Carmilla...............................................................................................................................................................1

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

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 describes as

"involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence, and its intermediates."

I was anxious on discovering this paper, to reopen the correspondence commenced by Doctor Hesselius, so

many years before, with a person so clever and careful as his informant seems to have been. Much to my

She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative which she communicates in the following pages, with,

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

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 waterlilies.

Over all this the schloss shows its manywindowed 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

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

I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I don't include

servants, or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss. Listen, and wonder!

My father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; and I, at the date of my story, only nineteen.

I and my father constituted the family at the schloss. My mother, a Styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had

a goodnatured governess, who had been with me from, I might almost say, my infancy. I could not

remember the time time when her fat, benignant face was not a familiar picture in my memory.

This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care and good nature now in part supplied to me the

loss of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so early I lost her. She made a third at our little dinner

party. There was a fourth, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a lady such as you term, I believe, a "finishing

governess." She spoke French and German, Madame Perrodon French and broken English, to which my

father and I added English, which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us, and partly from

patriotic motives, we spoke every day. The consequence was a Babel, at which strangers used to laugh, and

which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this narrative. And there were two or three young lady friends

besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms; and these

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, byandby, 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 nurserymaid. Neither was my nurse there; and I thought myself

alone. I was not frightened, for I was one of those happy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of

ghost stories, of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when the door cracks

suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall, nearer to

our faces. I was vexed and insulted at finding myself, as I conceived, neglected, and I began to whimper,

preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring; when to my surprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at

me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling, with her hands under the coverlet.

I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and

lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed,

and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same

moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed on me, and then slipped down upon

I was now for the first time frightened, and I yelled with all my might and main. Nurse, nurserymaid,

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; some one did lie there,

I remember the nurserymaid petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I felt the

puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such thing had happened to me.

The housekeeper and the two other servants who were in charge of the nursery, remained sitting up all night;

and from that time a servant always sat up in the nursery until I was about fourteen.

I was very nervous for a long time after this. A doctor was called in, he was pallid and elderly. How well I

remember his long saturnine face, slightly pitted with smallpox, and his chestnut wig. For a good while,

The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of terror, and could not bear to be left alone, daylight

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

I was a little consoled by the nurserymaid'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 halfdreaming not to have known her face. But

I remembered, in the course of that day, a venerable old man, in a black cassock, coming into the room with

the nurse and housekeeper, and talking a little to them, and very kindly to me; his face was very sweet and

gentle, and he told me they were going to pray, and joined my hands together, and desired me to say, softly,

while they were praying, "Lord hear all good prayers for us, for Jesus' sake." I think these were the very

words, for I often repeated them to myself, and my nurse used for years to make me say them in my prayers.

I remembered so well the thoughtful sweet face of that whitehaired 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.

I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require all your faith in my veracity to believe my

story. It is not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an eyewitness.

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little ramble with him

along that beautiful forest vista which I have mentioned as lying in front of the schloss.

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

He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his arrival next day. He was to have

brought with him a young lady, his niece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had never seen, but

whom I had heard described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I had promised myself many

happy days. I was more disappointed than a young lady living in a town, or a bustling neighbourhood can

possibly imagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised, had furnished my day dream for many

"Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say," he answered. "And I am very glad now, dear, that you

"Because the poor young lady is dead," he replied. "I quite forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the

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

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 selfcontradictory, 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

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

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

In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears

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

We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the drawbridge,

The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our left the narrow road wound away under

clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. At the right the same road crosses the

steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which once guarded that pass; and beyond the

bridge an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the shadows some grey ivyclustered

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

Madame Perrodon was fat, middleaged, and romantic, and talked and sighed poetically. Mademoiselle De

Lafontaine in right of her father who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, and

something of a mystic now declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it was well known that

it indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold.

It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvelous physical influences

connected with life. Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a

nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light on the moon, had wakened, after

a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his

"The moon, this night," she said, "is full of idyllic and magnetic influence and see, when you look behind

you at the front of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour, as if unseen

There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to

our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies' conversation.

