The Vampire of Venice

“The end of the enchantment was come and the Princess awoke, and she said: ‘Is it you, my Prince? You have waited a long while…'”

-Charles Perrault, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”

***

1796

Elena woke. It was dark. She pushed on the lid of the coffin and it opened.

A single candle glowed on the table, and she saw that the crypt was empty except for herself and her casket. It was made of beautiful polished wood, and she spent a few minutes admiring its lines and running her fingers over it smooth surface. It was good to be buried in such a thing if one is dead, she decided.

Was she dead? She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember where she was, or how she got here, or anything at all before this moment. She didn’t even remember her own name until she read it on the little gold placard over the burial niche. It seemed she’d been buried, but then why was she alive again now?

The mystery didn‘t bother her that much, though. Finding a tiny silver bell on the table, she rang it, as much to hear its sound as to see what would happen. Two men answered. They were babyfaced, ruddy, and wearing waistcoats and stockings and short wigs. They were thick-lipped and very tall, and they both looked almost exactly alike.

She assumed these must be her servants. There was something very strange about them; they seemed distant and distracted, and their movements suggested they were not entirely aware of what they were doing. They seemed, she decided, like men who were walking in their sleep.

They presented her with clothes: a gown, a kirtle, a partlet, a sable fur, and perfumed gloves. Her shoes had gold fabric heels. All the materials felt smooth and lustrous. Delighted, she dressed. She felt no shame at dressing in front of these strange men. They barely seemed to know what was going on around them anyway.

Now, where was her looking glass? Seeing her puzzlement, one of the servants presented an oval hand mirror in a silver frame. But she found no reflection when she looked into it. She polished the mirror’s surface with the hem of her shift, but an image refused to appear. How strange…

One of the red-faced men rang the little bell again, and in came a young woman, dressed exactly like Elena. They were the same height and build, and Elena supposed that their faces must look very much alike too. So she’s to be my looking glass, Elena thought!

Is this really what I look like, Elena wondered, touching the servant girl’s cheek. The girl, like the two men, seemed not to be conscious of what was going on around her, like a somnambulist. Vaguely troubled, Elena finished dressing and left the girl and the coffin and the crypt behind.

The burial chamber turned out to be aboveground, and opened directly into the main house. She glimpsed the night sky and lanterns through some French doors in this hall and wondered what city this was. Running to the balcony and unlatching the doors she stepped out; the flickering light of a thousand, thousand lamps glowed in the city, and a river ran beneath the villa.

No, not a river, she realized: a canal. This was Venice. Even now, St. Mark’s Square was flooding with the evening tide. Venice; she tasted the word without speaking it. It was good. Whoever she was and whatever was going on, at least she knew this place. She wasn’t really lost at all.

She went back inside. Her serving man was waiting for her. He seemed to want to take her somewhere, so she followed him. She noticed, as they walked, that the house’s interior was quite extravagant. I must be very rich, she thought. That was lucky.

They came to a sitting room, and there was another man here, but Elena guessed by the look of him that he wasn’t another servant. He was young and handsome, but though his clothes were fine they showed signs of having been worn a bit too long. He was standing at an easel, and was in the midst of cleaning his brushes. It took him a while to notice her.

“My lady,” he said, after he finally looked up. He went to kiss her hand but she brushed past him without pause, sitting on a nearby chair with a high cushion. A fan rested on the table next to it, so she opened it., watching the painter out the corner of her eye. He looked flustered.

“How pleasing to see you again,” the artist said. “Are you ready to continue?”

Elena fluttered the fan once in reply. The artist cleared his throat.

“I think we can finally finish tonight. You’ve been so generous to me that I wanted to work as quickly as I could without sacrificing the integrity of the…that is to say…” He seemed to grow distracted at her gaze, and his words trailed off. Elena pursed her lips. He blushed.

“Forgive me,” the young man said. “Let’s begin.” And he picked up his brush and palette knife.

Elena watched him work. She had no idea what this man was doing in what she assumed to be her house, and no memory of having met him before, but it seemed she must have sat for this portrait before. The man–the boy, really–was fascinating to watch, so deep in concentration with his work. Elena reclined in the chair, letting the open fan dangle from her fingertips and affecting the smallest smile she could manage.

“You pose with remarkable grace, lady,” he said. “Most find it difficult to keep so still.”

He maneuvered his tools with ease, and he spoke with less hesitance when he painted.

“I painted a gentlewoman in Naples last year who couldn’t stop sneezing whenever we had a sitting. The portrait was a mess because there were hardly two consecutive minutes when her face wasn’t in some spasm, but do you know she said was completely pleased with it when it was finished?”

Elena went as if to laugh but produced no real sound. The artist seemed to be applying very heavy strokes, and the flush on his cheeks was now exertion rather than embarrassment. After some hours he paused to rest and, wiping his brow on a handkerchief, declared:

“It’s done. …or at least, I think it’s done. Naturally only you can decide that.” And he turned the easel around.

Elena saw a teenage girl with very large eyes, a small mouth, and curling hair. The couch, the fan, the daffodils on the table (“Yellow narcissus,” she knew they were called) were represented in sharp lines, as was each fold of her dress.

And the face? It was beautiful…but she had no idea if looked like her or not.

Elena watched the portrait for many minutes, while the young artist sweated and fretted. Finally he said, “We can start over if you want. But I really believe this is some of my best work. You’ve inspired me in a way I’ve never felt before.”

Elena reached out to touch the face of the painted girl, only remembering that the paint wasn‘t yet dry at the last second. The artist fiddled with a pen and cleared his throat again.. Finally, Elena closed her fan and turned her back on him. She heard him sag.

“I see. I…appreciate your patronage. I painted my best for you, but I know it‘s not good enough. I’ll go. Just give me a moment to collect–“

She turned around and caught him, slipping one arm around his waist and turning his face to hers with the other, leaning up for a long kiss that almost knocked him out of his shoes.

He went rigid as a statue, and she almost had to hold him up for fear that he’d topple over. Eventually, tentatively, he leaned in to return the kiss, and they stayed that way for a very long time. The serving man slipped away without making any noise.

Unbalanced, the artist fell backwards onto the couch, and Elena fell with him, ensnaring him with her limbs and trapping him with her body.