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Carmilla · Carmilla

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  Prolog upon a paper attached to the narrative which follows. Doctor Hessalius has written
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  a rather elaborate note, which he accompanies with a reference to his essay on
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  the strange subject which the manuscript illuminates. This mysterious subject he treats in that
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  essay with his usual learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation.
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  It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man's collected papers.
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  As I publish the case in this volume, simply to interest the laity,
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  I shall forestall the intelligent lady who relates it in nothing. And after
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  due consideration, I have determined therefore to abstain from presenting any praisie of the
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  learned doctor's reasoning or extract from his statement on a subject which he describes as
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  involving not in probably some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence and its
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  intermediates. I was anxious, on discovering this paper, to reopen the correspondence
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  commenced by doctor Hessalius so many years before, with a person so clever and
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  careful as his informants. Seems to have been. Much to my regret,
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  However, I found that she had died in the interval, She probably could
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  have added little to the narrative, which she communicates in the following pages with
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  so far as I can pronounce such conscientious particularity. Chapter one an early fright
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  in Styria. We, though by no means magnificent people inhabit a castle or
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  schloss. A small income in that part of the world goes a great way
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  eight or nine hundred a year. Does wonders scantily enough hours would have answered
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  among wealthy people at home. My father is English and I bear an English
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  name. Although I never saw England, but here, in this lonely and
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  primitive place, where everything is so marvelously cheap, I really don't see.
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  However, so much more money would be at all materially adding to our comforts
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  or even luxuries. My father was in the Austrian service and retired upon a
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  pension and his patrimony, and purchased this feudal residence and the small estate on
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  which it stands a bargain. Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It
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  stands on a slight eminence and a forest. The road, very old and
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  narrow, passes in front of its drawbridge. Never raised in my time,
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  and its moat stocked with perch and sailed over by many swans, and floating
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  on its surface white fleets of water lilies. Over All this, the Schloss
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  shows its many windowed front, its towers, and its Gothic chapel. The
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  forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before its gate, and at
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  the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in
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  deep shadow through the wood. I have said that this is a very lonely
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  place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the
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  road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right
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  and twelve to the left. The nearest inhabited village is about seven of your
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  English miles to the left. The nearest inhabited Schloss of any historic associations is
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  that of old General Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to the right. I
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  have said the nearest inhabited village because there is only three miles westward, that
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  is to say, in the direction of General Spielsdorf. Schloss, a ruined
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  village with its quaint little church, now roofless in the isle of which are
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  the moldering tombs of the proud family of Carnstein, now extinct, who once
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  owned the equally desolate chateau, which, in the thick of the forest overlooks
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  the silent ruins of the town. Respecting the cause of the desertion of this
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  striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you
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  another time. I must tell you now how very small is the party who
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  constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I don't include servants or those pendants who
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  occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the Schloss. Listen and wonder my father,
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  who was the kindest man on earth, but growing old, and I
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  at the date of my story, only nineteen eight years have passed. Since
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  then, I and my father constituted the family at the Schloss. My mother,
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  a Styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good
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  natured governess who had been with me from I might almost say my infancy.
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  I could not remember the time when her fat, benignant face was not a
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  familiar picture in my memory. This was Madame Perudon, a native of Berne,
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  whose care and good nature, now in part supplied to me the loss
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  of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so early I lost
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  her. She made a third at our little dinner party. There was a
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  fourth, Mademoiselle de la Fontaine, a lady such as you term I believe,
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  a finishing governess. She spoke French and German. Madame pa rudent French
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  and broken English, to which my father and I added English, which,
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  partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us, and partly from patriotic
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  motives, we spoke every day. The consequence was a babbel at which strangers
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  used to laugh, and which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this
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  narrative. And there were two or three young lady friends besides pretty nearly of
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  mine own age, who were occasional visitors for longer or shorter terms, and
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  these visits I sometimes returned. These were our regular social resources. But of
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  course there were chance visits from neighbors of only five or six leagues distance.
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  My life was not with standing, rather a solitary one. I can assure
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  you. My gouvernant had just so much control over me as you might conjecture
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  such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl whose only
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  parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything. The first occurrence in
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  my existence which produced a terrible impression upon my mind, which in fact never
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  has been effaced, was one of the very earliest incidents of my life which
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  I can recollect. Some people will think it so trifling that it should not
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  be recorded here. You will see, however, by and by why I
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  mention it. The nursery, as it was called, though I had it
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  all to myself, was a large room in the upper story of the castle,
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  with a steep oak roof. I can't have been more than six years
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  old when one night I awoke, and looking round the room from my bed,
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  failed to see the nursery maid. Neither was my nurse there, and
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  I thought myself alone. I was not frightened, for I was one of
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  those happy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, of fairy
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  tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when
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  the door cracks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow
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  of a bedpost dance upon the wall nearer to our faces. I was vexed
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  and insulted at finding myself as I conceived neglected, and I began to whimper
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  preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring, when to my surprise, I saw
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  a solemn but very pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed.
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  It was that of a young lady who was kneeling with her hands under
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  the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder and ceased
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  whimpering. She caressed me with her hands and lay down beside me on the
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  bed and drew me towards her, smiling. I felt immediately delightfully soothed,
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  and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles
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  ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly.
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  The lady started back with her eyes fixed on me, and then slipped
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  down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself under the
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  bed. I was, now for the first time frightened, and I yelled
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  with all my might, and main nurse, nursery maid, housekeeper all came
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  running in and, hearing my story, they made light of it, soothing
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  me all they could meanwhile, but child as I was, I could perceive
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  that their faces were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety. And I saw
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  them look under the bed and about the room, and peep under tables and
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  pluck open cupboards. And the housekeeper whispered to the nurse, lay your hand
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  along that hollow in the bed. Someone did lie there, so sure as
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  you did not. The place is still warm. I remember the nursery maid
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  petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I
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  felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such
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  thing had happened to me. The housekeeper and the two other servants who were
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  in charge of the nursery remained sitting up all night, and from that time
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  a servant always set up in the nursery until I was about fourteen. I
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  was very nervous for a long time. After this, a doctor was called
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  in. He was pallid and elderly. How well I remember his long,
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  saturnine face, slightly pitted with smallpox, and his chestnut wig. For a
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  good while every day he came and gave me medicine, which of course I
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  hated. The morning after I saw this apparition, I was in a state
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  of terror and could not bear to be left alone daylight. Though it was
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  for a moment, I remember my father coming up and standing at the bedside
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  and talking cheerfully, and asking the nurse a number of questions, and laughing
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  very heartily at one of the answers, and patting me on the shoulder and
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  kissing me, and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing
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  but a dream and could not hurt me. But I was not comforted,
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  for I knew the visit of the strange woman was not a dream, and
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  I was awfully frightened. I was a little consoled by the nursery maids assuring
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  me that it was she who had come and looked at me and laying down
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  beside me in the bed, and that I must have been half dreaming not
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  to have known her face. But this, though supported by the nurse,
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  did not quite satisfy me. I remembered in the course of that day a
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  venerable old man in a black cassock coming into the room with the nurse and
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  housekeeper, and talking a little to them and very kindly to me. His
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  face was very sweet and gentle, and He told me they were going to
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  pray, and joined my hands together and desired me to say softly while they
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  were praying, Lord, hear all good prayers for us, for Jesus sake.
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  I think those were the very words, for I often repeated them to
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  myself, and my nurse used for years to make me say them in my
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  prayers. I remembered so well the thoughtful, sweet face of that white haired
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  old man in his black cassock, as he stood in that rude, lofty
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  brown room, with the clumsy furniture of a fashion three hundred years old about
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  him, and the scanty light entering its shadowy atmosphere through the small lattice he
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  kneeled, and the three women with him, and he prayed aloud with an
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  earnest, quavering voice for what appeared to me a long time. I forget
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  all my life preceding that event, and for some time after it is all
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  obscure also. But the scenes I have just described stand out vivid as the
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  isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria surrounded by darkness. End of chapter one, Chapter
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  two, a guest, I am now going to tell you something so strange
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  that it will require all your faith in my veracity to believe my story.
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  It is not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have been
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  an eye witness. It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked
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  me, as he sometimes did, to take a little ramble with him along
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  that beautiful forest vista which I have mentioned as lying in front of the Schloss
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  General Spielsdorf. Cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped, said
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  my father, as we pursued our walk. He was to have paid us
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  a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his arrival next day.
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  He was to have brought with him a young lady, his niece and ward,
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  Mademoiselle Reinefeldt, whom I had never seen, but whom I had heard
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  described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I had promised myself
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  many happy days. I was more disappointed than a young lady living in a
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  town or a bustling neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit and the new acquaintance
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  it promised, had furnished my day dream for many weeks. And how soon
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  does he come, I asked? Not till autumn, Not for two months,
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  I dare say, he answered, and I am very glad now,
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  dear that you never knew Mademoiselle Riinfeldt. And why, I asked, both
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  mortified and curious, because the poor young lady is dead, he replied,
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  I quite forgot. I had not told you, But you were not in
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  the room when I received the General's letter this evening. I was very much
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  shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his first letter six or seven weeks before
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  that she was not so well as he would wish her. But there was
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  nothing to suggest the remotest suspicion of danger. Here is the General's letter,
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  he said, handing it to me. I am afraid he is in great
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  affliction. The letter appears to me to have been written very nearly in distraction.
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  We sat down on a rude bench under a group of magnificent lime trees.
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  The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendor behind the Sylvan horizon,
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  and the stream that flows beside our home and passes under the steep old bridge
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  I have mentioned, wound through many a group of noble trees, almost at
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  our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson of the sky. General
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  Spielsdorf's letter was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places so self
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  contradictory, that I read it twice over, the second time aloud to my
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  father, and was still unable to account for it, except by supposing that
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  grief had unsettled his mind. It said, I have lost my darling daughter,
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  for as such I loved her. During the last days of dear Bertha's
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  illness, I was not able to write to you. Before then, I
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  had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn
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  all too late. She died in the peace of innocence and in the glorious
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  hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done
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  it all. I thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety,
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  a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens, what a fool have I
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  been. I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of
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  her sufferings. She is gone without so much as conjecturing the nature of her
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  illness and the accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. I devote
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  my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster I am told I may hope
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  to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a gleam
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  of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation
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  of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy. All too late, I cannot
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  write or talk collectedly. Now I am distracted. So soon as I shall
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  have a little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry,
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  which may possibly lead me as far as Vienna some time in the autumn
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  two months hence or earlier. If I live, I will see you,
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  that is, if you permit me. I will then tell you all that
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  I scarce dare put upon paper. Now farewell, pray for me, dear
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  friend. In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen
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  Bertha reinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence. I was startled,
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  as well as profoundly disappointed. The sun had now set, and it
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  was twilight by the time I had returned the General's letter to my father.
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  It was a soft, clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon the
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  possible meanings of the violent and incoherent sentences which I had just been reading.
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  We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the road that passes the Schloss
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  in front, and by that time the moon was shining brilliantly. At the
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  drawbridge we met Madame Perudon and Mademoiselle de la Fontaine, who had come out
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  without their bonnets to enjoy the exquisite moonlight. We heard their voices gabbling in
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  animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the drawbridge and turned about
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  to admire with them the beautiful scene. The glade through which we had just
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  walked lay before us. At our left, the narrow road wound away under
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  clumps of lordly trees and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. At
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  the right, the same road crosses the steep and picturesque bridge, near which
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  stands a ruined tower which once guarded that pass. And beyond the bridge,
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  an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees and showing in the shadows some gray,
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  ivy clustered rocks. Over the sward and low grounds. A thin film
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  of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil.
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  And here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.
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  No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard
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  made it melancholy, but nothing could disturb its character of profound serenity and the
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  enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect. My father, who enjoyed the picturesque,
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  and I stood looking in silence over the expanse beneath us. The two
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  good governesses, standing a little way behind us, discoursed upon the scene and
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  were eloquent upon the moon. Madame Peraudon was fat, middle aged, and
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  romantic, and talked and sighed poetically. Mademoiselle de la Fontaine, in right
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  of her father, who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical,
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  and something of a mystic, now declared that when the moon shone with
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  the light so intense, it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual
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  activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was
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  manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, It acted on
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  nervous people. It had marvelous physical influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that
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  her cousin who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on
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  deck on such a night, lying on his back with his face full in
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  the light of the moon, had wakened after a dream of an old woman
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  clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side,
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  and his countenance had never quite recovered his equilibrium. The moon this night,
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  she said, is full of idyllic and magnetic influence. And see when you
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  look behind you at the front of the schloss, how all its windows flash
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  and twinkle with that silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the
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  rooms to receive fairy guests. There are indolent styles of the spirits, in
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  which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our
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  listless ears. And I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies
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  conversation. I have got into one of my moping moods to night, said
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  my father, after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom by way of
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  keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he said, in
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  truth, I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me,
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  you say it wearies you, But how I got it came by it.
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  I forget the rest, but I feel as if some great misfortune were hanging
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  over us. I suppose the poor general's afflicted letter has had something to do
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  with it. At this moment, the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many
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  hoofs upon the road arrested our attention. They seemed to be approaching from the
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  high ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon the equipage emerged. From that
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  point. Two horsemen first crossed the bridge. Then came a carriage drawn by
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  four horses, and two men rode behind. It seemed to be the traveling
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  carriage of a person of rank, and we were all immediately absorbed in watching
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  that very unusual spectacle. It became in a few moments greatly more interesting,
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  for just as the carriage had passed the summit of the steep bridge, one
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  of the leaders, taking fright, communicated his panic to the rest, and
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  after a plunge or two, the whole team broke into a wild gallop together,
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  and dashing between the horsemen who rode in front, came thundering along the
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  road towards us with the speed of a hurricane. The excitement of the scene
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  was made more painful by the clear, long drawn screams of a female voice
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  from the carriage window. We all advanced in curiosity and horror, me rather
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  in silence. The rest with various ejaculations of terror. Our suspense did not
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  last long. Just before you reached the castle drawbridge on the route they were
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  coming, there stands by the roadside a magnificent lime tree. On the other
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  stands an ancient stone cross, at sight of which the the horses, now
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  going at a pace that was perfectly frightful, swerved so as to bring the
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  wheel over the projecting roots of the tree. I knew what was coming.
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  I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my head
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  away. At the same moment I heard a cry from my lady friend's,
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  who had gone on. A little curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw
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  a scene of utter confusion. Two of the horses were on the ground,
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  the carriage lay upon its side, with two wheels in the air. The
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  men were busy removing the traces, and a lady with a commanding air and
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  figure had gotten out and stood with clasped hands, raising the handkerchief that was
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  in them every now and then to her eyes through the carriage door was now
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  lifted a young lady who appeared to be lifeless. My dear old father was
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  already beside the elder lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently tendering
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  his aid and the resources of his shit loss. The lady did not appear
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  to hear him or to have eyes for anything, but the slender girl,
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  who was being placed against the slope of the bank I approached. The young
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  lady was apparently stunned, but she was certainly not dead. My father,
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  who piqued himself on being something of a physician, had just had his fingers
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  on her wrist and assured the lady, who declared herself her mother, that
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  her pulse, though faint and irregular, was undoubtedly still distinguishable. The lady
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  clasped her hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary transport of gratitude,
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  but immediately she broke out again in that theatrical way which is I believe
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  natural to some people. She was what is called a fine looking woman for
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  her time of life, and must have been handsome. She was tall,
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  but not thin, and dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale,
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  but with a proud and commanding countenance, though now agitated strangely, who was
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  ever being so born to calamity? I heard her say with clasped hands as
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  I came up here. Am I on a journey of life and death in
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  prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My child will
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  not have recovered sufficiently to resume her route. For who can say how long
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  I must leave her? I cannot dare not delay? How far on,
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  sir, can you tell as the nearest village? I must leave her there
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  and shall not see my darling or even hear of her till my return three
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  months? Hence, I plucked my father by the coat and whispered earnestly in
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  his ear, Oh, Papa, pray ask her to let her stay with
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  us. It would be so delightful. Do pray if Madame will entrust her
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  child to the care of my daughter and of her good gouvernant Madame Peraudon,
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  and permit her to remain as our guest under my charge until her return.
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  It will confer a distinction and an obligation upon us, and we shall treat
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  her with all the care and devotion which so sacred a trust deserves. I
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  cannot do that, sir. It would be to task your kindness and chivalry
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  too cruelly, said the lady distractedly. It would, on the contrary,
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  be to confer on us a very great kindness at the moment when we most
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  need it. My daughter has just been disappointed by a cruel misfortune in a
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  visit from which she had long anticipated a great deal of happiness. If you
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  confide this young lady to our care, it will be her best consolation.
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  The nearest village on your route is distant and affords no such inn as you
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  could think of placing your daughter at. You cannot allow her to continue her
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  journey for any considerable distance without danger. If, as you say, you
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  cannot suspend your journey, you must part with her to night, And know
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  where could you do so with more honest assurances of care and tenderness than here.
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  There was something in this lady's air and appearance, so distinguished and even
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  imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as to impress one quite apart
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  from the dignity of her equipage, with a conviction that she was a person
• 29:29
  of consequence. By this time, the carriage was replaced in its upright position,
• 29:33
  and the horses quite tractable in the traces. Again, the lady threw
• 29:38
  on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not quite so affectionate as one
• 29:44
  might have anticipated from the beginning of the scene. And then she beckoned slightly
• 29:48
  to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with him out of hearing,
• 29:52
  and talked to him with a fixed and stern countenance, not at all
• 29:57
  like that with which she had hitherto sp I was filled with wonder that my
• 30:03
  father did not seem to perceive the change, and also unspeakably curious to learn
• 30:08
  what it could be that she was speaking almost in his ear with so much
• 30:12
  earnestness and rapidity. Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus
• 30:18
  employed. Then she turned, and a few steps brought her to where her
• 30:22
  daughter lay, supported by Madame Perudant. She kneeled beside her for a moment
• 30:27
  and whispered, as Madame supposed a little benediction in her ear. Then,
• 30:33
  hastily kissing her, she stepped into her carriage. The door was closed.
• 30:37
  The footmen in stately liveries jumped up behind the outriders spurred on the postitions cracked
• 30:44
  their whips, the horses plunged and broke suddenly into a furious canter that threatened
• 30:48
  soon again to become a gallop, and the carriage whirled away, followed at
• 30:52
  the same rapid pace by the two horsemen. In the rear end of chapter
• 31:02
  two Chapter three we compare notes. We followed the cortege with our eyes until
• 31:11
  it was swiftly lost to sight in the misty wood, and the very sound
• 31:15
  of the hoofs and the wheels died away in the silent night air. Nothing
• 31:21
  remained to assure us that the adventure had not been an illusion of a moment.
