The Best Ghost Stories Ever Told

by Stephen Brennan

  ‘E’l cimeterio giudaico, signore,’ said my gondolier, with a touch of his cap.

  The Jewish cemetery! The ghetto of the dead! I remembered now to have read or heard long since how the Venetian Jews, cut off in death as in life from the neighbourhood of their Christian rulers, had been buried from immemorial time upon this desolate waste. I stooped to examine the headstone at my feet. It was but a shattered fragment, crusted over with yellow lichens, and eaten away by the salt sea air. I passed on to the next, and the next. Some were completely matted over with weeds and brambles; some were half-buried in the drifting sand; of some, only a corner remained above the surface. Here and there a name, a date, a fragment of heraldic carving, or part of a Hebrew inscription, was yet legible; but all were more or less broken and effaced.

  Wandering on thus among graves and hillocks, ascending at every step, and passing some three or four glassy pools overgrown with gaunt-looking reeds, I presently found that I had reached the central and most elevated part of the Lido, and that I commanded an uninterrupted view on every side. On the one hand lay the broad, silent Lagune bounded by Venice and the Euganean hills—on the other, stealing up in long, lazy folds, and breaking noiselessly against the endless shore, the blue Adriatic. An old man gathering shells on the seaward side, a distant gondola on the Lagune, were the only signs of life for miles around.

  Standing on the upper ridge of this narrow barrier, looking upon both waters, and watching the gradual approach of what promised to be a gorgeous sunset, I fell into one of those wandering trains of thought in which the real and unreal succeed each other as capriciously as in a dream. I remembered how Goethe here conceived his vertebral theory of the skull - how Byron, too lame to walk, kept his horse on the Lido, and here rode daily to and fro - how Shelley loved the wild solitude of the place, wrote of it in Julian and Maddalo, listened, perhaps from this very spot, to the mad-house bell on the island of San Giorgio. Then I wondered if Titian had ever come hither from his gloomy house on the other side of Venice, to study the gold and purple of these western skies - if Othello had walked here with Desdemona - if Shylock was buried yonder, and Leah whom he loved ‘when he was a bachelor.’

  And then in the midst of my reverie, I came suddenly upon another Jewish cemetery.

  Was it indeed another, or but an outlying portion of the first? It was evidently another, and a more modem one. The ground was better kept. The monuments were newer. Such dates as I had succeeded in deciphering on the broken sepulchres lower down were all of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but the inscriptions upon these bore reference to quite recent interments.

  I went on a few steps farther. I stopped to copy a quaint Italian couplet on one tomb - to gather a wild forget-me-not from the foot of another - to put aside a bramble that trailed across a third - and then I became aware for the first time of a lady sitting beside a grave not a dozen yards from the spot on which I stood.

  I had believed myself so utterly alone, and was so taken by surprise, that for the first moment I could almost have persuaded myself that she also was of the stuff that dreams are made of. She was dressed from head to foot in the deepest mourning; her face turned from me, looking towards the sunset; her cheek resting in the palm of her hand. The grave by which she sat was obviously recent. The scant herbage round about had been lately disturbed, and the marble headstone looked as if it had not yet undergone a week’s exposure to wind and weather.

  Persuaded that she had not observed me, I lingered for an instant looking at her. Something in the grace and sorrow of her attitude, something in the turn of her head and the flow of her sable draperies, arrested my attention. Was she young? I fancied so. Did she mourn a husband? A lover? A parent? I glanced towards the headstone. It was covered with Hebrew characters; so that, had I even been nearer, it could have told me nothing.

  But I felt that I had no right to stand there, a spectator of her sorrow, an intruder on her privacy. I proceeded to move noiselessly away. At that moment she turned and looked at me.

  It was Salome.

  Salome, pale and worn as from some deep and wasting grief, but more beautiful, if that could be, than ever. Beautiful, with a still more spiritual beauty than of old; with cheeks so wan and eyes so unutterably bright and solemn, that my very heart seemed to stand still as I looked upon them. For one second I paused, half fancying, half hoping that there was recognition in her glance; then, not daring to look or linger longer, turned away. When I had gone far enough to do so without discourtesy, I stopped and gazed back. She had resumed her former attitude, and was looking over towards Venice and the setting sun. The stone by which she watched was not more motionless.

