(Kept in shorthand.)
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 Ordnance 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 knownsuperstition 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 to
great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, tosweep 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 ofgreat 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 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 shirt- sleeves,
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 to-night. At three to-morrow 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 any one 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 very 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 to-
night, 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 therefore 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, orthe 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 good-bye. Here comes the coach!
5 May. The Castle.—The grey 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 the 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 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 thenlooked 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 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)
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 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 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. 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
language, 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 everywhere 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 repair themlest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in
foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really
at loading point.
Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty
slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians
themselves. 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 mountains, 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 on our serpentine way,
to be right before us:—
"Look! Isten szek!"—"God's seat!"—and he crossed himself
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
Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre waspainfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as
we swept by, my companions all 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 peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks
with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion
their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to
get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into
one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine,
though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the
hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out
here and there against the background of late-lying snow.
Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that
seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great
masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees,
produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect. approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by
the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a
chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not,
but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command,
and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.
As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some
impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still.
Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so
that we were again in darkness.
When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche,
and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and
uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid
to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept
on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling
clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with
occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always
ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the
driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of
a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no
ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged
line against the moonlit sky.