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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37174 ***
+
+IN A GLASS DARKLY
+
+BY
+
+J. SHERIDAN LE FANU,
+
+AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILAS," &C.
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. III.
+
+
+LONDON:
+
+R. BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+
+1872.
+
+
+
+
+In a Glass Darkly.
+
+
+THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT.
+
+
+VOL. III.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HOPE.
+
+
+She had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to have
+considerable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of the
+room in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister and
+unexpected apparition entered.
+
+It was the Count de St. Alyre, who had been, as I have told you,
+reported to me to be, for some considerable time, on his way to Père la
+Chaise. He stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the doorway
+and a background of darkness enclosing him, like a portrait. His
+slight, mean figure was draped in the deepest mourning. He had a pair of
+black gloves in his hand, and his hat with crape round it.
+
+When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation; his mouth
+was puckering and working. He looked damnably wicked and frightened.
+
+"Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child--eh? Well, it all goes admirably?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, in a low, hard tone. "But you and Planard should
+not have left that door open."
+
+This she said sternly. "He went in there and looked about wherever he
+liked; it was fortunate he did not move aside the lid of the coffin."
+
+"Planard should have seen to that," said the Count, sharply. "_Ma foi!_
+I can't be everywhere!" He advanced half-a-dozen short quick steps into
+the room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes.
+
+"Monsieur Beckett," he cried sharply, two or three times, "Hi! don't you
+know me?"
+
+He approached and peered more closely in my face; raised my hand and
+shook it, calling me again, then let it drop, and said--"It has set in
+admirably, my pretty _mignonne_. When did it commence?"
+
+The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily for
+some seconds.
+
+You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of those two pairs of
+evil eyes.
+
+The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel-piece stood, and
+upon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard.
+
+"Four--five--six minutes and a half," she said slowly, in a cold hard
+way.
+
+"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my Joan of
+Arc! my heroine! my paragon of women!"
+
+He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity, smiling, as he groped
+backward with his thin brown fingers to find the lady's hand; but she,
+not (I dare say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little.
+
+"Come, _ma chère_, let us count these things. What is it? Pocket-book?
+Or--or--_what_?"
+
+"It is _that_?" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust to the
+box, which lay in its leather case on the table.
+
+"Oh! Let us see--let us count--let us see," he said, as he was
+unbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must count
+them--we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book--but--where's the
+key? See this cursed lock! My ----! What is it? Where's the key?"
+
+He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his hands
+extended and all his fingers quivering.
+
+"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," said
+the lady.
+
+In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets:
+he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest.
+
+I lay in precisely the state in which I had been during my drive with
+the Marquis to Paris. This wretch I knew was about to rob me. The whole
+drama, and the Countess's _rôle_ in it, I could not yet comprehend. I
+could not be sure--so much more presence of mind and histrionic resource
+have women than fall to the lot of our clumsy sex--whether the return of
+the Count was not, in truth, a surprise to her; and this scrutiny of the
+contents of my strong box, an extempore undertaking of the Count's. But
+it was clearing more and more every moment: and I was destined, very
+soon, to comprehend minutely my appalling situation.
+
+I had not the power of turning my eyes this way or that, the smallest
+fraction of a hair's breadth. But let any one, placed as I was at the
+end of a room, ascertain for himself by experiment how wide is the field
+of sight, without the slightest alteration in the line of vision, he
+will find that it takes in the entire breadth of a large room, and that
+up to a very short distance before him; and imperfectly, by a
+refraction, I believe, in the eye itself, to a point very near indeed.
+Next to nothing that passed in the room, therefore, was hidden from me.
+
+The old man had, by this time, found the key. The leather case was open.
+The box cramped round with iron, was next unlocked. He turned out its
+contents upon the table.
+
+"Rouleaux of a hundred Napoleons each. One, two, three. Yes, quick.
+Write down a thousand Napoleons. One, two; yes, right. Another thousand,
+_write_!" And so, on and on till till gold was rapidly counted. Then
+came the notes.
+
+"Ten thousand francs. _Write._ Ten thousand francs again: is it written?
+Another ten thousand francs: is it down? Smaller notes would have been
+better. They should have been smaller. These are horribly embarrassing.
