 CHAPTER 1 Jonathan Harker's Journal 3rd May, Bistritz. Left Munich at 8.35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning, should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late. Budapest seems a wonderful place from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station as we had arrived late, and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the west and entering the east. The most western of splendid bridges of the Danube, which is here, of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klassenberg. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather, supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good, but thirsty. Mama Random, get recipe for Mina. I asked the waiter, and he said it was called Paprika Handel, and that as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here. Indeed, I don't know how I should be able to get on without it. Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania. It had struck me that some foreign knowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with the noblemen of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains, one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work given the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own ordnance survey maps. But I found that Bistritz, the post-town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina. In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities, Saxons in the south, and mixed with them, the Wallachs, who are descendants of the Dacians, Magyars in the west, and Zikis in the east and north. I am going among the latter who claim to be descendant from Attila and the Huns. This may be so for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered in the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool. If so, my stay may be very interesting. Memorandum, I must ask the Count all about them. I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it, or may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my Carath, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika and a sort of porridge of maize flour, which they said was mamaliga, an eggplant stuffed with force-meat, a very excellent dish, which they call implotata. Memorandum, get recipe for this also. I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7.30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China? All day long we seemed to dwindle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills, such as we do in old missiles. Sometimes we ran by rivers and streams, which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water and running strong to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there are groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home, or those I saw coming through France and Germany with short jackets and round hats and homemade trousers, but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks who were more barbarian than the rest, with the big cowboy hats and great baggy dirty white trousers, white linen shirts and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all started over with brass nails. They wore high boots with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black mustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old oriental band of brigands. Here they are however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting a natural self-assession. It was on the dark side of Twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place, being practically on the frontier, for the borgo pass leads from it, into Bukovina. It has had a very stormy existence, and certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost thirteen thousand people, the casualties of while proper being assisted by famine and disease. Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Cron Hotel, which I found to my great delight to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress, white undergarment with long double apron, front and back of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, the hair Englishman? Yes, I said, Jonathan Harker. She smiled and gave some message to an elderly man in white-shirt sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with the letter. My friend, welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bucovina. A place on it is kept for you. At the borgo pass my carriage will await you, and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land, your friend Dracula. For me. I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place in the coach for me. But on making inquiries as to the details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true because up till then he had understood it perfectly. At least he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask anyone else, for it was all very mysterious, and not by any means comforting. Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way, must you go? Oh, young hare, must you go? She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost a grip of what German she knew, and mixed it up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions, when I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again, do you know what day it is? I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head and she said again, oh yes, I know that, I know that, but do you know what day it is? On my saying that I did not understand she went on. It is the eve of St. George's day. Do not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway. Do not know where you are going, and what you are going to. She was in such evident distress that I had tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go, at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous, but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up and said as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative in that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and, taking a crucifix from her neck, offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for as an English churchman I have been taught to regard such things as, in some mother, adulterous. And yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady, meaning so well, and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, for your mother's sake, and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary, whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late, and the crucifix is still round my neck, whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself. I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach me and before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach. 5 May The Castle The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is, so far off, that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and lest who reads them may fancy I dined too well before I left a bistroots, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called robber steak, bits of bacon, onion and beef seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire in the simple style of the London carts-meat. The wine was golden medias, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple glasses of this and nothing else. When I got on the coach, their driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door, which they called by a name, meaning wordbearer, came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd, so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say, they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were ordog, satan, pokol, hel, stregoika, witch, vrolak, and vlikozlak, both of which mean the same thing, one being slovak and the other servien, for something that is either werewolf or vampire. Memorandum, I must ask the count about these superstitions. When we started, the crowd round the indoor, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty, I got a fellow passenger to tell me what they meant. He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me. Just starting for an unknown place, to meet an unknown man, but everyone seemed so kind-hearted, so sorrowful, so sympathetic, that I could not be but touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the in-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees, and green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat, Götzer they call them, cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey. I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although I had known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green-sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road, there was everywhere bewildering mass of fruit blossom, apple, plum, pear, cherry, and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the middle-land ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, always shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prune. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Copaethians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept into good order. Of old the hospedars would not repair them, lest the Turks should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so haste in the war which was always really at loading-point. Beyond the green-swelling hills of the middle-land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Copaethians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out the glorious colors of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose groundly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains through which as the sun began to sink we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of the hill and opened up the lofty snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us. Look! Ishtensets! God's seat! And he crossed himself reverently, as we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasized by the fact that the snowy mountain top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Jackson's hill-box, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goiter was painfully prevalent. By the roadside there were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me, for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, here and there, very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a litre wagon, the ordinary peasant's cart, with its long snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of homecoming peasants, the Czechs with their white and the Slovaks with their coloured sheepskins, the latter carrying Lance fashion their long staves with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness, the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we assented through the pass. The dark furs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening. When the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seemed to wind ceaselessly through the valleys, sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. No, no, he said. You must not walk here, the dogs are too fierce. And then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantry, for he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest. And you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep. The only stop he would make was a moment's pause to light his lamps. When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him one after the other as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of gray light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater, the crazy coat rocked on its great leather springs and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come near to us on each side, and have frowned down upon us. We were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial. These were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz, the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for some little time, and at last we saw before us the pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness, but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best to do when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the other something which I could hardly hear. It was spoken so quietly and in so lower tone. I thought it was an hour less than the time. Then turning to me, he said in German, worse than my own. There is no carriage here. The hair is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina and return to Maro or the next day, better the next day. Whilst he was speaking, the horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, amongst a course of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a collish with four horses drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps as the rays fell on them that the horses were cold black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard, and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight as he turned to us. He said to the driver, You are early to-night, my friend. The man stammered and reply. The English hair was in a hurry, to which the stranger applied. That is why I suppose you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend, I know too much, and my horses are swift. As he spoke, he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Berger's Lenore, Dendei tot in leitensnel, for the dead travel fast. The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. Give me the hair's luggage, said the driver, and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed out and put into the kalesh. Then I descended from the side of the coach. As the kalesh was close alongside, the driver helping me with a hand, which caught my arm in a grip of steel, his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, and the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the pass. As I looked back, I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip, and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me. But a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug crossed my knees, and the driver said in excellent German, The night is chill, mine hair, and my master the count bade me take all care of you. There was a flask of slyvovitz, the plum bandy of the country, underneath the seat, if you should require it. I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think, had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace, straight along, then we made a complete turn, and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again, and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant. But I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay. By and by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch. It was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farm house down the road, a long, agonised wailing as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another, and another till, born on the wind which now sighed softly through the pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling, that of wolves, which affected both the horses and myself in the same way, for I was minded to jump from the collage and run whilst they reared again and plunged madly so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse tamers doing and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again took his seat and, shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till he passed us through a tunnel, and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side, though we were in shelter we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all round us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer as though they were closing round on us from every side. I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed. He kept turning his head left to right, but I could not see anything through the darkness. Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment. He had once checked the horses, and jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do. The less as the howling of the wolves grew closer. But while I wondered, the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word, took his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly. And now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver's emotions. He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose. It must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all. Gathering a few stones, formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect. When he stood between me and the flame, he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me. But as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me, straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us as though they were following in a moving circle. At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had gone yet, and during his absence the horses began to tremble worse than ever and a snot and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether, but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beatling pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. There were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import. All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in every way painful to see, but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and they had perforced to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try and break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the Kalesh, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound saw him stand in the roadway, as he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle the wolves felt back, and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. When I could see again the driver was climbing into the Kalesh, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast, ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line across the moonlit sky. CHAPTER II Jonathan Harker's journal continued, Five May I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom of the courtyard it looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches it perhaps seemed bigger than it really was. I have not yet been able to see it in daylight. When the Kalesh stopped the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to a light. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps and placed them on the ground beside me, as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and certain a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather, as I stood the driver jumped again into a seat and shook the reins. The horses started forward and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell and norca there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What kind of grim adventure was it on which I hadn't barked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk. Mean I would not like that. Solicitor. For just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful and I am now a fuller-blown solicitor. I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test and my eyes were not deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians, all I could do now was to be patient and to wait the coming of morning. Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the Great Door and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse and the Great Door swung back. Within stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand, with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation, welcome to my house, and of freely and of your own will. He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, I had stepped over the threshold he moved impulsively forward and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it had seemed as cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead man than a living man. Again, he said, welcome to my house, come freely, go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring. The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed of the driver whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it would not the same person to whom I was speaking, so to make sure I said interrogatively, count Dracula, he bowed in a courtly way as he replied, I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house, come in, the night air is chill and you must need to eat and rest. As he was speaking he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out took my luggage. He had carried it in before I could forestall him, I protested, but he insisted, Nay, sir, you are my guest, it is late, and my people are not available, let me see to your comfort myself. He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor are steps weighing heavily. At the end of this he threw up in a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. The count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room opened another door, which led to a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this he opened another door and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome-site, for here was a great bedroom, well-lighted and warmed with another log fire, also added to, but laterly, for the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying before he closed the door, you will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish, when you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared. The light and warmth of the count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half-famished with hunger, so making a hasty toilet, I went to the other room. I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table and said, I pray you, be seated, and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me, that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do not sup. I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely, then, with a charming smile. He handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure. I must regret that an attack of gout from which malady I am constant sufferer, forbids me absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come, but I am happy to say that I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters. The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old toque, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it, the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced. By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire, had drawn up a chair by the fire, and began to smoke a cigar, which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. His face was strong, a very strong aqueline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely everywhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with particularly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm, though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Here, there too, I had noticed the backs of his hands as they laid on his knees in the violet, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now, close to me, I could not notice, but they were rather coarse, broad with squirt fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The count, evidently noticing it, drew back and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done, his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again, on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything, but as I listened, I heard as if from down below the valley, the howling of many wolves. The count's eyes gleamed as he said, Listen to them, the children of the night, what music they make. Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added, Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter. Then he rose and said, But you must be tired. Your bedroom is already, and tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have yet to be away till the afternoon, so sleep well and dream well. With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom. I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt I fear. I think strange things which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me. 7 May It is again, early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and woke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself, I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out with coffee kept hot by the part being placed on the half. There was a card on the table on which was written. I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me. D. I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished, but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table-service is of gold and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains in upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten, but still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet-glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving-glass for my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had it. I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials, so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library, the door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and English life in customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as The London Directory, The Red and Blue Books, Whitaker's Almanac, The Army and Navy Lists, and, it somehow gladdened my heart to see it, The Law List. Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened and the Count entered. He saluted me in hearty way and hoped that I had had a good night's rest. Then he went on, I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companions, he had laid his hand on some of the books, have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England, and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books, to you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak. But Count, I said, you know and speak English thoroughly, he bowed gravely. I thank you, my friend, for all your too flattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them. Indeed, I said, you speak excellently. Not so, he answered. Well, I know that. Did I move and speak in your England? None there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble. I am boyar. The common people know me. I am master. But a stranger in a strange land. He is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest. So that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words. Ha-ha, stranger! I have been so long master that I would be master still. Or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone, as agent of my friend, Peter Hawking's of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me a while, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation, and I would, that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long to-day, but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand. Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered, Yes, certainly, and added, You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand. I said I was sure of this, and then he went on. We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be. This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he shared off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachmen went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year, last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. That treasure has been hidden, he went on, in the region through which you came last night. There can be but little doubt, for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times when the Austrian and Hungarian came up in hordes, and patriots went out to meet them, men and women, the aged and children too, and waited the coming on the rocks above the passes. That they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil. But how, said I, can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look? The Count smiled, and his lips ran back over his gums, the long sharp canine teeth showed out strangely. He answered, Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool. Those flames only appear one night, and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again. There you are right, I said. I know no more than the dead where even to look for them. Then we drifted into other matters. Come, he said at last, tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me. With an apology for my remissness I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the count lying on the sofa, reading of all things in the world in English Bradshaw's guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table, and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything and asked me a myriad of questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighborhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this he answered, Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend, Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon me, I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronomic first. My friend, Jonathan Harker, will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law, with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So. We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Perfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them, ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the nodes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here. At Perfleet, on a by-road, I come across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quotra Fis, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large, and of all periods back, I should say to medieval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up, and heavily barred with iron. It looks like a part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house. But I have taken with my Kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very struggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds. When I had finished, he said, I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and a live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bread voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken, the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and castlements. I love the shade in the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may. Somehow his words, and his look, did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and satanine. Presently with an excuse he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found, in certain places, little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated. The other two were Exeter and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It was the better part of an hour when the count returned. Aha! he said. Still are your books. Good. But you must not work always. Come! I am informed that your supper is ready. He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The count again excused himself as he had dined out on his being away from home, but he sat as on the previous night