DRACULA'S GUEST by Bram Stoker

[Roby]

DRACULA'S GUEST

by Bram Stoker

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 Delbruck (the maitre d'hotel 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 the 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 him to stop:
"Tell me, Johann, what is tonight?"

[Roby]

He crossed himself as he answered laconically: "Walpurgisnacht." 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 impatient
shrug of his shoulders. I realized 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 Ñ 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 Ñ the very idea of which evidently frightened him, but each
time he pulled himself up, saying, as he crossed himself: "Walpurgisnacht!"

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, a very crude and broken kind, he always got excited
and broke into his native tongue Ñ 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 Ñ him what killed
themselves."

[Roby]

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 horses got very restless and it took Johann all his time
to quiet them. He was pale and said, "It sounds like a wolf Ñ but yet there are
no wolves 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 Ñ for the horses were still pawing the ground restlessly and
shaking their heads Ñ 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?"

[Roby]

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! Ñ here he crossed himself)
those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived and the
dead were dead and not Ñ 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 Ñ 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: "Walpurgisnacht!" 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 Ñ
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 Ñ which I
always carry on my holiday excursions Ñ and closed the door, pointing back to
Munich, and said, "Go home, Johann Ñ Walpurgisnacht 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 in 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.

[Roby]

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 hem 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 recognized 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 Ñ 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.

[Roby]

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 farther 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 strong 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.

[Roby]

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 it 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.

[Roby]

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
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 Ñ for the
structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone Ñ was a great iron spike or
stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great Russian letters:

[Roby]

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 Ñ when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked.
When 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 Ñ
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 Ñ 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.

[Roby]

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
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 realize 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 phantoms of their sheeted dead, and that they were
closing in on me through the white cloudiness of the driving hail.

                                     ***

[Roby]

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 a nightmare Ñ a physical nightmare, if one may use such an
expression Ñ 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 a first stage
of sea-sickness, and a wild desire to be free from something Ñ I knew not what.
A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or dead Ñ
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 realize
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.

[Roby]

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 "Holla! holla!" as of many voices all calling out 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 Ñ 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!"

[Roby]

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 farther 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 Ñ 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 Ñ it Ñ indeed!" gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the
moment.

"A wolf Ñ 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.

[Roby]

"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 Ñ "the
lightning never brought that there. And for him Ñ 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 Ñcome 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.

[Roby]

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."