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The Bloody Nun
by Charles Nodier
Translated by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

A revenant frequented the Chateau of Lindemberg in such a way that it had become uninhabitable. The chateau was blessed by a priest, and the ghost came to be confined to a single, isolated chamber, where it was shut up in perpetuity. But every five years, on the fifth of May, at precisely one o'clock in the morning, the phantom ventured forth from its asylum.

It was a bride of Christ, covered by a veil, and robed in a habit soiled with blood. In one hand she held a lance, and in the other a lighted lamp and, thus appearing, she descended the grand stairway, crossed the central hall, exited by the main portal, which had been purposely left ajar, and disappeared.

The hour prescribed for the recurrence of this mysterious ritual was near to arriving, when the madly enamored Raymond received the order to renounce the hand of young Agnes, with whom he was quite hopelessly in love.

He requested a rendezvous. It was granted, and he put forward a plan. Agnes knew all too well the purity of her lover's heart, and did not hesitate to agree to the following: "It will be in five days," he told her, "that the Bloody Nun will conduct her annual promenade. The doors will be open and no one watching will dare to block her path. I can procure some garments from the convent and, if you make your passage stealthily and wrap yourself well in your hood, you can make your escape without being recognized, since any onlookers will surely conceal themselves at some distance…" Just then, someone drew near, and they parted hurriedly.

On the fifth of May, at midnight, Raymond waited alongside the doors of the chateau. A coach and two chargers were sequestered in a neighboring stable.

The lights convulsed, the air grew still, and the hour of one rang out: the butler, in accordance with the ancient custom, threw open the principal portal. A light appeared in the east turret, drifted across a section of the chateau, and began to descend…Raymond caught sight of Agnes, and observed the habit, the lamp, the blood, and the lance. He approached; she threw herself into his arms. He swept her up, carried her breathlessly to the coach, and flew, stallions at a gallop.

Agnes didn't make a sound.

The horses sped furiously into the night; two postillions, which had striven vainly to restrain them, were ripped from their roots, and loudly clanked behind.

Just then, a frightful storm arose; howling winds were unleashed; thunder rumbled amidst a thousand flashes of lightning; the coach was overturned… Raymond fell to the ground, and lost consciousness.

Monday morning, he awoke to find himself encircled by a group of peasants who had brought him back to life, and who chattered away with great concern. He spoke to them of Agnes, of the runaway coach, of the raging storm; they had seen nothing, knew nothing, and they were more than ten leagues from the Chateau of Lindemberg.

They transported him to Ratisbonne; a doctor dressed his wounds, and recommended rest. The young gallant asked a hundred questions, initiated a thousand requests, to which no one made the slightest response. Everyone thought he had lost his mind.

All day long he tossed and turned until, overcome at last by weakness and fatigue, he sank into sleep. He slept peacefully enough until the clock of the nearby convent woke him, as it sounded the hour. He was seized by a secret horror, his hair stood on end, his blood froze. The door to his room opened violently; and by the light of the lamp resting on the mantelpiece, he saw someone approaching; it was the Bloody Nun. The spectre approached, regarding him fixedly, and seated herself on the edge of his bed, for an entire hour. The clock struck two. The ghost now rose, took the hand of Raymond in her icy fingers, and said to him: "Raymond, I am yours and you are mine for all eternity." With this, she departed, and the door closed behind her.

Thus released, he screamed and called aloud; everyone thought he had only become more deranged; that his malady had worsened and that all medical assistance had been in vain.

The following night the nun appeared once more, and her visits were renewed over the course of several weeks. The spectre was visible only to him, and could not be perceived by any of those he insisted keep vigil with him in his turbulent room.

Meanwhile, Raymond learned that Agnes, leaving too late, had searched forlornly among the environs of the chateau; searching for him everywhere until she realized he had carried off the Bloody Nun. The parents of the poor girl, who had always strongly disapproved of their love, seized the opportunity to profit from the sad impression made upon her spirit by this unfortunate episode, and persuaded her to take the veil.

At last Raymond was delivered from his frightful companion. There turned up a mysterious personage who was passing through Ratisbonne; the traveler came to his room at the hour appointed for the appearance of the Bloody Nun. His guest saw her and trembled; at the command of the visitor, the ghost explained the motives for her discontent; a Spanish nun, she had quit the convent, in order to live in sin with the lord of the Chateau of Lindemberg: betrayed by her lover, as she had betrayed her God, she had gored him with a lance, and was murdered herself by this same man she had hoped to marry; her body had roamed without sepulture and her soul had wandered without refuge for more than a century. She asked only a little space for herself, and that she be remembered in prayer. Raymond promised as much, and never saw her again.

TRANSLATOR: Gilbert Alter-Gilbert



Charles Nodier bio by Alter-Gilbert:

Charles Nodier (1780–1844) was the literary "pilot of French Romanticism." Director of the Arsenal Library and grand panjandrum of an epochal Parisian salon, he was a prominent cultural arbiter of the post-Napoleonic period. A multi-faceted author, Nodier is best remembered for his elaborate fantasies Luck of the Bean-Rows; Trilby; and Smarra, or The Demons of the Night. Nodier's Infernaliana or Anecdotes, Histories, Tales and Accounts Concerning Revenants, Spectres, Vampires and Demons, a catalog of clichés of the supernatural, the spectral, and the chthonic which Nodier helped to make fashionable during Romanticism’s heyday, is the source from which The Bloody Nun has been drawn, to be presented here for the first time in English translation.