Dracula

The journal of Jonathan Harker opens with the methodical notations of an English solicitor bound for a business engagement in the eastern reaches of Europe—a journey that carries him, by degrees both geographical and spiritual, from the familiar securities of the West into territories where the maps grow uncertain and the superstitions multiply like shadows at dusk.

Setting forth from Munich on the first of May, Harker traverses Vienna and Buda-Pesth, noting with characteristic precision the tardiness of trains and the gradual transformation of the landscape as he crosses into what he perceives as the Orient's threshold. His passages through Klausenburgh and onward to Bistritz are punctuated by the small pleasures of the careful traveller: paprika hendl and mamaliga, local dishes whose recipes he memorises for his fiancée Mina, and ethnographic observations concerning the Saxons, Wallachs, Magyars, and Szekelys amongst whom he journeys. He has prepared himself admirably, having researched Transylvania at the British Museum, though he confesses he could light upon no map showing the exact locality of Castle Dracula—a detail he records without apparent alarm, attributing the gap to the region's wildness rather than to anything more sinister.

At Bistritz, Harker finds lodging at the Golden Krone Hotel, where a letter from Count Dracula awaits him, cordial in its welcome yet carrying undertones that trouble the reader if not the recipient. It is here that the first unmistakable warnings present themselves. The landlord and his wife grow evasive at the Count's name, crossing themselves in evident fear. The elderly landlady, in considerable distress, implores Harker not to depart on the eve of St. George's Day, when all evil things hold full sway. She presses upon him a crucifix—an object his Anglican sensibilities find somewhat idolatrous, yet which he accepts out of courtesy and now wears about his neck as he writes, confessing he feels not nearly so easy in his mind as usual.

The coach journey through the Borgo Pass proves a masterwork of accumulating dread. Fellow passengers mutter words Harker must look up in his polyglot dictionary: *Ordog*, Satan; *pokol*, hell; *vrolok* and *vlkoslak*, werewolf or vampire. They press gifts upon him and make signs against the evil eye. The magnificent Carpathian scenery—green slopes giving way to snow-capped peaks, pine forests descending like tongues of flame—offers temporary distraction, yet the driver's urgency and the passengers' mounting agitation speak to dangers Harker's rational mind cannot yet credit.

At the summit of the Pass, where Harker expects to find the Count's carriage, there appears instead a momentary hope of reprieve: no conveyance waits, and the coachman suggests he continue to Bukovina. But this respite proves illusory, for a calèche drawn by coal-black horses materialises from the darkness, driven by a tall figure with gleaming red eyes, very red lips, and teeth sharp and white as ivory. One passenger whispers the line from Bürger's *Lenore*: "For the dead travel fast."

The subsequent night journey unfolds as a waking nightmare. The mysterious driver circles endlessly through the darkness, pauses to investigate flickering blue flames, and at one terrible juncture disperses a ring of wolves through nothing more than imperious command and the sweeping of his long arms. Harker, paralysed by fear, can do nothing but observe as the carriage ascends ever higher until, at last, it pulls into the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, its tall black windows showing no ray of light, its broken battlements jagged against the moonlit sky.

Thus delivered to his destination, Harker stands at the threshold of horrors his orderly solicitor's mind has not yet begun to fathom, though the weight of the crucifix against his chest suggests that some deeper instinct already knows what awaits within those silent walls.

I must have been asleep when we arrived, for I cannot account for my failure to notice the approach of such a remarkable place as Castle Dracula. The courtyard loomed vast in the darkness, and several dark passages led away under great round arches, though I have yet to see any of it by daylight. The driver—whose prodigious strength I had already marked—set down my luggage before a massive door studded with iron nails and carved with stone worn smooth by centuries, then vanished with his horses into one of those black openings before I could think to question him.

I stood alone in the silence, uncertain what to do. There was no bell, no knocker, and through those frowning walls I doubted my voice could penetrate. In those endless moments, doubts and fears pressed upon me. What sort of grim adventure had I embarked upon? I confess I thought of Mina, and of my recent success in examination—I am now a full-blown solicitor, not merely a clerk—yet such professional pride seemed absurd standing before that ancient fortress in the Carpathians.

At last I heard heavy footsteps and saw light flickering through the door's chinks. Chains rattled, bolts drew back with the grinding protest of long disuse, and the great door swung open to reveal a tall old man clad entirely in black, holding an antique silver lamp. He bade me welcome with courtly formality—"Enter freely and of your own will!"—yet stood motionless as stone until I crossed the threshold, whereupon he seized my hand with a grip cold as death and strong as iron. The resemblance to the driver's crushing handshake struck me at once, though I dared not pursue the thought.

Count Dracula himself carried my luggage through winding passages and up great stairs to comfortable rooms where fires blazed and supper awaited. His hospitality seemed genuine, yet I could not shake a creeping unease. As I ate—he excused himself, claiming he had already dined—I observed him closely: that aquiline face, those peculiarly sharp white teeth protruding over ruddy lips, the pallor, the pointed ears, the coarse hands with hair growing in the palms. When he leaned near me, a wave of nausea seized me unbidden. Outside, wolves howled in the valley below, and the Count's eyes gleamed as he called them "the children of the night."

Over the following days, we discussed his purchase of the Carfax estate near London—a crumbling, gloomy property beside a lunatic asylum—and he expressed his desire to master English speech so thoroughly that no Londoner might mark him as foreign. He spoke of being master here, a *boyar*, and wishing to remain master wherever he goes. I found the castle library stocked with English books, maps, directories—all evidence of meticulous preparation for his removal to England.

Yet strange deficiencies plague this place: no mirrors anywhere, no servants to be seen, and the Count himself never eats or drinks in my presence. When I cut myself shaving, his eyes blazed with demoniac fury and he lunged for my throat—only the crucifix about my neck stayed his hand. He seized my shaving glass and hurled it from the window with terrible strength, shattering it on the stones far below.

I have explored what I can. The castle perches on the edge of a precipice a thousand feet above forested gorges, and every door I try is locked fast. I am all in a sea of wonders; I doubt, I fear, I think strange things I dare not confess even to my own soul. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner—though what darker purpose my host intends for me, I cannot yet fathom, and perhaps dare not imagine.