CARMILLA

J. Sheridan LeFanu

1872

PROLOGUE

_Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which follows, Doctor Hesseliushas written a rather elaborate note, which he accompanies with areference to his Essay on the strange subject which the MS. Illuminates. 

This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay, with his usuallearning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. Itwill form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man'scollected papers. 

As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to interest the "laity, " Ishall forestall the intelligent lady, who relates it, in nothing; andafter due consideration, I have determined, therefore, to abstain frompresenting any précis of the learned Doctor's reasoning, or extract fromhis statement on a subject which he describes as "involving, notimprobably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence, andits intermediates. "

I was anxious on discovering this paper, to reopen the correspondencecommenced by Doctor Hesselius, so many years before, with a person soclever and careful as his informant seems to have been. Much to myregret, however, I found that she had died in the interval. 

She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative _which shecommunicates in the following pages, with, so far as I can pronounce, such conscientious particularity_. 

I

_An Early Fright_

In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A small income, in that part of the world, goes a great way. Eight or nine hundred a year does wonders. Scantily enough ours wouldhave answered among wealthy people at home. My father is English, and Ibear an English name, although I never saw England. But here, in thislonely and primitive place, where everything is so marvelously cheap, Ireally don't see how ever so much more money would at all materially addto our comforts, or even luxuries. 

My father was in the Austrian service, and retired upon a pension andhis patrimony, and purchased this feudal residence, and the small estateon which it stands, a bargain. 

Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It stands on a slighteminence in a forest. The road, very old and narrow, passes in front ofits drawbridge, never raised in my time, and its moat, stocked withperch, and sailed over by many swans, and floating on its surface whitefleets of water lilies. 

Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, and its Gothic chapel. 

The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before itsgate, and at the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over astream that winds in deep shadow through the wood. I have said that thisis a very lonely place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the halldoor towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands extendsfifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the left. The nearestinhabited village is about seven of your English miles to the left. Thenearest inhabited schloss of any historic associations, is that of oldGeneral Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to the right. 

I have said "the nearest _inhabited_ village, " because there is, onlythree miles westward, that is to say in the direction of GeneralSpielsdorf's schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proudfamily of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolatechateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruinsof the town. 

Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholyspot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. 

I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute theinhabitants of our castle. I don't include servants, or those dependentswho occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss. Listen, andwonder! My father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; andI, at the date of my story, only nineteen. Eight years have passedsince then. 

I and my father constituted the family at the schloss. My mother, aStyrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who had been with me from, I might almost say, my infancy. I could notremember the time when her fat, benignant face was not a familiarpicture in my memory. 

This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care and good naturenow in part supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not evenremember, so early I lost her. She made a third at our little dinnerparty. There was a fourth, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a lady such asyou term, I believe, a "finishing governess. " She spoke French andGerman, Madame Perrodon French and broken English, to which my fatherand I added English, which, partly to prevent its becoming a lostlanguage among us, and partly from patriotic motives, we spoke everyday. The consequence was a Babel, at which strangers used to laugh, andwhich I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this narrative. And therewere two or three young lady friends besides, pretty nearly of my ownage, who were occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms; andthese visits I sometimes returned. 

These were our regular social resources; but of course there were chancevisits from "neighbors" of only five or six leagues distance. My lifewas, notwithstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you. 

My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you might conjecturesuch sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whoseonly parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything. 

The first occurrence in my existence, which produced a terribleimpression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced, was oneof the very earliest incidents of my life which I can recollect. Somepeople will think it so trifling that it should not be recorded here. You will see, however, by-and-by, why I mention it. The nursery, as itwas called, though I had it all to myself, was a large room in the upperstory of the castle, with a steep oak roof. I can't have been more thansix years old, when one night I awoke, and looking round the room frommy bed, failed to see the nursery maid. Neither was my nurse there; andI thought myself alone. I was not frightened, for I was one of thosehappy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, offairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads whenthe door cracks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes theshadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces. I wasvexed and insulted at finding myself, as I conceived, neglected, and Ibegan to whimper, preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring; when to mysurprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from theside of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling, with herhands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay downbeside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I feltimmediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakenedby a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at thesame moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyesfixed on me, and then slipped down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself under the bed. 

I was now for the first time frightened, and I yelled with all my mightand main. Nurse, nursery maid, housekeeper, all came running in, andhearing my story, they made light of it, soothing me all they couldmeanwhile. But, child as I was, I could perceive that their faces werepale with an unwonted look of anxiety, and I saw them look under thebed, and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck open cupboards;and the housekeeper whispered to the nurse: "Lay your hand along thathollow in the bed; someone _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; theplace is still warm. "

I remember the nursery maid petting me, and all three examining mychest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that therewas no sign visible that any such thing had happened to me. 

The housekeeper and the two other servants who were in charge of thenursery, remained sitting up all night; and from that time a servantalways sat up in the nursery until I was about fourteen. 

I was very nervous for a long time after this. A doctor was called in, he was pallid and elderly. How well I remember his long saturnine face, slightly pitted with smallpox, and his chestnut wig. For a good while, every second day, he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. 

The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of terror, andcould not bear to be left alone, daylight though it was, for a moment. 

I remember my father coming up and standing at the bedside, and talkingcheerfully, and asking the nurse a number of questions, and laughingvery heartily at one of the answers; and patting me on the shoulder, andkissing me, and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing buta dream and could not hurt me. 

But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was_not_ a dream; and I was _awfully_ frightened. 

I was a little consoled by the nursery maid's assuring me that it wasshe who had come and looked at me, and lain down beside me in the bed, and that I must have been half-dreaming not to have known her face. Butthis, though supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy me. 

I remembered, in the course of that day, a venerable old man, in a blackcassock, coming into the room with the nurse and housekeeper, andtalking a little to them, and very kindly to me; his face was very sweetand gentle, and he told me they were going to pray, and joined my handstogether, and desired me to say, softly, while they were praying, "Lordhear all good prayers for us, for Jesus' sake. " I think these were thevery words, for I often repeated them to myself, and my nurse used foryears to make me say them in my prayers. 

I remembered so well the thoughtful sweet face of that white-haired oldman, in his black cassock, as he stood in that rude, lofty, brown room, with the clumsy furniture of a fashion three hundred years old abouthim, and the scanty light entering its shadowy atmosphere through thesmall lattice. He kneeled, and the three women with him, and he prayedaloud with an earnest quavering voice for, what appeared to me, a longtime. I forget all my life preceding that event, and for some time afterit is all obscure also, but the scenes I have just described stand outvivid as the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria surroundedby darkness. 

II

_A Guest_

I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require allyour faith in my veracity to believe my story. It is not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an eyewitness. 

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimesdid, to take a little ramble with him along that beautiful forest vistawhich I have mentioned as lying in front of the schloss. 

"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped, " said myfather, as we pursued our walk. 

He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected hisarrival next day. He was to have brought with him a young lady, hisniece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had never seen, but whomI had heard described as a very charming girl, and in whose society Ihad promised myself many happy days. I was more disappointed than ayoung lady living in a town, or a bustling neighborhood can possiblyimagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised, had furnishedmy day dream for many weeks. 

"And how soon does he come?" I asked. 

"Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say, " he answered. "And Iam very glad now, dear, that you never knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt. "

"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious. 

"Because the poor young lady is dead, " he replied. "I quite forgot I hadnot told you, but you were not in the room when I received the General'sletter this evening. "

I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his firstletter, six or seven weeks before, that she was not so well as he wouldwish her, but there was nothing to suggest the remotest suspicionof danger. 

"Here is the General's letter, " he said, handing it to me. "I am afraidhe is in great affliction; the letter appears to me to have been writtenvery nearly in distraction. "

We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendor behind the sylvanhorizon, and the stream that flows beside our home, and passes under thesteep old bridge I have mentioned, wound through many a group of nobletrees, almost at our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimsonof the sky. General Spielsdorf's letter was so extraordinary, sovehement, and in some places so self-contradictory, that I read it twiceover--the second time aloud to my father--and was still unable toaccount for it, except by supposing that grief had unsettled his mind. 

It said "I have lost my darling daughter, for as such I loved her. During the last days of dear Bertha's illness I was not able to writeto you. 

"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn_all_, too late. She died in the peace of innocence, and in the glorioushope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our infatuatedhospitality has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my houseinnocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens!what a fool have I been!

"I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of hersufferings. She is gone without so much as conjecturing the nature ofher illness, and the accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. Idevote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster. I amtold I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. Atpresent there is scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse myconceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of superiority, myblindness, my obstinacy--all--too late. I cannot write or talkcollectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a littlerecovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which maypossibly lead me as far as Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two monthshence, or earlier if I live, I will see you--that is, if you permit me;I will then tell you all that I scarce dare put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear friend. "

In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen BerthaRheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence; I wasstartled, as well as profoundly disappointed. 

The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned theGeneral's letter to my father. 

It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon thepossible meanings of the violent and incoherent sentences which I hadjust been reading. We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the roadthat passes the schloss in front, and by that time the moon was shiningbrilliantly. At the drawbridge we met Madame Perrodon and MademoiselleDe Lafontaine, who had come out, without their bonnets, to enjoy theexquisite moonlight. 

We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. Wejoined them at the drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them thebeautiful scene. 

The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our leftthe narrow road wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and was lost tosight amid the thickening forest. At the right the same road crosses thesteep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower whichonce guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the shadows some greyivy-clustered rocks. 

Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing likesmoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and therewe could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight. 

No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heardmade it melancholy; but nothing could disturb its character of profoundserenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect. 

My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking in silenceover the expanse beneath us. The two good governesses, standing a littleway behind us, discoursed upon the scene, and were eloquent uponthe moon. 

Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked andsighed poetically. Mademoiselle De Lafontaine--in right of her fatherwho was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, andsomething of a mystic--now declared that when the moon shone with alight so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritualactivity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy wasmanifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervouspeople, it had marvelous physical influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with hisface full in the light on the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an oldwoman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to oneside; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium. 

"The moon, this night, " she said, "is full of idyllic and magneticinfluence--and see, when you look behind you at the front of the schlosshow all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendor, as ifunseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. "

There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to talkourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and Igazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies' conversation. 

"I have got into one of my moping moods tonight, " said my father, aftera silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up ourEnglish, he used to read aloud, he said:

 "'In truth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me: you say it wearies you; But how I got it--came by it. '

"I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were hangingover us. I suppose the poor General's afflicted letter has had somethingto do with it. "

At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs uponthe road, arrested our attention. 

They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking thebridge, and very soon the equipage emerged from that point. Two horsemenfirst crossed the bridge, then came a carriage drawn by four horses, andtwo men rode behind. 

It seemed to be the traveling carriage of a person of rank; and we wereall immediately absorbed in watching that very unusual spectacle. Itbecame, in a few moments, greatly more interesting, for just as thecarriage had passed the summit of the steep bridge, one of the leaders, taking fright, communicated his panic to the rest, and after a plunge ortwo, the whole team broke into a wild gallop together, and dashingbetween the horsemen who rode in front, came thundering along the roadtowards us with the speed of a hurricane. 

The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. 

We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence, the restwith various ejaculations of terror. 

Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castledrawbridge, on the route they were coming, there stands by the roadsidea magnificent lime tree, on the other stands an ancient stone cross, atsight of which the horses, now going at a pace that was perfectlyfrightful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over the projecting rootsof the tree. 

I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, andturned my head away; at the same moment I heard a cry from my ladyfriends, who had gone on a little. 

Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter confusion. Two ofthe horses were on the ground, the carriage lay upon its side with twowheels in the air; the men were busy removing the traces, and a ladywith a commanding air and figure had got out, and stood with claspedhands, raising the handkerchief that was in them every now and thento her eyes. 

Through the carriage door was now lifted a young lady, who appeared tobe lifeless. My dear old father was already beside the elder lady, withhis hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid and the resources ofhis schloss. The lady did not appear to hear him, or to have eyes foranything but the slender girl who was being placed against the slopeof the bank. 

