Carmilla's Return

Carmilla's Return marks the moment when the vampire's supernatural nature nearly breaks into the open, only to be smoothed over by a plausible but deeply unsettling explanation. After a night of frantic search, locked doors, and mounting terror, Carmilla is found standing calmly at her dressing table, her reappearance both a relief and a riddle that the household cannot solve.

Disappearance and Panic

The night before, Laura had been woken by a terrifying dream in which she saw Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed, bathed from chin to feet in blood. Screaming, Laura roused Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, and together they rushed to Carmilla's door. Their knocking went unanswered; soon it became pounding and uproar. The door was locked from the inside. Servants were summoned, and at Laura's order they forced the lock. The room was undisturbed, exactly as Laura had left it when bidding Carmilla good night—but Carmilla was gone. The windows were secured, the dressing-room door locked on the inside. No trace of the missing lady could be discovered anywhere in the schloss or grounds. Laura's father was in distraction, and the entire household remained in a state of agitation through the morning.

The Reappearance

At one o'clock the next day, Laura ran up to Carmilla's room and found her standing at her dressing table. Astounded, Laura could not believe her eyes. Carmilla beckoned her with her pretty finger, her face expressing extreme fear. Laura ran to her in an ecstasy of joy, kissing and embracing her again and again, then rang the bell vehemently to bring others and relieve her father's anxiety. When Laura demanded to know where she had been and how she had come back, Carmilla replied, "Last night has been a night of wonders." She explained that she had gone to sleep as usual in her bed with both doors locked, had slept uninterrupted and apparently dreamless, and had woken only moments ago on the sofa in the dressing room, to find the door between the rooms open and the other door forced. She professed complete bewilderment, insisting that she was particularly easily wakened and could not understand how she could have been carried out of her bed without being disturbed.

The Sleepwalking Theory

Madame Perrodon, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, Laura's father, and a number of servants crowded into the room, overwhelming Carmilla with inquiries, congratulations, and welcomes. She had but one story to tell and seemed the least able of anyone to account for what had happened. Laura's father, after taking a turn up and down the room in thought, proposed a theory: Carmilla must have walked in her sleep. He asked whether she had ever been suspected of sleepwalking, and she admitted that she had, when very young, as her old nurse had often told her. He then reconstructed the event: she had risen in her sleep, unlocked the door, taken the key out and locked it on the outside, then carried the key away with her to some other room in the vast old house, and eventually returned to the dressing room, where she awoke spontaneously. Laura objected that they had searched the dressing room carefully and found nothing, but her father countered that Carmilla must have come there after the search, still asleep. He declared himself satisfied that the most natural explanation involved no drugging, no tampering with locks, no burglars, poisoners, or witches—nothing that need alarm anyone for their safety.

Aftermath and Lingering Unease

Carmilla, looking charmingly beautiful with her peculiar graceful languor, accepted the explanation without further comment. Laura's father, however, sighed and remarked that he wished his poor Laura were looking more like herself, silently contrasting her wan appearance with Carmilla's vivid tints. The household's alarms were thus happily ended, and Carmilla was restored to her friends. Yet the very neatness of the sleepwalking solution—its ability to account for locked doors, a missing key, and an apparently impossible disappearance—only masked the deeper mystery. The event established a pattern of nocturnal absence and inexplicable return that would later be recognized as the vampire's characteristic behavior, and it left Laura more vulnerable than ever to the creature that had already begun to drain her life.