Scary Stories

The Apparition - Guy de Maupassant

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Duration:: 16m
Broadcast on:: 18 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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If you want to learn more tips about diet and exercise, visit MyType2Transformation.com. The Apparition by Guy Demopasson. The subject of sequestration of the person came up in speaking of a recent lawsuit and each of us had a story to tell. A true story, he said. We had been spending the evening together at an old family mansion in the Rue de Grinnell, just a party of intimate friends. The old Marquis de La Tour some well, who was 82, rose, and leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, said in his somewhat shaky voice. I also know of something strange, so strange that it has haunted me all my life. It is now 56 years since the incident occurred and yet not a month passes that I do not see it again in a dream. So great is the impression of fear it has left on my mind. For 10 minutes, I experience such a horrible fright that ever since then, a sort of constant terror has remained with me. A sudden, noisy startle me violently and objects, in perfectly distinguished at night, inspire me with a mad desire to flee from them. In short, I am afraid of the dark, but I would not have acknowledged that before I reached my present age. Now I can say anything. I have never receded before real danger, ladies. It is therefore permissible, at 82 years of age, not to be brave in presence of imaginary danger. That affair so completely upset me, caused me such a deep and mysterious and terrible distress that I never spoke of it to anyone. I will now tell it to you exactly as it happened, without any attempt at explanation. In July 1827, I was stationed at Rouen. One day as I was walking along the key, I met a man whom I thought I recognized, without being able to recall exactly who he was. Instinctively, I made a movement to stop. The stranger perceived it, and at once extended his hand. He was a friend to whom I had been deeply attached as a youth, for five years I had not seen him. He seemed to have aged half a century. His hair was quite white, and he walked bent over as though completely exhausted. He apparently understood my surprise, and he told me of the misfortune which had shattered his life. Having fallen madly in love with a young girl, he had married her. But after a year of more than earthly happiness, she died suddenly of an affection of the heart. He left his country home in the very day of her burial, and came to his townhouse in Rouen, where he lived alone and unhappy, so sad and wretched that he thought constantly of suicide. Since I have found you again in this manner, he said, I will ask you to render me an important service. It is to go and get me out of the desk in my bedroom, our bedroom, some papers of which I have a urgent need. I cannot send a servant at a business clerk as discretion and absolute silence are necessary. As for myself, nothing on earth would induce me to re-enter that house. I will give you the key of the room which I myself locked and leaving, and the key of my desk. Also, a few words from my gardener, telling him to open the shuttle for you. But come and breakfast with me tomorrow, and we will arrange all that. I promised to do him this slight favour he asked. It was, for that matter, only a ride which I could make in an hour and horseback, his property being but a few miles distant from Rouen. At 10 o'clock the following day, I breakfast to tet a tet with my friend. But he scarcely spoke. He begged me to pardon him. The thought of the visit I was about to make to that room, the scene of his dead happiness overcame him, he said. He indeed seemed singularly agitated and preoccupied as though undergoing some mysterious mental struggle. At length, he explained to me exactly what I had to do. It was very simple. I must take two packages of letters and a roll of papers from the first right hand drawer of the desk, of which I had the key. He added, "I need not beg you to refrain from glancing at them." I was wounded at that remark and told him so somewhat sharply. He stammered, "Forgive me, I suffer so." And tears came to his eyes. At about one o'clock I took leave of him to accomplish my mission. The weather was glorious and I trotted across the fields, listening to the song of the larks and the rhythmical clag of my sword against my boot. Then I entered the forest and walked my horse. Branches of trees caressed my face as I passed. And now and then I caught a leaf with my teeth and chewed it from sheer gladness of heart at being alive and vigorous on such a radiant day. As I approached the chateau, I took from my pocket the letter I had for the gardener and was astonished at finding it sealed. I was so irritated that I was about to turn back without having fulfilled my promise, but reflected that I should thereby display undue susceptibility. My friend in his trouble condition might easily have fastened the envelope without noticing that he did so. The manor looked as if it had been abandoned for 20 years. The open gate was falling from his hinges. The walk were overgrown with grass and the flower beds were no longer distinguishable. The noise I made by kicking at a shutter brought out an old man from a side door. He seemed stunned with astonishment at seeing me. Unreceiving my letter, he read it, reread it, turned it over and over, looked me up and down, put the paper in his pocket and finally said, "Well, what is it you wish?" I replied shortly. "You ought to know since you have just read your master's orders. I wish to enter the chateau." He seemed overcome. "Then you are going in into her room?" I began to lose patience. "Damn it. Are you presuming to question me?" he stammered in confusion. "No, sir, but it has not been open since the death. If you will be kind enough to wait five minutes, I will go and see if I interrupted him angrily. See here, what do you mean by your tricks? You know very well you cannot enter the room since here is the key." He no longer objected. "Then, sir, I will show you all the way. Show me the staircase and leave me. I'll find my way without you. But, sir, indeed, this time I lost patience and pushed him aside, went into the house. I first went through the kitchen, then two rooms occupied by this man and his wife. I then crossed a large hall, mounted a staircase and recognised the door described by my friend. I easily opened it and entered the apartment. It was so dark that at first I could distinguish nothing. I stopped short, disagreeably affected by that disagreeable, musty order of closed, unoccupied rooms. As my eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, I saw plainly enough a large and