"I have got into one of my moping moods tonight," said my father, after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare,

"I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were hanging over us. I suppose the poor General's

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

They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon the equipage

emerged from that point. Two horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a carriage drawn by four horses,

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, longdrawn screams of a female voice from

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

Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castle drawbridge, on the route they were coming,

there stands by the roadside a magnificent lime tree, on the other stands an ancient stone cross, at sight of

which the horses, now going at a pace that was perfectly frightful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over the

I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my head away; at the same

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

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

I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she was certainly not dead. My father, who piqued

himself on being something of a physician, had just had his fingers on her wrist and assured the lady, who

declared herself her mother, that her pulse, though faint and irregular, was undoubtedly still distinguishable.

The lady clasped her hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary transport of gratitude; but immediately

she broke out again in that theatrical way which is, I believe, natural to some people.

She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of life, and must have been handsome; she was tall,

but not thin, and dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a proud and commanding

"Who was ever being so born to calamity?" I heard her say, with clasped hands, as I came up. "Here am I, on

a journey of life and death, in prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My child will not have

recovered sufficiently to resume her route for who can say how long. I must leave her: I cannot, dare not,

delay. How far on, sir, can you tell, is the nearest village? I must leave her there; and shall not see my darling,

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

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

"It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great kindness at the moment when we most need it. My

daughter has just been disappointed by a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she had long anticipated a

great deal of happiness. If you confide this young lady to our care it will be her best consolation. The nearest

village on your route is distant, and affords no such inn as you could think of placing your daughter at; you

cannot allow her to continue her journey for any considerable distance without danger. If, as you say, you

cannot suspend your journey, you must part with her tonight, and nowhere could you do so with more

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

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

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

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

postillions 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

We followed the cortege with our eyes until it was swiftly lost to sight in the misty wood; and the very sound

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.

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

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

I was going to add my consolations to those of Madame Perrodon when Mademoiselle De Lafontaine placed

"Don't approach, one at a time is as much as she can at present converse with; a very little excitement would

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

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

In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and she was conducted forthwith to her room. The room we usually

sat in as our drawingroom is long, having four windows, that looked over the moat and drawbridge, upon

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

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

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

"Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after it was set up again, who did not get out," inquired

Then she described a hideous black woman, with a sort of coloured turban on her head. and who was gazing

all the time from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively towards the ladies, with gleaming

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

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

"Besides looking wicked, their faces were so strangely lean, and dark, and sullen. I am very curious, I own;

but I dare say the young lady will tell you all about it tomorrow, if she is sufficiently recovered."

"I don't think she will," said my father, with a mysterious smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he knew

This made us all the more inquisitive as to what had passed between him and the lady in the black velvet, in

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."

"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,

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

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 drawingroom, 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 away quite harmlessly. There could be no harm certainly in my seeing

her, if we both wished it; and, with this permission I sent, forthwith, to know whether she would allow me to

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

There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her slender pretty figure enveloped in the soft silk

dressinggown, embroidered with flowers, and lined with thick quilted silk, which her mother had thrown

What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just begun my little greeting, struck me dumb in a

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, "drawn

towards her," but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of

attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably

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

"The doctor thinks," I added, "that you ought to have a maid to sit up with you tonight; one of ours is

"How kind of you, but I could not sleep, I never could with an attendant in the room. I shan't require any

assistance and, shall I confess my weakness, I am haunted with a terror of robbers. Our house was robbed

once, and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It has become a habit and you look so kind I

She held me close in her pretty arms for a moment and whispered in my ear, "Good night, darling, it is very

hard to part with you, but good night; tomorrow, but not early, I shall see you again."

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her fine eyes followed me with a fond and melancholy gaze, and

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

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

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.