+Bolt that door again; Planard would become unreasonable if he knew the
+amount. Why did you not tell him to get it in smaller notes? No matter
+now--go on--it can't be helped--_write_--another ten thousand
+francs--another--another." And so on, till my treasure was counted out,
+before my face, while I saw and heard all that passed with the sharpest
+distinctness, and my mental perceptions were horribly vivid. But in all
+other respects I was dead.
+
+He had replaced in the box every note and rouleau as he counted it, and
+now having ascertained the sum total, he locked it, replaced it, very
+methodically, in its cover, opened a buffet in the wainscoting, and,
+having placed the Countess' jewel-case and my strong box in it, he
+locked it; and immediately on completing these arrangements he began to
+complain, with fresh acrimony and maledictions of Planard's delay.
+
+He unbolted the door, looked in the dark room beyond, and listened. He
+closed the door again, and returned. The old man was in a fever of
+suspense.
+
+"I have kept ten thousand francs for Planard," said the Count, touching
+his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Will that satisfy him?" asked the lady.
+
+"Why--curse him!" screamed the Count. "Has he no conscience! I'll swear
+to him it's half the entire thing."
+
+He and the lady again came and looked at me anxiously for awhile, in
+silence; and then the old Count began to grumble again about Planard,
+and to compare his watch with the clock. The lady seemed less impatient;
+she sat no longer looking at me, but across the room, so that her
+profile was toward me--and strangely changed, dark and witch-like it
+looked. My last hope died as I beheld that jaded face from which the
+mask had dropped. I was certain that they intended to crown their
+robbery by murder. Why did they not despatch me at once? What object
+could there be in postponing the catastrophe which would expedite their
+own safety. I cannot recall, even to myself, adequately the horrors
+unutterable that I underwent. You must suppose a real night-mare--I mean
+a nightmare in which the objects and the danger are real, and the spell
+of corporal death appears to be protractable at the pleasure of the
+persons who preside at your unearthly torments. I could have no doubt as
+to the cause of the state in which I was.
+
+In this agony, to which I could not give the slightest expression, I saw
+the door of the room where the coffin had been, open slowly, and the
+Marquis d'Harmonville entered the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+DESPAIR.
+
+
+A moment's hope, hope violent and fluctuating, hope that was nearly
+torture, and then came a dialogue, and with it the terrors of despair.
+
+"Thank heaven, Planard, you have come at last," said the Count, taking
+him, with both hands, by the arm and clinging to it, and drawing him
+toward me. "See, look at him. It has all gone sweetly, sweetly, sweetly
+up to this. Shall I hold the candle for you?"
+
+My friend d'Harmonville, Planard, whatever he was, came to me, pulling
+off his gloves, which he popped into his pocket.
+
+"The candle, a little this way," he said, and stooping over me he looked
+earnestly in my face. He touched my forehead, drew his hand across it,
+and then looked in my eyes for a time.
+
+"Well, doctor, what do you think?" whispered the Count.
+
+"How much did you give him?" said the Marquis, thus suddenly stunted
+down to a doctor.
+
+"Seventy drops," said the lady.
+
+"In the hot coffee?"
+
+"Yes; sixty in a hot cup of coffee and ten in the liqueur."
+
+Her voice, low and hard, seemed to me to tremble a little. It takes a
+long course of guilt to subjugate nature completely, and prevent those
+exterior signs of agitation that outlive all good.
+
+The doctor, however, was treating me as coolly as he might a subject
+which he was about to place on the dissecting-table for a lecture.
+
+He looked into my eyes again for awhile, took my wrist, and applied his
+fingers to the pulse.
+
+"That action suspended," he said to himself.
+
+Then again he placed something that, for the moment I saw it, looked
+like a piece of gold-beater's leaf, to my lips, holding his head so far
+that his own breathing could not affect it.
+
+"Yes," he said in soliloquy, very low.
+
+Then he plucked my shirt-breast open and applied the stethoscope,
+shifted it from point to point, listened with his ear to its end, as if
+for a very far off sound, raised his head, and said, in like manner,
+softly to himself, "All appreciable action of the lungs has subsided."
