Shalken and the Painter

The story opens by describing a painting that has been painted. The author describes the painting and the setting is what appears to be in a chamber of what looks like a antique religious building. In the chamber is a man and a woman. The woman is in the foreground she is smirking and her face is illuminated by the lamp she is holding. The man is in the background, he is dressed in Flemish garb and is in the action of drawing his sword. The narrator then cuts to the story behind the painting.
Rose Velderkaust was the neice of esteemed painter Gerard Douw and the first and only love of Godfrey Shalken. Shalken was a student of Douw and spent much of his days trying to win the heart of Rose. Although he eventually does win her heart, he must still prove himself to Douw. Here is where the story takes an unexpected turn. One night Shalken is working late on a painting, while working he is disturbed by a unknown man in a cloak named Minheer Vanderhausen. Vanderhausen tell Shalken that he wishes to speak to Douw the following night and tells him to relay the message. Shalken delivers the message to Douw and Douw agrees to meet Vanderhausen. Douw and Shalken go to meet Vanderhausen. Vanderhausen wishes to take Douw's niece, Rose, in marriage. Vanderhausen proves his wealth to Douw and Douw being overwhelmed by his immense wealth, promises Rose to him. When a party is set for the two we finally get to see Vanderhausen. His skin has a bluish hue, even more odd than that he never blinks and his chest never moves, like that associated with respiration.
Rose is then taken by Vanderhausen and Douw never hears from her again until one night some time later Rose bursts into his house. She looked dreadful, so Douw and Shalken put her to bed. While in bed she begs them not to leave her side. They stay there with her for a long time until they think they see something in the next room. As soon as both of them have exited the room the door slams closed and they begin the hear Rose screaming, but they cannot get the door open. When they finally do, Rose is gone, the window is open, and there are rings in the water below. No evidence of Rose was ever found.
Sometime later Shalken recieves word that his father had passed away and received arrangements for the funeral in Rottendam. When he reaches Rottendam the procession is not there so a man invites him to a chamber to enjoy a fire. While sitting there Shalken is overcome by sleep. He then wakes up to the vision of a woman in a white robe. Shalken then follows the woman. The woman stops at the stairs and Shalken then realizes it is Rose. Shalken continues to follow the figure until she stops beside a bed and pulls the curtain beside it. Shalken is horror stricken, behind the curtain was the image of Vanderhausen. Shalken then faints and lays there until he is found much time later. While Shalken is sure of what he has seen, no one really knows for sure what ever happened to Rose and Vanderhausen.
This story was interesting to me because is follows the pure fantastic genre. The pure fantastic is the genre where the author leaves it up the the reader to decide whether or not it was indeed a supernatural experience or if it could in some way be deduced by science. I am personally a fan of this genre because it is rare to find in a story and let the imagination run more wild than it would otherwise would. Also in this story LeFanu follows Carrol's checklist for a horror story monster. According to Carrol, a monster in a horror story must have the following: 1 The monster cannot be explained. As we see from this story no one can identify with Vanderhausen. During the story Douw travels to where Vanderhausen lives, and goes to everyhouse but no one knows of Vanderhausen. Also there is the issue of his skin color, not blinking and appearing to not breathe. 2 The monster is disgusting. As stated above, Vanderhausen violates all of our norms. His skin color is not that of a living individual, he does not breathe and never blinks.
After reading the story I thought that "Shalken the Painter" was a successful horror story. He provides us with a monster to be terrified of and then leaves the ending to us to decide how it acctually ended, supernatural or can we scientifically explain Vanderhausen and the Chamber scene.