In a Glass Darkly, v. 2/3

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Classics, Short Stories

105 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 23, 2011

About the author

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M.R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are Uncle Silas, Carmilla and The House by the Churchyard.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a Glass Darkly is a collection of 5 short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu and usually issued as a single volume, but the Gutenberg Project version for the Kindle has been split into 3 volumes. It’s difficult to understand why this has been done, especially when you read this, the second volume. Unlike Volume 1 which contains 3 stories, volume 2 contains only part of the fourth story, The Room at the Dragon Volant. This story runs to 26 chapters, however this volume ends at chapter 23. The last 3 chapters are in volume 3. I cannot understand the reasoning behind this at all.

The story itself is the longest in the whole collection, and the only one that doesn’t seem to have supernatural implications, I say doesn’t seem to because obviously I haven’t read the end yet. This makes it difficult to judge this story. But based on what I have read, it is a good story, and has the potential to be the best in the collection.

The story concerns an impressionable young English man’s attempts, while travelling in France, to save a beautiful and mysterious woman from an unhappy marriage.

Based on what I have read I would give the story 4 stars, however because of the bizarre editing of this volume I can only give it 3 stars.

[Jordan Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing tale

I will have try o backtrack and read volume one. An intriguing story as seen through the eyes of someone who lived in different time.

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume contains only one story - The room in the Dragon Volant. I find it easiest to summarize as I go with older stories.

Another tale from Doctor Hesselius. It is 1815 just after the fall of Napoleon and the hero, Beckett, is traveling across France, when he helps a bogged carriage. He notices the young woman inside and an older man. He follows them and stays at the same inn - the Belle Etoile. Deliberately walking into the room they have rented, he sees her without her veil. She is beautiful with violet eyes and he wonders if the old man she travels with is her father or her husband. Questioning their servants only gives him their rank; count and countess.
Next, he meets a Marquis in disguise by way of a mis-sent letter, meant for his name-sake and then he is assailed by a Colonel Gaillarde, who is feverishly white and scarred, and obsessed by the heraldry on the Count’s coach. A red stork. He warns the narrator that sleeping above the Count’s rooms will give him nightmares. The Marquis tells him he is insane, but the hotel staff say the Colonel has always been in his right mind. Beckett goes for a walk and when he gets back he sees the stork carriage ready to leave but the Colonel stands between the count and the door. He is abusing them and calls them ‘vampires and ghouls’.

Our hero attacks him, knocking him out and the lady gives him the white rose she had in her hand.
The Marquis and he travel on to Paris with a strange incident where he falls into a waking sleep. A man enters the carriage, reads all his letters, makes notes and leaves again. When he wakes, he tells the Marquis of this and he says this can happen after extreme exertion. (Uh, huh.) The Marquis gets him invitations to the right houses and even a ticket to the masked ball at Versailles. He warns him off gambling. Trying to find a hotel room, Beckett sees the countess in an open carriage and he tries to run to her across a traffic jam of other carriages. (lmao)
The Marquis rescues him and takes him to the Dragon Volant, a nearby inn that has vacant rooms because it is haunted. The Marquis is not staying there and they arrange a sign so that they can recognize each other at the ball. At the ball a mysterious palanquin is carried in and after making a payment in gold, each can ask the magician, the Great Confu, questions. The Count asks about battles and is told the date of his wedding vows, the Colonel jumps the queue and is told that he hunts a widow and an Englishman and that if they join together they will kill him. When it is Beckett’s turn he asks about his religion and is told it is violet eyes. The magician repeats perfectly the words the countess said to him at the inn.
Alone now, he meets another masked woman who says she is the Countess’ best friend. They arrange a meeting in the lime grove at 2 AM. Then he meets an old English friend and learns that two people (a French nobleman and a Russian emigre) disappeared from his room at the hotel. At the appointed hour he meets the woman to discover it is the Countess. She says to come back at 11:30 the next night. He’s madly in love with her.
The next day the palanquin is opened to find a very dead body inside. Another mystery.
Back at the hotel, the next day, the Count asks him to attend a meeting and sign for the body of his relative. He has hurt his thumb. Uh, huh. (Run Beckett, RUN! Now we know who the body in the palanquin was, eh?)
At dinner with his English friend they tell him of a third man who disappeared from the same room, and did the same clearing of his stock accounts the day before. (Gee… wouldn’t it be easy to dispose of a body in a hearse???) At the appointed hour he sees the Colonel and another person in the garden but they leave. When he meets the Countess she has her diamonds with her and they are (magically) worth the same amount of cash that Beckett has in the bank. 30,000 English pounds. (You moron, Beckett!) She also gives him a key and a map to a secret door. An old servant at the inn tells him to leave immediately. She says ‘you keep your secrets and I will keep mine.’
The next day, he travels to Paris to empty his account and when he was wasting time, visited an antique store and saw the Marquis, the Colonel and a third man meet. They do not see him. But, that night he still meets the Countess. The first thing she asks him is ‘has he counted the money?’… awwooga, Beckett.
He still doesn’t get it when he sees the coffin, and she offers him a drink. He drinks it and he is plunged into the same waking sleep as before.

She rings a bell.
***
And that is where the volume ends.
A cliffhanger???? Curse you le Fanu.

[Katie Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good mystery with a solid twist. The end was a little rushed though.