g wrong except fits of melancholy and seclusion, being in other
respects a gentleman of most excellent "havings"--handsome, brave,
sportsmanlike, familiar with the best European society, and even
something of a scholar. He entertains a German minister and professor,
whose special forte is Lithuanian, in order that the pundit may study
some rare books and MSS. in his library; and his guest, being a great
traveller, a good rider, and, though simple in his ways, not at all
unlike a man of this world, makes a friend of him. It so happens, too,
that they have a common acquaintance--a neighbour, and, as is soon seen,
an idol of the Count's, Mademoiselle Julie Ivinska, very pretty, very
merry, and, if not very wise, clever enough to take in the scholar, on
his own ground, with a vernacular ("jmoude") version of one of
Mickiewitz's poems. All goes well in a way, except for occasional
apparitions of the poor mad Countess; but there is a rather threatening
episode of a ride into a great forest, which is popularly supposed to
contain a "sanctuary of the beasts," impenetrable by any hunter, and in
which they actually meet a local sorceress, with a basket of poisonous
mushrooms and a tame snake in it. Another episode gives us odd comments,
and a sort of nightmare afterwards, of the Count, when his guest happens
to mention the blood-drinking habits of the South American gauchos, in
which the professor himself has been forced to take part.

But these things and other "lights" of the catastrophe are very
artistically kept down, and you are never nudged or winked at in the
offensive "please note" manner. The guest goes away, but, not much to
anybody's surprise, is very soon asked to return and celebrate the
wedding of the Count and Mlle. Ivinska, who are both Lutherans. He goes,
and finds a great semi-pagan feast of the local peasantry (which does
not much please him) and one or two bad omens, including an appearance
of the mad old Countess with evil words, which please him still less.
But the feast ends at last and the newly married couple retire, there
being, of course, no "going away." Early in the morning the pastor is
waked by the sound of a heavy body (a sound which he had noticed before
but never interpreted) clambering down a tree just outside his window. A
little later, as the bridal pair do not appear, their door is broken
open, and the new Countess is found alone, dead, drenched in blood, and
her throat, not cut, but _bitten_