." + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +"God bless me!--so it is," exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +"You see it now with your own eyes," said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +"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?" + +"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. + +"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?" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"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?" + +"It may have been; I think it was." + +"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to +Madame?" + +"Certainly," said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +"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." + +"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction." + +"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." + +"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening." + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in his +hand--and said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +"Does the doctor think me very ill?" + +"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." + +"But do tell me, papa" I insisted, "what does he think is the matter +with me?" + +"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." + +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 +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. + +At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +X + +_Bereaved_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would +not believe me." + +"Why should I not?" he asked. + +"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." + +"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. +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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"So there are--highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?" + +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. + +"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." + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise." + + + +XI + +_The Story_ + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +'nobody' present. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I am now well assured that she was. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough? +Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?' + +"'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.' + +"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?' + +"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make +yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.' + +"'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. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in +exchange.' + +"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.' + +"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied. + +"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.' + +"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.' + +"'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?' + +"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. + +"'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:-- + +"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?' + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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: + +"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.' + +"He withdrew with a bow." + + + +XII + +_A Petition_ + +"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,' I said, with a low bow. + +"'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?' + +"I assured her I did not. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"'She is gone,' said Millarca, with a sigh. + +"'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. + +"'She did not look up,' said the young lady, plaintively. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + + + +XIII + +_The Woodman_ + +"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? + +"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?" asked my father. + +"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." + +"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed my father; "why, she has +been dead more than a century!" + +"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told," answered the General. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. + +"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. + +"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +"To strike her head off." + +"Cut her head off!" + +"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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of the +old man. + +"I have been a woodman here," he answered in his patois, "under the +forester, all my days; so has my rather 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." + +"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +"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." + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. + + + +XIV + +_The Meeting_ + +"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. + +"Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well +as a leaned 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. + +"'Sir,' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.' + +"'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. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to +you.' + +"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +"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. + +"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. + +"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. + +"'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.' + +"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. + +"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? + +"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man's +letter. + +"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. + +"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 someone hallucination. I was so miserable, however, +that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions of +the letter. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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." + +"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle +Carmilla entered; and she did not return." + +She then began to call "Carmilla," through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. + +"Carmilla, yes," I answered. + +"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." + + + +XV + +_Ordeal and Execution_ + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law." + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +"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." + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from the +chapel, said: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +XVI + +_Conclusion_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +"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." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O'Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +***** This file should be named 10007.txt or 10007.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/0/0/10007/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Carmilla + +Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu + +Release Date: November 7, 2003 [eBook #10007] +[Most recently updated: August 6, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + + + + +Carmilla + +by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu + +Copyright 1872 + + +Contents + + PROLOGUE + CHAPTER I. An Early Fright + CHAPTER II. A Guest + CHAPTER III. We Compare Notes + CHAPTER IV. Her Habits—A Saunter + CHAPTER V. A Wonderful Likeness + CHAPTER VI. A Very Strange Agony + CHAPTER VII. Descending + CHAPTER VIII. Search + CHAPTER IX. The Doctor + CHAPTER X. Bereaved + CHAPTER XI. The Story + CHAPTER XII. A Petition + CHAPTER XIII. The Woodman + CHAPTER XIV. The Meeting + CHAPTER XV. Ordeal and Execution + CHAPTER XVI. Conclusion + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +I. +An Early Fright + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, +and its Gothic chapel. + +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. + +I have said “the nearest _inhabited_ 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. + +Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy +spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _did_ lie there, so sure as you +did not; the place is still warm.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was +_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +II. +A Guest + + +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. + +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. + +“General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped,” said my +father, as we pursued our walk. + +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. + +“And how soon does he come?” I asked. + +“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.” + +“And why?” I asked, both mortified and curious. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn +_all_, 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! + +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.” + +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. + +The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the +General’s letter to my father. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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: + +“‘In truth I know not why I am so sad. +It wearies me: you say it wearies you; +But how I got it—came by it.’ + + +“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.” + +At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs +upon the road, arrested our attention. + +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. + +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. + +The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, +long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. + +We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the rest +with various ejaculations of terror. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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.” + +“I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry +too cruelly,” said the lady, distractedly. + +“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.” + +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. + +By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the +horses, quite tractable, in the traces again. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. +We Compare Notes + + +We followed the _cortege_ 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. + +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?” + +Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortable +assurances. + +I then heard her ask: + +“Where am I? What is this place?” and after that she said, “I don’t see +the carriage; and Matska, where is she?” + +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. + +I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when +Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying: + +“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.” + +As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to her +room and see her. + +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. + +The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s arm, walked slowly over +the drawbridge and into the castle gate. + +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. + +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. + +We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over the +adventure of the evening. + +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. + +“How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon as Madame entered. “Tell +me all about her?” + +“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.” + +“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped +for a moment into the stranger’s room. + +“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame Perrodon. + +“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?” + +“No, we had not seen her.” + +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. + +“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” +asked Madame. + +“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.” + +“I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling,” said Madame. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not +need much pressing. + +“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.” + +“How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated. “It was so +unnecessary.” + +“At all events it _was_ 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 _vital_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. + +You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the +same melancholy expression. + +But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of +recognition. + +There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I +could not. + +“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Twelve years ago, I saw your face in a +dream, and it has haunted me ever since.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still +wondering; and she said: + +“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. + +“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. _You +are_ the lady whom I saw then.” + +It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, to +the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. + +“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. + +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. + +I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, +and hastened to bid her good night. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; that +is to say, in many respects. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV. +Her Habits—A Saunter + + +I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. + +There were some that did not please me so well. + +She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing +her. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation—to +nothing. + +It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: + +First—Her name was Carmilla. + +Second—Her family was very ancient and noble. + +Third—Her home lay in the direction of the west. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_shall_ 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. + +“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.” + +She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral +hymn. + +I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they +were very sweetly singing. + +My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. + +She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how discordant that is?” + +“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. + +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—_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. +Come home.” + +“My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought +you knew she was to be buried today.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan’t sleep tonight if you do.” + +“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.” + +“Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ 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.” + +We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic +ciphers and diagrams upon them. + +Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. + +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, + +In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd +little steel instruments. + +“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?” + +The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the +window. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“But that very circumstance frightens one horribly,” said Carmilla. + +“How so?” inquired my father. + +“I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be as +bad as reality.” + +“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.” + +“Creator! _Nature!_” 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.” + +“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.” + +“Doctors never did me any good,” said Carmilla. + +“Then you have been ill?” I asked. + +“More ill than ever you were,” she answered. + +“Long ago?” + +“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.” + +“You were very young then?” + +“I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?” + +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. + +“Why does your papa like to frighten us?” said the pretty girl with a +sigh and a little shudder. + +“He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his +mind.” + +“Are you afraid, dearest?” + +“I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my +being attacked as those poor people were.” + +“You are afraid to die?” + +“Yes, every one is.” + +“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live +together. + +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.” + +Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some +time. + +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: + +“Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to +hippogriffs and dragons?” + +The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head— + +“Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little +of the resources of either.” + +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. + + + + +V. +A Wonderful Likeness + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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! + +“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.” + +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. + +“Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?” I asked. + +“Certainly, dear,” said he, smiling, “I’m very glad you think it so +like. + +It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is.” + +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. + +“And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the +corner. + +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. + +1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was.” + +“Ah!” said the lady, languidly, “so am I, I think, a very long descent, +very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said. + +She sighed; smiling. + +She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s waist, we walked out +upon the pavement. + +In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the +beautiful landscape opened before us. + +“And so you were thinking of the night I came here?” she almost +whispered. + +“Are you glad I came?” + +“Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered. + +“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.” + +She kissed me silently. + +“I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this +moment, an affair of the heart going on.” + +“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, +“unless it should be with you.” + +How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! + +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. + +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.” + +I started from her. + +She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had +flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. + +“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.” + +“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some +wine,” I said. + +“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. + +“Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall +see the moonlight with you.” + +“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI. +A Very Strange Agony + + +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.” + +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. + +She answered “No.” + +He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at +present. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling and +pleased at her little speech. + +I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted with +her while she was preparing for bed. + +“Do you think,” I said at length, “that you will ever confide fully in +me?” + +She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile +on me. + +“You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t answer pleasantly; I ought +not to have asked you.” + +“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. + +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 _hating_ me through death and after. There is +no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.” + +“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said +hastily. + +“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?” + +“No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be.” + +“I almost forget, it is years ago.” + +I laughed. + +“You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” + +“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.” + +“Were you near dying?” + +“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?” + +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. + +I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable +sensation. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange +agony. + +I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being +asleep. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VII. +Descending + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked +anxious. + +“By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the long lime tree walk, +behind Carmilla’s bedroom window, is haunted!” + +“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather +inopportune, “and who tells that story, my dear?” + +“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.” + +“So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river +fields,” said Madame. + +“I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see +fool more frightened.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. + +“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. + +“Well, listen to me,” I began, and recounted my adventure, at the +recital of which she appeared horrified. + +“And had you the charm near you?” she asked, earnestly. + +“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.” + +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. + +Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and +dreamless. + +But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, +did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. + +“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.” + +“And what do you think the charm is?” said I. + +“It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote +against the malaria,” she answered. + +“Then it acts only on the body?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. + +I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, +or to have the doctor sent for. + +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. + +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. + +The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near +the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. + +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. + +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. + +It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable +state. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd +discovery. + +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, + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door. Our knocking was +unanswered. + +It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all +was vain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VIII. +Search + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Last night has been a night of wonders,” she said. + +“For mercy’s sake, explain all you can.” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask a +question?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were +listening breathlessly. + +“Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking in +your sleep?” + +“Never, since I was very young indeed.” + +“But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?” + +“Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse.” + +My father smiled and nodded. + +“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?” + +“I do, but not all,” she answered. + +“And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in +the dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?” + +“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.” + +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: + +“I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself”; and he sighed. + +So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. + + + + +IX. +The Doctor + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. + +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. + +After a minute’s reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. + +He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said: + +“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.” + +But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, +beckoned him to him. + +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. + +After a time my father’s face looked into the room; it was pale, +thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. + +“Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan’t trouble you, +the doctor says, at present.” + +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. + +My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking +at the doctor, and he said: + +“It certainly is very odd; I don’t understand it quite. Laura, come +here, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself.” + +“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?” + +“None at all,” I answered. + +“Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you think +this occurred?” + +“Very little below my throat—here,” I answered. + +I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. + +“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.” + +I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. + +“God bless me!—so it is,” exclaimed my father, growing pale. + +“You see it now with your own eyes,” said the doctor, with a gloomy +triumph. + +“What is it?” I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. + +“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?” + +Is there any danger?”I urged, in great trepidation. + +“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?” + +“Yes,” I answered. + +“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?” + +“It may have been; I think it was.” + +“Ay, you see?” he added, turning to my father. “Shall I say a word to +Madame?” + +“Certainly,” said my father. + +He called Madame to him, and said: + +“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.” + +“We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know,” added my father. + +Madame satisfied him eagerly. + +“And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor’s direction.” + +“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.” + +“I thank you,” said the doctor. “I shall be with you, then, at about +seven this evening.” + +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. + +The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his +leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. + +Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the +letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. + +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. + +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. + +About half an hour after my father came in—he had a letter in his +hand—and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“Perhaps,” he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. + +“Does the doctor think me very ill?” + +“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.” + +“But do tell me, papa,” I insisted, “what does he think is the matter +with me?” + +“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.” + +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. + +At twelve o’clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my +father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +X. +Bereaved + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“I should tell you all with pleasure,” said the General, “but you would +not believe me.” + +“Why should I not?” he asked. + +“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.” + +“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. + +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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“So there are—highly interesting,” said my father. “I hope you are +thinking of claiming the title and estates?” + +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. + +“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.” + +My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of +suspicion—with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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: + +“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!