Trollheart

Title: “The Room in the Tower”
Format: Short story
Author: E.F. Benson
Nationality: English
Written: 1912
Impact: ?
Synopsis: A man ruminates on the nature of dreams, and tells of a recurring one which he has had for fifteen years, in which he finds himself in an unfamiliar house, apparently the guest of a schoolfriend he barely knew, and did not ever like, and who had left school a year before he did. There would be absolute silence as he sat at tea, then the mother, Mrs. Stone, would declare “Jack will show you to your room; I have given you the room in the tower.” On being shown into this room, at the top of the house, a terrible dread would seize the man, though he would not know why, and he would wake in terror. At one point, he stops having the dream for six months, but then it comes back. This time however the severe matriarch of the Stone family is missing, and as the children are all dressed in black, he assumes she has passed away. Nevertheless, though she is not there in his dream, he hears her voice intoning the same dreaded sentence, though it seems to come from off beyond the wall that rings the garden. There appears to be some sort of graveyard there, and he sees one tombstone with the inscription “In evil memory of Julia Stone”. He is shown again into the terrifying room, but this time it is much darker, smells of mould and decay.

And then the author gets an invitation from a friend of his, John Clinton, to visit him in Sussex, and glad to leave (as he thinks) the dream behind, accepts and to his amazement finds himself in the very house which has been haunting his dreams. No silent family, no graves and no actual feeling of dread or oppression, until his friend’s mother says the words he has been hearing for years now in his dreams. Her son, his friend, is called John, so “Jack will show you to your room; I have give you the room in the tower” seems quite plausible, but fills him with momentary horror at the remembrance of his nightmares. However he soon dismisses it, finding this harder to do when, in the room, he finds two life-sized paintings, one of Mrs. Stone and one of her son Jack. Her portrait seemed to him to exude evil, mocking laughter, and though she is painted as old and feeble, he can see the vitality in her eyes, in her body. The painting is signed by her, so a self-portrait then.

He’s not about to sleep with that in the room, not surprisingly, and so he and his friend move it out, with the help of a servant - it turns out to be a lot heavier than it looks. But when they have done so, they all three notice their hands are covered in blood, yet none of them can see any wound on their hands. Shaken by the incident, they do not talk of it, but later that evening observe John’s terrier, Toby, snarl and bark and growl at something beyond the gate. They look through and see a cat, which the author thinks solves the mystery, but John tells him no: the cat, Darius, and the dog are good friends. But what then can it be that Toby snarls and growls at that Darius seems to love, as the cat walks around purring and sniffing the grass, its tail proudly up?

He goes to bed, feeling no horror now that the picture is out of the room, but as the storm which has been threatening all day breaks overhead, he wakes to find the picture hanging again in his room. That’s bad enough, but then he sees the figure of Mrs. Stone leaning over him in her grave shroud. She tells him she has been waiting for him, and will feast tonight, and then soon they will feast together. Going wild, he punches out and knocks her down then bales for the door, running into John as he slams it shut. He tells him what has happened but of course his friend just thinks he has had a nightmare - though he does note he has blood on his shoulder. He changes his mind though when he goes into the room and sees that, yes, the portrait they had moved out of the room is back in there, there is a disgusting smell and there is a grave shroud on the floor, covered in mould. He retreats out of the room, no longer laughing.

As a postscript, the author notes that some months ago, the body of a woman believed to be evil was buried, but the coffin kept coming back up out of the ground. Eventually they reinterred it in unconsecrated ground. There it then remained. But later, for some reason, someone dug it up and opened it, and found it to be full of blood.

Comments: There are parallels here to Goethe’s The Bride of Corinth, not in the attraction (ugh!) but in the idea of someone being in a room and being visited by a vampire, and kind of knowing all along what’s happening. I feel it’s possible that the late Tanith Lee may have used part of this story as the basis for the Scarabae in her Blood Opera series, of which more later, or maybe not, as I never really understood whether they were vampires or not. But the idea of heat, oppression, darkness, silent eyes watching, an outsider - that all feeds into her story. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but you’d have to wonder. Well, I do anyway. The idea of the grave shroud is used here again to confirm the being is or was dead, or undead, linking the vampire closer to the grave and making it as grotesque as possible, when he talks about mould covering the thing, and then the stench too, which overall tends not to be associated with the vampires of literature, as their efforts to enchant humans usually depends on them either blending in or being able to pass for normal mortals. Nothing bound to give you away as a creature of the undead than that nasty odour of the grave!

