An Outstanding Italian Ghost Story January 24, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This is an Italian memory of a British traveller, it is also a rather good ghost story. The non consequality of many of the events is effective.
I had the pleasure many years ago of staying for some days at San Donato, in Chianti. It is about thirty miles from Florence. The way of life at San Conato [sic, this must be San Donato] was old-fashioned and enjoyable. The family consisted of the Marchese; the present Marchesa, whom he married late in life on the death of his first wife, a Zondadari of Siena, with whom he had never lived happily, and from whom he was in early life separated; of his sister-in-law, and generally two or three priests. One night I went with the Marchese into old room where I found a number of old pictures resting on the floor and turned to the wall, mostly saints, landscapes, and portraits of little merit and in bad condition. One of them was, however, a very good picture, and though damaged and torn and dark with age and neglect, made a great impression on me. It was a full-length portrait of beautiful young woman in the picturesque dress of the seventeenth century, and from what could be distinguished of the figure, the fine features, and the singularly bright and expressive eyes, reminded me instantly of a charming portrait by Van Dyck in a Durazzo palace at Genoa. Round the fair graceful neck was a very thin silk or plaited hair chain, supporting a very small medallion of a reddish colour. The name of the lady depicted, the date, and the name of the painter had been carefully and thoroughly erased. When I called the Marchese’s attention to it, he looked at it with an embarrassed air, remarked that it was probably a fancy portrait of some stranger, and immediately turned it to the wall. In a moment after he opened a cupboard full of books, and kindly told me that, as I had a liking for old books, I might examine them, and take those which I thought worth taking. I took some late at night to my bedroom. One was Les Voyages de Jean Struys en Moscovie, en Tartarie, aux Indes, & en d’autres Pays Etrangers, Amsterdam, 1681. On the titlepage was written Chardin, and on the margin in several places there are notes in Chardin’s small, clear, delicate haudwriting, commenting on Jean Struys’s marvellous narratives. One of the engravings in the book was frightful and sickening: it was in two parts. In one a Persian husband, assisted by two servants, is flaying alive his wife, who is fastened naked to a St. Andrew’s cross. In the other he is exhibiting to his friends the skin nailed to the wall. Jean Struys says he was near the house and heard the wretched woman’s shrieks, but no one dared to interfere. As I was thinking over the tortures of the victim, the detestable cruelty of the monster in human shape who inflicted them, and the cowardly indifference of his neighbours, I was surprised by a very slight sound as of rustling silk [this is the 19 cent equivalent of the Jaws’ theme], and, looking up from books, I distinctly saw a female figure in white dress slowly gliding round the room, feeling the wall with her hands, as if searching for some particular spot. My first impression was that it was a trick to try my nerves, invented by some one of the guests. I remembered a secret passage in my villa at Majano commanding a bed-room, where tricks were practised in former times to frighten visitors, especially those coming from distance. But then I had, according my custom, carefully examined every part of the room, one of the great old-fashioned rooms of the house. The floor was of bricks painted like granite, the ceiling of beams in the Venetian style; there was no fireplace, according to the old fashion, which allowed generally only two fireplaces to a house, one in the great hall and one in the kitchen. There was very little furniture, and the only suspicious-looking objects were two great cupboards, not moveable or projecting from the side of the room, but let into the wall, which was unusually thick, the depth of the cupboards alone being at least a yard. As usual, I had locked the door. All this flashed through my mind in an instant. Then, I confess it, there came over me that peculiar sensation called creeping of the flesh. I tried to speak, and could not. At last I moved. At that moment the figure turned towards me, and I saw at once the image of the portrait in the old room; the same white figured silk dress, the same lace, the medallion, the brown hair, and the strange bright eyes with a feverish and melancholy expression. I started to my feet, and in so doing overturned and extinguished the candles. I had not closed either the outer or inner shutters; there was no moon, but a very dim twilight, partly, I suppose, from the stars. Unluckily I had no matches to strike a light. There was the figure which appeared to move in a light of its own – a sort of halo, as it seemed to me. Slowly it left the wall and disappeared in the bed, a great bed the seventeenth century, with a carved walnut wood canopy and red damask silk hangings, of the size and form of a bed I have at the villa of Majona, except that, mine is more modern, being of the last century, and having the canopy of carved wood gilt and the hangings of figured blue silk. I remained for a time, I know not how long, standing bewildered in the middle of the room, straining eyes towards the bed. The semi-darkness and the silence became oppressive; I felt stupefied, an irresistible fascination fixed my thoughts. I undressed hurriedly and almost unconsciously climbed into the bed. I must have fallen into a trance or a deep sleep – so deep that I was only wakened by a loud knocking at my door. I jumped out of bed. It was late, so late that breakfast was ready; so the servant told me, and he had been sent by the Marchese to see if I was ill or had gone out. As I was dressing I saw something on the floor; it was little medallion, a garnet or very red amethyst; or a carbuncle or a ruby. I cannot say positively which, with an exquisite ancient Greek engraving of a sphinx, with a very thin gold setting and a very small chain, either of silk or plated hair, with a tiny gold clasp. When I appeared in the breakfast-room, every one looked at me with a peculiar expression – at least I thought so – especially the Marchese, who, however, asked very kindly as to my health, observing that I looked pale and haggard. I thanked him, merely remarking that I had sat up too long over the books and had not been able to sleep till early in the morning. I put into his hand the medallion, telling him where I had found it. He looked at it curiously and nervously, turning very pale. He gave it back to me, saying that it had probably fallen out of one of the books. [this originally appeared in the Athenaeum in 1880]
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