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."Meantime, how fared it with Lilith? She too had no doubt that she had seen thebody-ghost of poor Karl, and that the vampire had, according to rule, paid herthe first visit because he loved her best.This was horrible enough if thevampire were not really the person he represented; but if in any sense it wereKarl himself, at least it gave some expectation of a more prolonged existencethan her father had taught her to look for; and if love anything like hermother's still lasted, even along with the habits of a vampire, there wassomething to hope for in the future.And then, though he had visited her, he hadnot, as far as she was aware, deprived her of a drop of blood.She could not becertain that he had not bitten her, for she had been in such a strange conditionof mind that she might not have felt it, but she believed that he had restrainedthe impulses of his vampire nature, and had left her, lest he should yet yieldto them.She fell fast asleep; and, when morning came, there was not, as far asshe could judge, one of those triangular leech-like perforations to be foundupon her whole body.Will it be believed that the moment she was satisfied ofthis, she was seized by a terrible jealousy, lest Karl should have gone andbitten some one else? Most people will wonder that she should not have gone outof her senses at once; but there was all the difference between a visit from areal vampire and a visit from a man she had begun to love, even although shetook him for a vampire.All the difference does not lie in a name.They werevery different causes, and the effects must be very different."When Teufelsbürst came down in the morning, he crept into the studio like amurderer.There lay the awful white block, seeming to his eyes just the same ashe had left it.What was to be done with it? He dared not open it.Mould andmodel must go together.But whither? If inquiry should be made afterWolkenlicht, and this were discovered anywhere on his premises, would it not beenough to bring him at once to the gallows? Therefore it would be dangerous tobury it in the garden, or in the cellar."`Besides,' thought he, with a shudder, `that would be to fix the vampire as aguest for ever.'And the horrors of the past night rushed back upon hisimagination with renewed intensity.What would it be to have the dead Karlcrawling about his house for ever, now inside, now out, now sitting on thestairs, now staring in at the windows?"He would have dragged it to the bottom of his garden, past which the Moldauflowed, and plunged it into the stream; but then, should the spectre continue toprove troublesome, it would be almost impossible to reach the body so as todestroy it by fire; besides which, he could not do it without assistance, andthe probability of discovery.If, however, the apparition should turn out to beno vampire, but only a respectable ghost, they might manage to endure itspresence, till it should be weary of haunting them."He resolved at last to convey the body for the meantime into a concealed cellarin the house, seeing something must be done before his daughter came down.Proceeding to remove it, his consternation as greatly increased when hediscovered how the body had grown in weight since he had thus disposed of it,leaving on his mind scarcely a hope that it could turn out not to be a vampireafter all.He could scarcely stir it, and there was but one whom he could callto his assistancethe old woman who acted as his housekeeper and servant."He went to her room, roused her, and told her the whole story.Devoted to hermaster for many years, and not quite so sensitive to fearful influences as whenless experienced in horrors, she showed immediate readiness to render himassistance.Utterly unable, however, to lift the mass between them, they couldonly drag and push it along; and such a slow toil was it that there was no timeto remove the traces of its track, before Lilith came down and saw a broad whiteline leading from the door of the studio down the cellar-stairs.She knew in amoment what it meant; but not a word was uttered about the matter, and the nameof Karl Wolkenlicht seemed to be entirely forgotten."But how could the affairs of a house go on all the same when every one of thehousehold knew that a dead body lay in the cellar?nay more, that, although itlay still and dead enough all day, it would come half alive at nightfall, and,turning the whole house into a sepulchre by its presence, go creeping about likea cat all over it in the darkperhaps with phosphorescent eyes? So it was notsurprising that the painter abandoned his studio early, and that the three foundthemselves together in the gorgeous room formerly described, as soon as twilightbegan to fall."Already Teufelsbürst had begun to experience a kind of shrinking from thehorrid faces in his own pictures, and to feel disgusted at the abortions of hisown mind.But all that he and the old woman now felt was an increasing fear asthe night drew on, a kind of sickening and paralysing terror.The thing downthere would not lie quietat least its phantom in the cellars of theirimagination would not.As much as possible, however, they avoided alarmingLilith, who, knowing all they knew, was as silent as they.But her mind was in astrange state of excitement, partly from the presence of a new sense of love,the pleasure of which all the atmosphere of grief into which it grew could nottotally quench.It comforted her somehow, as a child may comfort when his fatheris away."Bedtime came, and no one made a move to go.Without a word spoken on thesubject, the three remained together all night; the elders nodding andslumbering occasionally, and Lilith getting some share of repose on a couch.Allnight the shape of death might be somewhere about the house; but it did notdisturb them.They heard no sound, saw no sight; and when the morning dawned,they separated, chilled and stupid, and for the time beyond fear, to seek reposein their private chambers.There they remained equally undisturbed."But when the painter approached his easel a few hours after, looking more paleand haggard still than he was wont, from the fears of the night, a newbewilderment took possession of him.He had been busy with a fresh embodiment ofhis favourite subject, into which he had sketched the form of the student as thesufferer
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