In Transilvania, by the Carpathian mountains, there is an old castle, abandoned for years. Its owner, baron Rodolphe de Gortz, the only survivor of the Gortz family, left the place years ago and has never been seen since. However as one day someone sees smoke coming out from the castle, everyone in the town of Werst start to panic. They fear that smoke can only be a bad sign. Ignorant and superstitious the whole town is sure the devil is the sole occupant of the old castle. But, is there any other possibility?
Days after, a traveler stops by Werst and hears the rumors. He doesn't believe and dismisses all of them. However when someone mentions the name of the owner of the castle he changes his mind and decides to investigate in person.
Opinion: this is a short, easy to read novel. The story is interesting but I wouldn’t classify this as horror (as I have seen online). Verne provides some historical and geographical context to understand where the action takes place, what happened to the owner of the castle and what kind of people live in Werst. His descriptions of the town people as uneducated and extremely superstitious make the reader doubt of the veracity of some of the accounts. The Strange traveller is an interesting character. Count Franz de Telek has a dark past and is grieving for a lost love. As he finds some hope in the castle we follow him in his journey to get inside the old building. However, the best for me, was Rodolphe de Gortz, not as a character per se, because we don't know him much but as the focus of the mystery. At some points we are led to think he might be the devil or that he has something to do with it. At the end I couldn't decide who was the evil character though, as the actions of the hero are questionable in my opinion. And what did Barón de Gortz do that was so disturbing?
The negative: I didn't like those bits where the omniscient narrator explains some background to the story or, at the end, explains the nature of the mystery as if this was a school text book.
My edition is in Spanish published by Ediciones Gato Azul in 2005. It has 207 pages and a few illustrations.
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