I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she wascertainly not dead. My father, who piqued himself on being something ofa physician, had just had his fingers on her wrist and assured the lady, who declared herself her mother, that her pulse, though faint andirregular, was undoubtedly still distinguishable. The lady clasped herhands and looked upward, as if in a momentary transport of gratitude;but immediately she broke out again in that theatrical way which is, Ibelieve, natural to some people. 

She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of life, andmust have been handsome; she was tall, but not thin, and dressed inblack velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a proud and commandingcountenance, though now agitated strangely. 

"Who was ever being so born to calamity?" I heard her say, with claspedhands, as I came up. "Here am I, on a journey of life and death, inprosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My child willnot have recovered sufficiently to resume her route for who can say howlong. I must leave her: I cannot, dare not, delay. How far on, sir, canyou tell, is the nearest village? I must leave her there; and shall notsee my darling, or even hear of her till my return, three months hence. "

I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his ear:"Oh! papa, pray ask her to let her stay with us--it would be sodelightful. Do, pray. "

"If Madame will entrust her child to the care of my daughter, and of hergood gouvernante, Madame Perrodon, and permit her to remain as ourguest, under my charge, until her return, it will confer a distinctionand an obligation upon us, and we shall treat her with all the care anddevotion which so sacred a trust deserves. "

"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalrytoo cruelly, " said the lady, distractedly. 

"It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great kindness atthe moment when we most need it. My daughter has just been disappointedby a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she had long anticipated agreat deal of happiness. If you confide this young lady to our care itwill be her best consolation. The nearest village on your route isdistant, and affords no such inn as you could think of placing yourdaughter at; you cannot allow her to continue her journey for anyconsiderable distance without danger. If, as you say, you cannot suspendyour journey, you must part with her tonight, and nowhere could you doso with more honest assurances of care and tenderness than here. "

There was something in this lady's air and appearance so distinguishedand even imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of her equipage, with a conviction that shewas a person of consequence. 

By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and thehorses, quite tractable, in the traces again. 

The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not quite soaffectionate as one might have anticipated from the beginning of thescene; then she beckoned slightly to my father, and withdrew two orthree steps with him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed andstern countenance, not at all like that with which she hadhitherto spoken. 

I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive thechange, and also unspeakably curious to learn what it could be that shewas speaking, almost in his ear, with so much earnestness and rapidity. 

Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus employed, thenshe turned, and a few steps brought her to where her daughter lay, supported by Madame Perrodon. She kneeled beside her for a moment andwhispered, as Madame supposed, a little benediction in her ear; thenhastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage, the door was closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped up behind, the outriders spurredon, the postilions cracked their whips, the horses plunged and brokesuddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon again to become agallop, and the carriage whirled away, followed at the same rapid paceby the two horsemen in the rear. 

III

_We Compare Notes_

We followed the _cortege_ with our eyes until it was swiftly lost tosight in the misty wood; and the very sound of the hoofs and the wheelsdied away in the silent night air. 

Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure had not been anillusion of a moment but the young lady, who just at that moment openedher eyes. I could not see, for her face was turned from me, but sheraised her head, evidently looking about her, and I heard a very sweetvoice ask complainingly, "Where is mamma?"

Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some comfortableassurances. 

I then heard her ask:

"Where am I? What is this place?" and after that she said, "I don't seethe carriage; and Matska, where is she?"

Madame answered all her questions in so far as she understood them; andgradually the young lady remembered how the misadventure came about, andwas glad to hear that no one in, or in attendance on, the carriage washurt; and on learning that her mamma had left her here, till her returnin about three months, she wept. 

I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon whenMademoiselle De Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm, saying:

"Don't approach, one at a time is as much as she can at present conversewith; a very little excitement would possibly overpower her now. "

As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I will run up to herroom and see her. 

My father in the meantime had sent a servant on horseback for thephysician, who lived about two leagues away; and a bedroom was beingprepared for the young lady's reception. 

The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked slowly overthe drawbridge and into the castle gate. 

In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and she was conductedforthwith to her room. The room we usually sat in as our drawing room islong, having four windows, that looked over the moat and drawbridge, upon the forest scene I have just described. 

It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved cabinets, and thechairs are cushioned with crimson Utrecht velvet. The walls are coveredwith tapestry, and surrounded with great gold frames, the figures beingas large as life, in ancient and very curious costume, and the subjectsrepresented are hunting, hawking, and generally festive. It is not toostately to be extremely comfortable; and here we had our tea, for withhis usual patriotic leanings he insisted that the national beverageshould make its appearance regularly with our coffee and chocolate. 

We sat here this night, and with candles lighted, were talking over theadventure of the evening. 

Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine were both of our party. The young stranger had hardly lain down in her bed when she sank into adeep sleep; and those ladies had left her in the care of a servant. 

"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon as Madame entered. "Tellme all about her?"

"I like her extremely, " answered Madame, "she is, I almost think, theprettiest creature I ever saw; about your age, and so gentle and nice. "

"She is absolutely beautiful, " threw in Mademoiselle, who had peeped fora moment into the stranger's room. 

"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame Perrodon. 

"Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after it was set up again, whodid not get out, " inquired Mademoiselle, "but only looked fromthe window?"

"No, we had not seen her. "

Then she described a hideous black woman, with a sort of colored turbanon her head, and who was gazing all the time from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively towards the ladies, with gleaming eyesand large white eyeballs, and her teeth set as if in fury. 

"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?"asked Madame. 

"Yes, " said my father, who had just come in, "ugly, hang-dog lookingfellows as ever I beheld in my life. I hope they mayn't rob the poorlady in the forest. They are clever rogues, however; they got everythingto rights in a minute. "

"I dare say they are worn out with too long traveling, " said Madame. 

"Besides looking wicked, their faces were so strangely lean, and dark, and sullen. I am very curious, I own; but I dare say the young lady willtell you all about it tomorrow, if she is sufficiently recovered. "

"I don't think she will, " said my father, with a mysterious smile, and alittle nod of his head, as if he knew more about it than he caredto tell us. 

This made us all the more inquisitive as to what had passed between himand the lady in the black velvet, in the brief but earnest interviewthat had immediately preceded her departure. 

We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me. He did not needmuch pressing. 

"There is no particular reason why I should not tell you. She expresseda reluctance to trouble us with the care of her daughter, saying she wasin delicate health, and nervous, but not subject to any kind ofseizure--she volunteered that--nor to any illusion; being, in fact, perfectly sane. "

"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated. "It was so unnecessary. "

"At all events it _was_ said, " he laughed, "and as you wish to know allthat passed, which was indeed very little, I tell you. She then said, 'Iam making a long journey of _vital_ importance--she emphasized theword--rapid and secret; I shall return for my child in three months; inthe meantime, she will be silent as to who we are, whence we come, andwhither we are traveling. ' That is all she said. She spoke very pureFrench. When she said the word 'secret, ' she paused for a few seconds, looking sternly, her eyes fixed on mine. I fancy she makes a great pointof that. You saw how quickly she was gone. I hope I have not done a veryfoolish thing, in taking charge of the young lady. "

For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to see and talk to her; andonly waiting till the doctor should give me leave. You, who live intowns, can have no idea how great an event the introduction of a newfriend is, in such a solitude as surrounded us. 

The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o'clock; but I could no morehave gone to my bed and slept, than I could have overtaken, on foot, thecarriage in which the princess in black velvet had driven away. 

When the physician came down to the drawing room, it was to report veryfavorably upon his patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse quiteregular, apparently perfectly well. She had sustained no injury, and thelittle shock to her nerves had passed away quite harmlessly. There couldbe no harm certainly in my seeing her, if we both wished it; and, withthis permission I sent, forthwith, to know whether she would allow me tovisit her for a few minutes in her room. 

The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more. 

You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission. 

Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the schloss. It was, perhaps, a little stately. There was a somber piece of tapestry oppositethe foot of the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom;and other solemn classic scenes were displayed, a little faded, upon theother walls. But there was gold carving, and rich and varied colorenough in the other decorations of the room, to more than redeem thegloom of the old tapestry. 

There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her slenderpretty figure enveloped in the soft silk dressing gown, embroidered withflowers, and lined with thick quilted silk, which her mother had thrownover her feet as she lay upon the ground. 

What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just begun my littlegreeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and made me recoil a step or twofrom before her? I will tell you. 

I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night, whichremained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had for so many years sooften ruminated with horror, when no one suspected of what Iwas thinking. 

It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore thesame melancholy expression. 

But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile ofrecognition. 

There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; Icould not. 

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face in adream, and it has haunted me ever since. "

"Wonderful indeed!" I repeated, overcoming with an effort the horrorthat had for a time suspended my utterances. "Twelve years ago, invision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. Ithas remained before my eyes ever since. "

Her smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied strange in it, was gone, and it and her dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty andintelligent. 

I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein which hospitalityindicated, to bid her welcome, and to tell her how much pleasure heraccidental arrival had given us all, and especially what a happiness itwas to me. 

I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily intomine, she smiled again, and blushed. 

She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, stillwondering; and she said:

"I must tell you my vision about you; it is so very strange that you andI should have had, each of the other so vivid a dream, that each shouldhave seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when of course weboth were mere children. I was a child, about six years old, and I awokefrom a confused and troubled dream, and found myself in a room, unlikemy nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark wood, and with cupboardsand bedsteads, and chairs, and benches placed about it. The beds were, I thought, all empty, and the room itself without anyone but myself init; and I, after looking about me for some time, and admiring especiallyan iron candlestick with two branches, which I should certainly knowagain, crept under one of the beds to reach the window; but as I gotfrom under the bed, I heard someone crying; and looking up, while I wasstill upon my knees, I saw you--most assuredly you--as I see you now; abeautiful young lady, with golden hair and large blue eyes, andlips--your lips--you as you are here. 

"Your looks won me; I climbed on the bed and put my arms about you, andI think we both fell asleep. I was aroused by a scream; you were sittingup screaming. I was frightened, and slipped down upon the ground, and, it seemed to me, lost consciousness for a moment; and when I came tomyself, I was again in my nursery at home. Your face I have neverforgotten since. I could not be misled by mere resemblance. _You are_the lady whom I saw then. "

It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision, which I did, tothe undisguised wonder of my new acquaintance. 

"I don't know which should be most afraid of the other, " she said, againsmiling--"If you were less pretty I think I should be very much afraidof you, but being as you are, and you and I both so young, I feel onlythat I have made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already aright to your intimacy; at all events it does seem as if we weredestined, from our earliest childhood, to be friends. I wonder whetheryou feel as strangely drawn towards me as I do to you; I have never hada friend--shall I find one now?" She sighed, and her fine dark eyesgazed passionately on me. 

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautifulstranger. I did feel, as she said, "drawn towards her, " but there wasalso something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, thesense of attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; shewas so beautiful and so indescribably engaging. 

I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, and hastened to bid her good night. 

"The doctor thinks, " I added, "that you ought to have a maid to sit upwith you tonight; one of ours is waiting, and you will find her a veryuseful and quiet creature. "

"How kind of you, but I could not sleep, I never could with an attendantin the room. I shan't require any assistance--and, shall I confess myweakness, I am haunted with a terror of robbers. Our house was robbedonce, and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It has becomea habit--and you look so kind I know you will forgive me. I see there isa key in the lock. "

She held me close in her pretty arms for a moment and whispered in myear, "Good night, darling, it is very hard to part with you, but goodnight; tomorrow, but not early, I shall see you again. "

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her fine eyes followed mewith a fond and melancholy gaze, and she murmured again "Good night, dear friend. "

Young people like, and even love, on impulse. I was flattered by theevident, though as yet undeserved, fondness she showed me. I liked theconfidence with which she at once received me. She was determined thatwe should be very near friends. 

Next day came and we met again. I was delighted with my companion; thatis to say, in many respects. 

Her looks lost nothing in daylight--she was certainly the most beautifulcreature I had ever seen, and the unpleasant remembrance of the facepresented in my early dream, had lost the effect of the first unexpectedrecognition. 

She confessed that she had experienced a similar shock on seeing me, andprecisely the same faint antipathy that had mingled with my admirationof her. We now laughed together over our momentary horrors. 

IV

_Her Habits--A Saunter_

I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars. 

There were some that did not please me so well. 

She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describingher. 

