Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker

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When we started for our drive the sun

was shining brightly on Munich,
and the air was full of the joyousness 

of early summer.

Just as we
were about to depart, Herr Delbrück (the maître d'hôtel of the Quatre
Saisons, where I was staying) came -down, bareheaded, to the carriage
and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still
holding his hand on the handle of th-e carriage door:

'Remember you are back by nightfall. -The sky looks bright but there is
a shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But
I am sure you will not be late.' Here he smiled, and added, 'for you
know what night it is.'-

Johann answered with an -emphatic, 'Ja, mein Herr,' and, touching his
hat, drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said, after
signalling to him to stop:

'Tell me, Johann, what is- tonight?'

He crossed himself, as he answered laconically: 'Walpurgis nacht.'
Then he took out his watch, a great, old-fashioned German silver thing
as big as a turnip, and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered
together and a little impa-tient shrug of his shoulders. I realised
that this was his way of respectfully protesting against the
unnecessary delay, and sank back in the carriage, merely motioning
him to proceed. He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost
time. Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up their heads and
sniffed the air suspiciously. On such occasions I often looked round
in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of
high, wind-swept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that looked but
little used, and which seemed to dip through a little, winding valley.
It looked so inviting that, even at the risk of offending him, I
called Johann to stop--and -when he had pulled up, I told him I would
like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of excuses, and
frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my
curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly,
and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest. Finally I said:

'Well, Johann, I want to go -down this road. I shall not ask you to
come unless you like; but tell me why you do not like to go, that is
all I ask.' For answer he seemed to throw himself off the box, so
quickly did he reach the ground. Then he stretched out his hands
appealingly to me, and implored me not to go. There was just enough of
English mixed with the German for me to understand the drift of his
talk. He seemed always just about to tell me something--the very idea
of which evidently frightened- him; but each time he pulled himself up,
saying, as he crossed himself: 'Walpurgis-Nacht!'

I tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to argue with a man
when I did not know his language. The advantage certainly rested with
him, for although he began to speak in English, of a very crude and
broken kind, he always got exc-ited and broke into his native
tongue--and every time he did so, he looked at his watch. Then the
horses became restless and sniffed the air. At this he grew very pale,
and, looking around in a frightened way, he suddenly jumped forward,
took them by the bridles and led them on some twenty feet. I followed,
and asked why he had done this. For answer he crossed himself, pointed
to the spot we had left and drew his carriage in the direction of the
other road, indicating a cross,- and said, first in German, then in
English: 'Buried him--him what killed themselves.'

I remembered the old custom of burying suicides at cross-roads: 'Ah! I
see, a suicide. How interesting!' But for the life of me I could not
make out why the horses were frightened.

Whilst we were talking, we heard a sort of sound between a yelp and a
bark. It was far away; but the h-orses got very restless, and it took
Johann all his time to quiet them. -He was pale, and said, 'It sounds
like a wolf--but yet there are no wo-lves here now.'

'No?' I said, questioning him; 'isn't it long since the wolves were so
near the city?'

'Long, long,' he answered, 'in the spring and summer; but with the
snow the wolves have been here not so long.'

Whilst he was petting the horses and-- trying to quiet them, dark clouds
drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath
of cold wind seemed to drift past us. It was only a breath, however,
and more in the nature of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out
brightly again. Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and
said:

'The storm of snow, he comes before long time.' Then he looked at his
watch again, and, straightway holding his reins firmly--for the horses
were still pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their heads--he
climbed to his box as though the time had come for proceeding on our
journey.

I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.

'Tell me,' I said, 'about this place where the road leads,' and I
pointed down.

Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer, before he answered, 'It
is unholy.'

'What is unholy?' I enquired.-

'The village.'

'Then there is a village?'

'No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years.' My curiosity was
piqued, 'But you said there was a village.'

'There was.'

'Where is it now?'

Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so
mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said, but
roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died
there and been buried in their graves; and sounds were heard under the
clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy
with life, and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save
their lives (aye, and their souls!--and here he crossed himself) those
who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived, and
the dead were dead and not--not something. He was evidently afraid to
speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more
and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him,
and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear--white-faced, perspiring,
trembling and looking round him, as if expecting that some dreadful
presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the
open plain. Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried:

'Walpurgis nacht!' and pointed to the carriage for me to get in. All
my English blood rose at this, and, standing back, I said:

'You are afraid, Johann--you are afraid. Go home; I shall return
alone; the walk will do me good.' The carriage door was open. I took
from the seat my oak walking-stick--which I always carry on my holiday
excursions--and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said,
'Go home, Johann--Walpurgis-nacht doesn't concern Englishmen.'

The horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying to
hold them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so
foolish. I pitied the poor fellow, he was deeply in earnest; but all
the same I could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In
his anxiety he had forgotten that his only means of making me
understand was to talk my language, so he jabbered away in his native
German. It began to be a little tedious. After giving the direction,
'Home!' I turned to go down the cross-road into the valley.

With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards Munich. I
leaned on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly along the road
for a while: then there came over the crest of the hill a man tall and
thin. I could see so much in the distance. When he drew near the
horses, they began to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror.
Johann could not hold them in; they bolted down the road, running away
madly. I watched them out of sight, then looked for the stranger, but
I found that he, too, was gone.

With a light heart I turned down the side road through the deepening
valley to which Johann had objected. There was not the slightest
reason, that I could see, for his objection; and I daresay I tramped
for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance, and
certainly without seeing a person or a house. So far as the place was
concerned, it was desolation itself. But I did not notice this
particularly till, on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a
scattered fringe of wood; then I recognised that I had been impressed
unconsciously by the desolation of the region through which I had
passed.

I sat down to rest myself, and began to look around. It struck me that
it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my
walk--a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with, now and
then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed
that great thick clouds were drifting rapidly across the sky from
North to South at a great height. There were signs of coming storm in
some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and, thinking
that it was the sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed
my journey.

The ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There were no
striking objects that the eye might single out; but in all there was a
charm of beauty. I took little heed of time and it was only when the
deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began to think of how
I should find my way home. The brightness of the day had gone. The air
was cold, and the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked.
They were accompanied by a sort of far-away rushing sound, through
which seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver
had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I would
see the deserted village, so on I went, and presently came on a wide
stretch of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were
covered with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting, in clumps,
the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed
with my eye the winding of the road, and saw that it curved close to
one of the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it.

As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow began to
fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed,
and then hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front. Darker
and darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell the snow, till
the earth before and around me was a glistening white carpet the
further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here
but crude, and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as
when it passed through the cuttings; and in a little while I found
that I must have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard
surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind
grew stronger and blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to
run before it. The air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I
began to suffer. The snow was now falling so thickly and whirling
around me in such rapid eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open.
Every now and then the heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning,
and in the flashes I could see ahead of me a great mass of trees,
chiefly yew and cypress all heavily coated with snow.

I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative
silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently
the blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the
night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away: it now only came
in fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the
wolf appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.

Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a
straggling ray of moonlight, which lit up the expanse, and showed me
that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As
the snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began
to investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many
old foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing a house
in which, though in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a
while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall
encircled it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here
the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind
of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting
clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The
wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked; but
there was hope of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on.

I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had passed;
and, perhaps in sympathy with nature's silence, my heart seemed to
cease to beat. But this was only momentarily; for suddenly the
moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that I was in a
graveyard, and that the square object before me was a great massive
tomb of marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it.
With the moonlight there came a fierce sigh of the storm, which
appeared to resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs
or wolves. I was awed and shocked, and felt the cold perceptibly grow
upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then while the flood
of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave further
evidence of renewing, as though it was returning on its track.
Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to
see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I
walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German:

               COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ
                        IN STYRIA
                 SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
                          1801

On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble--for
the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone--was a great
iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great
Russian letters:

          'The dead travel fast.'

