| A Gothic Tale: | ||||
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First
Issue Second
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(Translated from the Old Romansch by Mr. G. Rattcragge,Gent.) It (being based on the reports of those locals more than usually intrepid or foolhardy, who had ventured within the environs of the castle) was said copiously throughout our neighbourhood of -----, that, during the past few weeks, the strange and intangible smell, at first barely perceptible, that had emanated from that ancient seat, had increased to such proportions that excessive exposure to it would induce uncontrollable vomiting - at any rate, when the wind blew correctly. This was an understandable source of consternation to those oppressed and impenetrable peasants, living as they did in the shadow of that haughty and sinister stronghold, the former having already achieved notoriety over several generations on account of its appearing even blacker and more forbidding at night than it did in daylight. It so fell out that, according to our consistent sources, that within this castle lived the much-feared Duke of -----, he of the unkempt and arachnoid cast, (whose brows were often said to be beetling), and, being the fruit of a dead wife, his only daughter, Clotilda. Now this girl was of a sickly and neurotic constitution; in other words, much suited to her cheerless and isolated abode, where she had lived all her life, under the cold and inattentive rule of her father, occupied as he was in his dark and unspeakable researches, which were said to take place in the castle's extensive subterranean vaults. However, at about this time, there came to her a blessed vision of future liberty and concord, in the form of the Chevalier Theodolpho; thoughts of whom caused all her latent optimism to burgeon. This, the most promising young gallant of our neighborhood, had previously led a lonely existence, on account of his having lost his illustrious father under sudden and mysterious circumstances; a misfortune he had been able to sustain, on account of his resilient and idealistic nature. In the true spirit of honourable courtship, he would nocturnally parade beneath the castle's ramparts, accompanied by a lute, which, though was not awakened, was skilfully employed in the catapaulting of flowers through the open window of his beloved. Quite rightly, our heroine was struck with tender amours; and would have done well to conceal these sentiments frome those who might prove less than sympathetic to them. Alas, any attempt at vigilance on this count held no sway with her shrewd father, who, having once caught her smiling over her embroidery, (for it was her duty to perpetually maintain and embellish the shrouds in the mausoleum), became iniflamed with an indignation that his taciturn countenance struggled to contain. Standing at her forbidding distance from his daughter, and obscuring the light from the chamber's narrow window, he adressed her darkly with these words: "Hmm. You are nearly seventeen, Clotilda, and, before life can lead you further astray, I consider this to be the ideal opportunity to install you in the vocation I have always planned for you. Hence, in a week's time, you will be conveyed to the nearby convent of Santa Barbarique; the Grand Abbess of which, I believe, has many ingenious -gechanisms for the correction of young girls." With these words, he turned on his heel, and stalked into the umbrageous silence that inhabited much of the castle. Too stunned to protest, the stupified Clotilda, tears of imploring incredulity gushing sporadically from her eyes, was locked into a dreary closet overlooking the inner court; where no suitor, or any other human soul with a heart capable of being touched, could witness her. * * * * * * * * * As the fateful week continued, the unhappy Clotilda remained langiushing in her solitary cell, faced only with the dismal prospect of the castle's dusky bowels, and, worse still, the mortal terrors that gnawed at her afflicted soul night and day. "Oh, how have I deserved such abuse?", she was wont to sigh, at the extremity of despair. "The week drags on apace, with no prospect of deliverance from my predicament; either from my darling Theodolpho, or by the merciful Lord Himself". In addition to these concerns, the unfortunate heroine could not help but observe that the exotic smell that had so come to characterise the her environment had assumed an unprecedented aspect of cloying density and ripeness; as though whatever was its unholy cause was itself approximating a state of final culmination and catastrophe. This made her suspenseful condition all the more insupportable, until - at last, on the eve of her departure to the convent, she devised a scheme of escape, whose risk of discovery and death was nevertheless preferable to her otherwise imminent fate. Surmounting her frailty and trepidation, with trembling intent she pulled the sheets from her bed - (these were, in fact, the very unfinished shrouds she had been sewing before her imprisonment), and, looping them around the window bars, was able to lower herself to the court beneath. Insufficiently clad for escape in the cold night, she pulled the shrouds about her, and hastened from the night air into the serpentine and eldritch maze of corridors that she knew so well, and which would lead her to freedom. Unfortunately, on her route she would be obliged to traverse those regions of the castle frequented by the Duke, as a place in which to lurk and glower malevolently at night-time. Clotilda’s bare feet made no sound on the clammy stones; but this was to prove no defense against the terrible inevitability of what was now to befall her, poised as she was on the very brink of success. For- (alack"! -but it must be told) - halfway along an ancient and obscure corridor, she confronted the sight she most dreaded; her father. Although at first, being lost in his unholy thoughts, he did not percieve the frantic form fleeting towards him, in the next instant, however, his sere form underwent an abrupt and complete transformation- he became rigid, his expression suggesting the epitome of terror; as though, in this form he were percieving the most horrific apparition his imagination could concieve. His eyes started, his mouth gaped, and the colour flew from his features; and, as he slumped to the floor, he choked forth the following strangled strains; "So! The curse has come upon me!... The abhorred qhost of the rival nobleman whom I secretly murdered in order to marry the woman who became my wife has risen from the unspeakable grave I contrived, to wreak revenge for my sins. Ah, I was a fool to think I could evade the prophesises: that hated stench returning; and the young chevalier encroaching on my castle, too. But now, the spectre is satisfied; and I too, thank God. All is one; I die." Clotilda, in her astonishment, did not comprehend the bulk of this speech, instead viewing her father's death as in a dream; a mere addition