...irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in...mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you in turn will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty which is yet love. At first, pleasurable...

...Carmilla proposes a concept of mutual love which would lead to Laura's melting into her. She tells Laura: 'I live in your warm life, and you shall die— die, sweetly die— into mine ... and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love' (Glass, III, p. 107). Carmilla's vampiristic...

...sensations. For Carmilla and Laura understand each other, sharing a life even before Carmilla murmurs, "I live in your warm life and you shall die — die, sweetly die — into mine . . .you and I are one forever" (89-90). Both have lost their mothers and their countries; each suffuses...

...that Carmilla is no phantom, but flesh, who, like us, must open doors to pass into rooms. Her oath, "I live in your warm life and you shall die — die, sweetly die — into mine . . . you and I are one for ever," is more warmly inescapable than Ruthven's was: Carmilla does live...

...irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine" (92). Though beautifully done, the speech reveals Carmilla to be...

...essential element in love — not on the fact that the vampire's victim is a woman. As Carmilla describes it, "as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to the others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love. ..." The next novel to appear...

...life out of the living. As Carmilla tells the still unwitting narrator in Le Fanu's story ofthat name: "In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine! I cannot help it" (Best Ghost Stories 291). Such reality, of course,...

...irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in...mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a...

...intimate advances. She is told ' — I live in your warm life and you shall die — die, die sweetly into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you,...others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty which is yet love' (p. 317); 'I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so' (p. 329). This is female...

...enormous humiliation," Carmilla tells the protagonist she is seducing and whose blood she is sucking, "I live in your warm life, and you shall die — die,...others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which is love."17 Vampires, male and female, are sinners because they are perversions of the figure of God;...