Volume 2 — THE MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE OF THINGS. (continued 2)

"Bless my soul," said the Consistorial-President, "that was doing the thing in a most stupendous style!"

"Yes," said the Count. "And then I must tell you my good old Cochenille plays the flageolet really very nicely indeed. And now and then I get him to play for me in the dressing-room; and then I really give myself full swing in the dancing line--of course, only there quite in private. You see what I mean?"

"Of course, of course," answered the Consistorial-President, "I quite understand."

Meanwhile Emanuela and her companion had disappeared.

As the company were about dispersing the hostess said, "Friend Euchar, I feel certain that you know a great deal more than you have told us about your friend Edgar, We should be deeply interested to hear a great deal more. "What you have told us was only a fragment of it, though it has so excited and interested us that none of us will sleep a wink to night. I can't accord you longer time than till to-morrow evening for satisfying our curiosity. "We must hear more of Don Rafaele, and Empecinado, and the Guerillas. And if it is possible that Edgar can get into a love affair, please don't deprive us of the satisfaction of that."

"That would be delightful!" sounded from all sides; and Euchar had to promise that he would be present with the matter necessary for the completing of his story.

As they were going home Ludwig could not say enough on the subject of Victorine's passion for him, bordering, as it seemed to do, on insanity. "All the same," he said, "that jealousy of hers has had the effect of enabling me to read my own heart clearly. And I have read there that my love for Emanuela is a thing unutterable. I am going to find her out, declare my passionate adoration for her--and clasp her to my heart."

"Exactly, my dear child," said Euchar imperturbably. "That is, of course, the proper thing for you to do."

On the next evening when the company were assembled again chez Madame la Présidente, she told them with much regret that Baron Euchar had written to say that he was unexpectedly obliged to start immediately on a journey, and must postpone the continuation of his story till he came back.

Euchar's Return. Scenes in a truly happy Ménage. Conclusion of the Story.

Two years had past away when one morning a handsome carriage well loaded with baggage drew up at the door of the Golden Angel (principal hotel in W----), and out of it got a young gentleman, a lady very closely shrouded in wraps, and an old man. Ludwig happened to be passing at the time, and naturally he had a look at the arrivals through his eye-glass. The young gentleman happened to turn round, and he immediately embraced Ludwig, crying out, "My dear old fellow!"

The latter was not a little astonished to see his old friend Euchar, for it was he who had got out of the carriage. "My dear fellow," he said, "who is that terribly muffled-up lady?--and the old gentleman? And, bless my soul, here comes a fourgon with baggage, and sitting on the back of it--good gracious, do my eyes deceive me?"

Euchar took Ludwig by the arm, led him a step or two across the street, and said, "You shall hear all about everything in good time, dear friend; but, to begin with, how have things been going with you? You are terribly pale--the fire of your eyes has gone out. To tell you the honest truth, you look about ten years older than when I saw you last. Have you been having a bad illness or some serious trouble?"

"Oh, dear no!" answered Ludwig. "Quite the contrary. I believe I am the very happiest fellow under the sun, for I am living a life of utterly ideal, Utopian love and bliss. The heavenly Victorine gave me that exquisite, tender hand of hers--bestowed it, my dear fellow, upon unworthy me rather more than a year ago! That pretty house which you see there with its windows shining in the sun is my home, and you must come there with me this moment and see that earthly paradise of mine. How delighted my dear wife will be to see you again! Let us give her a surprise."

Euchar begged for a few minutes time just to change his dress, and promised to come then at once and see with his own eyes how all things had worked together for Ludwig's happiness.

Ludwig came to meet his friend at the bottom of the stair, and begged him to make as little noise as possible in coming up, explaining that Victorine often suffered terribly from nervous headaches, and had a bad one just then, which rendered her nervous system so sensitive that she could hear the very softest footfall in any part of the house, although her own rooms were in the most distant part of it. Consequently they two now crept as softly as they could up the stairs, which were thickly carpeted, into Ludwig's own room. After the heartiest outpourings of gladness at seeing his old companion again, Ludwig rang the bell, but immediately cried out, "Oh, Lord, what have I done, wretch that I am!" putting both his hands before his face. And it was not long before a snappish creature of a lady's maid came in screeching out to Ludwig in a horrible, vulgar tone of voice, "Herr Baron, for heaven's sake what are you doing? You'll kill my lady. She's in spasms now."

"Good gracious! my good Nettie," said Ludwig in a lamentable voice, "I really forgot all about it. I was so happy. Here is the greatest friend I have in the world come to see me. We haven't met for years. He's an old intimate friend of your mistress, too. Go and beg her--implore her--to let me bring him to her." Ludwig put money into her hand, and she made her exit with a vixenish "I'll see what I can do."

Euchar, finding himself in presence of a situation which is but too common in life, and is consequently served up to us ad nauseam in comedies and novels, had his own particular ideas as to his friend's domestic happiness. He felt with Ludwig all the painfulness of the position, and began to talk about indifferent subjects. But Ludwig would not give in to this, saying that what had been happening to him since they had been apart had been too remarkable and interesting that he should delay for a moment to communicate it to Euchar.

"Of course," he began, "you remember that evening when we were all at Madame Veh's and you told the Story of your friend Edgar's adventures. And, of course, you remember how Victorine flamed up into jealousy and showed her heart, which was blazing with passion, without disguise. Idiot that I was--I fully admit to you that I was an idiot--I fell desperately in love with that little Spanish dancing girl, and thought that I could read in her eyes that my love was not without some hope. Perhaps you noticed that at the finish of her fandango, whim she made the eggs into a pyramid the apex of that pyramid was directed towards me. I was sitting just in the centre of the circle behind Madame Veh's chair. Now could she have expressed more clearly how deep her interest in me was? I wanted to find the dear little creature out the next morning, but it was not a part of the mutual interdependence of things that I should succeed in that. I had almost forgotten all about her when chance----"

"The mutual interdependence of things, you mean," interrupted Euchar.

"Well, well," went on Ludwig. "But, at all events, a few days afterwards I was going through the Park, and in front of that Café where you and I saw that little Spanish girl for the first time, out came the landlady rushing--oh, you have no idea what an interest that good woman, who got the vinegar and water that day when I hurt my knee, takes in me still--but that is not to the present purpose--to ask if I knew what had become of the little Spanish girl and her companion, who used to come there so often, and of whom nothing had been seen for several weeks. Next day I took a great deal of trouble to find out whether she was in the town or not, but it did not lie in the mutual interdependence of things that I should succeed in this. And my heart repented of the foolishness it had been so near committing, and turned back again to the heavenly Victorine. But my crime of infidelity to her had made such a profound impression upon that super-sensitive organization of hers that she refused to see me or even to hear my name mentioned. Good old Cochenille assured me that she had fallen into a state of absolute melancholia; that she would often cry till the was almost breathless, and wail in the most pathetic manner, saying 'He is lost to me. I have lost him for ever.' You may imagine the effect which all this produced upon me--how I was dissolved in sorrow over this unfortunate misunderstanding. Cochenille proffered me his aid. He said he would diplomatically convince the Countess that I was quite an altered man, never dancing more than four times at the most at balls, sitting at the theatre staring at the stage in an oblivious manner, and paying not the smallest attention to my clothes. I sent a flowing stream of gold pieces into his hands, and in return he gave me fresh hopes every morning. At last Victorine allowed me to see her again. How lovely she was! Oh, Victorine, my darling--beautiful, sweetest of wives--amiability and kindness personified!"

Here Nettchen came in and said that the Baroness was astonished at the Baron's extraordinary conduct. First he rang the bell as if the house were on fire, and then he asked her to receive a visitor in the exceedingly critical state of her health. She most certainly could not see anybody that day whoever it might be, and begged the strange gentleman to excuse her. Nettchen looked Euchar straight in the eyes, scanned him over carefully from head to foot, and left the room.

