Classic Literature: A mystery of the Campagna (1887)

Written by Baroness Anne Crawford Von Rabe under the penname Von Degen, this story first appeared in Unwin's Magazine Christmas Annual in 1887 and is a stylish tale of vampirism in Italy. Interestingly the story is broken into two parts from the point of view of two different protagonists. The first is written by Martin Detaille an artist, friend and hanger-on of composer Marcello.

Marcello finds himself country lodgings in which to compose, he is working on an opera and insists on solitude – only allowing Detaille to visit as summoned. A feeling of dread comes over Detaille, which is soon ignored as he works on a portrait of his absent friend. Interestingly this portrait, when finished, seems to come alive to portend Marcello’s doom, “The face appeared to grow paler and paler, and to recede from me; a strange veil spread over it, and the eyes seemed to close… …Just then the lips, which had become almost white, opened a little, and sighed!” At this point Detaille faints, becomes feverish and ill, only waking from delirium after the events of the second report. This is a sympathetic illness, tied to his friend (perhaps through a magic imbued in the portrait he has painted).

The second report is by Englishman Robert Sutton, who is drawn into the drama by a mutual friend of Detaille, Magnin, and due to Detaille’s ravings about Marcello he goes to investigate the composer but, on seeing him with a woman, dismisses it as a love affair. Magnin becomes convinced that there is a link between Detaille’s illness and Marcello’s fate and persuades Sutton to sit vigil again and, as Detaille throws himself from his sickbed Sutton sees Marcello’s shade. Realising that he had probably died Sutton returns to the country lodgings with Magnin.

They don’t find him in the house and follow a path that leads to a tomb. Inside they find his dead body, a small mark over his heart where “the blood had been sucked to the surface, and then a small prick or incision made.” There is an inscription in Latin in the tomb and a sarcophagus that showed signs of an attempt to open it. They open it and inside is, “amid folds of moldering rags, the body of a woman, perfect as in life, with faintly rosy face, soft crimson lips, and a breast of living pearl”. The inscription talks of Vespertilia – a vampire woman, chained and buried by her Roman lover. James Grant Goldin suggests (p409) that “Vespertilia is connected to “vesper,” or evening… which led to Vespertilionidae becoming the family name for over 300 species of night-flying bats. So “Vespertilian” means “bat-like””. This family name was bestowed in 1821 and, given the description in text that “even the Latin name of the woman suggested a thing of evil flitting in the dusk”, one wonders at just how deliberate (albeit subtly) the connection between this vampire and bats was?

Sutton, it appears, is a man of action. He calls for a pick-axe, sharpens the handle into a point and “with one blow I drove the pointed stake deep down through the breathing snow and stamped it in with my heel.” The vampire screams as she is sent into true death.

If you would like to read the story for yourself, the original publication is digitized at the Archive.