Dracula's Guest

When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on

Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer.

Just as we were about to depart, Herr Delbruck (the maitre d'hotel

of the Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down bareheaded to

the carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the

coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door,

"Remember you are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright but there

is a shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm.

But I am sure you will not be late." Here he smiled and added, "for

you know what night it is."

Johann answered with an emphatic, "Ja, mein Herr," and, touching

his hat, drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said,

after signalling to him to stop:

"Tell me, Johann, what is tonight?"

He crossed himself, as he answered laconically: "Walpurgis nacht."

Then he took out his watch, a great, old-fashioned German silver thing

as big as a turnip and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered

together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders. I realized

that this was his way of respectfully protesting against the

unnecessary delay and sank back in the carriage, merely motioning him

to proceed. He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost time.

Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up their heads and sniff

the air suspiciously. On such occasions I often looked round in

alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of

high windswept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that looked but

little used and which seemed to dip through a little winding valley.

It looked so inviting that, even at the risk of offending him, I

called Johann to stop--and when he had pulled up, I told him I would

like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of excuses and

frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my

curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly

and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest.

Finally I said, "Well, Johann, I want to go down this road. I

shall not ask you to come unless you like; but tell me why you do

not like to go, that is all I ask." For answer he seemed to throw

himself off the box, so quickly did he reach the ground. Then he

stretched out his hands appealingly to me and implored me not to go.

There was just enough of English mixed with the German for me to

understand the drift of his talk. He seemed always just about to

tell me something--the very idea of which evidently frightened him;

but each time he pulled himself up saying, "Walpurgis nacht!"

I tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to argue with a

man when I did not know his language. The advantage certainly rested

with him, for although he began to speak in English, of a very crude

and broken kind, he always got excited and broke into his native

tongue--and every time he did so, he looked at his watch. Then the

horses became restless and sniffed the air. At this he grew very

pale, and, looking around in a frightened way, he suddenly jumped

forward, took them by the bridles, and led them on some twenty feet.

I followed and asked why he had done this. For an answer he crossed

himself, pointed to the spot we had left, and drew his carriage in

the direction of the other road, indicating a cross, and said, first

in German, then in English, "Buried him--him what killed themselves."

I remembered the old custom of burying suicides at cross roads:

"Ah! I see, a suicide. How interesting!" But for the life of me I

could not make out why the horses were frightened.

Whilst we were talking, we heard a sort of sound between a yelp

and a bark. It was far away; but the horses got very restless, and

it took Johann all his time to quiet them. He was pale and said, "It

sounds like a wolf--but yet there are no wolves here now."

"No?" I said, questioning him. "Isn't it long since the wolves

were so near the city?"

"Long, long," he answered, "in the spring and summer; but with the

snow the wolves have been here not so long."

Whilst he was petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark

clouds drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and

a breath of cold wind seemed to drift over us. It was only a breath,

however, and more of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out

brightly again.

Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and said, "The

storm of snow, he comes before long time." Then he looked at his

watch again, and, straightway holding his reins firmly--for the

horses were still pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their

heads--he climbed to his box as though the time had come for

proceeding on our journey.

I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the

carriage.

"Tell me," I said, "about this place where the road leads," and

I pointed down.

Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered,

"It is unholy."

"What is unholy?" I enquired.

"The village."

"Then there is a village?"

"No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years."

My curiosity was piqued, "But you said there was a village."

"There was."

"Where is it now?"

Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English,

so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said.

Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died

there and been buried in their graves; but sounds were heard under the

clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found

rosy with life and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to

save their lives (aye, and their souls!--and here he crossed himself)

those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived

and the dead were dead and not--not something. He was evidently

afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration,

he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination

had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of

fear-white-faced, perspiring, trembling, and looking round him as

if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there

in the bright sunshine on the open plain.

Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried, "Walpurgis nacht!"

and pointed to the carriage for me to get in.

All my English blood rose at this, and standing back I said, "You

are afraid, Johann--you are afraid. Go home, I shall return alone,

the walk will do me good." The carriage door was open. I took from

the seat my oak walking stick--which I always carry on my holiday

excursions--and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said,

"Go home, Johann--Walpurgis nacht doesn't concern Englishmen."

The horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying

to hold them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so

foolish. I pitied the poor fellow, he was so deeply in earnest; but

all the same I could not help laughing. His English was quite gone

now. In his anxiety he had forgotten that his only means of making

me understand was to talk my language, so he jabbered away in his

native German. It began to be a little tedious. After giving the

direction, "Home!" I turned to go down the cross road into the

valley.

With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards

Munich. I leaned on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly

along the road for a while, then there came over the crest of the

hill a man tall and thin. I could see so much in the distance. When

he drew near the horses, they began to jump and kick about, then to

scream with terror. Johann could not hold them in; they bolted down

the road, running away madly. I watched them out of sight, then

looked for the stranger; but I found that he, too, was gone.

With a light heart I turned down the side road through the

deepening valley to which Johann had objected. There was not the

slightest reason, that I could see, for his objection; and I daresay

I tramped for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance

and certainly without seeing a person or a house. So far as the

place was concerned, it was desolation itself. But I did not notice

this particularly till, on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a

scattered fringe of wood; then I recognized that I had been impressed

unconsciously by the desolation of the region through which I had

passed.

I sat down to rest myself and began to look around. It struck me

that it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement

of my walk--a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me with, now

and then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I

noticed that great thick clouds were drafting rapidly across the sky

from north to south at a great height. There were signs of a coming

storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and,

thinking that it was the sitting still after the exercise of walking,

I resumed my journey.

The ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There

were no striking objects that the eye might single out, but in all

there was a charm of beauty. I took little heed of time, and it was

only when the deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began

to think of how I should find my way home. The air was cold, and

the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked. They were

accompanied by a sort of far away rushing sound, through which

seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver

had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I

would see the deserted village, so on I went and presently came on a

wide stretch of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their

sides were covered with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting

in clumps the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and

there. I followed with my eye the winding of the road and saw that

it curved close to one of the densest of these clumps and was lost

behind it.

As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow

began to fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I

had passed, and then hurried on to seek shelter of the wood in

front. Darker and darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell

the snow, till the earth before and around me was a glistening white

carpet the further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The

road was here but crude, and when on the level its boundaries were

not so marked as when it passed through the cuttings; and in a

little while I found that I must have strayed from it, for I missed

underfoot the hard surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and

moss. Then the wind grew stronger and blew with ever increasing

force, till I was fain to run before it. The air became icy cold,

and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The snow was now

falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies that

I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the heavens

were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I could see

ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress all

heavily coated with snow.

I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there in

comparative silence I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead.

Presently the blackness of the storm had become merged in the

darkness of the night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing

away, it now only came in fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments

the weird sound of the wolf appeared to be echoed by many similar

sounds around me.

Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a

straggling ray of moonlight which lit up the expanse and showed me

that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As

the snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began

to investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so

many old foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing

a house in which, though in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter

for a while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low

wall encircled it, and following this I presently found an opening.

Here the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square mass of

some kind of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the

drifting clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up the path in

darkness. The wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver

as I walked; but there was hope of shelter, and I groped my way

blindly on.

I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had

passed; and, perhaps in sympathy with nature's silence, my heart

seemed to cease to beat. But this was only momentarily; for suddenly

the moonlight broke through the clouds showing me that I was in a

graveyard and that the square object before me was a great massive

tomb of marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it.

With the moonlight there came a fierce sigh of the storm which

appeared to resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs

or wolves. I was awed and shocked, and I felt the cold perceptibly

grow upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then while the

flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave

further evidence of renewing, as though it were returning on its

track. Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the

sepulchre to see what it was and why such a thing stood alone in

such a place. I walked around it and read, over the Doric door, in

German:

COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ

IN STYRIA

SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH

1801

On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid

marble--for the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of

stone--was a great iron spike or stake. On going to the back I

saw, graven in great Russian letters:

THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST.

There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing

that it gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to

wish, for the first time, that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a

thought struck me, which came under almost myssterious circumstances

and with a terrible shock. This was Walpurgis Night!

Walpurgis Night was when, according to the belief of millions of

people, the devil was abroad--when the graves were opened and the

dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air

and water held revel. This very place the driver had specially

shunned. This was the depopulated village of centuries ago. This

was where the suicide lay; and this was the place where I was

alone--unmanned, shivering with cold in a shroud of snow with a

wild storm gathering again upon me! It took all my philosophy, all

the religion I had been taught, all my courage, not to collapse in

a paroxysm of fright.

