the schloss (Laura's castle)

The schloss (Laura's castle) is the remote Styrian fortress that serves as the primary setting of the narrative, a picturesque and solitary feudal residence purchased by Laura's father after his retirement from the Austrian service, whose isolated location and Gothic architecture establish the atmosphere of vulnerability and entrapment that pervades the story.

Location and Setting

The schloss stands on a slight eminence in a forest, approached by a very old and narrow road that passes in front of its drawbridge—never raised in Laura's time—and its moat, stocked with perch and sailed over by many swans, with white fleets of water lilies floating on its surface. The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before its gate, and at the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in deep shadow through the wood. The castle's many-windowed front, its towers, and its Gothic chapel rise over all this landscape. The nearest inhabited village is about seven English miles to the left, and the nearest inhabited schloss of any historic associations is that of old General Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to the right. Only three miles westward lies a ruined village with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau in the thick of the forest.

Architecture and Interior

The schloss shows its many-windowed front, its towers, and its Gothic chapel. The room used as a drawing room is long, with four windows that look over the moat and drawbridge upon the forest scene. It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved cabinets, and the chairs are cushioned with crimson Utrecht velvet. The walls are covered with tapestry, surrounded with great gold frames, the figures being as large as life, in ancient and very curious costume, and the subjects represented are hunting, hawking, and generally festive. The room is not too stately to be extremely comfortable. The handsomest rooms in the schloss include one with a somber piece of tapestry opposite the foot of the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom, and other solemn classic scenes displayed, a little faded, upon the other walls, but with gold carving and rich and varied color enough to more than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry.

Inhabitants and Social Life

The party who constitute the inhabitants of the castle is very small: Laura's father, who is the kindest man on earth but growing old; Laura herself, at the date of her story only nineteen; Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne whose care and good nature in part supplied to Laura the loss of her mother; and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a finishing governess who spoke French and German. There were also two or three young lady friends, pretty nearly of Laura's own age, who were occasional visitors for longer or shorter terms, and these visits Laura sometimes returned. These were the regular social resources, though there were chance visits from neighbors of only five or six leagues distance. Laura's life was, notwithstanding, rather a solitary one.

Narrative Significance

The schloss's extreme isolation—with the forest extending fifteen miles to the right and twelve to the left—creates the conditions for Carmilla's infiltration and Laura's prolonged victimization. The castle's ancient architecture, with its secret passages hinted at by the old housekeeper, its heavy furniture and accumulations of lumber, provides spaces for Carmilla's mysterious disappearances and reappearances. The schloss is not merely a backdrop but an active participant in the Gothic atmosphere: its windows flash and twinkle with silvery splendor under the full moon, its rooms are decorated with faded tapestries of classic scenes, and its very furniture seems to absorb the horror of the apparitions that haunt it. The castle's proximity to the ruined village and castle of Karnstein, only three miles away, geographically links Laura's home to the vampire's ancestral seat, making the schloss both a refuge and a trap.