Original subtitles

hello and welcome to quarantine story

time

i'm elise bauman and today i will be

reading from

jay sheridan le fanu's notable novel

carmella is how you pronounce it i don't

know i've never heard of it

chapter one and early fright

in styria we though by no means

magnificent people

inhabit a castle or schloss small income

in that part of the world

goes a great way eight or nine hundred a

year does wonders

scantily enough ours would have answered

among wealthy people at home

my father is english and i bear an

english name although i never saw

england

but here in this lonely and primitive

place where everything is so marvelously

cheap

i really don't see how ever so much more

money would it all materially add to our

comforts or even luxuries

my father was in the austrian service

and retired upon a pension in his

patrimony

and purchased this feudal residence in

the smallest state on which it stands

bargain nothing can be more picturesque

or solitary

it stands on a slight eminence in a

forest the road very old and narrow

passes in front of its drawbridge

never raised in my time and its moat

stalked with perch

and sailed over by many swans and

floating on its surface white fleets of

water lilies

over all this the schloss shows its many

windowed front

its towers and its gothic chapel the

forest opens in an irregular and very

picturesque glade before its gate

and at the right a steep gothic bridge

carries the road over a stream that

winds in deep shadow through the wood

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i have said that this is a very lonely

place

judge whether i say truth looking from

the hall towards the road

the forest in which our castle stands

exceeds 15 miles to the right and 12 to

the left

the nearest inhabited village is about

seven of your english miles to the left

the nearest inhabited schloss of any

historic associations

is that of old general spielsdorf

20 miles away to the right i have said

the nearest inhabited village because

there is only three miles westward

that is to say in the direction of jet

general spielsdorf's

sp spielsdorf schloss wow

general spielsdorf's schloss

i'm having flashbacks to film in

carmilla this is wild for

my mouth a ruined village with its

quaint little church

now ruthless in the isle of which are

the mouldering tombs of the proud

family of karnstein now

extinct who once owned the equally

desolate

chateau which in the thick of the forest

overlooks the silent ruins of the town

respecting the cause of the desertion of

this striking and melancholy spot there

is a legend which i shall

relate to you another time i must tell

you now how very small is the party who

constitute the inhabitants of our castle

i don't include servants or those

dependents who occupy rooms in the

buildings

attached to the schloss listen and

wonder

my father who is the kindest man on

earth but growing old

and i at the date of my story only 19.