And now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as

though thousands of horses thundered across it; and this time the

storm bore on its icy wings, not snow, but great hailstones which

drove with such violence that they might have come from the thongs of

Balearic slingers--hailstones that beat down leaf and branch and made

the shelter of the cypresses of no more avail than though their stems

were standing corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree;

but I was soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot that seemed

to afford refuge, the deep Doric doorway of the marble tomb. There,

crouching against the massive bronze door, I gained a certain amount

of protection from the beating of the hailstones, for now they only

drove against me as they ricochetted from the ground and the side of

the marble.

As I leaned against the door, it moved slightly and opened

inwards. The shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless

tempest and I was about to enter it when there came a flash of forked

lightning that lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the

instant, as I am a living man, I saw, as my eyes turned into the

darkness of the tomb, a beautiful woman with rounded cheeks and red

lips, seemingly sleeping on bier. As the thunder broke overhead, I

was grasped as by the hand of a giant and hurled out into the storm.

The whole thing was so sudden that, before I could realize the shock,

moral as well as physical, I found the hailstones beating me down.

At the same time I had a strange, dominating feeling that I was not

alone. I looked towards the tomb. Just then there came another

blinding flash which seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted

the tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and crumbling

the marble, as in a burst of flame. The dead woman rose for a moment

of agony while she was lapped in the flame, and her bitter scream of

pain was drowned in the thundercrash. The last thing I heard was

this mingling of dreadful sound, as again I was seized in the giant

grasp and dragged away, while the hailstones beat on me and the air

around seemed reverberant with the howling of wolves. The last sight

that I remembered was a vague, white, moving mass, as if all the

graves around me had sent out the phantoms of their sheeted dead,

and that they were closing in on me through the white cloudiness of

the driving hail.

Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness,

then a sense of weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered

nothing, but slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively

racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be

numbed. There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck and all

down my spine, and my ears, like my feet, were dead yet in torment;

but there was in my breast a sense of warmth which was by comparison

delicious. It was as a nightmare--a physical nightmare, if one may

use such an expression; for some heavy weight on my chest made it

difficult for me to breathe.

This period of semilethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as

it faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of

loathing, like the first stage of seasickness, and a wild desire to

be free of something--I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped

me, as though all the world were asleep or dead--only broken by the

low panting as of some animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at

my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth which chilled

me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some

great animal was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared to

stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still; but the brute

seemed to realize that there was now some change in me, for it raised

its head. Through my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming

eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth gleamed in the gaping

red mouth, and I could feel its hot breath fierce and acrid upon me.

For another spell of time I remembered no more. Then I became

conscious of a low growl, followed by a yelp, renewed again and

again. Then seemingly very far away, I heard a "Holloa! holloa!"

as of many voices calling in unison. Cautiously I raised my head

and looked in the direction whence the sound came, but the cemetery

blocked my view. The wolf still continued to yelp in a strange way,

and a red glare began to move round the grove of cypresses, as though

following the sound. As the voices drew closer, the wolf yelped

faster and louder. I feared to make either sound or motion. Nearer

came the red glow over the white pall which stretched into the

darkness around me. Then all at once from beyond the trees there

came at a trot a troop of horsemen bearing torches. The wolf rose

from my breast and made for the cemetery. I saw one of the horsemen

(soldiers by their caps and their long military cloaks) raise his

carbine and take aim. A companion knocked up his arm, and I heard

the ball whiz over my head. He had evidently taken my body for that

of the wolf. Another sighted the animal as it slunk away, and a shot

followed. Then, at a gallop, the troop rode forward--some towards

me, others following the wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow-clad

cypresses.

As they drew nearer I tried to move but was powerless, although I

could see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the

soldiers jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them

raised my head and placed his hand over my heart.

"Good news, comrades!" he cried. "His heart still beats!"

Then some brandy was poured down my throat; it put vigor into me,

and I was able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and

shadows were moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one

another. They drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and

the lights flashed as the others came pouring out of the cemetery

pell-mell, like men possessed. When the further ones came close to

us, those who were around me asked them eagerly, "Well, have you

found him?"

The reply rang out hurriedly, "No! no! Come away quick--quick!

This is no place to stay, and on this of all nights!"

