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.His dark eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with asterner light from under his shaggy grey eyebrows.It was not such a change as grief alone usually induces,and angrier passions seemed to have had their share in bringing it about.We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with his usual soldierly directness, ofthe bereavement, as he termed it, which he had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and hethen broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the "hellish arts" to which she hadfallen a victim, and expressing with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that Heaven should tolerate somonstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignity of hell.My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary had befallen, asked him, if not too painful tohim, to detail the circumstances which he thought justified the strong terms in which he expressed himself."I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, " but you would not believe me.""Why should I not?" he asked."Because," he answered testily, "you believe in nothing but what consists with your own prejudices andillusions.I remember when I was like you, but I have learned better.""Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose.Besides which, I very well know thatyou generally require proof for what you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to respectyour conclusions.""You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a belief in the marvelous--for what I haveexperienced is marvelous--and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran counter,diametrically, to all my theories.I have been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy."Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General's penetration, I saw my father, at this point,glance at the General, with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.The General did not see it, luckily.He was looking gloomily and curiously into the glades and vistas of thewoods that were opening before us."You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he said."Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you know I wasgoing to ask you to bring me there to inspect them.I have a special object in exploring.There is a ruinedchapel, isn't there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?""So there are--highly interesting," said my father."I hope you are thinking of claiming the title and estates?"My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh, or even the smile, which courtesyexacts for a friend's joke; on the contrary, he looked grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter that stirredhis anger and horror."Something very different," he said, gruffly."I mean to unearth some of those fine people.I hope, by God'sblessing, to accomplish a pious sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters, and enablehonest people to sleep in their beds without being assailed by murderers.I have strange things to tell you, mydear friend, such as I myself would have scouted as incredible a few months since."My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of suspicion--with an eye, rather, of keenintelligence and alarm."The house of Karnstein," he said, "has been long extinct: a hundred years at least.My dear wife wasmaternally descended from the Karnsteins.But name and title have long ceased to exist.The castle is a ruin;the very village is deserted; it is fifty years since the smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof left.""Quite true.I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you; a great deal that will astonish you.ButI had better relate everything in the order in which it occurred," said the General."You saw my dearward--my child, I may call her.No creature could have been more beautiful and only three months ago nonemore blooming.""Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely," said my father."I was grieved andshocked more than I can tell you, my dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you."He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure.Tears gathered in the old soldier's eyes.Hedid not seek to conceal them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]