There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it
gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the
first time, that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a thought struck
me, which came under almost mysterious circumstances and with a
terrible shock. This was Walpurgis Night!

Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people,
the devil was abroad--when the graves were opened and the dead came
forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held
revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the
depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay;
and this was the place where I was alone--unmanned, shivering with
cold in a shroud of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It
took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my
courage, not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright.

And now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as though
thousands of horses thundered across it; and this time the storm bore
on its icy wings, not snow, but great hailstones which drove with such
violence that they might have come from the thongs of Balearic
slingers--hailstones that beat down leaf and branch and made the
shelter of the cypresses of no more avail than though their stems were
standing-corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree; but I
was soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot that seemed to afford
refuge, the deep Doric doorway of the marble tomb. There, crouching
against the massive bronze door, I gained a certain amount of
protection from the beating of the hailstones, for now they only drove
against me as they ricocheted from the ground and the side of the
marble.

As I leaned against the door, it moved slightly and opened inwards.
The shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest, and I
was about to enter it when there came a flash of forked-lightning that
lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a
living man, I saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the
tomb, a beautiful woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly
sleeping on a bier. As the thunder broke overhead, I was grasped as by
the hand of a giant and hurled out into the storm. The whole thing was
so sudden that, before I could realise the shock, moral as well as
physical, I found the hailstones beating me down. At the same time I
had a strange, dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked
towards the tomb. Just then there came another blinding flash, which
seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted the tomb and to pour
through to the earth, blasting and crumbling the marble, as in a burst
of flame. The dead woman rose for a moment of agony, while she was
lapped in the flame, and her bitter scream of pain was drowned in the
thundercrash. The last thing I heard was this mingling of dreadful
sound, as again I was seized in the giant-grasp and dragged away,
while the hailstones beat on me, and the air around seemed reverberant
with the howling of wolves. The last sight that I remembered was a
vague, white, moving mass, as if all the graves around me had sent out
the phantoms of their sheeted-dead, and that they were closing in on
me through the white cloudiness of the driving hail.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness; then
a sense of weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered
nothing; but slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively
racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed.
There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck and all down my spine,
and my ears, like my feet, were dead, yet in torment; but there was in
my breast a sense of warmth which was, by comparison, delicious. It
was as a nightmare--a physical nightmare, if one may use such an
expression; for some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult for me
to breathe.

This period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as it
faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing,
like the first stage of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free
from something--I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped me, as
though all the world were asleep or dead--only broken by the low
panting as of some animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my
throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me
to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some
great animal was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared to
stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still; but the brute
seemed to realise that there was now some change in me, for it raised
its head. Through my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming
eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth gleamed in the gaping
red mouth, and I could feel its hot breath fierce and acrid upon me.

For another spell of time I remembered no more. Then I became
conscious of a low growl, followed by a yelp, renewed again and again.
Then, seemingly very far away, I heard a 'Holloa! holloa!' as of many
voices calling in unison. Cautiously I raised my head and looked in
the direction whence the sound came; but the cemetery blocked my view.
The wolf still continued to yelp in a strange way, and a red glare
began to move round the grove of cypresses, as though following the
sound. As the voices drew closer, the wolf yelped faster and louder. I
feared to make either sound or motion. Nearer came the red glow, over
the white pall which stretched into the darkness around me. Then all
at once from beyond the trees there came at a trot a troop of horsemen
bearing torches. The wolf rose from my breast and made for the
cemetery. I saw one of the horsemen (soldiers by their caps and their
long military cloaks) raise his carbine and take aim. A companion
knocked up his arm, and I heard the ball whizz over my head. He had
evidently taken my body for that of the wolf. Another sighted the
animal as it slunk away, and a shot followed. Then, at a gallop, the
troop rode forward--some towards me, others following the wolf as it
disappeared amongst the snow-clad cypresses.