Ludwig stared before him in silence, and then continued his tale in a low voice and with bated breath, saying, "You can't imagine the degree of almost contemptuous coldness with which Victorine received me. If it hadn't been that her previous outbursts of burning affection had convinced me that this coldness was merely put on to punish me, I should really have had my doubts, and should have hesitated. But at last this counterfeiting got too difficult for her, her behaviour grew kindlier and kindlier, till all in a moment she gave me her shawl to carry. And then my triumph was utterly brilliant. I rearranged that 'seize' of mine, which had played such an important part in my destiny, danced it with her in the most heavenly manner, whispered in her ear--at the proper moment, whilst balancing myself on tiptoe and placing my arm about her--'Heavenly Countess, I love you unspeakably! Angel of light, I implore you to be mine.' Victorine smiled into my eyes; but that did not prevent me from paying the proper visit the next morning, with the good help of my friend Cochenille, at the fitting hour, about one o'clock, and making my formal proposal for her hand. She gazed at me in silence. I threw myself at her feet, seized that hand which was to be mine, and covered it with glowing kisses. She allowed me to do this; but I really felt it a good deal, and thought it was extremely queer, that all the time her eyes were fixed steadfastly upon nothing that I could discover, staring before her as if she had been a lifeless image. But at last a great tear or two came to her eyes. She pressed my hand so vehemently that, as I happened to have a sore finger, I could scarcely help crying out with the pain of it, rose from her chair, and left the room with her handkerchief over her face. I had no doubts as to my good fortune. I hastened to the Count and made my formal proposal for his daughter.

"'Good. Very good, indeed, my dear Baron,' said the Count, smiling in the most affable manner. 'But have you given the Countess any intimation of this? Have you given her any opportunity of inferring it at all? Are you beloved? I admit that I am foolish enough to take the greatest possible interest in love matters.'

"I told him what had happened during the 'seize.' His eyes sparkled with delight. 'That was delicious!' he cried over and over again. 'That was most delicious, indeed, Herr Baron! Tell me what your "tour" consisted of, dear Baronetto.' I danced this 'tour' for him, and remained pausing in the position which I described to you long since. 'Charming; charming, indeed, my angelic friend!' he cried, and ringing the bell, he shouted, 'Cochenille, Cochenille!'

"When Cochenille came in I had to sing him the music of my 'seize,' which was composed by myself. 'Get your flageolet, Cochenille,' said the Count, 'and play what the Baron has been singing.' Cochenille did so tolerably correctly. I had to dance with the Count, taking the lady's part, and I should not have believed it of the old gentleman, while poising himself on his right tiptoe he whispered into my ear, 'Most incomparable of barons, my daughter Victorine is yours.'

"The lovely Victorine behaved rather coyly, as young ladies are apt to do under such circumstances. She was reserved and silent, formal and stiff, said neither 'Yes' nor 'No,' and on the whole behaved to me in such a way that my hopes began to sink again. Besides, it so happened that I just then, for the first time, found out that on the celebrated occasion, when I put my arm round the cousin instead of Victorine in the 'seize,' those two girls had planned this practical joke on purpose just to make me the victim of a contemptible mystification. I really was terribly distressed and annoyed, and could almost have cried, to think that it had formed a part of the mutual interdependence of things that I should be led about by the nose in this sort of way. But those doubts were vain. Ere I knew where I was, wholly unexpectedly the heavenly 'Yes' came trembling from her beautiful lips just when I had fallen into the deepest dejection. It was only then that I found out what a constraint Victorine had been putting upon herself before, for she was now so wildly happy and in such amazing spirits that anything like this condition had never been seen in her before. No doubt it was only maidenly coyness that made her refuse to allow me to take her hand or to kiss it, or to indulge in any kind of innocent little endearment. Many of my friends did try to put a quantity of absurd nonsense into my head. But the day before our wedding was destined to drive the last shadow of doubt from my mind. Early on that morning I hastened to her. Some papers were lying on her work-table. I glanced at them; they were in her own handwriting. I began reading. It was a diary. Oh, heavens! Oh, all ye Gods! Each day's entries gave me fresh proof how dearly, with what unspeakable fondness Victorine had loved me all along. The most trifling incidents were recorded, and always there came, 'You do not comprehend this heart of mine. Cold and unfeeling, must I cast aside all maidenly reserve in the wildness of my despair, throw myself at your feet, and tell you that without your love life is only death to me?' And it went on in this strain. On the night when I fancied myself so wildly in love with the little Spanish girl she had written, 'All is lost and done. He loves her; nothing can be, more certain. Mad creature, don't you know that the eye of the woman who loves is all-seeing?' Just as I was reading this aloud in came Victorine. I threw myself at her feet with the diary in my hand, crying, 'No, no; I never was in love with that strange child. You, you alone, were always my idol!'

"Victorine fixed a gaze on me, cried out in a screaming sort of tone, which rings in my ears still, 'Unfortunate fellow, it was not you I meant,' and rushed from the room. Now could you have imagined that maidenly coyness would have been capable of being carried so far?"

Here Nettchen came in to enquire on the Baroness's part why the Baron did not bring the visitor to see her, inasmuch as she had been expecting him for the last half hour. "A splendid model wife," cried the Baron with much emotion, "always sacrificing herself to my wishes." It astonished Euchar not a little to find the Baroness very much dressed as if for company.

"Here is our dear old Euchar!" the Baron cried. "We have got him back again." But when Euchar approached and took her hand she was seized with a violent trembling, and, with a faint cry of "Oh, God," fell back on her couch fainting.

Euchar could not bear the pain of the situation, and he left the room as quickly as possible. "Unfortunate fellow," he cried, "it was, indeed, not you she meant." He understood now the fathomless depth of misery into which his friend's incredible vanity had plunged him--he knew now upon whom Victorine's love had been bestowed, and felt himself strangely moved and touched. He comprehended now, and only now, the significance of many things which his own simple straightforwardness had prevented him from seeing before. Now, and only now, he saw through and through the impassioned Victorine, and could scarcely explain to himself how he had failed to discover that it was with him she was in love. The occasions on which her fondness for him had led her to give expression to it, almost in defiance of all considerations, rose more clearly before his mental sight, and he distinctly remembered that just on those very occasions some strange unaccountable antipathy to her had caused a curious, inexplicable irritation of feeling towards her. This feeling of angry irritation he now brought to bear upon himself, filled as he was by the profoundest pity for the poor girl, whose destiny seemed to have been ruled by such an evil star.

It so happened that on this very evening the self-same party to which Euchar had told the story of Edgar's adventures in Spain, two years previously, were assembled at Madame Veh's. He was greeted with the greatest warmth, but an electric thrill went through him when he saw Victorine, as he had not thought he would meet her there. There was no trace of illness about her. Her eyes shone as brilliantly as of old, and a carefully-chosen costume of great tastefulness enhanced her loveliness and charm. Euchar, distressed by her presence, was depressed and put out, contrary to his usual wont. Victorine so managed matters as to be able to approach him, and suddenly seizing his hand, drew him aside, saying gravely and calmly--

"You know my husband's pet theory of the mutual interdependence of things? I believe what constitutes the real 'mutual interdependence of things' in our lives to be the follies which we commit, repent of, and commit again and again. So that our lives appear to consist of a process of being wildly hunted hither and thither by a species of enchantment beyond our control, which drives us on before it till it mocks and dashes us into death. I know all, Euchar; I know whom I am going to see this evening. It was not you who brought those bitter, hopeless sorrows upon me; not you, but an evil fate. The demon was laid and vanished at the moment when I saw you again. May peace and rest be upon us, Euchar."

"Yes, Victorine," Euchar answered, "may rest and peace be upon us. However miscomprehended a life may be, the Eternal Power does not leave it without hope."

"All is ended--and well," said Victorine; and, wiping a tear away, she turned to the company.