and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me, but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change of the dawn or at the turn of the tide. Anyone who has, when tired, and tired as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere, can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with pretty natural shrillness through the clear morning air. Count Dracula jumping to his feet said, Why, there is the morning again. How remiss am I to let you stay up so long? You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us. And with a courtly bow he quickly left me. I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice. My window opened into the courtyard. All I could see was the warm gray of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again and have ridden of this day. 8 May I began to fear, as I wrote in this book, that I was getting too diffuse. But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it, that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I was safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that the strange night existence is telling on me, but word that that were all. If there were anyone to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one I have only the count to speak with, and he, I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic, so far as facts can be. It will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does, I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand. Or seem to. I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep anymore got up. I had hung my shaving-glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, Good morning. I started for it amazed me that I had not seen him since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror. The whole room behind me was displayed, but there was no sign of a man in it except myself. This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strained things was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near. But at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. Take care, he said. Take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country. Then, seizing the shaving glass, he went on. And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bubble of man's vanity, away with it, and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave unless in my watch case or the bottom of the shaving pot which is fortunately of metal. When I went into the dining-room breakfast was prepared, but I could not find the Count anywhere, so I breakfast alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man. After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs and found a room looking towards the south. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice, a stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything. As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green treetops with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe a beauty for when I had seen the view I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere and all locked and bolted. In no place, say from the windows and castle walls, is there an available exit. This castle is veritable prison, and I am a prisoner. End of Chapter 2 Recording by Corinne LePage Chapter 3 of Dracula by Bram Stoker This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Corinne LePage Chapter 3 Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued When I found that I was a prisoner, a sort of wild feeling came over me, I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find. But after little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless, I sat down quietly. As quietly as I have ever done anything in my life, and began to think over what was best to be done, I am thinking still and has yet have come to know definite conclusion, of one thing only, am I certain, that it is no use making my ideas known to the count. He knows well that I am imprisoned, and as he has done it himself, and as doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either being deceived like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need and shall need all my brains to get through. I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went consciously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed, what I had all along thought, that there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining room, I was assured of it, for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought for if so. What does it mean he could control the wolves as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence? How was it that all the people at Bistrit's and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix of the garlic of the wild rose of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck, for it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour as a doletrist should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Sometime, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime, I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand. Tonight he may talk of himself if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion. Midnight. I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a boyard, the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate, wherever he spoke of his house he always said we, and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white mustache, and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can, for it tells in its way the story of his race. We zikis have a right to be proud, in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Woden gave them, which their bozerkers displayed to such fell intent on the seabords of Europe, I and of Asia and Africa too, so the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come. Here too, when they came, they found the Huns whose warlock fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools! Fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as a tiller whose blood is in these veins? He held up his arms. It is a wonder that we are a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Boglar or the Turk, poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back. Is it strange that when Alpard and his lesion swept through the Hungarian fatherland, he found us here when he reached the frontier, that the Hunfoglalas was completed here, and when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Zikis were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted in the guarding of the frontier of Turkeyland, I, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless. Whom are gladly than we throughout the four nations received the bloody sword, or had its warlike kulf locked quicker to the standard of the king, when was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Kosova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent. Who was it but one of my own race, who as Vivord crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed. Who was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them? Was it not this Dracula indeed, who inspired that other of his race, who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the Great River, into Turkeyland, who when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph. They said that he thought only of himself. But what good are peasants without a leader, where ends the war without a brain and a heart to conduct it? Again, when after the battle of Mohawks we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Our young sir, the Zikis, and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsbergs and the Romanovs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told. It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. Memorandum. This diary seems horribly like the beginning of the Arabian nights, for everything has to break off at Kokro, or like the ghost of Hamlet's father. 12 May. Let me begin with facts. Bare meager facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last evening, when the count came from his room, he began by asking me questions on legal matters, and the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day warily over books, and simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been examined in, in Lincoln's Inn. There was a certain method in the counting queries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence. The knowledge may somehow, or some time, be useful to me. First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to military against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not, by any chance, mislead him. So he said, I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me, through your good self, my place at London. Good! Now here let me say, frankly, lest you should think it strained that I have sought the services of one so far off, from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served, save my wish only, and as one of London residents might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve. I went thus afield to seek my agent whose labours should be only to my interest. Now suppose I, who have much affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Dunham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that could with more ease be done by co-signing to one in these ports? I answered that, certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client simply placing himself in the hands of one man could have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble. But, said he, I could be at liberty to direct myself, is it not so? Of course, I replied, and such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person. Good! he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or foresee, for a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and argument were wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could, by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said, have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other? It was with some bitterness in my heart, that I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody. Then right now, my young friend, he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder, write to our friend and to any other, and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now. Do you wish me to stay so long? I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought. I desire it much. Nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged, that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so? What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins' interest, not mine, and I had to think of him not myself. And besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way. I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of other things other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so? As he spoke he handed me three sheets of note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, with the sharp canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way that I could. One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, number seven, the Crescent Whitby, another to Harlotna Vana, the third was to Kutsenko, London, and the fourth to Harren Klopstock, and Bill Ruth, bankers, Budapest. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just about to look at them when I saw the door handle move. I sank back in my seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been, and to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and, turning to me, said, I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish. At the door he turned, and after moments pause, said, Let me advise you, my dear young friend. Nay, let me warn you with all seriousness that should you leave these rooms, you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned, should sleep now or ever overcome you, or we like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect then. He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood. My only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me. Later. I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed. I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams, and there it shall remain. When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out, and went up the stone stair to where I could look out towards the south. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place. I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight, till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys engorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me. There was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window, my eye was caught by something moving a story below me and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the count's own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone mullioned, and though weather-worn, was still complete, but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. What I saw was the count's head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck, and the movement of his back and arms. In any case, I could not mistake the hands, which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window, and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, one clear of the mortal by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. What manner of man is this? Or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of a man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me. I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me. I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of. 15. May. Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a side-long way, some hundred feet down, and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared I leaned out to try and see more, but without a veil. The distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to as yet. I went back to the room, and, taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new. But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains, but the door was locked, and the key was gone. That key must be in the count's room. I must watch should its door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there is nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age, and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat in the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself and, with many efforts, forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew, and a story lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end of the room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling or bow or culverine could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastness, rising peak on the sheer rock, studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight flooding in through the diamond panes enabled one to see even colors, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all, and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart, and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the count, and after trying little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table, where in all time as possibly some fair lady sat to pen, and with much thought and many plushes, her ill-spent love letter, and writing in my diary in short end all that has happened since I closed at last. It is nineteenth century up to date with a vengeance, and yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere modernity cannot kill. Later, the morning of sixteen May, God preserve my sanity for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past, whilst I live here, there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place, the count is the least dreadful to me, that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God, merciful God, let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness, indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me, up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say, my tablets, quick my tablets, to his meat that I put it down, etc. For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged, or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turned to my diary for repose, the habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me. The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time, it frightens me more now when I think of it for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say. When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket, I felt sleepy, the Count's warning came into my mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it, the sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinancy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed in the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where of old ladies had sat and sung in lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for the menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay I could look at the lovely view to the east and south, and unthinking of, and uncowering for, the dust composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but I fear for all that followed was startlingly real, so real that now sitting here in the broad full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it. I could see along the floor in the brilliant moonlight my own footsteps marked where I disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the count, and the great dark piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrast with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fairs can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy. Some longing, and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this downlest someday it should meet Mina's eyes, and cause her pain. But it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed, such a silvery musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound could never have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said, Go on, you are first, and we shall follow, yours is the right to begin. The other added, he is young and strong, there are kisses for us all. I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could find the movement of a breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness, which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head, as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin, and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does, on the hand that is to tickle approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dense of two sharp teeth just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes and a languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart. But at that instant another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman, and with giant's power draw it back. The blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth chomping with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was allured, as if the flame of hellfire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard, like drawn wires. The thick eyebrows which met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others as though he were beating them back. It was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves, in a voice which, though low and almost in whisper, seemed to cut through the air, and then ring round the room as he said. How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast your eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all, this man belongs to me. Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me. The fair girl, with a laugh of a bald cockatry, turned to answer him. You yourself never loved. You never love. On this the other woman joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear. It seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the count turned after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper, Yes, I too can love. You yourselves can tell it from the past, is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him, you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! Go! I must awaken him for there is work to be done. Are we to have nothing tonight? Said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there was some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me, there was a gust, and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round whilst I was a gust with horror, but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious. End of chapter three. Recording by Corinne LePage