Carmilla: revisited

IV

Her Habits – a Saunter

Her looks lost nothing in daylight – she was certainly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I shall begin by describing her.

She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were languid – very languid – indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to indicate an invalid. Her complexion was pale but brilliant; her features were small and beautifully formed; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently thick when it was down about her shoulders; I have often placed my hands under it, and laughed with wonder at its weight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in color a rich, inky black. I loved to run my fingers through it as she lay back in her chair, talking in her sweet low voice. Heavens, if I had but known!

I told you that I was charmed by her in most of her particulars.

There were some that did not please me so well.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling, melancholy, persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light with respect to her mother, her history, or anything else connected with her life. 

I dare say I was unreasonable, perhaps I was wrong; I dare say I ought to have respected the solemn injunction laid upon her. But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another. 

What harm could it do anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to know? Had she no trust in my good sense or honor? Why would she not believe me when I assured her, so solemnly, that I would not divulge one syllable of what she told me to any living soul?

Still, she exercised an ever wakeful reserve. What she did tell me amounted – in my unconscionable estimation – to nothing. It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: 

First – Her name was Carmilla.

Second – Her family was very ancient and noble.

Third – Her home lay in the direction of the west.

She would not tell me the name of her family, nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even that of the country they lived in.

No matter what my tactics, utter failure beyond these shallow tidbits was invariably the result. Reproaches and caresses were all lost upon her, but her evasion was always conducted with so much melancholy and deprecation, with passionate declarations of her liking for me and her trust in my honor, and with so many promises that I should at last know all. 

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, lay her cheek against mine, and murmur so that her lips brushed my ear, "Darling, think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and my weakness. If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.”

I could not long be offended with her.

"In the rapture of my humiliation I live alongside you in your warm life," she would continue, "but you should perish to walk too far into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you will learn the rapture of that cruelty which yet is love… So for a while, seek not to know more of me and mine, but bless me with all your loving spirit."

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glowed upon my cheek.

Her agitations and her language were unintelligible to me, but from these dramatic embraces I had no wish to extricate myself. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed me into a trance from which I only seemed to recover myself when she had withdrawn her arms.

In these mysterious moods of hers I experienced a strange, tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, and yet mingled with a vague sense of unease. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a growing adoration, and also of a growing disquiet. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.

After an interval of more than ten years I still write with a trembling hand about the ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing; though with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of the main current of my story. I suspect in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most wildly roused, that are above all others most remembered.

Sometimes, after an hour or a day of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure. While she gazed on my face with languid, burning eyes, I would blush softly and breath so heavily that my dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration, like the ardor of a lover. It embarrassed me, but she was overpowering. 

With gloating eyes she would draw me to her, and her soft lips would travel along my neck with little kisses, and she would whisper, "You are mine, you are mine and I’m going to keep you, forever." Then she would throw herself back in apparent vexation with her hand over her eyes, leaving me trembling. 

“What can you mean by all this?” I used to ask. “Do I remind you of someone whom you love? But you mustn’t confuse me for them, I can’t stand it. You don’t know me, not really, and I don't know you – I don't know myself when I'm with you, when you look and talk so."

She used to sigh at my response, then turn away and drop my hand.

Respecting these emotional manifestations I strove in vain to form any satisfactory theory – I could not refer them to any previous experience or knowledge that I had. It was unmistakably the momentary breaking out of suppressed instinct and emotion. Was there here a disguise and a romance? I had read in old storybooks of such things. 

Between these passionate moments there were long intervals of commonplace gaiety and brooding melancholy, during which, excepting the fire in her eyes which still followed me, I might have been nothing to her. Except in these brief periods of mysterious excitement her ways were girlish; and there was always a languor about her, especially in the mornings, that did not bespeak a person in a state of health.

In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps not so singular in the opinion of a city-goer like you as they appeared to us rustic folk. She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock, and then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing. 

When we would go out for a walk after tea she seemed almost immediately exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of the benches that were placed, here and there, amidst the shade of the trees. It was a bodily languor with which her mind did not sympathize: she was always an animated talker, and highly intelligent.

She sometimes alluded for a moment to her own home, or mentioned an adventure or situation, or an early recollection which indicated a people of strange manners, and described customs of which we knew nothing. I gathered from these chance hints that her native country was much more remote than I had at first fancied.

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees, a funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty young girl whom I had often seen, the daughter of one of the rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking behind the coffin; she was his only daughter, and he looked quite heartbroken.

Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, singing a funeral hymn.

As I rose to mark my respect as they passed, my companion grunted brusquely, and I turned to hear her, surprised.

"Don't you perceive how discordant that is?"

Vexed, I answered more curtly than I was wont to do, "I think it very sweet, on the contrary," and returned my attention to the little procession as it was passing. "I thought you knew she was to be buried today.” 

“It pierces my ears," said Carmilla almost angrily, stopping her ears with her tiny fingers. "I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why, you must die – everyone must die; and all are happier when they do. And how was I to have known about this? I don't know who she was! I don't trouble my head about peasants. " answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes.

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a phantasm a fortnight ago, and has been slowly dying ever since, until yesterday when she expired."

"Speak not to me of phantasms." She was really rather cross by this point. 

"I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all this looks very like it," I championed forward, though in a slightly different tack. "The swineherd's young wife died only a week ago, she swore she felt something seize her by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangle her. Papa says such horrible fancies do accompany some forms of fever. She was quite well the day before. She sank afterwards, and died before a week was out."

"Well, her funeral is over, I hope, and her hymn already sung, so that our ears shouldn't suffer any further. Sit down here, beside me. Sit close, hold my hand; press it hard-hard-harder.” 

As I sat, I caught a glimpse of her face, which had undergone a change that alarmed and even terrified me for a moment. It darkened and became horribly livid. Her teeth and hands were clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips as if in anguish while she stared down upon the ground at her feet, trembling all over with an irrepressible shudder. 

All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit. At length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually her symptoms subsided. "There’s the grace of God for you," she said at last. "Hold me, won’t you? Hold me still.”

And so gradually the fit subsided; and perhaps to dissipate the somber impression which the spectacle had left upon me, she became unusually animated and chatty for the remainder of the afternoon.

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit any definable symptoms of that delicacy of health which her mother had referred to. It was also the first time I had seen her exhibit anything like a temper. Both passed away like a summer cloud; and never but once afterwards did I witness on her part a momentary sign of anger. 

I will tell you how it happened.

She and I were looking out of one of the long drawing room windows, when Madame Pomfrey entered with afternoon tea, as was our custom. On her right thumb she had brought also a thimble. 

“My noble lady,” said she, “You have the sharpest of incisors – long and pointed like an awl. I have seen it distinctly. Now if it happens to hurt the young lady, I will make it round and blunt, if her ladyship pleases.”

Carmilla looked at her with fury, and something resembling fear. 

“Is the young lady displeased? Have I offended her?" Madame Pomfrey was all apologies.

The young lady did, indeed, looked very angry, but as she retired from the window a step or two and sat down, and covered her eyes with her hand as was her custom, her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen, and she gradually recovered her usual tone.