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@@ -3,24 +3,26 @@ -HAUNTINGS + HAUNTINGS -FANTASTIC STORIES + FANTASTIC STORIES -VERNON LEE + VERNON LEE -1890 + 1890 -To _FLORA PRIESTLEY_ and _ARTHUR LEMON_ _Are Dedicated_ DIONEA, AMOUR -DURE, _and_ THESE PAGES OF INTRODUCTION AND APOLOGY. + To _FLORA PRIESTLEY_ and _ARTHUR LEMON_ + _Are Dedicated_ DIONEA, AMOUR DURE, + _and_ + THESE PAGES OF INTRODUCTION AND APOLOGY. -_Preface_ + _Preface_ We were talking last evening—as the blue moon-mist poured in through the old-fashioned grated window, and mingled with our yellow lamplight @@ -125,19 +127,20 @@ the mist of moonbeams and olive-branches, dear Flora Priestley, while the moonlit sea moaned and rattled against the moldering walls of the house whence Shelley set sail for eternity. -VERNON LEE + VERNON LEE +_MAIANO, near FLORENCE, + June 1889._ -_MAIANO, near FLORENCE, June 1889._ + _Amour Dure:_ -_Amour Dure:_ + PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF + SPIRIDION TREPKA. -PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF SPIRIDION TREPKA. - -_Part I_ + _Part I_ _Urbania, August 20th, 1885.—_ @@ -933,7 +936,7 @@ was that of Medea da Carpi! What a fool I am, to be sure! -Part II + Part II Dec. 17th.—I fear that my craze about Medea da Carpi has become well known, thanks to my silly talk and idiotic songs. That Vice-Prefect’s @@ -950,11 +953,11 @@ written my address instead of putting it into an envelope. But it was addressed to me, written to me, no old letter; merely four lines, which ran as follows:— -“To Spiridion.— + “To Spiridion.— -“A person who knows the interest you bear her will be at the Church -of San Giovanni Decollato this evening at nine. Look out, in the left -aisle, for a lady wearing a black mantle, and holding a rose.” + “A person who knows the interest you bear her will be at the Church + of San Giovanni Decollato this evening at nine. Look out, in the + left aisle, for a lady wearing a black mantle, and holding a rose.” By this time I understood that I was the object of a conspiracy, the victim of a hoax. I turned the letter round and round. It was @@ -1200,18 +1203,20 @@ rushed home, lit my lamp, pulled the letter from my breast. I have it before me. The handwriting is hers; the same as in the Archives, the same as in that first letter:— -“To Spiridion.— + “To Spiridion.— + + “Let thy courage be equal to thy love, and thy love shall be + rewarded. On the night preceding Christmas, take a hatchet and + saw; cut boldly into the body of the bronze rider who stands in + the Corte, on the left side, near the waist. Saw open the body, + and within it thou wilt find the silver effigy of a winged genius. + Take it out, hack it into a hundred pieces, and fling them in all + directions, so that the winds may sweep them away. That night she + whom thou lovest will come to reward thy fidelity.” -“Let thy courage be equal to thy love, and thy love shall be rewarded. -On the night preceding Christmas, take a hatchet and saw; cut boldly -into the body of the bronze rider who stands in the Corte, on the left -side, near the waist. Saw open the body, and within it thou wilt find -the silver effigy of a winged genius. Take it out, hack it into a -hundred pieces, and fling them in all directions, so that the winds may -sweep them away. That night she whom thou lovest will come to reward -thy fidelity.” +On the brownish wax is the device— -On the brownish wax is the device—“AMOUR DURE—DURE AMOUR.” + “AMOUR DURE—DURE AMOUR.” _Dec. 23rd.—_ @@ -1416,19 +1421,24 @@ last, Medea, Medea! Ah! AMOUR DURE—DURE AMOUR! * * * * * -_NOTE.—Here ends the diary of the late Spiridion Trepka. The chief -newspapers of the province of Umbria informed the public that, on -Christmas morning of the year 1885, the bronze equestrian statue of -Robert II. had been found grievously mutilated; and that Professor -Spiridion Trepka of Posen, in the German Empire, had been discovered -dead of a stab in the region of the heart, given by an unknown hand._ + _NOTE.