“Nay,” replied the sorcerer, “that I can prevent;” and, so saying, he conducted him to a cavern further among the mountains. “Abide here twice seven days,” said he; “so long can I protect thee against her deadly caresses. Here wilt thou find all due provision for thy wants; but take heed that nothing tempt thee to quit this place. Farewell, when the moon renews itself, then do I repair hither again.” So saying, the sorcerer drew a magic circle around the cave, and then immediately disappeared.
Twice seven days did Walter continue in this solitude, where his companions were his own terrifying thoughts, and his bitter repentance. The present was all desolation and dread; the future presented the image of a horrible deed which he must perforce commit; while the past was empoisoned by the memory of his guilt. Did he think on his former happy union with Brunhilda, her horrible image presented itself to his imagination with her lips deified with dropping blood: or, did he call to mind the peaceful days he had passed with Swanhilda, he beheld her sorrowful spirit with the shadows of her murdered children. Such were the horrors that attended him by day: those of night were still more dreadful, for then he beheld Brunhilda herself, who, wandering round the magic circle which she could not pass, called upon his name till the cavern re-echoed the horrible sound. “Walter, my beloved,” cried she, “wherefore dost thou avoid me? art thou not mine? for ever mine—mine here, and mine hereafter? And dost thou seek to murder me?—ah! commit not a deed which hurls us both to perdition—thyself as well as me.” In this manner did the horrible visitant torment him each night, and, even when she departed, robbed him of all repose.
The night of the new moon at length arrived, dark as the deed it was doomed to bring forth. The sorcerer entered the cavern; “Come,” said he to Walter, “let us depart hence, the hour is now arrived:” and he forthwith conducted him in silence from the cave to a coal-black steed, the sight of which recalled to Walter’s remembrance the fatal night. He then related to the old man Brunhilda’s nocturnal visits and anxiously inquired whether her apprehensions of eternal perdition would be fulfilled or not. “Mortal eye,” exclaimed the sorcerer, “may not pierce the dark secrets of another world, or penetrate the deep abyss that separates earth from heaven.” Walter hesitated to mount the steed. “Be resolute,” exclaimed his companion, “but this once is it granted to thee to make the trial, and, should thou fail now, nought can rescue thee from her power.”
“What can be more horrible than she herself?—I am determined:” and he leaped on the horse, the sorcerer mounting also behind him.
Carried with a rapidity equal to that of the storm that sweeps across the plain, they in brief space arrived at Walter’s castle. All the doors flew open at the bidding of his companion, and they speedily reached Brunhilda’s chamber, and stood beside her couch. Reclining in a tranquil slumber; she reposed in all her native loveliness, every trace of horror had disappeared from her countenance; she looked so pure, meek and innocent that all the sweet hours of their endearments rushed to Walter’s memory, like interceding angels pleading in her behalf. His unnerved hand could not take the dagger which the sorcerer presented to him. “The blow must be struck even now:” said the latter, “shouldst thou delay but an hour, she will lie at day-break on thy bosom, sucking the warm life drops from thy heart.”
“Horrible! most horrible!” faltered the trembling Walter, and turning away his face, he thrust the dagger into her bosom, exclaiming—“I curse thee for ever!”—and the cold blood gushed upon his hand. Opening her eyes once more, she cast a look of ghastly horror on her husband, and, in a hollow dying accent said—“Thou too art doomed to perdition.”
“Lay now thy hand upon her corpse,” said the sorcerer, “and swear the oath.”—Walter did as commanded, saying—“Never will I think of her with love, never recall her to mind intentionally, and, should her image recur to my mind involuntarily, so will I exclaim to it: be thou accursed.”
“Thou hast now done everything,” returned the sorcerer;—“restore her therefore to the earth, from which thou didst so foolishly recall her; and be sure to recollect thy oath: for, shouldst thou forget it but once, she would return, and thou wouldst be inevitably lost. Adieu—we see each other no more.” Having uttered these words he quitted the apartment, and Walter also fled from this abode of horror, having first given direction that the corpse should be speedily interred.
