Monica MANOLESCU-OANCEA
"A
History of Genres" (LV20AM11)
Gothic Fiction |
Ralph Blakelock - Moonlight (1885) Oil on
canvas, 69.2 x 82.0 cm |
Excerpt from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), chapter 3.
Jonathan Harker, an
English lawyer, falls asleep in count Dracula’s castle in
Transylvania and
writes in his journal about the event.
When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning (of not entering this particular room) came into my mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real, so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.
I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it. I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain, but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed, such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of waterglasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on.
One said, "Go on! You are first, and we shall follow. Yours' is the right to begin."
The other added, "He is young and strong. There are kisses for us all."
I lay quiet, looking out from under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood.
I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.
But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires. The thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back. It was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring in the room he said,
"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me."
The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him. "You yourself never loved. You never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless,hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear. It seemed like the pleasure of fiends.
Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper, "Yes, I too can love. You yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! Go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done."
"Are we to have nothing tonight?"said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror. But as I looked, they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away.
Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.
THE
TELL-TALE HEART
by Edgar
Allan Poe (1843)
TRUE!
--nervous --very, very
dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you
say that I am mad? The
disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not
dulled them. Above all
was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in
the heaven and in the
earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I
mad? Hearken! and observe
how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole
story.
It is impossible
to say how first the
idea entered my brain;
but once
conceived, it haunted me
day and night. Object
there was none. Passion
there
was none. I loved the
old man. He had never
wronged me. He had never
given me
insult. For his gold I
had no desire. I think
it was his eye! yes, it
was this!
He had the eye of a
vulture --a pale blue
eye, with a film over
it. Whenever it
fell upon me, my blood
ran cold; and so by
degrees --very gradually
--I made up
my mind to take the life
of the old man, and thus
rid myself of the eye
forever.
Now this is the
point. You fancy me mad.
Madmen know nothing. But
you
should have seen me. You
should have seen how
wisely I proceeded --with
what
caution --with what
foresight --with what
dissimulation I went to
work! I was
never kinder to the old
man than during the whole
week before I killed him.
And
every night, about
midnight, I turned the
latch of his door and
opened it --oh
so gently! And then, when
I had made an opening
sufficient for my head, I
put
in a dark lantern, all
closed, closed, that no
light shone out, and then
I
thrust in my head. Oh, you
would have laughed to see
how cunningly I thrust it
in! I moved it slowly
--very, very slowly, so
that I might not disturb
the old
man's sleep. It took me an
hour to place my whole
head within the opening so
far that I could see him
as he lay upon his bed.
Ha! would a madman have
been
so wise as this, And then,
when my head was well in
the room, I undid the
lantern cautiously-oh, so
cautiously --cautiously
(for the hinges creaked)
--I
undid it just so much that
a single thin ray fell
upon the vulture eye. And
this I did for seven long
nights --every night just
at midnight --but I found
the eye always closed; and
so it was impossible to do
the work; for it was not
the old man who vexed me,
but his Evil Eye. And
every morning, when the
day
broke, I went boldly into
the chamber, and spoke
courageously to him,
calling
him by name in a hearty
tone, and inquiring how he
has passed the night. So
you
see he would have been a
very profound old man,
indeed, to suspect that
every
night, just at twelve, I
looked in upon him while
he slept.
Upon the eighth night
I was more than usually
cautious in opening the
door.
A watch's minute hand moves
more quickly than did mine.
Never before that night
had I felt the extent of my
own powers --of my sagacity.
I could scarcely
contain my feelings of
triumph. To think that there
I was, opening the door,
little by little, and he not
even to dream of my secret
deeds or thoughts. I
fairly chuckled at the idea;
and perhaps he heard me; for
he moved on the bed
suddenly, as if startled.
Now you may think that I
drew back --but no. His room
was as black as pitch with
the thick darkness, (for the
shutters were close
fastened, through fear of
robbers,) and so I knew that
he could not see the
opening of the door, and I
kept pushing it on steadily,
steadily.
I had my head in, and
was about to open the lantern,
when my thumb slipped
upon the tin fastening, and
the old man sprang up in bed,
crying out
--"Who's there?"
I kept quite still and
said nothing. For a whole hour I
did not move a
muscle, and in the meantime I
did not hear him lie down. He
was still sitting
up in the bed listening; --just
as I have done, night after
night, hearkening
to the death watches in the
wall.