—Here ends the diary of the late Spiridion Trepka. The chief + newspapers of the province of Umbria informed the public that, + on Christmas morning of the year 1885, the bronze equestrian + statue of Robert II. had been found grievously mutilated; and that + Professor Spiridion Trepka of Posen, in the German Empire, had been + discovered dead of a stab in the region of the heart, given by an + unknown hand._ + + -Dionea -From the Letters of Doctor Alessandro De Rosis to the Lady Evelyn -Savelli, Princess of Sabina. + Dionea -_Montemiro Ligure, June 29, 1873._ + From the Letters of Doctor Alessandro De Rosis to the + Lady Evelyn Savelli, Princess of Sabina. + + + _Montemiro Ligure, June 29, 1873._ I take immediate advantage of the generous offer of your Excellency (allow an old Republican who has held you on his knees to address @@ -1488,7 +1498,7 @@ was sighted for the last time off the island of Palmaria, entering, with all sails spread, right into the thick of the storm-darkness. No bodies, strangely enough, have been washed ashore. -_July 10._ + _July 10._ I have received the money, dear Donna Evelina. There was tremendous excitement down at San Massimo when the carrier came in with a @@ -1544,7 +1554,7 @@ information, so I forward this item. But I fear, dear Lady Evelyn, I fear that the heavenly patroness of your little sea-waif was a much more extravagant saint than that. -_December 21, 1879._ + _December 21, 1879._ Many thanks, dear Donna Evelina, for the money for Dionea’s schooling. Indeed, it was not wanted yet: the accomplishments of young ladies @@ -1603,7 +1613,7 @@ on a holiday, they could not stand the bother of perpetually sweeping the chapel steps and the kitchen threshold all along of those dirty birds.... -_August 6, 1882._ + _August 6, 1882._ Do not tempt me, dearest Excellency, with your invitations to Rome. I should not be happy there, and do but little honor to your friendship. @@ -1696,7 +1706,7 @@ Poor little child! One might almost expect that, as happened when Dame Venus scratched her hand on the thorn-bush, red roses should sprout up between the fissures of the dirty old bricks. -_October 14, 1883_. + _October 14, 1883._ You ask whether, now that the Sisters let Dionea go and do half a day’s service now and then in the village, and that Dionea is a grown-up @@ -1736,7 +1746,7 @@ and thus a perfect string of love misfortunes, enough to make a little “Decameron,” I assure you, and all laid to Dionea’s account. Certain it is that the people of San Massimo are terribly afraid of Dionea.... -_July 17, 1884._ + _July 17, 1884._ Dionea’s strange influence seems to be extending in a terrible way. I am almost beginning to think that our folk are correct in their @@ -1755,7 +1765,7 @@ the infirmary, as prosaic a little saint as ever kissed a crucifix or scoured a saucepan. Well, Sister Giuliana has disappeared, and the same day has disappeared also a sailor-boy from the port. -_August 20, 1884_. + _August 20, 1884._ The case of Sister Giuliana seems to have been but the beginning of an extraordinary love epidemic at the Convent of the Stigmata: the elder @@ -1773,7 +1783,7 @@ rise up of an evening, with the boom of the surf and the scent of the lemon-flowers, as the young men wander up and down, arm-in-arm, twanging their guitars along the moonlit lanes under the olives? -_October 20, 1885._ + _October 20, 1885._ A terrible, terrible thing has happened! I write to your Excellency with hands all a-tremble; and yet I _must_ write, I must speak, or @@ -1842,7 +1852,7 @@ head with that smile like the twist of a young snake, she sang out in a high guttural voice a strange chant, consisting of the word _Amor—amor—amor_. I took the branch of myrtle and threw it in her face. -_January 3, 1886_ + _January 3, 1886._ It will be difficult to find a place for Dionea, and in this neighborhood well-nigh impossible. The people associate her somehow @@ -1876,7 +1886,7 @@ and a little indignant at what you say about your footmen being handsome: Don Juan himself, my dear Lady Evelyn, would be cowed by Dionea.... -_May 29, 1886._ + _May 29, 1886._ Here is Dionea back upon our hands once more! but I cannot send her to your Excellency. Is it from living among these peasants and @@ -1902,7 +1912,7 @@ said very quietly, when she came to stay with me the next day (for Sor Agostino’s