Carmilla | Page 8

a few seconds,
looking sternly, her eyes fixed on mine. I fancy she makes a great point
of that. You saw how quickly she was gone. I hope I have not done a
very foolish thing, in taking charge of the young lady."
For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to see and talk to her; and
only waiting till the doctor should give me leave. You, who live in
towns, can have no idea how great an event the introduction of a new
friend is, in such a solitude as surrounded us.
The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o'clock; but I could no more
have gone to my bed and slept, than I could have overtaken, on foot,
the carriage in which the princess in black velvet had driven away.
When the physician came down to the drawing room, it was to report
very favorably upon his patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse quite
regular, apparently perfectly well. She had sustained no injury, and the
little shock to her nerves had passed away quite harmlessly. There
could be no harm certainly in my seeing her, if we both wished it; and,
with this permission I sent, forthwith, to know whether she would
allow me to visit her for a few minutes in her room.
The servant returned immediately to say that she desired nothing more.
You may be sure I was not long in availing myself of this permission.
Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms in the schloss. It was,
perhaps, a little stately. There was a somber piece of tapestry opposite
the foot of the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom;
and other solemn classic scenes were displayed, a little faded, upon the
other walls. But there was gold carving, and rich and varied color
enough in the other decorations of the room, to more than redeem the

gloom of the old tapestry.
There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her slender
pretty figure enveloped in the soft silk dressing gown, embroidered
with flowers, and lined with thick quilted silk, which her mother had
thrown over her feet as she lay upon the ground.
What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just begun my little
greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and made me recoil a step or
two from before her? I will tell you.
I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night,
which remained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had for so
many years so often ruminated with horror, when no one suspected of
what I was thinking.
It was pretty, even beautiful; and when I first beheld it, wore the same
melancholy expression.
But this almost instantly lighted into a strange fixed smile of
recognition.
There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I
could not.
"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Twelve years ago, I saw your face
in a dream, and it has haunted me ever since."
"Wonderful indeed!" I repeated, overcoming with an effort the horror
that had for a time suspended my utterances. "Twelve years ago, in
vision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. It has
remained before my eyes ever since."
Her smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied strange in it, was gone,
and it and her dimpling cheeks were now delightfully pretty and
intelligent.
I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein which hospitality

indicated, to bid her welcome, and to tell her how much pleasure her
accidental arrival had given us all, and especially what a happiness it
was to me.
I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but
the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand,
she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine,
she smiled again, and blushed.
She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat down beside her, still
wondering; and she said:
"I must tell you my vision about you; it is so very strange that you and I
should have had, each of the other so vivid a dream, that each should
have seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when of course we
both were mere children. I was a child, about six years old, and I awoke
from a confused and troubled dream, and found myself in a room,
unlike my nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark wood, and with
cupboards and bedsteads, and chairs, and benches placed about it. The
beds were, I thought, all empty, and the room itself without anyone but
myself in it; and