Carmilla

J. Sheridan LeFanu
 PROLOGUE
Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which
follows, Doctor Hesselius has written a rather
elaborate note, which he accompanies with a
reference to his Essay on the strange subject
which the MS. illuminates.

This mysterious subject he treats, in that

Essay, with his usual learning and acumen, and
with remarkable directness and condensation.
It will form but one volume of the series of that
extraordinary man's collected papers.

As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to

interest the "laity," I shall forestall the
intelligent lady, who relates it, in nothing; and
after due consideration, I have determined,
therefore, to abstain from presenting any
précis of the learned Doctor's reasoning, or
extract from his statement on a subject which
he describes as "involving, not improbably,
some of the profoundest arcana of our dual
existence, and its intermediates."

I was anxious on discovering this paper, to

reopen the correspondence commenced by
Doctor Hesselius, so many years before, with a
person so clever and careful as his informant
seems to have been. Much to my regret,
however, I found that she had died in the
interval.

She, probably, could have added little to the

Narrative which she communicates in the
following pages, with, so far as I can
pronounce, such conscientious particularity.
I
An Early Fright

In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent

people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A small
income, in that part of the world, goes a great
way. Eight or nine hundred a year does
wonders. Scantily enough ours would have
answered among wealthy people at home. My
father is English, and I bear an English name,
although I never saw England. But here, in this
lonely and primitive place, where everything is
so marvelously cheap, I really don't see how
ever so much more money would at all
materially add to our comforts, or even
luxuries.

My father was in the Austrian service, and

retired upon a pension and his patrimony, and
purchased this feudal residence, and the small
estate on which it stands, a bargain.

Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It

stands on a slight eminence in a forest. The
road, very old and narrow, passes in front of its
drawbridge, never raised in my time, and its
moat, stocked with perch, and sailed over by
many swans, and floating on its surface white
fleets of water lilies.

Over all this the schloss shows its many-

windowed front; its towers, and its Gothic
chapel.

The forest opens in an irregular and very

picturesque glade before its gate, and at the
right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road
over a stream that winds in deep shadow
through the wood. I have said that this is a
very lonely place. Judge whether I say truth.
Looking from the hall door towards the road,
the forest in which our castle stands extends
fifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the
left. The nearest inhabited village is about
seven of your English miles to the left. The
nearest inhabited schloss of any historic
associations, is that of old General Spielsdorf,
nearly twenty miles away to the right.

I have said "the nearest inhabited village,"

because there is, only three miles westward,
that is to say in the direction of General
Spielsdorf's schloss, a ruined village, with its
quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle
of which are the moldering tombs of the proud
family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once
owned the equally desolate chateau which, in
the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent
ruins of the town.

Respecting the cause of the desertion of this

striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend
which I shall relate to you another time.

I must tell you now, how very small is the

party who constitute the inhabitants of our
castle. I don't include servants, or those
dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings
attached to the schloss. Listen, and wonder! My
father, who is the kindest man on earth, but
growing old; and I, at the date of my story,
only nineteen. Eight years have passed since
then.

I and my father constituted the family at the

schloss. My mother, a Styrian lady, died in my
infancy, but I had a good-natured governess,
who had been with me from, I might almost
say, my infancy. I could not remember the time
when her fat, benignant face was not a familiar
picture in my memory.

This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne,

whose care and good nature now in part
supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I
do not even remember, so early I lost her. She
made a third at our little dinner party. There
was a fourth, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a
lady such as you term, I believe, a "finishing
governess." She spoke French and German,
Madame Perrodon French and broken English,
to which my father and I added English, which,
partly to prevent its becoming a lost language
among us, and partly from patriotic motives,
we spoke every day. The consequence was a
Babel, at which strangers used to laugh, and
which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in
this narrative. And there were two or three
young lady friends besides, pretty nearly of my
own age, who were occasional visitors, for
longer or shorter terms; and these visits I
sometimes returned.

These were our regular social resources; but of

course there were chance visits from
"neighbors" of only five or six leagues distance.
My life was, notwithstanding, rather a solitary
one, I can assure you.

My gouvernantes had just so much control

over me as you might conjecture such sage
persons would have in the case of a rather
spoiled girl, whose only parent allowed her
pretty nearly her own way in everything.

The first occurrence in my existence, which

produced a terrible impression upon my mind,
which, in fact, never has been effaced, was one
of the very earliest incidents of my life which I
can recollect. Some people will think it so
trifling that it should not be recorded here. You
will see, however, by-and-by, why I mention it.
The nursery, as it was called, though I had it
all to myself, was a large room in the upper
story of the castle, with a steep oak roof. I
can't have been more than six years old, when
one night I awoke, and looking round the room
from my bed, failed to see the nursery maid.
Neither was my nurse there; and I thought
myself alone. I was not frightened, for I was
one of those happy children who are studiously
kept in ignorance of ghost stories, of fairy
tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up
our heads when the door cracks suddenly, or
the flicker of an expiring candle makes the
shadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall,
nearer to our faces. I was vexed and insulted
at finding myself, as I conceived, neglected,
and I began to whimper, preparatory to a
hearty bout of roaring; when to my surprise, I
saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at
me from the side of the bed. It was that of a
young lady who was kneeling, with her hands
under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind
of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering.
She caressed me with her hands, and lay down
beside me on the bed, and drew me towards
her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully
soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened
by a sensation as if two needles ran into my
breast very deep at the same moment, and I
cried loudly. The lady started back, with her
eyes fixed on me, and then slipped down upon
the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself under
the bed.

I was now for the first time frightened, and I

yelled with all my might and main. Nurse,
nursery maid, housekeeper, all came running
in, and hearing my story, they made light of it,
soothing me all they could meanwhile. But,
child as I was, I could perceive that their faces
were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety,
and I saw them look under the bed, and about
the room, and peep under tables and pluck
open cupboards; and the housekeeper
whispered to the nurse: "Lay your hand along
that hollow in the bed; someone did lie there,
so sure as you did not; the place is still warm."
I remember the nursery maid petting me, and
all three examining my chest, where I told
them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that
there was no sign visible that any such thing
had happened to me.

The housekeeper and the two other servants

who were in charge of the nursery, remained
sitting up all night; and from that time a
servant always sat up in the nursery until I
was about fourteen.

I was very nervous for a long time after this. A

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

The morning after I saw this apparition I was in

a state of terror, and could not bear to be left
alone, daylight though it was, for a moment.

I remember my father coming up and standing

at the bedside, and talking cheerfully, and
asking the nurse a number of questions, and
laughing very heartily at one of the answers;
and patting me on the shoulder, and kissing
me, and telling me not to be frightened, that it
was nothing but a dream and could not hurt
me.

But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of

the strange woman was not a dream; and I
was awfully frightened.

I was a little consoled by the nursery maid's

assuring me that it was she who had come and
looked at me, and lain down beside me in the
bed, and that I must have been half-dreaming
not to have known her face. But this, though
supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy
me.

I remembered, in the course of that day, a

venerable old man, in a black cassock, coming
into the room with the nurse and housekeeper,
and talking a little to them, and very kindly to
me; his face was very sweet and gentle, and
he told me they were going to pray, and joined
my hands together, and desired me to say,
softly, while they were praying, "Lord hear all
good prayers for us, for Jesus' sake." I think
these were the very words, for I often repeated
them to myself, and my nurse used for years to
make me say them in my prayers.

I remembered so well the thoughtful sweet

face of that white-haired old man, in his black
cassock, as he stood in that rude, lofty, brown
room, with the clumsy furniture of a fashion
three hundred years old about him, and the
scanty light entering its shadowy atmosphere
through the small lattice. He kneeled, and the
three women with him, and he prayed aloud
with an earnest quavering voice for, what
appeared to me, a long time. I forget all my life
preceding that event, and for some time after
it is all obscure also, but the scenes I have just
described stand out vivid as the isolated
pictures of the phantasmagoria surrounded by
darkness.
II

A Guest

I am now going to tell you something so

strange that it will require all your faith in my
veracity to believe my story. It is not only true,
nevertheless, but truth of which I have been
an eyewitness.

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father

asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little
ramble with him along that beautiful forest
vista which I have mentioned as lying in front
of the schloss.

"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon

as I had hoped," said my father, as we pursued
our walk.

He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks,

and we had expected his arrival next day. He
was to have brought with him a young lady, his
niece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt,
whom I had never seen, but whom I had heard
described as a very charming girl, and in
whose society I had promised myself many
happy days. I was more disappointed than a
young lady living in a town, or a bustling
neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit,
and the new acquaintance it promised, had
furnished my day dream for many weeks.

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

"Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare

say," he answered. "And I am very glad now,
dear, that you never knew Mademoiselle
Rheinfeldt."

"And why?" I asked, both mortified and

curious.

"Because the poor young lady is dead," he

replied. "I quite forgot I had not told you, but
you were not in the room when I received the
General's letter this evening."

I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf

had mentioned in his first letter, six or seven
weeks before, that she was not so well as he
would wish her, but there was nothing to
suggest the remotest suspicion of danger.

"Here is the General's letter," he said, handing

it to me. "I am afraid he is in great affliction;
the letter appears to me to have been written
very nearly in distraction."

We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of

magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting
with all its melancholy splendor behind the
sylvan horizon, and the stream that flows
beside our home, and passes under the steep
old bridge I have mentioned, wound through
many a group of noble trees, almost at our
feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson
of the sky. General Spielsdorf's letter was so
extraordinary, so vehement, and in some
places so self-contradictory, that I read it twice
over--the second time aloud to my father--and
was still unable to account for it, except by
supposing that grief had unsettled his mind.

It said "I have lost my darling daughter, for as

such I loved her. During the last days of dear
Bertha's illness I was not able to write to you.

Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have

lost her, and now learn all, too late. She died in
the peace of innocence, and in the glorious
hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who
betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it
all. I thought I was receiving into my house
innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for
my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I
been!

I thank God my child died without a suspicion

of the cause of her sufferings. She is gone
without so much as conjecturing the nature of
her illness, and the accursed passion of the
agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining
days to tracking and extinguishing a monster. I
am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous
and merciful purpose. At present there is
scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse
my conceited incredulity, my despicable
affectation of superiority, my blindness, my
obstinacy--all--too late. I cannot write or talk
collectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I
shall have a little recovered, I mean to devote
myself for a time to enquiry, which may
possibly lead me as far as Vienna. Some time
in the autumn, two months hence, or earlier if
I live, I will see you--that is, if you permit me;
I will then tell you all that I scarce dare put
upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear
friend."

In these terms ended this strange letter.

Though I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my
eyes filled with tears at the sudden
intelligence; I was startled, as well as
profoundly disappointed.

The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the

time I had returned the General's letter to my
father.

It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered,

speculating upon the possible meanings of the
violent and incoherent sentences which I had
just been reading. We had nearly a mile to
walk before reaching the road that passes the
schloss in front, and by that time the moon
was shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge we
met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De
Lafontaine, who had come out, without their
bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.

We heard their voices gabbling in animated

dialogue as we approached. We joined them at
the drawbridge, and turned about to admire
with them the beautiful scene.
The glade through which we had just walked
lay before us. At our left the narrow road
wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and
was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. At
the right the same road crosses the steep and
picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined
tower which once guarded that pass; and
beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises,
covered with trees, and showing in the
shadows some grey ivy-clustered rocks.

Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of

mist was stealing like smoke, marking the
distances with a transparent veil; and here and
there we could see the river faintly flashing in
the moonlight.

No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined.

The news I had just heard made it melancholy;
but nothing could disturb its character of
profound serenity, and the enchanted glory and
vagueness of the prospect.

My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I,

stood looking in silence over the expanse
beneath us. The two good governesses,
standing a little way behind us, discoursed
upon the scene, and were eloquent upon the
moon.

Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and

romantic, and talked and sighed poetically.
Mademoiselle De Lafontaine--in right of her
father who was a German, assumed to be
psychological, metaphysical, and something of
a mystic--now declared that when the moon
shone with a light so intense it was well known
that it indicated a special spiritual activity. The
effect of the full moon in such a state of
brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it
acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it
had marvelous physical influences connected
with life. Mademoiselle related that her cousin,
who was mate of a merchant ship, having
taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on
his back, with his face full in the light on the
moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old
woman clawing him by the cheek, with his
features horribly drawn to one side; and his
countenance had never quite recovered its
equilibrium.

"The moon, this night," she said, "is full of

idyllic and magnetic influence--and see, when
you look behind you at the front of the schloss
how all its windows flash and twinkle with that
silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted
up the rooms to receive fairy guests."

There are indolent styles of the spirits in

which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of
others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I
gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies'
conversation.

"I have got into one of my moping moods

tonight," said my father, after a silence, and
quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of
keeping up our English, he used to read aloud,
he said:
"'In truth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me: you say it wearies you;
But how I got it--came by it.'

"I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great

misfortune were hanging over us. I suppose
the poor General's afflicted letter has had
something to do with it."

At this moment the unwonted sound of

carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the road,
arrested our attention.

They seemed to be approaching from the high

ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon
the equipage emerged from that point. Two
horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a
carriage drawn by four horses, and two men
rode behind.

It seemed to be the traveling carriage of a

person of rank; and we were all immediately
absorbed in watching that very unusual
spectacle. It became, in a few moments,
greatly more interesting, for just as the
carriage had passed the summit of the steep
bridge, one of the leaders, taking fright,
communicated his panic to the rest, and after a
plunge or two, the whole team broke into a
wild gallop together, and dashing between the
horsemen who rode in front, came thundering
along the road towards us with the speed of a
hurricane.
The excitement of the scene was made more
painful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a
female voice from the carriage window.

We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me

rather in silence, the rest with various
ejaculations of terror.

