The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Vampires gener-ally arrive at night, in carriages drawn by two black horses.



Our Vampire arrived by the commonplace means of the railway train, and in the afternoon. You must think I am joking, or perhaps that by the word 'Vampire' I mean a financial vampire. No, I am quite serious. The Vampire of whom I am speaking, who laid waste our hearth and home was a real vampire.



Vampires are generally described as dark, sinister looking, and singularly handsome. Our Vampire was, on the contrary, rather fair, and certainly was not at first sight sinister-looking, and though decidedly attractive in appearance, not what one would call singularly handsome.



Yes, he desolated our home, killed my brother - the one object of my adoration - also my dear father. Yet. at the same lime, I must say that I myself came under the spell of has fascination, and, in spite of all, have no ill-will towards him now.



Doubtless you have read in the papers passim of 'The Baroness and her beasts'. It is to tell how I came to spend most of my useless wealth on an asylum for stray animals that I am writing this.



I am oId now; what hapenned then was when I was a little girl of about thirteen. I will begin by describing our household. We were Poles; our name was Wronski: we lived in Styria, where we had a castle. Our household was very limited. It consisted, with the exclusion of domestics, of only my father, our governess - a worthy Belgian named Mademoiselle Vonnaert - my brother, and myself. Let me begin with my father: he was old, and both my brother and I were children of his old age. Of my mother I remember nothing: she died in giving birth to my brother, who was only one year, or not as much, younger than myself. Our father was studious, continually occupied in reading books, chiefly on recondite subjects and in all kinds of unknown languages. He had a long white beard, and wore habitually a black velvet skull-cap.



How kind he was to us! It was more than I could tell. Still it was not I who was the favorite. His whole heart went out to Gabriel - Gabryel as we spelt it in Polish. He was always called by the Russian abbreviation davril - I mean of course, my brother, who had a resemblance to the only portrait of my mother, a slight chalk sketch which hung in my father's study. But I was by no means jealous: my brother was and has been the only love of my life. It is for his sake that I am now keeping in Westbourne Park a home for stray cats and dogs.



I was at that time, as I said before, a little girl; my name was Carmela. My long tangled hair was always all over the place, and never would be combed straight. I was not pretty - at least, looking at a photograph of me at that time, I do not think I could describe myself as such. Yet at the same lime, when I look at the photograph, I think my expression may have been pleasing to some people: irregular features, large mouth, and large wild eyes.



I was by way of being naughty - not so naughty as Gabriel in the opinion of Mlle Vonnaert. Mlle Vonnaert, I may interpose, was a wholly excellent person, middle-aged, who really did speak good French, although she was a Belgian, and could also make herself understood in German, which, as you may or may not know, is the current language of Styria.



1 find it difficult to describe my brother Gabriel; there was something about him strange and super human, or perhaps I should rather say praeterhuman, something between the animal and the divine. Perhaps the Greek idea of the Faun might illustrate what I mean; but that will not do either. He had large, wild, gazelle-like eyes: his hair, like mine, was in a perpetual tangle- that point he had in common with me, and indeed, as I afterwards heard, our mother having been of gipsy race, it will account for much of the innate wildness there was in our natures. I was wild enough, but Gabriel was much wilder. Nothing would induce him to put on shoes and stockings, except on Sundays - when he also allowed his hair to be combed, but only by me. How shall I describe the grace of that lovely mouth, shaped verily 'en arc d'a

Vampire stories are generally located in Styria; mine is also. Styria is by no means the romantic kind of place described by those who have certainly never been there lt is a flat, uninteresting country, only celebrated for its turkeys,