She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movementswere languid--very languid--indeed, there was nothing in her appearanceto indicate an invalid. Her complexion was rich and brilliant; herfeatures were small and beautifully formed; her eyes large, dark, andlustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I never saw hair somagnificently thick and long when it was down about her shoulders; Ihave often placed my hands under it, and laughed with wonder at itsweight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a rich very darkbrown, with something of gold. I loved to let it down, tumbling with itsown weight, as, in her room, she lay back in her chair talking in hersweet low voice, I used to fold and braid it, and spread it out andplay with it. Heavens! If I had but known all!

I said there were particulars which did not please me. I have told youthat her confidence won me the first night I saw her; but I found thatshe exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything in fact connected with her life, plans, and people, an everwakeful reserve. I dare say I was unreasonable, perhaps I was wrong; Idare say I ought to have respected the solemn injunction laid upon myfather by the stately lady in black velvet. But curiosity is a restlessand unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another. What harm could it do anyone totell me what I so ardently desired to know? Had she no trust in my goodsense or honor? Why would she not believe me when I assured her, sosolemnly, that I would not divulge one syllable of what she told me toany mortal breathing. 

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smilingmelancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. 

I cannot say we quarreled upon this point, for she would not quarrelupon any. It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, veryill-bred, but I really could not help it; and I might just as well havelet it alone. 

What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--tonothing. 

It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures:

First--Her name was Carmilla. 

Second--Her family was very ancient and noble. 

Third--Her home lay in the direction of the west. 

She would not tell me the name of her family, nor their armorialbearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even that of the countrythey lived in. 

You are not to suppose that I worried her incessantly on these subjects. I watched opportunity, and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries. Once or twice, indeed, I did attack her more directly. But no matterwhat my tactics, utter failure was invariably the result. Reproaches andcaresses were all lost upon her. But I must add this, that her evasionwas conducted with so pretty a melancholy and deprecation, with so many, and even passionate declarations of her liking for me, and trust in myhonor, and with so many promises that I should at last know all, that Icould not find it in my heart long to be offended with her. 

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, andlaying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, "Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey theirresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart iswounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormoushumiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetlydie--into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in yourturn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit. "

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closelyin her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glowupon my cheek. 

Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me. 

From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemedto fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, andsoothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recovermyself when she withdrew her arms. 

In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I experienced a strangetumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled witha vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about herwhile such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing intoadoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I canmake no other attempt to explain the feeling. 

I now write, after an interval of more than ten years, with a tremblinghand, with a confused and horrible recollection of certain occurrencesand situations, in the ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing;though with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of the main current ofmy story. 

But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, thosein which our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused, thatare of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered. 

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companionwould take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again andagain; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuousrespiration. It was like the ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it washateful and yet over-powering; and with gloating eyes she drew me toher, and her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she wouldwhisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you _shall_ be mine, you and Iare one for ever. " Then she had thrown herself back in her chair, withher small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling. 

"Are we related, " I used to ask; "what can you mean by all this? Iremind you perhaps of someone whom you love; but you must not, I hateit; I don't know you--I don't know myself when you look so and talk so. "

She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand. 

Respecting these very extraordinary manifestations I strove in vain toform any satisfactory theory--I could not refer them to affectation ortrick. It was unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressedinstinct and emotion. Was she, notwithstanding her mother's volunteereddenial, subject to brief visitations of insanity; or was there here adisguise and a romance? I had read in old storybooks of such things. What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house, and sought toprosecute his suit in masquerade, with the assistance of a clever oldadventuress. But there were many things against this hypothesis, highlyinteresting as it was to my vanity. 

I could boast of no little attentions such as masculine gallantrydelights to offer. Between these passionate moments there were longintervals of commonplace, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy, duringwhich, except that I detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire, following me, at times I might have been as nothing to her. Except inthese brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were girlish; andthere was always a languor about her, quite incompatible with amasculine system in a state of health. 

In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps not so singular in theopinion of a town lady like you, as they appeared to us rustic people. She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock, shewould then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went outfor a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she seemed, almostimmediately, exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on oneof the benches that were placed, here and there, among the trees. Thiswas a bodily languor in which her mind did not sympathize. She wasalways an animated talker, and very intelligent. 

She sometimes alluded for a moment to her own home, or mentioned anadventure or situation, or an early recollection, which indicated apeople of strange manners, and described customs of which we knewnothing. I gathered from these chance hints that her native country wasmuch more remote than I had at first fancied. 

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a funeral passed us by. Itwas that of a pretty young girl, whom I had often seen, the daughter ofone of the rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking behind thecoffin of his darling; she was his only child, and he looked quiteheartbroken. 

Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeralhymn. 

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn theywere very sweetly singing. 

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised. 

She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?"

"I think it very sweet, on the contrary, " I answered, vexed at theinterruption, and very uncomfortable, lest the people who composed thelittle procession should observe and resent what was passing. 

I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again interrupted. "You piercemy ears, " said Carmilla, almost angrily, and stopping her ears with hertiny fingers. "Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine arethe same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why youmust die--_everyone_ must die; and all are happier when they do. Come home. "

"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thoughtyou knew she was to be buried today. "

"She? I don't trouble my head about peasants. I don't know who she is, "answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes. 

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago, andhas been dying ever since, till yesterday, when she expired. "

"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep tonight if you do. "

"I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all this looks very likeit, " I continued. "The swineherd's young wife died only a week ago, andshe thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangled her. Papa says such horrible fancies do accompanysome forms of fever. She was quite well the day before. She sankafterwards, and died before a week. "

"Well, _her_ funeral is over, I hope, and _her_ hymn sung; and our earsshan't be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand; press ithard-hard-harder. "

We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat. 

She sat down. Her face underwent a change that alarmed and eventerrified me for a moment. It darkened, and became horribly livid; herteeth and hands were clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon the ground at her feet, and trembled all overwith a continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her energiesseemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she was then breathlesslytugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided. "There! That comes of stranglingpeople with hymns!" she said at last. "Hold me, hold me still. It ispassing away. "

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissipate the somber impressionwhich the spectacle had left upon me, she became unusually animated andchatty; and so we got home. 

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit any definable symptoms ofthat delicacy of health which her mother had spoken of. It was the firsttime, also, I had seen her exhibit anything like temper. 

Both passed away like a summer cloud; and never but once afterwards didI witness on her part a momentary sign of anger. I will tell you howit happened. 

She and I were looking out of one of the long drawing room windows, whenthere entered the courtyard, over the drawbridge, a figure of a wandererwhom I knew very well. He used to visit the schloss generally twicea year. 

It was the figure of a hunchback, with the sharp lean features thatgenerally accompany deformity. He wore a pointed black beard, and he wassmiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed inbuff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than Icould count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried amagic lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was asalamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to make myfather laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with greatneatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box of conjuringapparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several othermysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copperferrules in his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog, that followedat his heels, but stopped short, suspiciously at the drawbridge, and ina little while began to howl dismally. 

In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the courtyard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying hiscompliments very volubly in execrable French, and German notmuch better. 

Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air to whichhe sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity, that made me laugh, in spite of the dog's howling. 

Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations, andhis hat in his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluencythat never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all hisaccomplishments, and the resources of the various arts which he placedat our service, and the curiosities and entertainments which it was inhis power, at our bidding, to display. 

"Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods, " he saiddropping his hat on the pavement. "They are dying of it right and leftand here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and youmay laugh in his face. "

These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalisticciphers and diagrams upon them. 

Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I. 

He was looking up, and we were smiling down upon him, amused; at least, I can answer for myself. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in ourfaces, seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity. In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of oddlittle steel instruments. 

"See here, my lady, " he said, displaying it, and addressing me, "Iprofess, among other things less useful, the art of dentistry. Plaguetake the dog!" he interpolated. "Silence, beast! He howls so that yourladyships can scarcely hear a word. Your noble friend, the young lady atyour right, has the sharpest tooth, --long, thin, pointed, like an awl, like a needle; ha, ha! With my sharp and long sight, as I look up, Ihave seen it distinctly; now if it happens to hurt the young lady, and Ithink it must, here am I, here are my file, my punch, my nippers; I willmake it round and blunt, if her ladyship pleases; no longer the tooth ofa fish, but of a beautiful young lady as she is. Hey? Is the young ladydispleased? Have I been too bold? Have I offended her?"

The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from thewindow. 

"How dares that mountebank insult us so? Where is your father? I shalldemand redress from him. My father would have had the wretch tied up tothe pump, and flogged with a cart whip, and burnt to the bones with thecattle brand!"

She retired from the window a step or two, and sat down, and had hardlylost sight of the offender, when her wrath subsided as suddenly as ithad risen, and she gradually recovered her usual tone, and seemed toforget the little hunchback and his follies. 

My father was out of spirits that evening. On coming in he told us thatthere had been another case very similar to the two fatal ones which hadlately occurred. The sister of a young peasant on his estate, only amile away, was very ill, had been, as she described it, attacked verynearly in the same way, and was now slowly but steadily sinking. 

"All this, " said my father, "is strictly referable to natural causes. These poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and sorepeat in imagination the images of terror that have infested theirneighbors. "

"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly, " said Carmilla. 

"How so?" inquired my father. 

"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I think it would be asbad as reality. "

"We are in God's hands: nothing can happen without his permission, andall will end well for those who love him. He is our faithful creator; Hehas made us all, and will take care of us. "

"Creator! _Nature!_" said the young lady in answer to my gentle father. "And this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. Allthings proceed from Nature--don't they? All things in the heaven, in theearth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? Ithink so. "

"The doctor said he would come here today, " said my father, after asilence. "I want to know what he thinks about it, and what he thinks wehad better do. "

"Doctors never did me any good, " said Carmilla. 

"Then you have been ill?" I asked. 

"More ill than ever you were, " she answered. 

"Long ago?"

"Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very illness; but I forget allbut my pain and weakness, and they were not so bad as are suffered inother diseases. "

"You were very young then?"

"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?"

She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed her arm round my waistlovingly, and led me out of the room. My father was busy over somepapers near the window. 

"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with asigh and a little shudder. 

"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from hismind. "

"Are you afraid, dearest?"

"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of mybeing attacked as those poor people were. "

"You are afraid to die?"

"Yes, every one is. "

"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may livetogether. 

"Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finallybutterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubsand larvae, don't you see--each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure. So says Monsieur Buffon, in his big book, inthe next room. "

Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for sometime. 

He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, he wore powder, and shavedhis pale face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and papa emerged from the roomtogether, and I heard papa laugh, and say as they came out:

"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say tohippogriffs and dragons?"

The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head--

"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know littleof the resources of either. "

And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I did not then know what thedoctor had been broaching, but I think I guess it now. 

V

_A Wonderful Likeness_

This evening there arrived from Gratz the grave, dark-faced son of thepicture cleaner, with a horse and cart laden with two large packingcases, having many pictures in each. It was a journey of ten leagues, and whenever a messenger arrived at the schloss from our little capitalof Gratz, we used to crowd about him in the hall, to hear the news. 

This arrival created in our secluded quarters quite a sensation. Thecases remained in the hall, and the messenger was taken charge of by theservants till he had eaten his supper. Then with assistants, and armedwith hammer, ripping chisel, and turnscrew, he met us in the hall, wherewe had assembled to witness the unpacking of the cases. 

Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after the other the oldpictures, nearly all portraits, which had undergone the process ofrenovation, were brought to light. My mother was of an old Hungarianfamily, and most of these pictures, which were about to be restored totheir places, had come to us through her. 

My father had a list in his hand, from which he read, as the artistrummaged out the corresponding numbers. I don't know that the pictureswere very good, but they were, undoubtedly, very old, and some of themvery curious also. They had, for the most part, the merit of being nowseen by me, I may say, for the first time; for the smoke and dust oftime had all but obliterated them. 

"There is a picture that I have not seen yet, " said my father. "In onecorner, at the top of it, is the name, as well as I could read, 'MarciaKarnstein, ' and the date '1698'; and I am curious to see how it hasturned out. "

I remembered it; it was a small picture, about a foot and a half high, and nearly square, without a frame; but it was so blackened by age thatI could not make it out. 

The artist now produced it, with evident pride. It was quite beautiful;it was startling; it seemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!

"Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle. Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak, in this picture. Isn't it beautiful, Papa? Andsee, even the little mole on her throat. "

My father laughed, and said "Certainly it is a wonderful likeness, " buthe looked away, and to my surprise seemed but little struck by it, andwent on talking to the picture cleaner, who was also something of anartist, and discoursed with intelligence about the portraits or otherworks, which his art had just brought into light and color, while I wasmore and more lost in wonder the more I looked at the picture. 

"Will you let me hang this picture in my room, papa?" I asked. 

"Certainly, dear, " said he, smiling, "I'm very glad you think it solike. It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it is. "

The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech, did not seem tohear it. She was leaning back in her seat, her fine eyes under theirlong lashes gazing on me in contemplation, and she smiled in a kindof rapture. 

"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in thecorner. It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The nameis Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, and this is a little coronet over andunderneath A. D. 1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma was. "

"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think, a very long descent, very ancient. Are there any Karnsteins living now?"

"None who bear the name, I believe. The family were ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago, but the ruins of the castle are only aboutthree miles away. "

"How interesting!" she said, languidly. "But see what beautifulmoonlight!" She glanced through the hall door, which stood a littleopen. "Suppose you take a little ramble round the court, and look downat the road and river. "

"It is so like the night you came to us, " I said. 

She sighed; smiling. 

She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist, we walked outupon the pavement. 

In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where the beautifullandscape opened before us. 

"And so you were thinking of the night I came here?" she almostwhispered. 

"Are you glad I came?"

"Delighted, dear Carmilla, " I answered. 

"And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your room, "she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my waist, andlet her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. "How romantic you are, Carmilla, " I said. "Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made upchiefly of some one great romance. "

She kissed me silently. 

"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at thismoment, an affair of the heart going on. "

"I have been in love with no one, and never shall, " she whispered, "unless it should be with you. "

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!

Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in myneck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, andpressed in mine a hand that trembled. 

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling, " shemurmured, "I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so. "

I started from her. 

She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning hadflown, and a face colorless and apathetic. 

"Is there a chill in the air, dear?" she said drowsily. "I almostshiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in. "

"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take somewine, " I said. 

"Yes. I will. I'm better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine, " answered Carmilla, as we approachedthe door. 

"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shallsee the moonlight with you. "

"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?" I asked. 

I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken withthe strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us. 

"Papa would be grieved beyond measure, " I added, "if he thought you wereever so little ill, without immediately letting us know. We have a veryskilful doctor near us, the physician who was with papa today. "

"I'm sure he is. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I amquite well again. There is nothing ever wrong with me, but alittle weakness. 

"People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walkas far as a child of three years old: and every now and then the littlestrength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen me. Butafter all I am very easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectlymyself. See how I have recovered. "

So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a great deal, and veryanimated she was; and the remainder of that evening passed without anyrecurrence of what I called her infatuations. I mean her crazy talk andlooks, which embarrassed, and even frightened me. 

But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite anew turn, and seemed to startle even Carmilla's languid nature intomomentary energy. 

VI

_A Very Strange Agony_

When we got into the drawing room, and had sat down to our coffee andchocolate, although Carmilla did not take any, she seemed quite herselfagain, and Madame, and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, joined us, and made alittle card party, in the course of which papa came in for what hecalled his "dish of tea. "

When the game was over he sat down beside Carmilla on the sofa, andasked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mothersince her arrival. 

She answered "No. "

He then asked whether she knew where a letter would reach her atpresent. 

"I cannot tell, " she answered ambiguously, "but I have been thinking ofleaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. Ihave given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take acarriage tomorrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shallultimately find her, although I dare not yet tell you. "

"But you must not dream of any such thing, " exclaimed my father, to mygreat relief. "We can't afford to lose you so, and I won't consent toyour leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so goodas to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her: but thisevening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that hasinvaded our neighborhood, grow even more alarming; and my beautifulguest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. But I shall do my best; and one thing is certain, that youmust not think of leaving us without her distinct direction to thateffect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent toit easily. "

"Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your hospitality, " she answered, smiling bashfully. "You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom beenso happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful chateau, under yourcare, and in the society of your dear daughter. "

So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed her hand, smiling andpleased at her little speech. 

I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and sat and chatted withher while she was preparing for bed. 

"Do you think, " I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully inme?"

She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile onme. 

"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I oughtnot to have asked you. "

"You were quite right to ask me that, or anything. You do not know howdear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great tolook for. But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare nottell my story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you shallknow everything. You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love isalways selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am youcannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate meand still come with me, and _hating_ me through death and after. Thereis no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature. "

"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again, " I saidhastily. 

"Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; foryour sake I'll talk like a sage. Were you ever at a ball?"

"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How charming it must be. "

"I almost forget, it is years ago. "

I laughed. 

"You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet. "

"I remember everything about it--with an effort. I see it all, as diverssee what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, buttransparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made its colours faint. I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here, " she touched her breast, "and never was the same since. "

"Were you near dying?"

"Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood. Let us go tosleep now; I feel so lazy. How can I get up just now and lock my door?"

She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her rich wavy hair, underher cheek, her little head upon the pillow, and her glittering eyesfollowed me wherever I moved, with a kind of shy smile that I couldnot decipher. 

I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortablesensation. 

I often wondered whether our pretty guest ever said her prayers. Icertainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she nevercame down until long after our family prayers were over, and at nightshe never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayersin the hall. 

If it had not been that it had casually come out in one of our carelesstalks that she had been baptised, I should have doubted her being aChristian. Religion was a subject on which I had never heard her speak aword. If I had known the world better, this particular neglect orantipathy would not have so much surprised me. 

The precautions of nervous people are infectious, and persons of a liketemperament are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them. I hadadopted Carmilla's habit of locking her bedroom door, having taken intomy head all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders and prowlingassassins. I had also adopted her precaution of making a brief searchthrough her room, to satisfy herself that no lurking assassin or robberwas "ensconced. "

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A lightwas burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, andwhich nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. 

Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come throughstone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and theirpersons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laughat locksmiths. 

I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. 

I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. 

But I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and itsfurniture just as I had seen it last, except that it was very dark, andI saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first Icould not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was asooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to meabout four or five feet long for it measured fully the length of thehearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing withthe lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cryout, although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growingfaster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so darkthat I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it springlightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and suddenlyI felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or twoapart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream. The room was lightedby the candle that burnt there all through the night, and I saw a femalefigure standing at the foot of the bed, a little at the right side. Itwas in a dark loose dress, and its hair was down and covered itsshoulders. A block of stone could not have been more still. There wasnot the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the figureappeared to have changed its place, and was now nearer the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and it passed out. 

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move. My first thought wasthat Carmilla had been playing me a trick, and that I had forgotten tosecure my door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on theinside. I was afraid to open it--I was horrified. I sprang into my bedand covered my head up in the bedclothes, and lay there more dead thanalive till morning. 

VII

_Descending_

It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, evennow, I recall the occurrence of that night. It was no such transitoryterror as a dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by time, andcommunicated itself to the room and the very furniture that hadencompassed the apparition. 

I could not bear next day to be alone for a moment. I should have toldpapa, but for two opposite reasons. At one time I thought he would laughat my story, and I could not bear its being treated as a jest; and atanother I thought he might fancy that I had been attacked by themysterious complaint which had invaded our neighborhood. I had myself nomisgiving of the kind, and as he had been rather an invalid for sometime, I was afraid of alarming him. 

I was comfortable enough with my good-natured companions, MadamePerrodon, and the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both perceivedthat I was out of spirits and nervous, and at length I told them whatlay so heavy at my heart. 

Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked anxious. 

"By-the-by, " said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long lime tree walk, behind Carmilla's bedroom window, is haunted!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme ratherinopportune, "and who tells that story, my dear?"

"Martin says that he came up twice, when the old yard gate was beingrepaired, before sunrise, and twice saw the same female figure walkingdown the lime tree avenue. "

"So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the riverfields, " said Madame. 

"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I seefool more frightened. "

"You must not say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see downthat walk from her room window, " I interposed, "and she is, if possible, a greater coward than I. "

Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. 

"I was so frightened last night, " she said, so soon as were together, "and I am sure I should have seen something dreadful if it had not beenfor that charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I calledsuch hard names. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed, and I awoke in a perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds, I saw a dark figure near the chimney-piece, but I felt under my pillowfor my charm, and the moment my fingers touched it, the figuredisappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, thatsomething frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps, throttled me, as it did those poor people we heard of. 

"Well, listen to me, " I began, and recounted my adventure, at therecital of which she appeared horrified. 

"And had you the charm near you?" she asked, earnestly. 

"No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the drawing room, but I shallcertainly take it with me tonight, as you have so much faith in it. "

At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or even understand, how Iovercame my horror so effectually as to lie alone in my room that night. I remember distinctly that I pinned the charm to my pillow. I fellasleep almost immediately, and slept even more soundly than usualall night. 

Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep anddreamless. 

But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. 

"Well, I told you so, " said Carmilla, when I described my quiet sleep, "I had such delightful sleep myself last night; I pinned the charm tothe breast of my nightdress. It was too far away the night before. I amquite sure it was all fancy, except the dreams. I used to think thatevil spirits made dreams, but our doctor told me it is no such thing. Only a fever passing by, or some other malady, as they often do, hesaid, knocks at the door, and not being able to get in, passes on, withthat alarm. "

"And what do you think the charm is?" said I. 

"It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidoteagainst the malaria, " she answered. 

"Then it acts only on the body?"

"Certainly; you don't suppose that evil spirits are frightened by bitsof ribbon, or the perfumes of a druggist's shop? No, these complaints, wandering in the air, begin by trying the nerves, and so infect thebrain, but before they can seize upon you, the antidote repels them. That I am sure is what the charm has done for us. It is nothing magical, it is simply natural. "

I should have been happier if I could have quite agreed with Carmilla, but I did my best, and the impression was a little losing its force. 

For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt thesame lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself achanged girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholythat I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, notunwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which thisinduced was also sweet. 

Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. 

I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa, or to have the doctor sent for. 

Carmilla became more devoted to me than ever, and her strange paroxysmsof languid adoration more frequent. She used to gloat on me withincreasing ardor the more my strength and spirits waned. This alwaysshocked me like a momentary glare of insanity. 

Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of thestrangest illness under which mortal ever suffered. There was anunaccountable fascination in its earlier symptoms that more thanreconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that stage of the malady. This fascination increased for a time, until it reached a certain point, when gradually a sense of the horrible mingled itself with it, deepening, as you shall hear, until it discolored and perverted thewhole state of my life. 

The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very nearthe turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. 

Certain vague and strange sensations visited me in my sleep. Theprevailing one was of that pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we feelin bathing, when we move against the current of a river. This was soonaccompanied by dreams that seemed interminable, and were so vague thatI could never recollect their scenery and persons, or any one connectedportion of their action. But they left an awful impression, and a senseof exhaustion, as if I had passed through a long period of great mentalexertion and danger. 

After all these dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of havingbeen in a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom Icould not see; and especially of one clear voice, of a female's, verydeep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always thesame sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there camea sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer andmore lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixeditself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly andfull drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my sensesleft me and I became unconscious. 

It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountablestate. 

My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I hadgrown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and thelanguor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance. 

My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an obstinacy whichnow seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that I wasquite well. 

In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could complain of no bodilyderangement. My complaint seemed to be one of the imagination, or thenerves, and, horrible as my sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbidreserve, very nearly to myself. 

It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called theoupire, for I had now been suffering for three weeks, and they wereseldom ill for much more than three days, when death put an end totheir miseries. 

Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no meansof so alarming a kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming. Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invokedaid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence wasacting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed. 

I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odddiscovery. 

One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, Iheard one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible, which said, "Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin. " At the same time alight unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, near thefoot of my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to herfeet, in one great stain of blood. 

I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the one idea that Carmilla wasbeing murdered. I remember springing from my bed, and my nextrecollection is that of standing on the lobby, crying for help. 

Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out of their rooms in alarm; alamp burned always on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned thecause of my terror. 

I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking wasunanswered. 

It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but allwas vain. 

