Vampire stories are generally located in Styria; mine is also. Styriais by no means the romantic kind of place described by those who havecertainly never been there. It is a flat, uninteresting country, onlycelebrated for its turkeys, its capons, and the stupidity of itsinhabitants. Vampires generally arrive at night, in carriages drawn bytwo black horses.Our Vampire arrived by the commonplace means of the railway train, andin the afternoon.You must think I am joking, or perhaps that by the word "Vampire" Imean a financial vampire.No, I am quite serious. The Vampire of whom I am speaking, who laidwaste our hearth and home, was a real vampire.Vampires are generally described as dark, sinister-looking, andsingularly handsome. Our Vampire was, on the contrary, rather fair,and certainly was not at first sight sinister-looking, and thoughdecidedly attractive in appearance, not what one would call singularlyhandsome.Yes, he desolated our home, killed my brother--the one object of myadoration--also my dear father. Yet, at the same time, I must say thatI myself came under the spell of his fascination, and, in spite ofall, have no ill-will towards him now.Doubtless you have read in the papers passim of "the Baroness and herbeasts." It is to tell how I came to spend most of my useless wealthon an asylum for stray animals that I am writing this.I am old now; what happened then was when I was a little girl of aboutthirteen. I will begin by describing our household. We were Poles: ourname was Wronski: we lived in Styria, where we had a castle. Ourhousehold was very limited. It consisted, with the exclusion ofdomestics, of only my father, our governess--a worthy Belgian namedMademoiselle Vonnaert--my brother, and myself. Let me begin with myfather: he was old and both my brother and I were children of his oldage. Of my mother I remember nothing: she died in giving birth to mybrother, who was only one year, or not as much, younger than in self.Our father was studious, continually occupied in reading books,chiefly on recondite subjects and in all kinds of unknown languages.He had a long white beard, and wore habitually a black velvet skull-cap.How kind he was to us! It was more than I could tell. Still it was notI who was the favourite.His whole heart went out to Gabriel--Gabryel as we spelt it in Polish.He was always called by the Russian abbreviation Gavril--I mean, ofcourse, my brother, who had a resemblance to the only portrait of mymother, a slight chalk sketch which hung in my father's study. But Iwas by no means jealous: my brother was and has been the only love ofmy life. It is for his sake that I am now keeping in Westbourne Park ahome for stray cats and dogs.I was at that time, as I said before, a little girl; my name wasCarmela. My long tangled hair was always all over the place, and neverwould combed straight. I was not pretty--at least, looking at aphotograph of me at that time. I do not think I could describe myselfas such. Yet at the same time, when I look at the photograph, I thinkmy expression may have been pleasing to some people: irregularfeatures, large mouth, and large wild eyes.