• 31:25
  But the young lady, who just at that moment opened her eyes.
• 31:29
  I could not see, for her face was turned from me, but she
• 31:33
  raised her head, evidently looking about her, and I heard a very sweet
• 31:37
  voice ask, complainingly, where is mamma our good Madame Peraudon answered tenderly and
• 31:45
  added some comfortable assurances. I then heard her ask where am I? What
• 31:52
  is this place? And after that she said I don't see the carriage,
• 32:00
  and motzka, where is she? Madame answered all her questions in so far
• 32:06
  as she understood them, and gradually The young lady remembered how the misadventure came
• 32:10
  about, and was glad to hear that no one in or in attendance on
• 32:15
  the carriage was hurt, And on learning that her Mamma had left her here
• 32:19
  till her return in about three months, she wept. I was going to
• 32:23
  add my consolations to those of Madame Pruden, when Mademoiselle de la Fontaine placed
• 32:29
  her hand upon my arm, saying, don't approach. One at a time
• 32:32
  is as much as she can at present converse with a very little excitement would
• 32:37
  possibly overpower her. Now, as soon as she is comfortably in bed,
• 32:42
  I thought, I will run up to her room and see her. My
• 32:46
  father, in the meantime had sent a servant on horseback for the physician,
• 32:51
  who lived about two leagues away, and a bedroom was being prepared for the
• 32:54
  young lady's reception. The stranger now rose, and, leading on Madame's arm,
• 33:01
  walked slowly over the drawbridge and into the castle gate. In the hall,
• 33:07
  servants waited to receive her, and she was conducted forthwith to her room.
• 33:12
  The room we usually sat in as our drawing room, is long,
• 33:15
  having four windows that looked over the moat and the drawbridge upon the forest scene
• 33:21
  I have just described. It is furnished in old carved oak, with large
• 33:25
  carved cabinets, and the chairs are cushioned with crimson utrect velvet. The walls
• 33:31
  are covered with tapestry and surrounded with great gold frames, the figures being as
• 33:37
  large as life in ancient and very curious costume, and the subjects represented are
• 33:43
  hunting, hawking, and generally festive. It is not too stately to be
• 33:47
  extremely comfortable. And here we had our tea for with his usual patriotic leanings,
• 33:53
  he insisted that the National Beverage should make its appearance regularly. With our
• 33:57
  coffee and chocolate. We sat here this night, and with candles lighted,
• 34:04
  were talking over the adventure of the evening. Madame Perudon and Mademoiselle de la
• 34:08
  Fontaine were both part of our party. The young stranger had hardly lain down
• 34:14
  in her bed when she sank into a deep sleep, and those ladies had
• 34:16
  left her in the care of a servant. How do you like, our
• 34:21
  guest, I asked, as soon as Madame entered. Tell me all about
• 34:24
  her. I like her extremely, answered Madame. She is I almost think
• 34:30
  the prettiest creature I ever saw about your age, and so gentle and nice.
• 34:37
  She is absolutely beautiful, through in Mademoiselle, who had peeped for a
• 34:43
  moment into the stranger's room, and such a sweet voice, added Madame prudent.
• 34:50
  Did you remark a woman in the carriage after it was set up again
• 34:52
  who did not get out, inquired Mademoiselle, but only looked from the window.
• 34:58
  No, we had not seen her. Then she described a hideous black
• 35:02
  woman with a sort of colored turban on her head, and who was gazing
• 35:07
  all the time from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively toward the ladies,
• 35:12
  with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs, and her teeth set as if
• 35:15
  in fury. Did you remark what an ill looking pack of men the servants
• 35:21
  were, asked Madame, Yes, said my father, who had just come
• 35:25
  in. Ugly hang dog looking fellows as ever I beheld in my life.
• 35:30
  I hope they mayn't rob the poor lady in the forest. They are clever
• 35:35
  rogues. However, they got everything to rights in a minute. I dare
• 35:39
  say they are worn out with too long traveling, said Madame. Besides looking
• 35:45
  wicked their faces were so strangely lean and dark and sullen. I am very
• 35:52
  curious, I own, but I dare say the young lady will tell you
• 35:54
  all about it tomorrow, if she is sufficiently recovered. I don't think she
• 36:00
  will, said my father, with a mysterious smile and a little nod of
• 36:04
  his head, as if he knew more about it than he cared to tell
• 36:07
  us. This made us all the more inquisitive as to what had passed between
• 36:12
  him and the lady in black velvet in the brief but earnest interview that had
• 36:15
  immediately preceded her departure. We were scarcely alone when I entreated him to tell
• 36:21
  me. He did not need much pressing. There is no particular reason why
• 36:25
  I should not tell you. She expressed a reluctance to trouble us with the
• 36:30
  care of her daughter, saying she was in delicate health and nervous, but
• 36:36
  not subject to any kind of seizure. She volunteered that, nor to any
• 36:39
  allusion, being in fact perfectly sane. How very odd to say all that
• 36:46
  I interpolated. It was so unnecessary at all events, it was said,
• 36:53
  he laughed. And as you wish to know all that passed, which was
• 36:57
  very little. Indeed, I tell you. She then said, I am
• 37:01
  making a long journey of vital importance. She emphasized the word rapid and secret.
• 37:08
  I shall return for my child in three months. In the meantime,
• 37:12
  she will be silent as to who we are, whence we come, and
• 37:15
  whither we are traveling. That is all she said. She spoke very pure
• 37:22
  French. When she said the word secret. She paused for a few seconds,
• 37:28
  looking sternly, her eyes fixed on mine. I fancy she makes a
• 37:32
  great point of that. You saw how quickly she was gone. I hope
• 37:38
  I have not done a very foolish thing in taking charge of the young lady.
• 37:45
  For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to see and
• 37:49
  talk to her, and only waiting till the doctor should give me leave.
• 37:53
  You, who live in towns, can have no idea how great an event
• 37:58
  the introduction of a new friend is. In such a solitude as surrounded us.
• 38:04
  The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o'clock. But I could no
• 38:07
  more have gone to my bed and slept than I could have overtaken on foot
• 38:10
  the carriage in which the Princess in Black velvet had driven away. When the
• 38:15
  physician came down to the drawing room, it was to report very favorably upon
• 38:20
  his patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse quite regular, apparently
• 38:25
  perfectly well. She had sustained no injury, and the little shock to her
• 38:30
  nerves had passed away quite harmlessly. There could be no harm, certainly in
• 38:35
  my seeing her, if we both wished it. And with this permission,
• 38:38
  I sent forthwith to know whether she would allow me to visit her for a
• 38:43
  few minutes in her room. The servant returned immediately to say that she desired
• 38:46
  nothing more. You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of
• 38:52
  this permission. Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the Schloss.
• 38:59
  It was for half a little stately. There was a somber piece of
• 39:02
  tapestry opposite the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom, and
• 39:08
  other solemn classic scenes were displayed a little faded upon the other walls. But
• 39:15
  there was gold carving and rich and varied color enough in the other decorations of
• 39:20
  the room to more than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry. There were
• 39:24
  candles at the bedside. She was sitting up, her slender, pretty figure,
• 39:30
  enveloped in the soft silk dressing gown embroidered with flowers and lined with thick
• 39:35
  quilted silk, which her mother had thrown over her feet as she lay on
• 39:38
  the ground. What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had
• 39:44
  just begun my little greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and made
• 39:49
  me recoil a step or two from before her. I will tell you I
• 39:55
  saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night, and
• 40:00
  which remained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had, for
• 40:05
  so many years, so often ruminated with horror when no one suspected of what
• 40:09
  I was thinking. It was pretty, even beautiful, And when I first
• 40:16
  beheld it wore the same melancholy expression, but this almost instantly lighted into a
• 40:24
  strange, fixed smile of recognition. There was a silence of fully a minute,
• 40:31
  and then at length she spoke. I could not how wonderful, she
• 40:38
  exclaimed, twelve years ago, I saw your face in a dream, and
• 40:45
  it has haunted me ever since. Wonderful, indeed, I repeated, overcoming
• 40:52
  with an effort the horror that had for a time suspended my utterances twelve years
• 40:58
  ago, in vision or a reality, I certainly saw you. I could
• 41:01
  not forget your face. It has remained before my eyes of her since her
• 41:07
  smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied strange in it was gone, and
• 41:13
  it and her dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty and intelligent. I felt reassured,
• 41:20
  and continued more in the vain which hospitality indicated, to bid her welcome,
• 41:23
  and to tell her how much pleasure her accidental arrival had given us all,
• 41:28
  and especially what a happiness it was to me. I took her hand
• 41:31
  as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are,
• 41:37
  but the situation made me eloquent and even bold. She pressed my hand,
• 41:42
  she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed as looking hastily into mine,
• 41:47
  she smiled again and blushed. She answered my welcome very prettily. I
• 41:53
  sat down beside her, still wondering, and she said, I must tell
• 41:59
  you you my vision about you. It is so very strange that you and
• 42:04
  I should have had each of the other, so vivid a dream, that
• 42:08
  each should have seen I you and you me looking as we do now,
• 42:15
  when, of course we were both mere children. I was a child about
• 42:20
  six years old, and I awoke from a confused and troubled dream, and
• 42:24
  found myself in a room unlike my nursery, wainscudded clumsily in some dark wood,
• 42:30
  and with cupboards and bedsteads and chairs and benches placed about it. The
• 42:36
  beds were, I thought, all empty, and the room itself without any
• 42:40
  one but myself in it. And I, after looking about me for some
• 42:45
  time, and admiring especially an iron candlestick with two branches, which I should
• 42:51
  certainly know again, crept under one of the beds to reach the window.
• 42:55
  But as I got from under the bed, I heard some one cry,
• 43:00
  and looking up, while I was still upon my knees, I saw you,
• 43:06
  most assuredly, you as I see you now, a beautiful young lady
• 43:13
  with golden hair and large blue eyes and lips, your lips, you as
• 43:20
  you are here. Your looks won me. I climbed on the bed and
• 43:24
  put my arms about you, and I think we both fell asleep. I
• 43:30
  was aroused by a scream. You were sitting up screaming. I was frightened
• 43:36
  and slipped down upon the ground and it seemed to me lost consciousness for a
• 43:39
  moment, and when I came to myself, I was again in my nursery
• 43:44
  at home. Your face I have never forgotten, since I could not be
• 43:51
  misled by the mere resemblance you are the lady whom I saw. Then it
• 43:58
  was now my turn to relate my core responding vision, which I did to
• 44:01
  the undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. I don't know which should be most
• 44:07
  afraid of the other, she said, again, smiling. If you were
• 44:12
  less pretty, I think I should be very much afraid of you. But
• 44:15
  being as you are, and you and I both so young, I feel
• 44:21
  only that I have made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already a
• 44:24
  right to your intimacy at all events. It does seem as if we were
• 44:30
  destined from our earliest childhood to be friends. I wonder whether you feel as
• 44:37
  strangely drawn towards me as I do to you. I have never had a
• 44:42
  friend. Shall I find one? Now? She sighed, and her fine
• 44:49
  dark eyes gazed passionately on me. Now the truth is, I felt rather
• 44:54
  unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, drawn
• 45:01
  towards her. But there was also something of repulsion in this ambiguous feeling.
• 45:09
  However, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me.
• 45:16
  She was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging. I perceived now something of languor
• 45:24
  and exhaustion stealing over her, and hastened to bid her good night. The
• 45:30
  doctor thinks, I added that you ought to have a maid sit up with
• 45:32
  you tonight. One of ours is waiting, and you will find her a
• 45:36
  very useful and quiet creature. How kind of you. But I could not
• 45:43
  sleep. I never could with an attendant in the room. I shan't require
• 45:46
  any assistance, and shall I confess my weakness. I am haunted with a
• 45:52
  terror of robbers. Our house was robbed once and two servants murdered. So
• 45:58
  I always lock my door. It has become a habit. And you look
• 46:04
  so kind. I know you will forgive me. I see there is a
• 46:07
  key in the lock. She held me close in her pretty arms for a
• 46:13
  moment and whispered in my ear, good night, darling. It is very
• 46:17
  hard to part with you, but good night tomorrow, but not early.
• 46:24
  I shall see you again. She sank back on the pillow with a sigh,
• 46:30
  and her fine eyes followed me with a fond and melancholy gaze, and
• 46:35
  she murmured again, good night, dear friend. Young people like and even
• 46:43
  love on impulse. I was flattered by the evident, though as yet undeserved
• 46:49
  fondness she showed me. I liked the confidence with which she at once received
• 46:53
  me. She was determined that we should be very near friends. Next day
• 46:59
  came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion, that is
• 47:04
  to say, in many respects. Her looks lost nothing in daylight. She
• 47:09
  was most certainly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and the unpleasant
• 47:15
  remembrance of the face presented in my early dream had lost the effect of the
• 47:20
  first unexpected recognition. She confessed that she had experienced a similar shock on seeing
• 47:25
  me, and precisely the same faint antipathy that had mingled with my admiration of
• 47:30
  her. We now laughed together over our momentary horrors. End of Chapter three,
• 47:42
  Chapter four, Her Habits a saunter. I told you that I was
• 47:49
  charmed with her in most particulars. There were some that did not please me
• 47:53
  so well. She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin
• 47:59
  by describing her. She was slender and wonderfully graceful, except that her movements
• 48:07
  were languid, very languid. Indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to
• 48:10
  indicate an invalid. Her complexion was rich and brilliant. Her features were small
• 48:15
  and beautifully formed, her eyes large, dark and lustrous. Her hair was
• 48:22
  quite wonderful. I never saw hair so magnificently thick and long. When it
• 48:25
  was down about her shoulders, I have often placed my hands under it and
• 48:30
  laughed with wonder at its weight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and
• 48:36
  in color a rich, very dark brown, with something of gold. I
• 48:40
  loved to let it down, tumbling with its own weight. As in her
• 48:45
  room, she lay back in her chair, talking in her sweet low voice.
• 48:47
  I used to fold and braid it, and spread it out in play
• 48:51
  with it. Heavens, if I had but known all I said, there
• 48:58
  were particulars which did not please please me. I have told you that her
• 49:01
  confidence won me the first night I saw her. But I found that she
• 49:06
  exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything in fact
• 49:10
  connected with her life, plans and people. An ever wakeful reserve. I
• 49:15
  dare say I was unreasonable. Perhaps I was wrong. I dare say I
• 49:21
  ought to have respected this solemn injunction laid upon my father by the stately lady
• 49:24
  in black velvet. But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no
• 49:32
  one girl can endure with patience that her should be baffled by another. What
• 49:37
  harm could it do any one to tell me what I so ardently desired to
• 49:42
  know? Had she no trust in my good sense or honor? Why would
• 49:45
  she not believe me when I assured her so solemnly that I would not divulge
• 49:51
  one syllable of what she told me to any mortal breathing. There was a
• 49:55
  coldness, it seemed to me beyond her years, in her smiling, melancholy
• 50:02
  persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. I cannot say we
• 50:07
  quarreled upon this point, for she would not quarrel upon any It was,
• 50:13
  of course very unfair of me to press her very ill bred, but really
• 50:17
  I could not help it, and I might just as well have let it
• 50:22
  alone. What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation, to
• 50:28
  nothing. It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures. First,
• 50:36
  her name was Carmila. Second, her family was very ancient and noble.
• 50:43
  Third, her home lay in the direction of the west. She would not
• 50:47
  tell me the name of her family, nor there armorial bearings, nor the
• 50:52
  name of their estate, nor even that of the country they lived in.
• 50:58
  You are not to suppose that I worry her incessantly on these subjects. I
• 51:01
  watched opportunity, and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries. Once or twice.
• 51:07
  Indeed, I did attack her more directly, but no matter what my tactics,
• 51:13
  utter failure was invariably the result. Reproaches and caresses were all lost upon
• 51:19
  her. But I must add this that her evasion was conducted with so pretty
• 51:23
  a melancholy and deprecation, with so many and even passionate declarations of her liking
• 51:30
  for me and trust in my honor, and with so many promises that I
• 51:34
  should at last know all that I could not find it in my heart long
• 51:37
  to be offended with her. She used to place her pretty arms around my
• 51:42
  neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur
• 51:46
  with her lips near my ear. Dearest, your little heart is wounded,
• 51:53
  Think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness.
• 52:00
  If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.
• 52:06
  In the rapture of my enormous humiliation. I live in your warm life,
• 52:12
  and you shall die, Die sweetly, die into mine. I cannot help
• 52:20
  it. As I draw near to you, you, in your turn,
• 52:24
  will draw near to others and learn the rapture of that cruelty which yet is
• 52:30
  love. So for a while, seek to know no more of me and
• 52:35
  mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit. And when she had
• 52:42
  spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace,
• 52:47
  and her lips in soft kisses, gently glow upon my cheek. Her
• 52:52
  agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. From these foolish embraces, which
• 53:00
  were not of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish
• 53:04
  to extricate myself, but my energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured words
• 53:10
  sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance
• 53:16
  from which I only seemed to recover myself. When she withdrew her arms in
• 53:22
  these mysterious moods, I did not like her. I experienced a strange,
• 53:28
  tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable ever and anon mingled with a vague sense of fear
• 53:35
  and distrust. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted,
• 53:39
  But I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence.
• 53:47
  This, I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt
• 53:52
  to explain the feeling. I now write, after an interval of more than
• 53:57
  ten years, with a trembling head, and with a confused and horrible recollection
• 54:02
  of certain occurrences and situations in the ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing,
• 54:08
  though with a very vivid and sharp remembrance of the main current of my story.
• 54:15
  But I suspect in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in
• 54:20
  which our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused, that are, of
• 54:23
  all others, the most vaguely and dimly remembered. Sometimes, after an hour
• 54:30
  of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it
• 54:35
  with a fond pressure, renewed again and again, blushing softly, gazing in
• 54:40
  my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress
• 54:45
  rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardor of a
• 54:51
  lover. It embarrassed me. It was hateful and yet overpowering, And with
• 54:58
  gloating eyes, she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled along
• 55:01
  my cheek and kisses, and she would whisper, almost in sobs. You
• 55:07
  are mine, you shall be mine. You and I are one forever.