It’s not the first, I don’t think, but one of the few in which almost all of the action takes place in a dream, or nightmare, which then becomes real. I do admit I find his contention at the beginning hard to agree with. He claims, in the opening lines, that “It is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realized in the material world. But, in my opinion, so far from this being a strange thing, it would be far odder if this fulfilment did not occasionally happen, since our dreams are, as a rule, concerned with people whom we know and places with which we are familiar, such as might very naturally occur in the awake and daylit world. True, these dreams are often broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident, which puts them out of court in regard to their subsequent fulfilment, but on the mere calculation of chances, it does not appear in the least unlikely that a dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come true. “

But I can’t think of many, perhaps even any dream I had that then came true: well, I don’t really tend to remember my dreams all that clearly, so there is that. But I don’t think I know anyone who had a dream and then experienced the real version. So I suppose he’s just trying to justify his story here, but if he really does think dreams are a reflection of the waking world, and that something experienced in a dream could occur in reality, I think he’s somewhat off the beam there. I also see some holes in the story (and you know I love poking holes in plots!) - when he mentions the dog and the cat, the one snarling at, the other seeing to enjoy the patch of ground outside the gate, we assume this is because Mrs. Stone is buried there. This is sort of alluded to, but not quite explained.

His narrative says that, eight years ago, she was buried “just outside the iron gate belonging to the garden of the house where this woman had lived”, but he does not specify that that house is this house, so to speak. If he made some reference to the Clintons having bought the house after the owner passed away, then the mystery might be better solved. You’re left to wonder if this is the same house, and even if it is, why is the cat happy to be pawing at the ground where presumably Mrs. Stone was buried, while the dog hates it? Are we supposed to take it as read that cats love evil - the old stereotype, I guess, of cats being the familiars of witches - or even that the cat is her in another form? But the cat is called Darius, a male name, so how would that work?

There is merit in his using the picture as the medium through which Mrs. Stone returns, no doubt latching a little on to the idea behind The Picture of Dorian Grey, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this be used, and it does mark the story out then as being different. It’s unfortunate he has to include the cliched thunderstorm, which breaks as the action climaxes; could have done without that. There’s a nice eerie sense of deja vu when Mrs. Clinton repeats the words of Mrs. Stone in his dream. I would ask though, he mentions that two portraits hang in the room, that of her and her son. They don’t seem to remove the other one? Why is that, and is the fact that it’s left there a factor in her being able to rematerialise back in the room? Is his portrait also acting as a conduit for her soul, or maybe calling, inviting her in? It’s another loose end that isn’t tied up, and it could have been addressed quite easily, I feel. And once again, we have a woman in the role of the evil one, this time an older one, but still, male dominance rules huh? Like in Dracula, it’s the boys banding together who defeat the monster. Even the only other female character - other than Stone’s daughter, who is only mentioned in passing - gets one line and that’s it. She’s not involved in the story at all, except as a sort of proxy for Stone. Go boys!


Title: “Dracula’s Guest”
Format: Short story
Author: Bram Stoker
Nationality: Irish
Written: 1914
Impact: 8 (after the success of Dracula, anything by the author associated with it would have attracted a lot of attention)
Synopsis: Although he is never named, it’s been more or less accepted that the narrator of the story, the “Englishman” who is its focus, is Jonathan Harker, though here he is on a visit to Germany - Munich - prior to heading to Transylvania. For reasons not explained, though probably pure interest and sight-seeing, Harker (let’s call him that for now) decides to go looking at an old village. His guide warns him that it is Walpurgis Night, which coincides in Germany with Hexennacht, the Witches Night, when you’ll never guess what goes abroad in the world of men. So I guess, though it’s set for April 30, it must be a similar idea to our Halloween, a night when spirits stir and the dead walk, though possibly with less candy-collecting and more soul-harvesting. Anyway, it’s not a good night to be out, is the basic idea chanelled here. Harker, of course, as a good Christian Englishman (not sure if he’s supposed to have been a Protestant, but given that he’s English and seems to hold a reasonable status in society, I’d say it’s more likely than not) dismisses all this as superstitious nonsense, or possibly poppycock, maybe even balderdash, tells his guide he can fuck off home and he’ll make his own way back to the hotel.

Without any doubt, a really stupid thing to do. Here he is, in a foreign country, in a cold night (even though it’s technically spring it seems to be really cold here, with snow falling and everything; possibly up in the mountains?) and having been given a clear warning not to stay out. But mad dogs and Englishmen, right? Anyway he soon has cause to regret his rash action and his proud British stiff upper lip, as more than his lip begins to stiffen with the cold as night draws on, a storm moves in and he can’t find his way back. Driven on by the mow shrieking storm, he takes refuge beside what turns out to be a tomb, that of a countess. The door creaks open, and inside he sees the occupant not at all decayed and looking quite fresh and young. He feels, of course, a sense of creeping terror, but just then the wind catches him and he is hurled away from the tomb, just before lightning hits it and it explodes in flames.

Dazed and gasping, he awakes to find a great wolf standing over him, and then soldiers appear out of the night, soldiers sent to look for him and deliver him safe back to the hotel. It turns out that these have been sent by a certain count, who we must assume has either been visiting or has for some reason been in Germany, possibly shadowing Harker. He has power here too, and had ordered that Harker be found and returned unharmed.

Comments: Apparently originally part of the novel, this was removed by the publisher as it was deemed superfluous. It was later published on its own as part of a collection of short stories by Stoker, entitled Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories. Well to be honest I can see why they withdrew it. First of all, as a, if you will, preface chapter, it sort of gives away too much. Dracula is expecting Harker, and abjures the innkeeper to make sure that he is safe. We know why later of course. The woman in the tomb? Meh. She’s never referred to again in the book, and we can’t assume she has anything to do with the “brides of Dracula” who eventually take Harker in the count’s castle, so who is she? Doesn’t matter; she is not integral to the story.

There’s also a little too much exposition here. The first few pages are taken up with lavish descriptions of the terrain, and then the storm (again with the storm!), so much so that pretty much everything is an anti-climax, and the only real good bit at all is the note from Dracula right at the end. And it raises questions never answered. If Dracula has control of all the beasts, especially the wolves - (“Ah! The children of the night! What music they make!”) - then how can any wolf disobey his commands and menace Harker? Why can’t Dracula just reach out with his mind and tell the wolf to fuck off and leave him alone? Or is the wolf Dracula himself? Unlikely, as otherwise why would he be ordering a search? Then again, is the wolf in fact keeping Harker safe, at Dracula’s command, until the soldiers find him?

It’s a very confused story, and had it been left in I think we would have been expecting perhaps a different figure when we do eventually meet Dracula. Of itself, it’s not much of a story. Taken apart from the novel, were we not to know who Dracula was, maybe it would have more impact. Here, it kind of plays, to me anyway, like one of those opening scenes that sets up the episode on a TV show. Superfluous is definitely the word for it. I think had it been left in, it would have damaged rather than enhanced the novel.


Title: “The Vampire”
Format: Short story
Author: Jan Neruda
Nationality: Czech
Written: 1920
Impact: ?
Synopsis: Another story written, like almost all vampire stories up to now, including the most famous, in the first person, this takes place at some place called Prinkipo, which I think is mentioned as being near Constantinople, now Istanbul, in Turkey. It’s a very short story, and reading it you kind of wonder how anything can happen as, somewhat like Stoker’s “Dracula’s Guest”, the writer spends an inordinate amount of time describing the view, the weather and so on. Then right at the end, the kicker. The Greek, who has been sketching the family, among which is a girl who appears to be sick, is chased out of the hotel by the owner, who snarls that all the man paints is dead people. He paints them beforehand, living, and next thing they are dead.

As the daughter swoons, and presumably dies, her lover runs after the artist and tackles him. He scatters his drawings on the beach, and sure enough, there is one of the girl, dead. This is very clever, and a great example of how to really put a punch at the end of a very short story (it’s something like 1,300 words) which suddenly makes sense of everything that you’ve read up to then. It doesn’t, to be fair, describe or reveal the Greek as a vampire (even though that’s the title) but you can more or less guess that he is. It’s a story that would have worked without a vampire: a man who sketches people and then they die. Superb, and for the time, so close to being a candidate for The Twilight Zone or something.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018