and murmured something about my luck in stumbling upon such a good dinner.
“‘Stumbling is a very good word for it,’ said the voice grimly. ‘You have forgotten the port, father.’
“‘So I have,’ said the old man, rising. ‘It’s a bottle of the “Celebrated” today; I will get it myself.’
“He felt his way to the door, and closing it behind him, left me alone with my unseen neighbour. There was something so strange about the whole business that I must confess to more than a slight feeling of uneasiness.
“My host seemed to be absent a long time. I heard the man opposite lay down his fork and spoon, and half fancied I could see a pair of wild eyes shining through the gloom like a cat’s.
“With a growing sense of uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it? The flame leaped up and then went out, and in the mere red glow of the fire it looked more devilish than before.
“For a few moments we regarded each other in silence; then the door opened and the old man returned. He stood aghast as he saw the warm firelight, and then approaching the table mechanically put down a couple of bottles.
“‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, reassured by his presence, ‘but I have accidentally overturned the screen. Allow me to replace it.’
“‘No,’ said the old man, gently, ‘let it be. We have had enough of the dark. I’ll give you a light.’
“He struck a match and slowly lit the candles. Then—I saw that the man opposite had but the remnant of a face, a gaunt wolfish face in which one unquenched eye, the sole remaining feature, still glittered. I was greatly moved, some suspicion of the truth occurring to me.
“‘My son was injured some years ago in a burning house,’ said the old man. ‘Since then we have lived a very retired life. When you came to the door we—’ his voice trembled, ‘that is—my son—’
“‘I thought,” said the son simply, ‘that it would be better for me not to come to the dinner-table. But it happens to be my birthday, and my father would not hear of my dining alone, so we hit upon this foolish plan of dining in the dark. I’m sorry I startled you.’
“‘I am sorry,’ said I, as I reached across the table and gripped his hand, ‘that I am such a fool; but it was only in the dark that you startled me.’
“From a faint tinge in the old man’s cheek and a certain pleasant softening of the poor solitary eye in front of me I secretly congratulated myself upon this last remark.
“‘We never see a friend,’ said the old man, apologetically, ‘and the temptation to have company was too much for us. Besides, I don’t know what else you could have done.’
“‘Nothing else half so good, I’m sure,’ said I.
“‘Come,’ said my host, with almost a sprightly air. ‘Now we know each other, draw our chairs to the fire and let’s keep this birthday in a proper fashion.’
“He drew a small table to the fire for the glasses and produced a box of cigars, and placing a chair for the old servant, sternly bade her to sit down and drink. If the talk was not sparkling, it did not lack for vivacity, and we were soon as merry a party as I have ever seen. The night wore on so rapidly that we could hardly believe our ears when in a lull in the conversation a clock in the hall struck twelve.
“‘A last toast before we retire,’ said my host, pitching the end of his cigar into the fire and turning to the small table.
“We had drunk several before this, but there was something impressive in the old man’s manner as he rose and took up his glass. His tall figure seemed to get taller, and his voice rang as he gazed proudly at his disfigured son.
“‘The health of the children my boy saved!’ he said, and drained his glass at a draught.”
VERA, by Villiers de L’Isle-Adam
Translated from the French by Hamish Miles
The form of the body is more essential to him than its substance.
—La Physiologie Moderne
Love, said Solomon, is stronger than Death. And truly, its mysterious power knows no bounds.
Not many years since, an autumn evening was falling over Paris. Towards the gloomy Faubourg Saint-Germain carriages were driving, with lamps already lit, returning belatedly from the afternoon drive in the Bois. Before the gateway of a vast seigniorial mansion, set about with immemorial gardens, one of them drew up. The arch was surmounted by a stone escutcheon with the arms of the ancient family of the Counts d’Athol, to wit: on a field azure, a mullet argent, with the motto Pallida Victrix under the coronet with its upturned ermine of the princely cap. The heavy folding doors swung apart, and there descended a man between thirty and thirty-five, in mourning clothes, his face of deathly pallor. On the steps silent attendants raised aloft their torches, but with no eye for them he mounted the flight and went within. It was the Count d’Athol.
With unsteady tread he ascended the white staircases leading to the room where, that very morning, he had laid within a coffin, velvet-lined and covered with violets, amid billowing cambric, the lady of his delight, his bride of the gathering paleness, Vera, his despair.
At the top the quiet door swung across the carpet. He lifted the hangings.
All the objects in the room were just where the Countess had left them the evening before. Death, in his suddenness, had hurled the bolt. Last night his loved one had swooned in such penetrating joys, had surrendered in embraces so perfect, that her heart, weary with ecstasy, had given way. Suddenly her lips had been covered with a flood of mortal scarlet, and she had barely had time to give her husband one kiss of farewell, smiling, with not one word; and then her long lashes, like veils of mourning, had fallen over the lovely light of her eyes.
This day without a name had passed.
Towards noon the Count d’Athol, after the dread ceremonies of the family vault, had dismissed the bleak escort at the cemetery. Shutting himself up within the four marble walls, alone with her whom he had buried, he had closed behind him the iron door of the mausoleum. Incense was burning on a tripod before the coffin, bestarred by a shining crown of lamps over the pillow of this young woman, who was now no more.
Standing there lost in his thoughts, with his only sentiment a hopeless longing, he had stayed all day long in the tomb. At six o’clock, when dusk fell, he had come out from the sacred enclosure. Closing the sepulchre, he had torn the silver key from the lock, and, stretching up on the topmost step of the threshold, he had cast it softly into the interior of the tomb. Through the trefoil over the doorway, he thrust it on to the pavement inside. Why had he done this? Doubtless from some mysterious resolve to return no more.
And now he was viewing again the widowed chamber.
The window, under the great drapings of mauve cashmere with their broideries of gold, stood open; one last ray of evening lit up the great portrait of the departed one in its frame of old wood. Looking around him, the Count saw the robe lying where, the evening before, it had been flung upon the chair; on the mantel lay the jewels, the necklace of pearls, the half-closed fan, the heavy flasks of perfume which She no longer inhaled. On the ebony bed with its twisted pillars, still unmade, beside the pillow where the mask of the divine, the adored head, was still visible amidst the lace, his eye fell on the handkerchief stained with drops of blood, whereon for an instant the wings of her youthful spirit had quivered; on the open piano, upholding a melody forever unfinished; on the Indian flowers which she had gathered with her own hands in the conservatory, and which now were dying in vases of old Saxony ware; and there at the foot of the bed, on the tiny slippers of oriental velvet, on which glittered a laughing device of her name, stitched with pearls: Qui verra Vera l’aimera. And only