Original subtitles

hi and welcome back to story time with

me

natasha negovanlis reading joseph

chardon le fa news gothic vampire

novella

carmilla chapter 13 the woodmen

there soon however appeared some

drawbacks

in the first place malarka complained of

extreme anger

the weakness that remained after her

late illness

and she never emerged from her room till

the afternoon was pretty far advanced

in the next place it was accidentally

discovered

although she had always locked the door

on the inside and never disturbed the

key from its place till she admitted the

maid to assist at her toilet

that she was undoubtedly sometimes

absent from her room in the very

early morning and at various times later

in the day before she wished it to be

understood that she was stirring

she was repeatedly seen from the windows

of the schloss

in the first faint gray of the morning

walking through the trees in an easterly

direction

and looking like a person in a trance

this convinced me that she walked in her

sleep

but this hypothesis did not solve the

puzzle

how did she pass out from her room

leaving the door locked on the inside

how did she escape from the house

without unbarring

door or window in the midst of my

perplexities an anxiety of a far more

urgent kind presented itself

my dear child began to lose her looks

and health

and that in a manner so mysterious and

even horrible that i became

thoroughly frightened she was at first

visited by appalling dreams

then as she fancied by a specter

sometimes resembling

malarka sometimes in the shape of a

beast

indistinctly seen walking around the

foot of her bed from side to side

lastly came sensations one not

unpleasant but very peculiar she said

resembled the flow of an icy stream

against her breast

and at a later time she felt something

like a pair of large needles pierce her

a little below the throat with a very

sharp pain

a few nights after followed a gradual

and convulsive sense of strangulation

then came unconsciousness i could hear

distinctly every word the kindle general

was saying because by this time we were

driving upon

the short grass that spreads on either

side of the road as you approach the

ruthless village which had not shown the

smoke of a chimney for more than half a

century

you may guess how strangely i felt as i

heard my own symptoms so exactly

described in those which had been

experienced by the poor girl

who but for the catastrophe which

followed would have

at that moment been a visitor at my

father's chateau

you may suppose also how i felt as i

heard him detail

habits and mysterious peculiarities

which were in fact those of our

beautiful guest carmilla

a vista opened in the forest we were on

a sudden

under the chimneys and gables of the

ruined village

and the towers and battlements of the

dismantled castle round which

gigantic trees are grouped overhung

us from a slight eminence in a

frightened dream i got down from the

carriage

and in silence for we had each abundant

matter for thinking

we soon mounted the ascent and were

among the spacious

chambers winding stairs and dark

corridors of the castle

and this was once the palatal residence

of the

carnsteins said the old general at

length as

from a great window he looked out to

cross the village and saw the wide

undulating expanse of forest it was a

bad

family and here it's blood-stained

annals were written

he continued it is hard that they should

after death continue to plague the human

race with their atrocious

lusts that is the chapel of the

constines down there

he pointed down to the grey walls of the

gothic building

partly visible through the foliage a

little way down the steep

and i hear the axe of a woodman he added

busy among the trees that surround it

he possibly may give us the information

of which i am in search

and point out the grave of mercalla

countess of konstein

these rustics preserve the local

traditions of great families whose

stories die out among the rich

entitled so soon as the families

themselves become

extinct we have a portrait at home of

mercalla the countess karnstein should

you like to see it ask my father

time enough dear friend replied the

general i believe that i have seen the

original

and one motive which has led me to you

earlier than i

at first intended was to explore the

chapel which we are now approaching

what see countess mercalla exclaimed my

father

why she has been dead for more than a

century not so dead as you fancy i am

told

answered the general i confess general

you puzzle me utterly replied my father

looking at him i fancied for a moment

with the return of the suspicion i

detected before

but although there was anger and

detestation at times in the old

general's manner

there was nothing flighty there remains

to me he said

as we passed under the heavy arch of the

gothic church

for its dimensions would have justified

it being so styled

but one object which can interest me

during the few years that remained to me

on earth

and that is to wreak on her the

vengeance which i think god may still be

accomplished by a mortal arm

what vengeance can you mean asked my

father in increasing amazement

i mean to decapitate the monster he

answered with a fierce flush and a stamp

that echoed mournfully through the

hollow ruin

and his clenched hand was at the same

moment rays as if it grasped the handle

of an axe

while he shook it ferociously in the air

what exclaimed my father more than

ever bewildered just drag her head off

cut her head off

i with a hatchet with a spade or with

anything that can cleave through her

murderous throat you shall hear he

answered

trembling with rage and hurrying forward

he said

that beam will answer for a seat your

dear child is fatigued

let her be seated and i will in a few

sentences close my dreadful story

that was guys quite the storyteller

going on and on

the squared block of wood which lay on

the grass-grown pavement of the chapel

formed a bench on which i was very glad

to see

myself and in the meantime the general

called to the woodmen

who had been removing some boughs which

leaned against the old walls and axe in

hand

the hardy old fellow stood before us

he could not tell us anything of these

monuments but there was an old man he

said

a ranger of this forest at present

sojourning in the house of the priest

about two miles away

who could point out every monument of

the old karnstein family

and for a trifle he undertook to

bring him back with him if we would lend

him one of our horses

in a little more than half an hour have

you been long employed about this forest

ask my father of the old man i

have been a woodman here he answered

under the

forester all my days so has my father

before me

and so on as many generations as i can

count up

i could show you the very house in the

village here in which my ancestors lived

how came the village to be deserted

asked the general it was troubled by

revenant sir

several were tracked their graves

they're detected by the usual tests and

extinguished in the usual way by

decapitation

by the stake and by burning

but not until many of the villagers were

killed

but after all these proceedings

according to the law he continued

so many graves opened and so many

vampires deprived of their horrible

animation

the village was not relieved but a

morovian nobleman

who happened to be traveling this way

heard how matters were and being skilled

as many people are in his country

in such affairs he offered to deliver

the village from its tormentor

he did so thus there being a bright moon

that night he ascended shortly after

sunset

the towers of the chapel here from

whence he could distinctly see the

churchyard beneath him

you can see it from that window from

this point he watched until he saw the

vampire come out of his grave

and placed near it the linen cloths in

which he had

been folded and then glide away towards

the village to plague its inhabitants

the stranger having seen all this came

down from the steeple took the linen

wrapping of the vampire

and carried them up to the top of the

tower which he again mounted

when the vampire returned from his

prowlings and missed his clothes

he cried furiously to the morovian whom

he saw at the summit of the tower

and who in reply beckoned him to ascend

and take them

whereupon the vampire accepting his

invitation

began to climb the steeple and so soon

as he reached the battlements

the morovian with a stroke of his sword

clove his skull and twain

hurling him down to the churchyard

wither descending by the winding stairs

the stranger followed and cut his head

off and

next day delivered it and the body to

the villagers

who dully impaled and burnt them this

morovian nobleman had authority

from the then head of the family to

remove the tomb

of mercallah countess karnstein which he

did

effectually so that in a little while

its sight

was quite forgotten can you point out

where it stood asked the general eagerly

the forester shook his head and smiled

not a soul living could tell you that

now he said besides they say her body

was removed

but no one's sure of that either having

thus spoken

as time pressed he dropped his axe and

departed

leaving us to hear the remainder of the

general's

strange story

you