Authenticated Vampire Story

by Franz Hartman

June 10, 1909, there appeared in a prominent Vienna paper (the Neues Wiener Journal) a notice (which I herewith enclose) saying that the castle of B---had been burned by the populace, because there was a great mortality among the peasant children, and it was generally believed that this was due to the invasion of a vampire, supposed to be the last Count B--, who died and acquired that reputation. The castle was situated in a wild and desolate part of the Carpathian Mountains and was formerly a fortification against the Turks. It was not inhabited owing to its being believed to be in the possession of ghosts, only a wing of it was used as a dwelling for the caretaker and his wife.Now it so happened that when I read the above notice, I was sitting in a coffee-house at Vienna in company with an old friend of mine who is an experienced occultist and editor of a well known journal and who had spent several months in the neighborhood of the castle. From him I obtained the following account and it appears that the vampire in question was probably not the old Count, but his beautiful daughter, the Countess Elga, whose photograph, taken from the original painting, I obtained. My friend

Genres: Horror, Vampires

Paperback

First published October 8, 2010

Reviews

[Angy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitivamente le hace falta algo vampirezco a este relato.
Se entiende que la condesa es una vampira (de algún modo extraño solo porque el título lo dice), pero no se menciona nada ni hay ataques, ni siquiera hay sospechas de que ella sea una vampira. Claro, ignorando el hecho de que ella revivió de algún modo.
Lo sentí medio mal escrito, no siento una cohesión...

[A.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A deserted castle, an eerie portrait, a group of fellows interested in table rapping and the occult, and a sceptic who hires a detective to go to the meeting with the mysterious lady. Dude, no fair. What kind of sceptic are you, to not even trust your own eyes?

"Now it seems that Mr. W---had some misgivings about the meeting and drive and he hired a policeman as detective to go at midnight to the appointed place, to see what would happen. The policeman went and reported next morning that he had seen nothing but the well-known, old fashioned carriage from the castle with two black horses attached to it standing there as if waiting for somebody, and that he had no occasion to interfere and merely waited until the carriage moved on. When the castellan of the castle was asked, he swore that the carriage had not been out that night, and in fact it could not have been out, as there were no horses to draw it."

But the mystery is left unresolved, the monster un slain, and so far as the story goes it is really left with no ending. They read bible verses, poke the painting with knives and then just leave.

And the beginning sounded so cool. [it is the summary on the GR page]

2 stars

I suspect there is some confusion here between Hartmann with two 'n's and Hartman with one. I can find this work printed under both names.

[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605...]

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting!

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An agreeable, very short story involving the uncanny. The term vampire is very loosely defined in this story.