Again did the terrific Brunhilda repose within her grave; but her image continually haunted Walter’s imagination, so that his existence was one continued martyrdom, in which he continually struggled, to dismiss from his recollection the hideous phantoms of the past; yet, the stronger his effort to banish them, so much the more frequently and the more vividly did they return; as the night-wanderer, who is enticed by a fire-wisp into quagmire or bog, sinks the deeper into his damp grave the more he struggles to escape. His imagination seemed incapable of admitting any other image than that of Brunhilda: now he fancied he beheld her expiring, the blood streaming from her beautiful bosom: at others he saw the lovely bride of his youth, who reproached him with having disturbed the slumbers of the tomb: and to both he was compelled to utter the dreadful words, “I curse thee for ever.” The terrible imprecation was constantly passing his lips; yet was he in incessant terror lest he should forget it, or dream of her without being able to repeat it, and then, on awaking, find himself in her arms. Else would he recall her expiring words, and, appalled at their terrific import, imagine that the doom of his perdition was irrecoverably passed. Whence should he fly from himself? or how erase from his brain these images and forms of horror? In the din of combat, in the tumult of war and its incessant pour of victory to defeat; from the cry of anguish to the exultation of victory—in these he hoped to find at least the relief of distraction: but here too he was disappointed. The giant fang of apprehension now seized him who had never before known fear; each drop of blood that sprayed upon him seemed the cold blood that had gushed from Brunhilda’s wound; each dying wretch that fell beside him looked like her, when expiring, she exclaimed:—“Thou too art doomed to perdition”; so that the aspect of death seemed more full of dread to him than aught beside, and this unconquerable terror compelled him to abandon the battle-field. At length, after many a weary and fruitless wandering, he returned to his castle. Here all was deserted and silent, as if the sword, or a still more deadly pestilence had laid everything waste: for the few inhabitants that still remained, and even those servants who had once shewn themselves the most attached, now fled from him, as though he had been branded with the mark of Cain. With horror he perceived that, by uniting himself as he had done with the dead, he had cut himself off from the living, who refused to hold any intercourse with him. Often, when he stood on the battlements of his castle, and looked down upon desolate fields, he compared their present solitude with the lively activity they were wont to exhibit, under the strict but benevolent discipline of Swanhilda. He now felt that she alone could reconcile him to life, but durst he hope that one, whom he so deeply aggrieved, could pardon him, and receive him again? Impatience at length got the better of fear; he sought Swanhilda, and, with the deepest contrition, acknowledged his complicated guilt; embracing her knees he beseeched her to pardon him, and to return to his desolate castle, in order that it might again become the abode of contentment and peace. The pale form which she beheld at her feet, the shadow of the lately blooming youth, touched Swanhilda. “The folly,” said she gently, “though it has caused me much sorrow, has never excited my resentment or my anger. But say, where are my children?” To this dreadful interrogation the agonized father could for a while frame no reply: at length he was obliged to confess the dreadful truth. “Then we are sundered for ever,” returned Swanhilda; nor could all his tears or supplications prevail upon her to revoke the sentence she had given.
Stripped of his last earthly hope, bereft of his last consolation, and thereby rendered as poor as mortal can possibly be on this side of the grave, Walter returned homewards; when, as he was ridin
g through the forest in the neighbourhood of his castle, absorbed in his gloomy meditations, the sudden sound of a horn roused him from his reverie. Shortly after he saw appear a female figure clad in black, and mounted on a steed of the same colour: her attire was like that of a huntress, but, instead of a falcon, she bore a raven in her hand; and she was attended by a gay troop of cavaliers and dames. The first salutations being passed, he found that she was proceeding the same road as himself; and, when she found that Walter’s castle was close at hand, she requested that he would lodge her for that night, the evening being far advanced. Most willingly did he comply with this request, since the appearance of the beautiful stranger had struck him greatly; so wonderfully did she resemble Swanhilda, except that her locks were brown, and her eye dark and full of fire. With a sumptuous banquet did he entertain his guests, whose mirth and songs enlivened the lately silent halls. Three days did this revelry continue, and so exhilarating did it prove to Walter that he seemed to have forgotten his sorrows and his fears; nor could he prevail upon himself to dismiss his visitors, dreading lest, on their departure, the castle would seem a hundred times more desolate than before and his grief be proportionably increased. At his earnest request, the stranger consented to stay seven days, and again another seven days. Without being requested, she took upon herself the superintendence of the household, which she regulated as discreetly and cheerfully as Swanhilda had been wont to do, so that the castle, which had so lately been the abode of melancholy and horror, became the residence of pleasure and festivity, and Walter’s grief disappeared altogether in the midst of so much gaiety. Daily did his attachment to the fair unknown increase; he even made her his confidant; and, one evening as they were walking together apart from any of her train, he related to her his melancholy and frightful history. “My dear friend,” returned she, as soon as he had finished his tale, “it ill beseems a man of thy discretion to afflict thyself on account of all this. Thou hast awakened the dead from the sleep of the grave and afterwards found,—what might have been anticipated, that the dead possess no sympathy with life. What then? thou wilt not commit this error a second time. Thou hast however murdered the being whom thou hadst thus recalled again to existence—but it was only in appearance, for thou couldst not deprive that of life which properly had none. Thou hast, too, lost a wife and two children: but at thy years such a loss is most easily repaired. There are beauties who will gladly share thy couch, and make thee again a father. But thou dreadst the reckoning of hereafter:—go, open the graves and ask the sleepers there whether that hereafter disturbs them.” In such manner would she frequently exhort and cheer him, so that, in a short time, his melancholy entirely disappeared. He now ventured to declare to the unknown the passion with which she had inspired him, nor did she refuse him her hand. Within seven days afterwards the nuptials were celebrated, and the very foundations of the castle seemed to rock from the wild tumultuous uproar of unrestrained riot. The wine streamed in abundance; the goblets circled incessantly: intemperance reached its utmost bounds, while shouts of laughter almost resembling madness burst from the numerous train belonging to the unknown. At length Walter, heated with wine and love, conducted his bride into the nuptial chamber: but, oh! horror! scarcely had he clasped her in his arms ere she transformed herself into a monstrous serpent, which entwining him in its horrid folds, crushed him to death. Flames crackled on every side of the apartment; in a few minutes after, the whole castle was enveloped in a blaze that consumed it entirely: while, as the walls fell in with a tremendous crash, a voice exclaimed aloud—“Wake not the dead!”
MAURICE LEVEL, an important contributor to the infamous Grand Guignol theatre of Paris, is unjustly obscure today. His fame rests on a rare collection of contes cruelles published in English in the 1920s, but “Night and Silence” is not part of that volume. It first appeared in the February 1932 issue of Weird Tales magazine and is still unequaled in its homely dreadfulness.
Night and Silence
By Maurice Level
They were old, crippled, horrible. The woman hobbled about on two crutches; one of the men, blind, walked with his eyes shut, his hands outstretched, his fingers spread open; the other, a deaf-mute, followed with his head lowered, rarely raising the sad, restless eyes that were the only sign of life in his impassive face.
It was said that they were two brothers and a sister, and that they were united by a savage affection. One was never seen without the others; at the church doors they shrank back into the shadows, keeping away from those professional beggars who stand boldly in the full light so that passers-by may be ashamed to ignore their importunacy. They did not ask for anything. Their appearance alone was a prayer for help. As they moved silently through the narrow, gloomy streets, a mysterious trio, they seemed to personify Age, Night, and Silence.
One evening, in their hovel near the gates of the city, the woman died peacefully in their arms, without a cry, with just one long look of distress which the deaf-mute saw, and one violent shudder which the blind man felt because her hand clasped his wrist. Without a sound she passed into eternal silence.
Next day, for the first time, the two men were seen without her. They dragged about all day without even stopping at the baker’s shop where they usually received doles of bread. Toward dusk, when lights began to twinkle at the dark crossroads, when the reflection of lamps gave the houses the appearance of a smile, they bought with the few half-pence they had received two poor little candles, and they returned to the desolate hovel where the old sister lay on her pallet with no one to watch or pray for her.
They kissed the dead woman. The man came to put her in her coffin. The deal boards were fastened down and the coffin was placed on two wooden trestles; then, once more alone, the two brothers laid a sprig of boxwood on a plate, lighted their candles, and sat down for the last all-too-short vigil.
Outside, the cold wind played round the joints of the ill-fitting door. Inside, the small trembling flames barely broke the darkness with their yellow light . . . Not a sound . . .
For a long time they remained like this, praying, remembering, meditating . . .
Tired out with weeping, at last they fell asleep . . .
When they woke it was still night. The lights of the candles still glimmered, but they were lower. The cold that is the precursor of dawn made them shiver. But there was something else—what was it? They leaned forward, the one trying to see, the other to hear. For some time they remained motionless; then, there being no repetition of what had roused them, they lay down again and began to pray.
Suddenly, for the second time, they sat up. Had either of them been alone, he would have thought himself the play-thing of some fugitive hallucination. When one sees without hearing, or hears without seeing, illusion is easily created. But something abnormal was taking place; there could be no doubt about it since both were affected, since it appealed both to eyes and ears at the same time; they were fully conscious of this, but were unable to understand.
Between them they had the power of complete comprehension. Singly, each had but a partial, agonizing conception.
The deaf-mute got up and walked about. Forgetting his brother’s infirmity, the blind man asked in a voice choked with fear, “What is it? What’s the matter? Why have you got up?”
He heard him moving, coming and going, stopping, starting off again, and again stopping; and having nothing but these sounds to guide his reason, his terror increased till his teeth began to chatter. He was on the point of speaking again, but remembered, and relapsed into a muttering, “What can he see? What is it?”
The deaf-mute took a few more steps, rubbed his eyes, and presumably, reassured, went back to his mattress and fell asleep.
The blind man heaved a sigh of relief, and silence fell once more, broken only by the prayers he mumbled in a monotonous undertone, his soul benumbed by grief as he waited till sleep should come and pour light into his darkness.
He was almost sleeping when the murmurs which had before
made him tremble, wrenched him from an uneasy doze.
It sounded like a soft scratching mingled with light blows on a plank, curious rubbings, and stifled moans.
He leaped up. The deaf-mute had not moved. Feeling that the fear that culminates in panic was threatening him, he strove to reason with himself.
“Why should this noise terrify me? . . . The night is always full of sounds . . . My brother is moving uneasily in his sleep . . . yes, that’s it . . . Just now I heard him walking up and down, and there was the same noise . . . It must have been the wind . . . But I know the sound of the wind, and it has never been like that . . . it was a noise I had never heard . . . What could it have been? No . . . it could not be . . .”
He bit his fists. An awful suspicion had come to him.
“Suppose . . . no, it’s not possible . . . Suppose it was . . . there it is again! . . . Again . . . louder and louder . . . some one is scratching, scratching, knocking . . . My God! A voice . . . her voice! She is calling! She is crying! Help, help!”
He threw himself out of bed and roared, “Francois! . . . quick! . . . Help! . . . Look! . . .”
He was half mad with fear. He tore wildly at his hair shouting “Look! . . . You’ve got eyes, you, you can see! . . .”
The moans became louder, the raps firmer. Feeling his way, stumbling against the walls, knocking against the packing-cases which served as furniture, tripping in the hole in the floor, he staggered about trying to find his sleeping brother.
He fell and got up again, bruised, covered with blood, sobbing, “I have no eyes! I have no eyes!”
He had upset the plate on which lay the sprig of box, and the sound of the earthenware breaking on the floor gave the finishing touch to his panic. “Help! What have I done? Help!”
The noises grew louder and more terrifying, and as an agonizing cry sounded, his last doubts left him. Behind his empty eyes, he imagined he saw the horrible thing . . .
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural Page 41
