Summary
Chapter 4: Her Habits A-Saunter
Carmilla is slender and graceful with a lovely complexion, dark eyes, and thick and lustrous dark hair. She speaks in a low voice and has languid movements. Some things about Carmilla bother Laura though, such as the fact that she will not confide in Laura the truth of her circumstances even though she seemed so trusting the first night. There is also a coldness and an oldness to her.
All Carmilla will say is her name, that she comes from an ancient and noble family, and her home is in the West. Laura occasionally tries to get more from her and always fails, but is usually mollified by her sweetness. Carmilla is prone to rapturous expressions of affection, including kissing Laura’s cheek, holding her tight, and complimenting her. All of this is a bit much for Laura, and she often wishes to extricate herself from them, but Carmilla seems to put her in a trance.
These are the moods Laura does not like, and her excitement is mingled with fear. She is “conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence” (16). Sometimes after a time of quiet and apathy, Carmilla will gaze at Laura with burning eyes with “the ardor of a lover” (16) and kiss Laura’s cheek hotly. Laura will ask her what she means by this, but Carmilla only sighs and turns away.
Laura wonders about these behaviors, remembering what her father told her regarding the old woman saying Carmilla is not insane. She knows she has “no little attentions such as masculine gallantry delights to offer” (16), and sometimes between the moments of fire Carmilla seems to notice her little.
Other habits are odd, such as Carmilla not coming down until at least one o' clock. She takes a cup of chocolate but eats nothing. She then goes for a short walk but comes back utterly exhausted. There is a “bodily languor in which her mind did sympathize” (17), and she loves to talk.
One day, a funeral procession passes by while the girls are sitting in the trees. The peasants in the procession are singing a hymn and Carmilla says she finds it discordant. Laura is a little uncomfortable with this brusque assertion, and sings along. At this Carmilla becomes angry, saying her religion and Laura’s are not the same and she wounds her with these songs. Besides, she adds, everyone is happier when they die so these funerals are ridiculous. Laura, surprised, says this is a funeral for a local peasant girl who apparently saw a ghost a fortnight ago and had been dying ever since. Carmilla does not want to hear any of this.
Laura continues on, adding that the swineherd’s young wife died a week ago as well after complaining of something grabbing her throat and strangling her in her bed. Carmilla sighs that at least her funeral and hymns are over.
They sit closer together. Suddenly, Carmilla’s expression becomes alarmed and she begins to shudder irrepressibly. It is like she is having a hysterical fit, but it does indeed pass, along with her anger; Laura has never seen either of those in her friend before.
Another day, they espy a hunchback wanderer coming over the drawbridge. He is known to Laura and her father, and comes bearing all manner of things. He carries oddities and figures stitched together from parts of dead animals. He has a dog as a companion, which refuses to come closer to the castle.
The mountebank bows to the ladies looking out the window and plays a tune on his fiddle. He then advertises all the things he has and that he can do. He holds out charms against the oupire that is said to be in these regions; they are made of vellum, with “cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them” (19). Carmilla immediately purchases one, and Laura does as well.
The hunchback looks closely at Carmilla and takes out his leather case with steel instruments. He smiles and says she has a very pointy tooth and he can file it for her. At this Carmilla becomes extremely angry and draws back from the window.
That evening, Laura’s father is out of spirits. He tells the ladies about another case similar to the others, and says that these poor people are infected with superstitions and “repeat in imagination the images of terror that have infested their neighbors” (20). Carmilla remarks that she is afraid, and Laura’s father replies that they are in God’s hands and He will take care of them. To that, Carmilla only says that the disease that invades the area is natural, and all things come from nature.
Laura’s father is quiet, then says the doctor is coming here to check on them. Carmilla scoffs that doctors have only done more harm than good. She does not want to say anything else. When Laura and Carmilla walk out of the room, Carmilla pouts that Laura’s father is trying to scare them. Laura says he is not and that he, and she, are afraid. Carmilla sees nothing scary and says it is a wonderful thing for two lovers to die together.
The doctor comes the next day and consults privately with Laura’s father. They come out of the room, Laura’s father laughing. The doctor is smiling and shaking his head, saying, “Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either” (21). Laura does not know what he means, but has a guess.
Chapter 5: A Wonderful Likeness
In the evening the son of the picture cleaner from Gratz arrives, bearing the portraits that had been away for some time to be worked on. The household is excited, though Carmilla sits listlessly. The portraits are unwrapped, most of them coming from Laura’s Hungarian mother’s family.
The portraits are very old and some very curious. Laura’s father pulls out one labeled “Marcia Karnstein” from 1698. It is very small, but it produces a remarkable effect on the group, for it looks exactly like Carmilla. Laura asks if she can keep it in her room and her father agrees. Carmilla regards her with a smile.
Laura looks more closely, and says that it is not Marcia but Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Carmilla says she must be from that family then, and asks if any of them are still living. Laura replies none who bear the name, but the castle’s ruins are three miles away.
Carmilla changes the subject, asking if they can go for a moonlight promenade. They go outside and stroll pleasantly. Carmilla asks if Laura is glad she came, and when Laura says she is, Carmilla tells her how happy she is that she’s chosen to hang the portrait in her room. She finds it very romantic. Laura replies that Carmilla’s story seems to be one of romance, and that it seems she has an “affair of the heart” (23) going on right now. Carmilla whispers that she has not been in love with anyone, and if she had been it would be Laura. She then says she lives in Laura and loves her so.
