PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
Bram Stoker
Told through journals and letters, Jonathan Harker's trip to Count Dracula's Transylvanian castle unleashes an ancient terror.
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Copyright, 1897, in the United States of America, according to Act of Congress, by Bram Stoker
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
CHAPTER I. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER II. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER III. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER IV. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER V. Letters—Lucy and Mina CHAPTER VI. Mina Murray’s Journal CHAPTER VII. Cutting from “The Dailygraph,” 8 August CHAPTER VIII. Mina Murray’s Journal CHAPTER IX. Mina Murray’s Journal CHAPTER X. Mina Murray’s Journal CHAPTER XI. Lucy Westenra’s Diary CHAPTER XII. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XIV. Mina Harker’s Journal CHAPTER XV. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XVI. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XVII. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XVIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XIX. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER XX. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER XXI. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XXII. Jonathan Harker’s Journal CHAPTER XXIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XXIV. Dr. Seward’s Phonograph Diary, spoken by Van Helsing CHAPTER XXV. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XXVI. Dr. Seward’s Diary CHAPTER XXVII. Mina Harker’s Journal
How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them.
_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 known superstition 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.)