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

I said there were particulars which did not please me. I have told you that her confidence won me the first

night I saw her; but I found that she exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything in

fact connected with her life, plans, and people, an ever wakeful reserve. I dare say I was unreasonable,

perhaps I was wrong; I dare say I ought to have respected the solemn injunction laid upon my father by the

stately lady in black velvet. But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure,

with patience, that hers should be baffled by another. What harm could it do anyone to tell me what I so

ardently desired to know? Had she no trust in my good sense or 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

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to

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.

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

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

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and

>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

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.

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;

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, you and I are one for ever." Then she has thrown herself back in her chair, with her small

"Are we related," I used to ask; "what can you mean by all this? I remind you perhaps of some one 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."

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

I could boast of no little attentions such as masculine gallantry delights to offer. Between these passionate

moments there were long intervals of commonplace, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy, during which,

except that I detected her eyes so full of melancholy fire, following me, at times I might have been as nothing

to her. Except in these brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were girlish; and there was always a

languor about her, quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state of health.

In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps not so singular in the opinion of a town lady like you, as they

appeared to us rustic people. She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock, she would then

take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she

seemed, almost immediately, exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of the benches that

were placed, here and there, among the trees. This was a bodily languor in which her mind did not

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

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

"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;

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

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

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ever since, till

"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

"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

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

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissipate the sombre impression which the spectacle had left upon me,

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

She and I were looking out of one of the long drawingroom windows, when there entered the courtyard,

over the drawbridge, a figure of a wanderer whom I knew very well. He used to visit the schloss generally

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 magiclantern, 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

In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the courtyard, raised his grotesque hat, and made

us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in execrable French, and German not much

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

"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.

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

In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd little steel instruments.

"See here, my lady," he said, displaying it, and addressing me, "I profess, among other things less useful, the

art of dentistry. Plague take the dog!" he interpolated. "Silence, beast! He howls so that your ladyships can

scarcely hear a word. Your noble friend, the young lady at your right, has the sharpest tooth, long, thin,

pointed, like an awl, like a needle; ha, ha! With my sharp and long sight, as I look up, I have seen it

distinctly; now if it happens to hurt the young lady, and I think it must, here am I, here are my file, my punch,

my nippers; I will make it round and blunt, if her ladyship pleases; no longer the tooth of a fish, but of a

beautiful young lady as she is. Hey? Is the young lady displeased? Have I been too bold? Have I offended

"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

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

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

"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."

"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

"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,

"The doctor said he would come here today," said my father, after a silence. "I want to know what he thinks

"Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very illness; but I forget all but my pain and weakness, and they were

She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed her arm round my waist lovingly, and led me out of the room.

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

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

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

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?"

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

And so the walked on, and I heard no more. I did not then know what the doctor had been broaching, but I

This evening there arrived from Gratz the grave, darkfaced 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

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, rippingchisel, and turnscrew, he met us in the hall. where we had assembled to witness the

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

"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

The artist now produced it, with evident pride. It was quite beautiful; it was startling; it seemed to live. It was

"Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle. Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak, in this picture. Isn't

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.

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.

It is not Marcia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, and this is a

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

"None who bear the name, I believe. The family were ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago, but the

"How interesting!" she said, languidly. "But see what beautiful moonlight!" She glanced through the

halldoor, which stood a little open. "Suppose you take a little ramble round the court, and look down at the

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 you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your room," she murmured with a sigh, as she

drew her arm closer about my waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. "How romantic you are,

Carmilla," I said. "Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance."

"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."

Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs,

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would

She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colourless and

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

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

I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with the strange epidemic that they said had

"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

"I'm sure he is. I know how kind you all are; but, dear child, I am quite well again. There is nothing ever

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,

But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle even

When we got into the drawingroom, 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

"I cannot tell," she answered ambiguously, "but I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been already

too hospitable and too kind to me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage

tomorrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately find her, although I dare not yet tell

"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 feeI 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

"Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your hospitality," she answered, smiling bashfully. "You have all been

too kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful chateau, under your

So he gallantly, in his oldfashioned 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.

