Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

The House by André Maurois

Translated by Jacques Chambrun

“Five years ago, when I was so very ill,” she said, “I noticed I had the same dream every night. I would walk in the country and, from afar, would see a house, white, low, and long, surrounded by a grove of lindens. At the left of the house a meadow edged with poplars made a pleasing break in the symmetry of the background, and the tops of these trees, which could be seen from a distance, swayed above the lindens.

“In my dream I was drawn to this house and would walk towards it. At the entrance was a gate, painted white. Then I would follow a gracefully curving path, bordered by trees, under which I would find spring flowers, primroses, periwinkles, and anemones, which faded the moment I picked them. Then the path ended, and I was within a few steps of the house.

“In front of it was a large lawn, clipped like English turf, and almost hare, with only one long bed of violet, red, and white flowers, which produced a delightful effect in this green stretch. The house, of white stone, had a huge roof of blue slate. The door, of light colored oak, with carved panels, was at the head of a short flight of steps. I longed to go inside the house, but no one would answer me. I was greatly disappointed; I rang, I shouted, and at last I would awake.

“Such was my dream, and it was repeated month after month with such precision and fidelity that I ended by thinking I certainly must have seen this park and this château in my childhood. However, in my waking state I could not visualize it, and the quest for it became so strong an obsession that one summer, having learned to drive a small car, I decided to spend my vacation on the highways of France, seeking the house of my dream.

“I shall not tell you my travels in detail. I explored Normandy, Touraine, Poitou; but I found nothing. In October I returned to Paris, and all winter long I went on dreaming about the white house. Last spring I resumed my drives through the country about Paris. One day, while on a hill near Orleans, I suddenly felt an agreeable shock, that curious emotion one feels when recognizing after long absence people or places one has loved. Although I had never been in this region before, I recognized perfectly the country which lay at my right. The tops of poplars crowned a grove of linden trees. Through their foliage, still sparse, one sensed that there was a house.

“Then I knew that I had found the château of my dreams. Quite naturally, I knew that, a hundred yards farther on, a narrow road would cut the highway. I took it. It led me to a white gate, and there was the path I had so often followed. Beneath the trees I admired the soft colored carpet formed by the periwinkles, primroses, and anemones. When I came out from under the arching lindens, I could see the green lawn and the small stoop, at the top of which was the door of light colored oak. I got out of my car, walked rapidly up the steps, and rang the bell. I was very much afraid nobody would answer, but almost immediately a servant appeared. He was a man with a melancholy face, very old, wearing a black coat. Upon seeing me he seemed surprised, and looked at me attentively without speaking.

“ ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I am going to make a strange request. I do not know the owners of this house, but I should greatly appreciate their permission to see it.’

“ ‘The château is to let, Madame,’ he said, ‘I am here to show it.’

“ ‘To let?’ I said. ‘What an unexpected piece of luck!... How is it the owners themselves aren’t living in this fascinating house?’

“ ‘The owners did live in it, Madame. They left only when the house became haunted.’

“ ‘Haunted?’ I said... ‘That certainly won’t stop me. I did not know that in the French countryside they still believed in ghosts...’

“ ‘I shouldn’t believe it either, Madame,’ he said in all seriousness, ‘if I had not myself so often met at night in the park the ghost that drove my masters away.’

“ ‘What a story!’ I exclaimed, trying to smile, but not without a strange uneasiness.

“ ‘A story,’ said the old man with an air of reproach, ‘that you, least of all, Madame, should not laugh at, since that ghost was you.’ ”