+
+Then turning from the sound, as I conjectured, he said:
+
+"Seventy drops, allowing ten for waste, ought to hold him fast for six
+hours and a half--that is ample. The experiment I tried in the carriage
+was only thirty drops, and showed a highly sensitive brain. It would not
+do to kill him, you know. You are certain you did not exceed _seventy_?"
+
+"Perfectly," said the lady.
+
+"If he were to die the evaporation would be arrested, and foreign
+matter, some of it poisonous, would be found in the stomach, don't you
+see? If you are doubtful, it would be well to use the stomach-pump."
+
+"Dearest Eugenie, be frank, be frank, do be frank," urged the Count.
+
+"I am _not_ doubtful, I am _certain_," she answered.
+
+"How long ago, exactly? I told you to observe the time."
+
+"I did; the minute-hand was exactly there, under the point of that
+Cupid's foot."
+
+"It will last, then, probably for seven hours. He will recover then; the
+evaporation will be complete, and not one particle of the fluid will
+remain in the stomach."
+
+It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there was no intention to
+murder me. No one who has not tried it knows the terror of the approach
+of death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life unimpaired, and
+no excitement to disturb the appreciation of that entirely new horror.
+
+The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very peculiar, and
+as yet I had not a suspicion of it.
+
+"You leave France, I suppose?" said the ex-Marquis.
+
+"Yes, certainly, to-morrow," answered the Count.
+
+"And where do you mean to go?"
+
+"That I have not yet settled," he answered quickly.
+
+"You won't tell a friend, eh?"
+
+"I can't till I know. This has turned out an unprofitable affair."
+
+"We shall settle that by-and-by."
+
+"It is time we should get him lying down, eh?" said the Count,
+indicating me with one finger.
+
+"Yes, we must proceed rapidly now. Are his night-shirt and
+night-cap--you understand--here?"
+
+"All ready," said the Count.
+
+"Now, Madame," said the doctor, turning to the lady, and making her, in
+spite of the emergency, a bow, "it is time you should retire."
+
+The lady passed into the room, in which I had taken my cup of
+treacherous coffee, and I saw her no more.
+
+The Count took a candle, and passed through the door at the further end
+of the room, returning with a roll of linen in his hand. He bolted first
+one door, then the other.
+
+They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me rapidly. They were not
+many minutes in accomplishing this.
+
+What the doctor had termed my night-shirt, a long garment which reached
+below my feet, was now on, and a cap, that resembled a female nightcap
+more than anything I had ever seen upon a male head, was fitted upon
+mine, and tied under my chin.
+
+And now, I thought, I shall be laid in a bed, to recover how I can,
+and, in the meantime, the conspirators will have escaped with their
+booty, and pursuit be in vain.
+
+This was my best hope at the time; but it was soon clear that their
+plans were very different.
+
+The Count and Planard now went, together, into the room that lay
+straight before me. I heard them talking low, and a sound of shuffling
+feet; then a long rumble; it suddenly stopped; it recommenced; it
+continued; side by side they came in at the door, their backs toward me.
+They were dragging something along the floor that made a continued boom
+and rumble, but they interposed between me and it, so that I could not
+see it until they had dragged it almost beside me; and then, merciful
+heaven! I saw it plainly enough. It was the coffin I had seen in the
+next room. It lay now flat on the floor, its edge against the chair in
+which I sat. Planard removed the lid. The coffin was empty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+"Those seem to be good horses, and we change on the way," said Planard.
+"You give the men a Napoleon or two; we must do it within three hours
+and a quarter. Now, come; I'll lift him, upright, so as to place his
+feet in their proper berth, and you must keep them together, and draw
+the white shirt well down over them."
+
+In another moment I was placed, as he described, sustained in Planard's
+arms, standing at the foot of the coffin, and so lowered backward,
+gradually, till I lay my length in it. Then the man, whom he called
+Planard, stretched my arms by my sides, and carefully arranged the
+frills at my breast, and the folds of the shroud, and after that, taking
+his stand at the foot of the coffin, made a survey which seemed to
+satisfy him.
+
+The Count, who was very methodical, took my clothes, which had just been
+removed, folded them rapidly together and locked them up, as I
+afterwards heard, in one of the three presses which opened by doors in
+the panel.
+
+I now understood their frightful plan. This coffin had been prepared for
+_me_; the funeral of St. Amand was a sham to mislead inquiry; I had
+myself given the order at Père la Chaise, signed it, and paid the fees
+for the interment of the fictitious Pierre de St. Amand, whose place I
+was to take, to lie in his coffin, with his name on the plate above my
+breast, and with a ton of clay packed down upon me; to waken from this
+catalepsy, after I had been for hours in the grave, there to perish by a
+death the most horrible that imagination can conceive.
+
+If, hereafter, by any caprice of curiosity or suspicion, the coffin
+should be exhumed, and the body it enclosed examined, no chemistry could
+detect a trace of poison, nor the most cautious examination the
+slightest mark of violence.
+
+I had myself been at the utmost pains to mystify inquiry, should my
+disappearance excite surmises, and had even written to my few
+correspondents in England to tell them that they were not to look for a
+letter from me for three weeks at least.
+
+In the moment of my guilty elation death had caught me, and there was no
+escape. I tried to pray to God in my unearthly panic, but only thoughts
+of terror, judgment, and eternal anguish, crossed the distraction of my
+immediate doom.
+
+I must not try to recall what is indeed indescribable--the multiform
+horrors of my own thoughts. I will relate, simply, what befell, every
+detail of which remains sharp in my memory as if cut in steel.
+
+"The undertaker's men are in the hall," said the Count.
+
+"They must not come till this is fixed," answered Planard. "Be good
+enough to take hold of the lower part while I take this end." I was not
+left long to conjecture what was coming, for in a few seconds more
+something slid across, a few inches above my face, and entirely excluded
+the light, and muffled sound, so that nothing that was not very distinct
+reached my ears henceforward; but very distinctly came the working of a
+turnscrew, and the crunching home of screws in succession. Than these
+vulgar sounds, no doom spoken in thunder could have been more
+tremendous.
+
+The rest I must relate, not as it then reached my ears, which was too
+imperfectly and interruptedly to supply a connected narrative, but as it
+was afterwards told me by other people.
+
+The coffin-lid being screwed down, the two gentlemen arranged the room,
+and adjusted the coffin so that it lay perfectly straight along the
+boards, the Count being specially anxious that there should be no
+appearance of hurry or disorder in the room, which might have suggested
+remark and conjecture.
+
+When this was done, Doctor Planard said he would go to the hall to
+summon the men who were to carry the coffin out and place it in the
+hearse. The Count pulled on his black gloves, and held his white
+handkerchief in his hand, a very impressive chief-mourner. He stood a
+little behind the head of the coffin, awaiting the arrival of the
+persons who accompanied Planard, and whose fast steps he soon heard
+approaching.
+
+Planard came first. He entered the room through the apartment in which
+the coffin had been originally placed. His manner was changed; there was
+something of a swagger in it.
+
+"Monsieur le Comte," he said, as he strode through the door, followed by
+half-a-dozen persons. "I am sorry to have to announce to you a most
+unseasonable interruption. Here is Monsieur Carmaignac, a gentleman
+holding an office in the police department, who says that information to
+the effect that large quantities of smuggled English and other goods
+have been distributed in this neighbourhood, and that a portion of them
+is concealed in your house. I have ventured to assure him, of my own
+knowledge, that nothing can be more false than that information, and
+that you would be only too happy to throw open for his inspection, at a
+moment's notice, every room, closet, and cupboard in your house."
+
+"Most assuredly," exclaimed the Count, with a stout voice, but a very
+white face. "Thank you, my good friend, for having anticipated me. I
+will place my house and keys at his disposal, for the purpose of his
+scrutiny, so soon as he is good enough to inform me, of what specific
+contraband goods he comes in search."
+
+"The Count de St. Alyre will pardon me," answered Carmaignac, a little
+dryly. "I am forbidden by my instructions to make that disclosure; and
+that I _am_ instructed to make a general search, this warrant will
+sufficiently apprise Monsieur le Comte."
+
+"Monsieur Carmaignac, may I hope," interposed Planard, "that you will
+permit the Count de St. Alyre to attend the funeral of his kinsman, who
+lies here, as you see--" (he pointed to the plate upon the coffin)--"and
+to convey whom to Père la Chaise, a hearse waits at this moment at the
+door."
