Carmilla

The next evening, a picture cleaner arrives at the schloss. This cleaner restores an old portrait from 1698 of a distant relative named Mircalla Karnstein. This Mircalla looks exactly like Carmilla. Carmilla and Laura then take a stroll, during which Carmilla declares her love for Laura, and says: “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so” (43). Laura is alarmed, confused by Carmilla’s strange words and concerned that Carmilla is physically ill.

That night, Carmilla offers to leave the schloss and give Laura’s family no more problems, but Laura’s father dissuades her. Carmilla later reminisces about a ball held many years ago, which she has trouble remembering the specifics of. Laura is surprised, telling her: “You are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet” (47). Retiring to bed, Laura locks her room and has a dream that she says, “was the beginning of a very strange agony” (48). In the dream, a “monstrous cat” (48) springs onto her bed and she feels a “stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or two apart, deep into [her] breast” (49).