‘A mother appeals for her child to your charity, she has but a short time to live, but her child has not a broken heart. Julia.’
Berchtold had been written, but a tear had effaced the characters. There was the name of an obscure street in the most retired part of Milan.
I immediately repaired thither, and soon found myself in an abode of misery I cannot describe. It was upon the highest story, the roof in several parts let in the hot ray of the sun, and the window was not glazed, but stuffed with dirty rags. It could not be called a shelter, for the floor bore on its black soft texture the marks of every cloud that had passed over it. In one corner there was a bedstead, over which was spread a blanket, that seemed not to have been removed for many years, it was so black and thick with dirt. A broken dish and rags, which I but too well recognised as the remnants of my sister’s dress, were the only things upon the floor. I heard a difficult breathing, which proceeded from the bed. I approached, and found my sister. She was pale and squalid, her hair, entangled and loose, covered her face and bosom, and her clasped hands hung from the bed. She was apparently asleep, and her child was grasping her breast with its little hand, trying in vain to obtain sustenance from its fevered mother. I stood for some time gazing upon her; finding she slept soundly, I descended the creaking stairs, and sending some person of the house for clothes and food, I waited till they returned and carried them up with me. The noise I made awakened her, she shrunk from me; ‘I did not call you for myself, but this child’s cry pierced my heart, – do, do not therefore curse me, if I have even brought you to witness your sister’s infamy. I could not die and leave my child sinking unaided upon my putrid corpse.’ I spoke kindly to her, she looked upon me, and said, ‘Ernestus,’ with an incredulous voice, and burst into tears. I soothed her, spoke to her of her child, induced her to take a little nourishment, and saw her feed her little babe. She looked at its eager eye and face while feeding, at moments hugged it to her bosom, while a stifled laugh escaped her; she did not seem to notice me, and I spoke not. At last she fell exhausted upon the bed. I gave her the clothes I had brought, she did not heed me.
I hastened to Doni, related what I had seen; he ordered every thing to be got ready at the palace, and procuring a litter he accompanied me to the abode of my wretched Julia. At sight of him, she hid her face, and would not speak. I had her conveyed to the litter with her child, and we arrived at the palace. The physician of the family being sent for, announced to us, that from the state of exhaustion, into which she had fallen, there were but a few hours remaining of her life. I watched by her all night, she did not speak; I took Louisa for my model, and spoke to her of those hopes which had seemed on her lips to have the power of soothing sickness, and to still the fears of death. She was moved by what I said, for her cold hand pressed mine. I put questions to her with regard to her seducer; she was silent; but a convulsive motion seemed to seize her whole features. I urged her no more. She seemed to revive a little in the morning; auguring well from it, I began to speak to her of her child, talked to her of its health, said it should be named Ernestus, and promised that I would be its father. She raised her fallen head, and looking with tears in her eyes, blessed me, but hardly had the words fallen from her lips, when shuddering, she said, ‘My blessing! that, that’s a curse.’ I took her to my breast, she shrunk from me, ‘You know not whom you embrace.’ ‘It is my sister, whom I hold in my arms,’ I cried, she burst into loud sobs, and fell again, upon her pillow. ‘You shall hear,’ she replied, ‘what a sister!’ She prepared to relate to me the whole of her late history; I advised her to repose awhile first. ‘Well, well, I shall have the less time to feel the blush of shame, and to hear your reproaches, ’tis better so.’ She fell asleep after uttering these words, but she was restless, her face was convulsed, and the twitching of her arms began to give the signs of the rapid approach of death.
I seized this moment of apparent rest to inquire for Louisa. She was much better; we had kept our discovery of Julia a secret, fearful of agitating her too much; I determined therefore to see her, lest, making some inquiry concerning me, she might hear how I was engaged. I entered her room, and staid with her for some time; she spoke of her love, and added, that all that she thought wanting was the presence of her brother and Julia. I could not answer, but rose, and again went to my unconscious sister. She was disturbed in her sleep, and was calling upon Louisa’s name; she seemed to reproach her for not seeing her; but then she appeared to meditate and said; ‘True, true, I am an outcast.’ She awoke, looked wildly around, met my eye. She was lost some time in thought, and then addressed me; ‘I know what you are waiting for but ere I unfold the whole of my shame, give me your solemn promise that you will grant your sister her last dying request.’ I gave it her. ‘You will then never mention to either of my former friends what I narrate, and you will let me die, certain that you will never injure him that ruined me, for still, still I love him.’ I assured her, that I would leave it to Heaven to punish him, for I was conscious it was Olivieri, Louisa’s brother. It was him, the account that I had given of his bravery in the Swiss war, the description I had made of his daring feats had gained an entire possession of her imagination. When, therefore, she met him at Milan, his beauty, his specious manner and apparent knowledge had completed her fascination. I myself, when bewildered by doubts, had sapped the foundation of her religious principles; and Olivieri, who was not blind to her partiality, had fanned the spark of scepticism, till he had destroyed all belief in virtue and a future state. I lost myself at the gambling table; and my conduct was but an additional proof in her mind, that the present was all that belonged to man. Before we left Milan, the seducer accomplished his criminal purpose. Though however, she had become a convert to his theories, she could not divest herself of all feeling of shame, much less could she entirely drive from her heart those doctrines which Berchtold had instilled at that age when the first impressions become part of our very nature; they hung around her, and haunted her day and night; she had sought for courage to apply to Louisa or myself in her difficulties, but had not dared.