+
+"That, I regret to say, I cannot permit. My instructions are precise;
+but the delay, I trust, will be but trifling. Monsieur le Comte will not
+suppose for a moment that I suspect him; but we have a duty to perform,
+and I must act as if I did. When I am ordered to search, I search;
+things are sometimes hid in such _bizarre_ places. I can't say, for
+instance, what that coffin may contain."
+
+"The body of my kinsman, Monsieur Pierre de St. Amand," answered the
+Count, loftily.
+
+"Oh! then you've seen him?"
+
+"Seen him? Often, too often?" The Count was evidently a good deal
+moved.
+
+"I mean the body?"
+
+The Count stole a quick glance at Planard.
+
+"N--no, Monsieur--that is, I mean only for a moment." Another quick
+glance at Planard.
+
+"But quite long enough, I fancy, to recognize him?" insinuated that
+gentleman.
+
+"Of course--of course; instantly--perfectly. What! Pierre de St. Amand?
+Not know him at a glance? No, no, poor fellow, I know him too well for
+that."
+
+"The things I am in search of," said Monsieur Carmaignac, "would fit in
+a narrow compass--servants are so ingenious sometimes. Let us raise the
+lid."
+
+"Pardon me, Monsieur," said the Count, peremptorily, advancing to the
+side of the coffin, and extending his arm across it. "I cannot permit
+that indignity--that desecration."
+
+"There shall be none, sir,--simply the raising of the lid; you shall
+remain in the room. If it should prove as we all hope, you shall have
+the pleasure of one other look, really the last, upon your beloved
+kinsman."
+
+"But, sir, I can't."
+
+"But, Monsieur, I must."
+
+"But, besides, the thing, the turnscrew, broke when the last screw was
+turned; and I give you my sacred honour there is nothing but the body in
+this coffin."
+
+"Of course Monsieur le Comte believes all that; but he does not know so
+well as I the legerdemain in use among servants, who are accustomed to
+smuggling. Here, Philippe, you must take off the lid of that coffin."
+
+The Count protested; but Philippe--a man with a bald head, and a
+smirched face, looking like a working blacksmith--placed on the floor a
+leather bag of tools, from which, having looked at the coffin, and
+picked with his nail at the screw-heads, he selected a turnscrew, and,
+with a few deft twirls at each of the screws, they stood up like little
+rows of mushrooms, and the lid was raised. I saw the light, of which I
+thought I had seen my last, once more; but the axis of vision remained
+fixed. As I was reduced to the cataleptic state in a position nearly
+perpendicular, I continued looking straight before me, and thus my gaze
+was now fixed upon the ceiling. I saw the face of Carmaignac leaning
+over me with a curious frown. It seemed to me that there was no
+recognition in his eyes. Oh, heaven! that I could have uttered were it
+but one cry! I saw the dark, mean mask of the little Count staring down
+at me from the other side; the face of the pseudo-marquis also peering
+at me, but not so full in the line of vision; there were other faces
+also.
+
+"I see, I see," said Carmaignac, withdrawing. "Nothing of the kind
+there."
+
+"You will be good enough to direct your man to re-adjust the lid of the
+coffin, and to fix the screws," said the Count, taking courage;
+"and--and--really the funeral _must_ proceed. It is not fair to the
+people who have but moderate fees for night-work, to keep them hour
+after hour beyond the time."
+
+"Count de St. Alyre, you shall go in a very few minutes. I will direct,
+just now, all about the coffin."
+
+The Count looked toward the door, and there saw a gendarme; and two or
+three more grave and stalwart specimens of the same force were also in
+the room. The Count was very uncomfortably excited; it was growing
+insupportable.
+
+"As this gentleman makes a difficulty about my attending the obsequies
+of my kinsman, I will ask you, Planard, to accompany the funeral in my
+stead."
+
+"In a few minutes," answered the incorrigible Carmaignac. "I must first
+trouble you for the key that opens that press."
+
+He pointed direct at the press, in which the clothes had just been
+locked up.
+
+"I--I have no objection," said the Count--"none, of course; only they
+have not been used for an age. I'll direct some one to look for the
+key."
+
+"If you have not got it about you, it is quite unnecessary. Philippe,
+try your skeleton-keys with that press. I want it opened. Whose clothes
+are these?" inquired Carmaignac when, the press having been opened, he
+took out the suit that had been placed there scarcely two minutes since.
+
+"I can't say," answered the Count. "I know nothing of the contents of
+that press. A roguish servant, named Lablais, whom I dismissed about a
+year ago, had the key. I have not seen it open for ten years or more.
+The clothes are probably his.
+
+"Here are visiting cards, see, and here a marked
+pocket-handkerchief--'R.B.' upon it. He must have stolen them from a
+person named Beckett--R. Beckett. 'Mr. Beckett, Berkley Square,' the
+card says; and, my faith! here's a watch and a bunch of seals; one of
+them with the initials 'R.B.' upon it. That servant, Lablais, must have
+been a consummate rogue!"
+
+"So he was; you are right, sir."
+
+"It strikes me that he possibly stole these clothes," continued
+Carmaignac, "from the man in the coffin, who, in that case, would be
+Monsieur Beckett, and not Monsieur de St. Amand. For, wonderful to
+relate, Monsieur, the watch is still going! That man in the coffin, I
+believe, is not dead, but simply drugged. And for having robbed and
+intended to murder him, I arrest you, Nicolas de la Marque, Count de St.
+Alyre."
+
+In another moment the old villain was a prisoner. I heard his discordant
+voice break quaveringly into sudden vehemence and volubility; now
+croaking--now shrieking, as he oscillated between protests, threats, and
+impious appeals to the God who will "judge the secrets of men!" And thus
+lying and raving, he was removed from the room, and placed in the same
+coach with his beautiful and abandoned accomplice, already arrested;
+and, with two _gendarmes_ sitting beside them, they were immediately
+driving at a rapid pace towards the Conciergerie.
+
+There were now added to the general chorus two voices, very different in
+quality; one was that of the gasconading Colonel Gaillarde, who had with
+difficulty been kept in the background up to this; the other was that of
+my jolly friend Whistlewick, who had come to identify me.
+
+I shall tell you, just now, how this project against my property and
+life, so ingenious and monstrous, was exploded. I must first say a word
+about myself. I was placed in a hot bath, under the direction of
+Planard, as consummate a villain as any of the gang, but now thoroughly
+in the interests of the prosecution. Thence I was laid in a warm bed,
+the window of the room being open. These simple measures restored me in
+about three hours; I should otherwise, probably, have continued under
+the spell for nearly seven.
+
+The practices of these nefarious conspirators had been carried on with
+consummate skill and secrecy. Their dupes were led, as I was, to be
+themselves auxiliary to the mystery which made their own destruction
+both safe and certain.
+
+A search was, of course, instituted. Graves were opened in Père la
+Chaise. The bodies exhumed had lain there too long, and were too much
+decomposed to be recognized. One only was identified. The notice for the
+burial, in this particular case, had been signed, the order given, and
+the fees paid, by Gabriel Gaillarde, who was known to the official
+clerk, who had to transact with him this little funereal business. The
+very trick, that had been arranged for me, had been successfully
+practised in his case. The person for whom the grave had been ordered,
+was purely fictitious; and Gabriel Gaillarde himself filled the coffin,
+on the cover of which that false name was inscribed as well as upon a
+tomb-stone over the grave. Possibly, the same honour, under my
+pseudonym, may have been intended for me.
+
+The identification was curious. This Gabriel Gaillarde had had a bad
+fall from a run-away horse, about five years before his mysterious
+disappearance. He had lost an eye and some teeth, in this accident,
+besides sustaining a fracture of the right leg, immediately above the
+ankle. He had kept the injuries to his face as profound a secret as he
+could. The result was, that the glass eye which had done duty for the
+one he had lost, remained in the socket, slightly displaced, of course,
+but recognizable by the "artist" who had supplied it.
+
+More pointedly recognizable were the teeth, peculiar in workmanship,
+which one of the ablest dentists in Paris had himself adapted to the
+chasms, the cast of which, owing to peculiarities in the accident, he
+happened to have preserved. This cast precisely fitted the gold plate
+found in the mouth of the skull. The mark, also, above the ankle, in the
+bone, where it had re-united, corresponded exactly with the place where
+the fracture had knit in the limb of Gabriel Gaillarde.