Madame Veh had been observant of this pair, and now whispered to Euchar--

"I told her everything. Was I right?"

"I must go through with the whole business," Euchar answered.

The company--as often happens in such circumstances--felt a fresh impulse to festivity and enjoyment in Euchar's unexpected return, and besieged him with enquiries as to where he had been and what had happened to him during his absence.

"What has really brought me here," said Euchar, "is the obligation which I am under to keep my promise of two years ago that I would tell you a good deal more of my friend Edgar's history, and put a copestone upon it such as our friend the Poet thought it wanted. As I can now assure you that no dark clouds have come over his path, that there have been no deeds of violence, but that, on the contrary, as the ladies wished, my story will be concerned with a rather romantic love-affair, I feel sure that I may reckon upon a fair measure of approval."

All applauded, and speedily formed into a narrower ring. Euchar at once commenced as follows--

I pass over in silence the warlike adventures which Edgar met with while fighting in company with the Guerillas--although they were sufficiently romantic--contenting myself with explaining that the talisman which Don Rafaele Marchez gave him when parting with him, was a little ring inscribed with mystic characters, which showed that he was an initiate in the most secret of the confederacies or societies; thus assuring him, wherever he might be, of the most absolute and unlimited confidence of those acquainted with those signs, and rendering all danger such as he had been exposed to in Valenzia impossible.

Soon afterwards he joined the English forces, and served under Wellington. He was never touched by a hostile bullet again, and when the campaign was over he returned to his own country safe and sound. Don Rafaele Marchez he had never seen again, nor had he heard anything of his further fortunes.

Edgar had been a long while back in his native town, when, one day, Don Rafaele's little ring (which he always wore on his finger) disappeared under peculiar circumstances. Early on the morning of the day following this, a queer little fellow came into his room, held the missing ring up to him, and asked him if it was his. When Edgar replied that it was, the little man cried out excitedly in Spanish--

"Oh, you are Don Edgar; there can be no doubt about it." And then Edgar clearly remembered the face and figure of the little fellow, who was Don Rafaele's faithful servant, the same who had displayed the lion courage of despair in trying to save his master's daughter.

"In the name of all the saints!" Edgar cried, "you must be Don Rafaele's faithful servant! I recognise you. Where is he? My strange presentiment is going to come true."

The little man implored Edgar to go with him at once.

He took him to one of the most distant suburbs, climbed with him to the garret of a miserable house, and--what a spectacle! Sick, worn to a shadow, with all the traces of the most mortal suffering upon his deathlike face, Don Rafaele Marchez was lying upon a bed of straw, with a girl praying by his side. When Edgar came in, the girl rushed up to him, and drew him to the side of the old man, crying in a tone of the warmest delight--

"Father, father! this is he, is it not?"

"Yes," said the old man, his dim eyes brightening as he raised his folded hands to heaven, "it is he--our preserver. Ah, Don Edgar, who would have believed that the fire which burned within me for my country and freedom would have turned upon me for my destruction."

After the first outpourings of mingled delight and regret, Edgar learned that Don Rafaele's enemies had managed, after the establishment of peace, to bring charges against him causing him to be regarded with suspicion by the government. He was sentenced to be banished, and his property was confiscated. He fell into the deepest poverty. His devoted daughter and his faithful servant supported him by dancing and playing.

"Emanuela and Biagio Cubas, of course!" Ludwig cried out. And all the others repeated after him, "Of course, of course--Emanuela and Biagio Cubas!"

The hostess enjoined silence on the ground that, although there might be many things which could be gradually explained, the narrator ought not to be interrupted until he had come to the end of his story. Moreover she felt no doubt that as soon as Edgar saw the lovely Emanuela he must, of course, have fallen desperately in love with her.

"That, of course, is exactly what he did do," said Euchar, a slight redness overspreading his cheeks. Even before this particular meeting with her, on other occasions of his seeing that marvellously beautifully child, he had felt the most distinct presentiments of what would follow, and a sense of the deepest affection, like nothing which he had ever experienced before. He immediately set to remedy the condition of affairs. He took away Don Rafaele, Emanuela, and the trusty Cubas, to a country estate belonging to his uncle. And in arranging this I was of some assistance to him. It seemed as if Don Rafaele's lucky star was going to rise again; for soon after this there came a letter from good Father Eusebio to say that the brethren, well acquainted with the secret corners of his house, had hidden away the very considerable property (in the shape of gold and jewels) which he possessed (and which he had walled up before his flight) in their own convent; so that all that was necessary was to send some trustworthy person to fetch them. Edgar set out at once for Valenzia with the faithful Cubas. He saw his kind old nurse, Father Eusebio, again, and Don Rafaele's treasure was handed over to him. But he knew that Don Rafaele prized honour above everything, and he succeeded in Madrid in completely re-establishing his innocence. The decree of banishment was cancelled.

The doors opened and there entered a beautifully dressed lady, followed by an old gentleman of lofty bearing and aristocratic looks. The hostess rose to receive them, and led the lady within the circle. The other guests had all risen, and the host presented "Donna Emanuela Marchez, our friend Euchar's bride. Ron Rafaele Marchez."

"Yes," said Euchar, with the bliss of the happiness which he had achieved radiating from his eyes, and glowing in brilliant roses on his cheeks, "I have only now to tell you that he whom I spoke of to you as Edgar was none other than myself."

Victorine clasped the beautiful Emanuela in her arms, and pressed her warmly to her heart. They seemed to know each other already. But Ludwig, casting a glance of sorrow upon the group, said--

"All this was a part of the mutual interdependence of things."

The friends were pleased with Sylvester's tale, and were unanimous in thinking that Edgar's adventures in Spain during the War of Independence, although they might perhaps be considered to be interwoven in merely an episodical form, really constituted the kernel of the story, and that their happy effect was accounted for by their being founded upon actual historical facts.

"There is no doubt," said Lothair, "that matter which is absolutely historical possesses a certain peculiar quality which the inventive faculty, when it merely hovers about in empty space, with nothing to anchor upon, cannot attain to. In the same way the skilful introduction of truly historical customs, manners, habitudes and so forth, belonging to any race, or people, or to any particular class of people, gives to a work of fiction a life-like colouring which it is difficult otherwise to attain. But I insist upon their being introduced skilfully. For there is no doubt that it is not so easy to introduce historical facts--things which have actually happened--into a work of which the incidents belong to the domain of pure imagination, as many people think it is. And it requires a peculiar skilfulness, which everybody is not fortunate enough to possess. In the absence of it there appears merely a pale, distorted simulacrum of life, instead of the freshness of reality. I know works--particularly some by literary ladies--in which one feels, at every instant, how the writer has gone dipping the brush into the colour-box, bringing nothing out of it, after all, but a sort of jumble of strokes of different colours, just where what was wanted was a thoroughly life-like picture."

"I quite agree with you," said Lothair. "And, having just chanced to remember a particular novel, written by an otherwise fairly clever woman (which, notwithstanding all the dippings of her brush into the aforesaid paint-box, does not possess a single atom of real semblance of life, or of poetic truth, from one end of it to the other, so that one cannot remember it for a single moment), I merely wish to say that this particular skill in producing an effect of reality and historical truth, brilliantly distinguishes the works of a writer who has only rather recently become known to us. I mean Walter Scott. I have only read his 'Guy Mannering.' But ex ungue leonem. The 'exposition' of this tale is based upon Scotch manners and customs, and matters belonging peculiarly to the place in which the scene of it is laid. But, without any acquaintance with them, one is carried away by the vivid reality of the characters and incidents in an extraordinary degree, and the 'exposition' is to be termed so utterly masterly just because we are landed in medias res in a moment, as if by the wave of an enchanter's wand. Moreover, Scott has the power of drawing the figures of his pictures with a few touches, in such a way that they seem to come out of their frames, and move about before us in the most living fashion imaginable. Scott is a splendid phenomenon appearing in the literature of Great Britain. He is as vivid as Smollett, though far more classic and noble. But I think he is wanting in that brilliant lire of profound humour which coruscates in the writings of Sterne and Swift."

