Carmilla

Carmilla is a Gothic vampire novella by Sheridan Le Fanu, first serialized in 1871–72 and collected in book form in 1872. It is one of the Irish writer’s best-known works.

Laura is a young woman who lives quietly with her father in a secluded castle in Styria, Austria. One day, a woman's carriage has an accident on a road near the castle, and the woman's daughter is knocked unconscious.

The mother, rather strangely, decides to leave in a hurry, leaving her daughter, named Carmilla, in the care of Laura's family until she returns from her trip. A few days later, Laura begins to have strange dreams about nocturnal visits to her room, and when she wakes up, she feels that she has no strength and that she is sick.

At the same time, the intense bond between Carmilla and Laura grows increasingly intimate and unsettling. But Carmilla hides a dark secret...

"Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet over-powering."