"What was it?" was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The

answer came variously and all indefinitely as though the men were

moved by some common impulse to speak yet were restrained by some

common fear from giving their thoughts.

"It--it--indeed!" gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out

for the moment.

"A wolf--and yet not a wolf!" another put in shudderingly.

"No use trying for him without the sacred bullet," a third

remarked in a more ordinary manner.

"Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have

earned our thousand marks!" were the ejaculations of a fourth.

"There was blood on the broken marble," another said after a

pause, "the lightning never brought that there. And for him--is

he safe? Look at his throat! See comrades, the wolf has been lying

on him and keeping his blood warm."

The officer looked at my throat and replied, "He is all right, the

skin is not pierced. What does it all mean? We should never have

found him but for the yelping of the wolf."

"What became of it?" asked the man who was holding up my head and

who seemed the least panic-stricken of the party, for his hands were

steady and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty

officer.

"It went home," answered the man, whose long face was pallid and

who actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully.

"There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come,

comrades--come quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot."

The officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he uttered a word

of command; then several men placed me upon a horse. He sprang to

the saddle behind me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance;

and, turning our faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift

military order.

As yet my tongue refused its office, and I was perforce silent.

I must have fallen asleep; for the next thing I remembered was

finding myself standing up, supported by a soldier on each side of

me. It was almost broad daylight, and to the north a red streak of

sunlight was reflected like a path of blood over the waste of snow.

The officer was telling the men to say nothing of what they had seen,

except that they found an English stranger, guarded by a large dog.

"Dog! that was no dog," cut in the man who had exhibited such

fear. "I think I know a wolf when I see one."

The young officer answered calmly, "I said a dog."

"Dog!" reiterated the other ironically. It was evident that his

courage was rising with the sun; and, pointing to me, he said, "Look

at his throat. Is that the work of a dog, master?"

Instinctively I raised my hand to my throat, and as I touched it I

cried out in pain. The men crowded round to look, some stooping down

from their saddles; and again there came the calm voice of the young

officer, "A dog, as I said. If aught else were said we should only

be laughed at."

I was then mounted behind a trooper, and we rode on into the

suburbs of Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage into which

I was lifted, and it was driven off to the Quatre Saisons--the young

officer accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his horse,

and the others rode off to their barracks.

When we arrived, Herr Delbruck rushed so quickly down the steps to

meet me, that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me

by both hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and

was turning to withdraw, when I recognized his purpose and insisted

that he should come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly

thanked him and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply

that he was more than glad, and that Herr Delbruck had at the first

taken steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which

ambiguous utterance the maitre d'hotel smiled, while the officer

pleaded duty and withdrew.

"But Herr Delbruck," I enquired, "how and why was it that the

soldiers searched for me?"

He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed,

as he replied, "I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the

commander of the regiment in which I serve, to ask for volunteers."

"But how did you know I was lost?" I asked.

"The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which

had been upset when the horses ran away."

"But surely you would not send a search party of soldiers merely

on this account?"

"Oh, no!" he answered, "but even before the coachman arrived, I

had this telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are," and he took

from his pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:

Bistritz.

Be careful of my guest--his safety is most precious to

me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare

nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English

and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from

snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect

harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.

--Dracula.

As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around

me, and if the attentive maitre d'hotel had not caught me, I think I

should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this,

something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me

a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces--the

mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyze me. I was

certainly under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant

country had come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me

out of the danger of the snow sleep and the jaws of the wolf.

Exploring the eerie depths of Gothic horror, Bram Stoker's Dracula remains an enduring masterpiece of classic literature, weaving together elements of supernatural terror, mystery, suspense, and dark fantasy in the haunting backdrop of the Victorian era. This iconic horror novel, a cornerstone of gothic style, transcends time through its transmedia adaptations, leaving an indelible mark on the literary world. Dive into the ephemeral world of The Book of Dracula, where the Demeter's voyage, Dracula Daily, and the legacy of Dracula de Bram Stoker come together, captivating fans of horror, vampires, and all things gothic. Join us on this journey, celebrating World Dracula Day, Nosferatu, and the timeless allure of Halloween, a true treat for those who love horror, terror, and the spine-chilling tales of Bela Lugosi, the goth life, ghost stories, and the mysteries of the Necronomicon in the tradition of Hammer Horror and Frankenstein.

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