• 55:14
  Then she had thrown herself back in her chair, with her small hands over
• 55:17
  her eyes, leaving me trembling. Are we related? I used to ask,
• 55:24
  what can you mean by all this? I remind you, perhaps of
• 55:29
  someone whom you love, but you must not. I hate it. I
• 55:34
  don't know you. I don't know myself when you look so and talk.
• 55:37
  So she used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my
• 55:45
  hand. Respecting these very extraordinary manifestations, I strove in vain to form any
• 55:52
  satisfactory theory. I could not refer them to affectation or trick. It was
• 55:57
  unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct. And emotion. Was she,
• 56:04
  notwithstanding her mother's volunteered denial, subject to brief visitations of insanity? Or was
• 56:09
  there here a disguise and a romance? I had read in old story books
• 56:15
  of such things. What if a boyish lover had found his way into the
• 56:19
  house and sought to prosecute his suit and masquerade with the assistance of a clever
• 56:23
  old adventuress. But there were many things against this hypothesis. Highly interesting as
• 56:30
  it was to my vanity, I could boast of no little attentions, such
• 56:35
  as masculine gallantry delights to offer. Between these passionate moments, there were long
• 56:40
  intervals of commonplace, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy, during which, except
• 56:46
  that I detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire following me, at times,
• 56:52
  I might have been as nothing to her. Except in these brief periods
• 56:55
  of mysterious excitement. Her ways were girlish, and there there was always a
• 57:00
  languor about her, quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state of health.
• 57:07
  In some respects her habits were odd, perhaps not so singular in the
• 57:10
  opinion of a town lady like you, as they appeared to us rustic people.
• 57:15
  She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock.
• 57:20
  She would then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing. We then
• 57:23
  went out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she seemed
• 57:28
  almost immediately exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of
• 57:31
  the benches that were placed here and there among the trees. This was a
• 57:37
  bodily languor in which her mind did not sympathize. She was always an animated
• 57:40
  talker and very intelligent. She sometimes alluded for a moment to her own home,
• 57:47
  or mentioned an adventure or situation, or an early recollection which indicated a
• 57:52
  people of strange manners, and described customs of which we knew nothing. I
• 57:57
  gathered from these chance hints at her native country was much more remote than I
• 58:00
  had at first fancied. As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees,
• 58:07
  a funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty young girl whom
• 58:10
  I had often seen, the daughter of one of the rangers of the forest.
• 58:15
  The poor man was walking behind the coffin of his darling. She was
• 58:20
  his only child, and he looked quite heart broken. Peasants walking two and
• 58:25
  two came behind. They were singing a funeral hymn. I rose to mark
• 58:30
  my respect as they passed and joined in the hymn. They were very sweetly
• 58:35
  singing. My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised.
• 58:42
  She said, brusquely. Don't you perceive how discordant that is? I think
• 58:47
  it very sweet. On the contrary, I answered, vexed at the interruption,
• 58:52
  and very uncomfortable lest the people who composed the little procession should observe and
• 58:57
  resent what was passing. I I resumed therefore instantly, and was again interrupted.
• 59:04
  You pierce my ears, said Carmilla, almost angrily, and stopping her
• 59:08
  ears with her tiny fingers. Besides, how can you tell that your religion
• 59:13
  and mine are the same. Your forms wound me, and I hate funerals.
• 59:17
  What a fuss? Why you must die? Every one must die,
• 59:22
  and all are happier when they do come home. My father has gone on
• 59:30
  with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought you knew she was to be
• 59:32
  buried to day. She I don't trouble my head about peasants. I don't
• 59:38
  know who she is, answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes.
• 59:45
  She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago,
• 59:49
  and has been dying ever since till yesterday when she expired. Tell me
• 59:54
  nothing about ghosts. I sha'n't sleep to night if you do. I hope
• 1:00:00
  there is no plague or fever coming. All this looks very like it,
• 1:00:05
  I continued. The Swineherd's young wife died only a week ago, and she
• 1:00:09
  thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her bed and nearly
• 1:00:13
  strangled her. Papa says, some horrible fancies do accompany some forms of fever.
• 1:00:19
  She was quite well the day before, she sank afterwards and died before
• 1:00:23
  a week well. Her funeral is over. I hope and her hymn sung,
• 1:00:30
  and our ears shan't be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has
• 1:00:36
  made me nervous. Sit down here beside me, Sit close, hold my
• 1:00:43
  hand. Press it hard, hard, harder. We had moved a little
• 1:00:50
  back and had come to another seat. She sat down. Her face underwent
• 1:00:57
  a change, then alarmed and even terrified me. For a moment, it
• 1:01:00
  darkened and became horribly livid. Her teeth and hands were clenched, and she
• 1:01:05
  frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon the ground at her
• 1:01:08
  feet and trembled all over with a continued shudder as irrepressible as ag you.
• 1:01:15
  All her energy seemed strained to suppress a fit with which she was then breathlessly
• 1:01:20
  tugging, And at length a low, convulsive cry of suffering broke from her,
• 1:01:24
  and gradually the hysteria subsided. There that comes of strangling people with hymns.
• 1:01:34
  She said, at last, hold me, hold me still. It
• 1:01:38
  is passing away, And so gradually it did, and perhaps to dissipate the
• 1:01:45
  somber impression which the spectacle had left upon me, she became unusually animated and
• 1:01:50
  shatty, And so we got home. This was the first time I had
• 1:01:55
  seen her exhibit any definable symptoms of that delicacy of health which her mother had
• 1:02:00
  spoken of. It was the first time, also I had seen her exhibit
• 1:02:04
  anything like temper. Both passed away like a summer cloud, and never but
• 1:02:09
  once afterwards did I witness on her part a momentary sign of anger. I
• 1:02:15
  will tell you how it happened. She and I were looking out of one
• 1:02:19
  of the long drawing room windows. When there entered the courtyard over the drawbridge
• 1:02:23
  the figure of a wanderer, whom I knew very well. He used to
• 1:02:27
  visit the Schloss generally twice a year. It was the figure of a hunchback
• 1:02:30
  with the sharp, lean features that generally accompanied deformity. He wore a pointed
• 1:02:36
  black beard, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white
• 1:02:40
  fangs. He was dressed in buff, black and scarlet, and crossed with
• 1:02:45
  more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of
• 1:02:50
  things. Behind. He carried a magic lantern and two boxes, which I
• 1:02:53
  well knew in, one of which was a salamander, and the other a
• 1:02:58
  mandrake. These monsters used to make my father laugh. They were compounded of
• 1:03:02
  parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish and hedgehogs, dried and stitched
• 1:03:08
  together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box
• 1:03:13
  of conjuring apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt,
• 1:03:19
  several other mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferules
• 1:03:24
  in his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog. That followed at
• 1:03:29
  his heels, but stopped short suspiciously at the drawbridge, and in a little
• 1:03:34
  while began to howl dismally. In the meantime, the Mountebank, standing in
• 1:03:39
  the midst of the courtyard, raised his grotesque hat and made us a very
• 1:03:44
  ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly, inexecrable French and German, not
• 1:03:51
  much better. Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively
• 1:03:59
  air, to which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs
• 1:04:02
  and activity that made me laugh in spite of the dog's howling. Then he
• 1:04:09
  advanced to the window, with many smiles and salutations, and his hat in
• 1:04:13
  his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that
• 1:04:15
  never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and
• 1:04:20
  the resources of the various arts which he placed at our service, and the
• 1:04:25
  curiosities and entertainments which it was in his power at our bidding to display.
• 1:04:30
  Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is
• 1:04:35
  going like the wolf I hear through these woods, he said, dropping his
• 1:04:41
  hat on the pavement. They are dying of it right and left. And
• 1:04:45
  here is a charm that never fails, only pinned to the pillow, and
• 1:04:49
  you may laugh in his face. These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum
• 1:04:56
  with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them. Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so
• 1:05:01
  did I. He was looking up, and we were smiling down upon him,
• 1:05:06
  amused. At least I can answer for myself. His piercing black eye,
• 1:05:12
  as he looked up in our faces, seemed to detect something that fixed
• 1:05:15
  for a moment his curiosity. In an instant, he unrolled a leather case
• 1:05:19
  full of all manner of odd little steel instruments. See here, my lady,
• 1:05:26
  he said, displaying and addressing me, I profess, among other things
• 1:05:30
  less useful, the aught of dentistry, plague, take the dog, he
• 1:05:36
  interpolated. Silence, beast, he howled, so that your ladyships can scarcely
• 1:05:42
  hear a word, Your noble friend, the young lady at your right has
• 1:05:47
  the sharpest tooth, long, thin, pointed like an awl, like a
• 1:05:54
  needle. With my shop and long sight, as I look up, I
• 1:05:59
  have seen it distinctly. Now. If it happens to hurt the young lady,
• 1:06:03
  and I think it must here am I? Here are my file,
• 1:06:09
  my punch, my nippers, I will make it round and blunt. If
• 1:06:13
  her ladyship pleases no longer the tooth of a fish, but of a beautiful
• 1:06:17
  young lady as she is, Hey is the young lady displeased? Have I
• 1:06:24
  been too bold? Have I offended her? The young lady indeed looked very
• 1:06:30
  angry as she drew back from the window. How dare that mountebank insult us?
• 1:06:35
  So? Where is your father? I shall demand redress from him?
• 1:06:40
  My father would have had the wretch tied up to the pump and flogged with
• 1:06:44
  a cart whip and burnt to the bones with the cattle brand. She retired
• 1:06:49
  from the window a step or two and sat down, and had hardly lost
• 1:06:55
  sight of the offender when her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen,
• 1:07:00
  and she gradually recovered her usual tone and seemed to forget the little hunchback and
• 1:07:04
  his follies. My father was out of spirits that evening. On coming in,
• 1:07:11
  he told us that there had been another case very similar to the two
• 1:07:14
  fatal ones which had lately occurred. The sister of a young peasant on his
• 1:07:19
  estate only a mile away, was very ill, had been, as she
• 1:07:24
  described it, attacked very nearly in the same way, and was now slowly
• 1:07:29
  but steadily sinking. All this, said my father, is strictly referable to
• 1:07:34
  natural causes. These poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and so
• 1:07:41
  repeat in imagination the images of terror that have infested their neighbors. But that
• 1:07:46
  very circumstance frightens one horribly, said Carmeila, how so, inquired my father.
• 1:07:56
  I am so afraid of fancying I see such things I think would be
• 1:08:00
  as bad as reality. We are in God's hands. Nothing can happen without
• 1:08:05
  his permission, and all will end well for those who love him. He
• 1:08:10
  is our faithful creator. He has made us all and will take care of
• 1:08:14
  us. Creator Nature, said the young lady in answer to my gentle father.
• 1:08:23
  And this disease that invades the country is natural nature. All things proceed
• 1:08:30
  from nature, don't they? All things in the heaven, in the earth
• 1:08:35
  and under the earth, act and live as nature ordains. I think so.
• 1:08:45
  The doctor said he would come here to day, said my father.
• 1:08:47
  After a silence. I want to know what he thinks about it, and
• 1:08:51
  what he thinks we had better do. Doctors never did me any good,
• 1:08:57
  said Carmela. Then you have been ill, I asked, more ill than
• 1:09:02
  ever you were? She answered, long ago. Yes, a long time
• 1:09:11
  I suffered from this very illness. But I forget all but my pain and
• 1:09:16
  weakness, and they were not so bad as are suffered in other diseases.
• 1:09:23
  You were very young, then, I dare say, let us talk no
• 1:09:27
  more of it. You would not wound a friend. She looked languidly in
• 1:09:32
  my eyes, and passed her arm round my waist lovingly, and led me
• 1:09:38
  out of the room. My father was busy over some papers near the window.
• 1:09:44
  Why does your papa like to frighten us, said the pretty girl,
• 1:09:47
  with a sigh in a little shudder. He doesn't, dear Carmela. It
• 1:09:51
  is the very furthest thing from his mind. Are you afraid, dearest?
• 1:09:58
  I should be very much if I fancied there any real danger of my being
• 1:10:00
  attacked as those poor people were. You are afraid to die? Yes,
• 1:10:08
  everyone is, but to die as lovers may to die together so that they
• 1:10:16
  may live together. Girls are caterpillars. While they live in the world,
• 1:10:23
  to be finally butterflies when the summer comes. But in the meantime there are
• 1:10:28
  grubs and larvae, don't you see, each with their peculiar propensities, necessities
• 1:10:35
  and structure, So says Monsieur Beauffont in his big book. In the next
• 1:10:43
  room, later in the day, the doctor came and was closeted with Papa
• 1:10:47
  for some time. He was a skillful man of sixty and upwards. He
• 1:10:53
  wore powder and shaved his pale face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and
• 1:10:58
  Papa emerged from the room together, and I heard Papa laugh and say as
• 1:11:00
  they came out, Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you,
• 1:11:05
  what do you say to hippogriffs and dragons. The Doctor was smiling and
• 1:11:11
  made answer, shaking his head. Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states,
• 1:11:15
  and we know little of the resources of either. And they walked on,
• 1:11:21
  and I heard no more. I did not then know what the doctor
• 1:11:25
  had been broaching, but I think I guess it now. End of chapter
• 1:11:34
  four, Chapter five, A wonderful likeness this evening, there arrived from Grots
• 1:11:45
  the grave, dark faced son of the picture cleaner with a horse and cart
• 1:11:48
  laden with two large packing cases, having many pictures in each. It was
• 1:11:53
  a journey of ten leagues, and whenever a messenger arrived at the Schloss from
• 1:11:57
  our little capital of Grots, we used to crowd about him in the hall
• 1:12:00
  to hear the news. This arrival created in our secluded quarters quite a sensation.
• 1:12:05
  The cases remained in the hall, and the messenger was taken charge of
• 1:12:10
  by the servants till he had eaten his supper. Then, with assistance and
• 1:12:14
  armed with hammer, ripping chisel and turnscrew, he met us in the hall
• 1:12:18
  where we had assembled to witness the unpacking of the cases. Carmila sat looking
• 1:12:24
  listlessly on while one after the other the old pictures, nearly all portraits which
• 1:12:29
  had undergone the process of renovation, were brought to light. My mother was
• 1:12:33
  of an old Hungarian family, and most of these pictures, which were about
• 1:12:38
  to be restored to their places, had come to us through her. My
• 1:12:42
  father had a list in his hand, from which he read as the artists
• 1:12:45
  rummaged out the corresponding numbers. I don't know that the pictures were very good,
• 1:12:49
  but they were undoubtedly very old, and some of them very curious.
• 1:12:55
  Also, they had for the most part the merit of being now seen by
• 1:12:59
  me, I may for the first time, for the smoke and dust of
• 1:13:02
  time had all but obliterated them. There is a picture I have not yet
• 1:13:08
  seen, said my father. In one corner at the top of it is
• 1:13:12
  the name as well as I could read, Marcia Karnstein, and the date
• 1:13:16
  sixteen ninety eight. And I am curious to see how it has turned out.
• 1:13:23
  I remembered it. It was a small picture, about a foot and
• 1:13:26
  a half high and nearly square, without a frame, but it was so
• 1:13:30
  blackened by age I could not make it out. The artist now produced it
• 1:13:34
  with evident pride. It was quite beautiful. It was startling. It seemed
• 1:13:40
  to live. It was the effigy of Carmela. Carmela, Dear, here
• 1:13:47
  is an absolute miracle. Here you are, living, smiling, ready to
• 1:13:53
  speak in this picture. Isn't it beautiful? Papa? And see even the
• 1:13:59
  little mole on her throat. My father laughed and said, certainly, it
• 1:14:03
  is a wonderful likeness. But he looked away, and, to my surprise,
• 1:14:08
  seemed but little struck by it, and went on talking to the picture
• 1:14:12
  cleaner, who was also something of an artist, and discoursed with intelligence about
• 1:14:15
  the portraits or other works which his art had just brought into light and color.
• 1:14:20
  While I was more and more lost in wonder the more I looked at
• 1:14:24
  the picture. Will you let me hang this picture in my room, Papa,
• 1:14:29
  I asked, certainly, dear, he said, smiling, I am
• 1:14:33
  very glad you think it so like? It must be prettier even than I
• 1:14:36
  thought, if it is. The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech,
• 1:14:43
  did not seem to hear it. She was leaning back in her seat,
• 1:14:46
  her fine eyes under their long lashes, gazing on me in contemplation,
• 1:14:50
  and she smiled in a kind of rapture. And now you can read quite
• 1:14:57
  plainly the name that is written in the corner. It is not Marcia.
• 1:15:00
  It looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mercalla,
• 1:15:04
  Countess Kernstein. And this is a little coronet over and underneath a d.
• 1:15:09
  Sixteen ninety eight. I am descended from the Carnsteins, that is, Mamma
• 1:15:15
  was ah, said the lady languidly. So am I I think a very
• 1:15:24
  long descent, very ancient. Are there any Carnsteins living now, none who
• 1:15:30
  bear the name. I believe the family were ruined. I believe in some
• 1:15:33
  civil wars long ago. But the ruins of the castle are only about three
• 1:15:38
  miles away. How interesting, she said, languidly. But see what beautiful
• 1:15:45
  moonlight. She glanced through the hall door, which stood a little open.
• 1:15:49
  Suppose you take a little ramble around the court and look down at the road
• 1:15:54
  and river. It is so like the night you came to us, I
• 1:15:58
  said, She sighed, smiling, she rose, and, with each her
• 1:16:03
  arm about the other's waist, we walked out upon the pavement in silence.
• 1:16:09
  Slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautiful landscape opened before us.
• 1:16:15
  And so you were thinking of the night I came here, she almost
• 1:16:18
  whispered. Are you glad I came to light it, dear Carmila, I
• 1:16:26
  answered, And you asked for the picture you think like me to hang in
• 1:16:30
  your room. She murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer
• 1:16:34
  about my waist and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. How romantic
• 1:16:41
  you are, Carmila, I said. Whenever you tell me your story,
• 1:16:45
  it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance, She kissed me
• 1:16:49
  silently. I am sure, Carmila, you have been in love, that
• 1:16:55
  there is at this moment an affair of the heart going on. I have
• 1:17:00
  been in love with no one, and never shall, she whispered, unless
• 1:17:05
  it should be with you. How beautiful she looked in the moonlight. Shy
• 1:17:13
  and strained was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck
• 1:17:15
  and hair, with tumultuous sighs that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in
• 1:17:20
  mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. Darling,
• 1:17:28
  Darling, she murmured, I live in you, and you would die
• 1:17:31
  for me. I love you, so, I started from her. She
• 1:17:38
  was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown,
• 1:17:42
  and a face colorless and apathetic. Is there a chill in the air,
• 1:17:47
  dear, she said drowsily. I almost shiver. Have I been dreaming?
• 1:17:55
  Let us come in, Come, Come, come in. You look
• 1:18:00
  ill, Carmela, a little faint. You certainly must take some wine,
• 1:18:04
  I said, yes, I will. I'm better now, I shall be
• 1:18:11
  quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,
• 1:18:15
  answered Carmela, as we approached the door. Let us look again for
• 1:18:21
  a moment. It is the last time. Perhaps I shall see the moonlight
• 1:18:26
  with you. How do you feel now, dear Carmila, are you really
• 1:18:31
  better? I asked, I was beginning to take alarm lest she should have
• 1:18:38
  been stricken with the strange epidemic that they said and invaded the country about us.
• 1:18:43
  Papa would be grieved beyond measure, I added, if he thought you
• 1:18:46
  were ever so little ill. Without immediately letting us know, we have a
• 1:18:50
  very skillful doctor near us, the physician who was with Papa to day,
• 1:18:56
  I'm sure he is. I know how kind you all are. But dear
• 1:19:00
  child, I am quite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me
• 1:19:03
  but a little weakness. People say I am languid, I am incapable of
• 1:19:10
  exertion. I can scarcely walk as far as a child of three years old,
• 1:19:15
  and every now and then the little strength I have falters, and I
• 1:19:18
  become as you have just seen me. But after all I am very easily
• 1:19:24
  set up again. In a moment, I am perfectly myself. See how
• 1:19:29
  I have recovered so indeed, she had, and she and I talked a
• 1:19:34
  great deal, and very animated, she was, and the remainder of that
• 1:19:39
  evening passed without any recurrence of what I call her infatuations, I mean,
• 1:19:44
  her crazy talk and looks which embarrassed and even frightened me. But there occurred
• 1:19:50
  that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed
• 1:19:55
  to startle even Carmilla's languid nature into momentary energy. End of chapter five,
• 1:20:08
  Chapter six, A very strange agony. When we got into the drawing room
• 1:20:15
  and had sat down to our coffee and chocolate, although Carmilla did not take
• 1:20:18
  any, she seemed quite herself again, and Madame and Mademoiselle de la Fontaine
• 1:20:24
  joined us and made a little card party, in the course of which Papa
• 1:20:28
  came in for what he called his dish of tea. When the game was
• 1:20:31
  over, he sat down beside Carmilla on the sofa and asked her a little
• 1:20:35
  anxiously whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. She answered no.
• 1:20:42
  He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present.
• 1:20:46
  I cannot tell, she answered ambiguously. But I have been thinking of
• 1:20:51
  leaving you. You have been already too hospitable and too kind to me.
• 1:20:56
  I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take
• 1:21:00
  carriage tomorrow and post in pursuit of her. I know where I shall ultimately
• 1:21:03
  find her, although I dare not yet tell you. But you must not
• 1:21:09
  dream of any such thing, exclaimed my father, to my great relief.
• 1:21:13
  We can afford to lose you so and I won't consent to your leaving us
• 1:21:16
  except under the care of your mother, who was so good as to consent
• 1:21:19
  to your remaining with us till she herself should return. I should be quite
• 1:21:25
  happy if I knew that you heard from her, But this evening the accounts
• 1:21:28
  of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our neighborhood grow even more
• 1:21:31
  alarming. And my beautiful guest, I do feel the responsibility unaided by advice
• 1:21:38
  from your mother very much, but I shall do my best. And one
• 1:21:43
  thing is certain that you must not think of leaving us without her distinct direction
• 1:21:46
  to that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent
• 1:21:50
  to it easily. Thank you, sir a thousand times for your hospitality,
• 1:21:58
  she answered, smiling bashfully. You have all been too kind to me.
• 1:22:02
  I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your
• 1:22:06
  beautiful chateau under your care, and in the society of your dear daughter.
• 1:22:13
  So he gallantly, in his old fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling
• 1:22:17
  and pleased at her little speech. I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room,
• 1:22:23
  and sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for bed. Do
• 1:22:27
  you think I said at length that you will ever confide fully in me?
• 1:22:33
  She turned round, smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile
• 1:22:39
  on me. You won't answer that, I said. You can't answer pleasantly.
• 1:22:45
  I ought not to have asked you. You are quite right to ask
• 1:22:49
  me that or anything. You do not know how dear you are to me,
• 1:22:56
  or you could not think any confidence too great to look for. But
• 1:23:00
  I am under vows no none half so awfully, and I dare not tell
• 1:23:05
  my story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you
• 1:23:10
  shall know everything. You will think me cruel, very selfish, But love
• 1:23:16
  is always selfish. The more ardent, the more selfish, how jealous I
• 1:23:24
  am, you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me to
• 1:23:29
  death, or else hate me and still come with me and hating me through
• 1:23:33
  death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.
• 1:23:43
  Now, Carmela, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again,
• 1:23:46
  I said hastily. Not I silly, little fool as I am, and
• 1:23:53
  full of whims and fancies. For your sake, I'll talk like a sage.
• 1:23:59
  For you. Ever read a ball? No, how you do?
• 1:24:02
  Run on? What is it like? How charming it must be? I
• 1:24:08
  almost forget it is years ago, I laughed. You are not so old.
• 1:24:13
  Your first ball can hardly be forgotten. Yet I remember everything about it
• 1:24:19
  with an effort. I see it all as divers see what is going on
• 1:24:25
  above them through a medium, dense, rippling but transparent. There occurred that
• 1:24:31
  night, what has confused the picture and made its colors faint. I was
• 1:24:36
  all but assassinated in my bed, wounded. Here. She touched her breast,
• 1:24:44
  and never was the same. Since were you near dying? Yes?
• 1:24:50
  Very a cruel love, strange love that would have taken my life. Love
• 1:24:58
  will have its sacrifice, no sacrifice without blood. Let us go to sleep.
• 1:25:05
  Now. I feel so lazy. How can I get up just now
• 1:25:10
  and lock my door? She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her
• 1:25:15
  rich wavy hair under her cheek, her little head upon the pillow, and
• 1:25:18
  her glittering eyes followed me whenever I moved, with a kind of shy smile
• 1:25:24
  that I could not decipher. I bid her good night and crept from the
• 1:25:29
  room with an uncomfortable sensation. I often wondered whether our pretty guest ever said
• 1:25:34
  her prayers. I certainly had never seen her upon her knees in the morning.
• 1:25:40
  She never came down until long after our family prayers were over, and
• 1:25:44
  at night she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in
• 1:25:47
  the hall. If it had not been that it had casually come out in
• 1:25:51
  one of our careless talks that she had been baptized, I should have doubted
• 1:25:56
  her being a Christian. Religion was a subject on which I had never heard
• 1:26:00
  her speak a word. If I had known the world better, this particular
• 1:26:03
  neglect or antipathy would not have so much surprised me. The precautions of nervous
• 1:26:10
  people are infectious, and persons of a like temperament are pretty sure after a
• 1:26:14
  time to imitate them. I had adopted Carmila's habit of locking her bedroom door,
• 1:26:19
  having taken into my head all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders and prowling
• 1:26:24
  assassins. I had also adopted her precaution of making a brief search through her
• 1:26:29
  room to satisfy herself that no lurking assassin or robber was ensconced. These wise
• 1:26:35
  measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was
• 1:26:41
  burning in my room. This was an old habit, a very early date,
• 1:26:45
  and which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortified,
• 1:26:50
  I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls,
• 1:26:56
  light up dark rooms or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits
• 1:27:00
  and their entrances as they please, and laugh at Locksmith's. I had a
• 1:27:06
  dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. I cannot
• 1:27:12
  call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep, But
• 1:27:16
  I was equally conscious of being in my room and lying in bed precisely as
• 1:27:21
  I actually was. I saw, or fancied, I saw the room and
• 1:27:28
  its furniture, just as I had seen it last, except that it was
• 1:27:30
  very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed,
• 1:27:34
  which at first I could not accurately distinguish, but I soon saw that it
• 1:27:40
  was a sooty black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me
• 1:27:44
  about four or five feet long, for it measured fully the length of the
• 1:27:47
  hearthrug as it passed over it. And it continued chewing and frowing with the
• 1:27:51
  lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out,
• 1:27:58
  although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing
• 1:28:01
  faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark
• 1:28:06
  that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt
• 1:28:11
  it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face,
• 1:28:15
  and suddenly I felt a stinging pain, as if two large needles darted an
• 1:28:19
  inch or two apart deep into my breast. I waked with a scream.
• 1:28:26
  The room was lighted by the candle that burnt there all through the night,
• 1:28:29
  and I saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed, a
• 1:28:31
  little at the right side. It was in a dark, loose dress,
• 1:28:35
  and its hair was down and covered its shoulders. A block of stone could
• 1:28:41
  not have been more Still, there was not the slightest stir of respiration.
• 1:28:45
  As I stared at it, the figure appeared to have changed its place and
• 1:28:49
  was now nearer the door, then close to it. The door opened and
• 1:28:55
  it passed out. I was now relieved and able to breathe and move.
• 1:29:01
  My first thought was that Carmela had been playing me a trick, and that
• 1:29:04
  I had forgotten to secure my door. I hastened to it and found it
• 1:29:10
  locked as usual on the inside. I was afraid to open it. I
• 1:29:14
  was horrified. I sprang into my bed and covered my head up in the
• 1:29:17
  bedclothes, and lay there more dead than alive till morning. End of chapter
• 1:29:28
  six, Chapter seven, descending, It would be vain my attempting to tell
• 1:29:38
  you the horror with which even now I recalled the occurrence of that night.
• 1:29:42
  It was no such transitory terror as a dream leaves behind it. It seemed
• 1:29:47
  to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture
• 1:29:53
  that had encompassed the apparition. I could not bear next day to be alone
• 1:29:59
  for a moment. I should have told Papa, but for two opposite reasons.
• 1:30:04
  At one time I thought he would laugh at my story, and I
• 1:30:08
  could not bear its being treated as a jest. And at another I thought
• 1:30:13
  he might fancy that I had been attacked by the mysterious complaint which had invaded
• 1:30:16
  our neighborhood. I had myself no misgiving of the kind, and as he
• 1:30:21
  had been rather an invalid for some time, I was afraid of alarming him.
• 1:30:28
  I was comfortable enough with my good natured companions, Madame Perodon and the
• 1:30:32
  vivacious Mademoiselle la Fontaine. They both perceived that I was out of spirits and
• 1:30:38
  nervous, and at length I told them what lay so heavy at my heart.
• 1:30:44
  Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame perodn looked anxious by the bye,
• 1:30:49
  said Mademoiselle, laughing. The long lime tree walk behind Carmilla's bedroom window
• 1:30:56
  is haunted. Nonsense, exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather inopportune,
• 1:31:03
  And who tells that story. My dear Martin says he came up twice
• 1:31:09
  when the old yard gate was being repaired before sunrise, and twice saw the
• 1:31:14
  same female figure walking down the lime tree avenue. So well he might,
• 1:31:19
  as long as there are cows to milk in the river fields, said Madame.
• 1:31:25
  I dare say, but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did
• 1:31:29
  I see fool more frightened. You must not say a word about it to
• 1:31:34
  Carmilla, because she can see down that walk from her room window, I
• 1:31:39
  interposed, and she is, if possible, a greater coward than I.
• 1:31:45
  Carmela came down rather later than usual that day. I was so frightened last
• 1:31:51
  night, she said, so soon as we were together. And I am
• 1:31:57
  sure I should have seen something dreadful if it had not been for that charm
• 1:32:00
  I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I called such hard names. I
• 1:32:05
  had a dream of something black coming round my bed, and I awoke in
• 1:32:10
  perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds I saw a dark
• 1:32:15
  figure near the chimney piece. But I felt under my pillow for my charm,
• 1:32:19
  and the moment my fingers touched it, the figure disappeared. And I
• 1:32:25
  felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, that something frightful
• 1:32:30
  would have made its appearance and perhaps throttled me, as it did those poor
• 1:32:32
  people we heard of. Well, listen to me, I began and recounted
• 1:32:40
  my adventure at the recital, of which she appeared horrified. And had you
• 1:32:45
  the charm near you, she asked earnestly. No, I had dropped it
• 1:32:50
  into a china vase in the drawing room. But I shall certainly take it
• 1:32:54
  with me to night, as you have so much faith in it. At
• 1:32:58
  this distance of time, I cannot tell you or even understand how I overcame
• 1:33:02
  my horror so effectually as to lie alone in my room that night. I
• 1:33:08
  remember distinctly that I pinned the charm to my pillow. I fell asleep almost
• 1:33:13
  immediately, and slept even more soundly than usual all night. Next night I
• 1:33:18
  passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and dreamless, but I wakened
• 1:33:26
  with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, did not exceed
• 1:33:31
  a degree that was almost luxurious. Well, I told you so, said
• 1:33:36
  Carmela, when I described my night's sleep. I had such delightful sleep myself.
• 1:33:43
  Last night I pinned the charm to the breast of my night dress.
• 1:33:47
  It was too far away. The night before, I am quite sure it
• 1:33:51
  was all fancy, except the dreams. I used to think that evil spirits
• 1:33:58
  made dreams, but our doctor told me it is no such thing, only
• 1:34:01
  a fever passing by or some other malady, as they often do, he
• 1:34:05
  said, knocks at the door, and not being able to get in,
• 1:34:10
  passes on with that alarm. And what do you think the charm is,
• 1:34:15
  said I. It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is
• 1:34:20
  an antidote against the malaria. She answered, Then it acts only on the
• 1:34:26
  body. Certainly, you don't suppose that evil spirits are frightened by bits of
• 1:34:31
  ribbon or the perfumes of a druggist's shop. No, these complaints wandering in
• 1:34:38
  the air begin by trying the nerves and so infect the brain. But before
• 1:34:44
  they can seize upon you, the antidote repels them. That, I am
• 1:34:48
  sure, is what the charm is done for us. It is nothing magical,
• 1:34:54
  It is simply natural. I should have been happier if I could quite
• 1:35:00
  have agreed with Carmela. But I did my best, and the impression was
• 1:35:04
  a little losing its force. For some nights I slept profoundly, but still
• 1:35:12
  every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me.
• 1:35:15
  All day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing
• 1:35:24
  over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of
• 1:35:30
  death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle
• 1:35:36
  and somehow not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone
• 1:35:43
  of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my
• 1:35:48
  soul acquiesced in it. I would not admit that I was ill. I
• 1:35:55
  would not consent to tell my Papa or to have the doctor sent for Carmilla
• 1:36:00
  became more devoted to me than ever, and her strange paroxysms of languid adoration
• 1:36:05
  more frequent. She used to gloat on me with increasing ardor the more my
• 1:36:11
  strength and spirits waned. This always shocked me, like a momentary glare of
• 1:36:17
  insanity. Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of
• 1:36:24
  the strangest illness under which mortal ever suffered. There was an unaccountable fascination in
• 1:36:30
  its earlier symptoms that more than reconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that stage
• 1:36:35
  of the malady. This fascination increased for a time until it reached a certain
• 1:36:41
  point, when gradually a sense of the horrible mingled itself, with it deepening
• 1:36:46
  as you shall hear until it discolored and perverted the whole state of my life.
• 1:36:56
  The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near the
• 1:37:00
  turning point from which began the descent of averness. Certain vague and strange sensations
• 1:37:08
  visited me in my sleep. The prevailing one was of that pleasant, peculiar,
• 1:37:13
  cold thrill which we feel in bathing when we move against the current of
• 1:37:16
  a river. This was soon accompanied by dreams that seemed interminable and were so
• 1:37:23
  vague that I could never recollect their scenery and persons, or anyone connected portion
• 1:37:29
  of their action. But they left an awful impression and a sense of exhaustion,
• 1:37:38
  as if I had passed through a long period of great mental exertion and
• 1:37:42
  danger. After all these dreams, there remained, on waking a remembrance of
• 1:37:47
  having been in a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people
• 1:37:51
  whom I could not see, and especially of one clear voice, of a
• 1:37:58
  female's very deep that spoke as if at a distance, slowly and producing always
• 1:38:05
  the same sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there came a sensation as
• 1:38:15
  if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was
• 1:38:19
  as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer, and more lovingly
• 1:38:26
  as they reached my throat. But there the caress fixed itself. My heart
• 1:38:31
  beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full drawn, a sobbing
• 1:38:38
  that rose into a sense of strangulation supervened and turned into a dreadful convulsion,
• 1:38:43
  in which my senses left me and I became unconscious. It was now three
• 1:38:49
  weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had during the last
• 1:38:56
  week told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, My eyes were dilated
• 1:39:01
  and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display
• 1:39:05
  itself in my countenance. My father asked me often whether I was ill,
• 1:39:12
  but with an obstinacy which now seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring
• 1:39:17
  him that I was quite well. In a sense. This was true.
• 1:39:23
  I had no pain, I could complain of, no bodily derangement. My
• 1:39:28
  complaint seemed to be one of the imagination or the nerves. And horrible as
• 1:39:33
  my sufferings were, I kept them with a morbid reserve very nearly to myself.
• 1:39:41
  It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called the upire,
• 1:39:45
  for I had now been suffering for three weeks, and they were seldom ill
• 1:39:49
  for much more than three days. When death put an end to their miseries.
• 1:39:55
  Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no means of so
• 1:40:00
  alarming a kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming. Had
• 1:40:06
  I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked aid and advice
• 1:40:12
  on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me,
• 1:40:18
  and my perceptions were benumbed. I am going to tell you now of a
• 1:40:24
  dream that led immediately to an odd discovery. One night, instead of the
• 1:40:30
  voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard one sweet and
• 1:40:35
  tender and at the same time terrible, which said, your mother warns you
• 1:40:42
  to be aware of the assassin. At the same time, a light unexpectedly
• 1:40:46
  sprang up, and I saw Carmila standing near the foot of my bed in
• 1:40:51
  her white knight dress, bathed from her chin to her feet in one great
• 1:40:57
  stain of blood. I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the idea that
• 1:41:03
  Carmila was being murdered. I remember springing from my bed, and my next
• 1:41:09
  recollection as that of standing on the lobby crying for help. Madame and Mademoiselle
• 1:41:14
  came scurrying out of their rooms in alarm, A lamp burned always on the
• 1:41:17
  lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the cause of my terror.
