“The doctor said he would come here today,”
said my father, after a silence. “I want
to know what he thinks about it, and what he thinks
we had better do.”
“Doctors never did me any good,” said
Carmilla.
“Then you have been ill?” I asked.
“More ill than ever you were,” she answered.
“Long ago?”
“Yes, a long time. I suffered from this
very illness; but I forget all but my pain and weakness,
and they were not so bad as are suffered in other
diseases.”
“You were very young then?”
“I dare say, let us talk no more of it.
You would not wound a friend?”
She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed her arm
round my waist lovingly, and led me out of the room.
My father was busy over some papers near the window.
“Why does your papa like to frighten us?”
said the pretty girl with a sigh and a little shudder.
“He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the
very furthest thing from his mind.”
“Are you afraid, dearest?”
“I should be very much if I fancied there was
any real danger of my being attacked as those poor
people were.”
“You are afraid to die?”
“Yes, every one is.”
“But to die as lovers may—to die
together, so that they may live together.
“Girls are caterpillars while they live in the
world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes;
but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don’t
you see—each with their peculiar propensities,
necessities and structure. So says Monsieur Buffon,
in his big book, in the next room.”
Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted
with papa for some time.
He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, he wore
powder, and shaved his pale face as smooth as a pumpkin.
He and papa emerged from the room together, and I
heard papa laugh, and say as they came out:
“Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you.
What do you say to hippogriffs and dragons?”
The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his
head—
“Nevertheless life and death are mysterious
states, and we know little of the resources of either.”
And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I
did not then know what the doctor had been broaching,
but I think I guess it now.
A Wonderful Likeness
This evening there arrived from Gratz the grave, dark-faced
son of the picture cleaner, with a horse and cart
laden with two large packing cases, having many pictures
in each. It was a journey of ten leagues, and
whenever a messenger arrived at the schloss from our
little capital of Gratz, we used to crowd about him
in the hall, to hear the news.
This arrival created in our secluded quarters quite
a sensation. The cases remained in the hall,
and the messenger was taken charge of by the servants
till he had eaten his supper. Then with assistants,
and armed with hammer, ripping chisel, and turnscrew,
he met us in the hall, where we had assembled to witness
the unpacking of the cases.