We all grew frightened, for the door was locked. We hurried back, inpanic, to my room. There we rang the bell long and furiously. If myfather's room had been at that side of the house, we would have calledhim up at once to our aid. But, alas! he was quite out of hearing, andto reach him involved an excursion for which we none of us had courage. 

Servants, however, soon came running up the stairs; I had got on mydressing gown and slippers meanwhile, and my companions were alreadysimilarly furnished. Recognizing the voices of the servants on thelobby, we sallied out together; and having renewed, as fruitlessly, oursummons at Carmilla's door, I ordered the men to force the lock. Theydid so, and we stood, holding our lights aloft, in the doorway, and sostared into the room. 

We called her by name; but there was still no reply. We looked round theroom. Everything was undisturbed. It was exactly in the state in which Ihad left it on bidding her good night. But Carmilla was gone. 

VIII

_Search_

At sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except for our violententrance, we began to cool a little, and soon recovered our sensessufficiently to dismiss the men. It had struck Mademoiselle thatpossibly Carmilla had been wakened by the uproar at her door, and in herfirst panic had jumped from her bed, and hid herself in a press, orbehind a curtain, from which she could not, of course, emerge until themajordomo and his myrmidons had withdrawn. We now recommenced oursearch, and began to call her name again. 

It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and agitation increased. Weexamined the windows, but they were secured. I implored of Carmilla, ifshe had concealed herself, to play this cruel trick no longer--to comeout and to end our anxieties. It was all useless. I was by this timeconvinced that she was not in the room, nor in the dressing room, thedoor of which was still locked on this side. She could not have passedit. I was utterly puzzled. Had Carmilla discovered one of those secretpassages which the old housekeeper said were known to exist in theschloss, although the tradition of their exact situation had been lost?A little time would, no doubt, explain all--utterly perplexed as, forthe present, we were. 

It was past four o'clock, and I preferred passing the remaining hours ofdarkness in Madame's room. Daylight brought no solution of thedifficulty. 

The whole household, with my father at its head, was in a state ofagitation next morning. Every part of the chateau was searched. Thegrounds were explored. No trace of the missing lady could be discovered. The stream was about to be dragged; my father was in distraction; what atale to have to tell the poor girl's mother on her return. I, too, wasalmost beside myself, though my grief was quite of a different kind. 

The morning was passed in alarm and excitement. It was now one o'clock, and still no tidings. I ran up to Carmilla's room, and found herstanding at her dressing table. I was astounded. I could not believe myeyes. She beckoned me to her with her pretty finger, in silence. Herface expressed extreme fear. 

I ran to her in an ecstasy of joy; I kissed and embraced her again andagain. I ran to the bell and rang it vehemently, to bring others to thespot who might at once relieve my father's anxiety. 

"Dear Carmilla, what has become of you all this time? We have been inagonies of anxiety about you, " I exclaimed. "Where have you been? Howdid you come back?"

"Last night has been a night of wonders, " she said. 

"For mercy's sake, explain all you can. "

"It was past two last night, " she said, "when I went to sleep as usualin my bed, with my doors locked, that of the dressing room, and thatopening upon the gallery. My sleep was uninterrupted, and, so far as Iknow, dreamless; but I woke just now on the sofa in the dressing roomthere, and I found the door between the rooms open, and the other doorforced. How could all this have happened without my being wakened? Itmust have been accompanied with a great deal of noise, and I amparticularly easily wakened; and how could I have been carried out of mybed without my sleep having been interrupted, I whom the slightest stirstartles?"

By this time, Madame, Mademoiselle, my father, and a number of theservants were in the room. Carmilla was, of course, overwhelmed withinquiries, congratulations, and welcomes. She had but one story to tell, and seemed the least able of all the party to suggest any way ofaccounting for what had happened. 

My father took a turn up and down the room, thinking. I saw Carmilla'seye follow him for a moment with a sly, dark glance. 

When my father had sent the servants away, Mademoiselle having gone insearch of a little bottle of valerian and salvolatile, and there beingno one now in the room with Carmilla, except my father, Madame, andmyself, he came to her thoughtfully, took her hand very kindly, led herto the sofa, and sat down beside her. 

"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a conjecture, and ask aquestion?"

"Who can have a better right?" she said. "Ask what you please, and Iwill tell you everything. But my story is simply one of bewilderment anddarkness. I know absolutely nothing. Put any question you please, butyou know, of course, the limitations mamma has placed me under. "

"Perfectly, my dear child. I need not approach the topics on which shedesires our silence. Now, the marvel of last night consists in yourhaving been removed from your bed and your room, without being wakened, and this removal having occurred apparently while the windows were stillsecured, and the two doors locked upon the inside. I will tell you mytheory and ask you a question. "

Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I werelistening breathlessly. 

"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been suspected of walking inyour sleep?"

"Never, since I was very young indeed. "

"But you did walk in your sleep when you were young?"

"Yes; I know I did. I have been told so often by my old nurse. "

My father smiled and nodded. 

"Well, what has happened is this. You got up in your sleep, unlocked thedoor, not leaving the key, as usual, in the lock, but taking it out andlocking it on the outside; you again took the key out, and carried itaway with you to some one of the five-and-twenty rooms on this floor, orperhaps upstairs or downstairs. There are so many rooms and closets, somuch heavy furniture, and such accumulations of lumber, that it wouldrequire a week to search this old house thoroughly. Do you see, now, what I mean?"

"I do, but not all, " she answered. 

"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa inthe dressing room, which we had searched so carefully?"

"She came there after you had searched it, still in her sleep, and atlast awoke spontaneously, and was as much surprised to find herselfwhere she was as any one else. I wish all mysteries were as easily andinnocently explained as yours, Carmilla, " he said, laughing. "And so wemay congratulate ourselves on the certainty that the most naturalexplanation of the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, notampering with locks, no burglars, or poisoners, or witches--nothingthat need alarm Carmilla, or anyone else, for our safety. "

Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful thanher tints. Her beauty was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languorthat was peculiar to her. I think my father was silently contrasting herlooks with mine, for he said:

"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself"; and he sighed. 

So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla restored to her friends. 

IX

_The Doctor_

As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping in her room, myfather arranged that a servant should sleep outside her door, so thatshe would not attempt to make another such excursion without beingarrested at her own door. 

That night passed quietly; and next morning early, the doctor, whom myfather had sent for without telling me a word about it, arrived tosee me. 

Madame accompanied me to the library; and there the grave little doctor, with white hair and spectacles, whom I mentioned before, was waiting toreceive me. 

I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. 

We were standing, he and I, in the recess of one of the windows, facingone another. When my statement was over, he leaned with his shouldersagainst the wall, and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly, with aninterest in which was a dash of horror. 

After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if he could see my father. 

He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered, smiling, he said:

"I dare say, doctor, you are going to tell me that I am an old fool forhaving brought you here; I hope I am. "

But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave face, beckoned him to him. 

He and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where I hadjust conferred with the physician. It seemed an earnest andargumentative conversation. The room is very large, and I and Madamestood together, burning with curiosity, at the farther end. Not a wordcould we hear, however, for they spoke in a very low tone, and the deeprecess of the window quite concealed the doctor from view, and verynearly my father, whose foot, arm, and shoulder only could we see; andthe voices were, I suppose, all the less audible for the sort of closetwhich the thick wall and window formed. 

After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale, thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated. 

"Laura, dear, come here for a moment. Madame, we shan't trouble you, thedoctor says, at present. "

Accordingly I approached, for the first time a little alarmed; for, although I felt very weak, I did not feel ill; and strength, one alwaysfancies, is a thing that may be picked up when we please. 

My father held out his hand to me, as I drew near, but he was looking atthe doctor, and he said:

"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite. Laura, comehere, dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself. "

"You mentioned a sensation like that of two needles piercing the skin, somewhere about your neck, on the night when you experienced your firsthorrible dream. Is there still any soreness?"

"None at all, " I answered. 

"Can you indicate with your finger about the point at which you thinkthis occurred?"

"Very little below my throat--here, " I answered. 

I wore a morning dress, which covered the place I pointed to. 

"Now you can satisfy yourself, " said the doctor. "You won't mind yourpapa's lowering your dress a very little. It is necessary, to detect asymptom of the complaint under which you have been suffering. "

I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below the edge of my collar. 

"God bless me!--so it is, " exclaimed my father, growing pale. 

"You see it now with your own eyes, " said the doctor, with a gloomytriumph. 

"What is it?" I exclaimed, beginning to be frightened. 

"Nothing, my dear young lady, but a small blue spot, about the size ofthe tip of your little finger; and now, " he continued, turning to papa, "the question is what is best to be done?"

"Is there any danger?" I urged, in great trepidation. 

"I trust not, my dear, " answered the doctor. "I don't see why you shouldnot recover. I don't see why you should not begin immediately to getbetter. That is the point at which the sense of strangulation begins?"

"Yes, " I answered. 

"And--recollect as well as you can--the same point was a kind of centerof that thrill which you described just now, like the current of a coldstream running against you?"

"It may have been; I think it was. "

"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word toMadame?"

"Certainly, " said my father. 

He called Madame to him, and said:

"I find my young friend here far from well. It won't be of any greatconsequence, I hope; but it will be necessary that some steps be taken, which I will explain by-and-by; but in the meantime, Madame, you willbe so good as not to let Miss Laura be alone for one moment. That is theonly direction I need give for the present. It is indispensable. "

"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know, " added my father. 

Madame satisfied him eagerly. 

"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction. "

"I shall have to ask your opinion upon another patient, whose symptomsslightly resemble those of my daughter, that have just been detailed toyou--very much milder in degree, but I believe quite of the same sort. She is a young lady--our guest; but as you say you will be passing thisway again this evening, you can't do better than take your supper here, and you can then see her. She does not come down till the afternoon. "

"I thank you, " said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at aboutseven this evening. "

And then they repeated their directions to me and to Madame, and withthis parting charge my father left us, and walked out with the doctor;and I saw them pacing together up and down between the road and themoat, on the grassy platform in front of the castle, evidently absorbedin earnest conversation. 

The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take hisleave, and ride away eastward through the forest. 

Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with theletters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father. 

In the meantime, Madame and I were both busy, lost in conjecture as tothe reasons of the singular and earnest direction which the doctor andmy father had concurred in imposing. Madame, as she afterwards told me, was afraid the doctor apprehended a sudden seizure, and that, withoutprompt assistance, I might either lose my life in a fit, or at least beseriously hurt. 

The interpretation did not strike me; and I fancied, perhaps luckily formy nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply to secure acompanion, who would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eatingunripe fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish things to which youngpeople are supposed to be prone. 

About half an hour after my father came in--he had a letter in hishand--and said:

"This letter had been delayed; it is from General Spielsdorf. He mighthave been here yesterday, he may not come till tomorrow or he may behere today. "

He put the open letter into my hand; but he did not look pleased, as heused when a guest, especially one so much loved as the General, was coming. 

On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him at the bottom of the RedSea. There was plainly something on his mind which he did not chooseto divulge. 

"Papa, darling, will you tell me this?" said I, suddenly laying my handon his arm, and looking, I am sure, imploringly in his face. 

"Perhaps, " he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes. 

"Does the doctor think me very ill?"

"No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken, you will be quite wellagain, at least, on the high road to a complete recovery, in a day ortwo, " he answered, a little dryly. "I wish our good friend, the General, had chosen any other time; that is, I wish you had been perfectly wellto receive him. "

"But do tell me, papa, " I insisted, "what does he think is the matterwith me?"

"Nothing; you must not plague me with questions, " he answered, with moreirritation than I ever remember him to have displayed before; and seeingthat I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me, and added, "You shallknow all about it in a day or two; that is, all that I know. In themeantime you are not to trouble your head about it. "

He turned and left the room, but came back before I had done wonderingand puzzling over the oddity of all this; it was merely to say that hewas going to Karnstein, and had ordered the carriage to be ready attwelve, and that I and Madame should accompany him; he was going to see thepriest who lived near those picturesque grounds, upon business, and asCarmilla had never seen them, she could follow, when she came down, withMademoiselle, who would bring materials for what you call a picnic, which might be laid for us in the ruined castle. 

At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, myfather, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive. 