disordered bedroom. The bed without sheets, but still retaining its mattresses and pillows, on one of which was a deep impression, as though an elbow or a head had recently rested there. The chairs all seemed out of place. I noticed that a door, doubtless that of a closet, had remained half open. I first went to the window, which I opened to let in the light, but the fastening of the shutter had grown so rusty that I could not move them. I even tried to break them with my sword, but without success. As I was growing irritated over my useless efforts, and could now see fairly well in the semi-darkness, I gave up the hope of getting more light and went over to the writing desk. I seated myself in an armchair, and letting down the lid of the desk, I opened the drawer designated. It was full to the top. I needed about three packages, which I knew how to recognise, and began searching for them. I was straining my eyes in the effort to read the superscriptions, when I seemed to hear, or rather feel, something rustled at the back of me. I paid no attention, believing that a draft from the window was moving some drapery. But in a minute or so, another movement, almost imperceptible, sent a strangely disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It was so stupid to be affected, even slightly, that self-respect prevented my turning around. I had just found the second package I needed, and was about to lay my hand in the third, when a long and painful sigh uttered just at my shoulder, made me bound like a madman from my seat, and land several feet off. As I jumped, I had turned round by hand in the health of my sword, and truly, if I had not felt it at my side, I should have taken to my heels like a coward. At all women dressed in white, stood gazing at me from the back of the chair, where I had been sitting, and instant before. Such a shudder ran through all my limbs that I nearly fell backward. No one who has not experienced it can understand that frightful, unreasoning terror. The mind becomes vague, the heart ceases to beat, the entire body grows as limp as a sponge. I do not believe in ghosts, nevertheless, I collapsed from a hideous dread of the dead, and I suffered. Oh, I suffered in a few moments more than in all the rest of my life, from the irresistible terror of the supernatural. If she had not spoken, I should have died, perhaps. But she spoke. She spoke in a sweet, sad voice that set my nerves vibrating. I dare not say that I became master of myself and recovered my reason. No, I was terrified and scarcely knew what I was doing. But a certain innate pride, a remnant of soldierly instinct, made me almost in spite of myself, maintain a bold front. She said, "Oh, sir, you can render me a great service." I wanted to reply, but it was impossible for me to pronounce a word. Only a vague sound came from my throat. She continued, "Will you, you can save me, cure me. I suffer frightfully, I suffer, all how I suffer." And she slowly seated herself in my armchair, still looking at me, "Will you?" she said. I nodded in a scent. My voice still being paralyzed. Then she held out to me, a tortoise shell comb and murmured. "Call my hair, oh, call my hair, that will cure me. It must be combed. Look at my head, how I suffer, and my hair pose so." Her hair unbound, very long and very black, it seemed to me, hung over the back of the armchair and touched the floor. Why did I promise? Why did I take that comb with a shudder? And why did I hold in my hands her long black hair that gave my skin a frightful, cold sensation? As though I were handling snakes, I cannot tell. That sensation has remained in my fingers and I still tremble in recalling it. I combed her hair. I handled, I know not how, those icy locks. I twisted, knotted and unnoted and braided them. She sighed, bowed her head, seemed happy. Suddenly she said, "Thank you." Snatched the comb for my hands and fled by the door that I had noticed a jar. Left alone I experienced for several seconds the horrible agitation of one who awakens from a nightmare. At length I regained my senses. I ran to the window and with a mighty effort burst open the shutters, letting a flood of light into the room. Immediately I sprang to the door by which that being had departed. I found it closed and immovable. Then the mad desire to flee over came me like a panic, the panic which soldiers know and battle. I seized the three packets of letters on the open desk, ran from the room, dashed down the stairs, four steps at a time, found myself outside. I know not how. And, perceiving my horse a few steps off, leapt into the saddle and galloped away. I stopped only when I reached through end and I lighted at my lodgings. Throwing the reins to my orderly, I fled to my room and shut myself into reflect. For an hour I anxiously asked myself if I were not the victim of a hallucination. Undoubtedly I had had one of those incomprehensible, nervous attacks, those exultations of mind that give rise to visions under the stronghold of the supernatural. And I was about to believe I had seen a vision, had a hallucination. When, as I approached the window, my eyes fell by chance upon my breast. My military cape was covered with long black hairs. One by one, with trembling fingers, I plucked them off and threw them away. I then called my orderly. I was too disturbed, too upset to go and see my friend that day. And I also wished to reflect more fully upon what I ought to tell him. I sent him his letters for which he gave the soldier a receipt. He asked after me most particularly and, on being told I was ill, had had a son stroke, appeared exceedingly anxious. Next morning I went to him, determined to tell him the truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not yet returned. I called again during the day. My friend was still absent. After waiting a week longer without news of him, I notified the authorities. And a judicial research was instituted. Not the slightest trace of his whereabouts or manner of disappearance was discovered. A minute inspection of the abandoned shadow revealed nothing of a suspicious character. There was no indication that a woman had been concealed there. After fruitless searches, all further efforts were abandoned. And for 56 years, I have heard nothing. I know no more than before. End of the operation. ♪ High five casino ♪ ♪ High five casino is a social casino ♪ ♪ With real prizes and big Vegas hits ♪ ♪ At high five casino dot com ♪ ♪ The hottest games right from Vegas ♪ ♪ And all winnings go straight to your bank account ♪ ♪ Hundreds of exclusive games ♪ ♪ Free daily rewards ♪ ♪ And come back to get free coins every four hours ♪ ♪ Only at high five casino dot com ♪ High five casino is a social casino. No purchase necessary. 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