Kostova, Elisabeth - The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Author:Elizabeth Kostova
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-14T22:29:38+00:00

The child that is dead was ever sweet and fair.

Now younger sister the same smile doth wear.

She saith to their mother: “Oh, Mother, dear,

My good dead sister told me not to fear.

The life she might not live she gives to me,

That I might bring fresh happiness to thee.“

But, nay, the mother could not raise her head,

And sat a-weeping for the one now dead.

“‘Good God,’ I said with a shudder. ‘It’s easy to see how a culture that could create a song like that believed in vampires—produced them, even.’

“‘Yes,’ Helen said, shaking her head, but she was already searching further through the volume. ‘Wait.’ She paused suddenly. ‘This could have been it.’ She was pointing to a short verse with an ornate woodcut above it that seemed to depict buildings and animals enmeshed in a prickly forest.

“I sat in suspense for a few long minutes while Helen read in silence, and at last she looked up. There was a spark of excitement in her face; her eyes shone. ‘Listen to this—as well as I can translate.’ And here, I reproduce for you an exact translation, which I have kept these twenty years in my papers:

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