#count stenbock

Riches I had, certainly--but not to the extent I would have, to enable me to realise all dreams. Power I also had to some degree--not to that degree I aspired to. Then I said, “There is yet another thing in that I am wholly deficient. I mean Love. Yes, that is the reason why the sea is listless, and the rocks merely mathematical.” I had just painted a picture, representing Cupid working at mathematical problems on a slate, with a pair of equally weighted scales behind. By this I meant to represent my own state of mind. I could not possibly love. I weighed every emotion in the balance, and reckoned it out and analysed it. And then there was no beauty I had ever seen who could satisfy my cravings for the Ideal.

As I was thinking thus, the air became gradually perfumed. A strange delicious scent, mingled of honeysuckle, jasmine, incense and spices. Then before me there was a faint glimmer of rose-violet colour, bordered with silver, from which the scent seemed to emanate. Then the light grew brighter, and in the midst thereof there was an apparition--something incomparably and entirely beautiful. It was a figure entirely nude, shaped like the Greek Hermaphrodite. But, oh, how much more beautiful! All conceivable beauties of both sexes were blended in its beautiful lines. The face was beyond description in its incredible loveliness. Its long hair was bronze-coloured, with threads of gold. The mouth was infinitely sweet, the eyes, which were of dark violet, infinitely sad.

It said, (I do not know that it actually spoke, for what it said seemed rather to impress the mind than the outward hearing, and yet it was like a human voice speaking, singularly sweet, accompanied by far-off music) “I have all knowledge. By the knowledge that I can impart ye may be as gods, knowing good and evil. All the riches of the earth are mine, and all power is given unto me. Or--” (here the voice became railing and scornful), “I have it! Then,” (here the voice became infinitely tender) “I am a Seraph: my life is love. All I ask in return is a little love. I show mercy unto thousands of them that love me. My children, my chosen, who worship me, my children, my chosen, taken from the elect of mankind, whose intellect is sufficient to understand me.”

“Who art thou?” I asked.

“Men name me by different names,” he said. “Many call me Shaitan, the enemy: my followers call me the Lightbearer.” (Then the voice again became railing and scoffing). “We do not go by our right names. They call Him Jehovah, or Adonai, but His real name is--” Then he said out loud, with a mocking laugh, that which no mortal has dared to pronounce; and then the voice, becoming tender again, continued: “My name is--” then he uttered another name, also composed entirely of vowels; it was the inversion of the other name, and the last vowel was pronounced with a long wail of agony.

a black rosette of Count Eric Stenbock

James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880-1939 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).