• 1:41:23
  I insisted on our knocking at Carmela's door. Our knocking was unanswered. It
• 1:41:29
  soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all
• 1:41:33
  was vain. We all grew frightened, for the door was locked. We
• 1:41:38
  hurried back and panic to my room. There we rang the bell long and
• 1:41:42
  furiously. If my father's room had been at that side of the house,
• 1:41:45
  we would have called him up at once to our aid, but alas he
• 1:41:50
  was quite out of hearing, and to reach him involved an excursion for which
• 1:41:54
  we none of us had courage. Servants, however, soon came running up
• 1:41:59
  the stairs. I had got on my dressing gown and slippers. Meanwhile,
• 1:42:01
  and my companions were already similarly furnished. Recognizing the voices of the servants on
• 1:42:06
  the lobby. We sallied out together, and, having renewed as fruitlessly our
• 1:42:12
  summons at Carmilla's door, I ordered the men to force the lock. They
• 1:42:15
  did so, and we stood, holding our lights aloft in the doorway,
• 1:42:20
  and so stared into the room. We called her by name, but there
• 1:42:25
  was still no reply. We looked round the room. Everything was undisturbed.
• 1:42:30
  It was exactly in the state in which I had left it on bidding her
• 1:42:33
  good night. But Carmilla was gone. End of Chapter seven, Chapter eight.
• 1:42:47
  Search. At sight of the room perfectly undisturbed except for our violent entrance,
• 1:42:56
  we began to cool a little, and soon recovered our sense sufficiently to
• 1:43:00
  dismiss the men. It had struck Mademoiselle that possibly Carmilla had been wakened by
• 1:43:04
  the uproar at her door, and, in her first panic, had jumped
• 1:43:08
  from her bed and hid herself in a press or behind a curtain from which
• 1:43:13
  she could not, of course emerge until the Majordomo in his mermidons had withdrawn.
• 1:43:17
  We now recommenced our search and began to call her name again. It
• 1:43:23
  was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and agitation increased. We examined the
• 1:43:28
  windows, but they were secured. I implored of Carmilla, if she had
• 1:43:31
  concealed herself to play this cruel trick, no longer to come out and to
• 1:43:36
  end our anxieties, It was all useless. I was by this time convinced
• 1:43:43
  that she was not in the room, nor in the dressing room, the
• 1:43:45
  door of which was still locked. On this side, she could not have
• 1:43:48
  passed it. I was utterly puzzled. Had Carmilla discovered one of those secret
• 1:43:55
  passages which the old housekeeper said were known to exist in the Schloss, although
• 1:43:59
  the tradition of their exact situation had been lost a little time, would,
• 1:44:02
  no doubt explain all utterly perplexed. As for the present we were. It
• 1:44:10
  was past four o'clock, and I preferred passing the remaining hours of darkness in
• 1:44:14
  Madame's room. Daylight brought no solution of the difficulty. The whole household,
• 1:44:20
  with my father at his head, was in a state of agitation. Next
• 1:44:24
  morning, every part of the chateau was searched, The grounds were explored.
• 1:44:30
  No trace of the missing lady could be discovered. The stream was about to
• 1:44:33
  be dragged. My father was in distraction. What a tale to have to
• 1:44:39
  tell the poor girl's mother on her return, I too was almost beside myself,
• 1:44:44
  though my grief was of quite a different kind. The morning was passed
• 1:44:47
  in alarm and excitement. It was now one o'clock and still no tidings.
• 1:44:54
  I ran up to Carmilla's room and found her standing at her dressing table.
• 1:45:00
  I was astounded. I could not believe my eyes. She beckoned to me
• 1:45:04
  with her pretty finger in silence, her face expressed extreme fear. I ran
• 1:45:12
  to her in an ecstasy of joy. I kissed and embraced her again and
• 1:45:15
  again. I ran to the bell and rang it vehemently to bring others to
• 1:45:19
  the spot, who might at once relieve my father's anxiety. Dear Carmila,
• 1:45:25
  what has become of you? All this time? We have been in agonies
• 1:45:29
  of anxiety about you? I exclaimed, Where have you been? How did
• 1:45:33
  you come back? Last night has been a night of wonders, she said,
• 1:45:40
  For mercy's sake, explain all you can. It was past two last
• 1:45:45
  night, she said, when I went to sleep as usual in my bed,
• 1:45:48
  with my doors locked, that of the dressing room, and that opening
• 1:45:51
  upon the gallery. My sleep was uninterrupted, and so far as I know,
• 1:45:57
  dreamless. But I woke just now on the sofa in the dressing room
• 1:46:00
  there, and I found the door between the rooms open, and the other
• 1:46:04
  door forced. How could all this have happened without my being wakened? It
• 1:46:10
  must have been accompanied with a great deal of noise, and I am particularly
• 1:46:14
  easily wakened. And how could I have been carried out of my bed without
• 1:46:17
  my sleep having been interrupted? I whom the slightest stir startles. By this
• 1:46:24
  time, Madame Mademoiselle, my father, and a number of the servants were
• 1:46:27
  in the room. Carmilla was of course overwhelmed with inquiries, congratulations and welcomes.
• 1:46:33
  She had but one story to tell, and seemed the least able of
• 1:46:38
  all the party to suggest any way of accounting for what had happened. My
• 1:46:42
  father took a turn up and down the room, thinking I saw Carmela's eye
• 1:46:46
  follow him for a moment with a sly, dark glance. When my father
• 1:46:51
  had sent the servants away, Mademoiselle having gone in search of a little bottle
• 1:46:56
  of Valerian and sell volatile, and there being no one now in the room
• 1:47:00
  with Carmela except my father, Madame, and myself. He came to her
• 1:47:05
  thoughtfully, took her hand very kindly, and led her to the sofa and
• 1:47:11
  sat down beside her. Will you forgive me, my dear if I risk
• 1:47:15
  a conjecture and ask a question, who can have better? Right? She
• 1:47:18
  said? Ask what you please, and I will tell you everything. But
• 1:47:23
  my story is simply one of bewilderment and darkness. I know absolutely nothing.
• 1:47:29
  Put any question you please, But you know, of course, the limitations
• 1:47:32
  Mamma has placed me under perfectly, my dear child, I need not approach
• 1:47:39
  the topics on which she desires our silence. Now, the marvel of last
• 1:47:44
  night consists in your having been removed from your bed and your room without being
• 1:47:47
  wakened, and this removal having occurred apparently while the windows were still secured and
• 1:47:54
  the two doors locked upon the inside. I will tell you my theory and
• 1:47:59
  ask you the question. Carmela was leaning on her hand dejectedly. Madame and
• 1:48:04
  I were listening breathlessly. Now my question is this, Have you ever been
• 1:48:10
  suspected of walking in your sleep? Never since I was very young, indeed,
• 1:48:17
  But you did walk in your sleep when you were young? Yes,
• 1:48:21
  I know, I did I have been told so often by my old nurse.
• 1:48:28
  My father smiled and nodded, Well, what has happened is this?
• 1:48:32
  You got up in your sleep unlocked the door, not leaving the key as
• 1:48:36
  usual in the lock, but taking it out and locking it on the outside.
• 1:48:41
  You again took the key out and carried it away with you to some
• 1:48:45
  one of the five and twenty rooms on this floor, or perhaps upstairs or
• 1:48:48
  downstairs. There are so many rooms and closets, so much heavy furniture,
• 1:48:54
  and such accumulations of lumber, that it would require a week to search this
• 1:48:57
  old house thoroughly. Do you you see now what I mean? I do?
• 1:49:03
  But not all? She answered, And how, Papa, do you
• 1:49:09
  account for her finding herself on the sofa in the dressing room, which we
• 1:49:12
  had searched so carefully. She came there after you had searched it, still
• 1:49:17
  in her sleep, and at last awoke spontaneously, and was as much surprised
• 1:49:23
  to find herself where she was as any one else. I wish all mysteries
• 1:49:27
  were as easily and innocently explained as yours, Carmilla, he said, laughing,
• 1:49:31
  And so we may congratulate ourselves on the certainty that the most natural explanation
• 1:49:36
  of the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, no tampering with locks,
• 1:49:41
  no burglars or poisoners or witches, nothing that need alarm Carmilla or any one
• 1:49:46
  else for our safety. Carmela was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful
• 1:49:53
  than her tints. Her beauty was I think enhanced by that graceful languor that
• 1:49:58
  was peculiar to her. I think my father was silently contrasting her looks with
• 1:50:02
  mine, for he said, I wish my poor Laura was looking more like
• 1:50:08
  herself, and he sighed. So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla
• 1:50:15
  restored to her friends. End of chapter eight, Chapter nine the doctor.
• 1:50:30
  As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping in her room, my father
• 1:50:35
  arranged that a servant should sleep outside her door, so that she would not
• 1:50:39
  attempt to make another such excursion without being arrested at her own door. That
• 1:50:44
  night passed quietly, and next morning early the doctor whom my father had sent
• 1:50:48
  for without telling me a word about it, arrived to see me. Madame
• 1:50:54
  accompanied me to the library, and there the grave little doctor with white hair
• 1:50:59
  and spectacles, whom I mentioned before, was waiting to receive me. I
• 1:51:03
  told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver.
• 1:51:10
  We were standing, he and I in the recess of one of the windows,
• 1:51:14
  facing one another. When my statement was over, he leaned with his
• 1:51:17
  shoulders against the wall and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly, with an
• 1:51:23
  interest in which was a dash of horror. After a minute's reflection, he
• 1:51:29
  asked Madame if he could see my father. He was sent for accordingly,
• 1:51:33
  and as he entered, smiling, he said, I dare say, doctor,
• 1:51:38
  you are going to tell me that I am an old fool for having
• 1:51:41
  brought you here. I hope I am. But his smile faded into shadow
• 1:51:45
  as the doctor, with a very grave face, beckoned to him. He
• 1:51:51
  and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where I had just
• 1:51:55
  conferred with the position. It seemed an earnest and argument conversation. The room
• 1:52:01
  is very large, and I and Madame stood together, burning with curiosity.
• 1:52:06
  At the farther end. Not a word could we hear, however, for
• 1:52:11
  they spoke in a very low tone, and the deep recess of the window
• 1:52:15
  quite concealed the doctor from view, and very nearly my father, whose foot,
• 1:52:20
  arm and shoulder only we could see. And the voices were, I
• 1:52:24
  suppose, all the less audible for the sort of closet which the thick wall
• 1:52:28
  and window formed. After a time my father's face looked into the room.
• 1:52:33
  It was pale, thoughtful, and I fancied, agitated. Laura, dear,
• 1:52:41
  come here for a moment, madame, We sha'n't trouble you, the
• 1:52:44
  doctor says, at present. Accordingly, I approached for the first time a
• 1:52:49
  little alarmed, for although I felt very weak, I did not feel ill.
• 1:52:54
  And strength one always fancies is a thing that may be picked up when
• 1:52:58
  we please. My father held out his hand to me as I drew near,
• 1:53:02
  but he was looking at the doctor, and he said, it certainly
• 1:53:08
  is very odd. I don't understand it quite. Laura, come here,
• 1:53:12
  dear, now attend to doctor Spielsburg and recollect yourself. You mentioned a sensation
• 1:53:19
  like that of two needles piercing the skin somewhere about your neck on the night
• 1:53:25
  when you first experienced your horrible dream. Is there still any soreness? None
• 1:53:30
  at all? I answered, Can you indicate with your finger? About the
• 1:53:35
  point at which you think this occurred very little below my throat here, I
• 1:53:41
  answered, I wore a morning dress which covered the place I pointed to.
• 1:53:47
  Now you can satisfy yourself, said the doctor. You won't mind your papa's
• 1:53:53
  lowering your dress a very little. It is necessary to detect a symptom of
• 1:53:57
  the complaint under which you have been suffering. I acquiesced. It was only
• 1:54:02
  an inch or two below the edge of my collar. God bless me,
• 1:54:08
  so it is, exclaimed my father, growing pale. You see it now
• 1:54:13
  with your own eyes, said the doctor, with a gloomy triumph. What
• 1:54:16
  is it, I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. Nothing, my dear
• 1:54:21
  young lady, but a small blue spot, about the size of the tip
• 1:54:26
  of your little finger. And now, he continued, turning to Papa.
• 1:54:30
  The question is what is best to be done? Is there any danger?
• 1:54:34
  I urged in great trepidation. I trust not, my dear, answered the
• 1:54:40
  doctor. I don't see why you should not recover. I don't see why
• 1:54:44
  you should not immediately begin to get better. That is the point at which
• 1:54:48
  the sense of strangulation begins. Yes, I answered, and recollect as well
• 1:54:56
  as you can. The same point was a kind of sense of that thrill
• 1:55:00
  which you describe just now, like the current of a cold stream running against
• 1:55:04
  you. It may have been I think it was, ay, you see,
• 1:55:13
  he added, turning to my father. Shall I say a word to
• 1:55:15
  Madame? Certainly, said my father. He called Madame to him and said,
• 1:55:24
  I find my young friend here far from well. It won't be of
• 1:55:27
  any great consequence, I hope, but it will be necessary that some steps
• 1:55:30
  be taken, which I will explain by and by. But in the meantime,
• 1:55:34
  Madame, you will be so good as to not let miss Laura be
• 1:55:38
  alone for one moment. That is the only direction I need give for the
• 1:55:42
  present. It is indispensable. We may rely upon your kindness, Madame,
• 1:55:47
  I know, added my father. Madame satisfied him eagerly. And you,
• 1:55:54
  dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction. I I shall
• 1:56:00
  have to ask your opinion upon another patient whose symptoms slightly resemble those of my
• 1:56:03
  daughter that have just been detailed to you, very much milder in degree,
• 1:56:09
  but I believe quite of the same sort. She is a young lady,
• 1:56:14
  our guest. But as you say, you will be passing this way again
• 1:56:16
  this evening. You can't do better than take your supper here and you can
• 1:56:20
  then see her. She does not come down till the afternoon. I thank
• 1:56:26
  you, said the doctor. I shall be with you then at about seven
• 1:56:30
  this evening. And then they repeated their directions to me and Madame. And
• 1:56:33
  with this parting charge, my father left us and walked out with the doctor.
• 1:56:39
  And I saw them pacing together up and down between the road and the
• 1:56:42
  moat on the grassy platform in front of the castle, evidently absorbed in earnest
• 1:56:46
  conversation. The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there,
• 1:56:54
  take his leave, and ride away eastward through the forest. Nearly yet
• 1:57:00
  the same time, I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the letters and
• 1:57:03
  dismount and hand the bag to my father. In the meantime, Madame and
• 1:57:09
  I were both busy lost in conjecture as to the reasons of the singular and
• 1:57:13
  earnest direction which the doctor and my father had concurred in imposing. Madame,
• 1:57:17
  as she afterwards told me, was afraid the doctor apprehended a sudden seizure,
• 1:57:23
  and that without prompt assistance, I might either lose my life in a fit
• 1:57:27
  or at least be seriously hurt. The interpretation did not strike me, and
• 1:57:32
  I fancied, perhaps luckily for my nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply
• 1:57:36
  to secure a companion who would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eating
• 1:57:42
  unripe fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish things to which young people
• 1:57:45
  are supposed to be prone. About half an hour after my father came in,
• 1:57:50
  he had a letter in his hand and said, this letter had been
• 1:57:56
  delayed. It is from General Spielsdorf. He might have been here yet yesterday,
• 1:58:00
  he may not come until tomorrow, or he may be here to day.
• 1:58:04
  He put the letter into my hand, but he did not look pleased,
• 1:58:09
  as he used when a guest, especially when so much loved as the
• 1:58:12
  General was coming. On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him
• 1:58:15
  at the bottom of the red sea. There is plainly something on his mind
• 1:58:19
  which he did not choose to divulge. Papa, darling, will you tell
• 1:58:25
  me this, said I, suddenly, laying my hand on his arm and
• 1:58:29
  looking, I am sure, imploringly in his face. Perhaps he answered,
• 1:58:34
  smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. Does the doctor think me very ill.
• 1:58:42
  No, dear, he thinks, if right steps are taken, you
• 1:58:45
  will be quite well again, at least on the high road to a complete
• 1:58:48
  recovery, in a day or two. He answered, a little dryly.
• 1:58:53
  I wish our good friend the General had chosen any other time. That is,
• 1:58:57
  I wish you had been perfectly well to receive him. But do tell
• 1:59:01
  me, Papa, I insisted, what does he think is the matter with
• 1:59:04
  me? Nothing? You must not plague me with questions, he answered,
• 1:59:11
  with more irritation than I ever remember him to have displayed before, And seeing
• 1:59:15
  that I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me and added, you
• 1:59:18
  shall know all about it in a day or two. That is all that
• 1:59:23
  I know. In the meantime, you are not to trouble your head about
• 1:59:26
  it. He turned and left the room, but came back before I had
• 1:59:30
  done wondering and puzzling over the oddity of all this. It was merely to
• 1:59:34
  say that he was going to Carnstein and had ordered the carriage to be ready
• 1:59:39
  at twelve, and that I and Madame should accompany him. He was going
• 1:59:43
  to see the priest who lived near those picturesque grounds, upon business and as
• 1:59:46
  Carmila had never seen them, she could follow when she came down with Mademoiselle,
• 1:59:51
  who would bring materials for what you call a picnic, which might be
• 1:59:55
  laid for us in the ruined castle. At twelve o'clock a wardingly, I
• 2:00:00
  was ready, and not long after my father, Madame and I set out
• 2:00:03
  upon our projected drive. Passing the drawbridge, we turned to the right and
• 2:00:09
  follow the road over the steep Gothic bridge westward to reach the deserted village and
• 2:00:14
  ruined castle of Caernstein. No Sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The ground
• 2:00:20
  breaks into gentle hills and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute
• 2:00:26
  of the comparative formality which artificial planting and early culture and pruning impart. The
• 2:00:32
  irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its course and cause it
• 2:00:36
  to wind beautifully round the sides of broken hollows and the steeper sides of the
• 2:00:42
  hills, among varieties of ground almost inexhaustible. Turning one of these points,
• 2:00:47
  we suddenly encountered our old friend, the General, riding towards us, attended
• 2:00:51
  by a mounted servant. His portmanteaus were following in a hired wagon, such
• 2:00:57
  as we term a cart. The girl dismounted as we pulled up, and
• 2:01:01
  after the usual greetings, was easily persuaded to accept the vacant seat in the
• 2:01:05
  carriage and send his horse on with his servant to the Schloss. End of
• 2:01:14
  Chapter nine, Chapter ten bereaved. It was about ten months since we had
• 2:01:24
  last seen him, but that time had sufficed to make an alteration of years
• 2:01:28
  in his appearance. He had grown thinner, something of gloom and anxiety had
• 2:01:32
  taken the place of that cordial serenity which used to characterize his features. His
• 2:01:38
  dark blue eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light from under
• 2:01:43
  his shaggy gray eyebrows. It was not such a change as grief alone.
