In the Footsteps of Dracula Read online

DRACULA SUDDENLY APPEARS BEHIND HIM.

  DRACULA: I am glad you have found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These friends—(Indicates 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 him to speak.

  HARKER: But, Count, you know and speak English thoroughly!

  DRACULA: (He bows gravely) I thank you, my friend, for your all 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.

  HARKER: Indeed, you speak excellently.

  DRACULA: Not so. Well I know that, did I move and speak in your London, 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, and 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 to say, “Ha, ha! a 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 Hawkins, 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.

  HARKER: I am quite at your service. When you are away may I come into this room?

  DRACULA: 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. 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 how strange things here may be.

  HARKER: May I ask you about some things which have puzzled me?

  DRACULA: (Bowing) Go on, I shall try to answer.

  HARKER: Last night your coachman several times got down to look at places where blue flames rose from the ground, though there were wolves about and the horses were left uncontrolled. Why did he act thus?

  DRACULA: Those flames show where gold has been hidden. I see you do not comprehend. I shall then, explain. It is commonly believed that on a certain night, Saint George’s, or 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 hidden. That treasure has been hidden 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 a 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 the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them, men and women, the aged and the children too, and waited their 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.

  HARKER: But how can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?

  DRACULA: Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool. Those flames only appear on 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 the flame would not know where to look in daylight, even for his own work. You would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again.

  HARKER: There you are right, I know no more than the dead where even to look for them.

  DRACULA: But come, tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me.

  HARKER: Pardon my remissness.

  GETS PAPERS FROM HIS BAG. WHILST HIS BACK IS TURNED DRACULA REMOVES FOOD ETC. AND LIGHTS LAMP. DRACULA TAKES PAPERS AND REFERS TO MAP. JONATHAN WATCHING HIM.

  HARKER: I really believe that you know more about the place than I do.

  DRACULA: Well, but, my sir, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and 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! But tell me how you came across so suitable a place.

  HARKER: I think I had better read you my notes made at the time.

  (Reads) “At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came 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 were of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust.

  The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Roman Quatre Face, 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 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 straggling 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.”

  DRACULA: I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to 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 be amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright 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 casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.

  DRACULA PORES OVER PAPERS AND HARKER LOOKS AT ATLAS.

  HARKER: (Aside) I wonder what these rings mean drawn round particular places. There are only three, I notice, that one is near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate is situated; the other two are Exeter, and Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast.

  COUNT PUTS DOWN PAPERS ON TABLE.

  HARKER: (Aloud) I notice Count that when you speak of your race you do so as if they were present.

  DRACULA: To a boyar the pride of his House and Name is his own pride; their glory is his glory; their fate is his fate.<
br />
  We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for 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 Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell extent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike 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 that had been expelled from Scythia, who had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?

  HE HOLDS UP HIS ARMS.

  Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land, ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, “water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.” Who more gladly than us throughout the four nations received the “bloody sword,” or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, 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 Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe 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 Turkey-land, 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. Bah! 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 Mohaes, 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. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told. But now—I want to ask you questions on legal matters and of the doing of Actuari kinds of business.

  HARKER: I hope I may be able to meet your wishes, and especially as I see so many law books here.

  DRACULA: First. In England may one have two solicitors, or more than two?

  HARKER: You can have a dozen if you wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as the court would only hear one at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against your interest.

  DRACULA: Would there be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to shipping, as if local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. 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 strange 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 resident might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labors should be to my interest only. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?

  HARKER: Certainly it would be most easy, but we solicitors have a system of agency one for the other. Local work can be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client simply placing himself in the hands of one man, can have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble.

  DRACULA: But could I be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?

  HARKER: Of course. Such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person.

  DRACULA: Good! Now I must ask about the means of consigning goods and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which may arise and which by forethought can be guarded against.

  HARKER: You would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there is nothing that you do not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who does not evidently do much in the way of business your knowledge is wonderful.

  DRACULA: Have you written since you arrived to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other?

  HARKER: Well, as yet I have not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody.

  DRACULA: Then write now, my young friend, 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.

  HARKER: Do you wish me to stay so long?

  DRACULA: I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that some one should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so?

  HARKER: (Aside) After all, it is Mr. Hawkins’s interest, not mine, and I have to think of him, not myself.

  DRACULA: I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of 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?

  DRACULA AND HARKER EACH WRITE NOTES. COUNT GOES AWAY FOR A MOMENT AND HARKER READS ENVELOPES OF HIS LETTERS LEFT ON TABLE.

  HARKER: (Reads) “Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The Crescent, Whitby; to Herr Leutner, Varna; Coutts & Co., London; Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Buda-Pesth.”

  ENTER DRACULA.

  DRACULA: 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.

  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 be 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 MOTIONS WITH HIS HANDS AS IF HE IS WASHING THEM.

  EXIT COUNT.

  HARKER: The castle is a veritable prison and I am a prisoner. I shall try to watch him to-night.

  SCENE 4

  THE CASTLE WALL.

  HARKER IS SEEN LOOKING OUT OF AN UPPER NARROW WINDOW. COUNT’S HEAD IS SEEN COMING OUT OF LOWER WINDOW. GRADUALLY THE WHOLE MAN EMERGES AND CLIMBS DOWN THE WALL FACE DOWN AND DISAPPEARS GOING SIDEWAYS.

  HARKER: What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of 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 . . .

  SCENE 5

  THE LADIES’ HALL.

  A LARGE ROOM WITH BIG WINDOWS THROUGH WHICH MOONLIGHT STREAMS—SPLENDID OLD FURNITURE ALL IN RAGS AND COVERED WITH DUST. HARK
ER LIES ON SOFA.

  HARKER: Here I can rest. It was lucky that the door to this wing was not really locked but only appeared to be.

  DOZES.

  FIGURES OF THREE YOUNG WOMEN MATERIALIZE FROM THE MOONLIGHT AND SURROUND HIM.

  FIRST WOMAN: Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.

  SECOND WOMAN: He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.

  COUNT DRACULA SUDDENLY APPEARS BESIDE THEM, AND TAKING WOMAN WHO IS JUST FASTENING HER LIPS ON HARKER’S THROAT, BY THE NECK HURLS HER AWAY.

  DRACULA: How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast 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.

  THIRD WOMAN: You yourself never loved; you never love!

  DRACULA: Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you 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.

  FIRST WOMAN: Are we to have nothing tonight?

  COUNT POINTS TO BAG WHICH HE HAS THROWN ON FLOOR AND WHICH MOVES AND A CHILD’S WAIL IS HEARD. WOMEN SEIZE BAG AND DISAPPEAR ALL AT ONCE. COUNT LIFTS UP HARKER WHO HAS FAINTED AND CARRIES HIM OFF. DARKNESS.

  SCENE 6

  THE LIBRARY—HARKER DISCOVERED.

  HARKER: Last night the Count told me to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days; another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. In the present state of things it would be madness to openly quarrel with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power, and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape.