A VAMPIRE
Leaning idly against the chimney-piece the other night, contemplating
my companion in his usual attitude, my elbow happened to brush
off the slab a Turkish coin of small value and utterly illegible
inscription. How strangely things come back to one! I fancied myself
once more on the yellow wave of the broad Danube; once more threading
those interminable green hills that fringe its banks; once more
wondering whether the forest of Belgrade had been vouchsafed to
Eastern Europe as a type of Infinity, while its massive fortress,
with frowning rampart and lethargic Turkish sentries, was intended to
represent the combination of courage and sloth, of recklessness and
imperturbability, of apparent strength and real inefficiency, which
distinguishes most arrangements of the Ottoman Empire.
“Bakaloum” and “Bismillah!” “Take your chance!” and “Don’t care a d—n,”
seem to be the watchwords of this improvident Government. It lets the
ship steer herself; and she makes, I believe, as bad weather of it as
might be expected under such seamanship.
Engrossed far less, I admit, with political considerations than
with the picturesque appearance of a Servian population attending
their market, I rather startled my friend with the abruptness of the
following question:
“Do you believe there is such a thing as a Vampire?”
He rattled a little and almost rose to his feet, but re-seating
himself, only rejoined,
“Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking,” I replied, “of that romantic-looking peasantry I
used to see thronging the market-place of Belgrade. Of those tall,
handsome men, with the scowl never off their brows, their hands never
straying far from the bellyful of weapons they carried in their
shawls. Of those swarthy wild-eyed women, with their shrill, rapid
voices, their graceful, impatient gestures, carrying each of them the
available capital of herself and family strung in coins about her
raven hair, while on every tenth face at least, of both sexes, could
not fail to be observed the wan traces of that wasting disease which
seems to sap strength and vitality, gradually, and almost surely, as
consumption itself. Yes, I think for every score of peasants I could
have counted two of these ‘fever-faces,’ as the people themselves call
their ague-ridden companions, though I ascertained after a while,
when I came to know them better, that they attributed this decimation
of their numbers, and faded appearance of the victims, rather to
supernatural visitation than epidemic disease. They believe that in
certain cases, where life has been unusually irregular, or the rites
of religion reprehensibly neglected, the soul returns after death
to its original tenement, and the corpse becomes revivified under
certain ghastly conditions of a periodical return to the tomb and a
continual warfare against its kind. An intermittent existence is only
to be preserved at the expense of others, for the compact, while it
permits reanimation, withholds the blood, ‘which is the life thereof.’
The stream must therefore be drained from friends, neighbours, early
companions, nay, is most nourishing and efficacious when abstracted
from the veins of those heretofore best beloved. So the Vampire, as
this weird being is called, must steal from its grave in the dead
of night, to sit by some familiar bedside till the sleeper shall be
steeped in the unconsciousness of complete repose, and then puncturing
a minute orifice in the throat, will suck its fill till driven back
to its resting-place by the crimson streaks of day. Night after night
the visits must be repeated; and so, week by week, the victim pines
and droops and withers gradually away. There is no apparent illness,
no ostensible injury, but the frame dwindles, the muscles fall, the
limbs fail, the cheek fades, and the death-look, never to be mistaken,
comes into the great haggard, hollow, wistful eyes. I have repeatedly
asked the peasants whether they had ever met any of these supernatural
visitants, for they spoke of them so confidently, one might have
supposed the famished ghouls were flitting about the villages nightly;
but though presumptive evidence was forthcoming in volumes, I was
never fortunate enough to find an actual eye-witness. The sister of
one had been frightened by them repeatedly; the cousin of another
he had himself carried to her tomb, drained of her last life-drops
by a relative buried some weeks before; and the grandmother of a
third had not only met and talked with this inconvenient connection,
expostulating with it on its depraved appetites, and generally arguing
the point on moral as well as sanitary grounds, but had induced it by
her persuasions, and the power of a certain amulet she wore, to abstain
from persecuting a damsel in the neighbouring village for the same
ghastly purpose, or, at least, to put off its visits till the horrid
craving should be no longer endurable. Still I could meet nobody who
had actually seen one in person; and that is why I asked you just now
if you believed there was such a thing as a Vampire?”