Passing the drawbridge we turn to the right, and follow the road overthe steep Gothic bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village andruined castle of Karnstein. 

No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The ground breaks into gentlehills and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute ofthe comparative formality which artificial planting and early cultureand pruning impart. 

The irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its course, and cause it to wind beautifully round the sides of broken hollows andthe steeper sides of the hills, among varieties of ground almostinexhaustible. 

Turning one of these points, we suddenly encountered our old friend, theGeneral, riding towards us, attended by a mounted servant. Hisportmanteaus were following in a hired wagon, such as we term a cart. 

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and, after the usual greetings, was easily persuaded to accept the vacant seat in the carriage and sendhis horse on with his servant to the schloss. 

X

_Bereaved_

It was about ten months since we had last seen him: but that time hadsufficed to make an alteration of years in his appearance. He had grownthinner; something of gloom and anxiety had taken the place of thatcordial serenity which used to characterize his features. His dark blueeyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light from underhis shaggy grey eyebrows. It was not such a change as grief aloneusually induces, and angrier passions seemed to have had their share inbringing it about. 

We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, withhis usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; andhe then broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighingagainst the "hellish arts" to which she had fallen a victim, andexpressing, with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that Heavenshould tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignityof hell. 

My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary hadbefallen, asked him, if not too painful to him, to detail thecircumstances which he thought justified the strong terms in which heexpressed himself. 

"I should tell you all with pleasure, " said the General, "but you wouldnot believe me. "

"Why should I not?" he asked. 

"Because, " he answered testily, "you believe in nothing but whatconsists with your own prejudices and illusions. I remember when I waslike you, but I have learned better. "

"Try me, " said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose. Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof forwhat you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed torespect your conclusions. "

"You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into abelief in the marvelous--for what I have experienced is marvelous--and Ihave been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which rancounter, diametrically, to all my theories. I have been made the dupe ofa preternatural conspiracy. "

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General'spenetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General, with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity. 

The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily andcuriously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were openingbefore us. 

"You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he said. "Yes, it is a luckycoincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there toinspect them. I have a special object in exploring. There is a ruinedchapel, ain't there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?"

"So there are--highly interesting, " said my father. "I hope you arethinking of claiming the title and estates?"

My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh, or even the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend's joke; on thecontrary, he looked grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter thatstirred his anger and horror. 

"Something very different, " he said, gruffly. "I mean to unearth some ofthose fine people. I hope, by God's blessing, to accomplish a pioussacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters, andenable honest people to sleep in their beds without being assailed bymurderers. I have strange things to tell you, my dear friend, such as Imyself would have scouted as incredible a few months since. "

My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance ofsuspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm. 

"The house of Karnstein, " he said, "has been long extinct: a hundredyears at least. My dear wife was maternally descended from theKarnsteins. But the name and title have long ceased to exist. The castleis a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty years since thesmoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof left. "

"Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you;a great deal that will astonish you. But I had better relate everythingin the order in which it occurred, " said the General. "You saw my dearward--my child, I may call her. No creature could have been morebeautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming. "

"Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely, "said my father. "I was grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, mydear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you. "

He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tearsgathered in the old soldier's eyes. He did not seek to conceal them. He said:

"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childlessas I am. She had become an object of very near interest to me, andrepaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my lifehappy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not bevery long; but by God's mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankindbefore I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiendswho have murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes and beauty!"

"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as itoccurred, " said my father. "Pray do; I assure you that it is not merecuriosity that prompts me. "

By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, bywhich the General had come, diverges from the road which we weretraveling to Karnstein. 

"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiouslyforward. 

"About half a league, " answered my father. "Pray let us hear the storyyou were so good as to promise. "

XI

_The Story_

"With all my heart, " said the General, with an effort; and after a shortpause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangestnarratives I ever heard. 

"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit youhad been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter. " Herehe made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had aninvitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is aboutsix leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the seriesof fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honor of hisillustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles. "

"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were, " said my father. 

"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin'slamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificentmasquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with coloredlamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had neverwitnessed. And such music--music, you know, is my weakness--suchravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world, and the finest singers who could be collected from all the great operasin Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminatedgrounds, the moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its longrows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealingfrom the silence of some grove, or rising from boats upon the lake. Ifelt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance andpoetry of my early youth. 

"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned tothe noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A maskedball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle ofthe kind I never saw before. 

"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only'nobody' present. 

"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Herexcitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features, always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, butwearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward withextraordinary interest. I had seen her, earlier in the evening, in thegreat hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on theterrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, alsomasked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like aperson of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon. 

"Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been muchmore certain upon the question whether she was really watching mypoor darling. 

"I am now well assured that she was. 

"We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing, and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I wasstanding near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and theyounger took the chair next my ward; while her companion stood besideme, and for a little time addressed herself, in a low tone, toher charge. 

"Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and inthe tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened aconversation with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. Shereferred to many scenes where she had met me--at Court, and atdistinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents which I had longceased to think of, but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance in mymemory, for they instantly started into life at her touch. 

"I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment. She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. Theknowledge she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all butunaccountable; and she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure infoiling my curiosity, and in seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity, from one conjecture to another. 

"In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd nameof Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the sameease and grace, got into conversation with my ward. 

"She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very oldacquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a maskrendered practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amusedher with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed at my poor child's fun. She was very witty and lively whenshe pleased, and after a time they had grown very good friends, and theyoung stranger lowered her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it before, neither had my dear child. But though it wasnew to us, the features were so engaging, as well as lovely, that itwas impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl didso. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost herheart to her. 

"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I putnot a few questions to the elder lady. 

"'You have puzzled me utterly, ' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough?Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindnessto remove your mask?'

"'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady toyield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognize me?Years make changes. '

"'As you see, ' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholylittle laugh. 

"'As philosophers tell us, ' she said; 'and how do you know that a sightof my face would help you?'

"'I should take chance for that, ' I answered. 'It is vain trying to makeyourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you. '

"'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you sawme, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter;I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time hastaught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what youremember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing inexchange. '

"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it. '

"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is, ' she replied. 

"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French orGerman; you speak both languages so perfectly. '

"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise, and are meditating the particular point of attack. '

"'At all events, you won't deny this, ' I said, 'that being honored byyour permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall Isay Madame la Comtesse?'

"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with anotherevasion--if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview everycircumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with theprofoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident. 

"'As to that, ' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she openedher lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularlyelegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was themost deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in nomasquerade--in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:--

"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which mayinterest her?'

"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token ofsilence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I shallreturn when I have said a few words. '

"And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little asidewith the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparentlyvery earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, andI lost them for some minutes. 

"I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to theidentity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I wasthinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between mypretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the timeshe returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by havingher name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at thismoment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:

"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is atthe door. '

"He withdrew with a bow. "

XII

_A Petition_

"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a fewhours, ' I said, with a low bow. 

"'It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very unlucky hisspeaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?'

"I assured her I did not. 

"'You shall know me, ' she said, 'but not at present. We are older andbetter friends than, perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself. I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I havebeen making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you for an hour or two, and renew a friendship which I never think of without a thousandpleasant recollections. This moment a piece of news has reached me likea thunderbolt. I must set out now, and travel by a devious route, nearlya hundred miles, with all the dispatch I can possibly make. Myperplexities multiply. I am only deterred by the compulsory reserve Ipractice as to my name from making a very singular request of you. Mypoor child has not quite recovered her strength. Her horse fell withher, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have notyet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must on noaccount exert herself for some time to come. We came here, inconsequence, by very easy stages--hardly six leagues a day. I must nowtravel day and night, on a mission of life and death--a mission thecritical and momentous nature of which I shall be able to explain to youwhen we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the necessityof any concealment. '

"She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a personfrom whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seekinga favor. 

"This was only in manner, and, as it seemed, quite unconsciously. Thanthe terms in which it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It was simply that I would consent to take charge of her daughter duringher absence. 

"This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say, an audaciousrequest. She in some sort disarmed me, by stating and admittingeverything that could be urged against it, and throwing herself entirelyupon my chivalry. At the same moment, by a fatality that seems to havepredetermined all that happened, my poor child came to my side, and, inan undertone, besought me to invite her new friend, Millarca, to pay usa visit. She had just been sounding her, and thought, if her mamma wouldallow her, she would like it extremely. 

"At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until, atleast, we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to think in. Thetwo ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined andbeautiful face of the young lady, about which there was somethingextremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted, and undertook, tooeasily, the care of the young lady, whom her mother called Millarca. 

"The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who listened with graveattention while she told her, in general terms, how suddenly andperemptorily she had been summoned, and also of the arrangement she hadmade for her under my care, adding that I was one of her earliest andmost valued friends. 

"I made, of course, such speeches as the case seemed to call for, andfound myself, on reflection, in a position which I did not half like. 

"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted thelady from the room. 

"The demeanor of this gentleman was such as to impress me with theconviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more importancethan her modest title alone might have led me to assume. 

"Her last charge to me was that no attempt was to be made to learn moreabout her than I might have already guessed, until her return. Ourdistinguished host, whose guest she was, knew her reasons. 

"'But here, ' she said, 'neither I nor my daughter could safely remainfor more than a day. I removed my mask imprudently for a moment, aboutan hour ago, and, too late, I fancied you saw me. So I resolved to seekan opportunity of talking a little to you. Had I found that you had seenme, I would have thrown myself on your high sense of honor to keep mysecret some weeks. As it is, I am satisfied that you did not see me; butif you now suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect, who I am, Icommit myself, in like manner, entirely to your honor. My daughter willobserve the same secrecy, and I well know that you will, from time totime, remind her, lest she should thoughtlessly disclose it. '

"She whispered a few words to her daughter, kissed her hurriedly twice, and went away, accompanied by the pale gentleman in black, anddisappeared in the crowd. 

"'In the next room, ' said Millarca, 'there is a window that looks uponthe hall door. I should like to see the last of mamma, and to kiss myhand to her. '

"We assented, of course, and accompanied her to the window. We lookedout, and saw a handsome old-fashioned carriage, with a troop of couriersand footmen. We saw the slim figure of the pale gentleman in black, ashe held a thick velvet cloak, and placed it about her shoulders andthrew the hood over her head. She nodded to him, and just touched hishand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as the door closed, and thecarriage began to move. 

"'She is gone, ' said Millarca, with a sigh. 

"'She is gone, ' I repeated to myself, for the first time--in the hurriedmoments that had elapsed since my consent--reflecting upon the follyof my act. 

"'She did not look up, ' said the young lady, plaintively. 

"'The Countess had taken off her mask, perhaps, and did not care to showher face, ' I said; 'and she could not know that you were in the window. '

"She sighed, and looked in my face. She was so beautiful that Irelented. I was sorry I had for a moment repented of my hospitality, andI determined to make her amends for the unavowed churlishness of myreception. 

"The young lady, replacing her mask, joined my ward in persuading me toreturn to the grounds, where the concert was soon to be renewed. We didso, and walked up and down the terrace that lies under thecastle windows. 

"Millarca became very intimate with us, and amused us with livelydescriptions and stories of most of the great people whom we saw uponthe terrace. I liked her more and more every minute. Her gossip withoutbeing ill-natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had been so longout of the great world. I thought what life she would give to oursometimes lonely evenings at home. 

"This ball was not over until the morning sun had almost reached thehorizon. It pleased the Grand Duke to dance till then, so loyal peoplecould not go away, or think of bed. 

"We had just got through a crowded saloon, when my ward asked me whathad become of Millarca. I thought she had been by her side, and shefancied she was by mine. The fact was, we had lost her. 

"All my efforts to find her were vain. I feared that she had mistaken, in the confusion of a momentary separation from us, other people for hernew friends, and had, possibly, pursued and lost them in the extensivegrounds which were thrown open to us. 

"Now, in its full force, I recognized a new folly in my havingundertaken the charge of a young lady without so much as knowing hername; and fettered as I was by promises, of the reasons for imposingwhich I knew nothing, I could not even point my inquiries by saying thatthe missing young lady was the daughter of the Countess who had takenher departure a few hours before. 

"Morning broke. It was clear daylight before I gave up my search. It wasnot till near two o'clock next day that we heard anything of mymissing charge. 

