In a Glass Darkly J. Sheridan Le Fanu (intellectual books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
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Tom was facetious, sly, and rather difficult to understand, in his present pleasant mood. He was elevating his eyebrows and screwing his lips oddly, and fanning himself vaguely with his mask.
After some agreeable conversation, I was glad to observe that he preferred silence, and was satisfied with the role of listener, as I and Monsieur Carmaignac chatted; and he seated himself, with extraordinary caution and indecision, upon a bench, beside us, and seemed very soon to find a difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
âI heard you mention,â said the French gentleman, âthat you had engaged an apartment in the Dragon Volant, about half a league from this. When I was in a different police department, about four years ago, two very strange cases were connected with that house. One was of a wealthy Ă©migrĂ©, permitted to return to France, by the Emâ âby Napoleon. He vanished. The otherâ âequally strangeâ âwas the case of a Russian of rank and wealth. He disappeared just as mysteriously.â
âMy servant,â I said, âgave me a confused account of some occurrences, and, as well as I recollect he described the same personsâ âI mean a returned French nobleman, and a Russian gentleman. But he made the whole story so marvellousâ âI mean in the supernatural senseâ âthat, I confess, I did not believe a word of it.â
âNo, there was nothing supernatural; but a great deal inexplicable,â said the French gentleman. âOf course there may be theories; but the thing was never explained, nor, so far as I know, was a ray of light ever thrown upon it.â
âPray let me hear the story,â I said. âI think I have a claim, as it affects my quarters. You donât suspect the people of the house?â
âOh! it has changed hands since then. But there seemed to be a fatality about a particular room.â
âCould you describe that room?â
âCertainly. It is a spacious, panelled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, in the back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from its windows.â
âHo! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!â I said, beginning to be more interestedâ âperhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably. âDid the people die, or were they actually spirited away?â
âNo, they did not dieâ âthey disappeared very oddly. Iâll tell you the particularsâ âI happen to know them exactly, because I made an official visit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before me, and I dictated the official letter despatched to the relations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to investigate the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two years later, from which we learned that the missing men had never turned up.â
He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me.
âNever! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could discover. The French noble, who was the Chevalier ChĂąteau Blassemare, unlike most Ă©migrĂ©s, had taken the matter in time, sold a large portion of his property before the revolution had proceeded so far as to render that next to impossible, and retired with a large sum. He brought with him about half a million of francs, the greater part of which he invested in the French funds; a much larger sum remained in Austrian land and securities. You will observe then that this gentleman was rich, and there was no allegation of his having lost money, or being, in any way, embarrassed. You see?â
I assented.
âThis gentlemanâs habits were not expensive in proportion to his means. He had suitable lodgings in Paris; and for a time, society, the theatres, and other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did not play. He was a middle-aged man, affecting youth, with the vanities which are usual in such persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite person, who disturbed nobodyâ âa person, you see, not likely to provoke an enmity.â
âCertainly not,â I agreed.
âEarly in the summer of 1811, he got an order permitting him to copy a picture in one of these salons, and came down here, to Versailles, for the purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left his hotel, here, and went, by way of change, to the Dragon Volant: there he took, by special choice, the bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From this time, it appeared, he painted little; and seldom visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on very particular business; that his servant would accompany him, but that he would retain his apartments at the Dragon Volant, and return in a few days. He left some clothes there, but packed a portmanteau, took his dressing-case, and the rest, and, with his servant behind his carriage, drove into Paris. You observe all this, Monsieur?â
âMost attentively,â I answered.
âWell, Monsieur, as soon as they were approaching his lodgings, he stopped the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changed his mind; that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very particular business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that he would set out
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