Our suspense did not last long. Just before you

reach the castle drawbridge, on the route they
were coming, there stands by the roadside a
magnificent lime tree, on the other stands an
ancient stone cross, at sight of which the
horses, now going at a pace that was perfectly
frightful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over
the projecting roots of the tree.

I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes,

unable to see it out, and turned my head
away; at the same moment I heard a cry from
my lady friends, who had gone on a little.

Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of

utter confusion. Two of the horses were on the
ground, the carriage lay upon its side with two
wheels in the air; the men were busy removing
the traces, and a lady with a commanding air
and figure had got out, and stood with clasped
hands, raising the handkerchief that was in
them every now and then to her eyes.

Through the carriage door was now lifted a

young lady, who appeared to be lifeless. My
dear old father was already beside the elder
lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently
tendering his aid and the resources of his
schloss. The lady did not appear to hear him,
or to have eyes for anything but the slender
girl who was being placed against the slope of
the bank.

I approached; the young lady was apparently

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

She was what is called a fine looking woman

for her time of life, and must have been
handsome; she was tall, but not thin, and
dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale,
but with a proud and commanding
countenance, though now agitated strangely.

"Who was ever being so born to calamity?" I

heard her say, with clasped hands, as I came
up. "Here am I, on a journey of life and death,
in prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly
to lose all. My child will not have recovered
sufficiently to resume her route for who can
say how long. I must leave her: I cannot, dare
not, delay. How far on, sir, can you tell, is the
nearest village? I must leave her there; and
shall not see my darling, or even hear of her
till my return, three months hence."

I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered

earnestly in his ear: "Oh! papa, pray ask her to
let her stay with us--it would be so delightful.
Do, pray."

"If Madame will entrust her child to the care of

my daughter, and of her good gouvernante,
Madame Perrodon, and permit her to remain as
our guest, under my charge, until her return, it
will confer a distinction and an obligation upon
us, and we shall treat her with all the care and
devotion which so sacred a trust deserves."

"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your

kindness and chivalry too cruelly," said the
lady, distractedly.

"It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a

very great kindness at the moment when we
most need it. My daughter has just been
disappointed by a cruel misfortune, in a visit
from which she had long anticipated a great
deal of happiness. If you confide this young
lady to our care it will be her best consolation.
The nearest village on your route is distant,
and affords no such inn as you could think of
placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her
to continue her journey for any considerable
distance without danger. If, as you say, you
cannot suspend your journey, you must part
with her tonight, and nowhere could you do so
with more honest assurances of care and
tenderness than here."

There was something in this lady's air and

appearance so distinguished and even
imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as
to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of
her equipage, with a conviction that she was a
person of consequence.

By this time the carriage was replaced in its

upright position, and the horses, quite
tractable, in the traces again.

The lady threw on her daughter a glance which

I fancied was not quite so affectionate as one
might have anticipated from the beginning of
the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my
father, and withdrew two or three steps with
him out of hearing; and talked to him with a
fixed and stern countenance, not at all like
that with which she had hitherto spoken.

I was filled with wonder that my father did not

seem to perceive the change, and also
unspeakably curious to learn what it could be
that she was speaking, almost in his ear, with
so much earnestness and rapidity.

Two or three minutes at most I think she

remained thus employed, then she turned, and
a few steps brought her to where her daughter
lay, supported by Madame Perrodon. She
kneeled beside her for a moment and
whispered, as Madame supposed, a little
benediction in her ear; then hastily kissing her
she stepped into her carriage, the door was
closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped
up behind, the outriders spurred on, the
postilions cracked their whips, the horses
plunged and broke suddenly into a furious
canter that threatened soon again to become a
gallop, and the carriage whirled away, followed
at the same rapid pace by the two horsemen in
the rear.
III

We Compare Notes

We followed the cortege with our eyes until it

was swiftly lost to sight in the misty wood; and
the very sound of the hoofs and the wheels
died away in the silent night air.

Nothing remained to assure us that the

adventure had not been an illusion of a
moment but the young lady, who just at that
moment opened her eyes. I could not see, for
her face was turned from me, but she raised
her head, evidently looking about her, and I
heard a very sweet voice ask complainingly,
"Where is mamma?"

Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly,

and added some comfortable assurances.

I then heard her ask:

"Where am I? What is this place?" and after

that she said, "I don't see the carriage; and
Matska, where is she?"

Madame answered all her questions in so far as

she understood them; and gradually the young
lady remembered how the misadventure came
about, and was glad to hear that no one in, or
in attendance on, the carriage was hurt; and
on learning that her mamma had left her here,
till her return in about three months, she wept.

I was going to add my consolations to those of

Madame Perrodon when Mademoiselle De
Lafontaine placed her hand upon my arm,
saying:

"Don't approach, one at a time is as much as

she can at present converse with; a very little
excitement would possibly overpower her now."

As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought,

I will run up to her room and see her.

My father in the meantime had sent a servant

on horseback for the physician, who lived
about two leagues away; and a bedroom was
being prepared for the young lady's reception.

The stranger now rose, and leaning on

Madame's arm, walked slowly over the
drawbridge and into the castle gate.

In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and

she was conducted forthwith to her room. The
room we usually sat in as our drawing room is
long, having four windows, that looked over
the moat and drawbridge, upon the forest
scene I have just described.

It is furnished in old carved oak, with large

carved cabinets, and the chairs are cushioned
with crimson Utrecht velvet. The walls are
covered with tapestry, and surrounded with
great gold frames, the figures being as large as
life, in ancient and very curious costume, and
the subjects represented are hunting, hawking,
and generally festive. It is not too stately to be
extremely comfortable; and here we had our
tea, for with his usual patriotic leanings he
insisted that the national beverage should
make its appearance regularly with our coffee
and chocolate.

We sat here this night, and with candles

lighted, were talking over the adventure of the
evening.

Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De

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

"How do you like our guest?" I asked, as soon

as Madame entered. "Tell me all about her?"

"I like her extremely," answered Madame, "she

is, I almost think, the prettiest creature I ever
saw; about your age, and so gentle and nice."

"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in

Mademoiselle, who had peeped for a moment
into the stranger's room.

"And such a sweet voice!" added Madame

Perrodon.
"Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after
it was set up again, who did not get out,"
inquired Mademoiselle, "but only looked from
the window?"

"No, we had not seen her."

Then she described a hideous black woman,

with a sort of colored turban on her head, and
who was gazing all the time from the carriage
window, nodding and grinning derisively
towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes and
large white eyeballs, and her teeth set as if in
fury.

"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of

men the servants were?" asked Madame.

"Yes," said my father, who had just come in,

"ugly, hang-dog looking fellows as ever I
beheld in my life. I hope they mayn't rob the
poor lady in the forest. They are clever rogues,
however; they got everything to rights in a
minute."

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

"Besides looking wicked, their faces were so

strangely lean, and dark, and sullen. I am very
curious, I own; but I dare say the young lady
will tell you all about it tomorrow, if she is
sufficiently recovered."
"I don't think she will," said my father, with a
mysterious smile, and a little nod of his head,
as if he knew more about it than he cared to
tell us.

This made us all the more inquisitive as to

what had passed between him and the lady in
the black velvet, in the brief but earnest
interview that had immediately preceded her
departure.

We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him

to tell me. He did not need much pressing.

"There is no particular reason why I should not

tell you. She expressed a reluctance to trouble
us with the care of her daughter, saying she
was in delicate health, and nervous, but not
subject to any kind of seizure--she volunteered
that--nor to any illusion; being, in fact,
perfectly sane."

"How very odd to say all that!" I interpolated.

"It was so unnecessary."

"At all events it was said," he laughed, "and as

you wish to know all that passed, which was
indeed very little, I tell you. She then said, 'I
am making a long journey of vital importance--
she emphasized the word--rapid and secret; I
shall return for my child in three months; in
the meantime, she will be silent as to who we
are, whence we come, and whither we are
traveling.' That is all she said. She spoke very
pure French. When she said the word 'secret,'
she paused for a few seconds, looking sternly,
her eyes fixed on mine. I fancy she makes a
great point of that. You saw how quickly she
was gone. I hope I have not done a very
foolish thing, in taking charge of the young
lady."

For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to

see and talk to her; and only waiting till the
doctor should give me leave. You, who live in
towns, can have no idea how great an event
the introduction of a new friend is, in such a
solitude as surrounded us.

The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o'clock;

but I could no more have gone to my bed and
slept, than I could have overtaken, on foot, the
carriage in which the princess in black velvet
had driven away.

When the physician came down to the drawing

room, it was to report very favorably upon his
patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse
quite regular, apparently perfectly well. She
had sustained no injury, and the little shock to
her nerves had passed away quite harmlessly.
There could be no harm certainly in my seeing
her, if we both wished it; and, with this
permission I sent, forthwith, to know whether
she would allow me to visit her for a few
minutes in her room.

The servant returned immediately to say that

she desired nothing more.
You may be sure I was not long in availing
myself of this permission.

Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms

in the schloss. It was, perhaps, a little stately.
There was a somber piece of tapestry opposite
the foot of the bed, representing Cleopatra
with the asps to her bosom; and other solemn
classic scenes were displayed, a little faded,
upon the other walls. But there was gold
carving, and rich and varied color enough in
the other decorations of the room, to more
than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry.

There were candles at the bedside. She was

sitting up; her slender pretty figure enveloped
in the soft silk dressing gown, embroidered
with flowers, and lined with thick quilted silk,
which her mother had thrown over her feet as
she lay upon the ground.

What was it that, as I reached the bedside and

had just begun my little greeting, struck me
dumb in a moment, and made me recoil a step
or two from before her? I will tell you.

I saw the very face which had visited me in my

childhood at night, which remained so fixed in
my memory, and on which I had for so many
years so often ruminated with horror, when no
one suspected of what I was thinking.

It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first

beheld it, wore the same melancholy
expression.
But this almost instantly lighted into a strange
fixed smile of recognition.

There was a silence of fully a minute, and then

at length she spoke; I could not.

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years

ago, I saw your face in a dream, and it has
haunted me ever since."

"Wonderful indeed!" I repeated, overcoming

with an effort the horror that had for a time
suspended my utterances. "Twelve years ago,
in vision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could
not forget your face. It has remained before
my eyes ever since."

Her smile had softened. Whatever I had

fancied strange in it, was gone, and it and her
dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty
and intelligent.

I felt reassured, and continued more in the

vein which hospitality indicated, to bid her
welcome, and to tell her how much pleasure
her accidental arrival had given us all, and
especially what a happiness it was to me.

I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as

lonely people are, but the situation made me
eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my
hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes
glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she
smiled again, and blushed.
She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat
down beside her, still wondering; and she said:

"I must tell you my vision about you; it is so

very strange that you and I should have had,
each of the other so vivid a dream, that each
should have seen, I you and you me, looking
as we do now, when of course we both were
mere children. I was a child, about six years
old, and I awoke from a confused and troubled
dream, and found myself in a room, unlike my
nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark
wood, and with cupboards and bedsteads, and
chairs, and benches placed about it. The beds
were, I thought, all empty, and the room itself
without anyone but myself in it; and I, after
looking about me for some time, and admiring
especially an iron candlestick with two
branches, which I should certainly know again,
crept under one of the beds to reach the
window; but as I got from under the bed, I
heard someone crying; and looking up, while I
was still upon my knees, I saw you--most
assuredly you--as I see you now; a beautiful
young lady, with golden hair and large blue
eyes, and lips--your lips--you as you are here.

"Your looks won me; I climbed on the bed and

put my arms about you, and I think we both
fell asleep. I was aroused by a scream; you
were sitting up screaming. I was frightened,
and slipped down upon the ground, and, it
seemed to me, lost consciousness for a
moment; and when I came to myself, I was
again in my nursery at home. Your face I have
never forgotten since. I could not be misled by
mere resemblance. You are the lady whom I
saw then."

It was now my turn to relate my corresponding

vision, which I did, to the undisguised wonder
of my new acquaintance.

"I don't know which should be most afraid of

the other," she said, again smiling--"If you
were less pretty I think I should be very much
afraid of you, but being as you are, and you
and I both so young, I feel only that I have
made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and
have already a right to your intimacy; at all
events it does seem as if we were destined,
from our earliest childhood, to be friends. I
wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn
towards me as I do to you; I have never had a
friend--shall I find one now?" She sighed, and
her fine dark eyes gazed passionately on me.

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably

towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as
she said, "drawn towards her," but there was
also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous
feeling, however, the sense of attraction
immensely prevailed. She interested and won
me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably
engaging.

I perceived now something of languor and

exhaustion stealing over her, and hastened to
bid her good night.
"The doctor thinks," I added, "that you ought
to have a maid to sit up with you tonight; one
of ours is waiting, and you will find her a very
useful and quiet creature."

"How kind of you, but I could not sleep, I never

could with an attendant in the room. I shan't
require any assistance--and, shall I confess my
weakness, I am haunted with a terror of
robbers. Our house was robbed once, and two
servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It
has become a habit--and you look so kind I
know you will forgive me. I see there is a key
in the lock."

She held me close in her pretty arms for a

moment and whispered in my ear, "Good night,
darling, it is very hard to part with you, but
good night; tomorrow, but not early, I shall see
you again."

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and

her fine eyes followed me with a fond and
melancholy gaze, and she murmured again
"Good night, dear friend."

Young people like, and even love, on impulse. I

was flattered by the evident, though as yet
undeserved, fondness she showed me. I liked
the confidence with which she at once received
me. She was determined that we should be
very near friends.

Next day came and we met again. I was

delighted with my companion; that is to say, in
many respects.

Her looks lost nothing in daylight--she was

certainly the most beautiful creature I had
ever seen, and the unpleasant remembrance of
the face presented in my early dream, had lost
the effect of the first unexpected recognition.