"At about that time a servant knocked at my niece's door, to say that hehad been earnestly requested by a young lady, who appeared to be ingreat distress, to make out where she could find the General BaronSpielsdorf and the young lady his daughter, in whose charge she had beenleft by her mother. 

"There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the slight inaccuracy, thatour young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven wehad lost her!

"She told my poor child a story to account for her having failed torecover us for so long. Very late, she said, she had got to thehousekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding us, and had then falleninto a deep sleep which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed to recruither strength after the fatigues of the ball. 

"That day Millarca came home with us. I was only too happy, after all, to have secured so charming a companion for my dear girl. "

XIII

_The Woodman_

"There soon, however, appeared some drawbacks. In the first place, Millarca complained of extreme languor--the weakness that remained afterher late illness--and she never emerged from her room till the afternoonwas pretty far advanced. In the next place, it was accidentallydiscovered, although she always locked her door on the inside, and neverdisturbed the key from its place till she admitted the maid to assist ather toilet, that she was undoubtedly sometimes absent from her room inthe very early morning, and at various times later in the day, beforeshe wished it to be understood that she was stirring. She was repeatedlyseen from the windows of the schloss, in the first faint grey of themorning, walking through the trees, in an easterly direction, andlooking like a person in a trance. This convinced me that she walked inher sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did shepass out from her room, leaving the door locked on the inside? How didshe escape from the house without unbarring door or window?

"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kindpresented itself. 

"My dear child began to lose her looks and health, and that in a mannerso mysterious, and even horrible, that I became thoroughly frightened. 

"She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she fancied, bya specter, sometimes resembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of abeast, indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of her bed, fromside to side. 

"Lastly came sensations. One, not unpleasant, but very peculiar, shesaid, resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast. At a latertime, she felt something like a pair of large needles pierce her, alittle below the throat, with a very sharp pain. A few nights after, followed a gradual and convulsive sense of strangulation; then cameunconsciousness. "

I could hear distinctly every word the kind old General was saying, because by this time we were driving upon the short grass that spreadson either side of the road as you approach the roofless village whichhad not shown the smoke of a chimney for more than half a century. 

You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard my own symptoms so exactlydescribed in those which had been experienced by the poor girl who, butfor the catastrophe which followed, would have been at that moment avisitor at my father's chateau. You may suppose, also, how I felt as Iheard him detail habits and mysterious peculiarities which were, infact, those of our beautiful guest, Carmilla!

A vista opened in the forest; we were on a sudden under the chimneys andgables of the ruined village, and the towers and battlements of thedismantled castle, round which gigantic trees are grouped, overhung usfrom a slight eminence. 

In a frightened dream I got down from the carriage, and in silence, forwe had each abundant matter for thinking; we soon mounted the ascent, and were among the spacious chambers, winding stairs, and darkcorridors of the castle. 

"And this was once the palatial residence of the Karnsteins!" said theold General at length, as from a great window he looked out across thevillage, and saw the wide, undulating expanse of forest. "It was a badfamily, and here its bloodstained annals were written, " he continued. "It is hard that they should, after death, continue to plague the humanrace with their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the Karnsteins, down there. "

He pointed down to the grey walls of the Gothic building partly visiblethrough the foliage, a little way down the steep. "And I hear the axe ofa woodman, " he added, "busy among the trees that surround it; hepossibly may give us the information of which I am in search, and pointout the grave of Mircalla, Countess of Karnstein. These rustics preservethe local traditions of great families, whose stories die out among therich and titled so soon as the families themselves become extinct. "

"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein;should you like to see it?" asked my father. 

"Time enough, dear friend, " replied the General. "I believe that I haveseen the original; and one motive which has led me to you earlier than Iat first intended, was to explore the chapel which we are nowapproaching. "

"What! see the Countess Mircalla, " exclaimed my father; "why, she hasbeen dead more than a century!"

"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told, " answered the General. 

"I confess, General, you puzzle me utterly, " replied my father, lookingat him, I fancied, for a moment with a return of the suspicion Idetected before. But although there was anger and detestation, at times, in the old General's manner, there was nothing flighty. 

"There remains to me, " he said, as we passed under the heavy arch ofthe Gothic church--for its dimensions would have justified its being sostyled--"but one object which can interest me during the few years thatremain to me on earth, and that is to wreak on her the vengeance which, I thank God, may still be accomplished by a mortal arm. "

"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my father, in increasing amazement. 

"I mean, to decapitate the monster, " he answered, with a fierce flush, and a stamp that echoed mournfully through the hollow ruin, and hisclenched hand was at the same moment raised, as if it grasped the handleof an axe, while he shook it ferociously in the air. 

"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever bewildered. 

"To strike her head off. "

"Cut her head off!"

"Aye, with a hatchet, with a spade, or with anything that can cleavethrough her murderous throat. You shall hear, " he answered, tremblingwith rage. And hurrying forward he said:

"That beam will answer for a seat; your dear child is fatigued; let herbe seated, and I will, in a few sentences, close my dreadful story. "

The squared block of wood, which lay on the grass-grown pavement of thechapel, formed a bench on which I was very glad to seat myself, and inthe meantime the General called to the woodman, who had been removingsome boughs which leaned upon the old walls; and, axe in hand, the hardyold fellow stood before us. 

He could not tell us anything of these monuments; but there was an oldman, he said, a ranger of this forest, at present sojourning in thehouse of the priest, about two miles away, who could point out everymonument of the old Karnstein family; and, for a trifle, he undertookto bring him back with him, if we would lend him one of our horses, inlittle more than half an hour. 

"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father of theold man. 

"I have been a woodman here, " he answered in his patois, "under theforester, all my days; so has my father before me, and so on, as manygenerations as I can count up. I could show you the very house in thevillage here, in which my ancestors lived. "

"How came the village to be deserted?" asked the General. 

"It was troubled by revenants, sir; several were tracked to theirgraves, there detected by the usual tests, and extinguished in the usualway, by decapitation, by the stake, and by burning; but not until manyof the villagers were killed. 

"But after all these proceedings according to law, " he continued--"somany graves opened, and so many vampires deprived of their horribleanimation--the village was not relieved. But a Moravian nobleman, whohappened to be traveling this way, heard how matters were, and beingskilled--as many people are in his country--in such affairs, he offeredto deliver the village from its tormentor. He did so thus: There being abright moon that night, he ascended, shortly after sunset, the towers ofthe chapel here, from whence he could distinctly see the churchyardbeneath him; you can see it from that window. From this point he watcheduntil he saw the vampire come out of his grave, and place near it thelinen clothes in which he had been folded, and then glide away towardsthe village to plague its inhabitants. 

"The stranger, having seen all this, came down from the steeple, tookthe linen wrappings of the vampire, and carried them up to the top ofthe tower, which he again mounted. When the vampire returned from hisprowlings and missed his clothes, he cried furiously to the Moravian, whom he saw at the summit of the tower, and who, in reply, beckoned himto ascend and take them. Whereupon the vampire, accepting hisinvitation, began to climb the steeple, and so soon as he had reachedthe battlements, the Moravian, with a stroke of his sword, clove hisskull in twain, hurling him down to the churchyard, whither, descendingby the winding stairs, the stranger followed and cut his head off, andnext day delivered it and the body to the villagers, who duly impaledand burnt them. 

"This Moravian nobleman had authority from the then head of the familyto remove the tomb of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, which he dideffectually, so that in a little while its site was quite forgotten. "

"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the General, eagerly. 

The forester shook his head, and smiled. 

"Not a soul living could tell you that now, " he said; "besides, they sayher body was removed; but no one is sure of that either. "

Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange story. 

XIV

_The Meeting_

"My beloved child, " he resumed, "was now growing rapidly worse. Thephysician who attended her had failed to produce the slightestimpression on her disease, for such I then supposed it to be. He saw myalarm, and suggested a consultation. I called in an abler physician, from Gratz. 

"Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as wellas a learned man. Having seen my poor ward together, they withdrew to mylibrary to confer and discuss. I, from the adjoining room, where Iawaited their summons, heard these two gentlemen's voices raised insomething sharper than a strictly philosophical discussion. I knocked atthe door and entered. I found the old physician from Gratz maintaininghis theory. His rival was combating it with undisguised ridicule, accompanied with bursts of laughter. This unseemly manifestationsubsided and the altercation ended on my entrance. 

"'Sir, ' said my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think thatyou want a conjuror, and not a doctor. '

"'Pardon me, ' said the old physician from Gratz, looking displeased, 'Ishall state my own view of the case in my own way another time. Igrieve, Monsieur le General, that by my skill and science I can be of nouse. Before I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest something toyou. '

"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table and began to write. 

"Profoundly disappointed, I made my bow, and as I turned to go, the otherdoctor pointed over his shoulder to his companion who was writing, andthen, with a shrug, significantly touched his forehead. 

"This consultation, then, left me precisely where I was. I walked outinto the grounds, all but distracted. The doctor from Gratz, in ten orfifteen minutes, overtook me. He apologized for having followed me, butsaid that he could not conscientiously take his leave without a fewwords more. He told me that he could not be mistaken; no natural diseaseexhibited the same symptoms; and that death was already very near. Thereremained, however, a day, or possibly two, of life. If the fatal seizurewere at once arrested, with great care and skill her strength mightpossibly return. But all hung now upon the confines of the irrevocable. One more assault might extinguish the last spark of vitality which is, every moment, ready to die. 

"'And what is the nature of the seizure you speak of?' I entreated. 

"'I have stated all fully in this note, which I place in your hands uponthe distinct condition that you send for the nearest clergyman, and openmy letter in his presence, and on no account read it till he is withyou; you would despise it else, and it is a matter of life and death. Should the priest fail you, then, indeed, you may read it. '

"He asked me, before taking his leave finally, whether I would wish tosee a man curiously learned upon the very subject, which, after I hadread his letter, would probably interest me above all others, and heurged me earnestly to invite him to visit him there; and so tookhis leave. 

"The ecclesiastic was absent, and I read the letter by myself. Atanother time, or in another case, it might have excited my ridicule. Butinto what quackeries will not people rush for a last chance, where allaccustomed means have failed, and the life of a beloved object isat stake?

"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd than the learned man'sletter. 

"It was monstrous enough to have consigned him to a madhouse. He saidthat the patient was suffering from the visits of a vampire! Thepunctures which she described as having occurred near the throat, were, he insisted, the insertion of those two long, thin, and sharp teethwhich, it is well known, are peculiar to vampires; and there could be nodoubt, he added, as to the well-defined presence of the small livid markwhich all concurred in describing as that induced by the demon's lips, and every symptom described by the sufferer was in exact conformity withthose recorded in every case of a similar visitation. 

"Being myself wholly skeptical as to the existence of any such portentas the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good doctor furnished, inmy opinion, but another instance of learning and intelligence oddlyassociated with some one hallucination. I was so miserable, however, that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon the instructions ofthe letter. 

"I concealed myself in the dark dressing room, that opened upon the poorpatient's room, in which a candle was burning, and watched there tillshe was fast asleep. I stood at the door, peeping through the smallcrevice, my sword laid on the table beside me, as my directionsprescribed, until, a little after one, I saw a large black object, veryill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, andswiftly spread itself up to the poor girl's throat, where it swelled, ina moment, into a great, palpitating mass. 

"For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now sprang forward, with mysword in my hand. The black creature suddenly contracted towards thefoot of the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the floor about a yardbelow the foot of the bed, with a glare of skulking ferocity and horrorfixed on me, I saw Millarca. Speculating I know not what, I struck ather instantly with my sword; but I saw her standing near the door, unscathed. Horrified, I pursued, and struck again. She was gone; and mysword flew to shivers against the door. 

"I can't describe to you all that passed on that horrible night. Thewhole house was up and stirring. The specter Millarca was gone. But hervictim was sinking fast, and before the morning dawned, she died. "

The old General was agitated. We did not speak to him. My father walkedto some little distance, and began reading the inscriptions on thetombstones; and thus occupied, he strolled into the door of a sidechapel to prosecute his researches. The General leaned against the wall, dried his eyes, and sighed heavily. I was relieved on hearing the voicesof Carmilla and Madame, who were at that moment approaching. The voicesdied away. 

