CARMILLA

by J.S. Le Fanu

from Through a glass darkly (1872, 1929 ed.)

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 precis

of the learned Doctor's reasoning, or extract from his

statement on a subject which he deseribes as "involving, not

improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual

existenee, and its intermediates."

I was anxious, on discovering this paper, to re-open the

correspondence commenced by Doctor Hesselius, so many years

before, with a person so clever and careful as his informant

seems to have been.  Much to my regret, however, I found

that she had died in the interval.

She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative

which she communicates in the following pages, with, so far

as I can pronounce, such a conscientious particularity.

CHAPTER I

AN EARLY FRIGHT

IN Styria we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit

a castle, or schloss.  A small income in that part of the

world goes a great way.  Eight or nine hundred a year does

wonders.  Scantily enough ours would have answered among

wealthy people at home.  My father is English, and I bear an

English name, although I never saw England.  But here, in

this lonely and primitive place, where everything is so

marvellously cheap, I really don't see how ever so much more

money would at all materially add to our comforts, or even

luxuries.

My father was in the Austrian service, and retired upon a

pension and his patrimony, and purchased this feudal

residence and the small estate on which it stands, a

bargain.

Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary.  It stands on

a slight eminence in a forest.  The road, very old and

narrow, passes in front of its drawbridge, never raised in

my time, and its moat, stocked with perch, and sailed over

by many swans, and floating on its surface white fleets of

water-lilies.

Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front,

its towers, and its Gothic chapel.

The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque

glade before its gate, and at the right a steep Gothic

bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in deep

shadow through the wood.

I have said that this is a very lonely place.  Judge

whether I say truth.  Looking from the hall door towards the

road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen

miles to the right and twelve to the left.  The nearest

inhabited village is about seven of your English miles to

the left.  The nearest inhabited schloss of any historic

associations is that of old General Spielsdorf, nearly

twenty miles away to the right.

I have said "the nearest inhabited village"

because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say

in the direction of General Spielsdorf's schloss, a ruined

village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the

aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of the proud family

of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally-

desolate 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 dependants who occupy rooms in the

buildings attached to the schloss.  Listen, and wonder!  My

father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old;

and I, at the date of my story, only nineteen.  Eight years

have passed since then.  I and my father constituted the

family at the schloss.  My mother, a Styrian lady, died in

my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who had been

with me from, I might almost say, my infancy.  I could not

remember the time when her fat, benignant face was not a

familiar picture in my memory.  This was Madame Perrodon, a

native of Berne, whose care and good nature in part supplied

to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so

early I lost her.  She made a third at our little dinner

party.  There was a fourth, Mademoiselle de Lafontaine, a

lady such as you term, I believe, a "finishing governess."

She spoke French and German, Madame Perrodon French and

broken English, to which my father and I added English,

which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among

us, and partly from patriotic motives, we spoke every day.

The consequence was a Babel, at which strangers used to

laugh, and which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in

this narrative.  And there were two or three young lady

friends besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were

occasional visitors for longer or shorter terms; and these

visits I sometimes returned.

These were our regular social resources; but of course

there were chance visits from "neighbours" of only five or

six leagues' distance.  My life was, notwithstanding, rather

a solitary one, I can assure you.

My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you

might conjecture such sage persons would have in the case of

a rather spoiled girl, whose only parent allowed her pretty

nearly her own way in everything.

The first occurrence in my existence which produced a

terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has

been effaced, was one of the very earliest incidents of my

life which I can recollect.  Some people will think it so

trifling that it should not be recorded here.  You will see,

however, by-and-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 creaks suddenly, or the

flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bed-post

dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces.  I was vexed and

insulted at finding myself, as I conceived, neglected, and I

began to whimper, preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring;

when, to my surprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face

looking at me from the side of the bed.  It was that of a

young lady, who was kneeling, with her hands under the

coverlet.  I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder,

and ceased whimpering.  She caressed me with her hands, and

lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her,

smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed, and fell

asleep again.  I was wakened by a sensation as if two

needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and

I cried loudly.  The lady started back with her eyes fixed

on me, and then slipped down upon the floor, and, as I

thought, hid herself under the bed.

I was now for the first time frightened, and I yelled with

all my might and main.  Nurse, nursery-maid, housekeeper,

all came running in, and hearing my story they made light of

it, soothing me all they could meanwhile.  But, child as I

was, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an

unwonted look of anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed,

and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck open

cupboards; and the housekeeper whispered to the nurse: "Lay

your hand along that hollow in the bed; 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

small-pox, 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 remember, in the course of that day, a venerable old

man, in a black cassock, coming into the room with the nurse

and housekeeper, and talking a little to them, and very

kindly to me; his face was very sweet and gentle, and he

told me they were going to pray, and joined my hands

together, and desired me to say softly while they were

praying, "Lord, hear all good prayers for us, for Jesus'

sake."  I think these were the very words, for I often

repeated them to myself, and my nurse used for years to make

me say them in my prayers.

I remember so well the thoughtful sweet face of that

white-haired old man, in his black cassock, as he stood in

that rude, lofty, brown room, with the clumsy furniture of a

fashion three hundred years old, about him, and the scanty

light entering its shadowy atmosphere through the small

lattice.  He kneeled, and the three women with him, and he

prayed aloud with an earnest quavering voice for what

appeared to me a long time.  I forget all my life preceding

that event, and for some time after it is all obscure also;

but the scenes I have just described stand out vivid as the

isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria surrounded by

darkness.

CHAPTER II

A GUEST

I AM now going to tell you something so strange that it will

require all your faith in my veracity to believe my story.

It is not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have

been an eye-witness.

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as

he sometimes did, to take a little ramble with him along

that beautiful forest vista which I have mentioned as Iying

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 for some weeks, and we had

expected his arrival next day.  He was to have brought with

him a young lady, his niece and ward, Mademoiselle

Rheinfeldt, whom I had never seen, but whom I had heard

described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I

had promised myself many happy days.  I was more

disappointed than a young lady living in a town or a

bustling neighbourhood can possibly imagine.  This visit,

and the new acquaintance it promised, had furnished my

day-dream for many weeks.

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

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

answered.  "And I am very glad now, dear, that you never

knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt."

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

"Because the poor young lady is dead," he replied.  "I

quite forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the

room when I received the General's letter this evening."

I was very much shocked.  General Spielsdorf had mentioned

in his first letter, six or seven weeks before, that she was

not so well as he would wish her, but there was nothing to

suggest the remotest suspicion of danger.

"Here is the General's letter," he said, handing it to me.

"I am afraid he is in great affliction; the letter appears

to me to have been written very nearly in distraction."

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

lime trees.  The sun was setting with all its melancholy

splendour behind the sylvan horizon, and the stream that

flows beside our home, and passes under the steep old bridge

I have mentioned, wound through many a group of noble

trees, almost at our feet, reflecting in its current the

fading crimson of the sky.  General Spielsdorf's letter was

so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places so self-

contradictory, that I read it twice over--the second time

aloud to my father--and was still unable to account for it,

except by supposing that grief had unsettled his mind.

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

loved her.  During the last days of dear Bertha's illness I

was not able to write to you.  Before then I had no idea of

her danger.  I have lost her, and now learn all

, too late.  She died in the peace of innocence, and

in the glorious hope of a blessed futurity.  The fiend who

betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all.  I

thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a

charming companion for my lost Bertha.  Heavens! what a fool

have I been!  I thank God my child died without a suspicion

of the cause of her sufferings.  She is gone without so much

as conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the accursed

passion of the agent of all this misery.  I devote my

remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster.  I

am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful

purpose.  At present there is scarcely a gleam of light to

guide me.  I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable

affectation of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy--all

--too late.  I cannot write or talk collectedly now.  I am

distracted.  So soon as I shall have a little recovered I

mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which may

possibly lead me as far as Vienna.  Some time in the autumn,

two months hence, or earlier if I live, I will see you--that

is, if you permit me; I will then tell you all that I scarce

dare put upon paper now.  Farewell.  Pray for me, dear

friend."

In these terms ended this strange letter.  Though I had

never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt, my eyes filled with tears at

the sudden intelligence; I was startled, as well as

profoundly disappointed.

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

returned the General's letter to my father.

It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating

upon the possible meanings of the violent and incoherent

sentences which I had just been reading.  We had nearly a

mile to walk before reaching the road that passes the

schloss in front, and by that time the moon was shining

brilliantly.  At the drawbridge we met Madame Perrodon and

Mademoiselle de Lafontaine, who had come out without their

bonnets to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.

We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we

approached.  We joined them at the drawbridge, and turned

about to admire with them the beautiful scene.

The glade through which we had just walked lay before us.

At our left the narrow road wound away under clumps of

lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening

forest.  At the right the same road crosses the steep and

picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which

once guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt

eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the

shadow some grey ivy-clustered rocks.

Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was

stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a

transparent veil; and here and there we could see the river

faintly flashing in the moonlight.

No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined.  The news I

had just heard made it melancholy; but nothing could disturb

its character of profound serenity, and the enchanted glory

and vagueness of the prospect.

My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood

looking in silence over the expanse beneath us.  The two

good governesses, standing a little way behind us,

discoursed upon the scene, and were eloquent upon the moon.

Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and

talked and sighed poetically.  Mademoiselle de Lafontaine--in right

of her father, who was a German, assumed to be

psychological, metaphysical, and something of a mystic--now

declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it

was well known that it indicated a special spiritual

activity.  The effect of the full moon in such a state of

brilliancy was manifold.  It acted on dreams, it acted on

lunacy, it acted on nervous people; it had marvellous

physical influences connected with life.  Mademoiselle

related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship,

having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his

back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had

wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the

cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his

countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.

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

magnetic influence--and see, when you look behind you at the

front of the schloss, how all its windows flash and twinkle

with that silvery splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted

up the rooms to receive fairy guests."

There are indolent states of the spirits in which,

indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant

to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the

tinkle of the ladies' conversation.

"I have got into one of my moping moods to-night," said my

father, after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by

way of keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he

said:

"In truth I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I got it--came by it...

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

misfortune were hanging over us.  I suppose the poor

General's afflicted letter has had something to do with it."

At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and

many hoofs upon the road arrested our attention.

They seemed to be approaching from the high ground over-

looking the bridge, and very soon the equipage emerged from

that point.  Two horsemen first crossed the bridge, then

came a carriage drawn by four horses, and two men rode

behind.

It seemed to be the travelling carriage of a person of

rank; and we were all immediately absorbed in watching that

very unusual spectacle.  It became, in a few moments,

greatly more interesting, for just as the carriage had

passed the summit of the steep bridge, one of the leaders,

taking fright, communicated his panic to the rest, and,

after a plunge or two, the whole team broke into a wild

gallop together, and, dashing between the horsemen who rode

in front, came thundering along the road towards us with the

speed of a hurricane.

The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the

clear, long-drawn screams of a female voice from the

carriage window.

We all advanced in curiosity and horror; my father in

silence, the rest with various ejaculations of terror.

Our suspense did not last long.  Just before you reach the

castle drawbridge, on the route they were coming, there

stands by the roadside a magnificent lime tree, on the other

stands an ancient stone cross, at sight of which the horses,

now going at a pace that was perfectly frightful, swerved so

as to bring the wheel over the projecting roots of the tree.

I knew what was coming.  I covered my eyes, unable to see

it out, and turned my head away; at the same moment I heard

a cry from my lady-friends, who had gone on a little.

Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter

confusion.  Two of the horses were on the ground, the

carriage lay upon its side, with two wheels in the air; the

men were busy removing the traces, and a lady with a

commanding air and figure had got out, and stood with

clasped hands, raising the handkerchief that was in them

every now and then to her eyes.  Through the carriage door

was now lifted a young lady, who appeared to be lifeless.

My dear old father was already beside the elder lady, with

his hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid and the

resources of his schloss.  The lady did not appear to hear

him, or to have eyes for anything but the slender girl who

was being placed against the slope of the bank.

I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but

she was certainly not dead.  My father, who piqued himself

on being something of a physician, had just had his fingers

to her wrist and assured the lady, who declared herself her

mother, that her pulse, though faint and irregular, was

undoubtedly still distinguishable.  The lady clasped her

hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary transport of

gratitude; but immediately she broke out again in that

theatrical way which is, I believe, natural to some people.

She was what is called a fine-looking woman for her time

of life, and must have been handsome; she was tall, but not

thin, and dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale,

but with a proud and commanding countenance, though now

agitated strangely.

"Was ever beiug 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 aftords no such inn as you could think

of placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her to

continue her journey for any considerable distance without

danger.  If, as you say, you cannot suspend your journey,

you must part with her to-night, and nowhere could you do so

with more honest assurances of care and tenderness than

here."

There was something in this lady's air and appearance so

distinguished, and even imposing, and in her manner so

engaging, as to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of

her equipage, with a conviction that she was a person of

consequence.

By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright

position, and the horses, quite tractable, in the traces

again.

The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied

was not quite so affectionate as one might have anticipated

from the beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly

to my father, and withdrew two or three steps with him out

of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and stern

countenance, not at all like that with which she had

hitherto spoken.

I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to

perceive the change, and also unspeakably curious to learn

what it could be that she was speaking, almost in his ear,

with so much earnestness and rapidity.

Two or three minutes at most, I think, she remained thus

employed, then she turned, and a few steps brought her to

where her daughter lay, supported by Madame Perrodon.  She

kneeled beside her for a moment and whispered, as Madame

supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then hastily

kissing her, she stepped into her carriage, the door was

closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped up behind,

the outriders spurred on, the 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.

CHAPTER 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 wheels died away in the silent night

air.

Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure had not

been an illusion of a moment but the young lady, who just at

that moment opened her eyes.  I could not see, for her face

was turned from me, but she raised her head, evidently

looking about her, and I heard a very sweet voice ask

complainingly, "Where is mamma?"

Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly, and added some

comfortable assurances.

I then heard her ask:

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

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

Madame answered all her questions in so far as she

understood them; and gradually the young lady remembered how

the misadventure came about, and was glad to hear that no

one in, or in attendance on, the carriage was hurt; and on

learning that her mamma had left her here, till her return

in about three months, she wept.

I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame

Perrodon when Mademoiselle de Lafontaine placed her hand

upon my arm, saying:

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

present converse with; a very little excitement would

possibly overpower her now."

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

run up to her room and see her.

My father in the meantime had sent a servant on horseback

for the physician, who lived about two leagues away; and a

bedroom was being prepared for the young lady's reception.

The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame's arm, walked

slowly over the drawbridge and into the castle gate.  In the

hall servants waited to receive her, and she was conducted

forthwith to her room.

The room we usually sat in as our drawing-room is long,

having four windows that looked over the moat and drawbridge

upon the forest scene I have just described.

It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved

cabinets, and the chairs are cushioned with crimson Utrecht

velvet.  The walls are covered with tapestry, and surrounded

with great gold frames, the figures being as large as life,

in ancient and very curious costume, and the subjects

represented are hunting, hawking, and generally festive.  It

is not too stately to be extremely comfortable; and here we

had our tea, for with his usual patriotic leanings he

insisted that the national beverage should make its

appearance regularly with our coffee and chocolate.

We sat here this night, and, with candles lighted, were

talking over the adventure of the evening.

Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle de Lafontaine were both

of our party.  The young stranger had hardly lain down in

her bed when she sank into a deep sleep; and those ladies

had left her in the care of a servant.

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

entered.  "Tell me all about her?"

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

think, the prettiest creature I ever saw; about your age,

and so gentle and nice."

"She is absolutely beautiful," threw in Mademoiselle, who

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

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

"Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after it was set

up again, who did not get out," inquired Mademoiselle, "but

only looked from the window?"

No, we had not seen her.

Then she described a hideous black woman, with a sort of

coloured turban on her head, who was gazing all the time

from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively

towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes and large white

eye-balls, and her teeth set as if in fury.

"Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the

servants were?" asked Madame.

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

hang-dog looking fellows, as ever I beheld in my life.  I

hope they mayn't rob the poor lady in the forest.  They are

clever rogues, however; they got everything to rights in a

minute."

"I dare say they are worn out with too long travelling,"

said Madame.  "Besides looking wicked, their faces were so

strangely lean, and dark, and sullen.  I am very curious, I

own; but I dare say the young lady will tell us all about it

to-morrow, if she is sufficiently recovered."

"I don't think she will," said my father, with a

mysterious smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he

knew more about it than he cared to tell us.

This made me all the more inquisitive as to what had

passed between him and the lady in the black velvet, in the

brief but earnest interview that had immediately preceded

her departure.

We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to tell me.

He did not need much pressing.

"There is no particular reason why I should not tell you.

She expressed a reluctance to trouble us with the care of

her daughter, saying she was in delicate health, and

nervous, but not subject to any kind of seizure--she

volunteered that--nor to any illusion; being, in fact,

perfectly sane."

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

so unnecessary."

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

"and as you wish to know all that passed, which was indeed

very little, I tell you.  She then said, 'I am making a long

journey of vital importance'--she emphasized

the word--'rapid and secret; I shall return for my child in

three months; in the meantime she will be silent as to who

we are, whence we come, and whither we are travelling.'

That is all she said.  She spoke very pure French.  When she

said the word 'secret,' she paused for a few seconds,

looking sternly, her eyes fixed on mine.  I fancy she makes

a great point of that.  You saw how quickly she was gone.  I

hope I have not done a very foolish thing in taking charge

of the young lady."

For my part I was delighted.  I was longing to see and

talk to her; and only waiting till the doctor should give me

leave.  You who live in towns can have no idea how great an

event the introduction of a new friend is, in such a

solitude as surrounded us.

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

could no more have gone to my bed and slept, than I could

have overtaken, on foot, the carriage in which the princess

in black velvet had driven away.

When the physician came down to the drawing-room, it was

to report very favourably upon his patient.  She was now

sitting up, her pulse quite regular, apparently perfectly

well.  She had sustained no injury, and the little shock to

her nerves had passed quite harmlessly.  There could be no

harm certainly in my seeing her, if we both wished it; and,

with this permission, I sent, forthwith, to know whether she

would allow me to visit her for a few minutes in her room.

The servant returned immediately to say that she desired

nothing more.

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

permission.

Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the

schloss.  It was, perhaps, a little stately.  There was a

sombre piece of tapestry opposite the foot of the bed,

representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom; and other

solemn classic scenes were displayed, a little faded, upon

the other walls.  But there was gold carving, and rich and

varied colour enough in the other decorations of the room,

to more than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry.

There were candles at the bed-side.  She was sitting up;

her slender pretty figure enveloped in the soft silk

dressing-gown, embroidered with flowers, and Uned with thick

quilted silk, which her mother had thrown over her feet as

she lay upon the ground.

What was it that, as I reached the bed-side and had just

begun my little greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and

made me recoil a step or two from before her?  I will tell

you.

