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VERA

2°Entrega.

Apenas tuvo tiempo de darle a su esposo un beso de adiós, sonriendo, sin pronunciar una sola palabra. Luego, sus largas pestañas, como cendales de luto, se cerraron para siempre.
Aquella jornada sin nombre ya había transcurrido.



Hacia el mediodía, después de la espantosa ceremonia en el panteón familiar, el conde D'Athol despidió a la fúnebre escolta. Después solo, encerrose con la muerta, entre los cuatro muros de mármol, cerrando la puerta de hierro del mausoleo.




El incienso se quemaba en un trípode, frente al ataúd. Una corona luminosa de lámparas, en la cabecera de la joven difunta, la aureolaba como estrellas.
É, en pie, ensimismado, con el solo sentimiento de una ternura sin esperanza, se había quedado allí durante todo el día. Alrededor de las seis, en el crepúsculo, salió del lugar sagrado. Al cerrar el sepulcro, quitó la llave de plata de la cerradura y, empinándose en el último peldaño de la escalinata, la arrojó al interior del panteón.

Cayeron sobre las losas interiores a través del trébol que adornaba la parte superior del portal.
¿Por qué todo esto...?
Con certeza esto obedecía a la secreta decisión de no volver allí nunca más.

Y ahora, él revisó la solitaria habitación.
La ventana, detrás de los amplios cortinajes de cachemira malva, recamados en oro, estaba abierta. Un último y pálido rayo de luz del atardecer iluminaba un cuadro envejecido de madera. Era el retrato de la muerta.

El conde miró a su alrededor.
La ropa estaba tirada sobre un sillón, como la víspera. sobre la chimenea estaban las joyas, el collar de perlas, el abanico a medio cerrar, y los pesados frascos de perfume que «su» amada no aspiraría nunca más. Sobre el techo deshecho, construido de ébano, con columnas retorcidas, junto a la almohada, en el lugar donde la cabeza adorada había dejado su huella, en medio de los encajes, vio el pañuelo enrojecido, por gotas de su sangre cuando su joven alma aleteó un instante.

El piano permanecía abierto, a la espera de una melodía inconclusa. Las flores de indiana, recogidas por ella en el invernadero, se marchitaban dentro del vaso de Sajonia.
A los pies del lecho, sobre una piel negra, estaban las pequeñas chinelas orientales, de terciopelo, sobre las que un emblema gracioso resaltaba bordado en perlas:
«Quien vea a Vera la amará».





VERA

2nd Delivery.

She barely had time to kiss her husband goodbye, smiling, without saying a single word. Then her long lashes, like mourning drapes, closed forever.
That nameless day had already passed.



Around midday, after the ghastly ceremony in the family vault, Count D'Athol dismissed the funeral escort. Then alone, he shut himself in with the dead woman, between the four marble walls, closing the iron door of the mausoleum.




Incense was burned on a tripod, in front of the coffin. A luminous crown of lamps, at the head of the deceased young woman, haloed her like stars.
He, standing, lost in thought, with the only feeling of hopeless tenderness, had stayed there all day. Around six o'clock, in the twilight, she left the holy place. Closing the tomb, he removed the silver key from the lock and, standing on the last step of the stairway, threw it into the pantheon.

They fell onto the interior flagstones through the trefoil that adorned the top of the portal.
Because all of this...?
Certainly this was due to the secret decision never to return there again.

And now, he checked the lonely room.
The window, behind sweeping mauve cashmere curtains trimmed in gold, was open. A last pale ray of late-afternoon light illuminated an aged wooden picture. It was the portrait of the dead.

The earl looked around.
His clothes were thrown on an armchair, like the day before. On the mantelpiece were the jewels, the pearl necklace, the half-closed fan, and the heavy bottles of perfume that "his" mistress would never inhale again. Above the broken ceiling, built of ebony, with twisted columns, next to the pillow, where the adored head had left its mark, in the midst of the lacework, he saw the handkerchief reddened, by drops of his blood when his young soul fluttered for a moment.

The piano remained open, waiting for an unfinished melody. The Indiana flowers, picked by her in the greenhouse, withered inside the Saxony vase.
At the foot of the bed, on a black leather, were the little oriental slippers, made of velvet, on which a graceful emblem stood out embroidered in pearls:
"Whoever sees Vera will love her."

The bare feet of the beloved were still playing the morning of the previous day, moving the swan-feather quilt with each step.
And there, in the shadows, was the pendulum clock whose spring he had broken so that the hours would no longer chime.

So she had gone... Where?
Live now, to do what?
It was impossible, absurd...
And the count sank into those strange and overwhelming thoughts, recalling all past existence.


TO BE CONTINUE....



If you missed the 1st installment of the horror story VERA you can start from here, available.




Beginning of the story



VERA

The shape of the body is more
essential than its own substance.

Love is stronger than death, Solomon has sai😛 its mysterious power has no limits.





He was wrapping up an autumn afternoon in Paris. Near the gloomy «faubourg de Saint-Germain», some carriages, already lit, rolled late after the closing hours of the forest. One of them stopped in front of the gate of a large manor house, surrounded by ancient gardens. Above the arch stood a stone escutcheon bearing the arms of the old D'Athol family: a silver star on an azure background, bearing the motto "Pallida Victrix," beneath the ermine-lined princely crown.

The heavy door leaves swung open. A thirty-five-year-old man in mourning, his face deathly pale, alighted. On the steps, taciturn servants held torches high. Without looking at them, he climbed the steps and entered. It was Count D'Athol.

Hesitantly, he ascended the white stairs that led to that room where, on the same morning, he had laid in a velvet coffin, covered with violets, between cambric linens, his voluptuous and desperate love, his pale wife. of him, Vera.

Overhead, the door swung gently across the carpet. He raised the curtains.
All the objects remained in the same place where the countess had left them the day before.
Sudden death had struck her down.







The night before, her beloved had vanished in pleasures so deep, she was lost in such exquisite embraces, that her heart, broken by so many sensual delights, had fainted. Her lips were suddenly wet with a deadly red.




TO BE CONTINUE....

Author:
Auguste Villiers de L'Isle Adams

To Madame la Comtesse d'Osmoy


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