In this solitude, having just listened to so strange a story, connected, as it was, with the great and titled dead, whose monuments weremoldering among the dust and ivy round us, and every incident of whichbore so awfully upon my own mysterious case--in this haunted spot, darkened by the towering foliage that rose on every side, dense and highabove its noiseless walls--a horror began to steal over me, and my heartsank as I thought that my friends were, after all, not about to enterand disturb this triste and ominous scene. 

The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned with hishand upon the basement of a shattered monument. 

Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by one of those demoniacalgrotesques in which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carvingdelights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and figure of Carmillaenter the shadowy chapel. 

I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded smiling, in answer to herpeculiarly engaging smile; when with a cry, the old man by my sidecaught up the woodman's hatchet, and started forward. On seeing him abrutalized change came over her features. It was an instantaneous andhorrible transformation, as she made a crouching step backwards. BeforeI could utter a scream, he struck at her with all his force, but shedived under his blow, and unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by thewrist. He struggled for a moment to release his arm, but his handopened, the axe fell to the ground, and the girl was gone. 

He staggered against the wall. His grey hair stood upon his head, and amoisture shone over his face, as if he were at the point of death. 

The frightful scene had passed in a moment. The first thing I recollectafter, is Madame standing before me, and impatiently repeating again andagain, the question, "Where is Mademoiselle Carmilla?"

I answered at length, "I don't know--I can't tell--she went there, " andI pointed to the door through which Madame had just entered; "only aminute or two since. "

"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since MademoiselleCarmilla entered; and she did not return. "

She then began to call "Carmilla, " through every door and passage andfrom the windows, but no answer came. 

"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the General, still agitated. 

"Carmilla, yes, " I answered. 

"Aye, " he said; "that is Millarca. That is the same person who long agowas called Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Depart from this accursedground, my poor child, as quickly as you can. Drive to the clergyman'shouse, and stay there till we come. Begone! May you never beholdCarmilla more; you will not find her here. "

XV

_Ordeal and Execution_

As he spoke one of the strangest looking men I ever beheld entered thechapel at the door through which Carmilla had made her entrance and herexit. He was tall, narrow-chested, stooping, with high shoulders, anddressed in black. His face was brown and dried in with deep furrows; hewore an oddly-shaped hat with a broad leaf. His hair, long and grizzled, hung on his shoulders. He wore a pair of gold spectacles, and walkedslowly, with an odd shambling gait, with his face sometimes turned up tothe sky, and sometimes bowed down towards the ground, seemed to wear aperpetual smile; his long thin arms were swinging, and his lank hands, in old black gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving andgesticulating in utter abstraction. 

"The very man!" exclaimed the General, advancing with manifest delight. "My dear Baron, how happy I am to see you, I had no hope of meeting youso soon. " He signed to my father, who had by this time returned, andleading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he called the Baron to meethim. He introduced him formally, and they at once entered into earnestconversation. The stranger took a roll of paper from his pocket, andspread it on the worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a pencilcase in his fingers, with which he traced imaginary lines from point topoint on the paper, which from their often glancing from it, together, at certain points of the building, I concluded to be a plan of thechapel. He accompanied, what I may term, his lecture, with occasionalreadings from a dirty little book, whose yellow leaves were closelywritten over. 

They sauntered together down the side aisle, opposite to the spot whereI was standing, conversing as they went; then they began measuringdistances by paces, and finally they all stood together, facing a pieceof the sidewall, which they began to examine with great minuteness;pulling off the ivy that clung over it, and rapping the plaster with theends of their sticks, scraping here, and knocking there. At length theyascertained the existence of a broad marble tablet, with letters carvedin relief upon it. 

With the assistance of the woodman, who soon returned, a monumentalinscription, and carved escutcheon, were disclosed. They proved to bethose of the long lost monument of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. 

The old General, though not I fear given to the praying mood, raised hishands and eyes to heaven, in mute thanksgiving for some moments. 

"Tomorrow, " I heard him say; "the commissioner will be here, and theInquisition will be held according to law. "

Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I havedescribed, he shook him warmly by both hands and said:

"Baron, how can I thank you? How can we all thank you? You will havedelivered this region from a plague that has scourged its inhabitantsfor more than a century. The horrible enemy, thank God, is atlast tracked. "

My father led the stranger aside, and the General followed. I know thathe had led them out of hearing, that he might relate my case, and I sawthem glance often quickly at me, as the discussion proceeded. 

My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me from thechapel, said:

"It is time to return, but before we go home, we must add to our partythe good priest, who lives but a little way from this; and persuade himto accompany us to the schloss. "

In this quest we were successful: and I was glad, being unspeakablyfatigued when we reached home. But my satisfaction was changed todismay, on discovering that there were no tidings of Carmilla. Of thescene that had occurred in the ruined chapel, no explanation was offeredto me, and it was clear that it was a secret which my father for thepresent determined to keep from me. 

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remembrance of the scene morehorrible to me. The arrangements for the night were singular. Twoservants, and Madame were to sit up in my room that night; and theecclesiastic with my father kept watch in the adjoining dressing room. 

The priest had performed certain solemn rites that night, the purport ofwhich I did not understand any more than I comprehended the reason ofthis extraordinary precaution taken for my safety during sleep. 

I saw all clearly a few days later. 

The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of mynightly sufferings. 

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails inUpper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, inPoland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, ofthe Vampire. 

If human testimony, taken with every care and solemnity, judicially, before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, allchosen for integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports morevoluminous perhaps than exist upon any one other class of cases, isworth anything, it is difficult to deny, or even to doubt the existenceof such a phenomenon as the Vampire. 

For my part I have heard no theory by which to explain what I myselfhave witnessed and experienced, other than that supplied by the ancientand well-attested belief of the country. 

The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel ofKarnstein. 

The grave of the Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General and myfather recognized each his perfidious and beautiful guest, in the facenow disclosed to view. The features, though a hundred and fifty yearshad passed since her funeral, were tinted with the warmth of life. Hereyes were open; no cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The twomedical men, one officially present, the other on the part of thepromoter of the inquiry, attested the marvelous fact that there was afaint but appreciable respiration, and a corresponding action of theheart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and theleaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed. 

Here then, were all the admitted signs and proofs of vampirism. Thebody, therefore, in accordance with the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered apiercing shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape froma living person in the last agony. Then the head was struck off, and atorrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and head wasnext placed on a pile of wood, and reduced to ashes, which were thrownupon the river and borne away, and that territory has never since beenplagued by the visits of a vampire. 

My father has a copy of the report of the Imperial Commission, with thesignatures of all who were present at these proceedings, attached inverification of the statement. It is from this official paper that Ihave summarized my account of this last shocking scene. 

XVI

_Conclusion_

I write all this you suppose with composure. But far from it; I cannotthink of it without agitation. Nothing but your earnest desire sorepeatedly expressed, could have induced me to sit down to a task thathas unstrung my nerves for months to come, and reinduced a shadow of theunspeakable horror which years after my deliverance continued to make mydays and nights dreadful, and solitude insupportably terrific. 

Let me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to whosecurious lore we were indebted for the discovery of the CountessMircalla's grave. 

He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere pittance, which was all that remained to him of the once princely estates of hisfamily, in Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the minute and laboriousinvestigation of the marvelously authenticated tradition of Vampirism. He had at his fingers' ends all the great and little works uponthe subject. 

"Magia Posthuma, " "Phlegon de Mirabilibus, " "Augustinus de cura proMortuis, " "Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris, " byJohn Christofer Herenberg; and a thousand others, among which Iremember only a few of those which he lent to my father. He had avoluminous digest of all the judicial cases, from which he had extracteda system of principles that appear to govern--some always, and othersoccasionally only--the condition of the vampire. I may mention, inpassing, that the deadly pallor attributed to that sort of revenants, isa mere melodramatic fiction. They present, in the grave, and when theyshow themselves in human society, the appearance of healthy life. Whendisclosed to light in their coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms thatare enumerated as those which proved the vampire-life of the long-deadCountess Karnstein. 

How they escape from their graves and return to them for certain hoursevery day, without displacing the clay or leaving any trace ofdisturbance in the state of the coffin or the cerements, has always beenadmitted to be utterly inexplicable. The amphibious existence of thevampire is sustained by daily renewed slumber in the grave. Its horriblelust for living blood supplies the vigor of its waking existence. Thevampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit ofthese it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for accessto a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It willnever desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the verylife of its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband andprotract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, andheighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In thesecases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent. Inordinary ones it goes direct to its object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single feast. 

The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain situations, to specialconditions. In the particular instance of which I have given you arelation, Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name which, if not her realone, should at least reproduce, without the omission or addition of asingle letter, those, as we say, anagrammatically, which compose it. 

Carmilla did this; so did Millarca. 

My father related to the Baron Vordenburg, who remained with us for twoor three weeks after the expulsion of Carmilla, the story about theMoravian nobleman and the vampire at Karnstein churchyard, and then heasked the Baron how he had discovered the exact position of thelong-concealed tomb of the Countess Mircalla? The Baron's grotesquefeatures puckered up into a mysterious smile; he looked down, stillsmiling on his worn spectacle case and fumbled with it. Then lookingup, he said:

"I have many journals, and other papers, written by that remarkable man;the most curious among them is one treating of the visit of which youspeak, to Karnstein. The tradition, of course, discolors and distorts alittle. He might have been termed a Moravian nobleman, for he hadchanged his abode to that territory, and was, beside, a noble. But hewas, in truth, a native of Upper Styria. It is enough to say that invery early youth he had been a passionate and favored lover of thebeautiful Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Her early death plunged him intoinconsolable grief. It is the nature of vampires to increase andmultiply, but according to an ascertained and ghostly law. 

"Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free from that pest. Howdoes it begin, and how does it multiply itself? I will tell you. Aperson, more or less wicked, puts an end to himself. A suicide, undercertain circumstances, becomes a vampire. That specter visits livingpeople in their slumbers; they die, and almost invariably, in the grave, develop into vampires. This happened in the case of the beautifulMircalla, who was haunted by one of those demons. My ancestor, Vordenburg, whose title I still bear, soon discovered this, and in thecourse of the studies to which he devoted himself, learned a greatdeal more. 

"Among other things, he concluded that suspicion of vampirism wouldprobably fall, sooner or later, upon the dead Countess, who in life hadbeen his idol. He conceived a horror, be she what she might, of herremains being profaned by the outrage of a posthumous execution. He hasleft a curious paper to prove that the vampire, on its expulsion fromits amphibious existence, is projected into a far more horrible life;and he resolved to save his once beloved Mircalla from this. 

"He adopted the stratagem of a journey here, a pretended removal of herremains, and a real obliteration of her monument. When age had stolenupon him, and from the vale of years, he looked back on the scenes hewas leaving, he considered, in a different spirit, what he had done, anda horror took possession of him. He made the tracings and notes whichhave guided me to the very spot, and drew up a confession of thedeception that he had practiced. If he had intended any further actionin this matter, death prevented him; and the hand of a remote descendanthas, too late for many, directed the pursuit to the lair of the beast. "

We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this:

"One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand. The slender hand ofMircalla closed like a vice of steel on the General's wrist when heraised the hatchet to strike. But its power is not confined to itsgrasp; it leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, ifever, recovered from. "

The following Spring my father took me a tour through Italy. We remainedaway for more than a year. It was long before the terror of recentevents subsided; and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns tomemory with ambiguous alternations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church;and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light stepof Carmilla at the drawing room door. 

 * * * * *

Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu

The Cock and AnchorTorlogh O'BrienThe House by the ChurchyardUncle SilasCheckmateCarmillaThe Wyvern MysteryGuy DeverellGhost Stories and Tales of MysteryThe Chronicles of Golden FriarsIn a Glass DarklyThe Purcell PapersThe Watcher and Other Weird StoriesA Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other StoriesMadam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of MysteryGreen Tea and Other StoriesSheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic GeniusBest Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanuThe Best Horror StoriesThe Vampire Lovers and Other StoriesGhost Stories and MysteriesThe Hours After MidnightJ. S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and MysteriesGhost and Horror StoriesGreen Tea and Other Ghost StonesCarmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery