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twg_000000035800 | this wise, I showed the most long-suffering patience in manifesting my keenest and most covetous yearnings, and I used my best efforts, but only in secret ways and when opportunities were afforded me, to light in this young man's soul the same flames wherewith my own soul glowed, and to make him as circumspect as myself withal. Nor, in truth, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035801 | was this for me a task of great difficulty; for, inasmuch as the lineaments of the face always bear most true witness to the qualities of the heart, it was not long before I became aware that my desire would have its full fruition. I perceived that, not only was he throbbing with amorous enthusiasm, but that he was also | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035802 | imbued with most perfect discretion, and this was exceedingly pleasing to me. He, being at once wishful to preserve my honor in all its luster, and, at the same time, to arrange convenient times and places for our meetings, employed many ingenious stratagems, which, methinks, must have cost him much toil and trouble. He used every subtle art to win | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035803 | the friendship of all who were related to me, and, at last, of my husband; and not only did he enjoy their friendship, but he possessed it in such a supreme degree that no pleasure was agreeable to them unless he shared it. How much all this delighted me you will understand without its being needful to me to set | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035804 | it down in words. And is there anyone so dull of wit as not to conclude that from the aforesaid friendship arose many opportunities for him and me of holding discourse together in public? But already had he bethought himself of acting in more subtle ways; and now he would speak to this one, now to that one, words whereby | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035805 | I, being most eager for such enlightenment, discovered that whatever he said to these was fraught with figurative and hidden meanings, intended to show forth his ardent affection for myself. When he was sensible that I had a clear perception of the occult significance of his questions and answers, he went still further, and by gestures, and mobile changes in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035806 | the expression of his features, he would make known to me his thoughts and the various phases of his passion, which was to me a source of much delectation; and I strove so hard to comprehend it all and to make fitting response thereunto, that neither could he shadow forth anything to me, nor I to him, that either of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035807 | us did not at once understand. Nay, not satisfied even with this, he employed other symbols and metaphors, and labored earnestly to discipline me in such manner of speech; and, to render me the more assured of his unalterable love, he named me Fiammetta, and himself Panfilo. Woe is me! How often, when warmed with love and wine, did we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035808 | tell tales, in the presence of our dearest friends, of Fiammetta and Panfilo, feigning that they were Greeks of the days of old, I at one time, he at another; and the tales were all of ourselves; how we were first caught in the snares of Love, and of what tribulations we were long the victims, giving suitable names to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035809 | the places and persons connected with the story! Certainly, I frequently laughed at it all, being made merry by the simplicity of the bystanders, as well as by his astuteness and sagacity. Yet betimes I dreaded that in the flush of his excitement he might thoughtlessly let his tongue wander in directions wherein it was not befitting it should venture. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035810 | But he, being ever far wiser than I imagined, guarded himself craftily from any such blundering awkwardness. _Oim!_ most compassionate ladies, what is there that Love will not teach to his subjects? and what is there that he is not able to render them skilful in learning? I, who of all young women was the most simple-minded, and ordinarily with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035811 | barely power to loose my tongue, when among my companions, concerning the most trivial and ordinary affairs, now, because of this my affection, mastered so speedily all his modes of speech that, in a brief space, my aptness at feigning and inventing surpassed that of any poet! And there were few questions put to me in response to which, after | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035812 | meditating on their main points, I could not make up a pleasing tale: a thing, in my opinion, exceedingly difficult for a young woman to begin, and still more difficult to finish and relate afterward. But, if my actual situation required it, I might set down numerous details which might, perhaps, seem to you of little or no moment, as, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035813 | for instance, the artful experiment whereby we tested the fidelity of my favorite maid to whom, and to whom alone, we meditated entrusting the secret of this hidden passion, considering that, should another share it, our uneasiness, lest it should not be kept, would be most grievous. Furthermore, it would weary you if I mentioned all the plans we adopted, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035814 | in order to meet divers situations, plans that I do not believe were ever imagined by any before us; and albeit I am now well aware that they all worked for my ultimate destruction, yet the remembrance of them does not displease me. Unless, O ladies, my judgment be greatly at fault, the strength of our minds was by no | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035815 | means small, if it be but taken in account how hard a thing it is for youthful persons in love to resist long the rush of impetuous ardor without crossing the bounds set by reason: nay, it was so great and of such quality that the most valiant of men, by acting in such wise, would win high and worthy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035816 | laud as a result thereof. But my pen is now about to depict the final ending to which love was guided, and, before I do so, I would appeal to your pity and to those soft sentiments which make their dwelling in your tender breasts, and incline your thoughts to a like termination. Day succeeded day, and our wishes dragged | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035817 | along with them, kept alive by torturing anxiety, the full bitterness whereof each of us experienced; although the one manifested this to the other in disguised language, and the other showed herself over-discreet to an excessive degree; all of which you who know how ladies who are beloved behave in such circumstances will easily understand. Well, then, he, putting full | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035818 | trust in the veiled meaning of my words, and choosing the proper time and place, came to an experience of that which I desired as much as he, although I feigned the contrary. Certainly, if I were to say that this was the cause of the love I felt for him, I should also have to confess that every time | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035819 | it came back to my memory, it was the occasion to me of a sorrow like unto none other. But, I call God to witness, nothing that has happened between us had the slightest influence upon the love I bore him, nor has it now. Still, I will not deny that our close intimacy was then, and is now, most | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035820 | dear to me. And where is the woman so unwise as not to wish to have the object of her affection within reach rather than at a distance? How much more intensely does love enthrall us when it is brought so near us that we and it are made almost inseparable! I say, then, that after such an adventure, never | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035821 | afore willed or even thought of by me, not once, but many times did fortune and our adroit stratagems bring us good cheer and consolation, not indeed screened entirely from danger, for which I cared less than for the passing of the fleeing wind. But while the time was being spent in such joyous fashion--and that it was joyous, Love, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035822 | who alone may bear witness thereof, can truly say--yet sometimes his coming inspired me with not a little natural apprehension, inasmuch as he was beginning to be indiscreet in the manner of his coming. But how dear to him was my own apartment, and with what gladness did it see him enter! Yet was he filled with more reverence for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035823 | it than he ever had been for a sacred temple, and this I could at all times easily discern. Woe is me! what burning kisses, what tender embraces, what delicious moments we had there! Why do I take such pleasure in the mere words which I am now setting down? It is, I say, because I am forced to express | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035824 | the gratitude I then felt to the holy goddess who was the promiser and bestower of Love's delights. Ah, how often did I visit her altars and offer incense, crowned with a garland of her favorite foliage! How often did I think scornfully of the counsels of my aged nurse! Nay, furthermore, being elated far more than all my other | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035825 | companions, how often did I disparage their loves, saying within myself: "No one is loved as I am loved, no one loves a youth as matchless as the youth I love, no one realizes such delights from love as I!" In short, I counted the world as nothing in comparison with my love. It seemed to me that my head | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035826 | touched the skies, and that nothing was lacking to the culmination of my ecstatic bliss. Betimes the idea flashed on my mind that I must disclose to others the occasion of my transports, for surely, I would reflect, it would be a delight to others to hear of that which has brought such delight to me! But thou, O Shame, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035827 | on the one side, and thou, O Fear, on the other, did hold me back: the one threatening me with eternal infamy; the other with loss of that which hostile Fortune was soon afterward to tear from me. In such wise then, did I live for some time, for it was then pleasing to Love that I should live in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035828 | this manner; and, in good sooth, so blithely and joyously were these days spent that I had little cause to envy any lady in the whole world, never imagining that the delight wherewith my heart was filled to overflowing, was to nourish the root and plant of my future misery, as I now know to my fruitless and never-ending sorrow. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035829 | Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Copyright Contents PROLOGUE . An Early Fright . A Guest . We Compare Notes . Her HabitsA Saunter . A Wonderful Likeness . A Very Strange Agony . Descending . Search . The Doctor . Bereaved . The Story . A Petition . The Woodman . The Meeting . Ordeal and Execution . Conclusion | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035830 | PROLOGUE 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035831 | volume of the series of that extraordinary mans collected papers. 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 prcis of the learned Doctors reasoning, or extract from his statement on a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035832 | 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 regret, however, I found | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035833 | that she had died in the interval. She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative which she communicates in the following pages, with, so far as I can pronounce, such conscientious particularity. I. An Early Fright In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A small income, in that part of the world, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035834 | 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 marvelously cheap, I really dont see how ever so much | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035835 | 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 feudal residence, and the small estate on which it stands, a bargain. Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It stands on a slight eminence in a forest. The | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035836 | 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 water lilies. Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, and its Gothic chapel. The forest opens in an irregular and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035837 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035838 | 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 of old General Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to the right. I have said the nearest _inhabited_ village, because there is, only three miles westward, that is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035839 | to say in the direction of General Spielsdorfs schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035840 | of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I dont include servants, or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss. Listen, and wonder! My | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035841 | father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; and I, at the date of my story, only nineteen. Eight years have passed since then. I and my father constituted the family at the schloss. My mother, a Styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who had been with me from, I might | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035842 | almost say, my infancy. I could not remember the 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035843 | 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, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035844 | 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 visits I sometimes returned. These were | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035845 | our regular social resources; but of course there were chance visits from neighbors 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035846 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035847 | will see, however, by-and-by, 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 cant have been more than six years old, when one night I awoke, and looking round the room from my bed, failed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035848 | to see the nursery maid. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035849 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035850 | 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. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035851 | 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 the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself under the bed. I was now for the first time frightened, and I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035852 | yelled with all my might and main. Nurse, nursery maid, 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035853 | 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; someone _did_ lie there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm. I remember the nursery maid petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I felt the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035854 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035855 | 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, every second day, he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035856 | terror, and could not bear to be left alone, daylight though it was, for a moment. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035857 | 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_ frightened. I was a little consoled by the nursery maids assuring me that it was she who had come and looked at me, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035858 | and lain down beside me in the bed, and that I must have been half-dreaming not to have known her face. But this, though supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy me. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035859 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035860 | 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 white-haired 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035861 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035862 | out vivid as the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria surrounded by darkness. II. A Guest 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, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035863 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035864 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035865 | young lady living in a town, or a bustling neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised, had furnished my day dream for many weeks. And how soon does he come? I asked. Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say, he answered. And I am very glad now, dear, that you never knew | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035866 | Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt. And why? I asked, both mortified and curious. Because the poor young lady is dead, he replied. I quite forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the room when I received the Generals letter this evening. I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his first letter, six or seven weeks before, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035867 | 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 Generals letter, he said, handing it to me. I am afraid he is in great affliction; the letter appears to me to have been written very nearly in distraction. We sat down on a rude | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035868 | bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendor 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035869 | sky. General Spielsdorfs letter was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places so self-contradictory, that I read it twice overthe second time aloud to my fatherand 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035870 | days of dear Berthas illness I was not able to write to you. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035871 | thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been! 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035872 | 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 obstinacyalltoo late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035873 | 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 youthat is, if you permit me; I will then tell you all that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035874 | I scarce dare put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear friend. In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence; I was startled, as well as profoundly disappointed. The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035875 | Generals 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035876 | we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who had come out, without their bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight. We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them the beautiful scene. The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035877 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035878 | grey ivy-clustered rocks. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035879 | 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 moon. Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035880 | sighed poetically. Mademoiselle De Lafontainein right of her father who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, and something of a mysticnow 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035881 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035882 | dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium. The moon, this night, she said, is full of idyllic and magnetic influenceand see, when you look behind you at the front of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035883 | that silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035884 | tonight, said my father, after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he said: In truth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me: you say it wearies you; But how I got itcame by it. I forget the rest. But I feel as if some | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035885 | great misfortune were hanging over us. I suppose the poor Generals afflicted letter has had something to do with it. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035886 | horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a carriage drawn by four horses, and two men rode behind. It seemed to be the traveling 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035887 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035888 | more painful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035889 | 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 projecting roots of the tree. I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my head away; at the same | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035890 | moment I heard a cry from my lady friends, who had gone on a little. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035891 | air and figure had got out, and stood with clasped hands, raising the handkerchief that was in them every now and then to her eyes. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035892 | 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 placed against the slope of the bank. 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035893 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035894 | 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 countenance, though now agitated strangely. Who was ever being so born to calamity? I heard her say, with clasped | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035895 | 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, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035896 | is the nearest village? I must leave her there; and shall not see my darling, or even hear of her till my return, three months hence. I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his ear: Oh! papa, pray ask her to let her stay with usit would be so delightful. Do, pray. If Madame will entrust | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035897 | 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 deserves. I cannot do that, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035898 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000035899 | 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 | 60 | gutenberg |
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