She confessed that she had experienced a

similar shock on seeing me, and precisely the
same faint antipathy that had mingled with my
admiration of her. We now laughed together
over our momentary horrors.
IV

Her Habits--A Saunter

I told you that I was charmed with her in most

particulars.

There were some that did not please me so

well.

She was above the middle height of women. I

shall begin by describing her.

She was slender, and wonderfully graceful.

Except that her movements were languid--very
languid--indeed, there was nothing in her
appearance to indicate an invalid. Her
complexion was rich and brilliant; her features
were small and beautifully formed; her eyes
large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite
wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently
thick and long when it was down about her
shoulders; I have often placed my hands under
it, and laughed with wonder at its weight. It
was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a
rich very dark brown, with something of gold. I
loved to let it down, tumbling with its own
weight, as, in her room, she lay back in her
chair talking in her sweet low voice, I used to
fold and braid it, and spread it out and play
with it. Heavens! If I had but known all!
I said there were particulars which did not
please me. I have told you that her confidence
won me the first night I saw her; but I found
that she exercised with respect to herself, her
mother, her history, everything in fact
connected with her life, plans, and people, an
ever wakeful reserve. I dare say I was
unreasonable, perhaps I was wrong; I dare say
I ought to have respected the solemn
injunction laid upon my father by the stately
lady in black velvet. But curiosity is a restless
and unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can
endure, with patience, that hers should be
baffled by another. What harm could it do
anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to
know? Had she no trust in my good sense or
honor? Why would she not believe me when I
assured her, so solemnly, that I would not
divulge one syllable of what she told me to any
mortal breathing.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond

her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent
refusal to afford me the least ray of light.

I cannot say we quarreled upon this point, for

she would not quarrel upon any. It was, of
course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-
bred, but I really could not help it; and I might
just as well have let it alone.

What she did tell me amounted, in my

unconscionable estimation--to nothing.
It was all summed up in three very vague
disclosures:

First--Her name was Carmilla.

Second--Her family was very ancient and

noble.

Third--Her home lay in the direction of the

west.

She would not tell me the name of her family,

nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of
their estate, nor even that of the country they
lived in.

You are not to suppose that I worried her

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

She used to place her pretty arms about my

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

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she

would press me more closely in her trembling
embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow
upon my cheek.

Her agitations and her language were

unintelligible to me.

From these foolish embraces, which were not

of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I
used to wish to extricate myself; but my
energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured
words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and
soothed my resistance into a trance, from
which I only seemed to recover myself when
she withdrew her arms.

In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I

experienced a strange tumultuous excitement
that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled
with a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had
no distinct thoughts about her while such
scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love
growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence.
This I know is paradox, but I can make no
other attempt to explain the feeling.

I now write, after an interval of more than ten

years, with a trembling hand, with a confused
and horrible recollection of certain occurrences
and situations, in the ordeal through which I
was unconsciously passing; though with a vivid
and very sharp remembrance of the main
current of my story.

But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain

emotional scenes, those in which our passions
have been most wildly and terribly roused, that
are of all others the most vaguely and dimly
remembered.

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange

and beautiful companion would take my hand
and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed
again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my
face with languid and burning eyes, and
breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell
with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the
ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was
hateful and yet over-powering; and with
gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot
lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she
would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine,
you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever."
Then she had thrown herself back in her chair,
with her small hands over her eyes, leaving me
trembling.
"Are we related," I used to ask; "what can you
mean by all this? I remind you perhaps of
someone whom you love; but you must not, I
hate it; I don't know you--I don't know myself
when you look so and talk so."

She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn

away and drop my hand.

Respecting these very extraordinary

manifestations I strove in vain to form any
satisfactory theory--I could not refer them to
affectation or trick. It was unmistakably the
momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct
and emotion. Was she, notwithstanding her
mother's volunteered denial, subject to brief
visitations of insanity; or was there here a
disguise and a romance? I had read in old
storybooks of such things. What if a boyish
lover had found his way into the house, and
sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade,
with the assistance of a clever old adventuress.
But there were many things against this
hypothesis, highly interesting as it was to my
vanity.

I could boast of no little attentions such as

masculine gallantry delights to offer. Between
these passionate moments there were long
intervals of commonplace, of gaiety, of
brooding melancholy, during which, except that
I detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire,
following me, at times I might have been as
nothing to her. Except in these brief periods of
mysterious excitement her ways were girlish;
and there was always a languor about her,
quite incompatible with a masculine system in
a state of health.

In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps

not so singular in the opinion of a town lady
like you, as they appeared to us rustic people.
She used to come down very late, generally
not till one o'clock, she would then take a cup
of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went
out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and
she seemed, almost immediately, exhausted,
and either returned to the schloss or sat on
one of the benches that were placed, here and
there, among the trees. This was a bodily
languor in which her mind did not sympathize.
She was always an animated talker, and very
intelligent.

She sometimes alluded for a moment to her

own home, or mentioned an adventure or
situation, or an early recollection, which
indicated a people of strange manners, and
described customs of which we knew nothing. I
gathered from these chance hints that her
native country was much more remote than I
had at first fancied.

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a

funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty
young girl, whom I had often seen, the
daughter of one of the rangers of the forest.
The poor man was walking behind the coffin of
his darling; she was his only child, and he
looked quite heartbroken.
Peasants walking two-and-two came behind,
they were singing a funeral hymn.

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and

joined in the hymn they were very sweetly
singing.

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I

turned surprised.

She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how

discordant that is?"

"I think it very sweet, on the contrary," I

answered, vexed at the interruption, and very
uncomfortable, lest the people who composed
the little procession should observe and resent
what was passing.

I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again

interrupted. "You pierce my ears," said
Carmilla, almost angrily, and stopping her ears
with her tiny fingers. "Besides, how can you
tell that your religion and mine are the same;
your forms wound me, and I hate funerals.
What a fuss! Why you must die--everyone
must die; and all are happier when they do.
Come home."

"My father has gone on with the clergyman to

the churchyard. I thought you knew she was to
be buried today."

"She? I don't trouble my head about peasants.

I don't know who she is," answered Carmilla,
with a flash from her fine eyes.

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a

ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ever
since, till yesterday, when she expired."

"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep

tonight if you do."

"I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all

this looks very like it," I continued. "The
swineherd's young wife died only a week ago,
and she thought something seized her by the
throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly
strangled her. Papa says such horrible fancies
do accompany some forms of fever. She was
quite well the day before. She sank afterwards,
and died before a week."

"Well, her funeral is over, I hope, and her

hymn sung; and our ears shan't be tortured
with that discord and jargon. It has made me
nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close;
hold my hand; press it hard-hard-harder."

We had moved a little back, and had come to

another seat.

She sat down. Her face underwent a change

that alarmed and even terrified me for a
moment. It darkened, and became horribly
livid; her teeth and hands were clenched, and
she frowned and compressed her lips, while
she stared down upon the ground at her feet,
and trembled all over with a continued shudder
as irrepressible as ague. All her energies
seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which
she was then breathlessly tugging; and at
length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke
from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided.
"There! That comes of strangling people with
hymns!" she said at last. "Hold me, hold me
still. It is passing away."

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to

dissipate the somber impression which the
spectacle had left upon me, she became
unusually animated and chatty; and so we got
home.

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit

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

Both passed away like a summer cloud; and

never but once afterwards did I witness on her
part a momentary sign of anger. I will tell you
how it happened.

She and I were looking out of one of the long

drawing room windows, when there entered
the courtyard, over the drawbridge, a figure of
a wanderer whom I knew very well. He used to
visit the schloss generally twice a year.

It was the figure of a hunchback, with the

sharp lean features that generally accompany
deformity. He wore a pointed black beard, and
he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his
white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and
scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts
than I could count, from which hung all
manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic
lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in
one of which was a salamander, and in the
other a mandrake. These monsters used to
make my father laugh. They were compounded
of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish,
and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together
with great neatness and startling effect. He
had a fiddle, a box of conjuring apparatus, a
pair of foils and masks attached to his belt,
several other mysterious cases dangling about
him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in
his hand. His companion was a rough spare
dog, that followed at his heels, but stopped
short, suspiciously at the drawbridge, and in a
little while began to howl dismally.

In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in

the midst of the courtyard, raised his
grotesque hat, and made us a very
ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very
volubly in execrable French, and German not
much better.

Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to

scrape a lively air to which he sang with a
merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and
activity, that made me laugh, in spite of the
dog's howling.
Then he advanced to the window with many
smiles and salutations, and his hat in his left
hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a
fluency that never took breath, he gabbled a
long advertisement of all his accomplishments,
and the resources of the various arts which he
placed at our service, and the curiosities and
entertainments which it was in his power, at
our bidding, to display.

"Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an

amulet against the oupire, which is going like
the wolf, I hear, through these woods," he said
dropping his hat on the pavement. "They are
dying of it right and left and here is a charm
that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and
you may laugh in his face."

These charms consisted of oblong slips of

vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams
upon them.

Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I.

He was looking up, and we were smiling down

upon him, amused; at least, I can answer for
myself. His piercing black eye, as he looked up
in our faces, seemed to detect something that
fixed for a moment his curiosity,

In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of

all manner of odd little steel instruments.

"See here, my lady," he said, displaying it, and

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

The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as

she drew back from the window.

"How dares that mountebank insult us so?

Where is your father? I shall demand redress
from him. My father would have had the
wretch tied up to the pump, and flogged with a
cart whip, and burnt to the bones with the
cattle brand!"

She retired from the window a step or two, and

sat down, and had hardly lost sight of the
offender, when her wrath subsided as suddenly
as it had risen, and she gradually recovered
her usual tone, and seemed to forget the little
hunchback and his follies.

My father was out of spirits that evening. On

coming in he told us that there had been
another case very similar to the two fatal ones
which had lately occurred. The sister of a
young peasant on his estate, only a mile away,
was very ill, had been, as she described it,
attacked very nearly in the same way, and was
now slowly but steadily sinking.

"All this," said my father, "is strictly referable

to natural causes. These poor people infect one
another with their superstitions, and so repeat
in imagination the images of terror that have
infested their neighbors."

"But that very circumstance frightens one

horribly," said Carmilla.

"How so?" inquired my father.

"I am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I

think it would be as bad as reality."

"We are in God's hands: nothing can happen

without his permission, and all will end well for
those who love him. He is our faithful creator;
He has made us all, and will take care of us."

"Creator! Nature!" said the young lady in

answer to my gentle father. "And this disease
that invades the country is natural. Nature. All
things proceed from Nature--don't they? All
things in the heaven, in the earth, and under
the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I
think so."
"The doctor said he would come here today,"
said my father, after a silence. "I want to know
what he thinks about it, and what he thinks we
had better do."

"Doctors never did me any good," said

Carmilla.

"Then you have been ill?" I asked.

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

"Long ago?"

"Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very

illness; but I forget all but my pain and
weakness, and they were not so bad as are
suffered in other diseases."

"You were very young then?"

"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would

not wound a friend?"

She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed

her arm round my waist lovingly, and led me
out of the room. My father was busy over some
papers near the window.

"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said

the pretty girl with a sigh and a little shudder.

"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very

furthest thing from his mind."

"Are you afraid, dearest?"

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

"You are afraid to die?"

"Yes, every one is."

"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so

that they may live together.

Girls are caterpillars while they live in the

world, to be finally butterflies when the
summer comes; but in the meantime there are
grubs and larvae, don't you see--each with
their peculiar propensities, necessities and
structure. So says Monsieur Buffon, in his big
book, in the next room."

Later in the day the doctor came, and was

closeted with papa for some time.

He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, he

wore powder, and shaved his pale face as
smooth as a pumpkin. He and papa emerged
from the room together, and I heard papa
laugh, and say as they came out:

"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you.

What do you say to hippogriffs and dragons?"

The doctor was smiling, and made answer,

shaking his head--

"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious

states, and we know little of the resources of
either."

And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I

did not then know what the doctor had been
broaching, but I think I guess it now.
V

A Wonderful Likeness

This evening there arrived from Gratz the

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

This arrival created in our secluded quarters

quite a sensation. The cases remained in the
hall, and the messenger was taken charge of
by the servants till he had eaten his supper.
Then with assistants, and armed with hammer,
ripping chisel, and turnscrew, he met us in the
hall, where we had assembled to witness the
unpacking of the cases.

Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one

after the other the old pictures, nearly all
portraits, which had undergone the process of
renovation, were brought to light. My mother
was of an old Hungarian family, and most of
these pictures, which were about to be
restored to their places, had come to us
through her.
My father had a list in his hand, from which he
read, as the artist rummaged out the
corresponding numbers. I don't know that the
pictures were very good, but they were,
undoubtedly, very old, and some of them very
curious also. They had, for the most part, the
merit of being now seen by me, I may say, for
the first time; for the smoke and dust of time
had all but obliterated them.

"There is a picture that I have not seen yet,"

said my father. "In one corner, at the top of it,
is the name, as well as I could read, 'Marcia
Karnstein,' and the date '1698'; and I am
curious to see how it has turned out."

I remembered it; it was a small picture, about

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

The artist now produced it, with evident pride.

It was quite beautiful; it was startling; it
seemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!

"Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle.

Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak,
in this picture. Isn't it beautiful, Papa? And see,
even the little mole on her throat."

My father laughed, and said "Certainly it is a

wonderful likeness," but he looked away, and
to my surprise seemed but little struck by it,
and went on talking to the picture cleaner, who
was also something of an artist, and discoursed
with intelligence about the portraits or other
works, which his art had just brought into light
and color, while I was more and more lost in
wonder the more I looked at the picture.

"Will you let me hang this picture in my room,

papa?" I asked.

"Certainly, dear," said he, smiling, "I'm very

glad you think it so like.

It must be prettier even than I thought it, if it

is."