+
+The Colonel, his younger brother, had been furious about the
+disappearance of Gabriel, and still more so about that of his money,
+which he had long regarded as his proper keepsake, whenever death should
+remove his brother from the vexations of living. He had suspected for a
+long time, for certain adroitly discovered reasons, that the Count de
+St. Alyre and the beautiful lady, his companion, countess, or whatever
+else she was, had pigeoned him. To this suspicion were added some others
+of a still darker kind; but in their first shape, rather the exaggerated
+reflections of his fury, ready to believe anything, than well-defined
+conjectures.
+
+At length an accident had placed the Colonel very nearly upon the right
+scent; a chance, possibly lucky for himself, had apprized the scoundrel
+Planard that the conspirators--himself among the number--were in danger.
+The result was that he made terms for himself, became an informer, and
+concerted with the police this visit made to the Château de la Carque,
+at the critical moment when every measure had been completed that was
+necessary to construct a perfect case against his guilty accomplices.
+
+I need not describe the minute industry or forethought with which the
+police agents collected all the details necessary to support the case.
+They had brought an able physician, who, even had Planard failed, would
+have supplied the necessary medical evidence.
+
+My trip to Paris, you will believe, had not turned out quite so
+agreeably as I had anticipated. I was the principal witness for the
+prosecution in this _cause célébre_, with all the _agrémens_ that attend
+that enviable position. Having had an escape, as my friend Whistlewick
+said, "with a squeak" for my life, I innocently fancied that I should
+have been an object of considerable interest to Parisian society; but, a
+good deal to my mortification, I discovered that I was the object of a
+good-natured but contemptuous merriment. I was a _balourd_, a _benêt_,
+_un âne_, and figured even in caricatures. I became a sort of public
+character, a dignity,
+
+     "Unto which I was not born,"
+
+and from which I fled as soon as I conveniently could, without even
+paying my friend the Marquis d'Harmonville a visit at his hospitable
+château.
+
+The Marquis escaped scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was executed.
+The fair Eugenie, under extenuating circumstances--consisting, so far as
+I could discover of her good looks--got off for six years' imprisonment.
+
+Colonel Gaillarde recovered some of his brother's money, out of the not
+very affluent estate of the Count and _soi-disant_ Countess. This, and
+the execution of the Count, put him in high good humour. So far from
+insisting on a hostile meeting, he shook me very graciously by the hand,
+told me that he looked upon the wound on his head, inflicted by the
+knob of my stick, as having been received in an honourable, though
+irregular duel, in which he had no disadvantage or unfairness to
+complain of.
+
+I think I have only two additional details to mention. The bricks
+discovered in the room with the coffin, had been packed in it, in straw,
+to supply the weight of a dead body, and to prevent the suspicions and
+contradictions that might have been excited by the arrival of an empty
+coffin at the château.
+
+Secondly, the Countess's magnificent brilliants were examined by a
+lapidary, and pronounced to be worth about five pounds to a
+tragedy-queen, who happened to be in want of a suite of paste.
+
+The Countess had figured some years before as one of the cleverest
+actresses on the minor stage of Paris, where she had been picked up by
+the Count and used as his principal accomplice.
+
+She it was who, admirably disguised, had rifled my papers in the
+carriage on my memorable night-journey to Paris. She also had figured as
+the interpreting magician of the palanquin at the ball at Versailles. So
+far as I was affected by that elaborate mystification it was intended to
+re-animate my interest, which, they feared, might flag in the beautiful
+Countess. It had its design and action upon other intended victims also;
+but of them there is, at present, no need to speak. The introduction of
+a real corpse--procured from a person who supplied the Parisian
+anatomists--involved no real danger, while it heightened the mystery and
+kept the prophet alive in the gossip of the town and in the thoughts of
+the noodles with whom he had conferred.
+
+I divided the remainder of the summer and autumn between Switzerland
+and Italy.
+
+As the well-worn phrase goes, I was a sadder if not a wiser man. A great
+deal of the horrible impression left upon my mind was due, of course, to
+the mere action of nerves and brain. But serious feelings of another and
+deeper kind remained. My after life was ultimately formed by the shock I
+had then received. Those impressions led me--but not till after many
+years--to happier though not less serious thoughts; and I have deep
+reason to be thankful to the all-merciful Ruler of events, for an early
+and terrible lesson in the ways of sin.
