Note: The cover of this book was created bythe transcriber and is placed in the public domain. Some details werechanged to improve readability in a mobile device. A more extensivetranscriber’s note can be found at the end of this book.
NIGHTMARE TALES
The Aryan Theosophical Press
Point Loma, California
Nightmare Tales
By
H. P. BLAVATSKY
The Aryan Theosophical Press
Point Loma, California,
U. S. A.
1907
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| A Bewitched Life | 1 |
| The Cave of the Echoes | 65 |
| The Luminous Shield | 81 |
| From the Polar Lands | 95 |
| The Ensouled Violin | 103 |
A BEWITCHED LIFE
(As Narrated by a Quill Pen)
Introduction
It was a dark, chilly night in September,1884. A heavy gloom had descendedover the streets of A——, a small townon the Rhine, and was hanging like ablack funeral-pall over the dullfactory burgh. The greater numberof its inhabitants, wearied by theirlong day’s work, had hours beforeretired to stretch their tired limbs,and lay their aching heads upontheir pillows. All was quiet in thelarge house; all was quiet in thedeserted streets.
I too was lying in my bed; alas, not one of rest, butof pain and sickness, to which I had been confinedfor some days. So still was everything in the house,that, as Longfellow has it, its stillness seemed almostaudible. I could plainly hear the murmur of the blood,[2]as it rushed through my aching body, producing thatmonotonous singing so familiar to one who lends awatchful ear to silence. I had listened to it until, in mynervous imagination, it had grown into the sound of adistant cataract, the fall of mighty waters ...when, suddenly changing its character, the ever growing“singing” merged into other and far more welcomesounds. It was the low, and at first scarce audible,whisper of a human voice. It approached, and graduallystrengthening seemed to speak in my very ear. Thussounds a voice speaking across a blue quiescent lake, inone of those wondrously acoustic gorges of the snow-cappedmountains, where th