The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty

speech, did not seem to hear it. She was
leaning back in her seat, her fine eyes under
their long lashes gazing on me in
contemplation, and she smiled in a kind of
rapture.

"And now you can read quite plainly the name

that is written in the corner.

It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in

gold. The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein,
and this is a little coronet over and underneath
A.D.

1698. I am descended from the Karnsteins;

that is, mamma was."

"Ah!" said the lady, languidly, "so am I, I think,

a very long descent, very ancient. Are there
any Karnsteins living now?"
"None who bear the name, I believe. The
family were ruined, I believe, in some civil
wars, long ago, but the ruins of the castle are
only about three miles away."

"How interesting!" she said, languidly. "But see

what beautiful moonlight!" She glanced
through the hall door, which stood a little open.
"Suppose you take a little ramble round the
court, and look down at the road and river."

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

She sighed; smiling.

She rose, and each with her arm about the

other's waist, we walked out upon the
pavement.

In silence, slowly we walked down to the

drawbridge, where the beautiful landscape
opened before us.

"And so you were thinking of the night I came

here?" she almost whispered.

"Are you glad I came?"

"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered.

"And you asked for the picture you think like

me, to hang in your room," she murmured with
a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my
waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my
shoulder. "How romantic you are, Carmilla," I
said. "Whenever you tell me your story, it will
be made up chiefly of some one great
romance."

She kissed me silently.

"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love;

that there is, at this moment, an affair of the
heart going on."

"I have been in love with no one, and never

shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with
you."

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!

Shy and strange was the look with which she

quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with
tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob,
and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine.

"Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in
you; and you would die for me, I love you so."

I started from her.

She was gazing on me with eyes from which all

fire, all meaning had flown, and a face
colorless and apathetic.

"Is there a chill in the air, dear?" she said

drowsily. "I almost shiver; have I been
dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come
in."
"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You
certainly must take some wine," I said.

"Yes. I will. I'm better now. I shall be quite well

in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,"
answered Carmilla, as we approached the door.

"Let us look again for a moment; it is the last

time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with
you."

"How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you

really better?" I asked.

I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should

have been stricken with the strange epidemic
that they said had invaded the country about
us.

"Papa would be grieved beyond measure," I

added, "if he thought you were ever so little ill,
without immediately letting us know. We have
a very skilful doctor near us, the physician who
was with papa today."

"I'm sure he is. I know how kind you all are;

but, dear child, I am quite well again. There is
nothing ever wrong with me, but a little
weakness.

People say I am languid; I am incapable of

exertion; I can scarcely walk as far as a child
of three years old: and every now and then the
little strength I have falters, and I become as
you have just seen me. But after all I am very
easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly
myself. See how I have recovered."

So, indeed, she had; and she and I talked a

great deal, and very animated she was; and
the remainder of that evening passed without
any recurrence of what I called her
infatuations. I mean her crazy talk and looks,
which embarrassed, and even frightened me.

But there occurred that night an event which

gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and
seemed to startle even Carmilla's languid
nature into momentary energy.
VI

A Very Strange Agony

When we got into the drawing room, and had

sat down to our coffee and chocolate, although
Carmilla did not take any, she seemed quite
herself again, and Madame, and Mademoiselle
De Lafontaine, joined us, and made a little card
party, in the course of which papa came in for
what he called his "dish of tea."

When the game was over he sat down beside

Carmilla on the sofa, and asked her, a little
anxiously, whether she had heard from her
mother since her arrival.

She answered "No."

He then asked whether she knew where a

letter would reach her at present.

"I cannot tell," she answered ambiguously, "but

I have been thinking of leaving you; you have
been already too hospitable and too kind to
me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and
I should wish to take a carriage tomorrow, and
post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall
ultimately find her, although I dare not yet tell
you."
"But you must not dream of any such thing,"
exclaimed my father, to my great relief. "We
can't afford to lose you so, and I won't consent
to your leaving us, except under the care of
your mother, who was so good as to consent to
your remaining with us till she should herself
return. I should be quite happy if I knew that
you heard from her: but this evening the
accounts of the progress of the mysterious
disease that has invaded our neighborhood,
grow even more alarming; and my beautiful
guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by
advice from your mother, very much. But I
shall do my best; and one thing is certain, that
you must not think of leaving us without her
distinct direction to that effect. We should
suffer too much in parting from you to consent
to it easily."

"Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your

hospitality," she answered, smiling bashfully.
"You have all been too kind to me; I have
seldom been so happy in all my life before, as
in your beautiful chateau, under your care, and
in the society of your dear daughter."

So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way,

kissed her hand, smiling and pleased at her
little speech.

I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room,

and sat and chatted with her while she was
preparing for bed.
"Do you think," I said at length, "that you will
ever confide fully in me?"

She turned round smiling, but made no answer,

only continued to smile on me.

"You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't

answer pleasantly; I ought not to have asked
you."

"You were quite right to ask me that, or

anything. You do not know how dear you are to
me, or you could not think any confidence too
great to look for.

But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully,

and I dare not tell my story yet, even to you.
The time is very near when you shall know
everything. You will think me cruel, very
selfish, but love is always selfish; the more
ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you
cannot know. You must come with me, loving
me, to death; or else hate me and still come
with me. and hating me through death and
after. There is no such word as indifference in
my apathetic nature."

"Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild

nonsense again," I said hastily.

"Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims

and fancies; for your sake I'll talk like a sage.
Were you ever at a ball?"
"No; how you do run on. What is it like? How
charming it must be."

"I almost forget, it is years ago."

I laughed.

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

be forgotten yet."

"I remember everything about it--with an

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

"Were you near dying?"

"Yes, very--a cruel love--strange love, that

would have taken my life. Love will have its
sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood. Let us go
to sleep now; I feel so lazy. How can I get up
just now and lock my door?"

She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her

rich wavy hair, under her cheek, her little head
upon the pillow, and her glittering eyes
followed me wherever I moved, with a kind of
shy smile that I could not decipher.

I bid her good night, and crept from the room

with an uncomfortable sensation.
I often wondered whether our pretty guest
ever said her prayers. I certainly had never
seen her upon her knees. In the morning she
never came down until long after our family
prayers were over, and at night she never left
the drawing room to attend our brief evening
prayers in the hall.

If it had not been that it had casually come out

in one of our careless talks that she had been
baptised, I should have doubted her being a
Christian. Religion was a subject on which I
had never heard her speak a word. If I had
known the world better, this particular neglect
or antipathy would not have so much surprised
me.

The precautions of nervous people are

infectious, and persons of a like temperament
are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them. I
had adopted Carmilla's habit of locking her
bedroom door, having taken into my head all
her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders
and prowling assassins. I had also adopted her
precaution of making a brief search through
her room, to satisfy herself that no lurking
assassin or robber was "ensconced."

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed

and fell asleep. A light was burning in my
room. This was an old habit, of very early date,
and which nothing could have tempted me to
dispense with.
Thus fortifed I might take my rest in peace.
But dreams come through stone walls, light up
dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their
persons make their exits and their entrances
as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

I had a dream that night that was the

beginning of a very strange agony.

I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite

conscious of being asleep.

But I was equally conscious of being in my

room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually
was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its
furniture just as I had seen it last, except that
it was very dark, and I saw something moving
round the foot of the bed, which at first I could
not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that
it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a
monstrous cat. It appeared to me about four or
five feet long for it measured fully the length
of the hearthrug as it passed over it; and it
continued to-ing and fro-ing with the lithe,
sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I
could not cry out, although as you may
suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing
faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker,
and at length so dark that I could no longer
see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring
lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes
approached my face, and suddenly I felt a
stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an
inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked
with a scream. The room was lighted by the
candle that burnt there all through the night,
and I saw a female figure standing at the foot
of the bed, a little at the right side. It was in a
dark loose dress, and its hair was down and
covered its shoulders. A block of stone could
not have been more still. There was not the
slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it,
the figure appeared to have changed its place,
and was now nearer the door; then, close to it,
the door opened, and it passed out.

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and

move. My first thought was that Carmilla had
been playing me a trick, and that I had
forgotten to secure my door. I hastened to it,
and found it locked as usual on the inside. I
was afraid to open it--I was horrified. I sprang
into my bed and covered my head up in the
bedclothes, and lay there more dead than alive
till morning.
VII

Descending

It would be vain my attempting to tell you the

horror with which, even now, I recall the
occurrence of that night. It was no such
transitory terror as a dream leaves behind it. It
seemed to deepen by time, and communicated
itself to the room and the very furniture that
had encompassed the apparition.

I could not bear next day to be alone for a

moment. I should have told papa, but for two
opposite reasons. At one time I thought he
would laugh at my story, and I could not bear
its being treated as a jest; and at another I
thought he might fancy that I had been
attacked by the mysterious complaint which
had invaded our neighborhood. I had myself no
misgiving of the kind, and as he had been
rather an invalid for some time, I was afraid of
alarming him.

I was comfortable enough with my good-

natured companions, Madame Perrodon, and
the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They
both perceived that I was out of spirits and
nervous, and at length I told them what lay so
heavy at my heart.
Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that
Madame Perrodon looked anxious.

"By-the-by," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the

long lime tree walk, behind Carmilla's bedroom
window, is haunted!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably

thought the theme rather inopportune, "and
who tells that story, my dear?"

"Martin says that he came up twice, when the

old yard gate was being repaired, before
sunrise, and twice saw the same female figure
walking down the lime tree avenue."

"So he well might, as long as there are cows to

milk in the river fields," said Madame.

"I daresay; but Martin chooses to be

frightened, and never did I see fool more
frightened."

"You must not say a word about it to Carmilla,

because she can see down that walk from her
room window," I interposed, "and she is, if
possible, a greater coward than I."

Carmilla came down rather later than usual

that day.

"I was so frightened last night," she said, so

soon as were together, "and I am sure I should
have seen something dreadful if it had not
been for that charm I bought from the poor
little hunchback whom I called such hard
names. I had a dream of something black
coming round my bed, and I awoke in a perfect
horror, and I really thought, for some seconds,
I saw a dark figure near the chimneypiece, but
I felt under my pillow for my charm, and the
moment my fingers touched it, the figure
disappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that I
had it by me, that something frightful would
have made its appearance, and, perhaps,
throttled me, as it did those poor people we
heard of.

"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my

adventure, at the recital of which she appeared
horrified.

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

earnestly.

"No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the

drawing room, but I shall certainly take it with
me tonight, as you have so much faith in it."

At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or

even understand, how I overcame my horror
so effectually as to lie alone in my room that
night. I remember distinctly that I pinned the
charm to my pillow. I fell asleep almost
immediately, and slept even more soundly than
usual all night.

Next night I passed as well. My sleep was

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

"Well, I told you so," said Carmilla, when I

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

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

"It has been fumigated or immersed in some

drug, and is an antidote against the malaria,"
she answered.

"Then it acts only on the body?"

"Certainly; you don't suppose that evil spirits

are frightened by bits of ribbon, or the
perfumes of a druggist's shop? No, these
complaints, wandering in the air, begin by
trying the nerves, and so infect the brain, but
before they can seize upon you, the antidote
repels them. That I am sure is what the charm
has done for us. It is nothing magical, it is
simply natural.
I should have been happier if I could have
quite agreed with Carmilla, but I did my best,
and the impression was a little losing its force.

For some nights I slept profoundly; but still

every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a
languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself
a changed girl. A strange melancholy was
stealing over me, a melancholy that I would
not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death
began to open, and an idea that I was slowly
sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not
unwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the
tone of mind which this induced was also
sweet.

Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.

I would not admit that I was ill, I would not

consent to tell my papa, or to have the doctor
sent for.

Carmilla became more devoted to me than

ever, and her strange paroxysms of languid
adoration more frequent. She used to gloat on
me with increasing ardor the more my strength
and spirits waned. This always shocked me like
a momentary glare of insanity.

Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty

advanced stage of the strangest illness under
which mortal ever suffered. There was an
unaccountable fascination in its earlier
symptoms that more than reconciled me to the
incapacitating effect of that stage of the
malady. This fascination increased for a time,
until it reached a certain point, when gradually
a sense of the horrible mingled itself with it,
deepening, as you shall hear, until it discolored
and perverted the whole state of my life.

The first change I experienced was rather

agreeable. It was very near the turning point
from which began the descent of Avernus.

Certain vague and strange sensations visited

me in my sleep. The prevailing one was of that
pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we feel in
bathing, when we move against the current of
a river. This was soon accompanied by dreams
that seemed interminable, and were so vague
that I could never recollect their scenery and
persons, or any one connected portion of their
action. But they left an awful impression, and a
sense of exhaustion, as if I had passed through
a long period of great mental exertion and
danger.

After all these dreams there remained on

waking a remembrance of having been in a
place very nearly dark, and of having spoken
to people whom I could not see; and especially
of one clear voice, of a female's, very deep,
that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and
producing always the same sensation of
indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes
there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn
softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it
was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and
longer and more lovingly as they reached my
throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My
heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell
rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose
into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and
turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my
senses left me and I became unconscious.

It was now three weeks since the

commencement of this unaccountable state.

My sufferings had, during the last week, told

upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my
eyes were dilated and darkened underneath,
and the languor which I had long felt began to
display itself in my countenance.

My father asked me often whether I was ill;

but, with an obstinacy which now seems to me
unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that
I was quite well.

In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could

complain of no bodily derangement. My
complaint seemed to be one of the
imagination, or the nerves, and, horrible as my
sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbid
reserve, very nearly to myself.

It could not be that terrible complaint which

the peasants called the oupire, for I had now
been suffering for three weeks, and they were
seldom ill for much more than three days,
when death put an end to their miseries.
Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish
sensations, but by no means of so alarming a
kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely
alarming. Had I been capable of
comprehending my condition, I would have
invoked aid and advice on my knees. The
narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting
upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed.