Laura starts at this, but Carmilla’s face is now colorless and calm. She looks a little faint and Laura suggests they go in. Carmilla sighs that this might be the last time they are in the moonlight together, which causes Laura to wonder if she is ill. Carmilla shakes her head and says she is fine—she is always a little weak and languid but always recovers.
The rest of the evening they speak normally and Carmilla has none of her “infatuations,” as Laura calls them.
Chapter 6: A Very Strange Agony
The ladies sit down with the governesses for chocolate and coffee. Laura’s father comes in and asks Carmilla if she has heard from her mother. Carmilla says no. He asks where a letter to her could be sent and she says she does not know. She then offers that she has been thinking of leaving them because she has given them so much trouble.
Laura’s father says that is not true at all and they cannot lose her. Laura is relieved to hear this. Laura’s father explains that he asks because he is concerned about this mysterious disease and feels responsible to notify her mother.
Later, Laura accompanies Carmilla upstairs and asks if she will ever fully confide in her. Carmilla only smiles, and finally says she is under vows and she cannot tell her story to anyone. The time will come soon when Laura will know all, and she should know that love is always selfish.
Carmilla then inquires whether or not Laura has been at a ball and says she herself did many years ago, which seems odd to Laura. Carmilla remembers everything about it, especially that she was almost assassinated in her bed. She was wounded in her breast as a result of a cruel love, which should remind Laura that “love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood” (26). At this, the ladies bid goodnight.
Laura often wonders if Carmilla says prayers. She has not seen it, but she did hear that Carmilla has been baptized. She never speaks of religion at all.
Carmilla keeps locking her bedroom door, and Laura begins to mimic this habit. One night she has a dream that “was the beginning of a very strange agony” (26). She is conscious of being asleep and in her room, as well as aware of what is going on. The room is dark and there is something moving around at the foot of the bed. It is a monstrous cat-like creature, and it moves back and forth like it is in a cage. Laura is terrified, especially as the room is getting darker and darker. It comes closer and pierces her with two sharp points. Laura screams and sees a female figure standing near the bed. It is perfectly still, but changes its place until it is gone.
Laura wonders if Carmilla has played some sort of trick, but her room is still locked from the inside.
Analysis
In these chapters, Laura and Carmilla establish their relationship, which is characterized by intensity on both their sides and vacillation between attraction and repulsion on Laura’s. Carmilla is depicted as an immensely beautiful and seductive young woman who inures Laura to her with her warm and confiding nature, her clear affection for her, and her enigmatic, beguiling nature. Laura tries to get Carmilla to open up to her about where she is from, but Carmilla coyly refuses to do so. This is just one of several things that bothers Laura about Carmilla, but her piquing behaviors do not supersede Laura’s strong attraction to the mysterious girl.
Laura’s vacillations on Carmilla may be due to her own confusing thoughts and/or Carmilla’s influence on her mind. The first evening Laura meets Carmilla, she has “something of repulsion” (13) in her response to her new guest. This also comes back when Carmilla falls into her “infatuations,” as Laura calls them—rapturous, passionate expressions of affection for Laura that remind her of a lover’s behavior. Laura states that these “agitations and her language were unintelligible to me” (15), that she wishes to extricate herself from them, and that “I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence” (16). She is embarrassed, finding Carmilla’s behavior “hateful and yet over-powering” (16), unable to turn away.
Two of the more disturbing things Carmilla says to Laura are, “You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever” (16) and “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so” (23). The first sentiment causes Laura confusion and the latter shock. While Laura herself might not be able to articulate what exactly is so disconcerting here, critic Hyun-Jung Lee explains that these statements are evocative of one of the central problems with Carmilla—that she threatens the limitations of self. Lee says that Carmilla has vampiric hunger, homoerotic desire, and, intertwined with those, a desire to break down the boundary between “desiring and desired selves.” Desire includes “fear of self-dissolution” and because “desire occurs across the borders of the self, it constantly threatens to tear down those borders.” Laura has trouble figuring out what is real or not—did Carmilla really have the same dreams? Why does she feel as she does?
Lee looks to Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject to further this discussion, explaining that the abject is something the body rejected/ejected in the time before it has an understanding of selfhood, which explains our visceral reaction to corpses, excrement, and open wounds. It results in nausea as the body “registers an oblivion that was forcibly enacted in the originary moment that gave birth to an ‘I.’” When one experiences abjection, one experiences a bodily knowledge that recalls the earlier time; it is characterized by liminality, as it “inspires both revulsion and attraction, rejection and desire.” Laura clearly feels this when she first meets the undead Carmilla, remembering with desire and horror that face from thirteen years ago. She also subsequently feels it in Carmilla’s presence, vacillating between adoration and abhorrence. She cannot quite fix Carmilla’s identity, as Carmilla is ultimately an “ambiguous, composite character, irresistible and horrific, intimate and alien, dead and yet fiercely alive.”
The larger problem that the collapse of the boundaries of the self presents, far beyond Laura’s twinges of discomfort, is that the relationship between the two young women isn’t just a problem for the patriarchal and heterosexual order. Rather, it dramatizes “a fundamental threat to subjectivity itself.” Carmilla “poses an ontological threat that penetrates and ruptures the boundaries of self—that most basic demarcation enabling so many systems of social and conceptual order in the Victorian period and beyond.” She undoes distinctions and demarcations; she is the other that threatens to subvert and redefine the self.