"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

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

"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

"I remember everything it with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above1 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

"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

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

If it had not been that it had casually come out in one of our careless talks that she had been baptised, I should

have doubted her being a Christian. Religion was a subject on which I had never heard her speak a word. If I

had known the world better, this particular neglect or antipathy would not have so much surprised me.

The precautions of nervous people are infectious, and persons of a like temperament are pretty sure, after a

time, to imitate them. I had adopted Carmilla's habit of locking her bedroom door, having taken into my head

all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders and prowling assassins. I had also adopted her precaution

of making a brief search through her from, to satisfy herself that no lurking assassin or robber was

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room. This was an

old habit, of very early date, and which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with.

Thus fortifed I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or

darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at

But I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or

fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except that it was very dark, and I saw

something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw

that it was a sootyblack animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me about four or five feet

long for it measured fully the length of the hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued toing and froing

with the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you may suppose, I

was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I

could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes

approached my face, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or two apart,

deep into my breast. I waked with a scream. The room was lighted by the candle that burnt there all through

the night, and I saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed, a little at the right side. It was in a dark

loose dress, and its hair was down and covered its shoulders. A block of stone could not have been more still.

There was not the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the figure appeared to have changed its place,

and was now nearer the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and it passed out.

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move. My first thought was that Carmilla had been playing me a

trick, and that I had forgotten to secure my door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on the inside. I

was afraid to open it I was horrified. I sprang into my bed and covered my head up in the bedclothes, and lay

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 encompass 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 misgiving of the kind, and as he had been rather an invalid for some time, I

I was comfortable enough with my goodnatured 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

"Bytheby," said Mademoiselle, laughing, "the long limetree walk, behind Carmilla's bedroomwindow,

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather inopportune, "and who tells that

"Martin says that he came up twice, when the old yardgate was being repaired, before sunrise, and twice

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

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

"You must not say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see down that walk from her room window,"

"I was so frightened last night," she said, so soon as were together, "and I am sure I should have seen

something dreadful if it had not been for that charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I called

such hard names. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed, and I awoke in a perfect horror,

and I really thought, for some seconds, I saw a dark figure near the chimneypiece, but I felt under my pillow

for my charm, and the moment my fingers touched it, the figure disappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that

I had it by me, that something frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps, throttled me, as it did

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

"No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the drawingroom, but I shall certainly take it with me tonight, as

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

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

"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,

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

"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

I should have been happier if I could have quite agreed with Carmilla, but I did my best, and the impression

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

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

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

The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near the turning point from which began the

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

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. Sometime there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck.

Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached my

throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full

drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion,

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

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

It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called the oupire, for I had now been suffering for

three weeks, and they were seldom ill for much more than three days, when death put an end to their miseries.

Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no means of so alarming a kind as mine. I say

that mine were extremely alarming. Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have

invoked aid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me, and my

One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard one, sweet and tender, and at the

"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

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,

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

Servants, however, soon came running up the stairs; I had got on my dressinggown and slippers meanwhile,

and my companions were already similarly furnished. Recognising 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

We called her by name; but there was still no reply. We looked round the room. Everything was undisturbed.

It was exactly in the state in which I had left it on bidding her good night. But Carmilla was gone.

At sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except for our violent entrance, we began to cool a little, and soon

recovered our senses sufficiently to dismiss the men. It had struck Mademoiselle that possibly Carmilla had

been wakened by the uproar at her door, and in her first panic had jumped from her bed, and hid herself in a

press, or behind a curtain, from which she could not, of course, emerge until the majordomo and his

myrmidons had withdrawn. We now recommenced our search, and began to call her name again.

It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and agitation increased. We examined the windows, but they were

secured. I implored of Carmilla, if she had concealed herself, to play this cruel trick no longer to come out

and to end our anxieties. It was all useless. I was by this time convinced that she was not in the room, nor in

the dressingroom, 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

It was past four o'clock, and I preferred passing the remaining hours of darkness in Madame's room. Daylight

The whole household, with my father at its head, was in a state of agitation next morning. Every part of the

chateau was searched. The grounds were explored. No trace of the missing lady could be discovered. The

stream was about to be dragged; my father was in distraction; what a tale to have to tell the poor girl's mother

on her return. I, too, was almost beside myself, though my grief was quite of a different kind.