As they drew nearer I tried to move, but was powerless, although I
could see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the
soldiers jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them
raised my head, and placed his hand over my heart.

'Good news, comrades!' he cried. 'His heart still beats!'

Then some brandy was poured down my throat; it put vigour into me, and
I was able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and shadows
were moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one another. They
drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and the lights
flashed as the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like
men possessed. When the further ones came close to us, those who were
around me asked them eagerly:

'Well, have you found him?'

The reply rang out hurriedly:

'No! no! Come away quick--quick! This is no place to stay, and on this
of all nights!'

'What was it?' was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The
answer came variously and all indefinitely as though the men were
moved by some common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some
common fear from giving their thoughts.

'It--it--indeed!' gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for
the moment.

'A wolf--and yet not a wolf!' another put in shudderingly.

'No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,' a third remarked in
a more ordinary manner.

'Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have earned
our thousand marks!' were the ejaculations of a fourth.

'There was blood on the broken marble,' another said after a
pause--'the lightning never brought that there. And for him--is he
safe? Look at his throat! See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on
him and keeping his blood warm.'

The officer looked at my throat and replied:

'He is all right; the skin is not pierced. What does it all mean? We
should never have found him but for the yelping of the wolf.'

'What became of it?' asked the man who was holding up my head, and who
seemed the least panic-stricken of the party, for his hands were
steady and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty
officer.

'It went to its home,' answered the man, whose long face was pallid,
and who actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully.
'There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come,
comrades--come quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot.'

The officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he uttered a word of
command; then several men placed me upon a horse. He sprang to the
saddle behind me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance; and,
turning our faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift,
military order.

As yet my tongue refused its office, and I was perforce silent. I must
have fallen asleep; for the next thing I remembered was finding myself
standing up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It was almost
broad daylight, and to the north a red streak of sunlight was
reflected, like a path of blood, over the waste of snow. The officer
was telling the men to say nothing of what they had seen, except that
they found an English stranger, guarded by a large dog.

'Dog! that was no dog,' cut in the man who had exhibited such fear. 'I
think I know a wolf when I see one.'

The young officer answered calmly: 'I said a dog.'

'Dog!' reiterated the other ironically. It was evident that his
courage was rising with the sun; and, pointing to me, he said, 'Look
at his throat. Is that the work of a dog, master?'

Instinctively I raised my hand to my throat, and as I touched it I
cried out in pain. The men crowded round to look, some stooping down
from their saddles; and again there came the calm voice of the young
officer:

'A dog, as I said. If aught else were said we should only be laughed
at.'

I was then mounted behind a trooper, and we rode on into the suburbs
of Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage, into which I was
lifted, and it was driven off to the Quatre Saisons--the young officer
accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his horse, and the
others rode off to their barracks.

When we arrived, Herr Delbrück rushed so quickly down the steps to
meet me, that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me
by both hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and
was turning to withdraw, when I recognised his purpose, and insisted
that he should come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked
him and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he
was more than glad, and that Herr Delbrück had at the first taken
steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which ambiguous
utterance the maître d'hôtel smiled, while the officer pleaded duty
and withdrew.

'But Herr Delbrück,' I enquired, 'how and why was it that the soldiers
searched for me?'

He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed, as
he replied:

'I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the commander of the
regiment in which I served, to ask for volunteers.'

'But how did you know I was lost?' I asked.

'The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had
been upset when the horses ran away.'

'But surely you would not send a search-party of soldiers merely on
this account?'

'Oh, no!' he answered; 'but even before the coachman arrived, I had
this telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are,' and he took from
his pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:


                                                 _Bistritz_.

     Be careful of my guest--his safety is most precious to me.
     Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing
     to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore
     adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and
     night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer
     your zeal with my fortune.--_Dracula_.

As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me;
and, if the attentive maître d'hôtel had not caught me, I think I
should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this,
something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a
sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces--the mere
vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me. I was certainly
under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had
come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the
danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.