I am going to tell you now of a dream that led

immediately to an odd discovery.

One night, instead of the voice I was

accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard one,
sweet and tender, and at the same time
terrible, which said,

"Your mother warns you to beware of the

assassin." At the same time a light
unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla,
standing, near the foot of my bed, in her white
nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet,
in one great stain of blood.

I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the

one idea that Carmilla was being murdered. I
remember springing from my bed, and my next
recollection is that of standing on the lobby,
crying for help.

Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out

of their rooms in alarm; a lamp burned always
on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned
the cause of my terror.
I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door.
Our knocking was unanswered.

It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We

shrieked her name, but all was vain.

We all grew frightened, for the door was

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

Servants, however, soon came running up the

stairs; I had got on my dressing gown and
slippers meanwhile, and my companions were
already similarly furnished. Recognizing the
voices of the servants on the lobby, we sallied
out together; and having renewed, as
fruitlessly, our summons at Carmilla's door, I
ordered the men to force the lock. They did so,
and we stood, holding our lights aloft, in the
doorway, and so stared into the room.

We called her by name; but there was still no

reply. We looked round the room. Everything
was undisturbed. It was exactly in the state in
which I had left it on bidding her good night.
But Carmilla was gone.
VIII

Search

At sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed

except for our violent entrance, we began to
cool a little, and soon recovered our senses
sufficiently to dismiss the men. It had struck
Mademoiselle that possibly Carmilla had been
wakened by the uproar at her door, and in her
first panic had jumped from her bed, and hid
herself in a press, or behind a curtain, from
which she could not, of course, emerge until
the majordomo and his myrmidons had
withdrawn. We now recommenced our search,
and began to call her name again.

It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and

agitation increased. We examined the windows,
but they were secured. I implored of Carmilla,
if she had concealed herself, to play this cruel
trick no longer--to come out and to end our
anxieties. It was all useless. I was by this time
convinced that she was not in the room, nor in
the dressing room, the door of which was still
locked on this side. She could not have passed
it. I was utterly puzzled. Had Carmilla
discovered one of those secret passages which
the old housekeeper said were known to exist
in the schloss, although the tradition of their
exact situation had been lost? A little time
would, no doubt, explain all--utterly perplexed
as, for the present, we were.

It was past four o'clock, and I preferred passing

the remaining hours of darkness in Madame's
room. Daylight brought no solution of the
difficulty.

The whole household, with my father at its

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

The morning was passed in alarm and

excitement. It was now one o'clock, and still no
tidings. I ran up to Carmilla's room, and found
her standing at her dressing table. I was
astounded. I could not believe my eyes. She
beckoned me to her with her pretty finger, in
silence. Her face expressed extreme fear.

I ran to her in an ecstasy of joy; I kissed and

embraced her again and again. I ran to the bell
and rang it vehemently, to bring others to the
spot who might at once relieve my father's
anxiety.
"Dear Carmilla, what has become of you all this
time? We have been in agonies of anxiety
about you," I exclaimed. "Where have you
been? How did you come back?"

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

said.

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

"It was past two last night," she said, "when I

went to sleep as usual in my bed, with my
doors locked, that of the dressing room, and
that opening upon the gallery. My sleep was
uninterrupted, and, so far as I know,
dreamless; but I woke just now on the sofa in
the dressing room there, and I found the door
between the rooms open, and the other door
forced. How could all this have happened
without my being wakened? It must have been
accompanied with a great deal of noise, and I
am particularly easily wakened; and how could
I have been carried out of my bed without my
sleep having been interrupted, I whom the
slightest stir startles?"

By this time, Madame, Mademoiselle, my

father, and a number of the servants were in
the room. Carmilla was, of course,
overwhelmed with inquiries, congratulations,
and welcomes. She had but one story to tell,
and seemed the least able of all the party to
suggest any way of accounting for what had
happened.
My father took a turn up and down the room,
thinking. I saw Carmilla's eye follow him for a
moment with a sly, dark glance.

When my father had sent the servants away,

Mademoiselle having gone in search of a little
bottle of valerian and salvolatile, and there
being no one now in the room with Carmilla,
except my father, Madame, and myself, he
came to her thoughtfully, took her hand very
kindly, led her to the sofa, and sat down beside
her.

"Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a

conjecture, and ask a question?"

"Who can have a better right?" she said. "Ask

what you please, and I will tell you everything.
But my story is simply one of bewilderment
and darkness. I know absolutely nothing. Put
any question you please, but you know, of
course, the limitations mamma has placed me
under."

"Perfectly, my dear child. I need not approach

the topics on which she desires our silence.
Now, the marvel of last night consists in your
having been removed from your bed and your
room, without being wakened, and this
removal having occurred apparently while the
windows were still secured, and the two doors
locked upon the inside. I will tell you my
theory and ask you a question."
Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly;
Madame and I were listening breathlessly.

"Now, my question is this. Have you ever been

suspected of walking in your sleep?"

"Never, since I was very young indeed."

"But you did walk in your sleep when you were

young?"

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

my old nurse."

My father smiled and nodded.

"Well, what has happened is this. You got up in

your sleep, unlocked the door, not leaving the
key, as usual, in the lock, but taking it out and
locking it on the outside; you again took the
key out, and carried it away with you to some
one of the five-and-twenty rooms on this floor,
or perhaps upstairs or downstairs. There are so
many rooms and closets, so much heavy
furniture, and such accumulations of lumber,
that it would require a week to search this old
house thoroughly. Do you see, now, what I
mean?"

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

"And how, papa, do you account for her finding

herself on the sofa in the dressing room, which
we had searched so carefully?"
"She came there after you had searched it, still
in her sleep, and at last awoke spontaneously,
and was as much surprised to find herself
where she was as any one else. I wish all
mysteries were as easily and innocently
explained as yours, Carmilla," he said,
laughing. "And so we may congratulate
ourselves on the certainty that the most
natural explanation of the occurrence is one
that involves no drugging, no tampering with
locks, no burglars, or poisoners, or witches--
nothing that need alarm Carmilla, or anyone
else, for our safety."

Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could

be more beautiful than her tints. Her beauty
was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languor
that was peculiar to her. I think my father was
silently contrasting her looks with mine, for he
said:

"I wish my poor Laura was looking more like

herself"; and he sighed.

So our alarms were happily ended, and

Carmilla restored to her friends.
IX

The Doctor

As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant

sleeping in her room, my father arranged that
a servant should sleep outside her door, so that
she would not attempt to make another such
excursion without being arrested at her own
door.

That night passed quietly; and next morning

early, the doctor, whom my father had sent for
without telling me a word about it, arrived to
see me.

Madame accompanied me to the library; and

there the grave little doctor, with white hair
and spectacles, whom I mentioned before, was
waiting to receive me.

I told him my story, and as I proceeded he

grew graver and graver.

We were standing, he and I, in the recess of

one of the windows, facing one another. When
my statement was over, he leaned with his
shoulders against the wall, and with his eyes
fixed on me earnestly, with an interest in
which was a dash of horror.
After a minute's reflection, he asked Madame if
he could see my father.

He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered,

smiling, he said:

"I dare say, doctor, you are going to tell me

that I am an old fool for having brought you
here; I hope I am."

But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor,

with a very grave face, beckoned him to him.

He and the doctor talked for some time in the

same recess where I had just conferred with
the physician. It seemed an earnest and
argumentative conversation. The room is very
large, and I and Madame stood together,
burning with curiosity, at the farther end. Not a
word could we hear, however, for they spoke in
a very low tone, and the deep recess of the
window quite concealed the doctor from view,
and very nearly my father, whose foot, arm,
and shoulder only could we see; and the voices
were, I suppose, all the less audible for the
sort of closet which the thick wall and window
formed.

After a time my father's face looked into the

room; it was pale, thoughtful, and, I fancied,
agitated.

"Laura, dear, come here for a moment.

Madame, we shan't trouble you, the doctor
says, at present."
Accordingly I approached, for the first time a
little alarmed; for, although I felt very weak, I
did not feel ill; and strength, one always
fancies, is a thing that may be picked up when
we please.

My father held out his hand to me, as I drew

near, but he was looking at the doctor, and he
said:

"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it

quite. Laura, come here, dear; now attend to
Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect yourself."

"You mentioned a sensation like that of two

needles piercing the skin, somewhere about
your neck, on the night when you experienced
your first horrible dream. Is there still any
soreness?"

"None at all," I answered.

"Can you indicate with your finger about the

point at which you think this occurred?"

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

answered.

I wore a morning dress, which covered the

place I pointed to.

"Now you can satisfy yourself," said the doctor.

"You won't mind your papa's lowering your
dress a very little. It is necessary, to detect a
symptom of the complaint under which you
have been suffering."
I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below
the edge of my collar.

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

growing pale.

"You see it now with your own eyes," said the

doctor, with a gloomy triumph.

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

frightened.

"Nothing, my dear young lady, but a small blue

spot, about the size of the tip of your little
finger; and now," he continued, turning to
papa, "the question is what is best to be done?"

Is there any danger?"I urged, in great

trepidation.

"I trust not, my dear," answered the doctor. "I

don't see why you should not recover. I don't
see why you should not begin immediately to
get better. That is the point at which the sense
of strangulation begins?"

"Yes," I answered.

"And--recollect as well as you can--the same

point was a kind of center of that thrill which
you described just now, like the current of a
cold stream running against you?"

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

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

"Certainly," said my father.

He called Madame to him, and said:

"I find my young friend here far from well. It

won't be of any great consequence, I hope; but
it will be necessary that some steps be taken,
which I will explain by-and-by; but in the
meantime, Madame, you will be so good as not
to let Miss Laura be alone for one moment.
That is the only direction I need give for the
present. It is indispensable."

"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I

know," added my father.

Madame satisfied him eagerly.

"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe

the doctor's direction."

"I shall have to ask your opinion upon another

patient, whose symptoms slightly resemble
those of my daughter, that have just been
detailed to you--very much milder in degree,
but I believe quite of the same sort. She is a
young lady--our guest; but as you say you will
be passing this way again this evening, you
can't do better than take your supper here,
and you can then see her. She does not come
down till the afternoon."
"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with
you, then, at about seven this evening."

And then they repeated their directions to me

and to Madame, and with this parting charge
my father left us, and walked out with the
doctor; and I saw them pacing together up and
down between the road and the moat, on the
grassy platform in front of the castle, evidently
absorbed in earnest conversation.

The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his

horse there, take his leave, and ride away
eastward through the forest.

Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive

from Dranfield with the letters, and dismount
and hand the bag to my father.

In the meantime, Madame and I were both

busy, lost in conjecture as to the reasons of the
singular and earnest direction which the doctor
and my father had concurred in imposing.
Madame, as she afterwards told me, was afraid
the doctor apprehended a sudden seizure, and
that, without prompt assistance, I might either
lose my life in a fit, or at least be seriously
hurt.

The interpretation did not strike me; and I

fancied, perhaps luckily for my nerves, that the
arrangement was prescribed simply to secure a
companion, who would prevent my taking too
much exercise, or eating unripe fruit, or doing
any of the fifty foolish things to which young
people are supposed to be prone.

About half an hour after my father came in--he

had a letter in his hand--and said:

"This letter had been delayed; it is from

General Spielsdorf. He might have been here
yesterday, he may not come till tomorrow or
he may be here today."

He put the open letter into my hand; but he

did not look pleased, as he used when a guest,
especially one so much loved as the General,
was coming.

On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him

at the bottom of the Red Sea. There was
plainly something on his mind which he did not
choose to divulge.

"Papa, darling, will you tell me this?" said I,

suddenly laying my hand on his arm, and
looking, I am sure, imploringly in his face.

"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair

caressingly over my eyes.

"Does the doctor think me very ill?"

"No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken,

you will be quite well again, at least, on the
high road to a complete recovery, in a day or
two," he answered, a little dryly. "I wish our
good friend, the General, had chosen any other
time; that is, I wish you had been perfectly
well to receive him."

"But do tell me, papa," I insisted, "what does

he think is the matter with me?"

"Nothing; you must not plague me with

questions," he answered, with more irritation
than I ever remember him to have displayed
before; and seeing that I looked wounded, I
suppose, he kissed me, and added, "You shall
know all about it in a day or two; that is, all
that I know. In the meantime you are not to
trouble your head about it."

He turned and left the room, but came back

before I had done wondering and puzzling over
the oddity of all this; it was merely to say that
he was going to Karnstein, and had ordered the
carriage to be ready at twelve, and that I and
Madame should accompany him; he was going
to see the priest who lived near those
picturesque grounds, upon business, and as
Carmilla had never seen them, she could
follow, when she came down, with
Mademoiselle, who would bring materials for
what you call a picnic, which might be laid for
us in the ruined castle.

At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and

not long after, my father, Madame and I set out
upon our projected drive.

Passing the drawbridge we turn to the right,

and follow the road over the steep Gothic
bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village
and ruined castle of Karnstein.

No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The

ground breaks into gentle hills and hollows, all
clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute of
the comparative formality which artificial
planting and early culture and pruning impart.

The irregularities of the ground often lead the

road out of its course, and cause it to wind
beautifully round the sides of broken hollows
and the steeper sides of the hills, among
varieties of ground almost inexhaustible.

Turning one of these points, we suddenly

encountered our old friend, the General, riding
towards us, attended by a mounted servant.
His portmanteaus were following in a hired
wagon, such as we term a cart.

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and,

after the usual greetings, was easily persuaded
to accept the vacant seat in the carriage and
send his horse on with his servant to the
schloss.
X

Bereaved

It was about ten months since we had last seen

him: but that time had sufficed to make an
alteration of years in his appearance. He had
grown thinner; something of gloom and
anxiety had taken the place of that cordial
serenity which used to characterize his
features. His dark blue eyes, always
penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light
from under his shaggy grey eyebrows. It was
not such a change as grief alone usually
induces, and angrier passions seemed to have
had their share in bringing it about.

