Dracula | Page 4

7:30 I
had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to
move.
It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the
trains. What ought they to be in China?
All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of
beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the
top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by
rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each
side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and
running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.
At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in
all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or
those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets,
and round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very
picturesque.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they
were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of
some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips
of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of
course there were petticoats under them.
The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more
barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy
dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather
belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore
high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black
hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not
look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as
some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very
harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.
It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a
very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier--for the
Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina--it has had a very stormy
existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of
great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate
occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it
underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties
of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.
Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which
I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of
course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.
I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a
cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white
undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured
stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed
and said, "The Herr Englishman?"
"Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker."
She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white

shirtsleeves, who had followed her to the door.
He went, but immediately returned with a letter:
"My friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting
you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for
Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage
will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from
London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my
beautiful land.--Your friend, Dracula."
4 May--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count,
directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on
making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and
pretended that he could not understand my German.
This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it
perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did.
He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each
other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had
been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he
knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he
and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at
all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting
that I had no time to ask anyone else, for it was all very mysterious and
not by any means comforting.
Just before I was leaving, the old lady