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by
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.
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; 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 egg-plant 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 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 ot 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 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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 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.
...
ak-drogheda