The morning was passed in alarm and excitement. It was now one o'clock, and still no tidings. I ran up to

Carmilla's room, and found her standing at her dressingtable. 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

"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 woke just now on the sofa in the dressingroom 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

When my father had sent the servants away, Mademoiselle having gone in search of a little bottle of valerian

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

myself, he came to her thoughtfully, took her hand very kindly, led her to the sofa, and sat down beside her.

"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

"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

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?"

"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 fiveandtwenty 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?"

"And how, papa, do you account for her finding herself on the sofa in the dressingroom, which we had

"She came there after you had searched it, still in her sleep, and at last awoke spontaneously, and was as

much surprised to find herself where she was as any one else. I wish all mysteries were as easily and

innocently explained as yours, Carmilla," he said, laughing. "And so we may congratulate ourselves on the

certainty that the most natural explanation of the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, no tampering

with locks, no burglars, or poisoners, or witches nothing that need alarm Carmilla, or anyone else, for our

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

As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping in her room, my father arranged that a servant should

sleep outside her door, so that she would not attempt to make another such excursion without being arrested

That night passed quietly; and next morning early, the doctor, whom my father had sent for without telling

Madame accompanied me to the library; and there the grave little doctor, with white hair and spectacles,

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

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

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

He and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where I had just conferred with the physician. It

seemed an earnest and argumentative conversation. The room is very large, and I and Madame stood

together, burning with curiosity, at the farther end. Not a word could we hear, however, for they spoke in a

very low tone, and the deep recess of the window quite concealed the doctor from view, and very nearly my

father, whose foot, arm, and shoulder only could we see; and the voices were, I suppose, all the less audible

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,

"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?"

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

"Now you can satisfy yourself," said the doctor. "You won't mind your papa's lowering your dress a very

little. It is necessary, to detect a symptom of the complaint under which you have been suffering."

"Nothing, my dear young lady, but a small blue spot, about the size of the tip of your little finger; and now,"

"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?"

"And recollect as well as you can the same point was a kind of centre of that thrill which you described just

"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 byandby; 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

"I shall have to ask your opinion upon another patient, whose symptoms slightly resemble those of my

daughter, that have just been detailed to you very much milder in degree, but I believe quite of the same sort.

She is a young lady our guest; but as you say you will be passing this way again this evening, you can't do

better than take your supper here, and you can then see her. She does not come down till the afternoon."

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

And then they repeated their directions to me and to Madame, and with this parting charge my father left us,

and walked out with the doctor; and I saw them pacing together up and down between the road and the moat,

on the grassy platform in front of the castle, evidently absorbed in earnest conversation.

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

Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the letters, and dismount and hand the bag

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

The interpretation did not strike me; and I fancied, perhaps luckily for my nerves, that the arrangement was

prescribed simply to secure a companion, who would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eating unripe

fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish things to which young people are supposed to be prone.

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

"This letter had been delayed; it is from General Spielsdorf. He might have been here yesterday, he may not

He put the open letter into my hand; but he did not look pleased, as he used when a guest, especially one so

On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him at the bottom of the Red Sea. There was plainly something on

"Papa, darling, will you tell me this?" said I, suddenly laying my hand on his arm, and looking, I am sure,

"No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken, you will be quite well again, at least, on the high road to a

complete recovery, in a day or two," he answered, a little dryly. "I wish our good friend, the General, had

chosen any other time; that is, I wish you had been perfectly well to receive him."

"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

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 priest who lived near those picturesque

grounds, upon business, and as Carmilla had never seen them, she could follow, when she came down, with

Mademoiselle, who would bring materials for what you call a picnic, which might be laid for us in the ruined

At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my father, Madame and I set out upon our

Passing the drawbridge we turn to the right, and follow the road over the steep Gothic bridge, westward, to

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

The irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its course, and cause it to wind beautifully round

the sides of broken hollows and the steeper sides of the hills, among varieties of ground almost inexhaustible.

