Suddenly I was back in my dream, that cruel dream in which Aleku chained me to the dungeon wall in perpetual captivity, but now there was another beside me, gagged and blindfolded like myself, and I knew it was Stephen. I screamed and came to myself in an instant. After a second’s inexpressible agony of mind I ascertained that, though my teeth had indeed been at his throat, they had not penetrated the skin and, as I watched with equally intense relief, the marks I had left began to fade. I got off the bed and knelt down and tried to say a prayer of thanksgiving, for I had no doubt about where that warning had come from, but not a word could I utter, as always. So I offered thanks in my heart; even He cannot prevent that. They were double thanks; I knew now for a certainty what I had been pretending was not certain, that I could not for ever, nor even for long, suppress the abominable craving that defines my state, and that Stephen would be in deadly danger as long as I could get at him. This knowledge has hardened my resolution to do what must be done. It must all of it be done; the danger to Stephen comes not only from me.
Writing this last entry has brought me pain, not least in detailing the lies I had to tell my beloved. But it has helped me relive some of the most wonderful, the only wonderful moments of my life, and after forty years I find it hard to break the habit of confiding to these pages what nobody else must know and what, thanks to Magda, nobody else will ever know. So now, goodbye. To whom, to what do I say those words? No matter.
VII — confidential Transcript of the Privy Inquest Under His Rectitude Quaestor Miron Filipescu, Nuvakastra, 3 September 1925, Extracts
QUAESTOR: Fetch Prefect Sturdza.
REGISTRAR: Prefect Sturdza, in the name of Omnipotent God I charge you to tell the truth in all matters—
QUAESTOR: Hold your peace, registrar, and let the hearing proceed. This is not a court of law; it is not even an official council. I pray God our business today never comes before any such body. Speak, prefect.
PREFECT: Thank you, your rectitude. I have here the paper brought to me at the police office by the witness Magda Marghiloman. I have satisfied myself that the handwriting is that of Lukretia Iulia Klodia Valvazor i Vukcic, Countess Valvazor of the same.
QUAESTOR: Good, good, Read it, man.
PREFECT: Yes, sir. ‘In the year 1886, being then twenty-nine years old, I was forcibly reduced to the abject and abominable state of vampire by my father’s brother, Baron Aleku Valvazor, who also debauched me. For four years thereafter we continued our hideous practices to the horror and shame of my parents and at growing risk to ourselves. The danger was not from the subsequent activities of our unfortunate victims, who were made away with when they had served their turn, but from the number of unexplained disappearances in the surrounding country. The village people would have come for us one fine day.
‘At the end of that period, early in 1890, the Englishman Robert Macneil arrived at Valvazor, ostensibly to serve as librarian and nothing more, but though my father would never admit it I have always been certain that, through some intermediary unknown to me, he had obtained Macneil for another purpose, namely to protect his brother and daughter from the otherwise inevitable consequences of their vile acts. At any rate, Macneil soon set about an elaborate deception. He procured a middle-aged man — a Bessarabian corn-factor, I was told — who resembled Aleku closely, or closely enough, and somehow lured him here. Having caused it to be given out that the baron was gravely ill with typhus fever, he administered to the unhappy stranger a fatal dose of one of those poisons that leave no exterior sign. A pair of local women, chosen for their ready tongues, were brought in to prepare the deceased for burial. A funeral was then elaborately staged and the stranger laid to rest in the mausoleum that my father had refurbished for the purpose. The behaviour of the peasantry on this occasion was gratifyingly credulous, but Macneil would leave nothing to chance. With every appearance of spontaneity, though in fact at his instigation, a band of villagers broke open the tomb after a sufficient interval and found, not the untouched, immaculate form they had been half-expecting, but what could only have been a dead body. To all appearance, Baron Aleku was no more. No such stratagem was thought necessary in my case; I was then quite undistinguished in horror.
‘Thereafter the ingenious and industrious and unspeakable Macneil saw to it that those whose blood we drank were brought from far enough away for Castle Valvazor not to be an object of suspicion. So matters continued for decades; I grew inured to my uncle’s embraces, even — forgive me if you can — developed a taste for them. To my status as a creature altogether depraved, beyond the reach of divine mercy, I was perfectly indifferent. Then, one night, the night of 31 August, all was changed. God or His messenger spoke to me in a dream, commanding me to make an end to the evil and holding out hope, if I heeded the commandment, of my soul’s salvation. At once I was resolved; I made preparations and, as soon as opportunity presented itself, I struck.
‘Late the following evening, 1 September, I came upon my uncle and Macneil in the small parlour. Having contrived Macneil’s brief but sufficient absence from the room, I took a hammer and drove a large iron nail into the back of my uncle’s head, not remitting my blows until the point had emerged through the right eye. I had been less than certain whether this would prove enough to secure the demise of such a one, but very soon such extreme and dreadful changes had taken place in him that I could no longer be in doubt. So perished a creature of the utmost infamy, and so who knows how many innocent men and women were spared a terrible fate.
‘When Macneil returned to the room he expressed violent loathing at what he saw. He went on to utter various taunts and threats, which changed to entreaties and attempts to strike bargains when he saw what I intended. To no avail; my duty was clear and my determination absolute.
‘In all save immaterial particulars this account is true and complete, and that is the sufficient and necessary reason for offering it to you as guardian of good order. You must take it or leave it as it stands. I shall not be available for questioning.
‘Under my hand and seal, Lukretia Valvazor.’
QUAESTOR: Thank you, prefect. Well, that is at any rate clear. We will defer other considerations till we have more evidence before us. Fetch Dr Eótvos, if he is composed enough to address the inquest.
DOCTOR: Yes, sir, I think so, your rectitude. I must emphasize that the need for haste and secrecy has meant that my findings are necessarily tentative and rather general.
QUAESTOR: That is understood. Please go on.
DOCTOR: One body appears to be that of a man of extreme old age, perhaps as much as ninety years old. This I surmised from the state of the hair, the teeth and one or two other parts that had to some extent escaped the process of decomposition undergone by the remainder, which was so advanced that the corpse could not be moved as a whole and had to be examined on the spot. And yet among the remains of the alimentary canal there were fragments of partially digested food that could not have been swallowed more than an hour before, perhaps two at the most. Human physiology, human… what happens when a man dies… will not allow of such a thing.