Let us go to
sleep now; I feel so lazy. How can I get up just now and lock my door?”

She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her rich wavy hair, under
her cheek, her little head upon the pillow, and her glittering eyes
followed me wherever I moved, with a kind of shy smile that I could not
decipher. I bid her good night, and crept from the room with an uncomfortable
sensation. I often wondered whether our pretty guest ever said her prayers. I
certainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never
came down until long after our family prayers were over, and at night
she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in
the hall. If it had not been that it had casually come out in one of our careless
talks that she had been baptised, I should have doubted her being a
Christian. Religion was a subject on which I had never heard her speak
a word. If I had known the world better, this particular neglect or
antipathy would not have so much surprised me. The precautions of nervous people are infectious, and persons of a like
temperament are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them. I had
adopted Carmilla’s habit of locking her bedroom door, having taken into
my head all her whimsical alarms about midnight invaders and prowling
assassins. I had also adopted her precaution of making a brief search
through her room, to satisfy herself that no lurking assassin or robber
was “ensconced.”

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light
was burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, and
which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortifed I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through
stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their
persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh
at locksmiths. I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange
agony. I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being
asleep. But I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed,
precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its
furniture just as I had seen it last, except that it was very dark, and
I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I
could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was a
sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me
about four or five feet long for it measured fully the length of the
hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing
with the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not
cry out, although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was
growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length
so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt
it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face,
and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an
inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream. The room
was lighted by the candle that burnt there all through the night, and I
saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed, a little at the
right side. It was in a dark loose dress, and its hair was down and
covered its shoulders. A block of stone could not have been more still. There was not the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the
figure appeared to have changed its place, and was now nearer the door;
then, close to it, the door opened, and it passed out. I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move. My first thought was
that Carmilla had been playing me a trick, and that I had forgotten to
secure my door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on the
inside. I was afraid to open it—I was horrified. I sprang into my bed
and covered my head up in the bedclothes, and lay there more dead than
alive till morning. VII. Descending


It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even
now, I recall the occurrence of that night. It was no such transitory
terror as a dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by time, and
communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had
encompassed the apparition. I could not bear next day to be alone for a moment. I should have told
papa, but for two opposite reasons. At one time I thought he would
laugh at my story, and I could not bear its being treated as a jest;
and at another I thought he might fancy that I had been attacked by the
mysterious complaint which had invaded our neighborhood. I had myself
no misgiving of the kind, and as he had been rather an invalid for some
time, I was afraid of alarming him. I was comfortable enough with my good-natured companions, Madame
Perrodon, and the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both
perceived that I was out of spirits and nervous, and at length I told
them what lay so heavy at my heart. Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame Perrodon looked
anxious. “By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the long lime tree walk,
behind Carmilla’s bedroom window, is haunted!”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably thought the theme rather
inopportune, “and who tells that story, my dear?”

“Martin says that he came up twice, when the old yard gate was being
repaired, before sunrise, and twice saw the same female figure walking
down the lime tree avenue.”

“So he well might, as long as there are cows to milk in the river
fields,” said Madame. “I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened, and never did I see
fool more frightened.”

“You must not say a word about it to Carmilla, because she can see down
that walk from her room window,” I interposed, “and she is, if
possible, a greater coward than I.”

Carmilla came down rather later than usual that day. “I was so frightened last night,” she said, so soon as were together,
“and I am sure I should have seen something dreadful if it had not been
for that charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom I called
such hard names. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed,
and I awoke in a perfect horror, and I really thought, for some
seconds, I saw a dark figure near the chimneypiece, but I felt under my
pillow for my charm, and the moment my fingers touched it, the figure
disappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, that
something frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps,
throttled me, as it did those poor people we heard of. “Well, listen to me,” I began, and recounted my adventure, at the
recital of which she appeared horrified. “And had you the charm near you?” she asked, earnestly. “No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the drawing room, but I
shall certainly take it with me tonight, as you have so much faith in
it.”

At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or even understand, how I
overcame my horror so effectually as to lie alone in my room that
night. I remember distinctly that I pinned the charm to my pillow.