"carmilla" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fanu J Sheridan Le)

miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf's
schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in
the aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of the proud family of
Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally- desolate chateau which,
in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town.



Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy
spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time.



I must tell you now how very small is the party who constitute the
inhabitants of our castle. I don't include servants, or those dependants
who occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss. Listen, and
wonder! My father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; and
I, at the date of my story, only nineteen. Eight years have passed since
then. I and my father constituted the family at the schloss. My mother, a
Styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who
had been with me from, I might almost say, my infancy. I could not
remember the time when her fat, benignant face was not a familiar picture
in my memory. This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care and
good nature in part supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not
even remember, so early I lost her. She made a third at our little dinner
party. There was a fourth, Mademoiselle de Lafontaine, a lady such as you
term, I believe, a "finishing governess." She spoke French and German,
Madame Perrodon French and broken English, to which my father and I added
English, which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us,
and partly from patriotic motives, we spoke every day. The consequence was
a Babel, at which strangers used to laugh, and which I shall make no
attempt to reproduce in this narrative. And there were two or three young
lady friends besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were occasional
visitors for longer or shorter terms; and these visits I sometimes
returned.



These were our regular social resources; but of course there were chance
visits from "neighbours" of only five or six leagues' distance. My life
was, notwithstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you.



My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you might conjecture
such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose
only parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything. The
first occurrence in my existence which produced a terrible impression upon
my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced, was one of the very
earliest incidents of my life which I can recollect. Some people will