family would not have her for another half-minute), “that if he did not leave me alone Heaven would send him an accident.” -_July 15, 1886_. + _July 15, 1886._ My book? Oh, dear Donna Evelina, do not make me blush by talking of my book! Do not make an old man, respectable, a Government functionary @@ -1943,7 +1953,7 @@ addressing a greater and more terrible goddess than he did:— “Procul a mea sit furor omnis, Hera, domo; alios; age incitatos, alios age rabidos.” -_March 25, 1887._ + _March 25, 1887._ Yes; I will do everything in my power for your friends. Are you well-bred folk as well bred as we, Republican _bourgeois,_ with the @@ -1962,7 +1972,7 @@ these statues only men and boys, athletes and fauns? Why only the bust of that thin, delicate-lipped little Madonna wife of his? Why no wide-shouldered Amazon or broad-flanked Aphrodite? -_April 10, 1887._ + _April 10, 1887._ You ask me how poor Dionea is getting on. Not as your Excellency and I ought to have expected when we placed her with the good Sisters of the @@ -2046,7 +2056,7 @@ the Rosebud.” Then she set to singing:— water! Yet the more I drink, the more I burn. Love! thou art bitter as the seaweed.” -_April 20, 1887._ + _April 20, 1887._ Your friends are settled here, dear Lady Evelyn. The house is built in what was once a Genoese fort, growing like a grey spiked aloes out @@ -2094,7 +2104,7 @@ eyes; “but those are not women, and the people who made them have left as the tales of Endymion, Adonis, Anchises: a goddess might sit for them.”... -_May 5, 1887._ + _May 5, 1887._ Has it ever struck your Excellency in one of your La Rochefoucauld fits (in Lent say, after too many balls) that not merely maternal but @@ -2145,10 +2155,11 @@ said, he asked her name. She answered that her name was Dionea; for the rest, she was an Innocentina, that is to say, a foundling; then she began to sing:— -“Flower of the myrtle! My father is the starry sky, The mother that -made me is the sea.” + “Flower of the myrtle! + My father is the starry sky, + The mother that made me is the sea.” -_June 22, 1887_. + _June 22, 1887._ I confess I was an old fool to have grudged Waldemar his model. As I watch him gradually building up his statue, watch the goddess gradually @@ -2175,7 +2186,7 @@ its coldness. And yet to hear him exclaim, “How beautiful she is! Good God, how beautiful!” No love of mere woman was ever so violent as this love of woman’s mere shape. -_June 27, 1887_. + _June 27, 1887._ You asked me once, dearest Excellency, whether there survived among our people (you had evidently added a volume on folk-lore to that heap of @@ -2215,7 +2226,7 @@ of rosy petals descend on her black hair and pale breast— “Who knows?” -_July 6, 1887_. + _July 6, 1887._ How strange is the power of art! Has Waldemar’s statue shown me the real Dionea, or has Dionea really grown more strangely beautiful than @@ -2239,7 +2250,7 @@ the largest of his modeling tools, he obliterated at one swoop the whole exquisite face. Poor Gertrude turned ashy white, and a convulsion passed over her face.... -_July 15_. + _July 15._ I wish I could make Gertrude understand, and yet I could never, never bring myself to say a word. As a matter of fact, what is there to be @@ -2249,7 +2260,7 @@ must loathe this unceasing talk of Dionea, of the superiority of the model over the statue. Cursed statue! I wish it were finished, or else that it had never been begun. -_July 20_. + _July 20._ This morning Waldemar came to me. He seemed strangely agitated: I guessed he had something to tell me, and yet I could never ask. Was @@ -2285,7 +2296,7 @@ a mouthful, and thrown the rest over the altar, saying some unknown words. “It must be some German habit,” said my servant. What odd fancies this man has! -_July 25_. + _July 25._ You ask me, dearest Excellency, to send you some sheets of my book: you want to know what I have discovered. Alas! dear Donna Evelina, I have @@ -2331,7 +2342,7 @@ to see his statue again. But he will return, more peaceful for the peacefulness of the night, to his sleeping wife and children. God bless and watch over them! Good-night, dearest Excellency. -_July 26_. + _July 26._ I have your Excellency’s telegram