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When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and |
pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my mind, |
but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, |
and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft |
moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom |
which refreshed me. I determined not to return to-night to the |
gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat |
and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for |
their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great |
couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look |
at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for |
the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen |
asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly |
real--so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the |
morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. |
I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I |
came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, |
my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of |
dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by |
their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming |
when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw |
no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some |
time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline |
noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be |
almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was |
fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes |
like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it |
in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the |
moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like |
pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something |
about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some |
deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would |
kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some |
day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. |
They whispered together, and then they all three laughed--such a |
silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have |
come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, |
tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. |
The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her |
on. One said:-- |
"Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to |
begin." The other added:-- |
"He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all." I lay quiet, |
looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. |
The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement |
of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent |
the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter |
underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. |
I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under |
the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply |
gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling |
and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips |
like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining |
on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp |
teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of |
my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she |
paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked |
her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the |
skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that |
is to tickle it approaches nearer--nearer. I could feel the soft, |
shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, |
and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. |
I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited--waited with beating |
heart. |
But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as |
lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his |
being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I |
saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with |
giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the |
white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with |
passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to |
the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light |
in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His |
face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; |
the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar |
of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman |
from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating |
them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the |
wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to |
cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:-- |
"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when |
I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware |
how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, |
with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-- |
"You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women |
joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the |
room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure |
of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, |
and said in a soft whisper:-- |
"Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it |
not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall |
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