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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 6, Spring 1945
Page 128
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128 FANTASY COMMENTATOR This story is considered by many to be Cram's outstanding contribution to supernatural fiction, and was indeed noted by Lovecraft as achieving "a memorably potent degree of vague regional horror through subtleties of atmosphere and description." The aura of desolation that pervades it makes "The Dead Valley" a tale that is not easy to forget. Less artistic and slightly tinged with sentiment is "Notre Dame des Eaux," which describes the return of the spirit of a mad artist to the church of his native French village, and of how it threatens the life of a girl who has befriended the man during his lifetime. Some of the description is beautifully executed; especially memorable is the delicate word-painting of the tiny church itself which the reader encounters early in the story, this being no small contribution to the general atmosphere of the tale. "In Kropfsberg Keep" tells of the fate that befell two young men, who, in defiance of local superstition, spend the night in the keep of a ruined and haunted castle. Forty years before their coming Count Albert, master of Kropfsberg, gathered together a score of his reckless and wicked friends for a riotous debauch; and at the height of celebration, when all were dancing in the great ballroom, he barred the doors and set the castle afire, then sat in its donjon, listening to the revellers' cries of fear and terror, and watching the red sheets of fire sweep above the battlements. And finally, he committed suicide, hanging himself in the ruins of the once-mighty structure. Those who have been luckless or foolhardy enough to brave the night within the crumbling walls of its ruins since that time have always met with death. But Rupert and Otto---two youthful travellers---deirde such superstitious beliefs. The two sit up before an open fire in the keep, whiling away the night hours at chess until well past midnight. Nothing unusual having occurred, they decide to retire. Otto falls asleep immediately; Rupert sits drowsily smoking, eying the iron hook on the overhead beam from which the wicked count reputedly hanged himself. A melancholy two tolls from the village clock. Suddenly faint music, as of a near-by dance, fills the air; the opposite rends in a jagged line of fire and he sees Count Albert, mailed, standing before him. The count beckons, and Rupert, pistol in hand, follows the mailed figure to the olden ballroom where a concourse of skeletal horrors---the dead of forty years before---dance once more in a dismal light to strains of music that seem to come from nowhere. The count bids him join the charnel throng; and Rupert, in fright, fires his pistol at the spectre, who leers at him with eyeless skull through the armor-visor... Outside, the clock tolls three; and he finds himself in the keep once more. Has he but dreamed? Not so; for searchers the next morning discover him kneeling beside his companion; Otto lies quite skill, a bullet through his throat... The second story in Black Spirits and White to be anthologized is "Sister Maddelena," which appeared in J. L. French's Ghost Stories (1922). This tells of the wandering spirit of a murdered nun which haunts the corridors of an ancient Sicilian convent until it leads a chance visitor there to the site of her unmarked grave. Cram's descriptions are deftly executed, and the opening of Sister Maddelena's walled-up tomb is a powerfully portrayed scene in the tale. "The White Villa," also in this volume, is an excellent description of a ghastly murder's spectral reenactment. Though its peak falls somewhat short of those in other tales in this collection, it is yet a memorable example of the supernatural, and reaches a potent emotional level in the depiction of the crime itself. Although as a whole it is not as artistic as "The Dead Valley," and while it has an admittedly slow beginning, nevertheless "No. 252 Rue M. le Prince" rises to Lovecraftian heights near its ending, and must therefore be rated as equal to the former story. The narrator---for like much of Cram's work this is told in the first person---is visiting a Parisian friend who has but recently
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128 FANTASY COMMENTATOR This story is considered by many to be Cram's outstanding contribution to supernatural fiction, and was indeed noted by Lovecraft as achieving "a memorably potent degree of vague regional horror through subtleties of atmosphere and description." The aura of desolation that pervades it makes "The Dead Valley" a tale that is not easy to forget. Less artistic and slightly tinged with sentiment is "Notre Dame des Eaux," which describes the return of the spirit of a mad artist to the church of his native French village, and of how it threatens the life of a girl who has befriended the man during his lifetime. Some of the description is beautifully executed; especially memorable is the delicate word-painting of the tiny church itself which the reader encounters early in the story, this being no small contribution to the general atmosphere of the tale. "In Kropfsberg Keep" tells of the fate that befell two young men, who, in defiance of local superstition, spend the night in the keep of a ruined and haunted castle. Forty years before their coming Count Albert, master of Kropfsberg, gathered together a score of his reckless and wicked friends for a riotous debauch; and at the height of celebration, when all were dancing in the great ballroom, he barred the doors and set the castle afire, then sat in its donjon, listening to the revellers' cries of fear and terror, and watching the red sheets of fire sweep above the battlements. And finally, he committed suicide, hanging himself in the ruins of the once-mighty structure. Those who have been luckless or foolhardy enough to brave the night within the crumbling walls of its ruins since that time have always met with death. But Rupert and Otto---two youthful travellers---deirde such superstitious beliefs. The two sit up before an open fire in the keep, whiling away the night hours at chess until well past midnight. Nothing unusual having occurred, they decide to retire. Otto falls asleep immediately; Rupert sits drowsily smoking, eying the iron hook on the overhead beam from which the wicked count reputedly hanged himself. A melancholy two tolls from the village clock. Suddenly faint music, as of a near-by dance, fills the air; the opposite rends in a jagged line of fire and he sees Count Albert, mailed, standing before him. The count beckons, and Rupert, pistol in hand, follows the mailed figure to the olden ballroom where a concourse of skeletal horrors---the dead of forty years before---dance once more in a dismal light to strains of music that seem to come from nowhere. The count bids him join the charnel throng; and Rupert, in fright, fires his pistol at the spectre, who leers at him with eyeless skull through the armor-visor... Outside, the clock tolls three; and he finds himself in the keep once more. Has he but dreamed? Not so; for searchers the next morning discover him kneeling beside his companion; Otto lies quite skill, a bullet through his throat... The second story in Black Spirits and White to be anthologized is "Sister Maddelena," which appeared in J. L. French's Ghost Stories (1922). This tells of the wandering spirit of a murdered nun which haunts the corridors of an ancient Sicilian convent until it leads a chance visitor there to the site of her unmarked grave. Cram's descriptions are deftly executed, and the opening of Sister Maddelena's walled-up tomb is a powerfully portrayed scene in the tale. "The White Villa," also in this volume, is an excellent description of a ghastly murder's spectral reenactment. Though its peak falls somewhat short of those in other tales in this collection, it is yet a memorable example of the supernatural, and reaches a potent emotional level in the depiction of the crime itself. Although as a whole it is not as artistic as "The Dead Valley," and while it has an admittedly slow beginning, nevertheless "No. 252 Rue M. le Prince" rises to Lovecraftian heights near its ending, and must therefore be rated as equal to the former story. The narrator---for like much of Cram's work this is told in the first person---is visiting a Parisian friend who has but recently
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