It was a castle with hight and spacious rooms. One, in one of those rooms, a sick old woman had been given a bed made of straw that was spread out beneath her. This old woman had found her way to the castle and had been begging in front of it gate, when the mistress of the castle took pity on her. Her husband, the marquis, who had just come back from hunting and was by chance just entering the room, where he always kept his gun, indingnantly ordered the woman to get up from the corner of the room where she lay and go and lie down behind the stove. As the woman rose, her crutch slipped and she went skidding over on the slippery, floor, dangerously injuring her spine. Nevertheless, she got to her feet with immense effortand moved across the room to behind the stove, as she had been instructed to, where she sank down, moaning and groaning, and passed away.
Some years later, after the marquis had fallen upon hard times due to crop failure war, a Florentine knight turned up and wanted to purchase the castle from him, owing to its fine location. The marquis, who was really eager to conclude the deal, told his wife to put the stranger up in the above-mentioned empty room, which was beautifully-indeed splendidly -furnished. But it can be imagined how horrified the married couple were when, in the middle of night, the knight came rushing down and swore blind to them that there was a ghost in that room. He told of how something not visible to the eye had got up from the corner of the room, emitting sounds as though it had been lying on straw, and with audible footstep, slow and frail, had crossed the room and sunk down behind the stove, moaning and groaning as it did so.
The marguis, shocked-he did not know why-laughed at the knight with forced iocularity and told him that, to reassure him, he would join him at once and spend the night with him in the room. But the knight begged him to allow him, rather, to spend the night in an armchair in the marquis's room. When morning came, he saddled his horse, said his goodbyes, and departed
This event, which gave rise to much gossip, scared off a number of potential buyers, much to chagrin of the marquis. The upshot was that when a disquieting and bewildering rumour started up amongst his own servants that at the midnight hour the room became haunted, he resolved to put an end to the gossip by decisive action, namely, namely, investingating the matter himself the very next night. Accordingly, when twilight fell, he had his bed made up in the afore-mentioned room and waited, without sleeping, for the coming of midnight. It can be imagined how shaken he was when, at the striking of the witching hour, he did inded hear the in comprehensible sound; it was as though a person were rising from straw rustling beneath them, then crossed the room and sank down behind the stove, sighing and groaning. The next morning, when the marquis came down, the marchioness asked him how the investingation had gone. Looking around him with nervous and uncertain glances and bolting the door, he confirmed to her that it was all true regarding the ghost. At this, she was overcome by a fear greater than any she had known in her entire life and begged him, before he said anything further, to subject the matter once more to a cool-headed investingation, this time in her perence. The next night, however, they-together with a faithful servant whom they had brought along with them-did indeed hear the same incomprehensible, ghostly sound, and it was only her urgent desire to get rid of the castle, whatever the cost, that enabled her, in the presence of her servant, to suppress the horror which had seized her and to put the incident down to some inconsequential and chance cause which could no doubt be established.
On the evening of the third day, as the pair, with beating hearts, once more climbed the stairs to the guest room in order to get to the bottom of the matter, the household dog, which had been released from its chain, chanced to make its way to the door of that very same room, with the consequence that the pair, without specifically explaining their action to each other, took the dog with them into the room, perhaps out of an involuntary desire to have a third party present, something alive, rather than having to be there all alone. The couple-two lights on the table, the marchioness not yet underessed, the marquis with a dagger and two pistols which he had taken out of the cupboard, at his sidesat down towards 11 o'clock on their respective beds, and while they were trying to keep themselves entertained with conversation as best they could, the dog lay down in the middle of the room, curled up, and fell asleep.
Then, at the stroke of midnight, the dreadful sound is heard again: someone not visible to human sight get up on crutches from the corner of the room-the sound of the straw rustling beneath that person can be heard-and at the first step-tap, tap-the dog wakes up, suddenly springs from the floor, pricks up his ears and, growling and barking just as if someone were coming towards him, backs away towards the stove. Confronted by this sight, the marchionness rushes out of the room, her hair standing on end and-while the marquis, who has grabbed the dagger, cries out, 'Who is there?' and, receiving no reply, starts stabbing at the air in all directions like a madman -she gives order to have her horse saddled, resolved to set off for town that very moment. But before she has collected together a few things and is rattling out of the castle, she sees the whole castls go up in flames. The marquis, his nerves overstrained with horror and tired of his life, had taken a candle and set fire to all four corners of the castle, lined as it was everywhere with wooden panels. In vain the marchioness sent people in to rescue the unhappy man-but he had already perished in a most pitiable way. And to this very day his white bones, placed together by the country folk, still lie in the same corner of the room from which he had ordered the beggar woman of Locarno to rise up.