I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood

at night, which remained so fixed in my memory, and on which

I had for so many years so often ruminated with horror, when

no one suspected of what I was thinking.

It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it,

wore the same melancholy expression.

But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed

smile of recognition.

There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length

she spoke; I could not.

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed.  "Twelve years ago, I saw

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

"Wonderful indeed!" I repeated, overcoming with an effort

the horror that had for a time suspended my utterances.

"Twelve years ago, in vision or reality, I certainly saw

you.  I could not forget your face.  It has remained before

my eyes ever since."

Her smile had softened.  Whatever I had fancied strange in

it, was gone, and it and her dimpling cheeks were now

delightfully pretty and intelligent.

I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein which

hospitality indicated, to bid her welcome, and to tell her

how much pleasure her accidental arrival had given us all,

and especially what a happiness it was to me.

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

people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even

bold.  She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her

eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again

and blushed.

She answered my welcome very prettily.  I sat down beside

her, still wondering; and she said:

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

strange that you and I should have had, each of the other so

vivid a dream, that each should have seen, I you and you me,

looking as we do now, when of course we both were mere

children.  I was a child, about six years old, and I awoke

from a confused and troubled dream, and found myself in a

room, unlike my nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark

wood, and with cupboards and bedsteads, and chairs and

benches placed about it.  The beds were, I thought, all

empty, and the room itself without anyone but myself in it;

and I, after looking about me for some time, and admiring

especially an iron candlestick, with two branches, which I

should certainly know again, crept under one of the beds to

reach the window; but as I got from under the bed, I heard

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 then saw."

It was now my turn to relate my corresponding vision,

which I did, to the undisguised wonder of my new

acquaintance.

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

she said, again smiling.  "If you were less pretty I think I

should be very much afraid of you, but being as you are, and

you and I both so young, I feel only that I have made your

acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already a right to

your intimacy; at all events, it does seem as if we were

destined, from our earliest childhood, to be friends.  I

wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me as I

do to you; I have never had a friend--shall I find one now?"

She sighed, and her fine dark eyes gazed passionately on me.

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the

beautiful stranger.  I dixd 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 to-night; one of ours is waiting,

and you will find her a very useful and quiet creature."

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

with an attendant in the room.  I shant require any

assistance--and, shall I confess my weakness, I am haunted

with a terror of robbers.  Our house was robbed once, and

two servants murdered, so I always lock my door.  It has

become a habit--and you look so kind I know you will forgive

me.  I see there is a key in the lock."

She held me close in her pretty arms for a moment and

whispered in my ear, "Good-night, darling, it is very hard

to part with you, but good-night; to-morrow, but not early,

I shall see you again."

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her fine eyes

followed me with a fond and melancholy gaze, and she

murmured again "Good-night, dear friend."

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

flattered by the evident, though as yet undeserved, fondness

she showed me.  I liked the confidence with which she at

once received me.  She was determined that we should be very

dear friends.

Next day came and we met again.  I was delighted with my

companion; that is to say, in many respects.

Her looks lost nothing in daylight--she was certainly the

most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and the unpleasant

remembrance of the face presented in my early dream, had

lost the effect of the first unexpected recognition.

She confessed that she had experienced a similar shock on

seeing me, and precisely the same faint antipathy that had

mingled with my admiration of her.  We now laughed together

over our momentary horrors.

CHAPTER IV

HER HABITS--A SAUNTER

I TOLD YOU that I was charmed with her in most particulars.

There were some that did not please me so well.

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

by describing her.  She was slender, and wonderfully

graceful.  Except that her movements were languid--very

languid--indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to

indicate an invalid.  Her complexion was rich and brilliant;

her features were small and beautifully formed; her eyes

large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I

never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when it was

down about her shoulders; I have often placed my hands under

it, and laughed with wonder at its weight.  It was

exquisitely fine and soft, and in colour a rich very dark

brown, with something of gold.  I loved to let it down,

tumbling with its own weight; as, in her room, she lay back

in her chair talking in her sweet low voice, I used to fold

and braid it, and spread it out and play with it.  Heavens !

If I had but known all!

I said there were particulars which did not please me.  I

have told you that her confidence won me the first night I

saw her; but I found that she exercised with respect to

herself, her mother, her history, everything in fact

connected with her life, plans, and people, an ever-wakeful

reserve.  I dare say I was unreasonable, perhaps I was

wrong; I dare say I ought to have respected the solemn

injunction laid upon my father by the stately lady in black

velvet.  But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous

passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that

her's should be baffled by another.  What harm could it do

anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to know?  Had

she no trust in my good sense or honour?  Why would she not

believe me when I assured her, so solemnly, that I would not

divulge one syllable of what she told me to any mortal

breathing.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years,

in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me

the least ray of light.

I cannot say we quarrelled upon this point, for she would

not quarrel upon any.  It was, of course, very unfair of me

to press her, very illbred, but I really could not help it;

and I might just as well have let it alone.

What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable

estimation--to nothing.

It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures:

First.  Her name was Carmilla.

Second.  Her family was very ancient and noble.

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

She would not tell me the name of her family, nor their

armorial bearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even

that of the country they lived in.

You are not to suppose that I worried her incessantly on

these subjects.  I watched opportunity, and rather

insinuated than urged my inquiries.  Once or twice, indeed,

I did attack her more directly.  But no matter what my

tactics, utter failure was invariably the result.

Reproaches and caresses were all lost upon her.  But I must

add this, that her evasion was conducted with so pretty a

melancholy and deprecation, with so many, and even

passionate declarations of her liking for me, and trust in

my honour, and with so many promises that I should at last

know all, that I could not find it in my heart long to be

offended with her.

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me

to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips

near my ear, "Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think

me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my

strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my

wild heart bleeds with yours.  In the rapture of my enormous

humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die,

sweetly die--into mine.  I cannot help it; as I draw

near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others,

and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love;

so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but

trust me with all your loving spirit."

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press

me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in

soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.

Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me.

From these foolish embraces, which were not of very

frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish to

extricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me.  Her

murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed

my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to

recover myself when she withdrew her arms.

In these mysterious moods I did not like her.  I

experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that was

pleasurable, ever and anon mingled with a vague sense of

fear and disgust.  I had no distinct thoughts about her

while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love

growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence.  This I know

is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the

feeling.

I now write, after an interval of more than ten years,

with a trembling hand, with a confused and horrible

recollection of certain occurrences and situations in the

ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing; though

with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of the main current

of my story.  But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain

emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most

wildly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most

vaguely and dimly remembered.

Sometimes after an hour of apathy my strange and beautiful

companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond

pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing

in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so

fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous

respiration.  It was like the ardour of a lover; it

embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and

with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips

travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper,

almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be

mine, and you and I are one for ever."  Then she has thrown

herself back in her chair, with her small hands over her

eyes, leaving me trembling.

"Are we related," I used to ask; "what can you mean by all

this?  I remind you perhaps of 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 story books of

such things.  What if a boyish lover had found his way into

the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade,

with the assistance of a clever old adventuress!  But there

were many things against this hypothesis, highly interesting

as it was to my vanity.

I could boast of no little attentions such as masculine

gallantry delights to offer.  Between these passionate

moments there were long intervals of common-place, of

gaiety, of brooding melancholy, during which, except that I

detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire following me,

at times I might have been as nothing to her.  Except in

these brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were

girlish; and there was always a 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 twoand-two came behind, they

were singing a funeral hymn.

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in

the hymn they were very sweetly singing.

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned

surprised.

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

that is?"

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

vexed at the interruption, and very uncomfortable, lest the

people who composed the little procession should observe and

resent what was passing.

I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again

interrupted.  "You pierce my ears," said Carmilla, almost

angrily, and stopping her ears with her tiny fingers.

"Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are

the same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals.  What a

fuss!  Why, you must die--everyone must die;

and all are happier when they do.  Come home."

"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the

churchyard.  I thought you knew she was to be buried

to-day."

"She?  I don't trouble my head about

peasants.  I don't know who she is," answered Carmilla, with

a flash from her fine eyes.

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a

fortnight ago, and has been dying ever since, till

yesterday, when she expired."

"Tell me nothing about ghosts.  I shan't sleep to-night if

you do."

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

very like it," I continued.  "The swineherd's young wife

died only a week ago, and she thought something seized her

by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangled

her.  Papa says such horrible fancies do accompany some

forms of fever.  She was quite well the day before.  She

sank afterwards, and died before a week."

"Well, her funeral is over I hope, and

her hymn sung; and our ears shan't be

tortured with that discord and jargon.  It has made me

nervous.  Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand;

press it hard--hard--harder."

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

She sat down.  Her face underwent a change that alarmed

and even terrified me for a moment.  It darkened, and became

horribly livid; her teeth and hands were clenched, and she

frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon

the ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a

continued shudder as irrepressible as ague.  All her

energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she

was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low

convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually

the hysteria subsided.  "There!  That comes of strangling

people with hymns!"  she said at last.  "Hold me, hold me

still.  It is passing away."

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissipate the

sombre impression which the spectacle had left upon me, she

became unusually animated and chatty; and so we got home.

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit any

definable symptoms of that delicacy of health which her

mother had spoken of.  It was the first time, also, I had

seen her exhibit anything like temper.

Both passed away like a summer cloud; and never but once

afterwards did I witness on her part a momentary sign of

anger.  I will tell you how it happened.

She and I were looking out of one of the long drawing-room

windows, when there entered the court-yard, over the draw-

bridge, 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 court-yard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very

ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in

execrable French, and German not much better.  Then,

disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air, to

which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous

airs and activity that made me laugh, in spite of the dog's

howling.

Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and

salutations, and his hat in his left hand, his fiddle under

his arm, and with a fluency that never took breath he

gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and

the resources of the various arts which he placed at our

service, and the curiosities and entertainments which it was

in his power at our bidding to display.

"Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet against

the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through

these woods," he said, dropping his hat on the pavement.

"They are dying of it right and left, and here is a charm

that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may

laugh in his face."

These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with

cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them.

Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I.

He was looking up, and we were smiling down upon him,

amused; at least, I can answer for myself.  His piercing

black eye, as he looked up in our faces, seemed to detect

something that fixed for a moment his curiosity.

In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all

manner of odd little steel instruments.

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

addressing me, "I profess, among other things less useful,

the art of dentistry.  Plague take the dog!" he

interpolated.  "Silence, beast!  He howls so that your

ladyships can scarcely hear a word.  Your noble friend, the

young lady at your right, has the sharpest tooth--long,

thin, pointed, like an awl, like a needle; ha, ha!  With my

sharp and long sight, as I look up, I have seen it

distinctly; now if it happens to hurt the young lady, and I

think it must, here am I, here are my file, my pouch, my

nippers; I will make it round and blunt, if her ladyship

pleases; no longer the tooth of a fish, but 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

cartwhip, and burnt to the bones with the castle brand!"

She retired from the window a step or two, and sat down,

and had hardly lost sight of the offender when her wrath

subsided as suddenly as it had risen, and she gradually

recovered her usual tone and seemed to forget the little

hunchback and his follies.

My father was out of spirits that evening.  On coming in

he told us that there had been another case very similar to

the two fatal ones which had lately occurred.  The sister of

a young peasant on his estate, only a mile away, was very

ill, had been, as she described it, attacked very nearly in

the same way, and was now slowly but steadily sinking.

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

natural causes.  These poor people infect one another with

their superstitions, and so repeat in imagination the images

of terror that have infested their neighbours."

"But that very circumstance frightens one horribly," said

Carmilla.

"How so?" inquired my father.

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

would be as bad as reality."

"We are in God's hands; nothing can happen without His

permission, and all will end well for those who love Him.

He is our faithful creator; He has made us all, and will

take care of us."

"Creator! Nature!" said the young lady in

answer to my gentle father.  "And this disease that invades

the country is natural.  Nature.  All things proceed from

Nature--don't they?  All things in the heaven, in the earth,

and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains?  I

think so."

"The doctor said he would come here to-day," said my

father, after a silence.  "I want to know what he thinks

about it, and what he thinks we had better do."

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

"Then you have been ill?" I asked.

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

"Long ago?"

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

I forget all but my pain and weakness, and they were not so

bad as are suffered in other diseases."

"You were very young then?"

"I dare say; let us talk no more of it.  You would not

wound a friend?"  She looked languidly in my eyes, and

passed her arm round my waist lovingly and led me out of the

room.  My father was busy over some papers near the window.

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

girl, with a sigh and a little shudder.

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

from his mind."

"Are you afraid, dearest?"

"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real

danger of my being attacked as those poor people were."

"You are afraid to die?"

"Yes, everyone 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.

CHAPTER V

A WONDERFUL LIKENESS

THIS evening there arrived from Gratz the grave,

dark-faced son of the picture-cleaner, with a horse and cart

laden with two large packing-cases, having many pictures in

each.  It was a journey of ten leagues, and whenever a

messenger arrived at the schloss from our little capital of

Gratz we used to crowd about him in the hall to hear the

news.

This arrival created in our secluded quarters quite a

sensation.  The cases remained in the hall, and the

messenger was taken charge of by the servants till he had

eaten his supper.  Then with assistants, and armed with

hammer, ripping chisel, and turnscrew he met us in the hall,

where we had assembled to witness the unpacking of the

cases.

Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after the

other the old pictures, nearly all portraits which had

undergone the process of renovation, were brought to light.

My mother was of an old Hungarian family, and most of these

pictures, which were about to be restored to their places,

had come to us through her.

My father had a list in his hand, from which he read, as

the artist rummaged out the corresponding numbers.  I don't

know that the pictures were very good, but they were,

undoubtedly, very old, and some of them very curious also.

They had, for the most part, the merit of being now seen by

me, I may say, for the first time; for the smoke and dust of

time had all but obliterated them.

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

father.  "In one corner, at the top of it, is the name, as

well as I could read, 'Marcia Karnstein,' and the date

'1698,' and I am curious to see how it has turned out."

I remembered it; it was a small picture, about a foot and a

half high, and nearly square, without a frame; but it was so

blackened by age that I could not make it out.

The artist now produced it, with evident pride.  It was

quite beautiful; it was startling; it seemed to live.  It

was the effigy of Carmilla!

"Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle.  Here you

are, living, smiling, ready to speak, in this picture.

Isn't it beautiful, papa?  And see, even the little mole on

her throat."

My father laughed and said, "Certainly it is a wonderful

likeness," but he looked away, and to my surprise seemed but

little struck by it, and went on talking to the

picture-cleaner, who was also something of an artist, and

discoursed with intelligence about the portraits or other

works, which his art had just brought into light and colour,

while I was more and more lost in wonder the more I looked

at the picture.

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

asked.

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

think it so like.  It must be prettier even than I thought

it, if it is."

The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty speech, did

not seem to hear it.  She was leaning back in her seat, her

fine eyes under their long lashes gazing on me in

contemplation, and she smiled in a kind of rapture.

"And now you can read quite plainly the name that is

written in the corner.  It is not Marcia; it looks as if it

was done in gold.  The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein,

and this is a little coronet over it, and underneath A.D.

1698.  I am descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma

was."

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

long descent, very ancient.  Are there any Karnsteins living

now?"

"None who bear the name, I believe.  The family were

ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago, but the

ruins of the castle are only about three miles away."

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

beautiful moonlight!" She glanced through the hall door,

which stood a little open.  "Suppose you take a little

ramble round the court, and look down at the road and

river."

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

She sighed, smiling.

She rose, and each with her arm about the other's waist we

walked out upon the pavement.

In silence, slowly we walked down to the drawbridge, where

the beautiful landscape opened before us.

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

almost whispered.  "Are you glad I came?"

"Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered.

"And you ask for the picture you think like me to hang in

your room," she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm

closer about my waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my

shoulder.

"How romantic you are, Carmilla," I said.  "Whenever you

tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one

great romance."

She kissed me silently.

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

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

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

whispered, "unless it should be with you."

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!

Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her

face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs that seemed

almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine.  "Darling,

darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would die

for me, I love you so."

I started from her.

She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all

meaning had flown, and a face colourless and apathetic.

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

"I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in.

Come, come; come in."

"You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint.  You certainly

must take some wine," I said.

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

few minutes.  Yes, do give me a little wine, answered

Carmilla, as we approached the door.  "Let us look again for

a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the

moonlight with you."

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

better?" I asked.

I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been

stricken with the strange epidemic that they said had

invaded the country about us.

"Papa would be grieved beyond measure," I added, "if he

thought you were ever so little ill, without immediately

letting us know.  We have a very skilful doctor near this,

the physician who was with papa to-day."

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

child, I am quite well again.  There is nothing ever wrong with

me, but a little weakness.  People say I am languid; I am

incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walk as far as a child

of three years old; and every now and then the little

strength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen

me.  But after all I am very easily set up again; in a

moment I am perfectly myself.  See how I have recovered."

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

very animated she was; and the remainder of that evening

passed without any recurrence of what I called her

infatuations.  I mean her crazy talk and looks, which

embarrassed and even frightened me.

But there occurred that night an event which gave my

thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle even

Carmilla's languid nature into momentary energy.

CHAPTER VI

A VERY STRANGE AGONY

WHEN we got into the drawing-room, and had sat down to our

coffee and chocolate, although Carmilla did not take any,

she seemed quite herself again, and Madame, and Mademoiselle

de Lafontaine, joined us, and made a little card party, in

the course of which papa came in for what he called his

"dish of tea."

When the game was over he sat down beside Carmilla on the

sofa, and asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had

heard from her mother since her arrival.

She answered "No."

He then asked her whether she knew where a letter would

reach her at present.

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

been thinking of leaving you; you have been already too

hospitable and too kind to me.  I have given you an infinity

of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage to-morrow

and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately

find her, although I dare not yet tell you."

"But you must not dream of any such thing," exclaimed my

father, to my great relief.  "We can t afford to lose you

so, and I won't consent to your leaving us except under the care

of your mother, who was so good as to consent to your

remaining with us till she should herself return.  I should

be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this

evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious

disease that has invaded our neighbourhood grow even more

alarming; and, my beautiful guest, I do feel the

responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very

much.  But I shall do my best; and one thing is certain,

that you must not think of leaving us without her distinct

direction to that effect.  We should suffer too much in

parting from you to consent to it easily."

"Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your hospitality,"

she answered, smiling bashfully.  "You have all been too

kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life

before, as in your beautiful chþteau, 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 baptized, I should have doubted

her being a Christian.  Religion was a subject on which I had never

heard her speak a word.  If I had known the world better, this

particular  neglect or antipathy would not have so much surprised

me.

The precautions of nervous people are infectious, and persons of

a like temperament are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them.

I had adopted Carmilla's habit of locking her bedroom door, having

taken into my head all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders

and prowling assassins.  I had also adopted her precaution of

making a brief search through her room, to satisfy herself that no

lurking assassin or robber was "ensconced."

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep.  A

light was burning in my room.  This was an old habit, of very early

date, and which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with.

Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace.  But dreams come

through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and

their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please,

and laugh at locksmiths.

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

agony.

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

asleep.  But I was equally conscious of being in my room and Iying

in bed, precisely as I actually was.  I saw, or fancied I saw, the

room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except that it

was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the

bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish.  But I soon

saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous

cat.  It appeared to me about four or five feet long, for it

measured fully the length of the hearth-rug as it passed over it;

and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with the lithe sinister

restlessness of a beast in a cage.  I could not cry out, although,

as you may suppose, I was terrified.  Its pace was growing faster,

and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that

I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes.  I felt it

spring lightly on the bed.  The two broad eyes approached my face,

and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted,

an inch or two apart, deep into my breast.  I waked with a scream.

The room was lighted by the candle that burnt there all through the

night, and I saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed,

a little at the right side.  It was in a dark loose dress, and its

hair was down and covered its shoulders.  A block of stone could

not have been more still.  There was not the slightest stir of

respiration.  As I stared at it the figure appeared to have changed

its place, and was now nearer the door; then, close to it, the door

opened, and it passed out.

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move.  My first

thought was that Carmilla had been playing me a trick, and that I

had forgotten to secure my door.  I hastened to it, and found it

locked as usual on the inside.  I was afraid to open it--I was

horrified.  I sprang into my bed and covered my head up in the

bed-clothes, and lay there more dead than alive till morning.

CHAPTER VII

DESCENDING

IT would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which,

even now, I recall the occurrence of that night.  It was no such

transitory terror as a dream leaves behind it.  It seemed to deepen

by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture

that had encompassed the apparition.

I could not bear next day to be alone for a moment.  I should

have told papa, but for two opposite reasons.  At one time I

thought he would laugh at my story, and I could not bear its being

treated as a jest; and at another, I thought he might fancy that I

had been attacked by the mysterious complaint which had invaded our

neighbourhood.  I had myself no misgivings of the kind, and as he

had been rather an invalid for some time I was afraid of alarming

him.

I was comfortable enough with my good-natured companions, Madame

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 dare say; 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 we were

together, "and I am sure I should have seen something dreadful if

it had not been for that charm I bought from the poor little

hunchback whom I called such hard names.  I had a dream of

something black coming round my bed, and I awoke in a perfect

horror, and I really thought, for some seconds, I saw a dark figure

near the chimney piece, but I felt under my pillow for my charm,

and the moment my fingers touched it the figure disappeared, and I

felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, that something

frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps, throttled

me, as it did those poor people we heard of."

"Well, listen to me," I began, and recounted my adventure, at the

recital of which she appeared horrified.

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

"No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the drawing-room, but

I shall certainly take it with me to-night, as you have so much

faith in it."

At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or even understand,

how I overcame my horror so effectually as to lie alone in my room

that night.  I remember distinctly that I pinned the charm to my

pillow.  I fell asleep almost immediately, and slept even more

soundly than usual all night.

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

dreamless.  But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy,

which, however, did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious.

"Well, I told you so," said Carmilla, when I described my quiet

sleep, "I had such delightful sleep myself last night; I pinned the

charm to the breast of my 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 quite have agreed with

Carmilla, but I did my best, and the impression was a little losing

its force.

For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I

felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day.  I

felt myself a changed girl.  A strange melancholy was stealing over

me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted.  Dim thoughts

of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took

gentle and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me.  If it was

sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet.  Whatever

it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.

I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my

papa, or to have the doctor sent for.

Carmilla became more devoted to me than ever, and her strange

paroxysms of languid adoration more frequent.  She used to gloat on

me with increasing ardour the more my strength and spirits waned.

This always shocked me like a momentary glare of insanity.

Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of the

strangest illness under which mortal ever suffered.  There was an

unaccountable fascination in its earlier symptoms that more than

reconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that stage of the

malady.  This fascination increased for a time, until it reached a

certain point, when gradually a sense of the horrible mingled

itself with it, deepening, as you shall hear, until it discoloured

and perverted the whole state of my life.

The first change I experienced was rather agreeable.  It was very

near the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus.

Certain vague and strange sensations visited me in my sleep.  The

prevailing one was of that pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we

feel in bathing, when we move against the current of a river.  This

was soon accompanied by dreams that seemed interminable, and were

so vague that I could never recollect their scenery and persons, or

any one connected portion of their action.  But they left an awful

impression, and a sense of exhaustion, as if I had passed through

a long period of great mental exertion and danger.  After all these

dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of having been in a

place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom I could

not see; and especially of one clear voice, of a female's, very

deep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always

the same sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear.  Sometimes

there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek

and neck.  Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer

and more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress

fixed itself.  My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell

rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of

strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion,

in which my senses left me and I became unconscious.

It was now three weeks since the commencement of this

unaccountable state.  My sufferings had, during the last week, told

upon my appearance.  I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and

darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to

display itself in my countenance.

My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an

obstinacy which now seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in

assuring him that I was quite well.

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

bodily derangement.  My complaint seemed to be one of the

imagination, or the nerves, and, horrible as my sufferings were, I

kept them, with a morbid reserve, very nearly to myself.

It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants call

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 left it on bidding her good night.  But Carmilla

was gone.

CHAPTER VIII

SEARCH

AT sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except for our violent

entrance, we began to cool a little, and soon recovered our senses

sufficiently to dismiss the men.  It had struck Mademoiselle that

possibly Carmilla had been wakened by the uproar at her door, and

in her first panic had jumped from her bed and hid herself in a

press, or behind a curtain, from which she could not, of course,

emerge until the majordomo and his myrmidons had withdrawn.  We now

recommenced our search, and began to call her by name again.

It was all to no purpose.  Our perplexity and agitation

increased.  We examined the windows, but they were secured.  I

implored of Carmilla, if she had concealed herself, to play this

cruel trick no longer--to come out and to end our anxieties.  It

was all useless.  I was by this time convinced that she was not in

the room, nor in the dressing-room, the door of which was still

locked on this side.  She could not have passed it.  I was utterly

puzzled.  Had Carmilla discovered one of those secret passages

which the old 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.  Not a trace of the missing lady could

be discovered.  The stream was about to be dragged; my father was

in distraction; what a tale to have to tell the poor girl's mother

on her return.  I, too, was almost beside myself, though my grief

was quite of a different kind.

The morning was passed in alarm and excitement.  It was now one

o'clock, and still no tidings.  I ran up to Carmilla's room, and

found her standing at her dressing-table.  I was astounded.  I

could not believe my eyes.  She beckoned me to her with her pretty

finger, in silence.  Her face expressed extreme fear.

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

again and again.  I ran to the bell and rang it vehemently, to

bring others to the spot, who might at once relieve my father's

anxiety.

"Dear Carmilla, what has become of you all this time?  We have

been in agonies of anxiety about you," I exclaimed.  "Where have

you been?  How did you come back?"

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

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

"It was past two last night," she said, "when I went to sleep as

usual in my bed, with my doors locked, that of the dressingroom and

that opening upon the gallery.  My sleep was uninterrupted and, so

far as I know, dreamless; but I awoke just now on the sofa in the

dressing-room there, and I found the door between the rooms open,

and the other door forced.  How could all this have happened

without my being wakened?  It must have been accompanied with a

great deal of noise, and I am particularly easily wakened; and how

could I have been carried out of my bed without my sleep having

been interrupted, I whom the slightest stir startles?"

By this time Madame, Mademoiselle, my father, and a number of the

servants were in the room.  Carmilla was, of course, overwhelmed

with inquiries, congratulations, and welcomes.  She had but one

story to tell, and seemed the least able of all the party to

suggest any way of accounting for what had happened.

My father took a turn up and down the room, thinking.  I saw

Carmilla's eye follow him for a moment with a sly, dark glance.

When my father had sent the servants away, Mademoiselle having

gone in search of a little bottle of valerian and sal-volatile, and

there being no one now in the room with Carmilla except my father,

Madame, and myself, he came to her thoughtfully, took her hand very

kindly, led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her.

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

question?"

"Who can have a better right?" she said.  "Ask what you please,

and I will tell you everything.  But my story is simply one of

bewilderment and darkness.  I know absolutely nothing.  Put any

question you please.  But you know, of course, the limitations

mamma has placed me under."

"Perfectly, my dear child.  I need not approach the topics on

which she desires our silence.  Now, the marvel of last night

consists in your having been removed from your bed and your room

without being wakened, and this removal having occurred apparently

while the windows were still secured, and the two doors locked upon

the inside.  I will tell you my theory, and first ask you a

question."

Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly; Madame and I were

listening breathlessly.

"Now, my question is this, Have you ever been suspected of

walking in your sleep?"

"Never since I was very young indeed."

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

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

My father smiled and nodded.

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

unlocked the door, not leaving the key as usual in the lock, but

taking it out and locking it on the outside; you again took the key

out, and carried it away with you to some one of the

five-and-twenty rooms on this floor, or perhaps 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 anyone 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.

CHAPTER IX

THE DOCTOR

AS Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping in her room, my

father arranged that a servant should sleep outside her door, so

that she could not attempt to make another such excursion without

being arrested at her own door.

That night passed quietly; and next morning early, the doctor,

whom my father had sent for without telling me a word about it,

arrived to see me.

Madame accompanied me to the library; and there the grave little

doctor, with white hair and spectacles, whom I mentioned before,

was waiting to receive me.

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

graver.

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

facing one another.  When my statement was over he leaned with his

shoulders against the wall, and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly

with an interest in which was a dash of horror.

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

father.

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

"I dare say, doctor, you are going to tell me that I am an old

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

But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor, with a very grave

face, beckoned him to him.

He and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where

I had just conferred with the physician.  It seemed an earnest and

argumentative conversation.  The room is very large, and I and

Madame stood together, burning with curiosity, at the further end.

Not a word could we hear, however, for they spoke in a very low

tone, and the deep recess of the window quite concealed the doctor

from view, and very nearly my father, whose foot, arm, and shoulder

only could we see; and the voices were, I suppose, all the less

audible for the sort of closet which the thick wall and window

formed.

After a time my father's face looked into the room; it was pale,

thoughtful, and, I fancied, agitated.

"Laura dear, come here for a moment.  Madame, we shan't trouble

you, the doctor says, at present."

Accordingly I approached, for the first time a little alarmed;

for, although I felt very weak, I did not feel ill; and strength,

one always fancies, is a thing that may be picked up when we

please.

My father held out his hand to me as I drew near, but he was

looking at the doctor, and he said:

"It certainly is very odd; I don't understand it quite.  Laura,

come here dear; now attend to Doctor Spielsberg, and recollect

yourself"

"You mentioned a sensation like that of two needles piercing the

skin, somewhere about your neck, on the night when you experienced

your first horrible dream.  Is there still any soreness?"

"None at all," I answered.

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

think this occurred?"

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

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

"Now you ean 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 thc complaint under which you have been

suffering."

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

collar.

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

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

gloomy triumph.

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

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

about the size of the tip of your little finger; and now," he

continued, turning to papa, "the

question is, what is best to be done?"

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

"I trust not, my dear," answered the doctor.  "I don't see why

you should not recover.  I don't see why you should not begin

immediately to get better.  That is the point at which the sense of

strangulation begins?"

"Yes," I answered.

"And--recollect as well as you can--the same point was a kind of

centre of that thrill which you described just now, like the

current of a cold stream running against you?"

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

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

word to Madame?"

"Certainly," said my father.

He called Madame to him, and said:

"I find my young friend here far from well.  It won't be of any

great consequence, I hope; but it will be necessary that some steps

be taken, which I will explain by-and-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 dowu till the afternoon."

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

about seven this evening."

And then they repeated their directions to me and to Madame, and

with this parting charge my father left us, and walked out with the

doctor; and I saw them pacing together up and down between the road

and the moat, on the grassy platform in front of the castle,

evidently absorbed in earnest conversation.

The doctor did not return.  I saw him mount his horse there, take

his leave, and ride away eastward through the forest.  Nearly at

the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfeld with the letters,

and dismount and hand the bag to my father.

In the meantime, Madame and I were both busy, lost in conjecture

as to the reasons of the singular and earnest direction which the

doctor and my father had concurred in imposing.  Madame, as she

afterwards told me, was afraid the doctor apprehended a sudden

seizure, and that, without prompt assistance, I might either lose

my life in a fit, or at least be seriously hurt.

This interpretatiOn did not strike me; and I fancied, perhaps

luckily for my nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply

to secure a companion, who would prevent my taking too much

exercise, or eating unripe fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish

things to which young people are supposed to be prone.

About half-an-hour after my father came in--he had a letter in

his hand--and said:

"This letter had been delayed; it is from General Spielsdorf.  He

might have been here yesterday, he may not come till tomorrow, or

he may be here to-day."

He put the open letter into my hand; but he did not look pleased,

as he used when a guest, especially one so much loved as the

General, was coming.  On the contrary, he looked as if he wished

him at the bottom of the Red Sea.  There was plainly something on

his mind which he did not choose to divulge.

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

my hand on his arm, and looking, I am sure, imploringly in his

face.

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

eyes.

"Does the doctor think me very ill?"

"No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken, you will be quite

well again, at least on the high road to a complete recovery, in a

day or two," he answered, a little drily.  "I wish our good friend,

the General, had chosen any other time; that is, I wish you had

been perfectly well to receive him."

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

matter with me?"

"Nothing; you must not plague me with questions," he answered,

with more irritation than I ever remember him to have displayed

before; and seeing that I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me,

and added, "You shall know all about it in a day or two; that is,

all that I know.  In the meantime, you are not to trouble your head

about it."

He turned and left the room, but came back before I had done

wondering and puzzling over the oddity of all this; it was merely

to say that he was going to Karnstein, and had ordered the carriage

to be ready at twelve, and that I and Madame should accompany him;

he was going to see the priest who lived near those picturesque

grounds upon business, and as Carmilla had never seen them she

could follow, when she came down, with Mademoiselle, who would

bring materials for what you call a pic-nic, which might be laid

for us in the ruined castle.

At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after

my father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive.  Passing

the drawbridge we turn to the right and follow the road over the

steep Gothic bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village and

ruined castle of Karnstein.

No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier.  The ground breaks into

gentle hills and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally

destitute of the comparative formality which artificial planting

and early culture and pruning impart.

The irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its

course, and cause it to wind beautifully round the sides of broken

hollows and the steeper sides of the hills, among varieties of

ground almost inexhaustible.

Turning one of these points, we suddenly encountered our old

friend, the General, riding towards us, attended by a mounted

servant.  His portmanteaus were following in a hired waggon, such

as we term a cart.

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and, after the usual

greetings, was easily persuaded to accept the vacant seat in the

carriage, and send his horse on with his servant to the schloss.

CHAPTER X

BEREAVED

IT was about ten months since we had last seen him; but that time

had sufficed to make an alteration of years in his appearance.  He

had grown thinner; something of gloom and anxiety had taken the

place of that cordial serenity which used to 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 marvellous--for what I have experienced is

marvellous--and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to

credit that which ran counter, diametrically, to all my theories.

I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy."

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General's

penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General,

with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.

The General did not see it, luckily.  He was looking gloomily

and curiously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were

opening before us.

"You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he said.  "Yes, it is

a lucky coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me

there to inspect them.  I have a special object in exploring.

There is a ruined chapel, ain't there, with a great many tombs of

that extinct family?"

"So there are--highly interesting," said my father.  "I hope you

are thinking of claiming the title and estates?"

My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the

laugh, or even the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend's

joke; on the contrary, he looked grave and even fierce, ruminating

on a matter that stirred his anger and horror.

"Something very different," he said, gruffly.  "I mean to unearth

some of those fine people.  I hope, by God's blessing, to

accomplish a pious sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of

certain monsters, and enable honest people to sleep in their beds

without being assailed by murderers.  I have strange things to tell

you, my dear friend, such as I myself would have scouted as

incredible a few months since."

My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of

suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm.

"The house of Karnstein," he said, "has been long extinct: a

hundred years at least.  My dear wife was maternally descended from

the Karnsteins.  But the name and title have long ceased to exist.

The castle is a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty

years since the smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof

left."

"Quite true.  I have heard a great deal about that since I last

saw you; a great deal that will astonish you.  But I had better

relate everything in the order in which it occurred," said the

General.  "You saw my dear ward--my child, I may call her. No

creature could have been more beautiful, and only three months ago

none more blooming."

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

lovely," said my father.  "I was grieved and shocked more than I

can tell you, my dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you."

He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure.

Tears gathered in the old soldier's eyes.  He did not seek to

conceal them.  He said:

"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me,

childless as I am.  She had become an object of very dear interest

to me, and repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and

made my life happy.  That is all gone.  The years that remain to me

on earth may not be very long; but by God's mercy I hope to

accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve the

vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have murdered my poor child

in the spring of her hopes and beauty!"

"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it

occurred," said my father.  "Pray do; I assure you that it is not

mere curiosity that prompts me."

By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall

road, by which the General had come, diverges from the road which

we were travelling to Karnstein.

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

anxiously forward.

"About half a league," answered my father.  "Pray let us hear the

story you were so good as to promise."

CHAPTER XI

THE STORY

"WITH all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a

short pause in which to arrange his subject he commenced one of the

strangest narratives I ever heard.

"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the

visit you had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming

daughter."  Here he made me a gallant but melancholy bow.  "In the

meantime we had an invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld,

whose schloss is about six leagues to the other side of Karnstein.

It was to attend the series of fþtes which, you remember, were

given by him in honour of his illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke

Charles."

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

"Princely!  But then his hospitalities are quite regal.  He has

Aladdin's lamp.  The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted

to a magnificent masquerade.  The grounds were thrown open, the

trees hung with coloured lamps.  There was such a display of

fireworks as Paris itself had never witnessed.  And such

music--music, you know, is my weakness--such ravishing music! The

finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world, and the finest

singers who could be collected from all the great operas in Europe.

As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated grounds,

the moon-lighted 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 beautififl.  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 licence of a masquerade,

I put not a few questions to the elder lady.

"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing.  'Is that not

enough? won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me

the kindness to remove your mask?'

"'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied.  'Ask a

lady to yield an advantage!  Beside, how do you know you should

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 had taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be

compared with what you remember me.  You have no mask to remove.

You can offer me nothing in exchange.'

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

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

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

German; you speak both languages so perfectly.'

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

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

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

honoured by your permission to converse, I ought to know how to

address you.  Shall I say Madame la Comtesse?'

"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another

evasion--if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview

every circumstance of which was pre-arranged, as I now believe,

with the profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.

"'As to that,' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she

opened her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked

particularly elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that

his face was the most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death.  He

was in no masquerade--in the plain evening dress of a gentleman;

and he said, without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low

bow:

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

may interest her?'

"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of

silence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I

shall return when I have said a few words.'

"And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little

aside with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes,

apparently very earnestly.  They then walked away slowly together

in the crowd, and I lost them for some minutes.

