Carmilla

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

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

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

at locksmiths.

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

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

But I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed,

precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its

furniture just as I had seen it last, except that it was very dark, and

I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I

could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was a

sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me

about four or five feet long for it measured fully the length of the

hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with

the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry

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

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

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

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

I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or two

apart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream. The room was lighted

by the candle that burnt there all through the night, and I saw a female

figure standing at the foot of the bed, a little at the right side. It

was in a dark loose dress, and its hair was down and covered its

shoulders. A block of stone could not have been more still. There was

not the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the figure

appeared to have changed its place, and was now nearer the door; then,

close to it, the door opened, and it passed out.

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

that Carmilla had been playing me a trick, and that I had forgotten to

secure my door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on the

inside. I was afraid to open it--I was horrified. I sprang into my bed

and covered my head up in the bedclothes, and lay there more dead than

alive till morning.