The Family of the Vourdalak (Translated): A NEW TRANSLATION

Marquis d'Urfé, a young French diplomat, finds himself in a small Serbian village, in the house of an old peasant named Gorch. The host is absent: he left the house ten days ago along with some other men to hunt for a Turk outlaw Alibek. Upon leaving Gorch told his sons, George and Peter, that they should wait for him for ten days sharp and, should he come a minute later, kill him by driving a stake through his heart for then he’d be not a man but a vampiric vourdalak. The family awaits the deadline with growing anxiety and there Gorch is, appearing on the road at 8 o'clock in the evening, exactly on the time he left ten days ago. His sons are uncertain as to how this strange precision should be interpreted... The Family of the Vourdalak is a gothic novella by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written in 1839 in French and originally entitled "La Famille du Vourdalak. Fragment inedit des Memoires d’un inconnu." The novella became the basis for "I Wurdulak", one of the three parts of Mario Bava's 1963 film "I Tre volti della paura" (also known as "Black Sabbath"), featuring Boris Karloff.

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