Daily Short Stories - Mystery & Suspense

The Apparition - Guy de Maupassant

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Duration:: 21m
Broadcast on:: 16 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Visit renterswearhouse.com or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent-to-state advisor today. This summer, saddle up with the only sports book where you can bet on horse racing, Fan Dule. Right now, new customers can get a no-swept first bet up to $500. Just download the app or go to fandule.com/horses to score your no-swept bet up to $500. 21+ and present in Colorado. Offer valid on first real money, major of $5 or more. A $5 FD Racing account required. Bonus issued a non-withdrawable racing site credit that expires seven days after issuance. Max Refund, $500. Restrictions apply. See terms at racing.fandule.com. Gambling Problem, Call 1-800-Gambler. The Apparition by Guy de Muppasson. 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 have been spending the evening together at an old family mansion in the Rio de Granelle, just a party of intimate friends. The old Marquis de Ratteur Samuel, who was 82, rose and, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, said in a somewhat shaky voice. I also know of something strange, so strange that it has haunted me all my life. It has now fifty-six 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 ten minutes I experienced such horrible fright that ever since then a sort of constant terror has remained with me. Even noises startle me violently, and objects imperfectly 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 eighty-two years of age not to be brave in presence of imaginary danger. That affair so completely upset me, caused me such 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 one. 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 on the very day of her burial and came to his townhouse in Ottawa, 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 urgent need. I cannot send a servant or a business clerk as discretion and absolute silence and 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 on leaving, and the key of my desk, also a few words for my gardener telling him to open the chateau for you. But come on breakfast with me tomorrow and we will arrange all that. I promised to do him the slight favour he asked. It was, for that matter, only a ride which I could make in an hour on horseback, his property being but a few miles distant from where. At ten o'clock the following day I breakfasted, t'etatid, 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 have a key. He added, "I need not beg you to refrain from glancing at them." I was wounded at that remark and told them 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 clang of my sword against my boot. I entered the forest and walked my horse; branches of trees caress 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 shall thereby display undue susceptibility. My friend, in his troubled condition, might easily have fastened the envelope without noticing that he did so. The manna looked as if it had been abandoned for twenty years. The open gate was falling from its hinges. The walks were overgrown with grass, and the flower bits were no longer distinguishable. The noise I made by kicking at a shutter brought out an old man from his side door. He seemed stunned with astonishment at seeing me. On receiving my letter he read it, reread it, turned it over a nova, 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've just read your master's orders. I wish to enter the chateau." He seemed overcome. "Then you're 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's not been opened since death. If you will be kind enough to wait five minutes, I will go and see if I interrupt to demangrially. 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 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 pushing 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 recognized 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 odor of closed, unoccupied rooms. As my eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, I so 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 fastenings of the shutters 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 a drawer designated. It was full to the top. I needed but 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 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 on the third when a long and painful sigh uttered just at my shoulder made me bound like a madman from my seat and lens several feet off. As I jumped, I had turned round my hand on the hilt of my sword and, truly, if I had not felt it at my side, I should have taken to my heels like a coward. A tall woman, dressed in white, stood gazing at me from the back of the chair where I had been sitting an 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, oh, 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, comb my hair, oh comb my hair that will cure me, it must be combed. Look at my head, how I suffer, and my hair pulls 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 unnotted and braided them. She sighed, bowed her head, seemed happy. Suddenly she said, "Thank you." Attached the comb from 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 it 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 overcame me like a panic, the panic which soldiers know in 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, leaped into the saddle and galloped away. I stopped only when I reached to one and delighted at my lodgings. Throwing the reins to my orderly I fled to my room and shut myself in to 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 and are the stronghold of the supernatural. When 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 turn 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 the judicial search was instituted. Not the slightest trace of his whereabouts, or manner of disappearance, was discovered. In my nude inspection of the abandoned Chateau revealed nothing of a suspicious character. There was no indication that a woman had been concealed there. After fruitless researches, all further efforts were abandoned, and, for fifty-six years, I've heard nothing. I know no more than before. And of the apparition. Well, it sounds like the tenants hit your rental property sure know how to throw a great party. You just wish they wouldn't throw so many parties. And if they could pay the rent on time, that would be nice too. Being a landlord can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be. Let renters' warehouse handle the hard part of property management for you, like finding quality tenants you can trust. Renters' warehouse manages thousands of single-family homes, and specializes in locating reliable tenants at the right price for your property, usually in a matter of days. And if your tenant defaults for any reason, they'll replace them for free up to 18 months under their tenant warranty program, from rent collection to maintenance coordination. Their best-in-class property management professionals do it all, all for one flat monthly fee. 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