• 2:01:47
  Usually induces, and angrier passions seemed to have had their share in bringing it
• 2:01:51
  about. We had not long resumed our drive when the General began to talk
• 2:01:58
  with his usual soldierly directness of the bereavement as he termed it, which he
• 2:02:02
  had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward. And he then
• 2:02:06
  broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the hellish
• 2:02:12
  arts to which she had fallen a victim, and expressing with more exasperation than
• 2:02:16
  piety, his wonder that Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts
• 2:02:21
  and malignity of Hell. My father, who saw at once that something very
• 2:02:29
  extraordinary had Befallen, asked him, if not too painful to him, to
• 2:02:33
  detail the circumstances which he thought justified the strong terms in which he expressed himself.
• 2:02:41
  I should tell you with all pleasure, said the general. But you
• 2:02:45
  would not believe me. Why should I not, he asked, because,
• 2:02:50
  he answered testily, you believe in nothing but what consists with your own prejudices
• 2:02:56
  and illusions. I remember when I was like you, but I have learned
• 2:03:01
  better. Try me, said my father. I am not such a dogmatist
• 2:03:08
  as you suppose. Besides which, I very well know that you generally require
• 2:03:14
  proof for what you believe, and am therefore very strongly predisposed to respect your
• 2:03:18
  conclusions. You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into
• 2:03:26
  a belief in the marvelous For what I have experienced is marvelous, and I
• 2:03:30
  have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran counter diametrically to all
• 2:03:35
  my theories. I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy. Notwithstanding
• 2:03:45
  his professions of confidence in the General's penetration. I saw my father at this
• 2:03:49
  point glance at the General with as I thought, a marked suspicion of his
• 2:03:54
  sanity. The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily
• 2:03:59
  and curiously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were opening before us.
• 2:04:04
  You are going to the ruins of Kernstein, he said, yes,
• 2:04:09
  it is a lucky coincidence. Do you know I was going to ask you
• 2:04:13
  to bring me there to inspect them. I have a special object in exploring.
• 2:04:18
  There is a ruined chapel, ain't there, with a great many tombs
• 2:04:21
  of that extinct family. So there are highly interesting, said my father.
• 2:04:28
  I hope you are thinking of claiming the title and estates. My father said
• 2:04:32
  this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh or even the smile,
• 2:04:38
  which courtesy exacts for a friend's joke. On the contrary, he looked
• 2:04:43
  grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter that stirred his anger and horror.
• 2:04:48
  Something very different, he said gruffly. I mean to unearth some of
• 2:04:54
  those fine people. I hope, by God's blessing, to accomplish a pious
• 2:05:00
  sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters and enable honest people
• 2:05:04
  to sleep in their beds without being assailed by murderers. I have strange things
• 2:05:11
  to tell you, my dear friend, such as I myself would have scouted
• 2:05:15
  as incredible. A few months since my father looked at him again, but
• 2:05:20
  this time not with a glance of suspicion, with an eye rather of keen
• 2:05:25
  intelligence and alarm. The house of Carnstein, he said, has been long
• 2:05:31
  extinct a hundred years. At least. My dear wife was maternally descended from
• 2:05:36
  the Carnsteins, but the name and title have long ceased to exist. The
• 2:05:42
  castle is a ruin. The very village is deserted. It is fifty years
• 2:05:45
  since the smoke of a chimney was seen there, not a roof left.
• 2:05:50
  Quite true, I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw
• 2:05:55
  you, A great deal that will astonish you. But I I had better
• 2:06:00
  relate everything in the order in which it occurred, said the General. You
• 2:06:03
  saw my dear ward, my child, I may call her. No creature
• 2:06:09
  could have been more beautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming.
• 2:06:15
  Yes, poor thing. When I saw her last, she certainly was quite
• 2:06:18
  lovely, said my father. I was grieved and shocked more than I can
• 2:06:24
  tell you. My dear friend, I knew what a blow it was to
• 2:06:28
  you. He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure.
• 2:06:34
  Tears gathered in the old soldier's eyes. He did not seek to conceal them.
• 2:06:41
  He said, we have been very old friends. I knew you would
• 2:06:45
  feel for me, childless as I am. She had become an object of
• 2:06:49
  very near interest to me and repaid my care by an affection that cheered my
• 2:06:55
  home and made my life happy. That is all gone. The years that
• 2:07:00
  remain to me on earth may not be very long, But by God's mercy,
• 2:07:04
  I hope to accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to
• 2:07:08
  subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor child in
• 2:07:12
  the spring of her hopes and beauty. You said just now that you intended
• 2:07:16
  relating everything as it occurred, said my father. Pray, do I assure
• 2:07:21
  you that it is not mere curiosity that prompts me. By this time we
• 2:07:26
  had reached the point at which the Drunsdall road by which the General had come,
• 2:07:30
  diverges from the road which we were traveling to Carnstein. How far is
• 2:07:34
  it to the ruins, inquired the General, looking anxiously forward, About half
• 2:07:40
  a league. Answered my father, pray, let us hear the story you
• 2:07:44
  were so good as to promise end of chapter ten, chapter eleven, the
• 2:07:56
  story with all my heart, said the General with an effort, and after
• 2:08:05
  a short pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the
• 2:08:09
  strangest narratives I ever heard. My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure
• 2:08:16
  to the visit you had been so good as to arrange for her. To
• 2:08:20
  your charming daughter, here he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. In
• 2:08:26
  the meantime we had an invitation to my old friend, the Count Carlsfeld,
• 2:08:31
  whose loss is about six leagues to the other side of Carnstein. It was
• 2:08:35
  to attend the series of fetes which you remember were given by him in honor
• 2:08:41
  of his illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles. Yes, and very splendid.
• 2:08:46
  I believe they were, said my father princely, but then his hospitalities
• 2:08:54
  are quite regal. He has Aladdin's lamp, the night from which, when
• 2:09:00
  my sorrow dates, was devoted to a magnificent masquerade. The grounds were thrown
• 2:09:03
  open, the trees hung with colored lamps. There was such a display of
• 2:09:09
  fireworks as Paris itself had never witnessed. And such music, music, you
• 2:09:15
  know, is my weakness, Such ravishing music, the finest instrumental band perhaps
• 2:09:22
  in the world, and the finest singers who could be collected from all the
• 2:09:26
  great operas in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds, the
• 2:09:33
  moonlighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of windows, you would
• 2:09:37
  suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing from the silence of some grove, or rising
• 2:09:43
  from boats upon the lake. I felt myself as I looked and listened,
• 2:09:50
  carried back into the romance and poetry of my early youth. When the fireworks
• 2:09:58
  were ended and the ball began, we returned to the noble suite of rooms
• 2:10:01
  that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked ball, you know,
• 2:10:07
  is a beautiful sight, but so brilliant, a spectacle of the kind I
• 2:10:11
  never saw before. It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost
• 2:10:18
  the only nobody present. My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore
• 2:10:26
  no mask. Her excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features.
• 2:10:31
  Always lovely, I remarked. A young lady, dressed magnificently but wearing a
• 2:10:39
  mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest.
• 2:10:43
  I had seen her earlier in the evening in the Great Hall, and again
• 2:10:48
  for a few minutes walking near us on the terrace under the castle windows.
• 2:10:54
  Similarly employed, a lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed and with
• 2:11:01
  a stately air, like a person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperone.
• 2:11:07
  Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could of course have
• 2:11:11
  been much more certain upon the question whether she was really watching my poor darling.
• 2:11:16
  I am now well assured that she was. We were now in one
• 2:11:22
  of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing and was resting a
• 2:11:28
  little in one of the chairs near the door. I was standing near the
• 2:11:33
  two ladies I have mentioned had approached, and the younger took the chair next
• 2:11:37
  my ward, while her companion stood by me, and for a little time
• 2:11:41
  addressed herself in low tone to her charge, availing herself of the privilege of
• 2:11:48
  her mask. She turned to me, and, in the tone of an
• 2:11:52
  old friend, and calling me by name, opened a conversation with me,
• 2:11:58
  which piqued my curiosity again. Deal she referred to many scenes where she had
• 2:12:03
  met me, at court and at distinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents
• 2:12:09
  which I had long ceased to think of, but which I found had only
• 2:12:13
  lain in abeyance in my memory, for they instantly started into life at her
• 2:12:18
  touch. I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was. Every
• 2:12:22
  moment she parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The knowledge she
• 2:12:30
  showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but unaccountable, and
• 2:12:35
  she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity and in seeing
• 2:12:39
  me flounder in my eager perplexity from one conjecture to another. In the meantime,
• 2:12:46
  the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name of Millarca,
• 2:12:52
  when she once or twice addressed her had with the same ease, and
• 2:12:56
  grace got into conversation with my ward. She introduced herself by saying that her
• 2:13:03
  mother was a very old acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity
• 2:13:07
  which a mask rendered practicable. She talked like a friend. She admired her
• 2:13:13
  dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused her
• 2:13:20
  with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ball room and laughed at my
• 2:13:24
  poor child's fun. She was very witty and lively when she pleased, and
• 2:13:31
  after a time they had grown very good friends. And the young stranger lowered
• 2:13:35
  her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it before,
• 2:13:41
  neither had my dear child, But though it was new to us,
• 2:13:46
  the features were so engaging as well as lovely, that it was impossible not
• 2:13:52
  to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl did so. I never saw
• 2:13:58
  any one taken with another at first sight, unless indeed it was the stranger
• 2:14:03
  herself, who seemed quite to have lost her heart to her. In the
• 2:14:11
  meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put not a
• 2:14:15
  few questions to the elder lady. You have puzzled me utterly, I said,
• 2:14:20
  laughing. Is that not enough? Won't you now consent to stand on
• 2:14:28
  equal terms and do me the kindness to remove your mask? Can any request
• 2:14:35
  be more unreasonable, she replied, ask a lady to yield an advantage.
• 2:14:41
  Besides, how do you know you should recognize me? Years make changes as
• 2:14:50
  you see, I said, with a bow. And I suppose a rather
• 2:14:54
  melancholy little laugh, as philosophers tell us, she said, And how do
• 2:15:01
  you know that a sight of my face would help you? I should take
• 2:15:05
  chance for that, I answered. It is vain trying to make yourself out
• 2:15:11
  an old woman. Your figure betrays you. Years nevertheless have passed since I
• 2:15:18
  saw you, rather since you saw me. For that is what I am
• 2:15:22
  considering. Millarca, there is my daughter. I cannot then be young,
• 2:15:28
  even in the opinion of people whom time has taught to be indulgent. And
• 2:15:33
  I may not like to be compared with what you remember me. You have
• 2:15:37
  no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange. My petition
• 2:15:43
  is to your pity to remove it, and mine to yours to let it
• 2:15:50
  stay where it is, She replied, Well, then at least you will
• 2:15:56
  tell me whether you are French or German. You speak both languge is so
• 2:16:00
  perfectly. I don't think I shall tell you that general, you intend a
• 2:16:05
  surprise and are meditating the particular point of attack at all events. You won't
• 2:16:13
  deny this. I said that, being honored by your permission to converse,
• 2:16:18
  I ought to know how to address you? Shall I say, Madame la
• 2:16:22
  comtesse? She laughed, and she would no doubt have met me with another
• 2:16:28
  evasion, If indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview, every
• 2:16:31
  circumstance of which was pre arranged, as I now believe with the profoundest cunning,
• 2:16:37
  as liable to be modified by accident. As to that, she began,
• 2:16:46
  But she was interrupted almost as she opened her lips by a gentleman dressed
• 2:16:52
  in black, who looked particularly elegant and distinguished with this drawback that his face
• 2:16:58
  was the most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was
• 2:17:03
  in no masquerade, in the plain evening dress of a gentleman. And he
• 2:17:09
  said, without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow,
• 2:17:15
  will Madame la comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may interest
• 2:17:18
  her. The lady turned quickly to him and touched her lip in a token
• 2:17:26
  of silence. She then said to me keep my place for me. General,
• 2:17:31
  I shall return when I have said a few words. And with this
• 2:17:37
  injunction playfully given, she walked a little aside with the gentleman in black and
• 2:17:43
  talked for some minutes, apparently very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together
• 2:17:48
  in the crowd, and I lost them for some minutes. I spent the
• 2:17:54
  interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the identity of the lady
• 2:17:58
  who seemed to remember me so kindly, And I was thinking of turning about
• 2:18:03
  and joining in the conversation between my pretty ward and the countess's daughter, and
• 2:18:07
  trying whether by the time she returned, I might not have a surprise in
• 2:18:11
  store for her by having her name, title, chateau and estates at my
• 2:18:16
  fingers ends. But at this moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man
• 2:18:22
  in black, who said, I shall return and inform Madame la comtesse when
• 2:18:28
  her carriage is at the door. He withdrew with a bow end of chapter
• 2:18:39
  eleven, Chapter twelve A petition. Then we are to lose Madame la comtesse.
• 2:18:50
  But I hope for only a few hours, I said, with a
• 2:18:54
  low bow. It may be that only, or it may be a few
• 2:18:58
  weeks. It was very unlucky his speaking to me just now as he did.
• 2:19:03
  Do you now know me? I assured her. I did not.
• 2:19:11
  You shall know me, she said, but not at present. We are
• 2:19:16
  older and better friends than perhaps you, suspect I cannot yet declare myself.
• 2:19:22
  I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I have been
• 2:19:26
  making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you for an hour or two
• 2:19:31
  and renew a friendship which I never think of without a thousand pleasant recollections.
• 2:19:37
  This moment, a piece of news has reached me like a thunderbolt. I
• 2:19:41
  must set out now and travel by a devious route nearly a hundred miles,
• 2:19:46
  with all the despatch that I can possibly make. My perplexities multiply. I
• 2:19:52
  am only deterred by the compulsory reserve I practice, as to my name,
• 2:19:56
  from making a very singular request of you. My poor child has not quite
• 2:20:01
  recovered her strength. Her horse fell with her at a hunt which she had
• 2:20:07
  ridden out to witness. Her nerves have not yet recovered the shock, and
• 2:20:11
  our physician says that she must on no account exert herself for some time to
• 2:20:16
  come. We came here in consequence by very easy stages, hardly six leagues
• 2:20:22
  a day. I must now travel day and night on a mission of life
• 2:20:28
  and death, a mission the critical and momentous nature of which I shall be
• 2:20:31
  able to explain to you when we meet, as I hope we shall in
• 2:20:35
  a few weeks, without the necessity of any concealment. She went on to
• 2:20:41
  make her petition, and it was in the tone of a person from whom
• 2:20:46
  such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seeking a favor. This was
• 2:20:52
  only in manner, and as it seemed quite unconsciously then the terms in which
• 2:20:58
  it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It was simply that I
• 2:21:03
  would consent to take charge of her daughter during her absence. This was,
• 2:21:09
  all things considered a strange, not to say, an audacious request. She
• 2:21:15
  in some sort disarmed me by stating and admitting everything that could be urged against
• 2:21:20
  it, and throwing herself entirely upon my chivalry. At the same moment,
• 2:21:28
  by a fatality that seemed to have predetermined all that happened, my poor child
• 2:21:33
  came to my side and, in an undertone, besought me to invite her
• 2:21:37
  new friend, Millarca to pay us a visit. She had just been sounding
• 2:21:41
  her and thought if her Mamma would allow her, she would like it extremely.
• 2:21:48
  At another time, I should have told her to wait a little until
• 2:21:52
  at least we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to
• 2:21:56
  think in the two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess, the
• 2:22:01
  refined and beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was something extremely
• 2:22:07
  engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me,
• 2:22:13
  and quite overpowered, I submitted and undertook too easily the care of the
• 2:22:18
  young lady, whom her mother called Millarca. The Countess beckoned to her daughter,
• 2:22:24
  who listened with grave attention, while she told her in general terms,
• 2:22:28
  how suddenly and peremptorily she had been summoned, and also of the arrangement she
• 2:22:33
  had made for her under my care, adding that I was one of her
• 2:22:37
  earliest and most valued friends. I made, of course, such speeches as
• 2:22:43
  the case seemed to call for, and found myself, on reflection in a
• 2:22:46
  position which I did not half like. The gentleman in black returned and very
• 2:22:52
  ceremoniously conducted the lady from the room. The demeanor of this gentleman was such
• 2:22:58
  as to impress me with the conviction that the Countess was a lady of very
• 2:23:03
  much more importance than her modest title alone might have led me to assume.
• 2:23:09
  Her last charge to me was that no attempt was to be made to learn
• 2:23:11
  more about her than I might have already guessed. Until her return. Our
• 2:23:16
  distinguished host, whose guest she was, knew her reasons. But here she
• 2:23:24
  said, neither I nor my daughter could safely remain for more than a day.
• 2:23:30
  I removed my mask imprudently for a moment about an hour ago, and
• 2:23:35
  too late I fancied you saw me, so I resolved to seek an opportunity
• 2:23:39
  of talking a little to you. Had I found out that you had seen
• 2:23:43
  me, I would have thrown myself on your high sense of honor to keep
• 2:23:48
  my secret some weeks. As it is, I am satisfied that you did
• 2:23:52
  not see me. But if you now suspect or on reflection, should suspect
• 2:23:58
  who I am. I commit myself in like manner entirely to your honor.
• 2:24:05
  My daughter will observe the same secrecy, and I well know that you will,
• 2:24:09
  from time to time remind her lest she should thoughtlessly disclose it. She
• 2:24:16
  whispered a few words to her daughter, kissed her hurriedly twice, and went
• 2:24:20
  away, accompanied by the pale gentleman in black, and disappeared in the crowd.