Turning one of these points, we suddenly encountered our old friend, the General, riding towards us, attended

by a mounted servant. His portmanteaus were following in a hired wagon, such as we term a cart.

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and, after the usual greetings, was easily persuaded to accept the

vacant seat in the carriage and send his horse on with his servant to the schloss.

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 characterise 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,

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

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."

"Because," he answered testily, "you believe in nothing but what consists with your own prejudices and

Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for what you believe, and am, therefore,

"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,

The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily and curiously into the glades and vistas of the

"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,

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless as I am. She had become an object

of very near interest to me, and repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life

happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by God's mercy I

hope to accomplish a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the

"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it occurred," said my father. "Pray do; I assure

By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by which the General had come, diverges

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

"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short pause in which to arrange his subject,

"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you had been so good as to arrange for

her to your charming daughter." Here he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an

invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six leagues to the other side of

Karnstein. It was to attend the series of fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honour of his

"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 moonlighted 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

"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

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

"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her excitement and delight added an

unspeakable charm to her features, always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but

wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen her,

earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the terrace under the

castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air,

Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much more certain upon the question

"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

"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

"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

"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.

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

" '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

" 'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you saw me, for that is what I am

considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter; I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom

time has taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you remember me.

" 'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or German; you speak both languages so

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

" 'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said, 'that being honoured by your permission to converse, I ought to

"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another evasion if, indeed, I can treat any

occurrence in an interview every circumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with the

" '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;

" '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

"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

"I spent the interval in cudgelling my brains for a conjecture as to the identity of the lady who seemed to

remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my

pretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the time she returned, I might not have a

surprise in store for her, by having her name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at this

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

" '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.

" '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

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

"This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say, an audacious request. She in some sort disarmed me,

by stating and admitting everything that could be urged against it, and throwing herself entirely upon my

chivalry. At the same moment, by a fatality that seems to have predetermined all that happened, my poor

child came to my side, and, in an undertone, besought me to invite her new friend, Millarca, to pay us a visit.

She had just been sounding her, and thought, if her mamma would allow her, she would like it extremely.

"At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until, at least, we knew who they were. But I had not a

moment to think in. The two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and beautiful face of

the young lady, about which there was something extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of

high birth, determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted, and undertook, too easily, the care of the

"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

"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 would have thrown myself on your

high sense of honour to keep my secret some weeks. As it is, I am satisfied that you did not see me; but if you

now suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect, who I am, I commit myself, in like manner, entirely to your

honour. My daughter will observe the same secrecy, and I well know that you will, from time to time, remind

" She whispered a few words to her daughter, kissed her hurriedly twice, and went away, accompanied by the

" 'In the next room,' said Millarca, 'there is a window that looks upon the hall door. I should like to see the

"We assented, of course, and accompanied her to the window. We looked out, and saw a handsome

oldfashioned carriage, with a troop of couriers and footmen. We saw the slim figure of the pale gentleman

in black, as he held a thick velvet cloak, and placed it about her shoulders and threw the hood over her head.

She nodded to him, and just touched his hand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as the door closed, and the

" 'She is gone,' I repeated to myself, for the first time in the hurried moments that had elapsed since my

" 'The Countess had taken off her mask, perhaps, and did not care to show her face,' I said; 'and she could not

"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

"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

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

"This ball was not over until the morning sun had almost reached the horizon. It pleased the Grand Duke to

"We had just got through a crowded saloon, when my ward asked me what had become of Millarca. I thought

she had been by her side, and she fancied she was by mine. The fact was, we had lost her.

"All my efforts to find her were vain. I feared that she had mistaken, in the confusion of a momentary

separation from us, other people for her new friends, and had, possibly, pursued and lost them in the

"Now, in its full force, I recognised 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

"Morning broke. It was clear daylight before I gave up my search. It was not till near two o'clock next day

"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 told my poor child a story to account for her having failed to recover us for so long. Very late, she said,

she had got to the housekeeper's bedroom in despair of finding us, and had then fallen into a deep sleep

which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed to recruit her strength after the fatigues of the ball.

