Carmilla

its--A

as charmed with her

that did not p

height of women. I shal

dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when it was down about her shoulders; I have often placed my hands under it, and laughed with wonder at its weight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a rich

serve. 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 shoul

her years, in her smiling melancholy persisten

any. It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, b

nted, in my unconscionabl

up in three very

r name wa

ily was very an

lay in the direc

their armorial bearings, nor the name of their e

r 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

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 i

press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and

her language were u

tricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and

gled 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

horrible recollection of certain occurrences and situations, in the ordeal through which I was unc

those in which our passions have been most wildly and terribly ro

fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet over-powering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled al

mind you perhaps of someone whom you love; but you must not, I hate i

vehemence, then turn

emotion. Was she, notwithstanding her mother's volunteered denial, subject to brief visitations of insanity; or was there here a disguise and a romance? I had read in old storybooks of such things. What if a boyish lover ha

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 the

lock, 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

collection, which indicated a people of strange manners, and described customs of which we knew nothing. I

g girl, whom I had often seen, the daughter of one of the rangers of the forest. The poor man was

two came behind, they wer

y passed, and joined in the hymn

a little roughly, an

Don't you perceive ho

interruption, and very uncomfortable, lest the people who compose

ping her ears with her tiny fingers. "Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are the same; your forms woun

gyman to the churchyard. I thought y

nts. I don't know who she is," answered C

ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ev

t ghosts. I shan't sl

week ago, and she thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangled her. Papa says such ho

t be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit d

le back, and had co

e 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; a

ber impression which the spectacle had left upon me, she

ms of that delicacy of health which her mother had spoken of. It wa

once afterwards did I witness on her part a moment

there entered the courtyard, over the drawbridge, a figure of a wanderer

he carried a magic lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to make my father laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle,

raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his

which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs

a fluency that never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and the resources of the various a

hear, through these woods," he said dropping his hat on the pavement. "They are dying of it right and

slips of vellum, with cabalisti

tly purchased o

I can answer for myself. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in our

ther case, full of all manner o

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, h

ooked very angry as she d

d redress from him. My father would have had the wretch tied up to the pump,

the offender, when her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen, and she gradually

the two fatal ones which had lately occurred. The sister of a young peasant on his estate, only a mile away, was ver

se poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and so repeat

tance frightens one ho

inquired

I see such things; I think i

ion, and all will end well for those who love him. He is our f

nvades the country is natural. Nature. All things proceed from Nature--don't they? All things

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

did me any good

ave been il

ever you were

ng

; but I forget all but my pain and weakness, and the

very you

k no more of it. You wo

round my waist lovingly, and led me out of the room.

hten us?" said the pretty girl w

la, it is the very furth

afraid,

there was any real danger of my bein

afraid

every

--to die together, so tha

mes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see--each with their peculiar prop

or came, and was closeted

ved his pale face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and papa emerged from

man like you. What do you say

ing, and made answe

mysterious states, and we know li

. I did not then know what the doctor had