Other inimical forces in the world cropped up by degrees. When you had
been put to bed early the maids often sat down at the nursery table,
and talked in an undertone until far on into the evening. And then they
would tell stories that were enough to make your hair stand on end.
They talked of ghosts that went about dressed in white, quite
noiselessly, or rattling their chains through the rooms of houses,
appeared to people lying in bed, frightened guilty persons; of figures
that stepped out of their picture-frames and moved across the floor; of
the horror of spending a night in the dark in a church--no one dared do
that; of what dreadful places churchyards were, how the dead in long
grave-clothes rose up from their graves at night and frightened the
life out of people, while the Devil himself ran about the churchyard in
the shape of a black cat. In fact, you could never be sure, when you
saw a black cat towards evening, that the Devil was not inside it. And
as easily as winking the Devil could transform himself into a man and
come up behind the person he had a grudge against.
It was a terrifying excitement to lie awake and listen to all this. And
there was no doubt about it. Both Maren and Karoline had seen things of
the sort themselves and could produce witnesses by the score. It caused
a revolution in my consciousness. I learnt to know the realm of
Darkness and the Prince of Darkness. For a time I hardly ventured to
pass through a dark room. I dared not sit at my book with an open door
behind me. Who might not step noiselessly in! And if there were a
mirror on the wall in front of me I would tremble with fear lest I
might see the Devil, standing with gleaming eyes at the back of my
chair.
When at length the impression made upon me by all these ghost and devil
stories passed away, I retained a strong repugnance to all darkness
terror, and to all who take advantage of the defenceless fear of the
ignorant for the powers of darkness.