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

"There soon, however, appeared some drawbacks. In the first place, Millarca complained of extreme

languor the weakness that remained after her late illness and she never emerged from her room till the

afternoon was pretty far advanced. In the next place, it was accidentally discovered, although she always

locked her door on the inside, and never disturbed the key from its place till she admitted the maid to assist at

her toilet, that she was undoubtedly sometimes absent from her room in the very early morning, and at

various times later in the day, before she wished it to be understood that she was stirring. She was repeatedly

seen from the windows of the schloss, in the first faint grey of the morning, walking through the trees, in an

easterly direction, and looking like a person in a trance. This convinced me that she walked in her sleep. But

this hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did she pass out from her room, leaving the door locked on the

"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

"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

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;

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

You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard my own symptoms so exactly described in those which had

been experienced by the poor girl who, but for the catastrophe which followed, would have been at that

moment a visitor at my father's chateau. You may suppose, also, how I felt as I heard him detail habits and

mysterious peculiarities which were, in fact, those of our beautiful guest, Carmilla!

A vista opened in the forest; we were on a sudden under the chimneys and gables of the ruined village, and

the towers and battlements of the dismantled castle, round which gigantic trees are grouped, overhung us

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

"And this was once the palatial residence of the Karnsteins!" said the old General at length, as from a great

window he looked out across the village, and saw the wide, undulating expanse of forest. "It was a bad

family, and here its bloodstained annals were written," he continued. "It is hard that they should, after death,

continue to plague the human race with their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the Karnsteins, down

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

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

"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

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

"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

"There remains to me," he said, as we passed under the heavy arch of the Gothic church for its dimensions

would have justified its being so styled "but one object which can interest me during the few years that

remain to me on earth, and that is to wreak on her the vengeance which, I thank God, may still be

"I mean, to decapitate the monster," he answered, with a fierce flush, and a stamp that echoed mournfully

through the hollow ruin, and his clenched hand was at the same moment raised, as if it grasped the handle of

"Aye, with a hatchet, with a spade, or with anything that can cleave through her murderous throat. You shall

"That beam will answer for a seat; your dear child is fatigued; let her be seated, and I will, in a few sentences,

The squared block of wood, which lay on the grassgrown 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

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

"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

"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

"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 towers of the chapel here, from whence he could

distinctly see the churchyard beneath him; you can see it from that window. From this point he watched until

he saw the vampire come out of his grave, and place near it the linen clothes in which he had been folded,

"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 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

"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."

"Not a soul living could tell you that now," he said; "besides, they say her body was removed; but no one is

Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped his axe and departed, leaving us to hear the remainder of the

"My beloved child," he resumed, "was now growing rapidly worse. The physician who attended her had

failed to produce the slightest impression on her disease, for such I then supposed it to be. He saw my alarm,

Several days elapsed before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well as a leaned 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

" '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.

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 apologised 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.

" '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

"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

"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

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 welldefined 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

"I concealed myself in the dark dressingroom, 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 illdefined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the

poor girl's throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating mass.

"For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now sprang forward, with my sword in my hand. The black

creature suddenly contracted towards the foot of the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the floor about a

yard below the foot of the bed, with a glare of skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw Millarca.

Speculating I know not what, I struck at her instantly with my sword; but I saw her standing near the door,

unscathed. Horrified, I pursued, and struck again. She was gone; and my sword flew to shivers against the

"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 sidechapel to

prosecute his researches. The General leaned against the wall, dried his eyes, and sighed heavily. I was

relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and Madame, who were at that moment approaching. The voices

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

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

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

brutalised 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

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

"But I have been standing there, in the passage, ever since Mademoiselle Carmilla entered; and she did not

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

"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

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, narrowchested, stooping, with high shoulders, and

dressed in black. His face was brown and dried in with deep furrows; he wore an oddlyshaped hat with a

broad leaf. His hair, long and grizzled, hung on his shoulders. He wore a pair of gold spectacles, and walked

slowly, with an odd shambling gait, with his face sometimes turned up to the sky, and sometimes bowed

down towards the ground, seemed to wear a perpetual smile; his long thin arms were swinging, and his lank

hands, in old black gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving and gesticulating in utter abstraction.