to all the other incongruous events that had ravaged her impressionable sensibilities. However, a fact not to be ignored was that this was a fortuitous aid to her escape, which Clotilda, immersed in her desperation, did not hesitate to utilise. Thus, only stopping to instinctively collect the sword that hung from the dead Duke's belt, she continued her flight, until she finally flung aside the massy doors of the castle itself. * * * * * * * * * Meanwhile, the Chevalier Theodolpho, whose serenading expeditions had not been curtailed by the ominous removal of his adored, (though his anxiety, and hence his resolve, had increased manifold), was mounting the precipitous slopes beneath the castle, distancing himself from the cheers of the rude plain for what was, unknown to him, to be the last time. As it happened, his thoughts were currently perplexed by an acute and unaccoutable forboding, augmented by the bitter coldness of the night, and the nauseating intensity of the smell that had increasingly aroused his curiosity. As he approached the castle's crumbling arched gateway, there started from the deep shadows beyond a human form running with feverish intent, and bearing a sword before it! Under the impression that this was a member of the' banditti', an idea reinforced by the figure uttering the words; "There is death in my wake; but I shall no longer be impeded!" Sensing mortal peril, the honourable young man drew his own weapon and sprang at the villain; who, smote with a mortal blow, slid lifeless to the frozen earth. Sheathing his sword with manly satisfaction, Theodolpho cast a righteous eye over his victim; but had first to remove the cloth from the face to disclose the wretches identity... Theodolpho's emotions on discovering that he had just slain all in the world that was dear to him are scarcely to be described. He staggered, reeled, swooned, and fell to his knees; and, all the while, abundant tears cascaded from his eyes, although, due to the coldness of the night, they struck the ground as ice. After no inconsiderable time of concerted grief, our hero pulled himself erect with a final gesture of resolution. "If, my most darling Clotilda, I am indeed your murderer", he avowed 'in faltering tones, "then the least I can do is to lay you to rest in the time-honoured manner you deserve, before surrendering myself to my just perdition. I shall carry you to your ancestral vault"- (this idea was suggested by her being already wrapped in a shroud) -"and then dispatch myself". Any doubts he might have felt as to his abilities to find the vault were dispelled by the discovery that the mysterious smell, (which, despite its increasing omnipresence, had not inured him to its irritation in any degree), appeared to beckon him, like a nebulous and grotesque finger. With the limpid corpse draped across his arms, he proceeded through the most unhallowed regions of the edifice; until, descending a series of slimy steps that terminated a low and unspeakable passage, he found himself in what was indisputably the vault, for this he saw in the light of the torches that had been thoughtfully placed there. Ancient tombs and gaunt, crumbling skeletons festooned all the planes bar the vaulted ceiling; the only reassuringly civilised sight being the tasteful arabesques that embellished the shrouds sported by the more fortunate amongst the human detritus. And it was here that the perplexing odour was at its strongest - being scarcely able to breathe in the choking density of the atmosphere, the singularity of its characteristics were inescapably apparent to him. There semed a certain busyness and fertility about it; it was not only as though, in moving any closer to its source, one would be stifled and glutted in its richness; but also that it was poised on the brink of some unthinkable fermentation, or eruption... At this point, Theodolpho was startled by such dire contemplations by remarking that one of the huge hewn flagstones had started grating and trembling; it then slowly began to lift itself on immemorial hinges. Our hero hastily cleared a space for his burden in an alcove, and then advanced towards this strange phenomenon with a curiosity by now unchecked by any other worldly concerns. The trapdoor now gaped fully open; and beneath it undoubtedly lay the source of the aromatic enigma- indeed, wreathes of hot orange vapour issued incontinently from that heady and infernal pit. Noting that this lower vault, like the crypt, was already illumined, he descended the steps; which preceeded a scene so unimaginably ghastly that no mortal eyes or sensibilities could be hoped to survive it. In the center of the room stood a huge metal tub, dully gleaming upon an open fire. All though Theodopho’s gaze could barely pierce the screen of smoke, and that other unidentifiable vapour that belched from the vessel, he was soon able to discern that the latter was in fact full of bubbling amber liquid of a treacle-like texture, which was intermittently, threatening to overflow the rim. Much bewildered by this strange and inexplicable brew, and transfixed by tha hypnotic vitality of its vile eruptions, it is impossible to say for how long our ill-starred wight would have stood there; that is, if he had not chanced to see an object, as yet unidentified, slowly ascend to the surface. At first vaguely supposing it to be one of the devilish ingredients that had contributed to the forming of the concoction, he had fearlessly approached some way towards the pulsing cauldron; however, his steps, and apprehensions, were immediately arrested when the true identity of what he saw confronted him. For, the object, far from being a mere limp vegetable, as its appearance had at first suggested, could now be seen to possess characteristics that were undeniably those of a human form. In a paroxysm of mounting terror, Theodolpho watched the abhorred and ghastly features of the corpse reveal themselves; the skull, which now bobbed fully above the surface, still possessed skin of a greenish tinge, that had shrunken and peeled from the bone, and which in places sprouted clumps of what looked like exotically textured moss. What remained of the hair stood on end in great rigid convolutions, like a twisted candelabra; and in it were several evilly sparkling crystalline growths. No longer tugged by the rise and fall of the liquid, the figure now seemed to exhibit alarming indications of having a momentum of its own; and- horror of horrors- at that very instant, the shrivelled eye-lids twitched, undulated, and raised themselves- to reveal a pair of orange, gleaming eyes!... And to conclude our sorry tragedy, it is hardly necessary for me to mention the nature of the expression that fuelled those fatal orbs, beholding as they did the mortified intruder: it was a look of mild, benevolent recognition. ". . .O! . .. It is my Father!", gasped Theodolpho, as he swooned lifeless to the floor. THE END DJB * * * * * * * * * |
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