"I am just in your position, Ottmar," said Vincenz. "'Guy Mannering' is the only work of Scott's which I have read. But I was much struck by the originality of it, and the manner in which, in its methodical progress, it gradually unwinds itself like a clue of thread, gently and quietly, never breaking its firm-spun strands. My chief objection to it is, that (no doubt in faithfulness to British manners) the female characters are so tame and colourless, except that grand gipsy woman--although she is scarcely so much to be called a woman as a kind of spectral apparition. Both of the young ladies in 'Guy Mannering' remind me of the English coloured engravings, which are all exactly alike--id est, as pretty as they are meaningless and expressionless, and as to which one sees distinctly that the originals of them would never allow anything further than 'Yea, yea; nay, nay!' to cross those pretty little delicate lips of theirs, as anything more might lead unto evil. Hogarth's milkmaid is a prototype of all these creatures. Both of the girls in 'Guy Mannering' lack reality--the god-like vivifying breath of life."

"Might not one wish," said Theodore, "in the case of some of the female characters of one of our most talented writers (particularly in some of his earlier works) that they had a little more flesh and blood, since they are really all so very apt to melt into wreaths of mist when one looks at them closely? Nevertheless, let us love and honour both of those writers--the foreigner and our countryman, because of the true and glorious things which they have bestowed upon us."

"It is remarkable," said Sylvester, "that--unless I mistake--another great writer appeared on the other side of the channel, about the same time as Walter Scott, and has produced works of equal greatness and splendour, but in a different direction. I mean Lord Byron, who appears to me to be much more solid and powerful than Thomas Moore. His 'Siege of Corinth' is a masterpiece, fall of genius. His predominant tendency seems to be towards the gloomy, the mysterious and the terrible; and his 'Vampire' I have avoided reading, for the bare idea of a vampire makes my blood run cold. So far as I understand the matter, a vampire is an animated corpse which sucks the blood of the living."

"Ho! ho!" cried Lothair, laughing, "a writer such as you, my dear friend, Sylvester, must of course have found it necessary to dip more or less deeply into all kinds of accounts concerning magic, witches, sorcery, enchantment, and other such works of the devil, because they are necessary for your work, and part of your stock in trade. And I should suppose you have gone into those subjects yourself with the view of getting some personal experience of them as well. As regards vampirism--that you may see how well read I am in these matters--I will tell you the name of a delightful treatise in which you may study this dark subject. The complete title of this little book is 'M. Michael Ranft (Deacon of Nebra). Treatise on the Mastication and Sucking of the Dead in their Graves; wherein the true nature and description of the Hungarian vampires and bloodsuckers is clearly set forth, and all previous writings on this subject are passed in review and subjected to criticism.' This title in itself will convince you of the thoroughness of this treatise, and you will learn from it that a vampire is nothing other but an accursed creature who lets himself be buried as being dead, and then rises out of the grave and sucks people's blood in their sleep. And those people become vampires in their turn. So that, according to the accounts received from Hungary and quoted by this magister, the inhabitants of whole villages become vampires of the most abominable description. To render those vampires harmless they must be dug out of their graves, a stake driven through their hearts, and their bodies burnt to ashes. Those horrible beings very often do not appear in their own proper forms, but en masque. A certain officer, I happen to remember, writing from Belgrade to a celebrated doctor in Leipzig for information as to the true nature of vampires, expresses himself thus: 'In a village called Kinklina it chanced that two brothers were troubled by a vampire, so that one of them used to sit up by the other at night whilst he slept. The one who was watching used to see something like a dog opening the door, but this dog used to make off when he cried out at it. At last one night they both were asleep at the same time, and the vampire bit and sucked a place under the right ear of one of them, leaving a red mark. The man died of this in three days' time. In conclusion,' said the officer, 'as the people of this place make all this out to be miraculous, I venture to take the liberty of requesting you to tell me your private opinion as to whether it is caused by the intervention of sympathetic, diabolical, or astral spirits. And I remain, with much respect, &c.' Take example by this officer of enquiring mind. As it happens his name occurs to me at this moment. He was an ensign in the Prince Alexander regiment, Sigismund Alexander Friedrich von Kottwitz. The military mind seems to have been considerably exercised on the subject of vampirism about that time. Magister Ranft quotes in his book an official declaration made by an army surgeon before two of his brother officers concerning the detection and destruction of a vampire. This declaration contains, inter alia, the following passage: 'Inasmuch as they perceived, from the aforesaid circumstances, that this was unmistakably a vampire, they drove a stake through its heart, upon which it gave vent to a distinct gasp, emitting a considerable quantity of blood.' Is that not both interesting and instructive?"

"All this of Magister Ranft's," said Sylvester, "may, no doubt, be sufficiently absurd and even rather crack-brained; but, at the same time, if we keep to the subject of vampirism itself, never minding in what particular fashion it may be treated, it certainly is one of the most horrible and terrible notions imaginable. I can conceive nothing more ghastlily repulsive to the mind."

"Still," said Cyprian, "it is capable of providing a material, when dealt with by a writer of imagination possessed of some poetical tact, which has the power of stirring within us that profound sense of awe which is innate in our hearts, and when touched by the electric impulse from an unseen spirit world causes our soul to thrill, not altogether unpleasantly after a fashion. A due amount of poetic tact on the author's part will prevent the horror of the subject from going so far as to be loathsome; for it generally has such an element of the absurd about it that it does not impress us so deeply as if that were not the case. Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror, and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?"

"My dear, fanciful Cyprian," Theodore said, "there was no occasion for your vindication of the horrible. We all know how wonderfully great writers have moved men's hearts to their very depths by means of that lever. We have only to think of Shakespeare. Moreover, who knew better how to use it than our own glorious Tieck in many of his tales? I need only instance the 'Love-Spell.' The leading idea of that story cannot but make everybody's blood run cold, and the end of it is full of the utmost fear and horror; but still the colours are blended so admirably that, in spite of all the terror and dismay, the mysterious magic charm so seizes upon us that we yield ourselves up to it without an effort to resist. How true is what Tieck puts in the mouth of his Manfred in answer to women's objections to the element of the awe-inspiring in fiction. Of course, what is the fact is that whatsoever of the terrible encounters us in our daily life is just what tortures and tears our hearts with irresistible pain. And, indeed, the cruelty of mankind, as exercised by tyrants, great and small, without pity or mercy, and with the diabolical malignity of hell itself, produces misery on a par with anything told of in fiction. And how finely the author says: 'In those imaginary legends the misery cannot reach the world with its rays until they have been broken up into prismatic colours,' and I should have supposed that in that condition they would have been endurable by eyes even not very strong."

"We have often spoken already," said Lothair, "of this most genial writer; the full recognition of whom, in all his grand super-excellence and variety, is reserved for posterity, whilst Wills o' the Wisp rapidly scintillating into our ken and blinding the eye for a moment with borrowed light, go out into darkness just as speedily. On the whole, I believe that the imagination can be moved by very simple means, and that it is often more the idea of the thing than the thing itself which causes our fear. Kleist's tale of the 'Beggar Woman of Lucarno' has in it, at least to me, the most frightening idea that I can think of, and yet how simple it is. A beggar woman is sent contemptuously, as if she were a dog, to lie behind the stove, and dies there. She is heard every night hobbling across the floor towards the stove, but nothing is seen. It is, no doubt, the wonderful colouring of the whole affair Which produces the effect. Not only could Kleist 'dip' into the aforesaid colour-box, but he could lay the colours on, with the power and the genius of the most finished master. He did not need to raise a vampire out of the grave, all he needed was an old woman."

