Dracula by Bram Stoker(1)

Chapter 1
Jonathan Harker’s Journal
3 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. Buda-Pesth
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 over 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
Klausenburgh. 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. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter,
and he said it was called ‘paprika hendl,’ and that, as it was
a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along
the Carpathians.
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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 foreknowledge of the country
could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with
a nobleman 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 giving the
exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps
of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordance
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 the descendants of the Dacians;
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Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North.
I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended
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 into 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. (Mem., 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 it may have been the
paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe,
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’, and eggplant
stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which
they call ‘impletata". (Mem., 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
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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 dawdle 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
see in old missals; 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 were 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 home-made 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
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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 their big cow-boy
hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts,
and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all
studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with
their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair
and heavy black moustaches. 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.
They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather
wanting in natural self-assertion.
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
it 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 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being
assisted by famine and disease.
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Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden
Krone 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 a long double
apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too
tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said,
‘The Herr Englishman?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Jonathan Harker.’
She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man
in white shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door.
He went, but immediately returned with a letter:
‘My friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am
anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three
tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; 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.’
4 May—I found that my landlord had got a letter from
the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the
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coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he
seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could
not understand my German.
This could not be true, because up to 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 hysterical way: ‘Must you go? Oh!
Young Herr, must you go?’ She was in such an excited
state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German
she knew, and mixed it all 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
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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 as 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 you not know
that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil
things in the world will have full sway? Do you know
where you are going, and what you are going to?’ She was
in such evident distress that I 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 tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could,
that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I
must go.
She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix
from her neck offered it to me.
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I did not know what to do, for, as an English
Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in
some measure idolatrous, 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 Mina before I do, let it
bring my goodbye. Here comes the coach!
5 May. The Castle.—The gray 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.
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There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who
reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left
Bistritz, 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 simple style
of the London cat’s meat!
The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a
queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not
disagreeable.
I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else.
When I got on the coach, the driver had not taken his
seat, and I saw him talking to 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—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’—hell, ‘stregoica’—
witch, ‘vrolok’ and ‘vlkoslak’—both mean the same thing,
one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that
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is either werewolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the
Count about these superstitions.)
When we started, the crowd round the inn door,
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, and so sorrowful, and so
sympathetic that I could not but be touched.
I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the
inn 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 in
green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard.
Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered
the whole front of the boxseat,—‘gotza’ they call them—
cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran
abreast, and we set off on our journey.
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I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the
beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I
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 a 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 ‘Mittel Land’ ran the road, losing itself as it swept
round the grassy curve, or was 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
Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime
excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after
the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the
general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old
tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order.
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Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the
Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in
foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always
really at loading point.
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose
mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the
Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered,
with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing
out all the glorious colours 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 grandly. 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 a hill and opened up the lofty, snowcovered
peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound
on our serpentine way, to be right before us.
‘Look! Isten szek!’—‘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
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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 Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque
attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By
the roadside 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, and 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 leiter-wagon—the ordinary
peasants’s cart—with its long, snakelike vertebra,
calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were
sure to be seated quite a group of homecoming peasants,
the Cszeks 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
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the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the
dark firs 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 seem 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
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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 grey light ahead of us, as
though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of
the passengers grew greater. The crazy coach 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 nearer to us on each side and to frown 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 same 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
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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 do,
when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others
something which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so
quietly and in so low a tone, I thought it was ‘An hour less
than the time.’ Then turning to me, he spoke in German
worse than my own.
‘There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected
after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return
tomorrow or the next day, better the next day.’ Whilst he
was speaking the horses began to neigh and snort and
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plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up.
Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and
a universal crossing of themselves, a caleche, 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 coal-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 tonight, my
friend.’
The man stammered in reply, ‘The English Herr was in
a hurry.’
To which the stranger replied, ‘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 hardlooking
mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking
teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered
to another the line from Burger’s ‘Lenore".
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‘Denn die Todten reiten Schnell.’ ("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 Herr’s luggage,’ said the
driver, and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed
out and put in the caleche. Then I descended from the
side of the coach, as the caleche 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, 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 come
over me. But a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a
rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent
German—‘The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master
the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of
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slivovitz (the plum brandy 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 farmhouse
far down the road, a long, agonized wailing, as if from
fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then
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another and another, till, borne 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 caleche 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
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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 we passed as 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
around 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 to left and 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 at 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
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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
motions. 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, and 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 yet gone, and during his absence, the
horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and
scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the
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howling of the wolves had ceased altogether. But just then
the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared
behind the jagged crest of a beetling, 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. They 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 a way painful to see. But
the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side,
and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the
coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only
chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid
his approach, I shouted and beat the side of the caleche,
hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from the 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
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arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle,
the wolves fell 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 caleche, and the wolves 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 against the sky.
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Chapter 2
Jonathan Harker’s Journal Continued
5 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 the courtyard looked of
considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it
under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it
really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.
When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down
and held out his hand to assist me to alight. 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 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 set in 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 his seat and shook the
reins. The horses started forward, and trap and all
disappeared down one of the dark openings.
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I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what
to do. Of bell or knocker 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 sort of grim adventure was it on
which I had embarked? 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! Mina would not like that. Solicitor, for just before
leaving London I got word that my examination was
successful, and I am now a full-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 to be 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
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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 a 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! Enter freely and of your own
free 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, that 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 seemed cold as ice, more like
the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said.
‘Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and
leave something of the happiness you bring!’ The strength
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of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had
noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a
moment I doubted if it were 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 our steps rang heavily. At the end of
this he threw open 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 into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and
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