Ghoul

No, I"m not looking for anyone, it’s only strange for me that I see ghouls at today"s ball!
- Ghouls? - repeated Runevsky, - like ghouls?
“Ghouls,” answered a very cold stranger. - You, God knows why, call vampires, but I can assure you that they are a real Russian name: ghoul.

Such books should be read in the country, in a dark evening, when the flame of a kerosene lamp trembles above the table, and drops of rain are drumming on the glass.
It all starts quite ordinary, the erected evening ... One of the guests behaves unusually, and he stands out from the crowd: he probes the suspicious look of everyone who surrounds him ... And then he directly declares that ghouls are present at the ball ! ...
"Notice only how they, meeting with each other, click their tongue. This is really not clicking, but a sound similar to the one that is produced by lips when they suck an orange. This is their conditional sign, and so they recognize each other and greet each other. ”
Is it really true? Or is it just an obsessive idea of ​​a young man with upset nerves?
In the narrative there are all the necessary elements of the Gothic horror: a family curse, and terrible night scenes, and a young maid, which must be saved ... from the hands of either unpleasant relatives, or ... really real ghouls ...
And the open ending only spurges the reader"s imagination. What really happened? .. After all, we want to get to the bottom of the truth ... Isn"t it?
Black and white illustrations exacerbate the impression of the ghosts and mystery that is painted with the narrative