"This discussion about vampirism," said Cyprian, "reminds me of a ghastly story which I either heard or read a very long time ago. But I think I heard it, because I seem to remember that the person who told it said that the circumstances had actually happened, and mentioned the name of the family and of their country seat where it took place. But if this story is known to you as being in print, please to stop me and prevent my going on with it, because there's nothing more wearisome than to tell people things which they have known for ever so long."

"I foresee," said Ottmar, "that you are going to give us something unusually awful and terrible. But remember Saint Serapion and be as concise as you can, so that Vincenz may have his turn; for I see that he is waiting impatiently to read us that long-promised story of his."

"Hush! hush!" said Vincenz. "I could not wish anything better than that Cyprian should hang up a fine dark canvas by way of a background so as to throw out the figures of my tale, which I think are brightly and variedly coloured, and certainly excessively active. So begin, my Cyprianus, and be as gloomy, as frightful, as terrible as the vampirish Lord Byron himself, though I know nothing about him, as I have never read a word of his writings."

Count Hyppolitus (began Cyprian) had just returned from a long time spent in travelling to take possession of the rich inheritance which his father, recently dead, had left to him. The ancestral home was situated in the most beautiful and charming country imaginable, and the income from the property was amply sufficient to defray the cost of most extensive improvements. Whatever in the way of architecture and landscape gardening had struck the Count during his travels--particularly in England--as specially delightful and apposite, he was going to reproduce in his own demesne. Architects, landscape gardeners, and labourers of all sorts arrived on the scene as they were wanted, and there commenced at once a complete reconstruction of the place, whilst an extensive park was laid out on the grandest scale, which involved the including within its boundaries of the church, the parsonage, and the burial ground. All those improvements the Count, who possessed the necessary knowledge, superintended himself, devoting himself to this occupation body and soul; so that a year slipped away without its ever having occurred to him to take an old uncle's advice and let the light of his countenance shine in the Residenz before the eyes of the young ladies, so that the most beautiful, the best, and the most nobly born amongst them might fall to his share as wife. One morning, as he was sitting at his drawing table sketching the ground-plan of a new building, a certain elderly Baroness--distantly related to his father--was announced as having come to call. When Hyppolitus heard her name he remembered that his father had always spoken of her with the greatest indignation--nay, with absolute abhorrence, and had often warned people who were going to approach her to keep aloof, without explaining what the danger connected with her was. If he was questioned more closely, he said there were certain matters as to which it was better to keep silence. Thus much was certain, that there were rumours current in the Residenz of some most remarkable and unprecedented criminal trial in which the Baroness had been involved, which had led to her separation from her husband, driven her from her home--which was at some considerable distance--and for the suppression of the consequences of which she was indebted to the prince's forbearance. Hyppolitus felt a very painful and disagreeable impression at the coming of a person whom his father had so detested, although the reasons for this detestation were not known to him. But the laws of hospitality, more binding in the country than in town, obliged him to receive this visit.

Never had any one, without being at all ill-favoured in the usual acceptation of that term, made by her exterior such a disagreeable impression upon the Count as did this Baroness. When she came in she looked him through and through with a glance of fire, and then she cast her eyes down and apologized for her coming in terms which were almost over humble. She expressed her sorrow that his father, influenced by prejudices against her with which her enemies had impregnated his mind, had formed a mortal hatred to her, and though she was almost starving, in the depths of her poverty he had never given her the smallest help or support. As she had now, unexpectedly as she said, come into possession of a small sum of money she had found it possible to leave the Residenz and go to a small country town a short distance off. However, as she was engaged in this journey she had not found it possible to resist the desire to see the son of the man whom, notwithstanding his irreconcilable hatred, she had never ceased to regard with feelings of the highest esteem. The tone in which all this was spoken had the moving accents of sincerity, and the Count was all the more affected by it that, having turned his eyes away from her repulsive face, he had fixed them upon a marvellously charming and beautiful creature who was with her. The Baroness finished her speech. The Count did not seem to be aware that she had done so. He remained silent. She begged him to pardon--and attribute to her embarrassment at being where she was--her having neglected to explain that her companion was her daughter Aurelia. On this the Count found words, and blushing up to the eyes implored the Baroness, with the agitation of a young man overpowered by love, to let him atone in some degree for his father's shortcomings--the result of misunderstandings--and to favour him by paying him a long visit. In warmly enforcing this request he took her hand. But the words and the breath died away on his lips and his blood ran cold. For he felt his hand grasped as if in a vice by fingers cold and stiff as death, and the tall bony form of the Baroness, who was staring at him with eyes evidently deprived of the faculty of sight, seemed to him in its gay many tinted attire like some bedizened corpse.

"Oh, good heavens! how unfortunate just at this moment," Aurelia cried out, and went on to lament in a gentle heart-penetrating voice that her mother was now and then suddenly seized by a tetanic spasm, but that it generally passed off very quickly without its being necessary to take any measures with regard to it.

Hyppolitus disengaged himself with some difficulty from the Baroness, and all the glowing life of sweetest love delight came back to him as he took Aurelia's hand and pressed it warmly to his lips. Although he had almost come to man's estate it was the first time that he felt the full force of passion, so that it was impossible for him to hide what he felt, and the manner in which Aurelia received his avowal in a noble, simple, child-like delight, kindled the fairest of hopes within him. The Baroness recovered in a few minutes, and, seemingly quite unaware of what had been happening, expressed her gratitude to the Count for his invitation to pay a visit of some duration at the Castle, saying she would be but too happy to forget the injustice with which his father had treated her.

Thus the Count's household arrangements and domestic position were completely changed, and he could not but believe that some special favour of fortune had brought to him the only woman in all the world who, as a warmly beloved and deeply adored wife, was capable of bestowing upon him the highest conceivable happiness.

The Baroness's manner of conduct underwent little alteration. She continued to be silent, grave, much wrapped up in herself, and when opportunity offered, evinced a gentle disposition, and a heart disposed towards any innocent enjoyment. The Count had become accustomed to the death-like whiteness of her face, to the very remarkable network of wrinkles which covered it, and to the generally spectral appearance which she displayed; but all this he set down to the invalid condition of her health, and also, in some measure, to a disposition which she evinced to gloomy romanticism. The servants told him that she often went out for walks in the night-time, through the park to the churchyard. He was much annoyed that his father's prejudices had influenced him to the extent that they had; and the most earnest recommendations of his uncle that he should conquer the feeling which had taken possession of him, and give up a relationship which must sooner or later drive him to his ruin, had no effect upon him.

In complete certainty of Aurelia's sincere affection, he asked for her hand; and it may be imagined with what joy the Baroness received this proposal, which transferred her into the lap of luxury from a position of the deepest poverty. The pallor and the strange expression, which spoke of some invincible inward pain or trouble, had disappeared from Aurelia's face. The blissfulness of love beamed in her eyes, and shimmered in roses on her cheeks.

On the morning of the wedding-day a terrible event shattered the Count's hopes. The Baroness was found lying on her face dead, not far from the churchyard: and when the Count was looking out of his window on getting up, full of the bliss of the happiness which he had attained, her body was being brought back to the Castle. He supposed she was only in one of her usual attacks; but all efforts to bring her back to life were ineffectual. She was dead. Aurelia, instead of giving way to violent grief, seemed rather to be struck dumb and tearless by this blow, which appeared to have a paralyzing effect on her.

The Count was much distressed for her, and only ventured--most cautiously and most gently--to remind her that her orphaned condition rendered it necessary that conventionalities should be disregarded, and that the most essential matter in the circumstances was to hasten on the marriage as much as possible, notwithstanding the loss of her mother. At this Aurelia fell into the Count's arms, and, whilst a flood of tears ran down her cheeks, cried in a most eager manner, and in a voice which was shrill with urgency:

"Yes, yes! For the love of all the saints. For the sake of my soul's salvation--yes!"