"I spent the interval in cudgelling my brains for 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, chþteau, and estates at

my fingers' ends.  But at this moment she returned, accompanied by

the pale man in black, who said:

"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage

is at the door.'

"He withdrew with a bow.

CHAPTER XII

A PETITION

"'THEN we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few

hours,' I said, with a low bow.

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

unlucky his

speaking to me just now as he did.  Do you now know me?"

"I assured her I did not.

"'You shall know me,' she said, 'but not at present.  We are

older and better friends than, perhaps, you suspect.  I cannot yet

declare myself.  I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful

schloss, about which I have been making enquiries.  I shall then

look in upon you for an hour or two, and renew a friendship which

I never think of without a thousand pleasant recollections.  This

moment a piece of news has reached me like a thunderbolt.  I must

set out now, and travel by a devious route nearly a hundred miles,

with all the dispatch I can possibly make.  My perplexities

multiply.  I am only deterred by the compulsory reserve I practise

as to my name from making a very singular request of you.  My poor

child has not quite recovered her strength.  Her horse fell with

her, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have

not yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must

on no account exert herself for some time to come.  We came here,

in consequence, by very easy stages--hardly six leagues a day.  I

must now travel day and night, on a mission of life and death--a

mission the critical and momentous nature of which I shall be able

to explain to you when we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks,

without the necessity of any concealment.

"She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a

person from whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than

seeking, a favour.  This was only in manner, and, as it seemed,

quite unconsciously.  Than the terms in which it was expressed,

nothing could be more deprecatory.  It was simply that I would

consent to take charge of her daughter during her absence.

"This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say an

audacious request.  She in some sort disarmed me by stating and

admitting everything that could be urged against it, and throwing

herself entirely upon my chivalry.  At the same moment, by a

fatality that seems to have predetermined all that happened, my

poor child came to my side, and, in an undertone, besought me to

invite her new friend, Millarca, to pay us a visit.  She had just

been sounding her, and thought, if her mamma would allow her, she

would like it extremely.

"At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until,

at least, we knew who they were.  But I had no a moment to think

in.  The two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the

refined and beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was

something extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of

high birth, determined me; and quite overpowered, I submitted, and

undertook, too easily, the care of the young lady, whom her mother

called Millarca.

"The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who listened with grave

attention while she told her, in general terms, how suddenly and

peremptorily she had been summoned, and also of the arrangement she

had made for her under my care, adding that I was one of her

earliest and most valued friends.

"I made, of course, such speeches as the case seemed to call for,

and found myself, on reflection, in a position which I did not half

like.

"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously

conducted the lady from the room.

"The demeanour of this gentleman was such as to impress me with

the conviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more

importance than her modest title alone might have led me to assume.

"Her last charge to me was that no attempt was to be made to

learn more about her than I might have already guessed, until her

return.  Our distinguished host, whose guest she was, knew her

reasons.

"'But here,' she said, 'neither I nor my daughter could safely

remain for more than a day.  I removed my mask imprudently for a

moment, about an hour ago, and, too late, I fancied you saw me.  So

I resolved to seek an opportunity of talking a little to you.  Had

I found that you had seen me, I should have thrown myself on your

high sense of honour to keep my secret for some weeks.  As it is,

I am satisfied that you did not see me; but if you now suspect, or,

on reflection, should suspect, who I am, I commit myself, in like

manner, entirely to your honour.  My daughter will observe the same

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 hcr 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 thc 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 illnatured, 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 i`act 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 into

the housekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding us, and had then

fallen into a deep sleep which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed

to recruit her strength after the fatigues of the ball.

"That day Millarca came home with us.  I was only too happy,

after all, to have secured so charming a companion for my dear

girl.

CHAPTER XIII

THE 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 Ieaving the door locked on the inside?

How did she escape from the house without unbarring door or window?

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

kind presented itself.

"My dear child began to lose her looks and health, and that in a

manner so mysterious, and even horrible, that I became thoroughly

frightened.

"She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she

fancied, by a spectre, sometimes resembling Millarca, sometimes in

the shape of a beast, indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of

her bed, from side to side.  Lastly came sensations.  One, not

unpleasant, but very peculiar, she said, resembled the flow of an

icy stream against her breast.  At a later time, she felt something

like a pair of large needles pierce her, a little below the throat,

with a very sharp pain.  A few nights after, followed a gradual and

convulsive sense of strangulation; then came unconsciousness.

I could hear distinctly every word the kind old General was

saying, because by this time we were driving upon the short grass

that spreads on either side of the road as you approach the

roofless village which had not shown the smoke of a chimney for

more than half a century.

You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard my own symptoms so

exactly described in those which had been experienced by the poor

girl who, but for the catastrophe which followed, would have been

at that moment a visitor at my father's chþteau.  You may suppose,

also, how I felt as I heard him detail habits and mysterious

peculiarities which were, in fact, those of our beautiful guest,

Carmilla!

A vista opened in the forest; we were on a sudden under the

chimneys and gables of the ruined village, and the towers and

battlements of the dismantled castle, round which gigantic trees

are grouped, overhung us from a slight eminence.

In a frightened dream I got down from the carriage, and in

silence, for we had each abundant matter for thinking, we soon

mounted the ascent, and were among the spacious chambers, winding

stairs, and dark corridors of the castle.

"And this was once the palatial residence of the Karnsteins!"

said the old General at length, as from a great window he looked

out across the village, and saw the wide, undulating expanse of

forest.  "It was a bad family, and here its blood-stained annals

were written," he continued.  "It is hard that they should, after

death, continue to plague the human race with their atrocious

lusts.  That is the chapel of the Karnsteins, do-vn 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 ùvould have justified its

being so styled--" but one obj ect 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 run,

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 for vard he said:

"That beam will answer for a seat; your dear child is fatigued;

let her be seated, and I will, in a few sentences, close my

dreadful story."

The squared block of wood, which lay on the grass-grown pavement

of the chapel, formed a bench on which I was very glad to seat

myself, and in the meantime the General called to the woodman, who

had been removing some boughs which leaned upon the old walls; and,

axe in hand, the hardy old fellow stood before us.

He could not tell us anything of these monuments; but there was

an old man, he said, a ranger of this forest, at present sojourning

in the house of the priest, about two miles away, who could point

out every monument of the old Karnstein family; and, for a trifle,

he undertook to bring him back with him, if we would lend him one

of our horses, in little more than half-an-hour.

"Have you been long employed about this forest?" asked my father

of the old man.

"I have been a woodman here," he answered in his patois "under

the forester, all my days; so has my father before me, and so on,

as many generations as I can count up.  I could show you the very

house in the village here, in which my ancestors lived."

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

"It was troubled by revenants, sir; several were tracked to their

graves, there detected by the usual tests, and extinguished in the

usual way, by decapitation, by the stake, and by burning; but not

until many of the villagers were killed.

"But after all these proceedings according to law," he

continued--"so many graves opened, and so many vampires deprived of

their horrible animation--the village was not relieved.  But a

Moravian nobleman, who happened to be travelling this way, heard

how matters were, and being skilled--as many people are in his

country--in such affairs, he offered to deliver the village from

its tormentor.  He did so thus: There being a bright moon that

night, he ascended, shortly after sunset, the tower 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 glide away

towards the village to plague its inhabitants.

"The stranger, having seen all this, came down from the steeple,

took the linen wrappings of the vampire, and carried them up to the

top of the tower, which he again mounted.  When the vampire

returned from his prowlings and missed his clothes, he cried

furiously to the Moravian, whom he saw at the summit of the tower,

and who, in reply, beckoned him to ascend and take them.  Whereupon

the vampire, accepting his invitation, began to climb the steeple,

and so soon as he had reached the battlements, the Moravian, with

a stroke of his sword, clove his skull in twain, hurling him down

to the churchyard, whither, descending by the winding stairs, the

stranger followed and cut his head off, and next day delivered it

and the body to the villagers, who duly impaled and burnt them.

"This Moravian nobleman had authority from the then head of the

family to remove the tomb of Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, which he

did effectually, so that in a little while its site was quite

forgotten."

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

The forester shook his head and smiled.

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

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

Having thus spoken, as time pressed he dropped his axe and

departed, leaving us to hear the remainder of the General's strange

story.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MEETING

MY beloved child," he resumed, "was now growing rapidly worse.  The

physician who attended her had failed to produce the slightest

impression upon her disease, for such I then supposed it to be.  He

saw my alarm, and suggested a consultation.  I called in an abler

physician from Gratz.  Several days elapsed before he arrived.  He

was a good and pious, as well as a learned man.  Having seen my

poor ward together, they withdrew to my library to confer and

discuss.  I, from the adjoining room, where I awaited their

summons, heard these two gentlemen's voices raised in something

sharper than a strictly philosophical discussion.  I knocked at the

door and entered.  I found the old physician from Gratz maintaining

his theory.  His rival was 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

honour to suggest something to you.'

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

write.  Profoundly disappointed I made my bow, and, as I turned to

go, the other doctor pointed over his shoulder to his companion who

was writing, and then, with a shrug, significantly touched his

forehead.

"This consultation, then, left me precisely where I was.  I

walked out into the grounds, all but distracted.  The doctor from

Gratz in ten or fifteen minutes overtook me.  He 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 sceptical as to the existence of any such

portent as the vampire, the supernatural theory of the good doctor

furnished, in my opinion, but another instance of learning and

intelligence oddly associated with some one hallucination.  I was

so miserable, however, that, rather than try nothing, I acted upon

the instructions of the letter.