Her mind being in this state, she described the effect upon it, at sight of that being almost lost amidst the ambient air in conversation with Doni, as wonderful. Her mind had immediately recovered its elasticity, for she hoped, if she could obtain communication with such a being, to be able to find some certainty amidst the horrid doubts that revelled in her mind, and to procure the means of hiding her shame, or daring to face the day, by means of its power. Determined to learn the spell which could raise a transparent, all-pervading being, she resolved to watch, without remission, the conduct of the Count; she learnt nothing for some time. He apparently differed in no habit from the others around. But the impression in her mind was not effaced: at last it appeared to her that upon certain days, the Count never touched animal food, and she found by observation that this happened on every combination of seven in the days of the month. Upon inquiry amongst the servants, she found that upon the morning of those days, the room of Doni was always in the greatest confusion, and she herself remarked, that upon the evening preceding, he seemed always more anxious, and the day after more fatigued than usual.
Julia resolved to watch the Count upon the next seventh night; she found that it was possible to look into his room through the wainscot of a closet for wood that opened into the passage leading to his apartment. The night came, meat had been avoided, all were gone to their rooms, only the footsteps of the domestics arranging every thing for rest, sounded on her ear; she described herself, as having listened apparently for hours, though only minutes elapsed, while these sounds continued. At last, all was silent; she said, that not even the vine leaves overspreading her casement were heard to rustle; for every breeze was hushed, all was so quiet, that the ear seemed to feel as it were the silence. She was awed, her heart beat quick, she held her breath; at that moment she thought a slow step sounded along the corridor; alarmed she knew not why, she seized her lamp, and was upon the
point of rushing out, when the door slowly opened, and a figure clad in a white robe entered; its dark black eye was fixed; its grey locks seemed as if no breath of air could move their weight; no sign of life, save the moving feet belonged to it, for the face was pale, the lips blueish. It approached with an unvarying step; it was Doni! its hand took hers within its cold grasp, its eye shone, as if a tear had passed over it, its lips quivered as if it wished to speak, or thought it spoke. She stood still, motionless; while it approached, it seemed as if she had strength for any thing, but when it turned to go, the lamp fell from her hand, and she fell upon the floor. It was morn, ere her wildered senses returned, it was too late. Doni never noticed in any way the event of that night. She was bewildered, she knew not what to think, it seemed from his unchanged conduct towards her, that he was unconscious of the event. Yet she asserted that she could not have mistaken the features of him who had visited her in that awful manner; her imagination laboured, her judgement laid down the balance and became as dead. Her phantasy painted to her mind pictures of splendour and of power, more brilliant than those of the Arab tale-teller, or God creating Bramin. But more than all, it represented to her the means of ensuring Olivieri’s love, which she could no longer flatter herself she possessed; he had not seen her, but for a moment, since she had left Milan dishonoured, and then it was but to laugh at her fears, which she was but too conscious were not in vain.
Day followed day towards the seventh. At times she caught Doni’s eye fixed upon her, as if it sought to read her mind; but she thought this might be imagination, yet it seemed to her as if her intentions were divined, and that from some cause or other, they could not be opposed, else why this silence? The fatal night came. Julia, determined to brave every thing, went down that evening, which she had not lately done, to supper. Her agitation was great, but she forced herself to conceal it. She was conscious the Count’s eyes were fixed upon hers, yet she dared not to look up and meet his. She rose to depart, he came to her to say good night, his voice failed him, his hand shook. She retired to her room; she determined, frightened by the awful silence of her protector, to give up her intention. She threw herself upon her bed, but sleep abandoned her, or if it for a moment came, it presented such brilliant visions to her eye, that nothing mortal was to be compared to it. She seemed to have spirits instead of pages to attend her, genii instead of servants. It seemed as if at their bidding the very earth would heave and show within its entrails, all its richest treasures. Olivieri appeared joined with her in this state of power. She roused herself. The clock with its solemn peal seemed trembling to intrude upon the solemn night. One might have thought nature were dead, for not even the owl shrieked, and the darkness and nocturnal sleep that weighed on the earth, seemed no longer the type of the eternal rest of the world, but its fulfilment, all appeared sunk into such undisturbed repose. Julia alone seemed living, she looked in the creation like the Arab in the sandy plain, animate amidst inanimation, organised amidst unorganised matter. Even she must have appeared as if she were some spirit of another more restless sphere, for her hurrying glance, the fearful resolution breathing in her face, must have made her bear the stamp of something more than mortality. She seized her lamp, started, then advanced, and laughed with that laugh which plays upon the lips, when the heart ceases to beat through violence of feeling.