"The very man!" exclaimed the General, advancing with manifest delight. "My dear Baron, how happy I am

to see you, I had no hope of meeting you so soon." He signed to my father, who had by this time returned,

and leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he called the Baron to meet him. He introduced him formally,

and they at once entered into earnest conversation. The stranger took a roll of paper from his pocket, and

spread it on the worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a pencil case in his fingers, with which he

traced imaginary lines from point to point on the paper, which from their often glancing from it, together, at

certain points of the building, I concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He accompanied, what I may term, his

lecture, with occasional readings from a dirty little book, whose yellow leaves were closely written over.

They sauntered together down the side aisle, opposite to the spot where I was standing, conversing as they

went; then they began measuring distances by paces, and finally they all stood together, facing a piece of the

sidewall, which they began to examine with great minuteness; pulling off the ivy that clung over it, and

rapping the plaster with the ends of their sticks, scraping here, and knocking there. At length they ascertained

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

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

Then turning to the old man with the gold spectacles, whom I have described, he shook him warmly by both

"Baron, how can I thank you? How can we all thank you? You will have delivered this region from a plague

that has scourged its inhabitants for more than a century. The horrible enemy, thank God, is at last tracked."

My father led the stranger aside, and the General followed. I know that he had led them out of hearing, that

he might relate my case, and I saw them glance often quickly at me, as the discussion proceeded.

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

"It is time to return, but before we go home, we must add to our party the good priest, who lives but a little

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

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remembrance of the scene more horrible to me. The arrangements

for the night were singular. Two servants, and Madame were to sit up in my room that night; and the

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.

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 difficult to deny, or

For my part I have heard no theory by which to explain what I myself have witnessed and experienced, other

The grave of the Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General and my father recognised each his

perfidious and beautiful guest, in the face now disclosed to view. The features, though a hundred and fifty

years had passed since her funeral, were tinted with the warmth of life. Her eyes were open; no cadaverous

smell exhaled from the coffin. The two medical men, one officially present, the other on the part of the

promoter of the inquiry, attested the 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

Here then, were all the admitted signs and proofs of vampirism. The body, therefore, in accordance with the

ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing

shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape from a living person in the last agony. Then the

head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and head was next placed

on a pile of wood, and reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river and borne away, and that territory

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

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

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

"Magia Posthuma," "Phlegon de Mirabilibus," "Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis," "Philosophicae et

Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris," by John Christofer Herenberg; and a thousand others, among which I

remember only a few of those which he lent to my father. He had a voluminous digest of all the judicial

cases, from which he had extracted a system of principles that appear to govern some always, and others

occasionally only the condition of the vampire. I may mention, in passing, that the deadly pallor attributed

to that sort of revenants, is a mere melodramatic fiction. They present, in the grave, and when they show

themselves in human society, the appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to light in their coffins, they

exhibit all the symptoms that are enumeranted as those which proved the vampirelife of the longdead

How they escape from their graves and return to them for certain hours every day, without displacing the clay

or leaving any trace of disturbance in the state of the coffin or the cerements, has always been admitted to be

utterly inexplicable. The amphibious existence of the vampire is sustained by daily renewed slumber in the

grave. Its horrible lust for living blood supplies the 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,

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,

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 longconcealed tomb of the Countess

Mircalla? The Baron's grotesque features puckered up into a mysterious smile; he looked down, still smiling

"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

"Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free from that pest. How does it begin, and how does it multiply

itself? I will tell you. A person, more or less wicked, puts an end to himself. A suicide, under certain

circumstances, becomes a vampire. That 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

"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."

"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

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