Presently I heard a slight
groan, and I knew it was the groan
of mortal
terror. It was not a groan of pain
or of grief --oh, no! --it was the
low
stifled sound that arises from the
bottom of the soul when
overcharged with
awe. I knew the sound well. Many a
night, just at midnight, when all
the world
slept, it has welled up from my
own bosom, deepening, with its
dreadful echo,
the terrors that distracted me. I
say I knew it well. I knew what
the old man
felt, and pitied him, although I
chuckled at heart. I knew that he
had been
lying awake ever since the first
slight noise, when he had turned
in the bed. His
fears had been ever since growing
upon him. He had been trying to
fancy them
causeless, but could not. He had
been saying to himself --"It is
nothing
but the wind in the chimney --it
is only a mouse crossing the
floor," or
"It is merely a cricket which has
made a single chirp." Yes, he had
been trying to comfort himself
with these suppositions: but he
had found all in
vain. All in vain; because Death,
in approaching him had stalked
with his black
shadow before him, and enveloped
the victim. And it was the
mournful influence
of the unperceived shadow that
caused him to feel --although he
neither saw nor
heard --to feel the presence of my
head within the room.
When I had waited a long
time, very patiently, without
hearing him lie
down, I resolved to open a little
--a very, very little crevice in the
lantern.
So I opened it --you cannot imagine
how stealthily, stealthily --until,
at
length a simple dim ray, like the
thread of the spider, shot from out
the
crevice and fell full upon the
vulture eye.
It was open --wide, wide open
--and I grew furious as I gazed upon
it. I
saw it with perfect distinctness --all
a dull blue, with a hideous veil over
it
that chilled the very marrow in my
bones; but I could see nothing else of
the
old man's face or person: for I had
directed the ray as if by instinct,
precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what
you mistake for madness is but
over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I
say, there came to my ears a low, dull,
quick sound, such as a watch makes when
enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound
well, too. It was the beating of the old
man's heart. It increased my fury, as
the beating of a drum stimulates the
soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept
still. I scarcely breathed. I held the
lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I
could maintain the ray upon the eve.
Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and
quicker, and louder and louder every
instant. The old man's terror must have
been extreme! It grew louder, I say,
louder every moment! --do you mark me well
I have told you that I am nervous: so I
am. And now at the dead hour of the
night, amid the dreadful silence of that
old house, so strange a noise as this
excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet,
for some minutes longer I refrained
and stood still. But the beating grew
louder, louder! I thought the heart must
burst. And now a new anxiety seized me
--the sound would be heard by a
neighbour! The old man's hour had come!
With a loud yell, I threw open the
lantern and leaped into the room. He
shrieked once --once only. In an instant I
dragged him to the floor, and pulled the
heavy bed over him. I then smiled
gaily, to find the deed so far done. But,
for many minutes, the heart beat on
with a muffled sound. This, however, did
not vex me; it would not be heard
through the wall. At length it ceased. The
old man was dead. I removed the bed
and examined the corpse. Yes, he was
stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon
the heart and held it there many minutes.
There was no pulsation. He was stone
dead. His eve would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will
think so no longer when I describe the
wise precautions I took for the concealment
of the body. The night waned, and I
worked hastily, but in silence. First of all
I dismembered the corpse. I cut
off the head and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the
flooring of the chamber, and deposited
all between the scantlings. I then replaced
the boards so cleverly, so
cunningly, that no human eye --not even his
--could have detected any thing
wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no
stain of any kind --no blood-spot
whatever. I had been too wary for that. A
tub had caught all --ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these labors,
it was four o'clock --still dark as
midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there
came a knocking at the street
door. I went down to open it with a light
heart, --for what had I now to fear?
There entered three men, who introduced
themselves, with perfect suavity, as
officers of the police. A shriek had been
heard by a neighbour during the
night; suspicion of foul play had been
aroused; information had been lodged at
the police office, and they (the officers) had
been deputed to search the
premises.
I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I
bade the gentlemen welcome. The
shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old
man, I mentioned, was absent in
the country. I took my visitors all over the
house. I bade them search --search
well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I
showed them his treasures,
secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my
confidence, I brought chairs into
the room, and desired them here to rest from
their fatigues, while I myself, in
the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed
my own seat upon the very spot
beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My manner had
convinced them. I was singularly
at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily,
they chatted of familiar
things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale
and wished them gone. My head
ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but
still they sat and still
chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It
continued and became more
distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the
feeling: but it continued and
gained definiteness --until, at length, I found
that the noise was not within
my ears.
No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked
more fluently, and with a
heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and what
could I do? It was a low,
dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch
makes when enveloped in
cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers
heard it not. I talked more
quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily
increased. I arose and argued
about trifles, in a high key and with violent
gesticulations; but the noise
steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I
paced the floor to and fro
with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the
observations of the men --but
the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I
do? I foamed --I raved --I
swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been
sitting, and grated it upon the
boards, but the noise arose over all and continually
increased. It grew louder
--louder --louder! And still the men chatted
pleasantly, and smiled. Was it
possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no!
They heard! --they suspected!
--they knew! --they were making a mockery of my
horror!-this I thought, and
this I think. But anything was better than this
agony! Anything was more
tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer!
I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again!
--hark! louder! louder!
louder! louder!
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I
admit the
deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the
beating of his hideous
heart!"
Excerpt
from Robert Louis Stevenson,
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
I
must here speak by theory alone,
saying not that which I know, but that which I
suppose to be most probable. The
evil side of my nature, to which I had now
transferred the stamping efficacy,
was less robust and less developed than the good
which I had just deposed.
Again, in the course of my life, which had been,
after all, nine-tenths a life
of effort, virtue, and control, it had been much
less exercised and much less
exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about
that Edward Hyde was so much
smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry
Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the
countenance of the one, evil was written broadly
and plainly on the face of the
other. Evil besides (which I must still believe
to be the lethal side of man)
had left on that body an imprint of deformity
and decay. And yet when I looked
upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was
conscious of no repugnance, rather of a
leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It
seemed natural and human. In my eyes
it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it
seemed more express and single, than
the imperfect and divided countenance I had been
hitherto accustomed to call
mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I
have observed that when I wore the
semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near
to me at first without a visible
misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was
because all human beings, as we
meet them, are commingled out of good and evil:
and Edward Hyde, alone in the
ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
I
lingered but a moment at the
mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had
yet to be attempted; it yet
remained to be seen if I had lost my identity
beyond redemption and must flee
before daylight from a house that was no longer
mine; and hurrying back to my
cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup,
once more suffered the pangs
of dissolution, and came to myself once more
with the character, the stature,
and the face of Henry Jekyll.
That
night I had come to the fatal
cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a
more noble spirit, had I risked
the experiment while under the empire of
generous or pious aspirations, all
must have been otherwise, and from these agonies
of death and birth, I had come
forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had
no discriminating action; it
was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook
the doors of the prison-house
of my disposition; and like the captives of
Philippi, that which stood within
ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my
evil, kept awake by ambition,
was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and
the thing that was projected was
Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two
characters as well as two
appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other
was still the old Henry Jekyll,
that incongruous compound of whose reformation
and improvement I had already
learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly
toward the worse.
Even
at that time, I had not yet
conquered my aversion to the dryness of a life
of study. I would still be
merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures
were (to say the least)
undignified, and I was not only well known and
highly considered, but growing
toward the elderly man, this incoherency of my
life was daily growing more
unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power
tempted me until I fell in
slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at
once the body of the noted
professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak,
that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at
the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be
humorous; and I made my
preparations with the most studious care. I took
and furnished that house in
Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police;
and engaged as housekeeper a
creature whom I well knew to be silent and
unscrupulous. On the other side, I
announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I
described) was to have full
liberty and power about my house in the square;
and to parry mishaps, I even
called and made myself a familiar object, in my
second character. I next drew
up that will to which you so much objected; so
that if anything befell me in
the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that
of Edward Hyde without pecuniary
loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, on
every side, I began to profit by
the strange immunities of my position.
Men
have before hired bravos to
transact their crimes, while their own person
and reputation sat under shelter.
I was the first that ever did so for his
pleasures. I was the first that could
thus plod in the public eye with a load of
genial respectability, and in a
moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these
lendings and spring headlong into the
sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable
mantle, the safety was complete.
Think of it—I did not even exist! Let me but
escape into my laboratory door,
give me but a second or two to mix and swallow
the draught that I had always
standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward
Hyde would pass away like the
stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his
stead, quietly at home,
trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man
who could afford to laugh at
suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.
The
pleasures which I made haste to
seek in my disguise were, as I have said,
undignified; I would scarce use a
harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde,
they soon began to turn toward
the monstrous. When I would come back from these
excursions, I was often
plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious
depravity. This familiar that I
called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone
to do his good pleasure, was a
being inherently malign and villainous; his
every act and thought centred on
self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity
from any degree of torture to
another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry
Jekyll stood at times aghast
before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the
situation was apart from ordinary laws,
and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience.
It was Hyde, after all, and
Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no
worse; he woke again to his good
qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even
make haste, where it was
possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And
thus his conscience slumbered.
©2008 Monica Manolescu-Oancea. Dernière mise
à jour : 12 octobre 2012.