The officer who was usually so brave, stood as though
he was paralyzed for a few moments, but then he took
heart, and feeling determined to make the nearer acquaintance
of the spectral beauty, he crept softly up the broad
staircase and took up his position in a deep recess
in the cloisters, where nobody could see him.
He waited for a long time; he heard every quarter
strike, and at last, just before the close of the
witching hour, he heard the same noise like
the rustling of bats, and then she came, he felt the
flutter of her white dress, and she stood before him—it
was indeed the Countess.
He presented his pistol at her as he challenged her,
but she raised her hand menacingly. “Who
are you?” he exclaimed. “If you are
really a ghost, prove it, for I am going to fire.”
“For heaven’s sake!” the White Lady
whispered, and at the same instant two white arms were
thrown round him, and he felt a full, warm bosom heaving
against his own.
After that night the ghost appeared more frequently
still. Not only did the White Lady make
her appearance every night in the cloisters, only
to disappear in the proximity of the hussar’s
rooms as long as the family remained at the castle,
but she even followed them to Vienna.
Baron T., who went to that capital on leave of absence
during the following winter, and who was the Count’s
guest at the express wish of his wife, was frequently
told by the footman that although hitherto she had
seemed to be confined to the old castle in Bohemia,
she had shown herself now here, now there, in the
mansion in Vienna, in a white dress and making a noise
like the wings of a bat, and bearing a striking resemblance
to the beautiful Countess.
A young and charming lady, who was a member of the
Viennese aristocracy, went last summer, like young
and charming ladies usually do, to a fashionable Austrian
watering place, Carlsbad, which is much frequented
by foreigners, without her husband.
As is usually the case in their rank of life, she
had married from family considerations and for money;
and the short spell of Love after Marriage
was not sufficient to take deep root, and after she
had satisfied family traditions and her husband’s
wishes by giving birth to a son and heir, they both
went their way; the young, handsome and fascinating
man to his clubs, the race-course, and behind the scenes
at the theaters, and his charming, coquettish wife
to her box at the opera, to the ice in winter, and
to some fashionable watering place in the summer.
On the present occasion she brought a young, very
highly-connected Pole with her from one of the latter
resorts, who enjoyed all the rights and the liberty
of an avowed favorite, and who had to perform all the
duties of a slave.