He nodded gravely. “They are rare,” said he; “but I believe in such
beings, because I have not only seen one, but had the advantage of its
personal notice, and a very pretty, pleasing acquaintance it was! You
would like to know something more? Well, it compromises nobody. You
will not quote me, of course. Indeed I don’t see how you can, for I
still mention no real names. I don’t mind telling you the story of a
life, such as I knew it; a life that by some fatality seemed to drag
down every other that came within the sphere of its attractions to
sorrow, humiliation, and disgrace. I have no brain to swim, no pulses
to leap, no heart to ache left, and yet the memory stirs me painfully
even now.
“In early manhood,” he continued, bending down, as though to scan
his own fleshless proportions, with an air of consciousness that was
almost grotesque, “I paid as much heed to my personal appearance, and
flourished it about in public places as persistently as others of like
age and pursuits. Whether I should do so if I had my time to come
again, is a different question, but we will let that pass. Being then
young, tolerably good-looking, sufficiently conceited, and exceedingly
well-dressed, I had betaken myself one evening to your Italian Opera,
the best, and I may add the dearest, in Europe. I was fond of music and
knew something about it, but I was fonder still of pretty women, though
concerning these I enjoyed my full share of that ignorance which causes
men so to exaggerate their qualities both good and bad; an ignorance it
is worth while to preserve with as much care as in other matters we
take to acquire knowledge, for there is no denying, alas! that those
who know them best always seem to respect them least.
“I rose, therefore, from my stall at the first opportunity and turned
round to survey the house. Ere I had inspected a quarter of it, my
glasses were up, and I will tell you what they showed me—the most
perfect face I ever saw. Straight nose, thin and delicately cut,
large black eyes, regular eyebrows, faultless chin, terminating a
complete oval, the whole set in a frame of jet-black hair. Even my next
neighbour, who, from an observation he let fall to a friend, belonged
apparently to the Household Troops, could not refrain from ejaculating,
‘By Jove, she’s a ripper!’ the moment he caught sight of the object on
which my gaze was fixed.
“I saw something else too. I saw that the lady by her side was a
foreigner with whom I had long been acquainted; so edging my way into
the passages, in two minutes I was tapping at their box-door like a man
who felt pretty sure of being let in.
“The foreigner introduced me to her friend, and as the second act of
the opera was already in progress, told me to sit down and hold my
tongue. We were four in the box. Another gentleman was placed close
behind the lady who first attracted my attention. I had only eyes just
then, however, for the wild, unearthly beauty of my new acquaintance.
“I have seen hundreds of pretty women, and even in youth my heart, from
temperament, perhaps, rather than reflection, was as hard as my ribs;
but this face fascinated me—I can use no other word. My sensations were
so strangely compounded of admiration, horror, interest, curiosity,
attraction, and dislike. The eyes were deep and dark, yet with the
glitter in them of a hawk’s, the cheek deadly pale, the lips bright
red. She was different from anything I had ever seen, and yet so
wonderfully beautiful! I longed to hear her speak. Presently she
whispered a few words to the man behind her, and I felt my flesh creep.
Low as they were modulated, there was in every syllable a tone of such
utter hopelessness, such abiding sorrow, regret, even remorse, always
present, always kept down, that I could have imagined her one of those
lost spirits for whom is fixed the punishment of all most cruel, most
intolerable, that they can never forget they are formed for better
things. Her gestures, too, were in accordance with the sad, suggestive
music of her voice—quiet, graceful, and somewhat listless in the
repose, as it seemed, rather of unhappiness than of indolence. I tell
you I was not susceptible; I don’t think boys generally are. In love,
more than in any other extravagance, ‘there is no fool like an old one.’
“I was as little given to romance as a ladies’ doctor; and yet, sitting
in that box watching the turn of her beautiful head as she looked
towards the stage, I said to myself, ‘I’ll take good care she never
gets the upper hand of _me_. If a man once allowed himself to like
her at all, she is just the sort of woman who would blight his whole
life for him, and hunt the poor devil down to his grave!’ Somebody else
seemed to have no such misgivings, or to have arrived at a stage of
infatuation when all personal considerations had gone by the board. If
ever I saw a calf led to the slaughter it was Count V——, a calf, too,
whose throat few women could have cut without compunction. Handsome,
manly, rich, affectionate, and sincere, worshipping his deity with all
the reckless devotion, all the unscrupulous generosity of his brave
Hungarian heart, I saw his very lip quiver under its heavy moustache
when she turned her glittering eyes on him with some allusion called up
by the business of the stage, and the proud, manly face that had never
quailed before an enemy grew white in the intensity of its emotion.
What made me think of a stag I once found lying dead in a Styrian pass,
and a golden eagle feasting on him with her talons buried in his heart?
“The Gräfinn, to whom the box belonged, noticed my abstraction. ‘Don’t
fall in love with her,’ she whispered; ‘I can’t spare you just yet.
Isn’t she beautiful?’
“‘You introduced me,’ was my answer, ‘but you never told me her name.’
“‘How stupid!’ said the Gräfinn. ‘At present she is a Madame _de_ St.
Croix, an Englishwoman, nevertheless, and a widow, but not likely to
remain so long.’ And with a mischievous laugh she gave me her hand
as I left the box, bowing to Madame _de_ St. Croix and also to the
Hungarian, who in his happy pre-occupation was perfectly unconscious of
my politeness.
“I saw them again in the crush-room. The Gräfinn had picked up an
_attaché_ to some legation, who put her dutifully into her carriage.
The Hungarian was still completely engrossed with Madame _de_ St.
Croix. I have not yet forgotten the look on his handsome face when she
drove off with her friend. ‘He’s a fool,’ I said to myself; ‘and yet a
woman might well be proud to make a fool of such a man as that.’
“I left London in the middle of the season and thought no more of
Madame _de_ St. Croix. I had seen a pretty picture, I had heard a
strain of sweet music, I had turned over the page of an amusing
romance—there was an end of it.
“The following winter I happened to spend in Vienna. Of course I went
to one of the masked balls of _The Redouten-Saal_. I had not been ten
minutes in the room when my ears thrilled to the low, seductive accents
of that well-remembered voice. There she was again, masked, of course,
but it was impossible to mistake the slim, pliant figure, the graceful
gestures, the turn of the beautiful head, and the quiet energy that
betrayed itself, even in the small, gloved hand. She was talking to a
well-known Russian magnate less remarkable for purity of morals than
diplomatic celebrity, boundless extravagance, and devotion to the other
sex. To be on terms of common friendship with such a man was at least
compromising to any lady under sixty years of age; and it is needless
to say that his society was courted and appreciated accordingly.
“Madame _de_ St. Croix seemed well satisfied with her neighbour; and
though in her outward manner the least demonstrative of women, I could
detect through her mask the same cruel glitter in her dark eyes that
had so fascinated me, six months before, in the Gräfinn’s opera-box.
The Russian talked volubly, and she leaned towards him, as those do
who are willing to hear more. _Château qui parle_ furls its banner,
_femme qui écoute_ droops her head. Directly opposite, looking very
tall and fierce as he reared himself against the doorway, stood Count
V——. The Hungarian was pale as death. On his face, so worn and haggard,
so cruelly altered since I saw it last, was set the stamp of physical
pain, and he gnawed the corner of his brown moustache with that tension
of the muscles about the mouth which denotes a paroxysm bravely kept
down. As friends accosted him in passing, he bowed his head kindly and
courteously while his whole face softened, but it was sad to see how
soon the gleam passed away and the cloud came back, darker and heavier
than before. The man’s heart, you see, was generous, kindly, and full
of trust—such a heart as women like Madame _de_ St. Croix find it an
interesting amusement to break.
“I think he must have made her some kind of appeal; for later in the
evening I observed them together, and he was talking earnestly in
German, with a low pleading murmur, to which I thought few women could
have listened unmoved. She answered in French; and I was sorry for
him when she broke up the colloquy with a little scornful shrug of
her shoulders, observing in a hard, unfeeling tone not like her usual
voice, ‘Que voulez-vous? Enfin, c’est plus fort que moi!’
“The Russian put her into her sledge, for there was a foot of snow in
the streets, and Count V—— walked home through it, with a smile on his
face and his head up, looking strangely elated, I thought, for a man,
the last strand of whose moorings had lately parted and left him adrift.
“I had not then learned there is no temporary stimulant so powerful as
despair, no tonic so reviving as a _parti pris_.
“Next day, lounging into the _Chancellerie_ of the Embassy for my usual
gossip, I found little Hughes, an unpaid _attaché_ (who earned, indeed,
just as much as he received), holding forth with considerable spirit
and energy.
“‘Curse him!’ said this indomitable young Briton. ‘If it had been
swords, I should like to have fought him myself. I hate him! I tell
you. Everybody hates him. And V—— was the best chap between here
and Orsova. He was almost like an Englishman. Wouldn’t he just have
polished him off if they’d had swords. That old muff, Bergheimer of
the Cuirassiers, ought to be hanged. Do you think, if _I’d_ been his
second, I’d have put him up with pistols against the best shot in
Europe?—and at the barrier too! It’s not like at home, you know. I
never knew such a mull as they made of it amongst them. This cursed
Calmuck gets the pull all through, and poor V——, who had lost his
fortune already, loses his lady-love and his life. What a rum world it
is!’
“Here the orator rolled and lit a cigarette, thus affording me a moment
to inquire into the cause of his indignation. I then learned that, in
consequence of a trifling dispute after last night’s ball, a duel had
been fought at daybreak, in the snow, between Count V—— and a Russian
nobleman, in which the former was shot through the heart.
“‘Never got _one_ in at all!’ said Hughes, again waxing eloquent on
his friend’s wrongs. ‘I’ve seen both the seconds since. They were
to walk up to a handkerchief, and the Russian potted him at forty
yards the first step he made. They may say what they like about the
row originating in politics—I know better. They quarrelled because
Madame _de_ St. Croix had left V—— and taken up with this snub-nosed
Tartar. First, she ruined my poor friend. I know all about it. He
hadn’t a rap left; for if she’d asked him for the shirt off his back,
he’d have stripped like beans! Then she broke his heart—the cheeriest,
jolliest, kindest fellow in Europe—to finish up by leaving him for
another man, who kills him before breakfast without a scruple; and if
the devil don’t get hold of _her_ some fine day, why he’s a disgrace to
his appointment, that’s all! and they ought to make him Secretary of
Legation here, or pension him off somewhere and put him out of the way!
Have another cigarette!’
“Ten years afterwards I was sitting in the gardens of the Tuileries,
one fine morning towards the middle of May, wondering, as English
people always do wonder, on a variety of subjects—why the cigars were
so bad in Paris, and the air so exhilarating—why the tender green
leaves quivering over those deep alleys should have a sunshine of
their own besides that which they reflected from above—why the _bonnes_
and nursery-maids wore clean caps every day—why the railings always
looked as if they had been re-gilt the same morning, and why the sentry
at the gate should think it part of his duty to leer at every woman who
passed, like a satyr?
“Indeed I believe I was almost asleep, when I started in my chair,
and rubbed my eyes to make sure it was not a dream. There, within ten
paces of me, sat Madame _de_ St. Croix, if I was still to call her so,
apparently not an hour older than the first time we met. The face was
even paler, the lips redder, the cruel eyes deeper and darker, but in
that flickering light the woman looked more beautiful than ever. She
was listening quietly and indolently, as of old, to a gentleman who
sat with his back to me, telling his own story, whatever it might be,
in a low, earnest, impressive voice. I raised my hat when I caught her
eye, and she bowed in return politely enough, but obviously without
recognition. The movement caused her companion to turn round, and in
two strides he was by my chair, grasping me cordially by the hand.
He was an old and intimate friend, a colonel in the French army, by
whose side I had experienced more than one strange adventure, both in
Eastern Europe and Asia-Minor—a man who had served with distinction,
of middle age, a widower, fond of society, field-sports, speculation,
and travelling; essentially _bon camarade_, but thoroughly French in
his reflections and opinions. The last man in the world, I should
have thought, to be made a fool of by a woman. Well, there he was,
her bounden slave! Absurdly happy if she smiled, miserable when she
frowned, ready to fetch and carry like a poodle, perfectly childish
about her, and utterly contemptible. If she had really cared for
him, the temptation must have been irresistible, and she would have
bullied him frightfully. But no, there was always the same repose of
manner, the same careless kindness, the same melancholy, the same
consciousness of an unquestionable superiority. One of his reasons, he
soon confided to me, for being so fond of her was, that they never had
an angry word! For a week or two I saw a good deal of them. Paris was
already empty, and we did our plays, our Opéra Comique, and our little
dinners pleasantly enough. She was always the same, and I found myself,
day by day, becoming more conscious of that nameless charm about her,
which I should despair of being able to describe. Yet as often as I met
the glance of those deep, dark, unearthly eyes, a shudder crept over
me, such as chills you when you come face to face with a ghost in your
dreams. The colonel, I have said, was devoted to her. He was rarely
absent from her side, but if by chance alone with me, would talk of her
by the hour.
“He had found, he declared, fortunately before he was too old to
appreciate it, the one inestimable treasure the earth contained. He had
cherished his fancies, committed his follies, of course, _tout comme
un autre_, but he had never experienced anything like this. It was his
haven, his anchorage, his resting-place, and he might glide down into
old age, and on to death, perfectly happy, because confident, that with
_her_ heart and _her_ force of character, she would never change. He
could not be jealous of her. Oh no! She was so frank, so confiding,
so sincere. She, too, _passé par là_, had told him so; unlike other
women, had confessed to him not only her last, but her many former
attachments. He knew all about poor V——, who was shot in a duel, and
the Russian general, banished to Siberia. How fortunate she had broken
with him before his disgrace, because, in the loyalty of her nature,
she would surely have followed him into exile, although she never cared
for him in her heart, never! No, nor for any of the others; never had
been fairly touched till now. Him, the colonel, she really _did_ love.
He had proved his devotion so thoroughly (I found out afterwards,
though not from him, that my friend had been fool enough to sacrifice
both fortune and profession for her sake), he was so reliable, she
said, so kind, and so _good_. In short, he was perfectly happy, and
could see no cloud in his horizon, look which way he would.
“When I left Paris they accompanied me to the railway station; and the
last I saw of them was their two heads very close over a railway guide,
projecting a trip into a lonely part of Switzerland, where they would
have no society but their own.
“Six months afterwards ‘Galignani’ informed me that my friend the
colonel had been reinstated in the French army and appointed to a
regiment of Chasseurs d’Afrique then serving in Algeria, where, before
the Tuileries Gardens were again green, I learned from the same source
he had already solved the great problem in an affair of outposts with
the Khabyles. Long years elapsed, and there were streaks of grey in my
hair and whiskers ere I saw Madame _de_ St. Croix again. I had heard
of her, indeed, at intervals both in London and Paris. I am bound
to say her name was always coupled with those who were distinguished
by birth, talent, or success. She was very choice, I believe, in the
selection of her victims, despising equally an easy conquest and one
of which the ravages could be readily repaired. The women hated her,
the men said she was charming. For my part I kept out of her way: we
were destined to meet, nevertheless. I had embarked in a Peninsular and
Oriental steamer at Marseilles very much indisposed, and retiring at
once to my berth never quitted it till we were entering the Straits of
Buoni-faccio. Here I came on deck, weak, exhausted, but convalescent,
drinking in the sunshine and the scenery with that thirst for the
beautiful which becomes so fierce after the confinement of recent
illness. I literally revelled in the Mediterranean air, and basked in
the warmth of those bright colours so peculiar to the shores of that
summer sea. I was approaching middle age; I had ventured body and mind
freely enough in the great conflict; and yet, I thank heaven, had
hitherto been spared the crushing sorrow that makes a mockery of the
noblest and purest enjoyments of earth, causing a man to turn from all
that is fairest in sight and sense and sound with the sickness of a
dead hope curdling at his heart. But then I had kept clear of Madame
_de_ St. Croix.
“When my eyes were at last sated with the gaudy hues of the coast and
the golden glitter of the water, I was a little surprised to see that
lady sitting within three paces of me reading a yellow-bound French
novel. Great heaven! what was the woman’s secret? She looked younger
than ever! Even in the searching glare of a southern noon not a line
could be detected on the pure, pale forehead, not a crease about the
large, wistful, glittering eyes. That she was gifted with perennial
youth I could see for myself; that she was dangerous even to the
peace of a grey-haired man, I might have found out to my cost had
our voyage been retarded by contrary winds or any such unavoidable
delay, for she was good enough to recognise me on this occasion, and
to give me a large share of her conversation and companionship. Thus
it was I learned to own the spell under which so many had succumbed,
to appreciate its power, not to understand, far less describe, its
nature. Fortunately for me, ere its work could be completed, we arrived
at Athens, and at Athens lay a trim, rakish-looking English yacht,
with her ensign flying and her foretopsail loosed, waiting only the
steamer’s arrival to spread her wings and bear off this seductive
sorceress to some garden of paradise in the Egean Sea.
“The owner of the yacht I had often heard of. He was a man remarkable
for his enterprise and unfailing success in commerce as for his
liberality, and indeed extravagance, in expenditure. He chose to have
houses, pictures, horses, plate, everything of the best, was justly
popular in society, and enormously rich.
“I never asked and never knew the port to which that yacht was
bound. When we steamed out of the harbour she was already hull-down
in the wake of a crimson sunset that seemed to stain the waters with
a broad track of blood; but I saw her sold within eighteen months at
Southampton, for her late owner’s name had appeared in the ‘Gazette,’
and the man himself, I was told, might be found, looking very old and
careworn, setting cabbages at Hanwell, watching eagerly for the arrival
of a lady who never came.
“You may believe I thought more than once of the woman whose strange
destiny it had been thus to enslave generation after generation of
fools, and to love whom seemed as fatal as to be a priest of Aricia
or a favourite of Catharine II. Nevertheless, while time wore on,
I gradually ceased to think of her beauty, her heartlessness, her
mysterious youth, or her magic influence over mankind. Presently,
amongst a thousand engrossing occupations and interests, I forgot her
as if she had never been.
“I have driven a good many vehicles in my time, drags, phaetons,
dogcarts, down to a basket-carriage drawn by a piebald pony with a
hog-mane. Nay, I once steered a hansom cab up Bond Street in the early
morning, freighted with more subalterns than I should like to specify
of her Majesty’s Household Troops, but I never thought I should come to
a bath chair!
“Nevertheless I found myself at last an inside passenger of one of
these locomotive couches, enjoying the quiet and the air of the
gardens at Hampton Court in complete and uninterrupted solitude. The
man who dragged me to this pleasant spot having gone to ‘get his
dinner,’ as he called it, and the nursery-maids, with their interesting
charges, having retired from their morning, and not yet emerged for
their afternoon stroll, I lay back, and thought of so many things—of
the strength and manhood that had departed from me for ever; of the
strange, dull calm that comes on with the evening of life, and contents
us so well we would not have its morning back if we could; of the
_gradual clairvoyance_ that shows us everything in its true colours
and at its real value; of the days, and months, and years so cruelly
wasted, but that their pleasures, their excitements, their sins, their
sorrows, and their sufferings, were indispensable for the great lesson
which teaches us _to see_. Of these things I thought, and through them
still, as at all times, moved the pale presence of an unforgotten face,
passing like a spirit, dim and distant, yet dear as ever, across the
gulf of years—a presence that, for good or evil, was to haunt me to the
end.
“Something in the association of ideas reminded me of Madame _de_ St.
Croix, and I said to myself, ‘At last age must have overtaken that
marvellous beauty, and time brought the indomitable spirit to remorse,
repentance, perhaps even amendment. What can have made me think of her
in a quiet, peaceful scene like this?’
“Just then a lady and gentleman crossed the gravel walk in front of
me, and took their places on a seat under an old tree not a dozen yards
off. It was a lovely day in early autumn; the flowers were still ablaze
with the gaudiest of their summer beauty, the sky was all dappled grey
and gold, earth had put on the richest dress she wears throughout the
year; but here and there a leaf fell noiseless on the sward, as if
to testify that she too must shed all her glories in due season, and
yield, like other beauties, her unwilling tribute to decay.
“But there was nothing of autumn in the pair who now sat opposite my
couch, chatting, laughing, flirting, apparently either ignoring or
disregarding my proximity. The man was in all the bloom and beauty of
youth; the woman, though looking a few years older, did not yet seem
to have attained her prime. I could scarcely believe my eyes! Yes,
if ever I beheld Madame _de_ St. Croix, there she sat with her fatal
gaze turned on this infatuated boy, leading him gradually, steadily,
surely, to the edge of that chasm into which those who plunged came
to the surface nevermore. It was the old story over again. How well
I remembered, even after such an interval, the tender droop of the
head, the veiling eyelashes, the glance so quickly averted, yet, like
a snapshot, telling with such deadly effect; the mournful smile, the
gentle whisper, the quiet confiding gesture of the slender hand,
all the by-play of the most accomplished and most unscrupulous of
actresses. There was no more chance of escape for her companion than
for a fisherman of the North Sea, whose skiff has been sucked into the
Maëlstrohm, with mast unshipped and oars adrift half a mile astern.
By sight, if not personally, I then knew most of the notabilities of
the day. The boy, for such I might well call him in comparison with
myself, seemed too good for his fate, and yet I saw well enough it
was inevitable. He had already made himself a name as a poet of no
mean pretensions, and held besides the character of a high-spirited,
agreeable, and unaffected member of society. Add to this, that he was
manly, good-looking, and well-born; nothing more seemed wanting to
render him a fit victim for the altar at which he was to be offered up.
Like his predecessors, he was fascinated. The snake held him in her
eye. The poor bird’s wings were fluttering, its volition was gone, its
doom sealed. Could nothing save it from the destroyer? I longed to have
back, if only for a day, the powers which I had regretted so little
half-an-hour ago. Weak, helpless, weary, and worn-out, I yet determined
to make an effort, and save him if I could.
“They rose to go, but found the gate locked through which they had
intended to pass. She had a way of affecting a pretty wilfulness in
trifles, and sent him to fetch the key. Prompt to obey her lightest
wish, he bounded off in search of it, and following slowly, she passed
within two paces of my chair, bending on its helpless invalid a look
that seemed to express far less pity for his condition than a grudging
envy of his lot. I stopped her with a gesture that in one more
able-bodied would have been a bow, and, strange to say, she recognised
me at once. There was not a moment to lose. I took courage from a
certain wistful look that gave softness to her eyes, and I spoke out.
“‘We shall never meet again,’ I said; ‘we have crossed each other’s
paths at such long intervals, and on such strange occasions, but I know
this is the last of them! Why time stands still for _you_ is a secret
I cannot fathom, but the end must come some day, put it off however
long you will. Do you not think that when you become as I am, a weary
mortal, stumbling with half-shut eyes on the edge of an open grave, it
would be well to have one good deed on which you could look back, to
have reprieved one out of the many victims on whom you have inflicted
mortal punishment for the offence of loving you so much better than you
deserve? Far as it stretches behind you, every footstep in your track
is marked with sorrow—more than one with blood. Show mercy now, as you
may have to ask it hereafter. Life is all before this one, and it seems
cruel thus to blast the sapling from its very roots. He is hopeful,
trustful, and fresh-hearted—spare him and let him go.’
“She was fitting the glove on her faultless little hand. Her brow
seemed so calm, so soft and pure, that for a moment I thought I had
conquered, but looking up from her feminine employment, I recognised
the hungry glitter in those dark, merciless eyes, and I knew there was
no hope.
“‘It is too late,’ she answered, ‘too late to persuade either him or
me. It is no fault of mine. It is fate. For him—for the others—for all
of us. Sometimes I wish it had not been so. Mine has been an unhappy
life, and there seems to be no end, no resting-place. I can no more
help myself than a drowning wretch, swept down by a torrent; but I am
too proud to catch at the twigs and straws that would break off in my
hand. I would change places with you willingly. Yes—you in that bath
chair. I am so tired sometimes, and yet I dare not wish it was all
over. Think of me as forbearingly as you can, for we shall not cross
each other’s path again.’
“‘And this boy?’ I asked, striving to detect something of compunction
in the pitiless face that was yet so beautiful.
“‘He must take his chance with the rest,’ she said. ‘Here he
comes—good-bye.’
“They walked away arm-in-arm through the golden autumn weather, and a
chill came into my very heart, for I knew what that chance was worth.
“A few months, and the snow lay six inches deep over the grave of him
whose opening manhood had been so full of promise, so rich in all that
makes youth brightest, life most worth having; while a woman in deep
mourning was praying there, under the wintry sky; but this woman was
his mother, and her heart was broken for the love she bore her boy.
“His death had been very shocking, very sudden. People talked of a
ruptured blood-vessel, a fall on his bedroom floor, a doctor not
to be found when sent for; a series of fatalities that precluded
the possibility of saving him; but those who pretended to know best
affirmed that not all the doctors in Europe could have done any good,
for when his servant went to call him in the morning he found his
master lying stark and stiff, having been dead some hours. There was
a pool of blood on his carpet; there were ashes of burnt letters in
his fireplace; more, they whispered with meaning shrugs and solemn,
awe-struck faces—
‘There was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.’
“You can understand now that I believe in Vampires.”
“What became of her?” I asked, rather eagerly, for I was interested
in this Madame _de_ St. Croix. I like a woman who goes into extremes,
either for good or evil. Great recklessness, equally with great
sensibility, has its charm for such a temperament as mine. I can
understand, though I cannot explain, the influence possessed by very
wicked women who never scruple to risk their own happiness as readily
as their neighbours’. I wanted to know something more about Madame
_de_ St. Croix, but he was not listening; he paid no attention to my
question. In a tone of abstraction that denoted his thoughts were many
miles away, he only murmured,
“Insatiate—impenetrable—pitiless. The others were bad enough in all
conscience, but I think she might have spared the boy!”