I
fell asleep almost immediately, and slept even more soundly than usual
all night. Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightfully deep and
dreamless. But I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however,
did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. “Well, I told you so,” said Carmilla, when I described my quiet sleep,
“I had such delightful sleep myself last night; I pinned the charm to
the breast of my nightdress. It was too far away the night before. I am
quite sure it was all fancy, except the dreams. I used to think that
evil spirits made dreams, but our doctor told me it is no such thing. Only a fever passing by, or some other malady, as they often do, he
said, knocks at the door, and not being able to get in, passes on, with
that alarm.”

“And what do you think the charm is?” said I. “It has been fumigated or immersed in some drug, and is an antidote
against the malaria,” she answered. “Then it acts only on the body?”

“Certainly; you don’t suppose that evil spirits are frightened by bits
of ribbon, or the perfumes of a druggist’s shop? No, these complaints,
wandering in the air, begin by trying the nerves, and so infect the
brain, but before they can seize upon you, the antidote repels them. That I am sure is what the charm has done for us. It is nothing
magical, it is simply natural. I should have been happier if I could have quite agreed with Carmilla,
but I did my best, and the impression was a little losing its force. For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the
same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a
changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy
that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open,
and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not
unwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this
induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. I would not admit that I was ill, I would not consent to tell my papa,
or to have the doctor sent for. Carmilla became more devoted to me than ever, and her strange paroxysms
of languid adoration more frequent. She used to gloat on me with
increasing ardor the more my strength and spirits waned. This always
shocked me like a momentary glare of insanity. Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of the
strangest illness under which mortal ever suffered. There was an
unaccountable fascination in its earlier symptoms that more than
reconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that stage of the malady. This fascination increased for a time, until it reached a certain
point, when gradually a sense of the horrible mingled itself with it,
deepening, as you shall hear, until it discolored and perverted the
whole state of my life. The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near
the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. Certain vague and strange sensations visited me in my sleep. The
prevailing one was of that pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we feel
in bathing, when we move against the current of a river. This was soon
accompanied by dreams that seemed interminable, and were so vague that
I could never recollect their scenery and persons, or any one connected
portion of their action. But they left an awful impression, and a sense
of exhaustion, as if I had passed through a long period of great mental
exertion and danger. After all these dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of having
been in a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom I
could not see; and especially of one clear voice, of a female’s, very
deep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always the
same sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there
came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer and
more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixed
itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and
full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation,
supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses
left me and I became unconscious. It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable
state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had
grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the
languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my
countenance. My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an obstinacy
which now seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that I
was quite well. In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could complain of no bodily
derangement. My complaint seemed to be one of the imagination, or the
nerves, and, horrible as my sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbid
reserve, very nearly to myself. It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called the
oupire, for I had now been suffering for three weeks, and they were
seldom ill for much more than three days, when death put an end to
their miseries. Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no means
of so alarming a kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming. Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked
aid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence
was acting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed. I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd
discovery. One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I
heard one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible, which said,

“Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin.” At the same time a
light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, near the
foot of my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her
feet, in one great stain of blood. I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the one idea that Carmilla was
being murdered. I remember springing from my bed, and my next
recollection is that of standing on the lobby, crying for help. Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out of their rooms in alarm; a
lamp burned always on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the
cause of my terror. I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door. Our knocking was
unanswered. It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all
was vain. We all grew frightened, for the door was locked. We hurried back, in
panic, to my room. There we rang the bell long and furiously. If my
father’s room had been at that side of the house, we would have called
him up at once to our aid. But, alas! he was quite out of hearing, and
to reach him involved an excursion for which we none of us had courage.