+
+
+
+
+
+CARMILLA.
+
+
+
+
+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 these volumes, simply to interest the "laity,"
+I shall forestal 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 re-open 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 a conscientious particularity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 marvellously 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 mouldering tombs of the
+proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally
+desolate château 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 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 "neighbours" 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-bye, 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 creeks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the
+shadow of a bed-post 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; some one _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 small-pox, and his chesnut 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 remember, 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 remember 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 eye-witness.
+
+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 neighbourhood 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 splendour 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 marvellous 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 of 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 odylic 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
+splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy
+guests."
+
+There are indolent states 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 to-night," 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 travelling 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; my father 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 to 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.
+
+"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 to-night, 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 postillions 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WE COMPARE NOTES.
+
+
+We followed the _cortège_ 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 coloured turban
+on her head, who was gazing all the time from the carriage window,
+nodding and grinning derisively towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes
+and large white eye-balls, 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 travelling," 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 us all about it to-morrow, 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 me 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 travelling." 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
+favourably 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 sombre 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 colour
+enough in the other decorations of the room, to more than redeem the
+gloom of the old tapestry.
+
+There were candles at the bed side. 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 bed-side 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 some one 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 then saw."
+
+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 langour 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 to-night; 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; to-morrow, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 colour 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 her's 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 honour? 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 quarrelled 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
+honour, 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 ardour 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 travelled 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 some one 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 story books 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 common-place, 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 langour 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 langour in which her mind did not sympathise. 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 to day."
+
+"_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 to-night, 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 sombre 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 court-yard, 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 hedge-hogs, 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
+court-yard, 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
+neighbours."
+
+"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 to-day," 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 larvæ, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 colour, 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 it,
+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 colourless 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 to-day."
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 to-morrow, 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 neighbourhood, 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 château, 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 hearth-rug 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 bed-clothes, and lay there more dead than
+alive till morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 neighbourhood. I had myself
+no misgivings 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
+Paradon, 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 Paradon 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 to-night, 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 night-dress. 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 ardour 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 discoloured 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 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 night-dress, 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. Recognising 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 by 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 house-keeper 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 château was searched. The
+grounds were explored. Not a 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 awoke 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 sal-volatile, 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 first 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 up-stairs or down-stairs. 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 any one 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 could 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 further 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 centre
+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-bye; 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 Dranfeld 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.
+
+This 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 to-morrow, or he may be
+here to-day."
+
+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 drily. "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
+pic-nic, 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 waggon, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 characterise 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 pre-disposed to
+respect your conclusions."
+
+"You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a
+belief in the marvellous--for what I have experienced _is_
+marvellous--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
+travelling 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 fêtes which, you remember, were given by him in honour 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 coloured
+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 château 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 ball-room,
+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 licence 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 recognise 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 honoured 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 pre-arranged, 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 cudgelling 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, château, 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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
+practise 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
+favour. 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 demeanour 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 should have thrown myself on your high sense of honour to
+keep my secret for 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 honour. My
+daughter will observe the same secresy, 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 recognised 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WOOD-MAN.
+
+
+"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 spectre, 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 château. 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 blood-stained 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 travelling 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 upon 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 combatting 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 Général, that by my skill and science I can be of
+no use. Before I go I shall do myself the honour 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 apologised 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 sceptical 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 toward 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 spectre 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
+mouldering 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
+brutalised 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 toward 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 begun measuring
+distances by paces, and finally they all stood together, facing a piece
+of the side-wall, 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.
+
+"To-morrow," 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 knew 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 that 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, Silisia, in Turkish Servia, 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 recognised 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 marvellous 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 were 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 marvellously 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 curâ
+pro Mortuis," "Philosophicæ et Christiæ 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, the 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 vigour 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 Millarca? 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, discolours 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 favoured 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 spectre visits living
+people in their slumbers; _they_ die, and almost invariably, in the
+grave, develope 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 practised. 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 on 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.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In a Glass Darkly, v. 3/3, by
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 37174 ***