We had not long resumed our drive, when the

General began to talk, with his usual soldierly
directness, of the bereavement, as he termed
it, which he had sustained in the death of his
beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out
in a tone of intense bitterness and fury,
inveighing against the "hellish arts" to which
she had fallen a victim, and expressing, with
more exasperation than piety, his wonder that
Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an
indulgence of the lusts and malignity of hell.

My father, who saw at once that something

very extraordinary had befallen, asked him, if
not too painful to him, to detail the
circumstances which he thought justified the
strong terms in which he expressed himself.

"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the

General, "but you would not believe me."

"Why should I not?" he asked.

"Because," he answered testily, "you believe in

nothing but what consists with your own
prejudices and illusions. I remember when I
was like you, but I have learned better."

"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a

dogmatist as you suppose.

Besides which, I very well know that you

generally require proof for what you believe,
and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed
to respect your conclusions."

"You are right in supposing that I have not

been led lightly into a belief in the marvelous--
for what I have experienced is marvelous--and
I have been forced by extraordinary evidence
to credit that which ran counter, diametrically,
to all my theories. I have been made the dupe
of a preternatural conspiracy."

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence

in the General's penetration, I saw my father,
at this point, glance at the General, with, as I
thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.
The General did not see it, luckily. He was
looking gloomily and curiously into the glades
and vistas of the woods that were opening
before us.

"You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he

said. "Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you
know I was going to ask you to bring me there
to inspect them. I have a special object in
exploring. There is a ruined chapel, ain't there,
with a great many tombs of that extinct
family?"

"So there are--highly interesting," said my

father. "I hope you are thinking of claiming the
title and estates?"

My father said this gaily, but the General did

not recollect the laugh, or even the smile,
which courtesy exacts for a friend's joke; on
the contrary, he looked grave and even fierce,
ruminating on a matter that stirred his anger
and horror.

"Something very different," he said, gruffly. "I

mean to unearth some of those fine people. I
hope, by God's blessing, to accomplish a pious
sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of
certain monsters, and enable honest people to
sleep in their beds without being assailed by
murderers. I have strange things to tell you,
my dear friend, such as I myself would have
scouted as incredible a few months since."
My father looked at him again, but this time
not with a glance of suspicion--with an eye,
rather, of keen intelligence and alarm.

"The house of Karnstein," he said, "has been

long extinct: a hundred years at least. My dear
wife was maternally descended from the
Karnsteins. But the name and title have long
ceased to exist. The castle is a ruin; the very
village is deserted; it is fifty years since the
smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof
left."

"Quite true. I have heard a great deal about

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

"Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she

certainly was quite lovely," said my father. "I
was grieved and shocked more than I can tell
you, my dear friend; I knew what a blow it was
to you."

He took the General's hand, and they

exchanged a kind pressure. Tears gathered in
the old soldier's eyes. He did not seek to
conceal them. He said:

"We have been very old friends; I knew you

would feel for me, childless as I am. She had
become an object of very near interest to me,
and repaid my care by an affection that
cheered my home and made my life happy.
That is all gone. The years that remain to me
on earth may not be very long; but by God's
mercy I hope to accomplish a service to
mankind before I die, and to subserve the
vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who
have murdered my poor child in the spring of
her hopes and beauty!"

"You said, just now, that you intended relating

everything as it occurred," said my father.
"Pray do; I assure you that it is not mere
curiosity that prompts me."

By this time we had reached the point at which

the Drunstall road, by which the General had
come, diverges from the road which we were
traveling to Karnstein.

"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the

General, looking anxiously forward.

"About half a league," answered my father.

"Pray let us hear the story you were so good as
to promise."
XI

The Story

With all my heart," said the General, with an

effort; and after a short pause in which to
arrange his subject, he commenced one of the
strangest narratives I ever heard.

"My dear child was looking forward with great

pleasure to the visit you had been so good as
to arrange for her to your charming daughter."
Here he made me a gallant but melancholy
bow. "In the meantime we had an invitation to
my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose
schloss is about six leagues to the other side of
Karnstein. It was to attend the series of fetes
which, you remember, were given by him in
honor of his illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke
Charles."

"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,"

said my father.

"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite

regal. He has Aladdin's lamp. The night from
which my sorrow dates was devoted to a
magnificent masquerade. The grounds were
thrown open, the trees hung with colored
lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as
Paris itself had never witnessed. And such
music--music, you know, is my weakness--such
ravishing music! The finest instrumental band,
perhaps, in the world, and the finest singers
who could be collected from all the great
operas in Europe. As you wandered through
these fantastically illuminated grounds, the
moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light
from its long rows of windows, you would
suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing
from the silence of some grove, or rising from
boats upon the lake. I felt myself, as I looked
and listened, carried back into the romance
and poetry of my early youth.

"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball

beginning, we returned to the noble suite of
rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A
masked ball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but
so brilliant a spectacle of the kind I never saw
before.

"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was

myself almost the only 'nobody' present.

"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She

wore no mask. Her excitement and delight
added an unspeakable charm to her features,
always lovely. I remarked a young lady,
dressed magnificently, but wearing a mask,
who appeared to me to be observing my ward
with extraordinary interest. I had seen her,
earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and
again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on
the terrace under the castle windows, similarly
employed. A lady, also masked, richly and
gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a
person of rank, accompanied her as a
chaperon.

Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could,

of course, have been much more certain upon
the question whether she was really watching
my poor darling.

I am now well assured that she was.

"We were now in one of the salons. My poor

dear child had been dancing, and was resting a
little in one of the chairs near the door; I was
standing near. The two ladies I have mentioned
had approached and the younger took the chair
next my ward; while her companion stood
beside me, and for a little time addressed
herself, in a low tone, to her charge.

"Availing herself of the privilege of her mask,

she turned to me, and in the tone of an old
friend, and calling me by my name, opened a
conversation with me, which piqued my
curiosity a good deal. She referred to many
scenes where she had met me--at Court, and
at distinguished houses. She alluded to little
incidents which I had long ceased to think of,
but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance
in my memory, for they instantly started into
life at her touch.

"I became more and more curious to ascertain

who she was, every moment. She parried my
attempts to discover very adroitly and
pleasantly. The knowledge she showed of many
passages in my life seemed to me all but
unaccountable; and she appeared to take a not
unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity, and
in seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity,
from one conjecture to another.

"In the meantime the young lady, whom her

mother called by the odd name of Millarca,
when she once or twice addressed her, had,
with the same ease and grace, got into
conversation with my ward.

"She introduced herself by saying that her

mother was a very old acquaintance of mine.
She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a
mask rendered practicable; she talked like a
friend; she admired her dress, and insinuated
very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She
amused her with laughing criticisms upon the
people who crowded the ballroom, and laughed
at my poor child's fun. She was very witty and
lively when she pleased, and after a time they
had grown very good friends, and the young
stranger lowered her mask, displaying a
remarkably beautiful face. I had never seen it
before, neither had my dear child. But though
it was new to us, the features were so
engaging, as well as lovely, that it was
impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully.
My poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more
taken with another at first sight, unless,
indeed, it was the stranger herself, who
seemed quite to have lost her heart to her.
"In the meantime, availing myself of the
license of a masquerade, I put not a few
questions to the elder lady.

"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said,

laughing. 'Is that not enough?

Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal

terms, and do me the kindness to remove your
mask?'

"'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she

replied. 'Ask a lady to yield an advantage!
Beside, how do you know you should recognize
me? Years make changes.'

"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I

suppose, a rather melancholy little laugh.

"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do

you know that a sight of my face would help
you?'

"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It

is vain trying to make yourself out an old
woman; your figure betrays you.'

"'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw

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

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

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

she replied.

"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether

you are French or German; you speak both
languages so perfectly.'

"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General;

you intend a surprise, and are meditating the
particular point of attack.'

"'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said,

'that being honored by your permission to
converse, I ought to know how to address you.
Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?'

"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have

met me with another evasion--if, indeed, I can
treat any occurrence in an interview every
circumstance of which was prearranged, as I
now believe, with the profoundest cunning, as
liable to be modified by accident.

"'As to that,' she began; but she was

interrupted, almost as she opened her lips, by
a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked
particularly elegant and distinguished, with this
drawback, that his face was the most deadly
pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no
masquerade--in the plain evening dress of a
gentleman; and he said, without a smile, but
with a courtly and unusually low bow:--

"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a

very few words which may interest her?'

"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched

her lip in token of silence; she then said to me,
'Keep my place for me, General; I shall return
when I have said a few words.'

"And with this injunction, playfully given, she

walked a little aside with the gentleman in
black, and talked for some minutes, apparently
very earnestly. They then walked away slowly
together in the crowd, and I lost them for some
minutes.

"I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for

a conjecture as to the identity of the lady who
seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was
thinking of turning about and joining in the
conversation between my pretty ward and the
Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by
the time she returned, I might not have a
surprise in store for her, by having her name,
title, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends.
But at this moment she returned, accompanied
by the pale man in black, who said:

"'I shall return and inform Madame la

Comtesse when her carriage is at the door.'

"He withdrew with a bow."

XII

A Petition

"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but

I hope only for a few hours,' I said, with a low
bow.

"'It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks.

It was very unlucky his speaking to me just
now as he did. Do you now know me?'

"I assured her I did not.

"'You shall know me,' she said, 'but not at

present. We are older and better friends than,
perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare
myself. I shall in three weeks pass your
beautiful schloss, about which I have been
making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you
for an hour or two, and renew a friendship
which I never think of without a thousand
pleasant recollections. This moment a piece of
news has reached me like a thunderbolt. I
must set out now, and travel by a devious
route, nearly a hundred miles, with all the
dispatch I can possibly make. My perplexities
multiply. I am only deterred by the compulsory
reserve I practice as to my name from making
a very singular request of you. My poor child
has not quite recovered her strength. Her
horse fell with her, at a hunt which she had
ridden out to witness, her nerves have not yet
recovered the shock, and our physician says
that she must on no account exert herself for
some time to come. We came here, in
consequence, by very easy stages--hardly six
leagues a day. I must now travel day and
night, on a mission of life and death--a mission
the critical and momentous nature of which I
shall be able to explain to you when we meet,
as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the
necessity of any concealment.'

"She went on to make her petition, and it was

in the tone of a person from whom such a
request amounted to conferring, rather than
seeking a favor.

This was only in manner, and, as it seemed,

quite unconsciously. Than the terms in which it
was expressed, nothing could be more
deprecatory. It was simply that I would consent
to take charge of her daughter during her
absence.

"This was, all things considered, a strange, not

to say, an audacious request. She in some sort
disarmed me, by stating and admitting
everything that could be urged against it, and
throwing herself entirely upon my chivalry. At
the same moment, by a fatality that seems to
have predetermined all that happened, my
poor child came to my side, and, in an
undertone, besought me to invite her new
friend, Millarca, to pay us a visit. She had just
been sounding her, and thought, if her mamma
would allow her, she would like it extremely.

"At another time I should have told her to wait

a little, until, at least, we knew who they were.
But I had not a moment to think in. The two
ladies assailed me together, and I must confess
the refined and beautiful face of the young
lady, about which there was something
extremely engaging, as well as the elegance
and fire of high birth, determined me; and,
quite overpowered, I submitted, and
undertook, too easily, the care of the young
lady, whom her mother called Millarca.

"The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who

listened with grave attention while she told
her, in general terms, how suddenly and
peremptorily she had been summoned, and
also of the arrangement she had made for her
under my care, adding that I was one of her
earliest and most valued friends.

"I made, of course, such speeches as the case

seemed to call for, and found myself, on
reflection, in a position which I did not half
like.

"The gentleman in black returned, and very

ceremoniously conducted the lady from the
room.

"The demeanor of this gentleman was such as

to impress me with the conviction that the
Countess was a lady of very much more
importance than her modest title alone might
have led me to assume.

"Her last charge to me was that no attempt

was to be made to learn more about her than I
might have already guessed, until her return.
Our distinguished host, whose guest she was,
knew her reasons.

"'But here,' she said, 'neither I nor my

daughter could safely remain for more than a
day. I removed my mask imprudently for a
moment, about an hour ago, and, too late, I
fancied you saw me. So I resolved to seek an
opportunity of talking a little to you. Had I
found that you had seen me, I would have
thrown myself on your high sense of honor to
keep my secret some weeks. As it is, I am
satisfied that you did not see me; but if you
now suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect,
who I am, I commit myself, in like manner,
entirely to your honor. My daughter will
observe the same secrecy, and I well know that
you will, from time to time, remind her, lest
she should thoughtlessly disclose it.'

"She whispered a few words to her daughter,

kissed her hurriedly twice, and went away,
accompanied by the pale gentleman in black,
and disappeared in the crowd.

"'In the next room,' said Millarca, 'there is a

window that looks upon the hall door. I should
like to see the last of mamma, and to kiss my
hand to her.'
"We assented, of course, and accompanied her
to the window. We looked out, and saw a
handsome old-fashioned carriage, with a troop
of couriers and footmen. We saw the slim
figure of the pale gentleman in black, as he
held a thick velvet cloak, and placed it about
her shoulders and threw the hood over her
head. She nodded to him, and just touched his
hand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as
the door closed, and the carriage began to
move.

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

"'She is gone,' I repeated to myself, for the

first time--in the hurried moments that had
elapsed since my consent--reflecting upon the
folly of my act.

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

plaintively.

"'The Countess had taken off her mask,

perhaps, and did not care to show her face,' I
said; 'and she could not know that you were in
the window.'

"She sighed, and looked in my face. She was

so beautiful that I relented. I was sorry I had
for a moment repented of my hospitality, and I
determined to make her amends for the
unavowed churlishness of my reception.

