But while Milena slept her open-eyed sleep, he could hardly manage himself; his desperation (if such is not too emphatic a word) ripened within him like a worm in a corpse, until he could scarcely meet the eyes of others. Down a certain shady side-street lived a flower vendor of easy morals, who looked not unlike Doroteja. One afternoon he found his feet pulling him there. She smelled like roses, as he knew quite well from having bought bouquets for Milena. Her name was Anna. She smiled; her breath was as flowers. Oh, he almost could have done it! But as she stretched out her fingers to be kissed, he found himself imperfectly recollecting a night when his faithful wife was lying on her side, with her head turned away from him and her buttocks exposed to him beneath the edge of the blanket — had she been asleep? If so, she must still have been alive. How tired she was, with the first two girls already born and always hungry; and once the sun was high she would have to be spreading the hay for the goats, with the elder one crying within the house and the younger one weighing down Milena’s back, while he went to the forest to steal firewood; how could he magnify the griefs of this woman? And during those Triestine summer days, when she lay reeking in her wormy rags, and in those winter nights, when her caress was as cold as the bronze clasp of an old leather book, he loved and pitied her even more. He could easily have found some daytime courtesan, or perhaps even a sunshine wife, but it was only when Milena was present, and he accordingly felt like himself, that women attracted him.
Until evening allowed her globs of flesh to recombine he was always so tired nowadays, and come nightfall no one could compare to his wife, shameless and therefore innocent, her chin darkly dripping. As for her, of course, she was touched by the sweet feebleness of her faithful husband who had not yet died. She went on weaving noblewomen veils more fine than smoke, and custom came to her like flies to a corpse.
Vampires tend to have a fatalistic nature; and the faithful wife had certainly never anticipated being able to enjoy her husband forever. For many good years they comforted one another: for their friendless, lurking existence, for the deaths of their children and the loss of their old home — and since they were such perfectly suited helpers each to the other, I’d call their marriage as successful as any.
Once they caught sight of a kindred vrykolakas, dark brown like one of those Slovenian honey-breads in the shapes of animals; the Triestini had haled him out of his tomb, and were burning him in the piazza. He was wicked; anyhow, Milena and Michael could not save him; they turned away from his cries.
Then there was the child who disappeared — a very good little boy, too, of whom everyone was fond. Michael found difficulty in protecting Milena just then. But he had long since become the good husband who knew and in a manner of speaking even cherished his wife’s infirmities. He knew how to clean things up! As for her, she kept bringing renown to the neighborhood; on her devolves all credit for the soprano Rina Pelligrini’s costume in “Lucia di Lammermoor”: golden embroidery on white, pale silver on a white as soft as the blurred face and girl-smooth hands of a priest’s tomb-effigy after centuries of rain. And so the neighbors settled on a Jew to burn.
A few years later came the case of the dead man who an hour before had been laughing and full of blood. To save Milena from suspicion, Michael had to lead her out in the sun — barely after dawn, of course, and utterly gloved, perfumed and veiled; her tottering, twitching body began to liquefy at once, and she bit her tongue nearly in two so as not to screech; supporting her around the waist, he conveyed her down into the street, as if to help her take the air, fanned the light away from her face, explained to the passersby (who started at the stench): my wife is not well, then carried her back inside, terrified that he might have killed her forever. She did not leave her coffin for three days. Dusk of the fourth disclosed her helpless, as are we all when dead: hideous with sores, blind, unable to speak. He ran out, bought the fattest hen he could find and forced its head into her mouth. She tried feebly to bite, but even this she could not manage, so he slit the bird’s throat, directing the wonder-working jets of blood upon her face. — Thank you, she whispered. — Perceiving that this had not sufficed, he rushed out again, just in time to catch a stray cat which had scented Milena. This time she was able to kill for herself. Then her sores began to heal. Every night he fed her on suchlike live creatures, and she lay there on the bed, grimacing and twitching. Soon she could see again. He sat by the threshold (although that was unlucky), wishing to take her in his arms or at least utter loving words but understanding that at this moment anything pertaining to life was nearly unbearable to her. All this she was suffering, if not for him alone, then for both of them. The distance between them seemed to have existed forever. But by then the neighbors had forgotten their suspicions of Milena, because a new wonder had been discovered in Trieste: a certain dead Countess’s portrait, painted in oils, which could wink its left eye at anyone who praised it. And when he comprehended that he had saved her for a little longer, he felt the way he had as a boy in Bohemia on a certain January morning, the ice black on the river and the whole family almost starving, when he found a precious apple hidden under the straw.
You might think that he sometimes wished to go back to the days before any of these events happened; for it is tiring to hide a secret, and lonely to forgo one’s friends. But the fact is that he never thought along those lines. For they were consecrated unto each other. Their joint career was besprinkled with blood, perhaps, but only of the insignificant. And they were safe now. Who among the Triestini could believe this vital if pallid night-woman and her sweaty companion who sometimes behaved as if he kept a dagger near could be any worse than murderers or thieves? (Anyhow, in Trieste there is always some dead man or other rotting at the bottom of the Canal Grande.) By virtue of the magnetic sacraments they cherished one another to the end. Now it was time to make a silver girdle for the Duchess d’Aosta. Smiling at him with all her sharp teeth, Milena laid her hand upon his pulsing breast.
She had to go to bed earlier and earlier. By now a stench would come out of her an hour before dawn, her black tongue lolling out, her eyes screwing shut. As for him, he continued to look unwholesome, as might be expected of a man who never got quite enough sleep. Which of them loved the other more I cannot tell; they were bound to one another by the obscurest appetites of the blood.
I have seen an octagonally-framed daguerreotype of them from sometime after 1845—no, the legend you wish to cite is false; vampires do sometimes cast shadows, reflections and images, even if their husbands can’t see them — with her dark hair parted high across that pallid forehead of hers; she wears a high-busted corset with a glass jewel about her neck; his arm is around her as she smiles, showing her teeth — no, what are you thinking? She wasn’t like that!
Saving up their money until they could buy their indulgences, they entered the bosom of the Church, which was certainly soft and rich, although sometimes they found it difficult to breathe. He managed to protect her so long as they both lived, and she nourished him and kept her copperware shining like winter suns.
So finally they died together, and because they were wealthy and generous, the Archbishop himself made sure that trentals were sung for them in church; and then they were buried in a marble tomb in consecrated ground, ringed round by the great trees, which do not even know their own names, and whose leaves hang down like grapes, like women’s luscious hair, like ivy rushing to cover skeletons; and the crypt was sealed; the mausoleum was locked; and the moon passed into silver clouds, like a beautiful dead lady returning to the cemetery.