CASTLE DRACULA, 5 MAY,
IN THE MORNING

IT’S BROAD DAYLIGHT OUTSIDE AND IT IS FOUR O’CLOCK in the morning.⁵¹ I haven’t gone to bed yet but am wide awake; I wouldn’t be able to sleep now, so I might as well write instead, as the Count has said that I can rest as long as I want after my travels.

When I stepped into the mail coach that was to take me to the Borgo Pass, the driver had not yet come to his seat, as he was palavering with the landlady and some of the other villagers. It seemed as though the people were talking about me, and they were looking at me with expressions of surprise and compassion. As I only caught a few scattered words, I took my dictionary out of my pocket and looked up the ones I could make out best. They were not very pleasant: words such as devil, hell, monster and other such “nice” expressions were thrown around, and I suspected they related to my prospective host, the Count. When we departed, a crowd of people had gathered at the guesthouse, making the sign of the cross with two outstretched fingers and pointing to me, me who—innocent as a child—had done nothing wrong. I asked one of my fellow travellers who spoke German the reason for this, and he said that the people meant me no harm. Quite the contrary: they meant me well and were praying for me! Then the coachman struck the horses and I soon forgot all their blessings and ill-forebodings as I began to watch the scenery. The hills spread out before us, everywhere grassy and wooded, and on the slopes we saw farms with their windowless gables facing the road. Along the coach route, which lay in countless curves between the hillocks, I noticed an apple tree in bloom and many other fruit trees. The driver maneuvered the horses as if his life depended on it, over rocks and through potholes; road repairs, which are always to be done in spring, hadn’t yet been made, leaving the track in bad condition.⁵²

Beyond the hills the rocky peaks of the Carpathians towered over the dark woods.⁵³ They were soon surrounding us, glowing in the sunlight with the richest of colors, while in the distance we could discern blue-white glaciers. We came across farmers in motley attire, and I witnessed many sights I had never seen before, such as haystacks being put up in the treetops to dry.

With darkness drawing near it was getting much colder. We even caught glimpses of snow in the ravines and passes. Sometimes the road was so steep that I wanted to get out and walk, as we would in England, but the driver flatly refused, saying, “No, by all means, do not step out of the carriage, it’s not safe here—wild dogs,” and so, except for when he turned on the carriage lights, he didn’t stop once. The darker it became, the greater the apprehension that seemed to engulf my travel companions as they spoke to the coachman, and from what I understood, they were asking him to make haste—which he did, brutally snapping his whip at the horses like the worst butcher and whistling very high from time to time, hurrying them on even more.