• 2:24:28
  In the next room, said Malarka, there is a window that looks
• 2:24:31
  upon the hall door. I should like to see the last of Mamma,
• 2:24:35
  and to kiss my hand to her. We assented, of course, and
• 2:24:41
  accompanied her to the window. We looked out and saw a handsome, old
• 2:24:46
  fashioned carriage with a troop of couriers and footmen. We saw the slim figure
• 2:24:50
  of the pale gentleman in black as he held a thick velvet cloak and placed
• 2:24:54
  it about her shoulders and threw the hood over her head. She nodded to
• 2:24:58
  him and just touched his hand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as the
• 2:25:05
  door closed and the carriage began to move. She is gone, said Malarka,
• 2:25:11
  with a sigh. She is gone. I repeated to myself for the
• 2:25:18
  first time in the hurried moments that had elapsed since my consent, reflecting upon
• 2:25:24
  the folly of my act. She did not look up, said the young
• 2:25:31
  lady plaintively. The Countess had taken off her mask, perhaps and did not
• 2:25:37
  care to show her face, I said, And she could not know that
• 2:25:41
  she were in the window. She sighed and looked in my face. She
• 2:25:46
  was so beautiful that I relented. I was sorry, I had, for
• 2:25:52
  a moment repented of my hospitality, and I determined to make her amends for
• 2:25:56
  the unavowed churlishness of my reception. The young lady, replacing her mask,
• 2:26:01
  joined my ward in persuading me to return to the grounds where the concert was
• 2:26:07
  soon to be renewed. We did so and walked up and down the terrace
• 2:26:11
  that lies under the castle windows. Millarka became very intimate with us and amused
• 2:26:18
  us with lively descriptions and stories of most of the great people whom we saw
• 2:26:22
  upon the terrace. I liked her more and more every minute. Her gossip,
• 2:26:28
  without being ill natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had been
• 2:26:31
  so long out of the great world. I thought, what life she would
• 2:26:37
  give to our sometimes lonely evenings at home. This ball was not over until
• 2:26:43
  the morning sun had almost reached the horizon. It pleased the Grand Duke to
• 2:26:48
  dance till then, so loyal people could not go away or think of bed.
• 2:26:54
  We had just got through a crowded saloon when my ward asked me what
• 2:26:58
  had become of Millarca. I thought she had been by her side, and
• 2:27:01
  she fancied she was by mine. The fact was we had lost her.
• 2:27:09
  All my efforts to find her were in vain. I feared that she had
• 2:27:13
  mistaken, in the confusion of a momentary separation from us other people for her
• 2:27:20
  new friends, and had possibly pursued and lost them in the extensive grounds which
• 2:27:24
  were thrown open to us. Now in its full force, I recognized a
• 2:27:31
  new folly in my having undertaken the charge of a young lady without so much
• 2:27:35
  as knowing her name, and fettered as I was by promises of the reasons
• 2:27:39
  for imposing which I knew nothing. I could not even point my inquiries by
• 2:27:43
  saying that the missing young lady was the daughter of the countess who had taken
• 2:27:48
  her departure in a few hours before morning broke. It was clear daylight before
• 2:27:56
  I gave up my search. It was not till near two o'clock next day
• 2:28:01
  that we heard anything of my missing charge. At about that time a servant
• 2:28:05
  knocked at my niece's door to say that he had been earnestly requested by a
• 2:28:09
  young lady who appeared to be in great distress to make out where she could
• 2:28:15
  find the General Baron Spielsdorf and the young lady his daughter in whose charge she
• 2:28:20
  had been left by her mother. There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the
• 2:28:24
  slight inaccuracy, that our young friend had turned up, and so she had
• 2:28:31
  would to heaven we had lost her. She told my poor child a story
• 2:28:37
  to account for her having failed to recover us for so long, very late.
• 2:28:41
  She said she had got to the housekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding us,
• 2:28:46
  and had then fallen into a deep sleep, which, long as it
• 2:28:50
  was, had hardly sufficed to recruit her strength. After the fatigues of the
• 2:28:54
  ball that day, Millarka came home with us. I was only too happy,
• 2:29:03
  after all, to have secured so charming a companion for my dear girl.
• 2:29:13
  End of Chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen, the woodman. There Soon,
• 2:29:22
  however, appeared some drawbacks. In the first place, Millarka complained of extreme
• 2:29:28
  languor the weakness that remained after her late illness, and she never emerged from
• 2:29:33
  her room till the afternoon was pretty far advanced. In the next place,
• 2:29:37
  it was accidentally discovered, although she always locked her door on the inside and
• 2:29:43
  never disturbed the key from its place till she admitted the maid to assist at
• 2:29:46
  her toilet, that she was undoubtedly sometimes absent from her room in the very
• 2:29:52
  early morning, and at various times later in the day before she wished it
• 2:29:56
  to be understood that she was stirring. She was repeatedly seen from the windows
• 2:30:01
  of the Schloss in the first faint gray of the morning, walking through the
• 2:30:05
  trees in an easterly direction and looking like a person in a trance. This
• 2:30:11
  convinced me that she walked in her sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve
• 2:30:16
  the puzzle. How did she pass out from her room leaving the door locked
• 2:30:22
  on the inside. How did she escape from the house without unbarring door or
• 2:30:26
  window. In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more
• 2:30:33
  urgent kind presented itself. My dear child began to lose her looks and health,
• 2:30:39
  and that in a manner so mysterious and even horrible, that I became
• 2:30:45
  thoroughly frightened. She was at first visited by appalling dreams. Then as she
• 2:30:50
  fancied by a specter, sometimes resembling millarca, sometimes in the shape of a
• 2:30:56
  beast, indistinctly seen walking round the foot of her bed from side to side.
• 2:31:01
  Lastly came sensations. One not unpleasant, but very peculiar, she said,
• 2:31:07
  resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast. At a later
• 2:31:13
  time, she felt something like a pair of large needles pierce her a little
• 2:31:16
  below the throat, with a very sharp pain. A few nights after followed
• 2:31:22
  a gradual and convulsive sense of strangulation. Then came unconsciousness. I could hear
• 2:31:31
  distinctly every word the kind old general was saying, because by this time we
• 2:31:35
  were driving upon the short grass that spreads on either side of the road as
• 2:31:39
  you approached the roofless village, which had not shown the smoke of a chimney
• 2:31:43
  for more than half a century. You may guess how strangely I felt as
• 2:31:48
  I heard my own symptoms so exactly described in those which had been experienced by
• 2:31:54
  the poor girl, who, but for the catastrophe which followed, would have
• 2:31:58
  been at that moment a visit her at my father's chateau. You may suppose
• 2:32:03
  also how I felt as I heard him detail habits and mysterious peculiarities which were
• 2:32:09
  in fact those of our beautiful guest Carmilla. A vista opened in the forest.
• 2:32:18
  We were on a sudden under the chimneys and gables of the ruined village,
• 2:32:22
  and the towers and battlements of the dismantled castle, round which gigantic trees
• 2:32:26
  are grouped overhung us from a slight eminence. In a frightened dream, I
• 2:32:31
  got down from the carriage and in silence, for we had each abundant matter
• 2:32:37
  for thinking. We soon mounted the ascent and were among the spacious chambers,
• 2:32:43
  winding stairs, and dark corridors of the castle. And this was once the
• 2:32:50
  palatial residence of the Carnsteins, said the old general at length, as from
• 2:32:56
  a great window he looked out across the village and saw the wide, ungj
• 2:33:00
  relating expanse of forest. It was a bad family, and here its blood
• 2:33:05
  stained annals were written, he continued, it is hard that they should,
• 2:33:11
  after death, continue to plague the human race with their atrocious lusts. That
• 2:33:18
  is the chapel of the Carnsteins. Down there, he pointed, down to
• 2:33:22
  the gray walls of the Gothic building, partly visible through the foliage a little
• 2:33:26
  way down the steep, and I hear the acts of a woodman, he
• 2:33:31
  added, busy among the trees that surround it. He possibly may give us
• 2:33:37
  the information of which I am in search, and point out the grave of
• 2:33:41
  Mercalla, Countess of Carnstein. These rustics preserve the local traditions of great families,
• 2:33:48
  whose stories die out among the rich and titled so soon as the families
• 2:33:52
  themselves become extinct. We have a portrait at home of Mrcalla, the Countess
• 2:33:58
  karneih Stein. Should you like to see it? Asked my father. Time
• 2:34:05
  enough, dear friend, replied the general, I believe that I have seen
• 2:34:11
  the original, And one motive which has led me to you earlier than I
• 2:34:15
  first intended, was to explore the chapel which we are now approaching. What
• 2:34:22
  see the Countess Mercalla, exclaimed my father. Why she has been dead more
• 2:34:26
  than a century, not so dead as you fancy, I am told,
• 2:34:33
  answered the general. I confess, General, you puzzle me, utterly,
• 2:34:39
  replied my father, looking at him. I fancied for a moment with a
• 2:34:43
  return of the suspicion I detected before. But although there was anger and detestation
• 2:34:48
  at times in the old General's manner, there was nothing flighty. There remains
• 2:34:56
  to me, he said, as we passed under the heavy arch of the
• 2:35:00
  Gothic church, for its dimensions would have justified its being so styled. But
• 2:35:05
  one object which can interest me during the few years that remained to me on
• 2:35:11
  earth, and that is to wreckon her the vengeance which I, thank God,
• 2:35:16
  may still be accomplished by a mortal man. What vengeance can you mean,
• 2:35:22
  asked my father, in increasing amazement. I mean to decapitate the monster,
• 2:35:30
  he answered, with a fierce flush and a stamp that echoed mournfully through
• 2:35:35
  the hollow ruin. And his clenched hand was at the same moment raised as
• 2:35:39
  if it grasped the handle of an axe, while he shook it ferociously in
• 2:35:43
  the air. What exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered, to strike
• 2:35:50
  her head off? Cut her head off? I with a hatchet, with
• 2:35:56
  a spade, or with anything that can cleave through her mind. Murderous throat,
• 2:36:01
  you shall hear, he answered, trembling with rage, and hurrying forward,
• 2:36:07
  he said that beam will answer for a seat. Your dear child is
• 2:36:13
  fatigued. Let her be seated, and I will, in a few sentences
• 2:36:18
  close my dreadful story. The squared block of wood, which lay on the
• 2:36:24
  grass grown pavement of the chapel, formed a bench on which I was very
• 2:36:28
  glad to seat myself. And in the meantime the General called to the woodman,
• 2:36:33
  who had been removing some boughs which leaned upon the old walls, and
• 2:36:37
  axe in hand. The hearty old fellow stood before us. He could not
• 2:36:41
  tell us anything of these monuments. But there was an old man, he
• 2:36:45
  said, a ranger of this forest at present sojourning in the house of the
• 2:36:50
  priest, about two miles away, who could point out every monument of the
• 2:36:54
  old Carnstein family. And for a trifle he undertook to bring him back with
• 2:36:58
  him if we would lend him one of our horses. In little more than
• 2:37:01
  half an hour. Have you been long employed about this forest, asked my
• 2:37:07
  father of the old man. I have been a woodman here, he answered,
• 2:37:13
  in his patois under the forester all my days, so has my father
• 2:37:18
  before me, and so on as many generations as I can count up,
• 2:37:22
  I could show you the very house in the village here in which my ancestors
• 2:37:26
  live. How came the village to be deserted? Asked the general. It
• 2:37:33
  was troubled by revenance, Sir. Several were tracked to their graves there,
• 2:37:39
  detected by the usual tests, and extinguished in the usual way by decapitation by
• 2:37:43
  the stake and by burning. But not until many of the villagers were killed.
• 2:37:50
  But after all these proceedings according to law, he continued. So many
• 2:37:54
  graves opened, and so many vampires deprived of their horrible animation. The ville
• 2:38:00
  village was not relieved. But a Moravian nobleman who happened to be traveling this
• 2:38:05
  way heard how matters were, and, being skilled as many people are in
• 2:38:09
  his country in such affairs, he offered to deliver the village from its tormentor
• 2:38:15
  He did so thus, there being a bright moon that night, he ascended
• 2:38:20
  shortly after sunset the towers of the chapel here, from whence he could distinctly
• 2:38:24
  see the churchyard beneath him. You can see it from that window. From
• 2:38:30
  this point, he watched until he saw the vampire come out of his grave
• 2:38:33
  and placed near it the linen clothes in which he had been folded, and
• 2:38:37
  then glide away towards the village to plague its inhabitants. The stranger, having
• 2:38:43
  seen all this, came down from the steeple, took the linen wrappings of
• 2:38:46
  the vampire, and carried them up to the top of the tower, which
• 2:38:50
  he again mounted. When the vampire returned from his prowlings and missed his clothes,
• 2:38:56
  he cried furiously to the Moravian, whom he saw at the summit of
• 2:39:00
  the tower, and who in reply beckoned him to ascend and take them.
• 2:39:05
  Whereupon the vampire, accepting his invitation, began to climb the steeple, and
• 2:39:09
  so soon as he had reached the battlements, the Moravian, with a stroke
• 2:39:13
  of his sword, clove his skull and twain, hurling him down to the
• 2:39:16
  churchyard, whither descending by the winding stairs. The stranger followed and cut his
• 2:39:22
  head off, and next day delivered it and the body to the villagers,
• 2:39:26
  who duly impaled and burnt them this Moravian nobleman had authority from the then head
• 2:39:33
  of the family to remove the tomb of Mercalla, Countess Carnstein, which he
• 2:39:39
  did effectually, so that in a little while its sight was quite forgotten.
• 2:39:45
  Can you point out where it stood? Asked the general eagerly. The forester
• 2:39:50
  shook his head and smiled. Not a soul living can tell you that,
• 2:39:54
  now, he said. Besides, they say her body was removed, but
• 2:40:00
  no one is sure of that either. Having thus spoken, as time pressed,
• 2:40:07
  he dropped his axe and departed, leaving us to hear the remainder of
• 2:40:11
  the General's strange story. End of chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen. The meeting
• 2:40:28
  my beloved child, he resumed, was now growing rapidly worse. The physician
• 2:40:33
  who attended her had failed to produce the slightest impression on her disease. For
• 2:40:37
  such I then supposed it to be. He saw my alarm and suggested a
• 2:40:43
  consultation. I called in an abler physician from Grots. Several days elapsed before
• 2:40:50
  he arrived. He was a good and pious as well as a learned man.
• 2:40:56
  Having seen my poor ward, together they withdrew to my library to confer
• 2:41:00
  and discuss. I from the adjoining room, where I awaited their summons,
• 2:41:05
  heard these two gentlemen's voices raised in something sharper than a strictly philosophical discussion.
• 2:41:11
  I knocked at the door and entered. I found the old physician from Grots
• 2:41:16
  maintaining his theory. His rival was combating it with undisguised ridicule, accompanied with
• 2:41:22
  bursts of laughter. This unseemly manifestation subsided, and the altercation ended on my
• 2:41:28
  entrance, Sir, said my first physician, my learned brother seems to think
• 2:41:35
  that you want a conjuror and not a doctor. Pardon me, said the
• 2:41:41
  old physician from Grot's, looking displeased. I shall state my own view of
• 2:41:46
  the case in my own way another time. I grieve, monsieur le General,
• 2:41:50
  that by my skill and science, I can be of no use.
• 2:41:54
  Before I go, I shall do myself the honor to suggest something to you.
• 2:42:01
  He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write.
• 2:42:05
  Profoundly disappointed, I made my bow, and as I turned to go,
• 2:42:09
  the other doctor pointed over his shoulder to his companion who was writing,
• 2:42:15
  and then, with a shrug, significantly touched his forehead. This consultation then
• 2:42:20
  left me precisely where I was. I walked out into the grounds, all
• 2:42:24
  but distracted the doctor from grots In ten or fifteen minutes overtook me. He
• 2:42:31
  apologized for having followed me, but said that he could not conscientiously take his
• 2:42:35
  leave without a few words more. He told me that he could not be
• 2:42:39
  mistaken. No natural disease exhibited the same symptoms, and that death was already
• 2:42:45
  very near. There remained, however, a day or possibly two of life.
• 2:42:50
  If the fatal seizure were at once arrested with great care and skill,
• 2:42:54
  her strength might possibly return. But all hung now upon the cocks of the
• 2:43:00
  irrevocable. One more assault might extinguish the last spark of vitality, which is
• 2:43:07
  every moment ready to die. And what is the nature of the seizure you
• 2:43:13
  speak of? I entreated? I have stated all fully in this note which
• 2:43:18
  I place in your hands, upon the distinct condition that you send for the
• 2:43:22
  nearest clergyman and open my letter in his presence, and on no account read
• 2:43:28
  it till he is with you. You would despise it else. And it
• 2:43:31
  is a matter of life and death. Should the priest fail you, then,
• 2:43:35
  indeed you may read it, He asked me, before taking his leave,
• 2:43:41
  finally, whether I would wish to see a man curiously learned upon the
• 2:43:45
  very subject which, after I had read his letter, would probably interest me
• 2:43:48
  above all others. And he urged me earnestly to invite him to visit him
• 2:43:52
  there, and so took his leave. The ecclesiastic was absent, and I
• 2:44:00
  read the letter by myself at another time, or in another case it might
• 2:44:03
  have excited my ridicule. But into what quackeries will not people rush for a
• 2:44:09
  last chance, where all accustomed means have failed, and the life of a
• 2:44:13
  beloved object is at stake. Nothing you will say could be more absurd than
• 2:44:20
  the learned man's letter. It was monstrous enough to have consigned him to a
• 2:44:24
  madhouse. He said that the patient was suffering from the visits of a vampire.
• 2:44:31
  The punctures which she described as having occurred near the throat were he insisted,
• 2:44:35
  the insertion of those two long, thin and sharp teeth, which it
• 2:44:39
  is well known are peculiar to vampires. And there could be no doubt,
• 2:44:45
  he added, as to the well defined presence of the small livid mark which
• 2:44:48
  all concurred in describing as that induced by the demon's lips, and every symptom
• 2:44:54
  described by the sufferer was an exact conformity with those recorded in every case of
• 2:45:00
  a similar visitation. Being myself wholly skeptical as to the existence of any such
• 2:45:05
  portent as the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good Doctor furnished, in
• 2:45:11
  my opinion, but another instance of learning and intelligence oddly associated with some one
• 2:45:16
  hallucination. I was so miserable, however, that rather than try nothing,
• 2:45:22
  I acted upon the instructions of the letter. I concealed myself from the dark
• 2:45:28
  dressing room that opened upon the poor patient's room, in which a candle was
• 2:45:33
  burning, and watched there till she was fast asleep. I stood at the
• 2:45:37
  door, peeping through the small crevice, my sword laid on the table beside
• 2:45:41
  me, as my directions prescribed, until a little after one I saw a
• 2:45:46
  large black object, very ill defined, crawl, as it seemed to me,
• 2:45:52
  over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the
• 2:45:56
  poor girl's throat, where it swelled in a moment into a great palpitating mass.
