Carmilla

My father led the stranger aside, and the General followed. I know that

he had led them out of hearing, that he might relate my case, and I saw

them glance often quickly at me, as the discussion proceeded.

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

chapel, said: "It is time to return, but before we go home, we must add to our party

the good priest, who lives but a little way from this; and persuade him

to accompany us to the schloss."

In this quest we were successful: and I was glad, being unspeakably

fatigued when we reached home. But my satisfaction was changed to

dismay, on discovering that there were no tidings of Carmilla. Of the

scene that had occurred in the ruined chapel, no explanation was offered

to me, and it was clear that it was a secret which my father for the

present determined to keep from me.

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remembrance of the scene more

horrible to me. The arrangements for the night were singular. Two

servants, and Madame were to sit up in my room that night; and the

ecclesiastic with my father kept watch in the adjoining dressing room.

The priest had performed certain solemn rites that night, the purport of

which I did not understand any more than I comprehended the reason of

this extraordinary precaution taken for my safety during sleep.

I saw all clearly a few days later.

The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by the discontinuance of my

nightly sufferings.

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails in

Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in

Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, of

the Vampire.

If human testimony, taken with every care and solemnity, judicially,

before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, all

chosen for integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports more

voluminous perhaps than exist upon any one other class of cases, is

worth anything, it is difficult to deny, or even to doubt the existence

of such a phenomenon as the Vampire.

For my part I have heard no theory by which to explain what I myself

have witnessed and experienced, other than that supplied by the ancient

and well-attested belief of the country.

The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of

Karnstein.

The grave of the Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General and my

father recognized each his perfidious and beautiful guest, in the face

now disclosed to view. The features, though a hundred and fifty years

had passed since her funeral, were tinted with the warmth of life. Her

eyes were open; no cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The two

medical men, one officially present, the other on the part of the

promoter of the inquiry, attested the marvelous fact that there was a

faint but appreciable respiration, and a corresponding action of the

heart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the

leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches,

the body lay immersed.