eight years have passed since then i and

my father

constituted the family at the schloss my

mother a syrian lady died in my infancy

but i had a good natured governess who

had been with me from i might almost say

my infancy

i could not remember the time when her

fat benign face was not a

familiar picture in my memory this was

madame perez

a native of bern whose care and good

nature now in part supplied to me the

loss of my mother

whom i do not even remember so early i

lost her she made a third at our little

dinner party

there was a fourth mademoiselle de la

fontaine a lady such as uterm i believe

of finishing governess

she spoke french and german madame perez

french and broken english

to which my father and i added english

which partly to prevent its becoming a

lost language among us and partly from

patriotic motives

we spoke every day the consequence was a

babble

at which strangers used to laugh and

which i shall make no attempt to

reproduce in this narrative

and there were two or three young lady

friends besides pretty nearly of my own

age who were occasional visitors

for longer or shorter terms and these

visits i sometimes returned

there were our regular social resources

but of course

there were chance visits from neighbors

only five or six

leagues distance my life was

notwithstanding

rather a solitary one i can assure you

my governance had just

so much control over me as you might

conjecture such sage persons would have

in the case of a rather spoiled girl

whose only parent allowed her pretty

nearly her own way in everything

the first occurrence in my existence

which produced a terrible impression

upon my mind which

in fact never has been effaced was one

of the very earliest incidents of my

life which i can recollect

some people will think it's so trifling

that it should not be recorded here

you will see however by and by why i

mention it

the nursery as it was called though i

had it all to myself

was a large room in the upper story of

the castle with a steep oak roof

i can't have been more than six years

old when one night i awoke and looking

around the room from my bed

failed to see the nurse remade neither

was my nurse there

and i felt myself alone i was not

frightened

for i was one of those happy children

who are studiously kept in ignorance of

ghost stories of fairy tales

and all such lores makes us cover up our

heads when the door cracks suddenly

where the flicker of an expiring candle

makes the shadow of a bedpost dance upon

the wall

nearer to our faces i was vexed and

insulted at my finding

and i conceived neglected and i began to

whimper

preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring

and to my surprise

i saw a solemn but very pretty face

looking at me from the side of the bed

it was out of a young lady who was

kneeling her hands under her coverlet

i looked at her with a kind of pleased

wonder and ceased whimpering

she caressed me with her hands and laid

down beside me on the bed

and drew me towards her smiling i felt

immediately delightfully soothed

and fell asleep again i was awakened by

a sensation

as if two needles ran into my breast

very deep at the same moment and i cried

loudly

the lady started back with her eyes

fixed on me and then slipped down upon

the floor

and as i thought hid herself under my

bed

i was now for the first time frightened

and i yelled with all my might and mane

nurse nursery maid housekeeper all came

running in and hearing my story they

made light of it

soothing me all they could meanwhile but

child as i was i could perceive that

their faces were pale with an unwanted

look of anxiety

and i saw them look under the bed and

about the room

and peep under tables and pluck open

cupboards and the housekeeper whispered

to the nurse

lay your hand along the hollow in the

bed someone did lie there

so sure as you did not the place is

still warm i remember the nursery made

petting me

and the three examining my chest where i

told them i felt the puncture

and the pronouncing that there was no

sign visible that any such thing had

happened to me

the housekeeper and the two other

servants who were in charge of the

nursery remained sitting up all night

and from that time the servant always

sat up in the nursery until i was about

14.

girl you coddled i was very nervous for

a long time after this

a doctor was called in he was pallid and

elderly

how well i remember his long saturane

face slightly pitted with smallpox

and his chestnut wig for a good while

every second day he came and gave me

medicine which of course i

hated the morning after i saw this

apparition i was in a state of terror

and could not bear to be left alone

daylight though it was for a moment i

remember my father coming up and

standing at the bedside

and talking cheerfully and asking the

nurse a number of questions and laughing

very heartily at one of the answers

and patting me on the shoulder and

kissing me and telling me not to be

frightened

there was nothing but a dream and could

not hurt me but i was not comforted

for i knew the visit of the strange

woman was not a dream and i was awfully

frightened

i was a little consoled by the nursery

maids assuring me

that it was she who had come in and

looked at me and laid down beside me in

bed

and that i must have been half dreaming

not to know her face but this

though supported by the nurse did not

quite satisfy me

i remembered in the course of the of

that day a venerable old man in a black

cassock

coming into the room with a nurse and

housekeeper and talking a little to them

very kindly to me his face was very

sweet and gentle

and he told me that they were going to

pray and joined my hands together

and desired me to say softly while they

were praying

lord hear all my good prayers for us for

jesus sakes

i think these were the very words for i

often repeated them to myself

and my nurse used for years to make me

say them in my prayers

i remembered so well the thoughtful

sweet face of that white-haired old man

in his black cassock

as he stood in that rude lofty brown

room with the clumsy furniture

of a fashion 300 years about him and the

scanty light entering its shadowy

atmosphere through the small lattice

he kneeled and the three women with him

and he prayed aloud with an earnest

quake quavering voice for what appeared

to me a long time

i forget all my life preceding that

event and for some time

after it all obscure also but the scenes

i have just described

stand out vivid as the isolated pictures

of the phantasmagoria surrounded by

darkness what a last

sentence is that

[Music]

vivid as the isolated pictures of the

phantasmagoria surrounded by darkness

thank you for listening

[Music]

you