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To be Read at Dusk .............................................................................................................................................1

Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland,

looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been

This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier, who was a German. None of the

others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the

convent door, smoking my cigar, like them, and also like them looking at the reddened snow, and at the

lonely shed hard by, where the bodies of belated travellers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowing no

The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; the mountain became white; the sky, a very dark

blue; the wind rose; and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There

being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine.

The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop

conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their

previous discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the travellers'

parlour of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realise to me the whole

progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest

'My God!' said the Swiss courier, speaking in French, which I do not hold (as some authors appear to do) to

be such an all sufficient excuse for a naughty word, that I have only to write it in that language to make it

'If I knew of what then,' said the German, 'I should probably know a great deal more.'

It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious. So, I moved my position to that corner of my bench

which was nearest to them, and leaning my back against the convent wall, heard perfectly, without appearing

'Thunder and lightning!' said the German, warming, 'when a certain man is coming to see you, unexpectedly;

and, without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger, to put the idea of him into your head all

day, what do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street at Frankfort, Milan, London, Paris and

think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that another passing stranger is like your

friend Heinrich, and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you'll meet your friend Heinrich

'Uncommon!' said the German. 'It's as common as cherries in the Black Forest. It's as common as maccaroni

at Naples. And Naples reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card party on the Chiaja

as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that

evening I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the cardtable, white through her rouge, and cries, "My

sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!" and when that sister IS dead at the moment

'Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy as all the world knows that it does

regularly once ayear, in my native city,' said the Neapolitan courier after a pause, with a comical look, 'what

'Bah!' said the German, presently. 'I speak of things that really do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I

pay to see a professed one, and have my money's worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts.

Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. There's no ghost in that, but something full as

As there was a silence among them, I glanced around. He whom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh

'The story of the English bride?' said he. 'Basta! one ought not to call so slight a thing a story. Well, it's all

one. But it's true. Observe me well, gentlemen, it's true. That which glitters is not always gold; but what I am

Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at Long's Hotel, in Bond Street, London, who

was about to travel it might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them; likewise of me. He

was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony that he received was favourable. He engaged me by the six

He was young, handsome, very happy. He was enamoured of a fair young English lady, with a sufficient

fortune, and they were going to be married. It was the weddingtrip, in short, that we were going to take. For

three months' rest in the hot weather (it was early summer then) he had hired an old place on the Riviera, at

an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know that place? Yes; I told him I knew it

well. It was an old palace with great gardens. It was a little bare, and it was a little dark and gloomy, being

close surrounded by trees; but it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the seashore. He said it had been so

described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it. For its being a little bare of furniture, all

such places were. For its being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the gardens, and he and my

We had a travelling chariot for our journey, newly built for us, and in all respects complete. All we had was

complete; we wanted for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was happy, seeing all so

bright, being so well situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, la bella

The time flew. But I observed listen to this, I pray! (and here the courier dropped his voice) I observed

my mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange; in a frightened manner; in an unhappy manner;

with a cloudy, uncertain alarm upon her. I think that I began to notice this when I was walking up hills by the

carriage side, and master had gone on in front. At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind

one evening in the South of France, when she called to me to call master back; and when he came back, and

walked for a long way, talking encouragingly and affectionately to her, with his hand upon the open window,

and hers in it. Now and then, he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her out of something.

It was curious. I asked la bella Carolina, the pretty little one, Was mistress unwell? No. Out of spirits?

No. Fearful of bad roads, or brigands? No. And what made it more mysterious was, the pretty little one

'If you must know,' said Carolina, 'I find, from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.'

'By a dream of a face. For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream always the same face,

'No. The face of a dark, remarkablelooking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache a

handsome man except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw.

'That's master's question,' said la bella. 'She don't know. She wonders why, herself. But I heard her tell him,

only last night, that if she was to find a picture of that face in our Italian house (which she is afraid she will)

Upon my word I was fearful after this (said the Genoese courier) of our coming to the old palazzo, lest some

such illstarred picture should happen to be there. I knew there were many there; and, as we got nearer and

nearer to the place, I wished the whole gallery in the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter, it was a stormy

dismal evening when we, at last, approached that part of the Riviera. It thundered; and the thunder of my city

and its environs, rolling among the high hills, is very loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks in the

broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened; the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest; the

seawind moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and the lightning body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened!

We all know what an old palace in or near Genoa is how time and the sea air have blotted it how the

drapery painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes of plaster how the lower windows are

darkened with rusty bars of iron how the courtyard is overgrown with grass how the outer buildings are

dilapidated how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of the true kind. It had been

shut up close for months. Months? years! it had an earthy smell, like a tomb. The scent of the orange

trees on the broad back terrace, and of the lemons ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew around

a broken fountain, had got into the house somehow, and had never been able to get out again. There was, in

every room, an aged smell, grown faint with confinement. It pined in all the cupboards and drawers. In the

little rooms of communication between great rooms, it was stifling. If you turned a picture to come back to

the pictures there it still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort of bat.

The latticeblinds were close shut, all over the house. There were two ugly, grey old women in the house, to

take care of it; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling in the doorway, and who would

as soon have let in the devil as the air. Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went all through the palazzo.

I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows and the latticeblinds, and shaking down

on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozing mosquito, or a monstrous, fat,

When I had let the evening light into a room, master, mistress, and la bella Carolina, entered. Then, we

looked round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear

of meeting with the likeness of that face we all had; but there was no such thing. The Madonna and

Bambino, San Francisco, San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands, Friars, Temples at

Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests, Apostles, Doges, all my old acquaintances many times repeated?

yes. Dark, handsome man in black, reserved and secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly

At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well

kept, being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady. In one place there was a rustic theatre, open to

the sky; the stage a green slope; the coulisses, three entrances upon a side, sweetsmelling leafy screens.

Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene; but all

'Now, Clara,' master said, in a low voice, 'you see that it is nothing? You are happy.'

Mistress was much encouraged. She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play

the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines all day. She was

beautiful. He was happy. He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before the

We kept no company. I took la bella to the Duomo and Annunciata, to the Cafe, to the Opera, to the village

Festa, to the Public Garden, to the Day Theatre, to the Marionetti. The pretty little one was charmed with all

she saw. She learnt Italian heavens! miraculously! Was mistress quite forgetful of that dream? I asked

'A gentleman who is presented to me will dine here today. He is called the Signor Dellombra. Let me dine

It was an odd name. I did not know that name. But, there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by

Austria on political suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altro! Dellombra

When the Signor Dellombra came to dinner (said the Genoese courier in the low voice, into which he had

subsided once before), I showed him into the receptionroom, the great sala of the old palazzo. Master

received him with cordiality, and presented him to mistress. As she rose, her face changed, she gave a cry,

Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved

and secret air, and was a dark, remarkablelooking man, with black hair and a grey moustache.

Master raised mistress in his arms, and carried her to her own room, where I sent la bella Carolina straight. La

bella told me afterwards that mistress was nearly terrified to death, and that she wandered in her mind about

Master was vexed and anxious almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The Signor Dellombra was a courtly

gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress's being so ill. The African wind had been

blowing for some days (they had told him at his hotel of the Maltese Cross), and he knew that it was often

hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his

visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and

He withdrew early. Next day he called at the gate, on horseback, to inquire for mistress. He did so two or

What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me, united to explain to me that master had now set

his mind on curing mistress of her fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. He

reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested

with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the

Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was for ever conquered. To make an

end, the signore came again, and mistress received him without marked distress (though with constraint and

apprehension still), and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so

anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures,

books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome.

I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast down her eyes and droop

her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his

presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning from her to him, I used to see him in the shaded

gardens, or the large halflighted sala, looking, as I might say, 'fixedly upon her out of darkness.' But, truly, I

'Now, see, my dear Clara, it's over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like

But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was

We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for

the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine, and a courier, who was there with an

English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home

'Gone since morning told me, when master went out on his day's journey, not to call her, for she was tired

with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed until the evening; then get up

refreshed. She is gone! she is gone! Master has come back, broken down the door, and she is gone! My

The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself that I could not have held her, but for her swooning

on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I

knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel, and left her with the

chamberwomen), in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was

day, and we stopped at a miserable posthouse, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away

in different directions. Mark me! by the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a

I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All

I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her

'What do you call THAT?' said the German courier, triumphantly. 'Ghosts! There are no ghosts THERE!

What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts! There are no ghosts HERE!'

I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor,

to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the

language, but who had never been there since he was a boy as I judge, some sixty years before.

His name was James, and he had a twinbrother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a

great affection. They were in business together, at Goodman's Fields, but they did not live together. Mr.

James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford Street, London; Mr. John resided by Epping Forest.

Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John

came to Poland Street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that week with Mr. James. But, he said to

his brother on the second day, 'I don't feel very well, James. There's not much the matter with me; but I think

I am a little gouty. I'll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my

ways. If I get quite better, I'll come back and see you before you go. If I don't feel well enough to resume my

visit where I leave it off, why YOU will come and see me before you go.' Mr. James, of course, said he

would, and they shook hands both hands, as they always did and Mr. John ordered out his oldfashioned

It was on the second night after that that is to say, the fourth in the week when I was awoke out of my

sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannelgown, with a lighted candle. He sat upon

'Wilhelm,' said he, 'I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you what I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another

man. You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to have

been weighed and measured or to have been unweighable and unmeasurable or in either case to have

been completely disposed of, for all time ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my

I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it.

'I have just now seen,' Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, 'the

phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a white

dress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my

writingdesk, turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out at the door. Now, I am

not in the least mad, and am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with any external existence out

of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill; and I think I had better be bled.'

I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be

alarmed, and telling him that I would go myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud

knocking and ringing at the street door. My room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James's being the

secondfloor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the

'Is that Mr. James?' said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up.

'Yes, Sir. I am sorry to say, Sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, Sir. It is even feared that he may be lying

at the point of death. He wants to see you, Sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.'

Mr. James and I looked at one another. 'Wilhelm,' said he, 'this is strange. I wish you to come with me!' I

helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses' iron shoes

Now, mind! (said the German courier) I went with Mr. James into his brother's room, and I saw and heard

His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and

others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the

afternoon. He was in white, like the figure necessarily so, because he had his nightdress on. He looked

like the figure necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the

But, when his brother reached the bedside, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said

I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was

unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might

have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that

awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So

I went back into the convent parlour, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the