Dracula. Bram Stoker
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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 com-
fort? 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.
To-night 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 pres-
ent 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 his house he always said «we,» and spoke almost in the
plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said
exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed
to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as
he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white
moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands
as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said
which I shall put down as nearly as I can; for it tells in its way
the story of his race:
«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 intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and
Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves them-
selves 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, who, expelled from Scythia 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 held
up his arms. «Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race;
that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard the
28 Dracula
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 east-
ward, 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 we throughout
the Four Nations received the ' bloody sword, ' or at its warlike
call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was re-
deemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova,
when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down be-
neath 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 heart to con-
duct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs> 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 rec-
ord that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Roman-
offs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too
precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the
glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.»
It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed.
(Mem., this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the «Ara-
bian Nights,» for everything has to break off at cockcrow or
like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.)
12 May. Let me begin with facts bare, meagre facts, veri-
fied by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt.
Jonathan Harker’s Journal 29
I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to
rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last eve-
ning when the Count came from his room he began by asking me
questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain kinds of
business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply
to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I
had been examined in at Lincoln’s Inn. There was a certain
method