About this audiobook
At a social gathering, Runevsky meets a man who insists that some of the guests are vampires. The claim seems impossible to accept, but later encounters begin to unsettle the confidence with which it can be dismissed. A visit connected with Dasha and her family draws him into an atmosphere where dreams, recollection and apparent observation no longer remain safely distinct.
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy combines the manners of social life with the uncertainty of a Gothic tale. Familiar settings acquire disturbing implications as the protagonist tries to determine which impressions deserve belief. The possibility of deception does not make the alternative explanations reassuring, and each account leaves something unresolved.
The novella explores fear and the difficulty of establishing a dependable boundary between ordinary experience and the supernatural. Its shifting perspectives invite readers to follow how an unsettling suggestion can change the way a person sees the world, making the search for certainty part of the mystery itself.
