Young people like, and even love, on impulse.
In youth, everything seems different, and not so easy and clear as in mature age. When we are young, we live by emotions—we love, hate, feel, act on impulse. There is no middle ground—all or nothing. Laura feels an unknown feeling of attachment to the strange girl Carmilla. She likes to be with her, to caress her hair ,to marvel at her beauty. It is a strong feeling and she knows that Carmilla feels the same way, but the reason for such closeness is unclear for her. She believes that it is because of their age; they both are young and beautiful and in this age people tend to be impulsive and eccentric, to burn vibrantly and feel every minute of it.
But I suspect, in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered.
Our memory is quite specific; as a rule, we remember those events which caused the greatest emotional responses, and our memories are connected with those emotions we experienced at the moment rather than the moment itself. The first meeting with Carmilla in Laura’s childhood was one of the strongest emotions in her life, and subsequent memories of her are just as powerful. The time when she saw Carmilla in blood standing at her bed, the time when she realized who Carmilla is, and the time when she heard of her dying–these events will stay with her forever because they shook her soul and turned her life upside down. The novella ends with an evocation of Carmilla's eternal presence: "and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alternations – sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door” (54).
…but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish.
Love is selfish; we love people not because they just exist, but because they exist in our life and make us feel good and experience the best moments of our life. If we separate with our lovers, we don’t actually miss them—we miss the feelings and emotions we used to have with them. Carmilla says that she loves Laura, but her love is selfish—she loves her because Laura is her victim, the person who feeds her (with her own blood). Laura doesn’t understand Carmilla when she says this, but she agrees with that because although she doesn't have enough life experience (in contrast with Carmilla), she can intuitively believe that it is true.
This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay, with his usual learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man's collected papers.
As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to interest the "laity," I shall forestall the intelligent lady, who relates it, in nothing...
Carmilla doesn't begin with Laura's narrative; instead, we are given the words of an aide to Doctor Hesselius, who explains that the Doctor has provided an explanatory essay for Laura's narrative, and that he, the aide, plans on including all of this in the full version. This nested narrative is purposeful, as is the reference to Laura as an "intelligent lady." Though this is fiction, Le Fanu is aping the tradition of putatively less reputable voices—women, slaves, the poor—necessitating an introduction from a prominent man vouching for the veracity of the narrative. Laura's narrative is supposedly more believable now that the reader understands that she told it to the Doctor and he wrote about it.
Mademoiselle De Lafontaine... now declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual activity.
This quote strongly enforces the Gothic mood and setting of the tale. The moon is not just a body of rock that orbits the Earth but is instead infused with supernatural force. The moonlight that illuminates the sublunary world heralds the imminent arrival of something mysterious, something beyond the rational and the comprehensible. On an extra-diegetic level, Mademoiselle's comments foreshadow for the reader the arrival of Carmilla, a supernatural being. On the diegetic level, her comments may influence Laura to adopt a particular state of mind and to behave in ways she might not were she under the bright sun of noon.
She kneeled beside her for a moment and whispered, as Madame supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then hastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage, the door was closed...
Very little of the criticism on Carmilla discusses this figure of the "mother," who, in this quote, is the "she" reaching down to utter a benediction in Carmilla's ear. The reader has no idea who she is, how she relates to Carmilla, and what her role might be. Is she actually Carmilla's mother? Is she some sort of demon or a vampire herself? Why is she a sort of madam-figure, arranging for her daughter to be taken into the care of a willing man? As the Karnstein women are portrayed as weak or diseased, it certainly is possible that this old woman is one of them, and that Carmilla and soon Laura are carrying on her vampiric legacy.
From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover myself when she withdrew her arms.
Laura is absolutely attracted to Carmilla both physically and emotionally, finally having a companion who seems simultaneously like a sister, a mother, a friend, and a lover. It does not seem that Carmilla has to work too hard to secure the affections of Laura, or Bertha for that matter; they fall in love with her of their own volition. Yet, Carmilla still exudes a supernatural force and holds the women under her sway. This quote suggests that Laura's potential for resistance or awareness is dulled by Carmilla's bewitching words and embraces, and that rather than simply being stupid or besotted, Laura is mentally unable to fully grasp what is wrong about Carmilla. This is yet one more of the vampire's powers, and perhaps one of her more powerful ones.
I remembered it; it was a small picture, about a foot and a half high, and nearly square, without a frame; but it was so blackened by age that I could not make it out.
The artist now produced it, with evident pride. It was quite beautiful; it was startling; it seemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!
This moment in the narrative is an important one, for it emphasizes certain aspects of Carmilla's character as well as places her within the Karnstein family line. She is yet another representative of the Karnstein women and their seemingly doomed family line (we don't know what happened to Laura's mother; Carmilla's mother, if that is who the older woman truly is, is implicated in the hellish destruction of young women via vampirism). Yet, the portrait of Carmilla existing without a frame, being initially darkened so her true features are not visible, and her name misstated, calls attention to her character—she is without boundaries, unfettered, mutable. She cannot be contained nor fully known.
It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I recall the occurrence of that night. It was no such transitory terror as a dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition.
Laura is somewhat of an unreliable narrator not because she lies, but because many of the things that happen to her happen in dream-like states and she has a penchant for repressing things that are mentally concerning. As critic William Veeder writes, "she is too implicated emotionally to understand and explain events fully," and she is also subject to Carmilla's supernatural abilities that quell Laura's mistrust. The reader must be cognizant of this as he or she sifts through what really happened or is happening to Laura.
He and the doctor talked for some time in the same recess where I had just conferred with the physician. It seemed an earnest and argumentative conversation. The room is very large, and I and Madame stood together, burning with curiosity, at the farther end. Not a word could we hear, however, for they spoke in a very low tone...
This is just one of several scenes where men talk about Laura but not to her. Laura's father and the doctor withdraw so she cannot hear them or even fully see them, and discuss her state of affairs without her participation. This suggests she is too weak, too stupid, too delicate, and too feminine to understand what is happening to her, so the men must isolate her from knowledge and make decisions for her. When she asks what is going on, they respond to her patronizingly or, in her father's case, often laugh. These men continually reveal themselves to be condescending, ignorant, and ineffectual.
