‘Not specifically.’ He spoke as if he perhaps wanted to have done with the conversation. ‘Further overheating of the body would no doubt result.’
I couldn’t resist saying, ‘To the tune of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit? If you’ll forgive me, Mr Macneil, your belief seems to be founded on a wish to believe.’
‘No doubt it does, Mr Hillier, but I’d like you to cast an eye on what I have here before you finally make up your mind on that point.’
‘What is it?’
‘Part of the only known statement on vampirism committed to paper by a self-confessed vampire,’ he said impressively, handing over a single yellowed sheet covered with brownish writing, and added, ‘The most secret document in this library. Even the countess doesn’t know it’s here.’
No doubt I should have inquired into the last part of that, but I was too eager to examine what I now had before me and allowed Macneil to withdraw, muttering as he went something about binding up a batch of pamphlets.
As I read, I began to wish more fervently than ever before that the advance of science had reached the point at which books and other printed or written material could be copied at the pressing of a switch, for instance by some development of the photographic process. This is 1925, though, not 1975, and I have had to do what I could with pen and ink. As you see, I started to transcribe the original, which is jolly simple Dacian, but not simple enough, I suspect, for those whose knowledge of the tongue is worse than rusty. Being simple it has lost little by being translated, though I should add here that the writer was obviously an educated man and that one or two words and expressions, together with some slight formalities of construction, suggest a date in the last century, most likely its second half.
Enclosure
Duminu wobisku. Preko wos ni par mizerikordi ni par pieti.
The Lord be with you. I ask you not for pity nor for mercy, but for your prayers. You who are not accursed, pray to Almighty God for my wicked soul. You who go out in the day, petition all-loving God for His justice towards a child of His who lives in loneliness and misery, who stays always in the same place and who never sees the sun. Plead with Him that I have no choice in the end but to take my loathsome refection, and to lie and dissemble, which I loathe almost as bitterly, and suborn others to do evil on my behalf, for if I do not I shall surely die at last, and there is no life so miserable that it is not to be preferred to death. Say all this to Him, for His will is that I cannot say it myself; why should one of my vile condition obtain such relief? Say to Him also that I trust in His goodness and expect His deliverance. On that day there shall come one who will.
Main letter
One who will do what? is no doubt the question you’re asking yourself. I certainly asked it, and must have done so aloud, for Macneil, at my side again to write in an addition to the vast catalogue, expressed his ignorance and added that (as I had surmised) the following sheet or sheets were lost. He went on to say that he considered it to be about fifty years old, or a little less, and that it had been in the library when he first came, but with no press-mark or entry and no information as to its origin, merely a half-indecipherable note about a hearing before a quaestor or investigatory magistrate. Finally he asked me what I thought of the document. I told him I didn’t know, which was and is no more than the truth. It might be a fake, it might be the ravings of a madman, but I can’t believe it’s either, but as to why, that again I don’t know. Something about the handwriting bothers me; I’ve made a tracing of the first few words which you’ll forgive me for not sending on.
Luncheon, consisting mainly of toothsome and expertly cooked river trout, was pleasant enough, enlivened moreover by much interesting talk from Macneil on the subject of local history; he has his own style of being agreeable. After the meal, as arranged, he took me over to the family tomb in the grounds. This, especially the interior, proved sadly unspectacular. It was strange none the less to see a plate in the wall with the legend ‘Segnu Aleku Valvazor, 1841–1891’ and a Latin text mentioning eternal rest. Macneil told me that when — but this is another piece of talk which I feel instinctively calls for ipsissima verba.
‘Not more than a couple of weeks after the burial,’ he said, ‘a party from the village came up and broke open the coffin and found… a corpse. A corpse showing unmistakable signs of decay, not Aleku in his habit as he lived. There were no more rumours after that.’
I was startled, and exclaimed, ‘It took a damned lot of nerve to lead that coffin-breaking expedition.’
‘Yes, nobody seemed to know who did. Not a local man, it was said.’
‘When was this place built?’ I asked him.
‘In its present form it was completed in 1891. You’re quite right, Mr Hillier, the year of the baron’s death, by a melancholy coincidence much remarked on. No sooner had the Count prepared for a return to traditional practice by entombing the family dead outside the castle proper than his younger brother…’ He spread his hands.
‘Then there’s a burial chamber inside the castle proper.’
‘Oh indeed, an extensive one. I’d be happy to show it to you in the morning. I must be getting back to the library now; we take a large number of journals and I do so hate getting behind with them.’
We were strolling quite companionably towards the castle when he asked me something that filled me with suspicion on the instant.
‘Are your whereabouts known to your people in England, Mr Hillier?’
I replied carefully and truthfully, ‘No, at this moment not a soul has more than the vaguest idea of where I am.’
‘Dear dear,’ he said, ‘a most unwise omission in a country like this. If I may, I’ll send a man to the telegraph station. Tomorrow.’
Whether he does or he doesn’t, my vaguely based conviction that nobody here should know of this letter, much less be given it to post, has become intensified. I’ll be sure to get it off to you myself in the morning, along with one to Connie. Not that the story’s over yet by a long chalk, I bet.
I write this in the parlour I described to you earlier. Outside, the colours of the lawns and shrubs are beginning to fade as evening approaches; Magda has just brought me a lamp. Still Lukretia has not returned. With Macneil’s permission I brought here the library copy of De Mortuis Viventibus by Lartius Calasanctius, all of whose works I thought I knew; this one I’d never even heard of, but I’m too strung up to do as much as open it. Shameful of me. Perhaps I’ll be more capable tomorrow.
I’ll write again as soon as I have more news. Good luck with the James Barnes Hitchens prize.
Yours aye,
Stephen
VI — Countess Valvazor’s Journal
1 September 1925 —… The last was no dream, but a memory of that fatal night, all except the moment when Stephen was there in my place, helpless as I was, and I woke cursing Aleku for a devil and a hound of hell. Now I have fed my hatred enough, and can come to the events of this very evening.
After making my arrangements with Magda, I found Stephen in the parlour with one of Robert’s ancient tomes on his knee. He sprang up and we kissed with every show of passion, but I immediately sensed a constraint in him. And yet it was he who, breaking the embrace, gave a look of misgiving and mistrust.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked gravely. ‘Is it your nurse?’
‘I stayed with her till she died,’ I told him, ‘that’s why I’m so late. It was quite peaceful. A good death. I had to go, Stephen.’