in answer to mine. Many thanks for sending the Prince. I await his coming with feverish longing; it is @@ -2386,7 +2397,7 @@ the whole hillside, dry grass, myrtle, and heather, all burning, the pale short flames waving against the blue moonlit sky, and the old fortress outlined black against the blaze. -_August 30._ + _August 30._ Of Dionea I can tell you nothing certain. We speak of her as little as we can. Some say they have seen her, on stormy nights, wandering @@ -2402,10 +2413,12 @@ pigeons circling around her. -_Oke of Okehurst_ + _Oke of Okehurst_ + To COUNT PETER BOUTOURLINE, + _AT TAGANTCHA_, + GOVERNMENT OF KIEW, RUSSIA. -To COUNT PETER BOUTOURLINE, _AT TAGANTCHA_, GOVERNMENT OF KIEW, RUSSIA. MY DEAR BOUTOURLINE, @@ -2427,12 +2440,11 @@ remind you, in the middle of your Russian summer, that there is such a season as winter, such a place as Florence, and such a person as your friend, -VERNON LEE - + VERNON LEE Kensington, _July_ 1886. -1 + 1 That sketch up there with the boy’s cap? Yes; that’s the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is @@ -2481,7 +2493,7 @@ I can tell it you now. Wait; I must turn her face to the wall. Ah, she was a marvellous creature! -2 + 2 You remember, three years ago, my telling you I had let myself in for painting a couple of Kentish squireen? I really could not understand @@ -2711,7 +2723,7 @@ I started up at a sudden rap at my door. I had completely forgotten his existence. -3 + 3 I feel that I cannot possibly reconstruct my earliest impressions of Mrs. Oke. My recollection of them would be entirely coloured by my @@ -3068,7 +3080,7 @@ story raked up.” And we said no more on the subject. -4 + 4 From that moment I began to assume a certain interest in the eyes of Mrs. Oke; or rather, I began to perceive that I had a means of securing @@ -3261,7 +3273,7 @@ them?” she answered abruptly. Christopher Lovelock. Come with me into the yellow room.” -5 + 5 What Mrs. Oke showed me in the yellow room was a large bundle of papers, some printed and some manuscript, but all of them brown with @@ -3501,7 +3513,7 @@ melancholy, his preoccupation, the something about him that told of a broken youth—did it mean that he knew it? -6 + 6 The following days Mrs. Oke was in a condition of quite unusual good spirits. Some visitors—distant relatives—were expected, and although @@ -3685,7 +3697,7 @@ on all sides the eerie little cry of the lambs separated from their mothers. It was damp and cold, and I shivered. -7 + 7 The next day Okehurst was full of people, and Mrs. Oke, to my amazement, was doing the honours of it as if a house full of @@ -3825,7 +3837,7 @@ the grey hat, the absent eyes, and strange smile of Mrs. Oke. It seemed to me horrible, vulgar, abominable, as if I had got inside a madhouse. -8 + 8 From that moment I noticed a change in William Oke; or rather, a change that had probably been coming on for some time got to the stage of @@ -4071,7 +4083,7 @@ freely now, although he had been almost a blue-ribbon man—as much so as is possible for a hospitable country gentleman—when I first arrived. -9 + 9 It became clear to me now that, incredible as it might seem, the thing that ailed William Oke was jealousy. He was simply madly in love with @@ -4316,7 +4328,7 @@ Alice would give me a moment’s breathing-time, and not go on day after day mocking me with her Lovelock.” -10 + 10 I had begun Mrs. Oke’s portrait, and she was giving me a sitting. She was unusually quiet that morning; but, it seemed to me, with the @@ -4443,10 +4455,11 @@ colour of William Oke’s. I am quite sure it was Lovelock’s. -_A Wicked Voice_ + _A Wicked Voice_ -To M.W., IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LAST SONG AT PALAZZO BARBARO, _Chi ha -inteso, intenda._ + To M.W., + IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LAST SONG AT PALAZZO BARBARO, + _Chi ha inteso, intenda._ They have been congratulating me again today upon being the only @@ -5461,7 +5474,10 @@ singer, O wicked and contemptible wretch? -_Other books by Vernon Lee_ Fiction _Miss Brown_ _Baldwin_ + _Other books by Vernon Lee_ + Fiction + _Miss Brown_ + _Baldwin_ *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 9956 *** |