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General, looking anxiously +forward. + +“About half a league,” answered my father. “Pray let us hear the story +you were so good as to promise.” + + + + +XI. +The Story + + +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. + +“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.” + +“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,” said my father. + +“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. + +“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. + +“It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only +‘nobody’ present. + +“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. + +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. + +I am now well assured that she was. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put +not a few questions to the elder lady. + +“‘You have puzzled me utterly,’ I said, laughing. ‘Is that not enough? + +Won’t you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness +to remove your mask?’ + +“‘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.’ + +“‘As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy +little laugh. + +“‘As philosophers tell us,’ she said; ‘and how do you know that a sight +of my face would help you?’ + +“‘I should take chance for that,’ I answered. ‘It is vain trying to +make yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.’ + +“‘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. + +You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.’ + +“‘My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’ + +“‘And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’ she replied. + +“‘Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or +German; you speak both languages so perfectly.’ + +“‘I don’t think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, +and are meditating the particular point of attack.’ + +“‘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?’ + +“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. + +“‘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:— + +“‘Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may +interest her?’ + +“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.’ + +“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. + +“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: + +“‘I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at +the door.’ + +“He withdrew with a bow.” + + + + +XII. +A Petition + + +“‘Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few +hours,’ I said, with a low bow. + +“‘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?’ + +“I assured her I did not. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the +lady from the room. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“‘She is gone,’ said Millarca, with a sigh. + +“‘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. + +“‘She did not look up,’ said the young lady, plaintively. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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.” + + + + +XIII. +The Woodman + + +“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? + +“In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind +presented itself. + +“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. + +“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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein; +should you like to see it?” asked my father. + +“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.” + +“What! see the Countess Mircalla,” exclaimed my father; “why, she has +been dead more than a century!” + +“Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,” answered the General. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“What vengeance can you mean?” asked my father, in increasing +amazement. + +“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. + +“What?” exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. + +“To strike her head off.” + +“Cut her head off!” + +“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: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Have you been long employed about this forest?” asked my father of the +old man. + +“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.” + +“How came the village to be deserted?” asked the General. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Can you point out where it stood?” asked the General, eagerly. + +The forester shook his head, and smiled. + +“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.” + +Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, +leaving us to hear the remainder of the General’s strange story. + + + + +XIV. +The Meeting + + +“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. + +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. + +“‘Sir,’ said my first physician,’my learned brother seems to think that +you want a conjuror, and not a doctor.’ + +“‘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. + +Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to you.’ + +“He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. + +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. + +“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. + +“‘And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?’ I entreated. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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? + +“Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man’s +letter. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with his +hand upon the basement of a shattered monument. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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.” + +“But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since +Mademoiselle Carmilla entered; and she did not return.” + +She then began to call “Carmilla,” through every door and passage and +from the windows, but no answer came. + +“She called herself Carmilla?” asked the General, still agitated. + +“Carmilla, yes,” I answered. + +“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.” + + + + +XV. +Ordeal and Execution + + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Tomorrow,” I heard him say; “the commissioner will be here, and the +Inquisition will be held according to law.” + +Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have +described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said: + +“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.” + +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. + +My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from +the chapel, said: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I saw all clearly a few days later. + +The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my +nightly sufferings. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of +Karnstein. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XVI. +Conclusion + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. + +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: + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this: + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu + +The Cock and Anchor +Torlogh O’Brien +The House by the Churchyard +Uncle Silas +Checkmate +Carmilla +The Wyvern Mystery +Guy Deverell +Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery +The Chronicles of Golden Friars +In a Glass Darkly +The Purcell Papers +The Watcher and Other Weird Stories +A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories +Madam Growl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery +Green Tea and Other Stories +Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius +Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu +The Best Horror Stories +The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories +Ghost Stories and Mysteries +The Hours After Midnight +J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries +Ghost and Horror Stories +Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones +Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Carmilla</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 7, 2003 [eBook #10007]<br /> +[Most recently updated: August 6, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA ***</div> + +<h1>Carmilla</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h2> + +<h4>Copyright 1872</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 name="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 style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARMILLA ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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