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Showing posts with label Vampires short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vampires short stories. Show all posts
Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Stale Aftertaste
Dedicated to all victims of the unbridled greed
Times
have greatly changed: now even people of his rank may fall from grace.
He looks at the peeling walls of the small apartment. From the former
glory he only retains the titles, his foreign accent and his servant,
faithful even though he has never taken a salary. He would cry. Not
because of grief, but anger, this insolent world does not nourish
respect for anything. Far from reverential fear of former times, they
just reserve for him indifference and oblivion. He would cry, but "men
never cry," use to say his father. And as he suspects, neither do the
monsters. So he drinks to forget, rather than because of true gluttony.
Life bores him: time is a prison for those who have nothing with which
to fill it.
“Renfield”... he calls as he tends the luxurious goblet, a family keepsake.
The
dense liquid leaves the body of the girl. He will take her back to the
streets where he found her later, when she no longer has anything to
offer. Homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes ... perfectly dispensable
people. He realizes it is unwise to act in this way, but these times are
not the times for squeamishness.
He
thinks of his beloved Tokay and all reputed wines he enjoyed during
that other warm life he barely remembers. Of all the things he will
never taste again, wine is what he misses more. He would sell his soul
in exchange for leaving the disgusting diet to which he is subjected.
But he no longer has a soul to sell. More than five hundred years eating
this rubbish, he tells himself unable to repress a grimace. While he
observes mesmerized how, in the screen of a television almost as
obsolete as he, a colorless woman uncorks a bottle. Everyone toast with
unconscious enthusiasm to the new year.
“Enough?” asks his servant confused by the ambiguous expression.
“Yes,
enough” he confirms absent. He knows what lies before him: only the red
thirst, eternal. A tiny tear, a nearly imperceptible black drop, slides
down his dry cheek.
.
Luigi Capuana: A Vampire
“It is no laughing matter!” said Lelio Giorgi.
“Why shouldn’t I laugh?” replied Mongeri. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Neither did I, once. .. and I’d still rather not,” went on Giorgi. “That’s why I’ve come to see you. You might be able to explain whatever it is that’s making my life a misery and wrecking my marriage.”
“Whatever it is? You mean whatever you imagine it is. You’re not well. It’s true that a hallucination is itself a fact, but what it represents has no reality outside yourself. Or, to put it better, it’s the externalization of a sensation, a sort of projection of yourself, so that the eye sees what it in fact does not see, and the ear hears sounds that were never made. Previous impressions, often stored up unconsciously, project themselves rather like events in dreams. We still don’t know how or why. We dream, and that’s the right word, with our eyes wide open. But one has to distinguish between split-second hallucinations which don’t necessarily indicate any organic or psychic disturbance, and those of a more persistent nature. . . But of course that’s not the case with you.”
“But it is, with me and my wife.”
“You don’t understand. What we scientists call persistent hallucinations are those experienced
by the insane. I don’t have to give you an example. . . . The fact that you both suffer the same
hallucinations is just a case of simple induction. You probably must have influenced your wife’s
nervous system.”
“No. She was the first.”
“Then you mean that your nervous system, haing a greater receptivity, was the one to be influenced. And don’t turn up your poetical nose at what you please to call my scientific jargon.
It has its uses.”
“If you would just let me get a word in edgeways. . . .”
“Some things are best let well alone. Do you want a scientific explanation? Well, the answer is that for the moment you wouldn’t get anything of the sort. We are in the realm of hypotheses. One to
day, a different one tomorrow, and a different one the day after. You are a curious lot, you artists! When you feel like it you make fun of Science, you undervalue the whole business of experiment, research and hypothesis that makes it progress; then when a case comes long that interests you personally you want a clear, precise and categorical answer. And there are scientists who play the game, out of conviction or vanity. But I’m not one of them. You want the plain truth? Science is the greatest proof of our own ignorance. To calm you down I can talk of hallucinations, of induction, receptivity. Words! Words! the more I study the more I despair of ever knowing anything for certain. It seems to happen on purpose, no sooner do scientists get a kick out of some new law they’ve discovered than along comes some new fact, some discovery, that upsets the lot. You need to take it easy, just let life flow by; what’s happened to you and your wife has happened to so many others. It will pass. Why must you try and find out how and why it happened? Are you scared of dreams?”
“If you’d just let me tell you. . . .”
“Go on then, tell me, if you want to get it off your chest. But I warn you, it can only make matters worse. The only way to get over it, is to busy yourself with other things, get away from it. Find a new devil to drive out the old—it’s a good saying.”
“We did all that. It wasn’t any good. The first signs. . . the first manifestations, happened in the country, in our villa at Foscolara. We ran away from it, but the very night that we came back to town. . .”
Horacio Quiroga: The Feather Pillow
Alicia's entire honeymoon gave her hot and cold shivers. A blonde, angelic, and timid young girl, the childish fancies she had dreamed about being a bride had been chilled by her husband's rough character. She loved him very much, nonetheless, although sometimes she gave a light shudder when, as they returned home through the streets together at night, she cast a furtive glance at the impressive stature of her Jordan, who had been silent for an hour. He, for his part, loved her profoundly but never let it be seen.
For three months--they had been married in April--they lived in a special kind of bliss.
Doubtless she would have wished less severity in the rigorous sky of love, more expansive and less cautious tenderness, but her husband's impassive manner always restrained her.
The house in which they lived influenced her chills and shuddering to no small degree. The whiteness of the silent patio--friezes, columns, and marble statues--produced the wintry impression of an enchanted palace. Inside the glacial brilliance of stucco, the completely bare walls, affirmed the sensation of unpleasant coldness. As one crossed from one room to another, the echo of his steps reverberated throughout the house, as if long abandonment had sensitized its resonance.
Alicia passed the autumn in this strange love nest. She had determined, however, to cast a veil over her former dreams and live like a sleeping beauty in the hostile house, trying not to think about anything until her husband arrived each evening.
It is not strange that she grew thin. She had a light attack of influenza that dragged on insidiously for days and days: after that Alicia's health never returned. Finally one afternoon she was able to go into the garden, supported on her husband's arm. She looked around listlessly.
Suddenly Jordan, with deep tenderness, ran his hand very slowly over her head, and Alicia instantly burst into sobs, throwing her arms around his neck. For a long time she cried out all the fears she had kept silent, redoubling her weeping at Jordan's slightest caress. Then her sobs subsided, and she stood a long while, her face hidden in the hollow of his neck, not moving or speaking a word.
This was the last day Alicia was well enough to be up. On the following day she awakened feeling faint. Jordan's doctor examined her with minute attention, prescribing calm and absolute rest.
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