Some circumstances of my life made me think about what pronoun must be refer to the word “soul” in English — in the language in which there is no grammatical gender for nouns, but whose native speakers say about the soul either like “it”, then like “she/her” for some reasons. This was followed by a sequence of discoveries, providential coincidences and unexpected connections, thanks to which Thomas à Kempis, Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Hamilton were in the same boat.
I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than ever when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.
It is November of 1893. You have just killed a vampire. Exhausted and worn, you close your eyes and rest.
You wake up. It is May of 1893. You are on a train en route to Transylvania. Your diary says you have had queer dreams lately.
You try to believe it.
(An old woman puts a rosary in your hands. You accept it without question.)
You are a guest in a castle you have never been in before (you recognize every hallway and know without trying that every door is locked). Your host is a man you have never met before (you killed him you killed him you killed him he had turned to dust and there was blood on the snow).
One morning you cut yourself while shaving.
There is nobody behind you in the pocket mirror’s reflection.
You turn fast, and the razor is like a Kukri knife in your hand.