"The young lady, replacing her mask, joined

my ward in persuading me to return to the
grounds, where the concert was soon to be
renewed. We did so, and walked up and down
the terrace that lies under the castle windows.

Millarca became very intimate with us, and

amused us with lively descriptions and stories
of most of the great people whom we saw upon
the terrace. I liked her more and more every
minute. Her gossip without being ill-natured,
was extremely diverting to me, who had been
so long out of the great world. I thought what
life she would give to our sometimes lonely
evenings at home.

"This ball was not over until the morning sun

had almost reached the horizon. It pleased the
Grand Duke to dance till then, so loyal people
could not go away, or think of bed.

"We had just got through a crowded saloon,

when my ward asked me what had become of
Millarca. I thought she had been by her side,
and she fancied she was by mine. The fact was,
we had lost her.

"All my efforts to find her were vain. I feared

that she had mistaken, in the confusion of a
momentary separation from us, other people
for her new friends, and had, possibly, pursued
and lost them in the extensive grounds which
were thrown open to us.

"Now, in its full force, I recognized a new folly

in my having undertaken the charge of a
young lady without so much as knowing her
name; and fettered as I was by promises, of
the reasons for imposing which I knew nothing,
I could not even point my inquiries by saying
that the missing young lady was the daughter
of the Countess who had taken her departure a
few hours before.

"Morning broke. It was clear daylight before I

gave up my search. It was not till near two
o'clock next day that we heard anything of my
missing charge.

"At about that time a servant knocked at my

niece's door, to say that he had been earnestly
requested by a young lady, who appeared to be
in great distress, to make out where she could
find the General Baron Spielsdorf and the
young lady his daughter, in whose charge she
had been left by her mother.

"There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the

slight inaccuracy, that our young friend had
turned up; and so she had. Would to heaven
we had lost her!

"She told my poor child a story to account for

her having failed to recover us for so long.
Very late, she said, she had got to the
housekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding
us, and had then fallen into a deep sleep
which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed to
recruit her strength after the fatigues of the
ball.
"That day Millarca came home with us. I was
only too happy, after all, to have secured so
charming a companion for my dear girl."
XIII

The Woodman

"There soon, however, appeared some

drawbacks. In the first place, Millarca
complained of extreme languor--the weakness
that remained after her late illness--and she
never emerged from her room till the
afternoon was pretty far advanced. In the next
place, it was accidentally discovered, although
she always locked her door on the inside, and
never disturbed the key from its place till she
admitted the maid to assist at her toilet, that
she was undoubtedly sometimes absent from
her room in the very early morning, and at
various times later in the day, before she
wished it to be understood that she was
stirring. She was repeatedly seen from the
windows of the schloss, in the first faint grey of
the morning, walking through the trees, in an
easterly direction, and looking like a person in
a trance. This convinced me that she walked in
her sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve the
puzzle. How did she pass out from her room,
leaving the door locked on the inside? How did
she escape from the house without unbarring
door or window?
"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of
a far more urgent kind presented itself.

"My dear child began to lose her looks and

health, and that in a manner so mysterious,
and even horrible, that I became thoroughly
frightened.

"She was at first visited by appalling dreams;

then, as she fancied, by a specter, sometimes
resembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of
a beast, indistinctly seen, walking round the
foot of her bed, from side to side.

Lastly came sensations. One, not unpleasant,

but very peculiar, she said, resembled the flow
of an icy stream against her breast. At a later
time, she felt something like a pair of large
needles pierce her, a little below the throat,
with a very sharp pain. A few nights after,
followed a gradual and convulsive sense of
strangulation; then came unconsciousness."

I could hear distinctly every word the kind old

General was saying, because by this time we
were driving upon the short grass that spreads
on either side of the road as you approach the
roofless village which had not shown the
smoke of a chimney for more than half a
century.

You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard

my own symptoms so exactly described in
those which had been experienced by the poor
girl who, but for the catastrophe which
followed, would have been at that moment a
visitor at my father's chateau. You may
suppose, also, how I felt as I heard him detail
habits and mysterious peculiarities which were,
in fact, those of our beautiful guest, Carmilla!

A vista opened in the forest; we were on a

sudden under the chimneys and gables of the
ruined village, and the towers and battlements
of the dismantled castle, round which gigantic
trees are grouped, overhung us from a slight
eminence.

In a frightened dream I got down from the

carriage, and in silence, for we had each
abundant matter for thinking; we soon
mounted the ascent, and were among the
spacious chambers, winding stairs, and dark
corridors of the castle.

"And this was once the palatial residence of the

Karnsteins!" said the old General at length, as
from a great window he looked out across the
village, and saw the wide, undulating expanse
of forest. "It was a bad family, and here its
bloodstained annals were written," he
continued. "It is hard that they should, after
death, continue to plague the human race with
their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the
Karnsteins, down there."

He pointed down to the grey walls of the

Gothic building partly visible through the
foliage, a little way down the steep. "And I
hear the axe of a woodman," he added, "busy
among the trees that surround it; he possibly
may give us the information of which I am in
search, and point out the grave of Mircalla,
Countess of Karnstein. These rustics preserve
the local traditions of great families, whose
stories die out among the rich and titled so
soon as the families themselves become
extinct."

"We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the

Countess Karnstein; should you like to see it?"
asked my father.

"Time enough, dear friend," replied the

General. "I believe that I have seen the
original; and one motive which has led me to
you earlier than I at first intended, was to
explore the chapel which we are now
approaching."

"What! see the Countess Mircalla," exclaimed

my father; "why, she has been dead more than
a century!"

"Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,"

answered the General.

"I confess, General, you puzzle me utterly,"

replied my father, looking at him, I fancied, for
a moment with a return of the suspicion I
detected before. But although there was anger
and detestation, at times, in the old General's
manner, there was nothing flighty.
"There remains to me," he said, as we passed
under the heavy arch of the Gothic church--for
its dimensions would have justified its being so
styled--"but one object which can interest me
during the few years that remain to me on
earth, and that is to wreak on her the
vengeance which, I thank God, may still be
accomplished by a mortal arm."

"What vengeance can you mean?" asked my

father, in increasing amazement.

"I mean, to decapitate the monster," he

answered, with a fierce flush, and a stamp that
echoed mournfully through the hollow ruin,
and his clenched hand was at the same
moment raised, as if it grasped the handle of
an axe, while he shook it ferociously in the air.

"What?" exclaimed my father, more than ever

bewildered.

"To strike her head off."

"Cut her head off!"

"Aye, with a hatchet, with a spade, or with

anything that can cleave through her
murderous throat. You shall hear," he
answered, trembling with rage. And hurrying
forward he said:

"That beam will answer for a seat; your dear

child is fatigued; let her be seated, and I will,
in a few sentences, close my dreadful story."
The squared block of wood, which lay on the
grass-grown pavement of the chapel, formed a
bench on which I was very glad to seat myself,
and in the meantime the General called to the
woodman, who had been removing some
boughs which leaned upon the old walls; and,
axe in hand, the hardy old fellow stood before
us.

He could not tell us anything of these

monuments; but there was an old man, he
said, a ranger of this forest, at present
sojourning in the house of the priest, about
two miles away, who could point out every
monument of the old Karnstein family; and, for
a trifle, he undertook to bring him back with
him, if we would lend him one of our horses, in
little more than half an hour.

"Have you been long employed about this

forest?" asked my father of the old man.

"I have been a woodman here," he answered in

his patois, "under the forester, all my days; so
has my father before me, and so on, as many
generations as I can count up. I could show
you the very house in the village here, in
which my ancestors lived."

"How came the village to be deserted?" asked

the General.

"It was troubled by revenants, sir; several

were tracked to their graves, there detected by
the usual tests, and extinguished in the usual
way, by decapitation, by the stake, and by
burning; but not until many of the villagers
were killed.

"But after all these proceedings according to

law," he continued--"so many graves opened,
and so many vampires deprived of their
horrible animation--the village was not
relieved. But a Moravian nobleman, who
happened to be traveling this way, heard how
matters were, and being skilled--as many
people are in his country--in such affairs, he
offered to deliver the village from its
tormentor. He did so thus: There being a bright
moon that night, he ascended, shortly after
sunset, the towers of the chapel here, from
whence he could distinctly see the churchyard
beneath him; you can see it from that window.
From this point he watched until he saw the
vampire come out of his grave, and place near
it the linen clothes in which he had been
folded, and then glide away towards the village
to plague its inhabitants.

"The stranger, having seen all this, came down

from the steeple, took the linen wrappings of
the vampire, and carried them up to the top of
the tower, which he again mounted. When the
vampire returned from his prowlings and
missed his clothes, he cried furiously to the
Moravian, whom he saw at the summit of the
tower, and who, in reply, beckoned him to
ascend and take them. Whereupon the
vampire, accepting his invitation, began to
climb the steeple, and so soon as he had
reached the battlements, the Moravian, with a
stroke of his sword, clove his skull in twain,
hurling him down to the churchyard, whither,
descending by the winding stairs, the stranger
followed and cut his head off, and next day
delivered it and the body to the villagers, who
duly impaled and burnt them.

"This Moravian nobleman had authority from

the then head of the family to remove the
tomb of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, which he
did effectually, so that in a little while its site
was quite forgotten."

"Can you point out where it stood?" asked the

General, eagerly.

The forester shook his head, and smiled.

"Not a soul living could tell you that now," he

said; "besides, they say her body was
removed; but no one is sure of that either."

Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he

dropped his axe and departed, leaving us to
hear the remainder of the General's strange
story.
XIV

The Meeting

"My beloved child," he resumed, "was now

growing rapidly worse. The physician who
attended her had failed to produce the slightest
impression on her disease, for such I then
supposed it to be. He saw my alarm, and
suggested a consultation. I called in an abler
physician, from Gratz.

Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was

a good and pious, as well as a learned man.
Having seen my poor ward together, they
withdrew to my library to confer and discuss. I,
from the adjoining room, where I awaited their
summons, heard these two gentlemen's voices
raised in something sharper than a strictly
philosophical discussion. I knocked at the door
and entered. I found the old physician from
Gratz maintaining his theory. His rival was
combating it with undisguised ridicule,
accompanied with bursts of laughter. This
unseemly manifestation subsided and the
altercation ended on my entrance.

"'Sir,' said my first physician,'my learned

brother seems to think that you want a
conjuror, and not a doctor.'
"'Pardon me,' said the old physician from
Gratz, looking displeased, 'I shall state my own
view of the case in my own way another time. I
grieve, Monsieur le General, that by my skill
and science I can be of no use.

Before I go I shall do myself the honor to

suggest something to you.'

"He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a

table and began to write.

Profoundly disappointed, I made my bow, and

as I turned to go, the other doctor pointed over
his shoulder to his companion who was writing,
and then, with a shrug, significantly touched
his forehead.

"This consultation, then, left me precisely

where I was. I walked out into the grounds, all
but distracted. The doctor from Gratz, in ten or
fifteen minutes, overtook me. He apologized
for having followed me, but said that he could
not conscientiously take his leave without a
few words more. He told me that he could not
be mistaken; no natural disease exhibited the
same symptoms; and that death was already
very near. There remained, however, a day, or
possibly two, of life. If the fatal seizure were at
once arrested, with great care and skill her
strength might possibly return. But all hung
now upon the confines of the irrevocable. One
more assault might extinguish the last spark of
vitality which is, every moment, ready to die.
"'And what is the nature of the seizure you
speak of?' I entreated.

"'I have stated all fully in this note, which I

place in your hands upon the distinct condition
that you send for the nearest clergyman, and
open my letter in his presence, and on no
account read it till he is with you; you would
despise it else, and it is a matter of life and
death. Should the priest fail you, then, indeed,
you may read it.'

"He asked me, before taking his leave finally,

whether I would wish to see a man curiously
learned upon the very subject, which, after I
had read his letter, would probably interest me
above all others, and he urged me earnestly to
invite him to visit him there; and so took his
leave.

"The ecclesiastic was absent, and I read the

letter by myself. At another time, or in another
case, it might have excited my ridicule. But
into what quackeries will not people rush for a
last chance, where all accustomed means have
failed, and the life of a beloved object is at
stake?

"Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd

than the learned man's letter.

It was monstrous enough to have consigned

him to a madhouse. He said that the patient
was suffering from the visits of a vampire! The
punctures which she described as having
occurred near the throat, were, he insisted, the
insertion of those two long, thin, and sharp
teeth which, it is well known, are peculiar to
vampires; and there could be no doubt, he
added, as to the well-defined presence of the
small livid mark which all concurred in
describing as that induced by the demon's lips,
and every symptom described by the sufferer
was in exact conformity with those recorded in
every case of a similar visitation.

"Being myself wholly skeptical as to the

existence of any such portent as the vampire,
the supernatural theory of the good doctor
furnished, in my opinion, but another instance
of learning and intelligence oddly associated
with some one hallucination. I was so
miserable, however, that, rather than try
nothing, I acted upon the instructions of the
letter.

"I concealed myself in the dark dressing room,

that opened upon the poor patient's room, in
which a candle was burning, and watched there
till she was fast asleep. I stood at the door,
peeping through the small crevice, my sword
laid on the table beside me, as my directions
prescribed, until, a little after one, I saw a
large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it
seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and
swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl's throat,
where it swelled, in a moment, into a great,
palpitating mass.
"For a few moments I had stood petrified. I
now sprang forward, with my sword in my
hand. The black creature suddenly contracted
towards the foot of the bed, glided over it, and,
standing on the floor about a yard below the
foot of the bed, with a glare of skulking ferocity
and horror fixed on me, I saw Millarca.
Speculating I know not what, I struck at her
instantly with my sword; but I saw her
standing near the door, unscathed. Horrified, I
pursued, and struck again. She was gone; and
my sword flew to shivers against the door.

"I can't describe to you all that passed on that

horrible night. The whole house was up and
stirring. The specter Millarca was gone. But her
victim was sinking fast, and before the morning
dawned, she died."

The old General was agitated. We did not speak

to him. My father walked to some little
distance, and began reading the inscriptions on
the tombstones; and thus occupied, he strolled
into the door of a side chapel to prosecute his
researches. The General leaned against the
wall, dried his eyes, and sighed heavily. I was
relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and
Madame, who were at that moment
approaching. The voices died away.

In this solitude, having just listened to so

strange a story, connected, as it was, with the
great and titled dead, whose monuments were
moldering among the dust and ivy round us,
and every incident of which bore so awfully
upon my own mysterious case--in this haunted
spot, darkened by the towering foliage that
rose on every side, dense and high above its
noiseless walls--a horror began to steal over
me, and my heart sank as I thought that my
friends were, after all, not about to enter and
disturb this triste and ominous scene.

The old General's eyes were fixed on the

ground, as he leaned with his hand upon the
basement of a shattered monument.

Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted

by one of those demoniacal grotesques in
which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old
Gothic carving delights, I saw very gladly the
beautiful face and figure of Carmilla enter the
shadowy chapel.

I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded

smiling, in answer to her peculiarly engaging
smile; when with a cry, the old man by my side
caught up the woodman's hatchet, and started
forward. On seeing him a brutalized change
came over her features. It was an
instantaneous and horrible transformation, as
she made a crouching step backwards. Before I
could utter a scream, he struck at her with all
his force, but she dived under his blow, and
unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the
wrist. He struggled for a moment to release his
arm, but his hand opened, the axe fell to the
ground, and the girl was gone.
He staggered against the wall. His grey hair
stood upon his head, and a moisture shone
over his face, as if he were at the point of
death.

The frightful scene had passed in a moment.

The first thing I recollect after, is Madame
standing before me, and impatiently repeating
again and again, the question, "Where is
Mademoiselle Carmilla?"

I answered at length, "I don't know--I can't

tell--she went there," and I pointed to the door
through which Madame had just entered; "only
a minute or two since."

"But I have been standing there, in the

passage, ever since Mademoiselle Carmilla
entered; and she did not return."

She then began to call "Carmilla," through

every door and passage and from the windows,
but no answer came.

"She called herself Carmilla?" asked the

General, still agitated.

"Carmilla, yes," I answered.

"Aye," he said; "that is Millarca. That is the

same person who long ago was called Mircalla,
Countess Karnstein. Depart from this accursed
ground, my poor child, as quickly as you can.
Drive to the clergyman's house, and stay there
till we come. Begone! May you never behold
Carmilla more; you will not find her here."
XV

Ordeal and Execution

As he spoke one of the strangest looking men I

ever beheld entered the chapel at the door
through which Carmilla had made her entrance
and her exit. He was tall, narrow-chested,
stooping, with high shoulders, and dressed in
black. His face was brown and dried in with
deep furrows; he wore an oddly-shaped hat
with a broad leaf. His hair, long and grizzled,
hung on his shoulders. He wore a pair of gold
spectacles, and walked slowly, with an odd
shambling gait, with his face sometimes turned
up to the sky, and sometimes bowed down
towards the ground, seemed to wear a
perpetual smile; his long thin arms were
swinging, and his lank hands, in old black
gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving
and gesticulating in utter abstraction.

"The very man!" exclaimed the General,

advancing with manifest delight. "My dear
Baron, how happy I am to see you, I had no
hope of meeting you so soon." He signed to my
father, who had by this time returned, and
leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he
called the Baron to meet him. He introduced
him formally, and they at once entered into
earnest conversation. The stranger took a roll
of paper from his pocket, and spread it on the
worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a
pencil case in his fingers, with which he traced
imaginary lines from point to point on the
paper, which from their often glancing from it,
together, at certain points of the building, I
concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He
accompanied, what I may term, his lecture,
with occasional readings from a dirty little
book, whose yellow leaves were closely written
over.

They sauntered together down the side aisle,

opposite to the spot where I was standing,
conversing as they went; then they began
measuring distances by paces, and finally they
all stood together, facing a piece of the
sidewall, which they began to examine with
great minuteness; pulling off the ivy that clung
over it, and rapping the plaster with the ends
of their sticks, scraping here, and knocking
there. At length they ascertained the existence
of a broad marble tablet, with letters carved in
relief upon it.

With the assistance of the woodman, who soon

returned, a monumental inscription, and
carved escutcheon, were disclosed. They
proved to be those of the long lost monument
of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein.

The old General, though not I fear given to the

praying mood, raised his hands and eyes to
heaven, in mute thanksgiving for some
moments.

"Tomorrow," I heard him say; "the

commissioner will be here, and the Inquisition
will be held according to law."

Then turning to the old man with the gold

spectacles, whom I have described, he shook
him warmly by both hands and said:

"Baron, how can I thank you? How can we all

thank you? You will have delivered this region
from a plague that has scourged its inhabitants
for more than a century. The horrible enemy,
thank God, is at last tracked."

My father led the stranger aside, and the

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

My father came to me, kissed me again and

again, and leading me from the chapel, said:

"It is time to return, but before we go home,

we must add to our party the good priest, who
lives but a little way from this; and persuade
him to accompany us to the schloss."

In this quest we were successful: and I was

glad, being unspeakably fatigued when we
reached home. But my satisfaction was
changed to dismay, on discovering that there
were no tidings of Carmilla. Of the scene that
had occurred in the ruined chapel, no
explanation was offered to me, and it was clear
that it was a secret which my father for the
present determined to keep from me.

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the

remembrance of the scene more horrible to
me. The arrangements for the night were
singular. Two servants, and Madame were to sit
up in my room that night; and the ecclesiastic
with my father kept watch in the adjoining
dressing room.

The priest had performed certain solemn rites

that night, the purport of which I did not
understand any more than I comprehended the
reason of this extraordinary precaution taken
for my safety during sleep.

I saw all clearly a few days later.

The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by

the discontinuance of my nightly sufferings.

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling

superstition that prevails in Upper and Lower
Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in
Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we
must call it, of the Vampire.

If human testimony, taken with every care and

solemnity, judicially, before commissions
innumerable, each consisting of many
members, all chosen for integrity and
intelligence, and constituting reports more
voluminous perhaps than exist upon any one
other class of cases, is worth anything, it is
difficult to deny, or even to doubt the existence
of such a phenomenon as the Vampire.

For my part I have heard no theory by which

to explain what I myself have witnessed and
experienced, other than that supplied by the
ancient and well-attested belief of the country.

The next day the formal proceedings took place

in the Chapel of Karnstein.

The grave of the Countess Mircalla was

opened; and the General and my father
recognized each his perfidious and beautiful
guest, in the face now disclosed to view. The
features, though a hundred and fifty years had
passed since her funeral, were tinted with the
warmth of life. Her eyes were open; no
cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The
two medical men, one officially present, the
other on the part of the promoter of the
inquiry, attested the marvelous fact that there
was a faint but appreciable respiration, and a
corresponding action of the heart. The limbs
were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and
the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to
a depth of seven inches, the body lay
immersed.

Here then, were all the admitted signs and

proofs of vampirism. The body, therefore, in
accordance with the ancient practice, was
raised, and a sharp stake driven through the
heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing
shriek at the moment, in all respects such as
might escape from a living person in the last
agony. Then the head was struck off, and a
torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck.
The body and head was next placed on a pile of
wood, and reduced to ashes, which were
thrown upon the river and borne away, and
that territory has never since been plagued by
the visits of a vampire.

My father has a copy of the report of the

Imperial Commission, with the signatures of all
who were present at these proceedings,
attached in verification of the statement. It is
from this official paper that I have summarized
my account of this last shocking scene.
XVI

Conclusion

I write all this you suppose with composure.

But far from it; I cannot think of it without
agitation. Nothing but your earnest desire so
repeatedly expressed, could have induced me
to sit down to a task that has unstrung my
nerves for months to come, and reinduced a
shadow of the unspeakable horror which years
after my deliverance continued to make my
days and nights dreadful, and solitude
insupportably terrific.

Let me add a word or two about that quaint

Baron Vordenburg, to whose curious lore we
were indebted for the discovery of the
Countess Mircalla's grave.

He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where,

living upon a mere pittance, which was all that
remained to him of the once princely estates of
his family, in Upper Styria, he devoted himself
to the minute and laborious investigation of
the marvelously authenticated tradition of
Vampirism. He had at his fingers' ends all the
great and little works upon the subject.

"Magia Posthuma," "Phlegon de Mirabilibus,"

"Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis,"
"Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de
Vampiris," by John Christofer Herenberg; and a
thousand others, among which I remember
only a few of those which he lent to my father.
He had a voluminous digest of all the judicial
cases, from which he had extracted a system of
principles that appear to govern--some always,
and others occasionally only--the condition of
the vampire. I may mention, in passing, that
the deadly pallor attributed to that sort of
revenants, is a mere melodramatic fiction.
They present, in the grave, and when they
show themselves in human society, the
appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to
light in their coffins, they exhibit all the
symptoms that are enumerated as those which
proved the vampire-life of the long-dead
Countess Karnstein.

How they escape from their graves and return

to them for certain hours every day, without
displacing the clay or leaving any trace of
disturbance in the state of the coffin or the
cerements, has always been admitted to be
utterly inexplicable. The amphibious existence
of the vampire is sustained by daily renewed
slumber in the grave. Its horrible lust for living
blood supplies the vigor of its waking
existence. The vampire is prone to be
fascinated with an engrossing vehemence,
resembling the passion of love, by particular
persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise
inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for
access to a particular object may be obstructed
in a hundred ways. It will never desist until it
has satiated its passion, and drained the very
life of its coveted victim. But it will, in these
cases, husband and protract its murderous
enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure,
and heighten it by the gradual approaches of
an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to
yearn for something like sympathy and
consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to its
object, overpowers with violence, and strangles
and exhausts often at a single feast.

The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain

situations, to special conditions. In the
particular instance of which I have given you a
relation, Mircalla seemed to be limited to a
name which, if not her real one, should at least
reproduce, without the omission or addition of
a single letter, those, as we say,
anagrammatically, which compose it.

Carmilla did this; so did Millarca.

My father related to the Baron Vordenburg,

who remained with us for two or three weeks
after the expulsion of Carmilla, the story about
the Moravian nobleman and the vampire at
Karnstein churchyard, and then he asked the
Baron how he had discovered the exact
position of the long-concealed tomb of the
Countess Mircalla? The Baron's grotesque
features puckered up into a mysterious smile;
he looked down, still smiling on his worn
spectacle case and fumbled with it. Then
looking up, he said:
"I have many journals, and other papers,
written by that remarkable man; the most
curious among them is one treating of the visit
of which you speak, to Karnstein. The tradition,
of course, discolors and distorts a little. He
might have been termed a Moravian nobleman,
for he had changed his abode to that territory,
and was, beside, a noble. But he was, in truth,
a native of Upper Styria. It is enough to say
that in very early youth he had been a
passionate and favored lover of the beautiful
Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Her early death
plunged him into inconsolable grief. It is the
nature of vampires to increase and multiply,
but according to an ascertained and ghostly
law.

"Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free

from that pest. How does it begin, and how
does it multiply itself? I will tell you. A person,
more or less wicked, puts an end to himself. A
suicide, under certain circumstances, becomes
a vampire. That specter visits living people in
their slumbers; they die, and almost invariably,
in the grave, develop into vampires. This
happened in the case of the beautiful Mircalla,
who was haunted by one of those demons. My
ancestor, Vordenburg, whose title I still bear,
soon discovered this, and in the course of the
studies to which he devoted himself, learned a
great deal more.

"Among other things, he concluded that

suspicion of vampirism would probably fall,
sooner or later, upon the dead Countess, who
in life had been his idol. He conceived a horror,
be she what she might, of her remains being
profaned by the outrage of a posthumous
execution. He has left a curious paper to prove
that the vampire, on its expulsion from its
amphibious existence, is projected into a far
more horrible life; and he resolved to save his
once beloved Mircalla from this.

"He adopted the stratagem of a journey here, a

pretended removal of her remains, and a real
obliteration of her monument. When age had
stolen upon him, and from the vale of years,
he looked back on the scenes he was leaving,
he considered, in a different spirit, what he had
done, and a horror took possession of him. He
made the tracings and notes which have
guided me to the very spot, and drew up a
confession of the deception that he had
practiced. If he had intended any further action
in this matter, death prevented him; and the
hand of a remote descendant has, too late for
many, directed the pursuit to the lair of the
beast."

We talked a little more, and among other

things he said was this:

"One sign of the vampire is the power of the

hand. The slender hand of Mircalla closed like a
vice of steel on the General's wrist when he
raised the hatchet to strike. But its power is
not confined to its grasp; it leaves a numbness
in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, if ever,
recovered from."

The following Spring my father took me a tour

through Italy. We remained away for more
than a year. It was long before the terror of
recent events subsided; and to this hour the
image of Carmilla returns to memory with
ambiguous alternations--sometimes the
playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the
writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and
often from a reverie I have started, fancying I
heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing
room door.

Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu

The Cock and Anchor

Torlogh O'Brien
The House by the Churchyard
Uncle Silas
Checkmate
Carmilla
The Wyvern Mystery
Guy Deverell
Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery
The Chronicles of Golden Friars
In a Glass Darkly
The Purcell Papers
The Watcher and Other Weird Stories
A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories
Madam Growl's Ghost and Other Tales of
Mystery
Green Tea and Other Stories
Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius
Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu
The Best Horror Stories
The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories
Ghost Stories and Mysteries
The Hours After Midnight
J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries
Ghost and Horror Stories
Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones
Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery