It is the nature of vampires to increase and
multiply, but according to an ascertained and ghostly law. “Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free from that pest. How
does it begin, and how does it multiply itself? I will tell you. A
person, more or less wicked, puts an end to himself. A suicide, under
certain circumstances, becomes a vampire. That specter visits living
people in their slumbers; they die, and almost invariably, in the
grave, develop into vampires. This happened in the case of the
beautiful Mircalla, who was haunted by one of those demons. My
ancestor, Vordenburg, whose title I still bear, soon discovered this,
and in the course of the studies to which he devoted himself, learned a
great deal more. “Among other things, he concluded that suspicion of vampirism would
probably fall, sooner or later, upon the dead Countess, who in life had
been his idol. He conceived a horror, be she what she might, of her
remains being profaned by the outrage of a posthumous execution. He has
left a curious paper to prove that the vampire, on its expulsion from
its amphibious existence, is projected into a far more horrible life;
and he resolved to save his once beloved Mircalla from this. “He adopted the stratagem of a journey here, a pretended removal of her
remains, and a real obliteration of her monument. When age had stolen
upon him, and from the vale of years, he looked back on the scenes he
was leaving, he considered, in a different spirit, what he had done,
and a horror took possession of him. He made the tracings and notes
which have guided me to the very spot, and drew up a confession of the
deception that he had practiced. If he had intended any further action
in this matter, death prevented him; and the hand of a remote
descendant has, too late for many, directed the pursuit to the lair of
the beast.”

We talked a little more, and among other things he said was this:

“One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand. The slender hand of
Mircalla closed like a vice of steel on the General’s wrist when he
raised the hatchet to strike. But its power is not confined to its
grasp; it leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, if
ever, recovered from.”

The following Spring my father took me a tour through Italy. We
remained away for more than a year. It was long before the terror of
recent events subsided; and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns
to memory with ambiguous alternations—sometimes the playful, languid,
beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined
church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the
light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door. Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu

The Cock and Anchor
Torlogh O’Brien
The House by the Churchyard
Uncle Silas
Checkmate
Carmilla
The Wyvern Mystery
Guy Deverell
Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery
The Chronicles of Golden Friars
In a Glass Darkly
The Purcell Papers
The Watcher and Other Weird Stories
A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories
Madam Growl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery
Green Tea and Other Stories
Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius
Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu
The Best Horror Stories
The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories
Ghost Stories and Mysteries
The Hours After Midnight
J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries
Ghost and Horror Stories
Green Tea and Other Ghost Stones