Pestis eram vivus --- moriens tua mors ero
HORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to this
story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed,
in the interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the
Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves --- that is, of their falsity, or of their
probability --- I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity --- as La
Bruyere says of all our unhappiness --- "vient de ne pouvoir être seuls." *
* Mercier, in "L'an deux mille quarte cents quarante," seriously maintains the doctrines of
Metempsychosis, and J. D'Israeli says that "no system is so simple and so little repugnant to the
understanding." Colonel Ethan Allen, the "Green Mountain Boy," is also said to have been a serious
metempsychosist.
But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to
absurdity. They --- the Hungarians --- differed very essentially from their Eastern
authorities. For example, "The soul," said the former --- I give the words of an acute and
intelligent Parisian --- "ne demeure qu'une seul fois dans un corps sensible: au reste ---
un cheval, un chien, un homme meme, n'est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces
animaux."
The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at variance for centuries.
Never before were two houses so illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly.
The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy --- "A
lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of
Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing."
To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But more trivial causes have
given rise --- and that no long while ago --- to consequences equally eventful. Besides,
the estates, which were contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a
busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom friends; and the inhabitants of
the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of
the palace Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus
discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy
Berlifitzings. What wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction, should
have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two families already predisposed to
quarrel by every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply --- if it
implied anything --- a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful house; and
was of course remembered with the more bitter animosity by the weaker and less
influential.
Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at the epoch of this
narrative, an infirm and doting old man, remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and
