Dracula. Bram Stoker
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 call by a name meaning «word-bearer»
came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pity-
ingly. 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, "vrolokj» and» vlko-
slak» both of which mean__the same thing, one being, Slovak
and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or
vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions>
6 Dracula
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 diffi-
culty 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 plel^nt for me, just starting for an unknown
place to meet an unknown man; but every one 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 cross-
ing 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 box-seat
«gotza» 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 had I known the lan-
guage, 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 every-
where 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. Of old the Hospadars would not re-
pair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing
to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was al-
ways really at loading point.
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty
Jonathan Harker’s Journal 7
slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians them-
selves. 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 moun-
tains, 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, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as
we wound en our serpentine way, to be right before us:
«Look! Isten szek!» «God’s seat!» and he crossed him-
self 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 emphasised 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 Slo-
vaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was
painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as
w^sw^r^b^mj^mp_a_nions jill 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 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 home-coming peas-
ants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their
coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their
long