"Is it true that horrible phantoms come (viennent) under the cloak of the rights of marriage, to suck blood from the throat of a timid maiden?"
"Vinssent! vinssent! vinssent!" murmured my neighbour.
Fresh cries of "Hush!" drowned his exclamation, which it must be confessed was less bold and less startling this time than the first.
Oscar replied: "Yes! and these monsters are called vampires. A Power whose inscrutable decrees we are not permitted to call in question, has permitted certain miserable beings, who are tormented by the punishments which their crimes have drawn down upon them on this earth, to enjoy a frightful power, which they exercise by preference over the nuptial couch and over the cradle; sometimes their formidable shapes appear clothed in the hideous guise death has bestowed upon them; others, more highly favoured, because their career is more brief and their future more fearful, obtain permission to reclothe themselves with the fleshy vesture lost in the tomb, and reappear before the living in the bodily shapes they formerly possessed."
"And when do these monsters appear?" asked Ithuriel.
"The first hour of the morning wakes them in their sepulchre," replied Oscar. "When the sound of its sonorous stroke has died away among the echoes of the mountains, they fall back motionless in their everlasting tombs. But there is one among them over whom my power is more limited ... what am I saying?... Fate herself can never go back on her decisions! ... After having carried desolation into twenty different countries, always conquered, ever continuing, the blood which sustains its horrible existence ever renewing its vitality ... in thirty-six hours, at one o'clock in the morning, it has at length to submit to annihilation, the lawful punishment of an infinite succession of crimes, if it cannot, at that time, add yet another crime, and count one more victim."
"My God! think of writing a play like that!" murmured my neighbour.
It seemed to me that he was too critical; for I thought this dialogue was couched in the finest style imaginable. The prologue continued. Several persons who had heard my neighbour gave vent to various whispered comments on the presumption of this indefatigable interrupter; but, as he buried himself in his Pastissier françois, the murmurs ceased.
It is unnecessary to point out that the young betrothed asleep on the tomb was the innocent heroine who was destined to be the bride of the Vampire, and had the public been in any doubt, all their doubts would have been dispersed after the last scene of the prologue.
"What do I hear?" said Ithuriel; "thy conversation has kept me long while in these caves."