Book of the Week

 This is one of my favorite books. It's a short story, which is a shame, I'd have liked to go deeper into the story of Carmilla and Laura. But it's short story full of beauty. A story of love and repulsion, opposing feelings, terrifying truths. A story full of sensuality and sexuality, narrated so subtly that it is irresistible.

 “Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.”

  Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria, where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service. When she was six years old, Laura had a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her.
 Twelve years later, a carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the "dream" they both had when they were young. Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months.

My feelings are a paradox

 “From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence,

I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed

to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and

soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover

myself when she withdrew her arms.

In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I experienced a strange

tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with

a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her

while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into

adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can

make no other attempt to explain the feeling.” 

 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

My wild heart bleeds with yours

“She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”
 And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.''

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Carmilla and Laura

''You wll think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.''

 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.