From the Black Prophet, Carmilla, A Portrait

7/30/2019 From the Black Prophet, Carmilla, A Portrait

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From The Black Prophet, by William Carleton

At this precise period[1817], the state of the country was frightful beyond belief; for it is well known that the

mortality of the season we are describing was considerably greater than that which even cholera occasioned in

its worst and most malignant ravages. Indeed, the latter was not attended by such a tedious and lingering train of

miseries as that, which in so many woful shapes, surrounded typhus fever. The appearance of cholera wassudden, and its operations quick, and although, on that account, it was looked upon with tenfold terror, yet forthis very reason, the consequences which it produced were by no means so full of affliction and distress, nor

presented such strong and pitiable claims on human aid and sympathy as did those of typhus. In the one case,

the victim was cut down by a sudden stroke, which occasioned a shock or moral paralysis both to himself and

the survivorsespecially to the latterthat might, be almost said to neutralize its own inflictions. In the other,

the approach was comparatively so slow and gradual, that all the sympathies and afflictions were allowed fulland painful time to reach the utmost limits of human suffering, and to endure the wasting series of those

struggles and details which long illness, surrounded by destitution and affliction, never fails to inflict. In the

cholera, there was no time left to feel the passions were wrenched and stunned by a blow, which was over, one

may say, before it could be perceived; while in the wide-spread but more tedious desolation of typhus, the heart

was left to brood over the thousand phases of love and misery which the terrible realities of the one, joined to

the alarming exaggerations of the other, never failed to present. In cholera, a few hours, and all was over; but in

the awful fever which then prevailed, there was the gradual approachthe protracted illnessthe long nights ofracking painday after day of raging torture and the dark period of uncertainty when the balance of human

life hangs in the terrible equilibrium of suspense all requiring the exhibition of constant attentionof the eye

whose affection never sleeps the ear that is deaf only to every sound but the moan of pain the touch whose

tenderness is felt as a solace, so long as suffering itself is conscious the pressure of the aching head the

moistening of the parched and burning lips and the numerous and indescribable offices of love and

devotedness, which always encompass, or should encompass, the bed of sickness and of death. There was, we

say, all this, and much more than the imagination itself, unaided by a severe acquaintance with the truth, could

embody in its gloomiest conceptions.

In fact, Ireland during the season, or rather the year, we are describing, might be compared to one vast

lazar-house filled with famine, disease and death. The very skies of Heaven were hung with the black drapery of

the grave; for never since, nor within the memory of man before it, did the clouds present shapes of suchgloomy and funereal import. Hearses, coffins, long funeral processions, and all the dark emblems of mortality

were reflected, as it were, on the sky, from the terrible work of pestilence and famine, which was going forwardon the earth beneath them. To all this, the thunder and lightning too, were constantly adding their angry peals,

and flashing, as if uttering the indignation of Heaven against our devoted people; and what rendered such fearful

manifestations ominous and alarming to the superstitious, was the fact of their occurrence in the evening and atnightcircumstances which are always looked upon With unusual terror and dismay.

To any person passing through the country, such a combination of startling and awful appearances was

presented as has probably never been witnessed since. Go where you might, every object reminded you of the

fearful desolation that was progressing around you. The features of the people were gaunt, their eyes wild and

hollow, and their gait feeble and tottering. Pass through the fields, and you were met by little groups bearing

home on their shoulders, and that with difficulty, a coffin, or perhaps two of them. The roads were literally black

with funerals, and as you passed along from parish to parish, the death-bells were pealing forth, in slow but

dismal tones, the gloomy triumph which pestilence was achieving over the face of our devoted country a

country that each successive day filled with darker desolation and deeper mourning.

From Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu

[1] 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, stocked 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.

I have said that this is a very lonely place. judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the

road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right, and twelve 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, nearly twenty miles away to the right. (in Carmilla, In a GlassDarkly, 233)


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[2] I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony.

I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. But I was equally conscious of being

in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just

as I had seen it last, except that it was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which

at first I could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a

monstrous cat. It appeared to me about four or five feet long, for it measured fully the length of the hearthrug as

it passed over it; and it continued toing and froing with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I couldnot cry out, although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly

darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it springlightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large

needles darted, an inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream. The room was lighted by the

candle that burnt there all through the night, and I saw a female figure standing at the foot of the bed, a little at

the right side. It was in a dark loose dress, and its hair was down and covered its shoulders. A block of stone

could not have been more still. There was not the slightest stir of respiration. As I stared at it, the figure

appeared to have changed its place, and was now nearer the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and itpassed out.

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move. My first thought was that Carmilla had been playing me

a trick, and that I had forgotten to secure my door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual on the inside. I

was afraid to open itI was horrified. I sprang into my bed and covered my head up in the bed-clothes, and lay

there more dead than alive till morning.

From The Dead by James Joyce

[ Snow] was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of

Allen and, further westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon

every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the

crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as

he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon

all the living and the dead. (inDubliners, The Dead 152)

From A Portrait of the Artist as a YoungMan by James Joyce

[1] Stephen lifted his eyes in wonder and saw for a moment Father Dolans white-grey not young face, his baldy

white-grey head with fluff at the sides of it, the steel rims of his spectacles and his no-coloured eyes looking

through the glasses. Why did he say he knew that trick?Lazy idle little loafer! cried the prefect of studies. Broke my glasses! An old schoolboy trick! Out with

your hand this moment!

Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He felt the

prefect of studies touch it for a moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the

soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken

stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding

tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled

burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let off. But though

the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry that

scalded his throat.Other hand! shouted the prefect of studies.Stephen drew back his maimed and quivering right arm and held out his left hand. The soutane sleeve

swished again as the pandybat was lifted and a loud crashing sound and a fierce maddening tingling burning

pain made his hand shrink together with the palms and fingers in a livid quivering mass. The scalding water

burst forth from his eyes and, burning with shame and agony and fear, he drew back his shaking arm in terror

and burst out into a whine of pain. His body shook with a palsy of fright and in shame and rage he felt the

scalding cry come from his throat and the scalding tears falling out of his eyes and down his flaming cheeks.Kneel down, cried the prefect of studies.

Stephen knelt down quickly pressing his beaten hands to his sides. To think of them beaten and swollen

with pain all in a moment made him feel so sorry for them as if they were not his own but someone elses that

he felt sorry for. And as he knelt, calming the last sobs in his throat and feeling the burning tingling pain pressed

into his sides, he thought of the hands which he had held out in the air with the palms up and of the firm touch

of the prefect of studies when he had steadied the shaking fingers and of the beaten swollen reddened mass ofpalm and fingers that shook helplessly in the air.


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Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from the door. Father Dolan will be in every day

to see if any boy, any lazy idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day.

The door closed behind him. (inA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 37-8)

[2] His eyes were dimmed with tears and, looking humbly up to heaven, he wept for the innocence he had lost.

When evening had fallen he left the house and the first touch of the damp air and the noise of the door as it

closed behind him made ache again his conscience, lulled by prayer and tears. Confess! Confess! It was notenough to lull the conscience with a tear and a prayer. He had to kneel before the minister of the Holy Ghost and

tell over his hidden sins truly and repentantly. Before he heard again the footboard of the housedoor trail over

the threshold as it opened to let him in, before he saw again the table in the kitchen set for supper he would haveknelt and confessed. It was quite simple.

The ache of conscience ceased and he walked onward swiftly through the dark streets. There were so many

flagstones on the footpath of that street and so many cities in the world. Yet eternity had no end. He was in

mortal sin. Even once was a mortal sin. It could happen in an instant. But how so quickly? By seeing or by

thinking of seeing. The eyes see the thing, without having wished first to see. Then in an instant it happens. But

what does that part of the body understand or what? The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field. It mustunderstand when it desires in one instant and then prolongs its own desire instant after instant, sinfully. It feels

and understands and desires. What a horrible thing! Who made it to be like that, a bestial part of the body able to

understand bestially the desire bestially. Was that then he or an inhuman thing moved by lower soul than his

own soul? His soul sickened at the thought of a torpid snaky life feeding itself out of the tender marrow of hislife and fattening upon the slime of lust. O why was that so? O why?

He cowered in the shadow of the thought, abasing himself in the awe of God who made all the things andall men. Madness. Who could think such a thought? And, cowering in darkness and abject, he prayed mutedly to

his angel guardian to drive away with his sword the demon that was whispering to his brain.

The whisper ceased and he knew then clearly that his own soul had sinned in thought and word and deed

wilfully through his own body. Confess! He had to confess every sin. How could he utter in words to the priest

what he had done? Must, must. Or how could he explain without dying of shame? Or how could he have done

such things without shame? A madman, a loathsome madman! Confess! O he would indeed to be free and

sinless again! Perhaps the priest would know. O dear God!

He walked on and on through illlit streets, fearing to stand still for a moment lest it might seem that he held

back from what awaited him, fearing to arrive at that towards which he still turned with longing. How beautiful

must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon it with love!

[Arrived at Church Street chapel, Stephen is ready for his confession.]At last it had come. He knelt in the silent gloom and raised his eyes to the white crucifix suspended above

him. God could see that he was sorry. He would tell all his sins. His confession would be long, long. Everybody

in the chapel would know then what a sinner he had been. Let them know. It was true. But God had promised to

forgive him if he was sorry. He was sorry. He clasped his hands and raised them towards the white form,

praying with his darkened eyes, praying with all his trembling body, swaying his head to and fro like a lost

creature, praying with whimpering lips.Sorry! Sorry! O sorry! (inA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 107-10)

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From the Black Prophet, Carmilla, A Portrait