• 2:46:03
  For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now sprang forward with
• 2:46:07
  my sword in my hand. The black creature suddenly contracted towards the foot of
• 2:46:11
  the bed, glided over it, and standing on the floor about a yard
• 2:46:16
  below the foot of the bed, with a glare of skulking vorocity and horror
• 2:46:20
  fixed on me. I saw Milarka speculating. I know not what. I
• 2:46:26
  struck at her instantly with my sword, but I saw her standing near the
• 2:46:30
  door, unscathed. Horrified, I pursued and struck again. She was gone,
• 2:46:37
  and my sword flew to shivers against the door. I can't describe to
• 2:46:43
  you all that passed on that horrible night. The whole house was up and
• 2:46:46
  stirring. The specter. Malarka was gone, but her victim was sinking fast,
• 2:46:54
  and before the morning dawned she died. The old general was agitated.
• 2:47:01
  We did not speak to him. My father walked to some little distance and
• 2:47:07
  began reading the inscriptions on the tombstones, and thus occupied, he strolled into
• 2:47:11
  the door of a side chapel to prosecute his researches. The General leaned against
• 2:47:16
  the wall, dried his eyes, and sighed heavily. I was relieved on
• 2:47:22
  hearing the voices of Carmila and Madame, who were at that moment approaching the
• 2:47:28
  voices, died away in this solitude, having just listened to so strange a
• 2:47:33
  story, connected as it was, with the great and titled dead, whose
• 2:47:37
  monuments were moldering among the dust and ivy around us, and every instant of
• 2:47:43
  which bore so awfully upon my own mysterious case. In this haunted spot,
• 2:47:48
  darkened by the towering foliage that rose on every side, dense and high above
• 2:47:54
  its noiseless walls, a horror began to steal over me, and my heart
• 2:47:58
  sank as I thought that my friends were, after all, not about to
• 2:48:03
  enter and disturb this trieste and ominous scene. The old General's eyes were fixed
• 2:48:09
  on the ground as he leaned with his hand upon the basement of a shattered
• 2:48:13
  monument under a narrow arched doorway, surmounted by one of those demonical grotesques in
• 2:48:20
  which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carving delights. I saw very
• 2:48:26
  gladly the beautiful face and figure of Carmilla entering the shadowy chapel. I was
• 2:48:33
  just about to rise and speak, and nodded, smiling in answer to her
• 2:48:37
  peculiarly engaging smile, when with a cry, the old man by my side
• 2:48:43
  caught up the woodman's hatchet and started forward. On seeing him, a brutalized
• 2:48:48
  change came over her features. It was an instantaneous and horrible transformation. As
• 2:48:54
  she made a crouching step backwards. Before I could utter a scream, he
• 2:48:58
  struck at her with all his force, but she dived under his blow and,
• 2:49:03
  unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the wrist. He struggled
• 2:49:07
  for a moment to release his arm, but his hand opened, The axe
• 2:49:11
  fell to the ground, and the girl was gone. He staggered against the
• 2:49:18
  wall. His gray hair stood upon his head, and a moisture shone over
• 2:49:22
  his face, as if he were at the point of death. The frightful
• 2:49:26
  scene had passed in a moment. The first thing I recollect after is Madame
• 2:49:31
  standing before me and impatiently repeating again and again the question, where is Mademoiselle
• 2:49:37
  Carmella. I answered at length, I don't know. I can't tell she
• 2:49:43
  went there, and I pointed to the door through which Madame had just entered
• 2:49:48
  only a minute or two since. But I have been standing there in the
• 2:49:54
  passage ever since Mademoiselle Carmella entered, and she did not return. She then
• 2:50:00
  began to call Carmilla through every door and passage and from the windows, but
• 2:50:05
  no answer came. She called herself. Carmilla asked the General, still agitated
• 2:50:13
  Carmilla, Yes, I answered ay. He said, that is Millarca.
• 2:50:22
  That is the same person who long ago was called Mercalla, Countess Carnstein.
• 2:50:28
  Depart from this accursed ground, my poor child, as quickly as you can.
• 2:50:33
  Drive to the clergyman's house and stay there till we come. Be gone.
• 2:50:37
  May you never behold Carmilla more. You will not find her here.
• 2:50:48
  End of Chapter fourteen. Chapter fifteen, Ordeal and Execution. As he spoke,
• 2:50:58
  one of the strangest looking men I ever beheld entered the chapel at the
• 2:51:01
  door through which Carmila had made her entrance in her exit. He was tall,
• 2:51:07
  narrow chested, stooping, with high shoulders, and dressed in black.
• 2:51:11
  His face was brown and dried in with deep furrows. He wore an oddly
• 2:51:18
  shaped hat with a broad leaf. His hair, long and grizzled, hung
• 2:51:22
  on his shoulders. He wore a pair of gold spectacles and walked slowly with
• 2:51:28
  an odd shambling gait, with his face sometimes turned up to the sky and
• 2:51:33
  sometimes bowed down towards the ground. Seemed to wear a perpetual smile. His
• 2:51:39
  long, thin arms were swinging, and his lank hands in old black gloves
• 2:51:46
  ever so much too wide for them, waving and gesticulating in utter abstraction.
• 2:51:52
  The very man exclaimed the general, advancing with manifest delight, my dear Baron,
• 2:51:58
  how happy I am to see you. I had no hope of meeting
• 2:52:01
  you so soon. He signed to my father, who had by this time
• 2:52:07
  returned and leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he called the baron to meet
• 2:52:11
  him. He introduced him formally, and they at once entered into earnest conversation.
• 2:52:18
  The stranger took a roll of paper from his pocket and spread it on
• 2:52:22
  the worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a pencil case
• 2:52:26
  in his fingers, with which he traced imaginary lines from point to point on
• 2:52:31
  the paper, which, from their often glancing from it together at certain points
• 2:52:35
  of the building I concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He accompanied
• 2:52:41
  what I may term his lecture with occasional readings from a dirty little book,
• 2:52:46
  whose yellow leaves were closely written over. They sauntered together down the side aisle
• 2:52:52
  opposite to the spot where I was standing, conversing as they went. Then
• 2:52:58
  they began measuring distances by pay, And finally they all stood together facing a
• 2:53:03
  piece of the side wall, which they began to examine with great minuteness,
• 2:53:07
  pulling off the ivy that clung over it and wrapping the plaster with the ends
• 2:53:13
  of their sticks, Scraping here and knocking there. At length they ascertained the
• 2:53:18
  existence of a broad marble tablet with letters carved in relief upon it, with
• 2:53:24
  the assistance of the woodman, who soon returned, a monumental inscription and carved
• 2:53:30
  escutcheon were disclosed. They proved to be those of the long lost monument of
• 2:53:37
  Mercalla, Countess Carnstein. The old General, though not I fear given to
• 2:53:43
  the praying mood, raised his hands and eyes to Heaven in mute thanksgiving for
• 2:53:48
  some moments tomorrow. I heard him say, the Commissioner will be here,
• 2:53:56
  and the inquisition will be held according to law. Then, turning to the
• 2:54:01
  old man with the gold spectacles whom I have described, he shook him warmly
• 2:54:05
  by both hands, and said, Baron, how can I thank you?
• 2:54:09
  How can we all thank you? You will have delivered this region from a
• 2:54:13
  plague that has scourged its inhabitants for more than a century. The horrible enemy,
• 2:54:18
  thank god, is at last tracked. My father led the stranger aside,
• 2:54:26
  and the general followed. I know that he had led them out of
• 2:54:28
  hearing that he might relate my case, and I saw them glance often quickly
• 2:54:33
  at me. As the discussion proceeded. My father came to me, kissed
• 2:54:39
  me again and again, and, leading me from the chapel, said it
• 2:54:43
  is time to return. But before we go home, we must add to
• 2:54:48
  our party the good priest, who lives but a little way from this,
• 2:54:52
  and persuade him to accompany us to the Schloss. In this quest, we
• 2:54:56
  were successful, and I was glad, being unspeakably fatigued when we reached home,
• 2:55:03
  But my satisfaction was changed to dismay on discovering that there were no tidings
• 2:55:07
  of Carmilla of the scene that had occurred in the ruined chapel. No explanation
• 2:55:13
  was offered to me, and it was clear that it was a secret which
• 2:55:16
  my father for the present determined to keep from me. The sinister absence of
• 2:55:22
  Carmilla made the remembrance of the scene more horrible to me. The arrangements for
• 2:55:28
  the night were singular. Two servants and madame were to sit up in my
• 2:55:31
  room that night, and the ecclesiastic, with my father, kept watch in
• 2:55:35
  the adjoining dressing room. The priest had performed certain solemn rites that night,
• 2:55:41
  the purport of which I did not understand any more than I comprehended. The
• 2:55:45
  reason of this extraordinary precaution taken from my safety during sleep, I saw all
• 2:55:52
  clearly. A few days later, the disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the
• 2:55:58
  discontinuance of my nightly sufferings. You have heard no doubt of the appalling superstition
• 2:56:05
  that prevails in Upper and Lower Steria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish
• 2:56:11
  Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia. The superstition, so we must
• 2:56:16
  call it, of the vampire. If human testimony taken with every care and
• 2:56:24
  solemnity, judicially before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, all chosen
• 2:56:31
  for integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports more voluminous, perhaps than exist upon
• 2:56:35
  any one other class of cases is worth anything, it is difficult to deny
• 2:56:41
  or even to doubt the existence of such a phenomenon as the vampire. For
• 2:56:46
  my part, I have heard no theory by which to explain what I myself
• 2:56:52
  have witnessed and experienced, other than that supplied by the ancient and well attested
• 2:56:56
  belief of the country. Day the formal proceedings took place in the chapel of
• 2:57:01
  Caernstein. The grave of the Countess Mercalla was opened, and the General and
• 2:57:09
  my father recognized each his perfidious and beautiful guest in the face now disclosed to
• 2:57:13
  view. The features, though a hundred and fifty years had passed since her
• 2:57:20
  funeral, were tinted with the warmth of life. Her eyes were open.
• 2:57:26
  No cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The two medical men, one officially
• 2:57:31
  present, the other on the part of the promoter of the inquiry, attested
• 2:57:35
  the marvelous fact that there was a faint but appreciable respiration and a corresponding action
• 2:57:41
  of the heart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic, and
• 2:57:50
  the leaden coffin floated with blood. In which to a depth of seven inches
• 2:57:56
  the body lay. Immersed Here then were all the admitted signs and proofs of
• 2:58:03
  vamporism. The body, therefore, in accordance with the ancient practice, was
• 2:58:07
  raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who
• 2:58:13
  uttered a piercing shriek at the moment in all respects such as might escape from
• 2:58:16
  a living person. In the last agony. Then the head was struck off,
• 2:58:22
  and a torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and
• 2:58:26
  head was next placed on a pile of wood and reduced to ashes, which
• 2:58:31
  were thrown upon the river and borne away. And that territory has never since
• 2:58:37
  been plagued by the visits of a vampire. My father has a copy of
• 2:58:43
  the report of the Imperial Commission, with the signatures of all who were present
• 2:58:46
  at these proceedings attached in verification of the statement. It is from this official
• 2:58:52
  paper that I have summarized my account of this last shocking scene. End of
• 2:59:05
  Chapter fifteen, Chapter sixteen conclusion. I write all this, you suppose,
• 2:59:16
  with composure, but far from it. I cannot think of it without agitation.
• 2:59:24
  Nothing but your earnest desire. So repeatedly expressed, could have induced me
• 2:59:28
  to sit down to a task that has unstrung my nerves for months to come
• 2:59:33
  and reinduced a shadow of the unspeakable horror, which, years after my deliverance,
• 2:59:39
  continued to make my days and nights dreadful and solitude insupportably terrific. Let
• 2:59:46
  me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to whose curious
• 2:59:50
  lore we were indebted for the discovery of the Countess Mercalla's grave. He had
• 2:59:56
  taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere pittance,
• 3:00:01
  which was all that remained to him of the once princely estates of his family
• 3:00:05
  in Upper Steria, he devoted himself to the minute and laborious investigation of the
• 3:00:11
  marvelously authenticated tradition of vamporism. He had at his fingers ends all the great
• 3:00:18
  and little works upon the subject Magia Postuma, Phlagon, de Mirabilibus, Augustinus
• 3:00:26
  de Cura pro Mortuis, Philosophice et Cristiane, Cogitacionis de Vampiris by John Christopher
• 3:00:35
  Herenberg, and a thousand others, among which I remember only a few of
• 3:00:41
  those which he lent to my father. He had of a luminous digest of
• 3:00:46
  all the judicial cases from which he had extracted a system of principles that appear
• 3:00:50
  to govern some always and others occasionally only the condition of the vampire. I
• 3:00:58
  may mention in passing that the deadly pallor attributed to that sort of revenance is
• 3:01:05
  a mere melodramatic fiction. They present in the grave, and when they show
• 3:01:09
  themselves in human society the appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to light in
• 3:01:16
  their coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms that are enumerated as those which prove
• 3:01:22
  the vampire life of the long dead Countess Carnstein. How they escape from their
• 3:01:28
  graves and return to them for certain hours every day without displacing the clay or
• 3:01:33
  leaving any trace of disturbance in the state of the coffin or the cerements,
• 3:01:37
  has always been admitted to be utterly inexplicable. The amphibious existence of the vampire
• 3:01:45
  is sustained by daily renewed slumber in the grave. Its horrible lust for living
• 3:01:50
  blood supplies the vigor of its waking existence. The vampire is prone to be
• 3:01:56
  fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love by particular persons.
• 3:02:01
  In pursuit of these, it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem for access to
• 3:02:09
  a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never desist
• 3:02:15
  until it has satiated its passion and drained the very life of its coveted victim.
• 3:02:22
  But it will in these cases husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the
• 3:02:28
  refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful
• 3:02:31
  courtship. In these cases, it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and
• 3:02:39
  consent. In ordinary ones, it goes direct to its object, overpowers with
• 3:02:46
  violence and strangles, and exhausts, often at a single feast. The vampire
• 3:02:52
  is apparently subject in certain situations to special conditions. In the particular instance of
• 3:03:00
  which I have given you a relation, Mercalla seemed to be limited to a
• 3:03:05
  name which, if not her real one, should at least reproduce without the
• 3:03:09
  omission or edition of a single letter, those, as we say anagrammatically,
• 3:03:15
  which compose it. Carmilla did this, so did Millarca. My father related
• 3:03:22
  to the Baron Vordenburg, who remained with us for two or three weeks after
• 3:03:26
  the expulsion of Carmila the story about the Moravian nobleman and the vampire at Carnstein
• 3:03:33
  churchyard. And then he asked the Baron how he had discovered the exact position
• 3:03:37
  of the long concealed tomb of the Countess Mercala. The Baron's grotesque features puckered
• 3:03:43
  up into a mysterious smile. He looked down, still smiling, on his
• 3:03:48
  worn spectacle case and fumbled with it. Then, looking up, he said,
• 3:03:54
  I have many journals and other papers written by that remarkable man. The
• 3:04:01
  most curious among them is one treating of the visit of which you speak to
• 3:04:05
  Carnstein. The tradition, of course, discolors and distorts a little. He
• 3:04:09
  might have been termed a Moravian nobleman, for he had changed his abode to
• 3:04:13
  that territory, and was besides a noble, But he was in truth a
• 3:04:20
  native of Upper Steria. It is enough to say that in very early youth
• 3:04:24
  he had been a passionate and favored lover of the beautiful Mercala, Countess Carnstein.
• 3:04:30
  Her early death plunged him into inconsolable grief. It is the nature of
• 3:04:35
  vampires to increase and multiply. But according to an ascertained and ghostly law,
• 3:04:43
  assume at starting a territory perfectly free from that pest. How does it begin
• 3:04:48
  and how does it multiply itself? I will tell you. A person more
• 3:04:54
  or less wicked puts an end to himself a suicide under certain so circumstances,
• 3:05:00
  becomes a vampire. That specter visits living people and their slumbers, they die,
• 3:05:07
  and almost invariably in the grave, develop into vampires. This happened in
• 3:05:11
  the case of the beautiful Mercala, who was haunted by one of those demons.
• 3:05:18
  My ancestor Vordenburg, whose title I still bear, soon discovered this,
• 3:05:22
  and, in the course of the studies to which he devoted himself, learned
• 3:05:26
  a great deal more. Among other things, he concluded that suspicion of vamporism
• 3:05:33
  would probably fall sooner or later upon the dead countess, who in life had
• 3:05:37
  been his idol. He conceived a horror be she what she might of her
• 3:05:43
  remains being profaned by the outrage of a posthumous execution. He has left a
• 3:05:48
  curious paper to prove that the vampire, on its expulsion from its amphibious existence,
• 3:05:56
  is projected into a far more horrible life, and he resolved to save
• 3:06:00
  his once beloved Mercala from this. He adopted the stratagem of a journey here,
• 3:06:07
  a pretended removal of her remains and a real obliteration of her monument.
• 3:06:13
  When age had stolen upon him, and from the veil of years, he
• 3:06:18
  looked back on the scenes he was leaving. He considered in a different spirit
• 3:06:22
  what he had done, and a horror took possession of him. He made
• 3:06:28
  the tracings and notes which have guided me to the very spot, and drew
• 3:06:31
  up a confession of the deception that he had practiced. If he had intended
• 3:06:37
  any further action in this matter, death prevented him, and the hand of
• 3:06:41
  a remote descendant has, too late for many, directed the pursuit to the
• 3:06:48
  lair of the beast. We talked a little more, and among other things
• 3:06:54
  he said, was this. One sign of the vampire is the power of
• 3:06:58
  the hand. The slender hand of Mercalla closed like a vice of steel on
• 3:07:05
  the General's wrist when he raised the hatchet to strike. But its power is
• 3:07:09
  not confined to its grasp. It leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes,
• 3:07:16
  which is slowly, if ever, recovered. From the following spring,
• 3:07:22
  my father took me on a tour through Italy. We remained away for more
• 3:07:26
  than a year. It was long before the terror of recent events subsided,
• 3:07:31
  And to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alternations.
• 3:07:37
  Sometimes the playful, languid beautiful girl, sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in
• 3:07:45
  the ruined church, and often from a reverie I have started fancying I heard
• 3:07:52
  the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door. End of Carmilla by
• 3:08:05
  Jay Sheridan Lafanu