The Macabre Megapack. Lafcadio Hearn
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lowering of the ruff before, as a mere act of justice to the ivory throat, when Clotilde had rejoined, answering in a tone which before marriage was gentle reproof (a few months after it would have sounded like reproach), that she hoped “the Baron de Launaye would prefer propriety in his wife to display.” The sense of the speech was forgotten in its sentiment; a very unusual occurrence by-the-by. However, the bride looked most beautiful; her clear, dark eyes swam in light—the liquid brilliancy of happiness—the brightness, but not the sadness of tears. The ceremony was over, the priest and the marquise had given their blessings; the latter also added some excellent advice, which was not listened to with all the attention it deserved. The young couple went to their own castle in a new and huge coach, every one of whose six horses wore white and silver favors. Neighbors they had none; but a grand feast was given to the domestics; and Dominique, at his master’s express orders, broached a pipe of Bordeaux. “I can’t make my vassals,” said de Launaye, “as happy as myself; but I can make them drunk, and that is something towards it.”
The day darkened into night; and here, according to all regular precedents in romance, hero and heroine ought to be left to themselves; but there never yet was a rule without an exception. However, to infringe upon established custom as little as possible, we will enter into no details of how pretty the bride looked in her nightcap, but proceed forthwith to the baron’s first sleep. He dreamed that the sun suddenly shone into his chamber. Dazzled by the glare he awoke, and found the bright eyes of his bride gazing tenderly on his face. Weary as he was, still he remembered how uncourteous it would be to lie sleeping while she was so wide awake, and he forthwith roused himself as well as he could. Many persons say they can’t sleep in an unfamiliar bed; perhaps this might be the case with his bride; and in new situations people should have all possible allowance made for them.
They rose early the following morning, the baroness bright-eyed and blooming as usual, the baron pale and abattu. They wandered through the castle; de Launaye told of his uncle’s prediction.
“How careful I must be of you,” said the bride, smiling; “I shall be quite jealous.”
Night came, and again Adolphe was wakened from his first sleep by Clotilde’s bright eyes. The third night arrived, and human nature could bear no more.
“Good God, my dearest!” exclaimed the husband, “do you never sleep?”
“Sleep!” replied Clotilde, opening her large bright eyes, till they were even twice their usual size and brightness. “Sleep! One of my noble race sleep! I never slept in my life.”
“She never sleeps!” ejaculated the baron, sinking back on his pillow in horror and exhaustion.
It had been settled that the young couple should forthwith visit Paris—thither they at once proceeded. The beauty of the baroness produced a most marvelous sensation even in that city of sensations. Nothing was heard of for a week but the enchanting eyes of the baroness de Launaye. A diamond necklace of a new pattern was invented in her honor, and called aux beaux yeux de Clotilde.
“Those eyes,” said a prince of the blood, whose taste in such matters had been cultivated by some years of continual practice, “those eyes of Mde. De Launaye will rob many of our gallants of their rest.”
“Very true,” briefly replied her husband.
Well, the baroness shone like a meteor in every scene, while the baron accompanied her, the spectre of his former self. Sallow, emaciated, everybody said he was going into a consumption. Still it was quite delightful to witness the devotedness of his wife—she could scarcely bear him a moment out of her sight.
At length they left Paris, accompanied by a gay party, for their chateau. But brilliant as were these quests, nothing distracted the baroness’s attention from her husband, whose declining health became every hour more alarming. One day, however, the young Chevalier de Ronsarde—he, the conqueror of a thousand hearts—the besieger of a thousand more—whose conversation was that happy mixture of flattery and scandal which is the beau ideal of dialogue—engrossed Mde. De Launaye’s attention; and her husband took the opportunity of slipping away unobserved. He hastened into a gloomy avenue—the cedars, black with time and age, met like night overhead, and far and dark did their shadows fall on the still and deep lake beside. Worn, haggard, with a timorous and hurried, yet light step, the young baron might have been taken for one of his own ancestors, permitted for a brief period to revisit his home on earth, but invested with the ghastliness and the gloom of the grave.
“She never sleeps!” exclaimed the miserable Adolphe—“she never sleeps! Day and night her large bright eyes eat like fire into my heart.” He paused, and rested for support against the trunk of one of the old cedars. “Oh, my uncle, why did not your prophecy, when it warned me against danger, tell me distinctly in what the danger consisted? To have a wife who never sleeps! Dark and quiet lake, how I envy the stillness of your depths—the shadows which rest upon your waves!”
At this moment a breath of wind blew a branch aside—a sunbeam fell upon the baron’s face; he took it for the eyes of his wife. Alas! his remedy lay temptingly before him—the still, the profound, the shadowy lake. De Launaye took one plunge—it was into eternity. Two days he was missing—the third his lifeless body floated on the heavy waters. The Baron de Launaye had committed suicide, and the bright-eyed baroness was left a disconsolate widow.
Such is the tale recorded in the annals of the house of de Launaye. Some believe it entirely, justly observing there is nothing too extraordinary to happen. Others (for there always will be people who affect to be wiser than their neighbors) say that the story is an ingenious allegory—and that the real secret of the Sleepless Lady was jealousy. Now, if a jealous wife can’t drive a man out of his mind and into a lake, we do not know what can!
A PEEP AT DEATH, by Peter von Geist
(1843)
I was standing one bright day on the banks of a small stream which ran near the village where I was staying, gazing alternately at the clear blue sky and at the quiet green valley that stretched away before me. Suddenly I heard the sharp crack of a rifle, and before I had time to think again, I felt the bullet like a ball of fire tearing its way to, and into, my heart. All control over my muscles was instantly lost, and I fell to the ground; perfectly conscious, but unable to prevent all sorts of motions in my limbs: caused, I supposed, by the blood rushing back to the seat of life. The tumult soon ceased, and I knew that I was dead. I found myself pent up, if I may so speak, confined within the narrowest limits. What particular part of the body I was imprisoned in, I was unable to determine; but to one part, and that apparently a very small one, almost a point, I was confined. I tried to project myself, as of wont, along my limbs; but the power was gone. The ground on which I lay felt like air; indeed I don’t believe that I felt it at all. The connection between me and the body was in a measure dissevered, and I shuddered as the thought came upon me that this was death. My eyelids closed, but I was able to see and hear as distinctly as ever; nay, more distinctly; for I could see not only the faces and forms of others, but their hearts; and could read their thoughts, even though they were but half formed.
The fellow who shot me came running up, wild terror almost overpowering his senses. The shot was purely accidental. This gave me some comfort; it was so much sweeter to go out of the world thus, than to die by the hand of an enemy. Soon other came up, crying out with fright. It was natural that I should look at their hearts, since it was just as easy as to look at their faces, and moreover, was somewhat new to me: but I soon grew sick of it. It was an ungracious task, and I don’t wonder now, though I did formerly, that the Rosicruscians were all misanthropes.
The men took me up softly, as though they feared to hurt me by any roughness, and conveyed me into the house. They laid me on a bed, covered me with a white cloth, and pronounced me a corpse; put on long faces, spoke in whispers, and sent for the coroner. How I longed to throw off the sheet, jump up, and kick them all out of the room! I felt able to do it: but when I tried, my arms and feet were mere bars of lead, and refused to obey the commands of the will. So I lay still, and tried to groan, but I couldn’t. What next? thought I; ay, what next! A cold shiver crept through me as I thought of the future; so I looked back on the past, and then tried to groan again; but with no better