Nightmare Tales , livre ebook

The Floating Press - P. Blavatsky H.

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

76 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Russian-born Helena Blavatsky was a fascinating figure who is best remembered as the creator of the spiritual tradition known as Theosophy. She undertook (and successfully completed) the ambitious task of synthesizing the whole of the world's religious traditions and distilling the timeless wisdom contained therein into a series of moral and ethical principles. Along the way, she dabbled in fiction writing, as well. This volume collects some of Blavatsky's mystery and ghost stories, which tend more toward psychological suspense than gore.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776533817
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

NIGHTMARE TALES
* * *
H. P. BLAVATSKY

*
Nightmare Tales From a 1907 edition Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-381-7 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-382-4 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
A BEWITCHED LIFE Introduction I - The Stranger's Story II - The Mysterious Visitor III - Psychic Magic IV - A Vision of Horror V - Return of Doubts VI - I Depart—But Not Alone VII - Eternity in a Short Dream VIII - A Tale of Woe THE CAVE OF THE ECHOES THE LUMINOUS SHIELD FROM THE POLAR LANDS THE ENSOULED VIOLIN I II III IV V VI Endnotes
A BEWITCHED LIFE
*
As Narrated by a Quill Pen
Introduction
*
It was a dark, chilly night in September, 1884. A heavy gloom haddescended over the streets of A—, a small town on the Rhine, and washanging like a black funeral-pall over the dull factory burgh. Thegreater number of its inhabitants, wearied by their long day's work,had hours before retired to stretch their tired limbs, and lay theiraching heads upon their pillows. All was quiet in the large house; allwas quiet in the deserted streets.
I too was lying in my bed; alas, not one of rest, but of pain andsickness, to which I had been confined for some days. So still waseverything in the house, that, as Longfellow has it, its stillnessseemed almost audible. I could plainly hear the murmur of the blood,as it rushed through my aching body, producing that monotonoussinging so familiar to one who lends a watchful ear to silence. I hadlistened to it until, in my nervous imagination, it had grown intothe sound of a distant cataract, the fall of mighty waters ... when,suddenly changing its character, the ever growing "singing" mergedinto other and far more welcome sounds. It was the low, and at firstscarce audible, whisper of a human voice. It approached, and graduallystrengthening seemed to speak in my very ear. Thus sounds a voicespeaking across a blue quiescent lake, in one of those wondrouslyacoustic gorges of the snow-capped mountains, where the air is so purethat a word pronounced half a mile off seems almost at the elbow.Yes; it was the voice of one whom to know is to reverence; of one, tome, owing to many mystic associations, most dear and holy; a voicefamiliar for long years and ever welcome: doubly so in hours of mentalor physical suffering, for it always brings with it a ray of hope andconsolation.
"Courage," it whispered in gentle, mellow tones. "Think of the dayspassed by you in sweet associations; of the great lessons received ofNature's truths; of the many errors of men concerning these truths;and try to add to them the experience of a night in this city. Let thenarrative of a strange life, that will interest you, help to shortenthe hours of suffering.... Give your attention. Look yonder before you!"
"Yonder" meant the clear, large windows of an empty house on the otherside of the narrow street of the German town. They faced my own inalmost a straight line across the street, and my bed faced the windowsof my sleeping room. Obedient to the suggestion, I directed my gazetowards them, and what I saw made me for the time being forget theagony of the pain that racked my swollen arm and rheumatical body.
Over the windows was creeping a mist; a dense, heavy, serpentine,whitish mist, that looked like the huge shadow of a gigantic boa slowlyuncoiling its body. Gradually it disappeared, to leave a lustrouslight, soft and silvery, as though the window-panes behind reflecteda thousand moonbeams, a tropical star-lit sky—first from outside,then from within the empty rooms. Next I saw the mist elongatingitself and throwing, as it were, a fairy bridge across the streetfrom the bewitched windows to my own balcony, nay to my very own bed.As I continued gazing, the wall and windows and the opposite houseitself, suddenly vanished. The space occupied by the empty rooms hadchanged into the interior of another smaller room, in what I knew tobe a Swiss châlet—into a study, whose old, dark walls were coveredfrom floor to ceiling with book shelves on which were many antiquatedfolios, as well as works of a more recent date. In the center stooda large old-fashioned table, littered over with manuscripts andwriting materials. Before it, quill-pen in hand, sat an old man; agrim-looking, skeleton-like personage, with a face so thin, so pale,yellow and emaciated, that the light of the solitary little student'slamp was reflected in two shining spots on his high cheek-bones, asthough they were carved out of ivory.
As I tried to get a better view of him by slowly raising myself upon mypillows, the whole vision, châlet and study, desk, books and scribe,seemed to flicker and move. Once set in motion they approached nearerand nearer, until, gliding noiselessly along the fleecy bridge ofclouds across the street, they floated through the closed windows intomy room and finally seemed to settle beside my bed.
"Listen to what he thinks and is going to write"—said in soothing tonesthe same familiar, far off, and yet near voice. "Thus you will hear anarrative, the telling of which may help to shorten the long sleeplesshours, and even make you forget for a while your pain.... Try!"—itadded, using the well-known Rosicrucian and Kabalistic formula.
I tried, doing as I was bid. I centered all my attention on thesolitary laborious figure that I saw before me, but which did notsee me. At first, the noise of the quill-pen with which the old manwas writing, suggested to my mind nothing more than a low whisperedmurmur of a nondescript nature. Then, gradually, my ear caught theindistinct words of a faint and distant voice, and I thought the figurebefore me, bending over its manuscript, was reading its tale aloudinstead of writing it. But I soon found out my error. For casting mygaze at the old scribe's face, I saw at a glance that his lips werecompressed and motionless, and the voice too thin and shrill to be hisvoice. Stranger still, at every word traced by the feeble, aged hand,I noticed a light flashing from under his pen, a bright colored sparkthat became instantaneously a sound, or—what is the same thing—itseemed to do so to my inner perceptions. It was indeed the small voiceof the quill that I heard, though scribe and pen were at the time,perchance, hundreds of miles away from Germany. Such things will happenoccasionally, especially at night, beneath whose starry shade, as Byrontells us, we
... learn the language of another world ...
However it may be, the words uttered by the quill remained in my memoryfor days after. Nor had I any great difficulty in retaining them, forwhen I sat down to record the story, I found it, as usual, indeliblyimpressed on the astral tablets before my inner eye.
Thus, I had but to copy it and so give it as I received it. I failed tolearn the name of the unknown nocturnal writer. Nevertheless, thoughthe reader may prefer to regard the whole story as one made up for theoccasion, a dream, perhaps, still its incidents will, I hope, provenone the less interesting.
I - The Stranger's Story
*
My birth-place is a small mountain hamlet, a cluster of Swiss cottages,hidden deep in a sunny nook, between two tumble-down glaciers and apeak covered with eternal snows. Thither, thirty-seven years ago, Ireturned—crippled mentally and physically—to die, if death would onlyhave me. The pure invigorating air of my birth-place decided otherwise.I am still alive; perhaps for the purpose of giving evidence to factsI have kept profoundly secret from all—a tale of horror I would ratherhide than reveal. The reason for this unwillingness on my part is dueto my early education, and to subsequent events that gave the lie tomy most cherished prejudices. Some people might be inclined to regardthese events as providential: I, however, believe in no Providence, andyet am unable to attribute them to mere chance. I connect them as theceaseless evolution of effects, engendered by certain direct causes,with one primary and fundamental cause, from which ensued all thatfollowed. A feeble old man am I now, yet physical weakness has in noway impaired my mental faculties. I remember the smallest details ofthat terrible cause, which engendered such fatal results. It is thesewhich furnish me with an additional proof of the actual existence ofone whom I fain would regard—oh, that I could do so!—as a creatureborn of my fancy, the evanescent production of a feverish, horriddream! Oh that terrible, mild and all-forgiving, that saintly andrespected Being! It was that paragon of all the virtues who embitteredmy whole existence. It is he, who, pushing me violently out of themonotonous but secure groove of daily life, was the first to force uponme the certitude of a life hereafter, thus adding an additional horrorto one already great enough.
With a view to a clearer comprehension of the situation, I mustinterrupt these recollections with a few words about myself. Oh how, ifI could, would I obliterate that hated Self !
Born in Switzerland, of French parents, who centered the wholeworld-wisdom in the literary trinity of Voltaire, J. J. Rousseauand D'Holbach, and educated in a German university, I grew up athorough materialist, a confirmed atheist. I could never have evenpictured to myself any beings—least of all a Being—above or evenoutside visible nature, as distinguished from her. Hence I regardedeverything that could not be brought under the strictest analysis ofthe physical senses as a mere chimera. A soul, I argued