Pietra

  “The hours that followed were like a dream. I submitted to an interview with the police, during which I told them all that had happened the previous evening. When I mentioned the lady I had seen, I think they imagined that the gondolier and I had been love rivals, fighting for the affections of the woman we both desired. Worse followed when I said that the woman in question had been Pietra, the Countess Caresini.

  “ ‘Nonsense!’ the inspector said. He was a burly, aggressive man who went by the surname of Barbarigo, and who looked at me as if I were some new and fascinating species of insect. ‘The Caresinis are all dead. Nobody lives in that palazzo these days.’

  “In vain did I insist that I had seen the lady enter the palazzo, and that the gondolier himself had been adamant that she was the countess. The inspector at first simply laughed, and then became angry.

  “ ‘If you saw anyone at all,’ he said at last, ‘it must have been a ghost. If you wish to look upon the Caresinis you must go to the Cemetery of San Michele, for that is where they all reside now. That is, of course, if this lady was not some invention of yours, created to distract us from the truth.’

  “It began to occur to me that, if Barbarigo wished to pin the blame for the gondolier’s or anyone else’s death on someone, I would make an excellent scapegoat. I was a foreigner, without power or influence, and with an imperfect understanding of the language. Given my physical condition, he might have thought me a desperate man, ready to carry out almost any act. I was released only after my landlady confirmed that I had arrived back at the boarding house when I said I had, and had certainly not looked like a man who had just been involved in a life-or-death struggle. Barbarigo stood looking after me as I left the police station, though, and I felt that his suspicions had not been entirely quelled.

  “Later, when I remembered the incident, I wondered why the inspector had insisted that the Caresinis were all dead, when both my landlord and the gondolier had told me of the countess’s existence. At first, I was inclined to blame Barbarigo’s ignorance – had I not, after all, seen the lady with my own eyes? For days thereafter I haunted the street outside the palazzo, and I looked for Pietra as I walked through the city, hoping that I might meet her and satisfy myself that she was real, exchange a few words with her perhaps ... but I never saw her, never. Once, though, before going to bed, I looked out and saw a dim, flickering light in one of the windows in the palazzo – the light, I thought, of a solitary candle. The sight confirmed to me that the building was indeed inhabited – and who could its occupier be, if not Pietra? How strange it was, though, that a woman blessed with so many gifts – youth, beauty, nobility – should spend her evenings in solitude and silence, as I did!

  “But I craved solitude and silence in those days. In the aftermath of the gondolier’s death, I felt tired and ill-at-ease. My sickness advanced, inch by inch, and my body began to feel less my own, less the vehicle that could be steered and controlled according to my will. I regarded my own flesh with distrust, almost hatred: that it should betray me, in such a slow and painful manner, seemed almost impossible to accept. I hoped that death, when it came, would be swift and painless, and I invited it in my prayers. Those prayers were answered, perhaps – but not by God.

  “One night I awoke into a vague and blurred state of consciousness, feeling hot and uncomfortable, and tried to move. But my body was pinned back against the bed, held fast by someone else – someone who lay, I realised, on top of me. I could feel the weight of a body, the warmth of somebody’s breath against my skin. I moaned faintly, and not altogether in distress. Soft lips kissed mine, and then travelled across my jaw and down, down, towards my throat. I opened my eyes, and saw that someone was indeed there. I caught a glimpse of long hair, the outline of a cheek, the curve of an arm – but the light was too dim for me to make out any more detail. I waited, half in fear and half in delight, and felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “This time, when the pain came, it was anticipated. It felt as though a pin had been driven into my neck, followed by a sucking sensation, the feeling of my blood being drawn slowly from my veins. I imagined that I was sinking into warm, calm water, drowning in pleasure and pain, forgetting everything apart from this, this sensation ... I lost all sense of time and space, and all knowledge of myself. My fear, my sorrow, the prospect of my own death – all these things suddenly seemed immaterial, the pitiful preoccupations of a pitiful being. I lay still, waiting for the darkness to overwhelm me.

  “And then I remembered what lay on the other side of that darkness: the cold tomb, the worm, and decay. Not that, not yet ... I struggled, tried to push my attacker away, and cried out into the night. The being that was feeding on me resisted at first, and I lashed out with all my might. I felt soft skin, tangled hair; I heard a hiss, a sound of pure rage. The creature slid off the bed, and I caught sight of a shape moving swiftly, silently towards the bedroom door. Then – I could hardly believe the evidence of my own eyes – it seemed that the shape simply faded into the wood of the door, and disappeared.

  “I sat up, and reached for the lamp by the side of the bed. Its soft light confirmed that I was alone; and yet I did not believe that the experience had been a dream. It had been too real, it was too real. I lifted my hand and touched the side of my neck. My fingers touched something warm and wet, and when I looked down at them I saw that they were smeared with fresh blood. And then horror overcame me, and I sank down into unconsciousness, and knew no more.

  “When I opened my eyes, it was morning. Grey daylight slanted through the windows, and all was quiet and still; not even the sound of birdsong intruded upon the silence. I sat up, wondering for a moment why I felt so weak, and why a persistent sense of dread was nagging at me. Then I remembered, and reached for my neck. I felt the wound there, covered now with dried blood, and looked down at my pillow. A few drops of blood stained the linen there, and seeing them brought home the veracity of the night’s experiences. It had been no dream; it had been real, as real as the world now revealed to me by the light of morning.

  “I had no sooner reached this conclusion than a shrill scream rang through the building. It was a sound of utter despair and terror, a sound that might have come from Hell itself. I got out of bed, a little unsteadily, and pulled on my dressing gown.

  “The boarding house was, by the time I opened the door, in chaos. The few other people who were staying there were peering fearfully from behind their doors, or slowly venturing out into the hallway. I hurried down the staircase, and as I did so I heard a dreadful wailing or keening noise, a sound of heartbreak and desolation. Yet only when I reached the hallway below did I see what had happened.

  “The landlady knelt on the cold floor, weeping and moaning; and in front of her, at the foot of the stairs, lay the body of her husband, the landlord.”