The Count ascribed this burst of emotion to the bitter sense that, in her orphaned condition, she did not know whither to betake herself, seeing that she could not go on staying in the Castle. He took pains to procure a worthy matron as a companion for her, till in a few weeks, the wedding-day again came round. And this time no mischance interfered with it, and it crowned the bliss of Aurelia and Hyppolitus. But Aurelia had all this while been in a curiously strained and excited condition. It was not grief for her mother, but she seemed to be unceasingly, and without cessation, tortured by some inward anxiety. In the midst of the most delicious love-passage she would suddenly clasp the Count in her arms, pale as death, and like a person suddenly seized by some terror--just as if she were trying her very utmost to resist some extraneous power which was threatening to force her to destruction--and would cry, "Oh, no--no! Never, never!" Now that she was married, however, it seemed that this strange, overstrained, excited condition in which she had been, abated and left her, and the terrible inward anxiety and disturbance under which she had been labouring seemed to disappear.

The Count could not but suspect the existence of some secret evil mystery by which Aurelia's inner being was tormented, but he very properly thought it would be unkind and unfeeling to ask her about it whilst her excitement lasted, and she herself avoided any explanation on the subject. However, a time came when he thought he might venture to hint gently, that perhaps it would lie well if she indicated to him the cause of the strange condition of her mind. She herself at once said it would be a satisfaction to her to open her mind to him, her beloved husband. And great was his amazement to learn that what was at the bottom of the mystery, was the atrociously wicked life which her mother had led, that was so perturbing her mind.

"Can there be anything more terrible," she said, "than to have to hate, detest, and abhor one's own mother?"

Thus the prejudices (as they were called) of his father and uncle had not been unfounded, and the Baroness had deceived him in the most deliberate manner. He was obliged to confess to himself--and he made no secret of it--that it was a fortunate circumstance that the Baroness had died on the morning of his wedding-day. But Aurelia declared that as soon as her mother was dead she had been seized by dark and terrible terrors, and could not help thinking that her mother would rise from her grave, and drag her from her husband's arms into perdition.

She said she dimly remembered, one morning when she was a mere child, being awakened by a frightful commotion in the house. Doors opened and shut; strangers' voices cried out in confusion. At last, things becoming quieter, her nurse took her in her arms, and carried her into a large room where there were many people, and the man who had often played with her, and given her sweetmeats, lying stretched on a long table. This man she had always called "Papa," and she stretched her hands out to him, and wanted to kiss him. But his lips, always warm before, were cold as ice, and Aurelia broke into violent weeping, without knowing why. The nurse took her to a strange house, where she remained a long while, till at last a lady came and took her away in a carriage. This was her mother, who soon after took her to the Residenz.

When Aurelia got to be about sixteen, a man came to the house whom her mother welcomed joyfully, and treated with much confidentiality, receiving him with much intimacy of friendship, as being a dear old friend. He came more and more frequently, and the Baroness's style of existence was soon greatly altered for the better. Instead of living in an attic, and subsisting on the poorest of fare, and wearing the most wretched old clothes, she took a fine lodging in the most fashionable quarter, wore fine dresses, ate and drank with this stranger of the best and most expensive food and drink daily (he was her daily guest), and took her part in all the public pleasurings which the Residenz had to offer.

Aurelia was the person upon whom this bettering of her mother's circumstances (evidently attributable solely to the stranger) exercised no influence whatever. She remained shut up in her room when her mother went out to enjoy herself in the stranger's company, and was obliged to live just as miserably as before. This man, though about forty, had a very fresh and youthful appearance, a tall, handsome person, and a face by no means devoid of a certain amount of manly good looks. Notwithstanding this, he was repugnant to Aurelia on account of his style of behaviour. He seemed to try to constrain himself, to conduct himself like a gentleman and person of some cultivation, but there was constantly, and most evidently, piercing through this exterior veneer the unmistakable evidence of his really being a totally uncultured person, whose manners and habits were those of the very lowest ranks of the people. And the way in which he began to look at Aurelia filled her with terror--nay, with an abhorrence of which she could not explain the reason to herself.

Up to this point the Baroness had never taken the trouble to say a single word to Aurelia about this stranger. But now she told her his name, adding that this Baron was a man of great wealth, and a distant relation. She lauded his good looks, and his various delightful qualities, and ended by asking Aurelia if she thought she could bring herself to take a liking to him. Aurelia made no secret of the inward detestation which she felt for him. The Baroness darted a glance of lightning at her, which terrified her excessively, and told her she was a foolish, ignorant creature. After this she was kinder to her than she had ever been before. She was provided with grand dresses in the height of the fashion, and taken to share in all the public pleasures. The man now strove to gain her favour in a manner which rendered him more and more abhorrent to her. But her delicate, maidenly instincts were wounded in the most mortal manner, when an unfortunate accident rendered her an unwilling, secret witness of an abominable atrocity between her abandoned and depraved mother and him. When, a few days after this, this man, after having taken a good deal of wine, clasped Aurelia in his arms in a way which left no doubt as to his intention, her desperation gave her strength, and she pushed him from her so that he fell down on his back. She rushed away and bolted herself in her own room. The Baroness told her, very calmly and deliberately, that, inasmuch as the Baron paid all the household expenses, and she had not the slightest intention of going back to the old poverty of their previous life, this was a case in which any absurd coyness would be both ludicrous and inconvenient, and that she would really have to make up her mind to comply with the Baron's wishes, because, if not, he had threatened to part company at once. Instead of being affected by Aurelia's bitter tears and agonized intreaties, the old woman, breaking into the most brazen and shameless laughter, talked in the most depraved manner of a state of matters which would cause Aurelia to bid, for ever, farewell to every feeling of enjoyment of life in such unrestrained and detestable depravity, defying and insulting all sense of ordinary propriety, so that her shame and terror were undescribable at what she was obliged to hear. In fact she gave herself up for lost, and her only means of salvation appeared to her to be immediate flight.

She had managed to possess herself of the key of the hall door, had got together the few little necessaries which she absolutely required, and, just after midnight, was moving softly through the dimly-lighted front hall, at a time when she thought her mother was sure to be fast asleep. She was on the point of stepping quietly out into the street, when the door opened with a clang, and heavy footsteps came noisily up the steps. The Baroness came staggering and stumbling into the hall, right up to Aurelia's feet, nothing upon her but a kind of miserable wrapper all covered with dirt, her breast and her arms naked, her grey hair all hanging down and dishevelled. And close after her came the stranger, who seized her by the hair, and dragged her into the middle of the hall, crying out in a yelling voice--

"Wait, you old devil, you witch of hell! I'll serve you up a wedding breakfast!" And with a good thick cudgel which he had in his hand he set to and belaboured and maltreated her in the most shameful manner. She made a terrible screaming and outcry, whilst Aurelia, scarcely knowing what she was about, screamed aloud out of the window for help.

It chanced that there was a patrol of armed police just passing. The men came at once into the house.

"Seize him!" cried the Baroness, writhing in convulsions of rage and pain. "Seize him--hold him fast! Look at his bare back. He's----"

When the police sergeant heard the Baroness speak the name he shouted out in the greatest delight--

"Hoho! We've got you at last, Devil Alias, have we?" And in spite of his violent resistance, they marched him off.

But notwithstanding all this which had been happening, the Baroness had understood well enough what Aurelia's idea had been. She contented herself with taking her somewhat roughly by the arm, pushing her into her room, and locking her up in it, without saying a word. She went out early the next morning, and did not come back till late in the evening. And during this time Aurelia remained a prisoner in her room, never seeing nor hearing a creature, and having nothing to eat or drink. This went on for several days. The Baroness often glared at her with eyes flashing with anger, and seemed to be wrestling with some decision, until, one evening, letters came which seemed to cause her satisfaction.

"Silly creature! all this is your fault. However, it seems to be all coming right now, and all I hope is that the terrible punishment which the Evil Spirit was threatening you with may not come upon you." This was what the Baroness said to Aurelia, and then she became more kind and friendly, and Aurelia, no longer distressed by the presence of the horrible man, and having given up the idea of escaping, was allowed a little more freedom.

Some time had elapsed, when one day, as Aurelia was sitting alone in her room, she heard a great clamour approaching in the street. The maid came running in, and said that they were taking the hangman's son of ---- to prison, that he had been branded on the back there for robbery and murder, and had escaped, and was now retaken.

Aurelia, full of anxious presentiment, tottered to the window. Her presentiment was not fallacious. It was the stranger (as we have styled him), and he was being brought along, firmly bound upon a tumbril, surrounded by a strong guard. He was being taken back to undergo his sentence. Aurelia, nearly fainting, sank back into her chair, as his frightfully wild look fell upon her, while he shook his clenched fist up at the window with the most threatening gestures.

After this the Baroness was still a great deal away from the house; but she never took Aurelia with her, so that the latter led a sorrowful, miserable existence--occupied in thinking many thoughts as to destiny, and the threatening future which might unexpectedly come upon her.

From the maidservant (who had only come into the house subsequently to the nocturnal adventure which has been described, and who had probably only quite recently heard about the intimacy of the terms in which the Baroness had been living with this criminal), Aurelia learned that the folks in the Residenz were very much grieved at the Baroness's having been so deceived and imposed upon by a scoundrel of this description. But Aurelia knew only too well how differently the matter had really stood; and it seemed to her impossible that, at all events, the men of the police, who had apprehended the fellow in the Baroness's very house, should not have known all about the intimacy of the relations between them, inasmuch as she herself had told them his name, and directed their attention to the brand-marks on his back, as proofs of his identity. Moreover, this loquacious maid sometimes talked in a very ambiguous way about that which people were, here and there, thinking and saying; and, for that matter, would like very much to know better about--as to the courts having been making careful investigations, and having gone so far as to threaten the Baroness with arrest, on account of strange disclosures which the hangman's son had made concerning her.

Aurelia was obliged to admit, in her own mind, that it was another proof of her mother's depraved way of looking at things that, even after this terrible affair, she should have found it possible to go on living in the Residenz. But at last she felt herself constrained to leave the place where she knew she was the object of but too well-founded, shameful suspicion, and fly to a more distant spot. On this journey she came to the Count's Castle, and there ensued what has been related.

Aurelia could not but consider herself marvellously fortunate to have got clear of all these troubles. But how profound was her horror when, speaking to her mother in this blessed sense of the merciful intervention of Heaven in her regard, the latter, with fires of hell in her eyes, cried out in a yelling voice--

"You are my misfortune, horrible creature that you are! But in the midst of your imagined happiness vengeance will overtake you, if I should be carried away by a sudden death. In those tetanic spasms, which your birth cost me, the subtle craft of the devil----"

Here Aurelia suddenly stopped. She threw herself upon her husband's breast, and implored him to spare her the complete recital of what the Baroness had said to her in the delirium of her insanity. She said she felt her inmost heart and soul crushed to pieces at the bare idea of the frightful threatenings--far beyond the wildest imagination's conception of the terrible--uttered to her by her mother, possessed, as she was at the time, by the most diabolical powers.

The Count comforted his bride to the best of his ability, although he felt himself permeated by the coldest and most deathly shuddering horror. Even when he had regained some calmness, he could not but confess to himself that the profound horribleness of the Baroness, even now that she was dead, cast a deep shadow over his life, sun-bright as it otherwise seemed to be.

In a very short time Aurelia began to alter very perceptibly. Whilst the deathly paleness of her face, and the fatigued appearance of her eyes, seemed to point to some bodily ailment, her mental state--confused, variable, restless, as if she were constantly frightened at something--led to the conclusion that there was some fresh mystery perturbing her system. She shunned her husband. She shut herself up in her rooms, sought the most solitary walks in the park. And when she then allowed herself to be seen, her eyes, red with weeping, her contorted features, gave unmistakable evidence of some terrible suffering which she had been undergoing. It was in vain that the Count took every possible pains to discover the cause of this condition of hers, and the only thing which had any effect in bringing him out of the hopeless state into which those remarkable symptoms of his wife's had plunged him, was the deliberate opinion of a celebrated doctor, that this strangely excited condition of the Countess was nothing other than the natural result of a bodily state which indicated the happy result of a fortunate marriage. This doctor, on one occasion when he was at table with the Count and Countess, permitted himself sundry allusions to this presumed state of what the German nation calls "good hope." The Countess seemed to listen to all this with indifference for some time. But suddenly her attention became vividly awakened when the doctor spoke of the wonderful longings which women in that condition become possessed by, and which they cannot resist without the most injurious effects supervening upon their own health, and even upon that of the child. The Countess overwhelmed the doctor with questions, and the latter did not weary of quoting the strangest and most entertaining cases of this description from his own practice and experience.

"Moreover," he said, "there are cases on record in which women have been led, by these strange, abnormal longings, to commit most terrible crimes. There was a certain blacksmith's wife, who had such an irresistible longing for her husband's flesh that, one night, when he came home the worse for liquor, she set upon him with a large knife, and cut him about so frightfully that he died in a few hours' time."

Scarcely had the doctor said these words, when the Countess fell back in her chair fainting, and was with much difficulty recovered from the succession of hysterical attacks which supervened. The doctor then saw that he had acted very thoughtlessly in alluding to such a frightful occurrence in the presence of a lady whose nervous system was in such a delicate condition.

However, this crisis seemed to have a beneficial effect upon her, for she became calmer; although, soon afterwards there came upon her a very remarkable condition of rigidity, as of benumbedness. There was a darksome fire in her eyes, and her deathlike pallor increased to such an extent, that the Count was driven into new and most tormenting doubts as to her condition. The most inexplicable thing was that she never took the smallest morsel of anything to eat, evincing the utmost repugnance at the sight of all food, particularly meat. This repugnance was so invincible that she was constantly obliged to get up and leave the table, with the most marked indications of loathing. The doctor's skill was in vain, and the Count's most urgent and affectionate entreaties were powerless to induce her to take even a single drop of medicine of any kind. And, inasmuch as weeks, nay, months, had passed without her having taken so much as a morsel of food, and it had become an unfathomable mystery how she managed to keep alive, the doctor came to the conclusion that there was something in the case which lay beyond the domain of ordinary human science. He made some pretext for leaving the Castle, but the Count saw clearly enough that this doctor, whose skilfulness was well approved, and who had a high reputation to maintain, felt that the Countess's condition was too unintelligible, and, in fact, too strangely mysterious, for him to stay on there, witness of an illness impossible to be understood--as to which he felt he had no power to render assistance.

It may be readily imagined into what a state of mind all this put the Count. But there was more to come. Just at this juncture an old, privileged servant took an opportunity, when he found the Count alone, of telling him that the Countess went out every night, and did not come home till daybreak.

The Count's blood ran cold. It struck him, as a matter which he had not quite realized before, that, for a short time back, there had fallen upon him, regularly about midnight, a curiously unnatural sleepiness, which he now believed to be caused by some narcotic administered to him by the Countess, to enable her to get away unobserved. The darkest suspicions and forebodings came into his mind. He thought of the diabolical mother, and that, perhaps, her instincts had begun to awake in her daughter. He thought of some possibility of a conjugal infidelity. He remembered the terrible hangman's son.

It was so ordained that the very next night was to explain this terrible mystery to him--that which alone could be the key to the Countess's strange condition.

She herself used, every evening, to make the tea which the Count always took before going to bed. This evening he did not take a drop of it, and when he went to bed he had not the slightest symptom of the sleepiness which generally came upon him as it got towards midnight. However, he lay back on his pillows, and had all the appearance of being fast asleep as usual.

And then the Countess rose up very quietly, with the utmost precautions, came up to his bedside, held a lamp to his eyes, and then, convinced that he was sound asleep, went softly out of the room.

His heart throbbed fast. He got up, put on a cloak, and went after the Countess. It was a fine moonlight night, so that, though Aurelia had got a considerable start of him, he could see her distinctly going along in the distance in her white dress. She went through the park, right on to the burying-ground, and there she disappeared at the wall. The Count ran quickly after her in through the gate of the burying-ground, which he found open. There, in the bright moonlight, he saw a circle of frightful, spectral-looking creatures. Old women, half naked, were cowering down upon the ground, and in the midst of them lay the corpse of a man, which they were tearing at with wolfish appetite.

Aurelia was amongst them.

The Count took flight in the wildest horror, and ran, without any idea where he was going or what he was doing, impelled by the deadliest terror, all about the walks in the park, till he found himself at the door of his own Castle as the day was breaking, bathed in cold perspiration. Involuntarily, without the capability of taking hold of a thought, he dashed up the steps, and went bursting through the passages and into his own bedroom. There lay the Countess, to all appearance in the deepest and sweetest of sleeps. And the Count would fain have persuaded himself that some deceptive dream-image, or (inasmuch as his cloak, wet with dew, was a proof, if any had been needed, that he had really been to the burying-ground in the night) some soul-deceiving phantom had been the cause of his deathly horror. He did not wait for Aurelia's waking, but left the room, dressed, and got on to a horse. His ride, in the exquisite morning, amid sweet-scented trees and shrubs, whence the happy songs of the newly-awakened birds greeted him, drove from his memory for a time the terrible images of the night. He went back to the Castle comforted and gladdened in heart.

But when he and the Countess sate down alone together at table, and, the dishes being brought and handed, she rose to hurry away, with loathing, at the sight of the food as usual, the terrible conviction that what he had seen was true, was reality, impressed itself irresistibly on his mind. In the wildest fury he rose from his seat, crying--

"Accursed misbirth of hell! I understand your hatred of the food of mankind. You get your sustenance out of the burying-ground, damnable creature that you are!"

As soon as those words had passed his lips, the Countess flew at him, uttering a sound between a snarl and a howl, and bit him on the breast with the fury of a hyena. He dashed her from him on to the ground, raving fiercely as she was, and she gave up the ghost in the most terrible convulsions.

The Count became a maniac.

"Well," said Lothair, after there had been a few minutes of silence amongst the friends, "you have certainly kept your word, my incomparable Cyprianus, most thoroughly and magnificently. In comparison with this story of yours, vampirism is the merest children's tale--a funny Christmas story, to be laughed at. Oh, truly, everything in it is fearfully interesting, and so highly seasoned with asafœtida that an unnaturally excited palate, which has lost its relish for healthy, natural food, might immensely enjoy it."

"And yet," said Theodore, "our friend has discreetly thrown a veil over a great many things, and has passed so rapidly over others, that his story has merely caused us a passing feeling of the eery and shuddery--for which we are duly grateful to him. I remember very well having read this story in an old book, where everything was told with the most prolix enumeration of all the details; and the old woman's atrocities in particular were set forth in all their minutiæ, truly con amore, so that the whole affair produced, and left behind it, a most repulsive impression, which it took a long while to get over. I was delighted when I had forgotten the horrible thing, and Cyprian ought not to have recalled it to my memory; although I must admit that he has acted in accordance with the principles of our patron saint Serapion, and caused us a sufficient thrill of horror, particularly towards the end. It made us all turn pale, particularly the narrator himself!"

"We cannot hurry away too quickly from this gruesome picture," Ottmar said. "And it will not serve as a dark background (as Vincenz expected it would), because the figures of it are in too glaring colours. Allow me, by way of a grand change of subject--a sort of sideways spring away from the hell-broth which Cyprian has served up to us--to say a word or two (merely to give Vincenz time to clear his throat, as I hear him doing) concerning a certain aesthetic tea society, which was brought to my memory by a little paper which accidentally came into my hand to-day. Have I your permission, Vincenz?"

"Strictly speaking," said Vincenz, "it is a breach of all Serapiontic rule to keep chattering in this sort of style; and not only that, but, moreover, without any especial motive or inducement, the most unseemly things about gruesome vampires, and other such matters, are brought forward, so that I am obliged to shut my mouth just as I have got it opened. But go on, my Ottmar. The hours are flying, and I shall have the last word, like a quarrelsome woman, in spite of you. So go on, my Ottmar, go on."

"Chance," began Ottmar, "or rather, a kindly-intentioned introduction, brought me into the aesthetic tea society which I mentioned; and there were circumstances which induced me, or rendered it incumbent on me, to attend its meetings regularly for a time, although heaven knows they were tedious and wearisome enough. It greatly vexed me that, on an occasion when a really talented man read something which was full of true wit, and admirably appropriate to the occasion, all the people yawned, and grew impatient of it; whilst they were charmed and delighted by the marrowless, spiritless trash of a conceited young poetaster. This latter was all in the line of the gushing and the exuberant, but he also thought very highly of his epigrams. As what they were chiefly remarkable for was the absence of the sting in their tails, he always gave the signal for the laugh himself by beginning it at the proper time; and everybody then joined in it. One evening I asked, modestly, if I might be allowed to read out a few little verses which had occurred to me in moments of a certain amount of inspiration. And as people were good enough to credit me with the possession of a certain amount of brains, my request was received with a good deal of applause. I took out my manuscript and read, with great solemnity--

"'ITALY'S MARVELS.

"'Ah! glorious! heavenly! dear Ottmar, and so deeply felt, Bo sensitively expressed, right out of the fulness of your heart, so rich in emotions!' cried the lady of the house, whilst several white ladies and black gentlemen (I only mean black-dressed ones, with great hearts under their jabots) followed her by crying, 'Glorious! heavenly!' and one young lady sighed profoundly, weeping away a scalding tear. Being asked to read something more, I gave to my voice the expression of a deeply moved heart, and read--

"There was a fresh tumult of applause. They begged for more; but I said, modestly, that I could not but feel that stanzas of this kind, grasping as they did comprehensively at the bases of all life, have, in the long run, a tendency to impress the hearts of delicate, impassioned women too strongly, so that I should prefer to quote a pair of epigrams, in which the distinctive feature of the epigram--the sudden flashing out of the species of squib which constitutes the tail--would not fail to be duly appreciated. I read--

"'WIT.

"When the sparkling wit of this roguish epigram had been sufficiently admired, I treated them to the following one in addition--

"'STINGING REPLY.

"Everybody laughed heartily, but the lady of the house shook a minatory forefinger at me, saying, 'Ah, wicked scoffer! Is nothing to escape that scathing wit of yours?'

"The clever man shook hands with me as he passed me, saying--

"'Admirably done. Much obliged to you.'

"The young poet turned his back upon me with much contempt. But the young lady who had shed a few tears over 'Italia's Marvels,' came to me, and blushing, as she cast down her eyes, said the maidenly, virginal heart was more disposed to open to the sense of sweet sadness than to the comic; and she begged me to give her a copy of the first poem I had read. She said she had felt so curiously happy and creepy when she heard it. I promised to give it to her, and I kissed the charming young lady's sufficiently pretty hand with all the appropriate rapture of a bard duly appreciated by beauty, with the sole intention of angering the poet, who cast upon me glances as of an infuriated basilisk."

"It is strange enough," said Vincenz, "that, without being in the smallest degree aware of it, you have spoken what may be called a Goldsmith's prologue to my story. Of course you notice my pretty allusion to Shakespeare's Hamlet, and his question, 'Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?' What I mean is, that your prologue consists of what you have said about the irritated poet; for I am greatly mistaken if a poet of that kind is not one of the principal characters in my story; which story I am now going to begin, and I don't intend to stop it until the last word of it is out. And that last word is just as hard to speak as the first."

Vincenz read--