Popular Culture Review 30.1
irruption of the unexplainable in a very mundane setting , this instance of the supernatural in the protagonist ’ s formerly quietly arranged life does not imply any direct physical threat�it would almost seem an amicable gesture . It is the night that turns the Horla into a monstrous predator , who sucks the breath of the narrator during his sleep , just as the vampire sucks the blood from his victims . The Horla also drinks the water and the milk that the narrator leaves on his nightstand ; although definitely less fulfilling than blood , both water and milk still signify life at primordial and essential levels , for water is the fundamental condition for life as we conceive it , and milk is directly and universally related to motherhood . In Stoker ’ s novel , breath , water , and milk are fused into one single element , blood , which is both life and liquid .
The definitive version of “ The Horla ” also reworks the encounter of the narrator with the Brazilian ship aboard which the mysterious creature is supposed to have arrived by introducing it at the beginning of the story , as the narrator is but a happy , worry-free fellow , so enchanted by the view of the beautiful three masts that he feels compelled to salute him . Naturally , he will not realize the significance of his gesture until the end of the story :
Ah ! Ah ! I remember , I remember the beautiful Brazilian three-master which passed up the Seine under my window on the 8 th of last May ! I thought it was so beautiful , so white , so gay ! The Being was aboard it , coming from that distant country where his race was born ! ( 42-43 )
This handsome ship aboard which the Horla allegedly arrived from Brazil to Normandy naturally reminds us of the
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