At last she reached the gallery of her protector’s room; she opened with a trembling hand, the door of the adjoining closet, and entered. The dread silence still continued, it was only broken by the loud breathing of her heaving bosom. She sat down upon the pile of wood in the corner of the closet. She could not find courage to pursue her undertaking; at last a deep groan made her start; terrified she leant against the wall; as she gradually recovered herself, she raised her eyes, and looked through a crevice that opened to her sight the Count’s room. I could not learn what she saw, she however informed me that she discovered the means of raising a superior being; but that startled at his appearance, she had sunk to the ground. She found herself, when recovered, upon her bed, but no one was near her. She determined to put her power into effect the ensuing night. She would not join the family at breakfast, but remained in her room all day. She did attempt to raise a spirit, but what was her horror, when the walls of her apartment echoed but scoffs and mockings, they seemed to say that she needed not a greater price than the gratification of her passions, and that they would not give her more; that she was theirs already, and that to command them could only be obtained by one not already damned. Unappalled she repeated her call, but it was in vain, all sunk to quiet. Desperate, for her shame could no longer be hidden, she formed at once the resolution of leaving the house and seeking her seducer. She got out, and entering a boat, managed by skulking along the banks of the lake throughout the day, to arrive in the night at Sesto Calende; she thence easily obtained a conveyance, and reached Milan.
She had sought refuge at a small inn, and sending to Olivieri, he came to her, but it was only to make fully known to her the horrors of her situation. It appears he treated her with brutality, though she did not say so. He staid with her but a few minutes, and left her for ever. He offered her no assistance, seemed even to have implied that if unwilling to return to her brother, she might live by exposing her shame to all, and boldly seeking whom she might inveigle. He left her with only the small sum remaining from what she had taken with her, and immediately left Milan to go she knew not where. She had thence retired to the room where I had found her, and had there managed to support life, and was delivered of her child. Her money however failed her, and, at last, her poor neighbours, tired of assisting her who could no longer pay them, having refused to aid her any more, she had struggled with the pains of hunger for two days in solitude, hoping for relief from death. But her milk had failed, and her child’s voice had pierced its mother’s heart; she could not resist such an appeal; she arose, wrote the few lines to me, and staggering, in the morning while all were at rest, to the gate of the palace, had thrown them under the gate. From thence she had hardly found strength sufficient to reach her miserable couch, when fatigued, she sunk into a kind of stupor from which my approach had roused her.
This is the substance of what my sister told me. Her narration was broken, and many were the pauses she was forced to make to recover strength. Her feeble breath hardly seemed sufficient to allow her to end her tale. Night came, and she was delirious. She screamed for Olivieri, called on him to come and see her die. She held my hands, and looking on me asked me my name, denied it could be me, for I could not be more kind than Olivieri; but why rest upon such a scene? She died in the morning without a return of reason, but still calling, in the last moment, upon her lover.
My sister was dead. Her tale had unfolded to me the causes whence her misconduct arose. I was the source of all, my colouring of Olivieri’s good qualities, my exposing to her the sources of doubt in those doctrines our sainted foster-father had taught us, my example in the career of vice were the causes of her fault – her death. It was yet but the second victim to my fate; there were two others wanting; I sat by the dead body reflecting upon the horrible fatality that had caused my virtues and my vices to prove alike mortal to the two beings who for many years had been the only companions I possessed in nature, the only sympathisers in my joys and sorrows. If the pangs of conscience could be depicted, I would, for your sake, young man, paint in its truest colours, the horror I then felt, the pangs I now feel; but the attempt would be vain. I had loved my sister with all that affection two isolated beings naturally feel towards each other. She had been to me as the weaker part of myself, which always needed protection and defence. To me she had been the holder of all my secrets, the partaker of all my sorrows; when an outcast, she had received me; when a wretch, she had not spurned me.
No one was with me when she died. The servant of Louisa found me many hours after her decease, extended upon her corpse. She came from her mistress to seek me. I rose; I knew not how to conceal the anguish of my m
ind. Louisa soon discovered it, and obtained from me the knowledge of my sister’s illness and death. She did not inquire further; she perceived I was not willing she should know the rest, and was silent. I was astonished to see how firmly she bore the shock, she exerted herself to find some means of allaying my grief, but she did not know that it was conscience that worked within. I left her, and her pretended strength was gone. She had forced herself to assume an apparent calm to assuage my grief, but could not command her own.
My sister was interred privately. Doni and myself, were the only mourners, and a tablet, with merely the name of Julia Berchtold, marked the spot where my sister lay. Her child was put to nurse. I gave him his mother’s and my own name, that I might still have a bond between us. Every day I went to see the little orphan, and taking him from the fearful nurse, I gazed upon his infantile face, while a bitter tear fell from the eye of him who had been the cause of his birth being loaded with infamy and shame. While I looked upon him he would smile, but that smile brought to my mind my sister’s; it was a melancholy playing of the lips, that seemed to mock at the pleasure that excited it; the eye was not lit up with the same feeling, but still appeared absorbed in its continued grief.
Part Third
Vampyre' and Other Writings Page 15