dracula.txt

This is processing for java examples.

"Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you
have procured for me."  With an apology for my remissness, I went into
my own room to get the papers from my bag.  Whilst I was placing them
in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and
as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the
lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark.  The lamps were
also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the
sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw's
Guide.  When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table,
and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts.  He
was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about
the place and its surroundings.  He clearly had studied beforehand all
he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at
the end knew very much more than I did.  When I remarked this, he
answered.

"Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should?  When I go
there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon
me.  I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first,
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!"

We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at
Purfleet.  When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the
necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to
Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a
place.  I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and
which I inscribe here.

"At Purfleet, on a byroad, 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 was 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 are of heavy old oak and
iron, all eaten with rust.

"The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old 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 mediaeval 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 had 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."

When I had finished, he said, "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
lie 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."  Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else
it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and
saturnine.

Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers
together.  He was some little time away, and I began to look at some
of the books around me.  One was an atlas, which I found opened
naturally to England, as if that map had been much used.  On looking
at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining
these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly
where his new estate was situated.  The other two were Exeter, and
Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.

It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned.  "Aha!" he
said.  "Still at your books?  Good!  But you must not work always.
Come!  I am informed that your supper is ready."  He took my arm, and
we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on
the table.  The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on
his being away from home.  But he sat as on the previous night, and
chatted whilst I ate.  After supper I smoked, as on the last evening,
and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every
conceivable subject, hour after hour.  I felt that it was getting very
late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation
to meet my host's wishes in every way.  I was not sleepy, as the long
sleep yesterday had fortified me, but I could not help experiencing
that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is
like, in its way, the turn of the tide.  They say that people who are
near death die generally at the change to dawn or at the turn of the
tide.  Anyone who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post,
experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it.  All at
once we heard the crow of the cock coming up with preternatural
shrillness through the clear morning air.

Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said, "Why there is the morning
again!  How remiss I am to let you stay up so long.  You must make
your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less
interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us," and with
a courtly bow, he quickly left me.

I went into my room and drew the curtains, but there was little to
notice.  My window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the
warm grey of quickening sky.  So I pulled the curtains again, and have
written of this day.


8 May.--I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too
diffuse.  But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first,
for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that
I cannot but feel uneasy.  I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had
never come.  It may be that this strange night existence is telling on
me, but would that that were all!  If there were any one to talk to I
could bear it, but there is no one.  I have only the Count to speak
with, and he--I fear I am myself the only living soul within the
place.  Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be.  It will help me to
bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me.  If it does I am
lost.  Let me say at once how I stand, or seem to.

I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could
not sleep any more, got up.  I had hung my shaving glass by the
window, and was just beginning to shave.  Suddenly I felt a hand on my
shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good morning."  I
started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the
reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me.  In starting
I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment.  Having
answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see
how I had been mistaken.  This time there could be no error, for the
man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder.  But there
was no reflection of him in the mirror!  The whole room behind me was
displayed, but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself.

This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strange things,
was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I
always have when the Count is near.  But at the instant I saw that the
cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin.  I
laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some
sticking plaster.  When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a
sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.  I
drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the
crucifix.  It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so
quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

"Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself.  It is more
dangerous that you think in this country."  Then seizing the shaving
glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched thing that has done the
mischief.  It is a foul bauble of man's vanity.  Away with it!"  And
opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out
the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of
the courtyard far below.  Then he withdrew without a word.  It is very
annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case
or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal.

When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared, but I could
not find the Count anywhere.  So I breakfasted alone.  It is strange
that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink.  He must be a very
peculiar man!  After breakfast I did a little exploring in the
castle.  I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards
the South.

The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every
opportunity of seeing it.  The castle is on the very edge of a
terrific precipice.  A stone falling from the window would fall a
thousand feet without touching anything!  As far as the eye can reach
is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there
is a chasm.  Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind
in deep gorges through the forests.

But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view
I explored further.  Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked
and bolted.  In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is
there an available exit.  The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a
prisoner!




CHAPTER 3


Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over
me.  I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering
out of every window I could find, but after a little the conviction of
my helplessness overpowered all other feelings.  When I look back
after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I
behaved much as a rat does in a trap.  When, however, the conviction
had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly, as quietly as I
have ever done anything in my life, and began to think over what was
best to be done.  I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no
definite conclusion.  Of one thing only am I certain.  That it is no
use making my ideas known to the Count.  He knows well that I am
imprisoned, and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own
motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with
the facts.  So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my
knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open.  I am, I know,
either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in
desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need,
all my brains to get through.

I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below
shut, and knew that the Count had returned.  He did not come at once
into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him
making the bed.  This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along
thought, that there are no servants in the house.  When later I saw
him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in
the dining room, I was assured of it.  For if he does himself all
these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else in
the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of
the coach that brought me here.  This is a terrible thought, for if
so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by
only holding up his hand for silence?  How was it that all the people
at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me?  What
meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of
the mountain ash?

Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck!  For
it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it.  It is odd
that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as
idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help.  Is
it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that
it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and
comfort?  Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try
to make up my mind about it.  In the meantime I must find out all I
can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand.  Tonight he
may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way.  I must be
very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion.


Midnight.--I have had a long talk with the Count.  I asked him a few
questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject
wonderfully.  In his speaking of things and people, and especially of
battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all.  This he
afterwards explained by saying that to a Boyar the pride of his house
and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their
fate is his fate.  Whenever he spoke of