"I concealed myself in the dark dressing-room that opened upon

the poor patient's room, in which a candle was burning, and watched

there till she was fast asleep.  I stood at the door, peeping

through the small crevice, my sword laid on the table beside me, as

my directions prescribed, until, a little after one, I saw a large

black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the

foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl's

throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating

mass.

"For a few moments I had stood petrified.  I now sprang forward,

with my sword in my hand.  The black creature suddenly contracted

toward the foot of the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the

floor about a yard below the foot of the bed, with a glare of

skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw Millarca.

Speculating I know not ùvhat, I struck at her instantly with my

sword; but I saw her standing near the door, unscathed.  Horrified,

I pursued and struck again.  She was gone! and my sword flew to

shivers against the door.

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

The whole house was up and stirring.  The spectre Millarca was

gone.  But her victim was sinking fast, and before the morning

dawned, she died."

The old General was agitated.  We did not speak to him.  My

father walked to some little distance, and began reading the

inscriptions on the tombstones; and thus occupied, he strolled into

the door of a side chapel to prosecute his researches.  The

Generalleanedagainstthewall,driedhiseyes,andsighedheavily.  I was

relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and Madame, who were at

that moment approaching.  The voices died away.

In this solitude, having just listened to so strange a story,

connected, as it was, with the great and titled dead, whose

monuments were mouldering among the dust and ivy round us, and

every incident of which bore so awfully upon my own mysterious

case--in this haunted spot, darkened by the towering foliage that

rose on every side, dense and high above its noiseless walls--a

horror began to steal over me, and my heart sank as I thought that

my friends were, after all, not about to enter and disturb this

triste and ominous scene.

The old General's eyes were fixed on the ground, as he leaned

with his hand upon the basement of a shattered monument.

Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by one of those

demoniacal grotesques in which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old

Gothic carving delights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and

figure of Carmilla enter the shadowy chapel.

I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded smiling, in answer

to her peculiarly engaging smile; when, with a cry, the old man by

my side caught up the woodman's hatchet, and started forward.  On

seeing him a 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."

CHAPTER XV

ORDEAL AND EXECUTION

AS he spoke one of the strangest-looking men I ever beheld entered

the chapel at the door through which Carmilla had made her entrance

and her exit.  He was tall, narrow-chested, stooping, with high

shoulders, and dressed in black.  His face was brown and dried in

with deep furrows; he wore an oddly-shaped hat with a broad leaf.

His hair, long and grizzled, hung on his shoul ders.  He wore a

pair of gold spectacles, and walked slowly, with an odd shambling

gait, while his face, sometimes turned up to the sky and sometimes

bowed down toward the ground, seemed to wear a perpetual smile; his

long thin arms were swinging, and his lank hands, in old black

gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving and gesticulating in

utter abstraction.

"The very man!" exclaimed the General, advancing with manifest

delight.  "My dear Baron, how happy I am to see you, I had no hope

of meeting you so soon."  He signed to my father, who had by this

time returned, and, leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he

called the Baron, to meet him, he introduced him formally, and they

at once entered into earnest conversation.  The stranger took a

roll of paper from his pocket, and spread it on the worn surface of

a tomb that stood by.  He had a pencil case in his fingers, with

which he traced imaginary lines from point to point on the paper,

which from their often glancing from it, together, at certain

points of the building, I concluded to be a plan of the chapel.  He

accompanied, what I may term his lecture, with occasional readings

from a dirty little book, whose yellow leaves were closely written

over.

They sauntered together down the side aisle, opposite to the spot

where I was standing, conversing as they went; then they began

measuring distances by paces, and finally they all stood together,

facing a piece of the side-wall, which they began to examine with

great minuteness: pulling off the ivy that clung over it, and

rapping the plaster with the ends of their sticks, scraping here,

and knocking there.  At length they ascertained the existence of a

broad marble tablet, with letters carved in relief upon it.

With the assistance of the woodman, who soon returned, a

monumental inscription and carved escutcheon were disclosed.  They

proved to be those of the long-lost monument of Mircalla, Countess

Karnstein.

The old General, though not I fear given to the praying mood,

raised his hands and eyes to heaven in mute thanksgiving for some

moments.

"To-morrow," I heard him say, "the commissioner will be here, and

the Inquisition will be held according to law."

Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have

described, he shook him warmly by both hands and said:

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

have delivered this region from a plague that has scourged its

inhabitants for more than a century.  The horrible enemy, thank

God, is at last tracked."

My father led the stranger aside, and the General followed.  I

knew that he had led them out of hearing, that he might relate my

case, and I saw them glance often quickly at me as the discussion

proceeded.

My father came to me, kissed me again and again, and leading me

from the chapel, said:

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

party the good priest, who lives but a little way from this, and

persuade him to accompany us to the schloss."

In this quest we were successful: and I was glad, being

unspeakably fatigued when we reached home.  But my satisfaction was

changed to dismay on discovering that there were no tidings of

Carmilla.  Of the scene that had occurred in the ruined chapel, no

explanation was offered to me, and it was clear that it was a

secret which my father for the present determined to keep from me.

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remembrance of the

scene more horrible to me.  The arrangements for that night were

singular.  Two servants and Madame were to sit up in my room that

night; and the ecclesiastic with my father kept watch in the

adjoining dressing-room.

The priest had performed certain solemn rites that night, the

purport of which I did not understand any more than I comprehended

the reason of this extraordinary precaution taken for my safety

during sleep.

I saw all clearly a few days later.

The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance

of my nightly sufferings.

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that

prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish

Servia, in Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must

call it, of the vampire.

If human testimony, taken with every care and solemnity,

judicially, before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many

members, all chosen for integrity and intelligence, and

constituting reports more voluminous perhaps than exist upon any

one other class of cases, is worth anything, it is difflcult 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 coffln.  The two medical men, one officially

present, the other on the part of the promoter of the inquiry,

attested the marvellous fact that there was a faint but appreciable

respiration and a corresponding action of the heart.  The limbs

were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin

floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches the body

lay immersed.  Here, then, were all the admitted signs and proofs

of vampirism.  The body, therefore, in accordance with the ancient

practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of

the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at the moment, in all

respects such as might escape from a living person in the last

agony.  Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed

from the severed neck.  The body and head were next placed on a

pile of wood and reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river

and borne away; and that territory has never since been plagued by

the visits of a vampire.

My father has a copy of the report of the Imperial Commission,

with the signatures of all who were present at these proceedings,

attached in verification of the statement.  It is from this

official paper that I have summarized my account of this last

shocking scene.

CHAPTER XVI

CONCLUSION

I WRITE all this you suppose with composure.  But far from it; I

cannot think of it without agitation.  Nothing but your earnest

desire so repeatedly expressed could have induced me to sit down to

a task that has unstrung my nerves for months to come, and

reinduced a shadow of the unspeakable horror which, years after my

deliverance, continued to make my days and nights dreadful, and

solitude insupportably terrific.

Let me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to

whose curious lore we were indebted for the discovery of the

Countess Mircalla's grave.

He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere

pittance, which was all that remained to him of the once princely

estates of his family in Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the

minute and laborious investigation of the marvellously

authenticated tradition of vampirism.  He had at his fingers' ends

all the great and little works upon the subject, Magia Posthuma,

Phlegon de Mirabilibus, Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis,

Philosophicoe et Christianoe 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 s renewed slumber in

the grave.  Its horrible lust for living blood supplies the vigour

of its waking existence.  The vampire is prone to be fascinated

with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by

particular persons.  In pursuit of these it will exercise

inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for access to a particular

object may be obstructed in a hundred ways.  It will never desist

until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its

coveted victim.  But it will, in these cases, husband and protract

its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and

heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship.  In

these cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and

consent.  In ordinary ones it goes direct to its object, overpowers

with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single feast.

The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain situations, to

special conditions.  In the particular instance of which I have

given you a relation, Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name

which, if not her real one, should at least reproduce, without the

omission or addition of a single letter, those, as we say,

anagrammatically, which compose it.  Carmilla did this; so did

Millarca.

My father related to the Baron Vordenburg, who remained with us

for two or three weeks after the expulsion of Carmilla, the story

about the Moravian nobleman and the vampire at Karnstein

churchyard, and then he asked the Baron how he had discovered the

exact position of the long-concealed tomb of the Countess Millarca.

The Baron's grotesque features puckered up into a mysterious smile;

he looked down, still smiling on his worn spectacle-case

andfumbled with it.  Then looking up, hesaid:

"I have many journals, and other papers, written by that

remarkable man; the most curious among them is one treating of the

visit of which you speak, to Karnstein.  The tradition, of course,

discolours and distorts a little.  He might have been termed a

Moravian nobleman, for he had changed his abode to that territory,

and was, beside, a noble.  But he was, in truth, a native of Upper

Styria.  It is enough to say that in very early youth he had been

a passionate and favoured lover of the beautiful Mircalla, Countess

Karnstein.  Her early death plunged him into inconsolable grief.

It is the nature of vampires to increase and multiply, but

according to an ascertained and ghostly law.

"Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free from that pest.

How does it begin, and how does it multiply itself?  I will tell

you.  A person, more or less wicked, puts an end to himself.  A

suicide, under certain c*cumstances, becomes a vampire.  That

spectre 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 practised.  If he had

intended any further action in this matter, death prevented him;

and the hand of a remote descendant has, too late for many,

directed the pursuit to the lair of the beast."

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

"One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand.  The slender

hand of Mircalla closed like a vice of steel on the General's wrist

when he raised the hatchet to strike.  But its power is not

confined to its grasp; it leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes,

which is slowly, if ever, recovered from."

The following Spring my father took me 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.

(End.)