WRITTEN BY A GENTLEMAN.
Sir,
Every authority concurs that Vampires are immortal, and not merely of very great age; the sense of the word, however, being not that Vampires may not perish by design or by accident, but that they are not subject to death in the ordinary course of nature. Our bodily form is subject to decay and dissolution; theirs is not. But herein is the key to a true understanding of their nature: for it follows at once that their bodies cannot be like ours. If they are to be immortal, they cannot retain human form without modification. Yet no living creature, not even a Vampire, can all at once transform itself into another. So it is that when he has only recently become a Vampire, he resembles us in most aspects, internal as well as external. His looks may not be uncomely, and his demeanour may be fascinatingly enigmatic, especially to the fairer sex, to whom he will avoid disclosing for as long as possible the dreadful secret of his nature, whose outward and visible signs, such as extreme pallor and suffused orbs, may be (as I have remarked) not without their charms; though in their later development, by no means so. The rictus that accompanies the baring of the teeth, and the exfoliation of the scalp cannot but put the onlooker in mind of a caput mortis. And in his inward parts also he changes. Every channel of his body must become a vessel for the flow of blood: not, to be sure, his own blood - in his own right he is now almost perfectly bloodless - but a liquid equally vital to his existence. As he grows old (if one may speak thus of an immortal), the modifications to his humanity become ever more pronounced. Along with all bodily hair, the fingernails and toenails cease to renew themselves and fall away. Since he neither loves nor procreates, nor has any sensual pleasure left, such superfluous appendages as the ears, nose, lips, and the organs of generation follow them with the passage of time. Even now, he still seems to have the approximate form of a human being, though if we could but anatomise him, we would discover that all his internal parts have dissolved and merged into a single organ of digestion, itself a mere sac for the reception of infusions of blood. Whether vampires at this stage of their existence still possess a mental life, and what it may be, are matters of controversy. Some authors maintain that their ideas, if they have any, must be very chaste and pure; others that they are, on the contrary, fearful and infernal, like those of devils in Hell. Yet their final transformation is, to a mortal eye, the most horrid of all. For an immortal cannot suffer such a symptom of decay as a protective integument of dead cells: he must lose also his outer integument, a condition that would cause him the most exquisite pain, if he were not by then without any capacity to feel either pain or pleasure, save in the contemplation of his immortal state and the dreadful apprehension of its loss. Insensible to heat or cold, he is able to go naked in all weathers. On winter nights, seeing him flit wraithlike amidst ice and snow, one would take him for a spectre haunting the scene of his demise. This state of imperviousness to their circumstances has induced some authors to conjecture that ghosts themselves are none other than ancient vampires inhabiting the border between flesh and spirit. But it is plain that in their conduct towards us, ghosts have nothing of the Vampire in them. It has been well observed that, if Vampires were able to go forth by day as well as night, then we would all be dead, or else Vampires ourselves. Yet that same acute author did not consider it necessary to explain to his readers why Vampires do, or must, flee from the Sun, as though there were a general concession on that point; which is the reverse of the truth. Some authors, indeed, take the prohibition to be wholly allegorical, signifying that the Vampire is the enemy of the Light of the World; others assert that the Vampire detests light as a symbol of the Greatest Light, while not being harmed by it in any bodily sense; others again say simply that predators - for that is what Vampires are - are commonly nocturnal for the sake of convenience. I reply that, if you have followed this far my brief account of the metamorphoses of the Vampire, it will be obvious that without an outer integument to shield him, the Vampire, at least in his later state, would be consumed by the rays of the Sun. Less advanced specimens may face or shun daylight at will, while preferring to avoid it. How dangerous the Vampire is to mortals depends naturally how often he needs to feed on them. The tales of Vampires venturing forth every night in quest of blood may be dismissed as an attempt to arouse terror in the hearer. So far from this being the case, it is accredited that Vampires may lie dormant for centuries in the foundations of ancient buildings, or bridges, which therefore, according to custom, are not to be demolished without appropriate ceremonies designed to expel them from the site. My only disagreement with this opinion is that I believe such ceremonies to be ineffective. Whether Vampires associate with their own kind appears to be less in doubt than many other questions. Certainly, the lore of Vampires would have them meeting in covens like witches, or living in packs, like wolves, and going forth together to hunt for prey. I shall not dispute that accidental congress may occur, but so might it with any solitary creature; and I have already said enough to establish the opinion that Vampires are essentially solitary creatures. For since they have become Vampires through the transmutation of their original humanity into the Vampire, it follows that to be a Vampire is not instinctive; and that association of any but an accidental kind would depend upon a conscious sense of community, which their ruling passion would appear to preclude. The fair, youthful Vampire of Romance is therefore only a phantasm; and to suppose that any mortal might be attracted to such a hideous creature would seem to be more incredible than the tales of sailors enamoured of Mermaids, or rustics of Fairies. Yet it is a universal testimony that they have the power to fascinate their victims, who accordingly submit themselves without resistance to the evacuation of their vital fluids. Some authors compare them with serpents who paralyse their prey with fear as well as venom; others claim that like lovers Vampires do all things with their eyes, which are often likened to glowing cinders.
That anyone would desire to become a Vampire is a conceit from which many have recoiled; yet when we consider it soberly, it seems to be but an instance of the vulgar idea of everlasting life as an eternity in the body, with this distinction: that the Vampire is willing to surrender or corrupt his soul in order that his body may live on for ever. Accordingly, for those who have a mind to it, I shall conclude (for whatever it is worth) with Clavius' harsh prescription for making oneself into a Vampire:
He who would become a Vampire must earnestly desire nothing but immortality in the body. But since reason and faith alike teach us that the body is the prison-house of the soul, from which it will be released by the departure of the body, he must anticipate the departure of the body by hating his own soul and seeking to overthrow it. To this end, let him renounce all the affections of the soul, beginning with the love of what is most dear to him. To murder one's own children and drink their blood is doubtless a counsel of perfection, but he should at the very least abandon them to whatever fate may befall them. Does he love art or music? Let him never look at another picture or listen to another note! Let him eat only what is most distasteful to him: it will school him for his destiny. For the body must be habituated to feed only on blood, though at first blood so rich that it furnishes all the nutrients necessary to his present condition. Later, more anaemic stuff will suffice, not to mention the blood of children, who are the easiest to capture. When he feels his body begin to change, then he will know that he is on the right track.I remain your most humble and obedient servant,
E--B--.