  The sun went down in glory. The last flush faded from the domes and bell-towers of Venice; the western peaks changed from rose to purple, from gold to grey; a scarcely perceptible film of mist became all at once visible upon the surface of the Lagune; and overhead, the first star trembled into light. I waited and watched till the shadows had so deepened that I could no longer distinguish one distant object from another. Was that the spot? Was she still there? Was she moving? Was she gone? I could not tell. The more I looked, the more uncertain I became. Then, fearing to miss my way in the fast-gathering twilight, I shuck down towards the water’s edge, and made for the point at which I had landed.

  I found my gondolier fast asleep, with his head on a cushion, and his bit of gondola-carpet thrown over him for a counterpane. I asked if he had seen any other boat put off from the Lido since I left. He rubbed his eyes, started up, and was awake in a moment.

  ‘Per Bacco, signore, I have been asleep,’ he said apologetically: ‘I have seen nothing.’

  ‘Did you observe any other boat moored hereabouts when we landed?’

  ‘None, signore.’

  ‘And you have seen nothing of a lady in black?’ He laughed and shook his head.

  ‘Consolatevi, signore,’ he said archly. ‘She will come tomorrow.’

  Then, finding that I looked grave, he touched his cap, and with a gentle, ‘Scusate, signore,’ took his place at the stem, and there waited. I bade him row to my hotel; and then, leaning dreamily back in my little dark cabin, I folded my arms, closed my eyes, and thought of Salome.

  How lovely she was! How infinitely more lovely than even my first remembrance of her! How was it that I had not admired her more that day in the Merceria? Was I blind, or had she become indeed more beautiful? It was a sad and strange place in which to meet her again. By whose grave was she watching? By her father’s? Yes, surely by her father’s. He was an old man when I saw him, and in the course of nature had not long to live. He was dead: hence my unavailing search in the Merceria. He was dead. His shop was let to another occupant. His stock-in-trade was sold and dispersed. And Salome - was she left alone? Had she no mother? No brother? No lover? Would her eyes have had that look of speechless woe in them if she had any very near or dear tie left on earth? Then I thought of Coventry Tumour, and his approaching marriage. Did he ever really love her? I doubted it. ‘True love,’ saith an old song, ‘can ne’er forget’; but he had forgotten, as though the past had been a dream. And yet he was in earnest while it lasted - would have risked all for her sake, if she would have listened to him. Ah, if she had listened to him! And then I remembered that he had never told me the particulars of that affair. Did she herself reject him, or did he lay his suit before her father? And was he rejected only because he was a Christian? I had never cared to ask these things while we were together; but now I would have given the best hunter in my stables to know every minute detail connected with the matter.

  Pondering thus, travelling over the same ground again and again, wondering whether she remembered me, whether she was poor, whether she was indeed alone in the world, how long the old man had been dead, and a hundred other things of the same kind I scarcely noticed how the watery miles glided past, or how the night closed in. One question, however, recurred oftener than any other: How was I to see her again?

 
I arrived at my hotel; I dined at the table d’hote. I strolled out, after dinner, to my favourite cafe in the piazza; I dropped in for half an hour at the Fenice, and heard one act of an extremely poor opera. I came home restless, uneasy, wakeful; and sitting for hours before my bedroom fire, asked myself the same perpetual question: how was I to see her again?

  Fairly tired out at last, I fell asleep in my chair, and when I awoke the sun was shining upon my window.

  I started to my feet. I had it now. It flashed upon me, as if it came with the sunlight. I had but to go again to the cemetery, copy the inscription upon the old man’s tomb, ask my learned friend Professor Nicolai, of Padua, to translate it for me, and then, once in possession of names and dates, the rest would be easy. In less than an hour, I was once more on my way to the Lido.

  I took a rubbing of the stone. It was the quickest way, and the surest; for I knew that in Hebrew everything depended on the pointing of the characters, and I feared to trust my own untutored skill. This done, I hastened back, wrote my letter to the professor, and dispatched both letter and rubbingby the midday train.

  The professor was not a prompt man. On the contrary he was a pre-eminently slow man; dreamy, indolent, buried in Oriental lore. From any other correspondent one might have looked for a reply in the course of the morrow; but from Nicolai of Padua it would have been folly to expect one under two or three days. And in the meanwhile? Well, in the meanwhile there were churches and palaces to be seen, sketches to be made, letters of introduction to be delivered. It was, at all events, of no use to be impatient.

  And yet I was impatient - so impatient that I could neither sketch, nor read, nor sit still for ten minutes together. Possessed by an uncontrollable restlessness, I wandered from gallery to gallery, from palace to palace, from church to church. The imprisonment of even a gondola was irksome to me. I was, as it were, impelled to be moving and doing; and even so, the day seemed endless.

  The next was even worse. There was just the possibility of a reply from Padua, and the knowledge of that possibility unsettled me for the day. Having watched and waited for every post from eight to four, I went down to the traghetto of St Mark’s, and was there hailed by my accustomed gondolier.

  He touched his cap and waited for orders.

  ‘Where to, signore?’ he asked, finding that I remained silent.

  ‘To the Lido.’

  It was an irresistible temptation, and I yielded to it; but I yielded in opposition to my judgment. I knew that I ought not to haunt the place. I had resolved that I would not. And yet I went.

  Going along, I told myself that I had only come to reconnoitre. It was not unlikely that she might be going to the same spot about the same hour as before; and in that case I might overtake her gondola by the way, or find it moored somewhere along the shore. At all events, I was determined not to land. But we met no gondola beyond San Pietro Castello; saw no sign of one along the shore. The afternoon was far advanced; the sun was near going down; we had the Lagune and the Lido to ourselves.

  My boatman made for the same landing-place, and moored his gondola to the same stake as before. He took it for granted that I meant to land; and I landed. After all, however, it was evident that Salome could riot be there, in which case I was guilty of no intrusion. I might stroll in the direction of the cemetery, taking care to avoid her, if she were anywhere about, and keeping well away from that part where I had last seen her. So I broke another resolve, and went up towards the top of the Lido. Again I came to the salt pools and the reeds; again stood with the sea upon my left hand and the Lagune upon my right, and the endless sandbank reaching on for miles between the two. Yonder lay the new cemetery. Standing thus I overlooked every foot of the ground. I could even distinguish the headstone of which I had taken the rubbing the morning before. There was no living thing in sight. I was, to all appearance, as utterly alone as Enoch Arden on his desert island.

  Then I strolled on, a little nearer, and a little nearer still; and then, contrary to all my determinations, I found myself standing upon the very spot, beside the very grave, which I had made my mind on no account to approach.

  The sun was now just going down - had gone down, indeed, behind a bank of golden-edged cumuli - and was flooding earth, sea, and sky with crimson. It was at this hour that I saw her. It was upon this spot that she was sitting. A few scant blades of grass had sprung up here and there upon the grave. Her dress must have touched them as she sat there - her dress; perhaps her hand. I gathered one, and laid it carefully between the leaves of my note-book.

  At last I turned to go, and, turning, met her face to face!

  She was distant about six yards, and advancing slowly towards the spot on which I was standing. Her head drooped slightly forward; her hands were clasped together; her eyes were fixed upon the ground. It was the attitude of a nun. Startled, confused, scarcely knowing what I did, I took off my hat, and drew aside to let her pass.

  She looked up - hesitated - stood still - gazed at me with a strange, steadfast, mournful expression - then dropped her eyes again, passed me without another glance, and resumed her former place and attitude beside her father’s grave.

  I turned away. I would have given worlds to speak to her; but I had not dared, and the opportunity was gone. Yet I might have spoken! She looked at me - looked at me with so strange and piteous an expression in her eyes - continued looking at me as long as one might have counted five . . . I might have spoken. I surely might have spoken! And now - ah! now it was impossible. She had fallen into the old thoughtful attitude with her cheek resting on her hand. Her thoughts were far away. She had forgotten my very presence.

  I went back to the shore, more disturbed and uneasy than ever. I spent all the remaining daylight in rowing up and down the margin of the Lido, looking for her gondola - hoping, at all events, to see her put off - to follow her, perhaps, across the waste of waters. But the dusk came quickly on, and then darkness, and I left at last without having seen any further sign or token of her presence.

  Lying awake that night, tossing uneasily upon my bed, and thinking over the incidents of the last few days, I found myself perpetually recurring to that long, steady, sorrowful gaze which she fixed upon me in the cemetery. The more I thought of it, the more I seemed to feel that there was in it some deeper meaning than I, in my confusion, had observed at the time. It was such a strange look - a look almost of entreaty, of asking for help or sympathy; like the dumb appeal in the eyes of a sick animal. Could this really be? What, after all, more possible than that, left alone in the world - with, perhaps, not a single male relation to advise her - she found herself in some position of present difficulty, and knew not where to turn for help? All this might well be. She had even, perhaps, some instinctive feeling that she might trust me. Ah! if she would indeed trust me …

  I had hoped to receive my Paduan letter by the morning delivery; but morning and afternoon went by as before, and still no letter came. As the day began to decline, I was again on my way to the Lido; this time for the purpose, and with the intention, of speaking to her. I landed, and went direct to the cemetery. It had been a dull day. Lagune and sky were both one leaden uniform grey, and a mist hung over Venice.

  I saw her from the moment I reached the upper ridge. She was walking slowly to and fro among the graves, like a stately shadow. I had felt confident, somehow, that she would be there; and now, for some reason that I could not have defined for my life, I felt equally confident that she expected me.

  Trembling and eager, yet half dreading the moment when she should discover my presence, I hastened on, printing the loose sand at every noiseless step. A few moments more, and I should overtake her, speak to her, hear the music of her voice - that music which I remembered so well, though a year had gone by since I last heard it. But how should I address her? What had I to say? I knew not. I had no time to think. I could only hurry on till within some ten feet of her trailing garments; stand still when she turned, and uncover before her as if she were a queen
.

  She paused and looked at me, just as she had paused and looked at me the evening before. With the same sorrowful meaning in her eyes; with even more than the same entreating expression. But she waited for me to speak.

  I did speak. I cannot recall what I said; I only know that I faltered something of an apology - mentioned that I had had the honour of meeting her before, many months ago; and, trying to say more - trying to express how thankfully and proudly I would devote myself to any service, however humble, however laborious, I failed both in voice and words, and broke down utterly.

  Having come to a stop, I looked up, and found her eyes Still fixed upon me.

  ‘You are a Christian,’ she said.

  A trembling came upon me at the first sound of hervoice. It was the same voice; distinct, melodious, scarce louder than a whisper - and yet it was not quite the same. There was a melancholy in the music, and, if I may use a word which, after all, fails to express my meaning, a remoteness, that fell upon my ear like the plaintive cadence in an autumnal wind.

  I bent my head, and answered that I was.

  She pointed to the headstone of which I had taken a rubbing a day or two before.

  ‘A Christian soul lies there,’ she said, ‘laid in earth without one Christian prayer - with Hebrew rites - in a Hebrew sanctuary. Will you, stranger, perform an act of piety towards the dead?’

  ‘The Signora has but to speak,’ I said. ‘All that she wishes shall be done.’

  ‘Read one prayer over this grave; trace a cross upon this stone.’

  ‘I will.’

  She thanked me with a gesture, slightly bowed her head, drew her outer garment more closely round her, and moved away to a rising ground at some little distance. I was dismissed. I had no excuse for lingering - no right to prolong the interview - no business to remain there one moment longer. So I left her there, nor once looked back till I reached the last point from which I knew I should be able to see her. But when I turned for that last look, she was no longer in sight.