by Syrie James
Jonathan completed the business matter which had brought him to Transylvania, explaining the details of the property his firm had purchased on Count Dracula’s behalf: a large, old, isolated mansion called Carfax on the outskirts of London, which the Count intended to occupy. After the legal documents were signed and prepared for posting, Dracula peppered Jonathan with questions about both the estate and England’s business and shipping practices. Over the next few nights, the two men shared many long, congenial conversations on a wide variety of subjects, which kept them up until daybreak.
Although the Count was charming and courteous, this strange, nocturnal existence began to tell on Jonathan, and a series of discoveries made him feel ill-at-ease. Despite the evidence of wealth on display, Jonathan could find no sign of a single servant in the place. It seemed that the Count had been preparing all his meals—meals of which the Count never partook—and Jonathan was now certain that it was the Count himself who, in disguise, had driven the coach that brought him there. Other than the library and Jonathan’s guest quarters, most of the doors in the castle were locked and forbidden to him, and Count Dracula warned him never to fall asleep anywhere in the castle except his own room.
One day, as Jonathan was shaving, he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard the Count say, “Good morning.” Jonathan started in confusion and amazement, because Count Dracula—although he was standing immediately behind him—was not reflected in his shaving mirror! There was no mistaking it; the Count cast no reflection at all! Jonathan was so startled that he accidentally cut himself. The Count, upon seeing Jonathan’s face, lunged at his throat with a sort of demoniac fury, drawing back only when his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix Jonathan was wearing. This made an instant change in him. The fury in the Count’s eyes then passed away so quickly that Jonathan could hardly believe it had ever been there.
“Take care how you cut yourself,” the Count said calmly. “It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” He seized Jonathan’s shaving glass. “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” He opened the heavy window with one wrench of his hand and flung the glass out the window, where it shattered on the stones of the courtyard far below.
What was the meaning behind such odd behaviour? Jonathan wondered. He now began to question everything. Why did the Count never eat or drink in front of him? If he was the coachman, what strange powers did he possess over the horses and the wolves? Why were all the people at Bistritz and on the coach so terribly afraid for Jonathan? What was the meaning of the crucifixes, the garlic, and the sprigs of wild rose and mountain ash they had given him?
Jonathan became truly anxious when, after a brief investigation of the castle, he found all the exterior doors locked and bolted. In no place save from the castle windows was there an available exit. Was he being held a prisoner? Did Count Dracula mean him harm? Or was Jonathan only being deceived by his own fears? He resolved to keep his suspicions to himself, keep his eyes and ears open, and prepare to leave as soon as possible. However, Count Dracula insisted that Jonathan stay in Transylvania for another month, and urged him to write a letter home explaining the delay. Jonathan, feeling obligated to his employer to please the Count, reluctantly complied.
One night, while peering out a window of the castle, Jonathan observed a most shocking sight: he saw Count Dracula emerge from one of the lower windows and crawl down the sheer face of the castle wall in lizard fashion. Jonathan could not believe his eyes. The old man was actually crawling head down above that dreadful abyss, his fingers and toes clinging to the stony outcroppings, before disappearing through a hole which led to a walkway far below. What manner of man was this, Jonathan wondered in terror, who could or would leave a building in such a fashion? Or what manner of creature was it, in the semblance of man?
Jonathan determined to explore the castle further, and to seek a way out—but all the doors in the castle, other than the library and his own room, were still locked to him. At last, at the end of a long, dark passage, one locked door gave way upon great force. He found himself in a dusty but comfortably furnished parlour, which he deduced had been occupied by the ladies in Dracula’s family in days gone by. The dreadful loneliness of the place chilled his heart. He soon felt overwhelmed by exhaustion and, ignoring the count’s warning, he lay down on a couch and fell asleep.
The events that followed were like some horrific dream, and yet they felt startlingly real. Three beautiful, voluptuous young women suddenly appeared in the room before him—ladies by their dress and manner—with red lips and brilliant white teeth. Two were dark-haired, and the other was fair. They approached Jonathan, laughing and whispering. They made him feel uneasy, yet at the same time (he wrote with shame) he was filled with a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss him.
“Go on!” said one dark-haired beauty lasciviously to the blonde. “You are first, and we shall follow.”
“He is young and strong,” added another in a sultry tone. “There are kisses for us all.”
The fair-haired woman, the most beautiful of them all, bent over Jonathan, licking her lips coquettishly. Her breath was honey-sweet, and Jonathan tingled with ecstasy and desire as she placed her lips against his neck. He waited in an agony of anticipation as he felt two sharp teeth pausing at his throat. Suddenly, Dracula swept into the chamber with a roar, grabbed the fair woman by the neck, and hurled her across the room. His eyes blazing like red furies, he cried:
“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me!”
Jonathan remained paralysed with fright. The women’s hard, fiendish laughter rang through the room, as the fair girl taunted the Count, “You yourself never loved; you never love!”
“Yes, I too can love,” the Count replied, in a sudden, soft whisper. “You yourselves can tell it from the past.” He ordered the women to leave.
“Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of the women, disappointed.
For answer, Dracula offered them a bag which he had brought with him, which moved as though there were some living thing within it. To Jonathan’s horror, he thought he heard a low wail come from inside the bag, as if it contained a small, half-smothered child! The terrible women snatched up the bag with glee, and then—to Jonathan’s utter terror and astonishment—all three suddenly disappeared! They seemed to fade out of the room, their corporeal forms and the dreadful bag vanishing into the rays of the moonlight, as Jonathan lapsed into unconsciousness.
I paused in my reading, my pulse pounding. Dear God! So this was the horrible bag which Jonathan had cried out about in such terror in his sleep! A bag containing a half-smothered child! And those horrible, phantom women—who could they be? I read on:
Jonathan later awoke in his own bed, overwhelmed by horror. What had just happened to him? Was it real or a dream? Why did the Count say, “This man belongs to me”? Had those women intended to kiss him, or to use those sharp teeth he had felt at his throat? Did they intend to devour whatever was inside that awful bag? And how could they have disappeared before his very eyes? Could it be that he was going mad? Or was he mad already?
A few days later, on 19 May, the Count coerced Jonathan into writing three post-dated letters, the first two saying that his work was done and he was about to start for home, and the third saying that he had already left the castle and safely arrived at Bistritz.
“The posts are few and uncertain,” Count Dracula said suavely, “and writing these letters now will ensure ease of mind to your friends.”
Jonathan deduced in horror that the Count—concerned that Jonathan knew too much and might prove a threat to his plans—only meant to keep Jonathan alive long enough to learn everything he could about England before moving there. Then he intended to kill him. The letters would serve as proof that Jonathan had departed the castle unharmed. The last of the letters was da
ted 29 June. Jonathan took this as a sign of the span of his life.
Jonathan felt like a rat caught in a trap. Desperate to escape, Jonathan wrote two more secret letters, and passed them through the bars of his window to a group of gipsies encamped in the castle courtyard below. To Jonathan’s dismay, Dracula intercepted the letters and opened them. Upon discovering that one was from Jonathan to Mr. Hawkins, Dracula apologised and urged Jonathan to redirect a new envelope and seal it within. The second letter was unsigned and written in shorthand, so Dracula burned it.
Weeks passed. Jonathan remained a prisoner. He hid his journal, but many of his personal belongings disappeared, including his best suit of clothes and all his notes and papers. The band of Szgany gipsies returned to the castle, and for some reason unloaded several wagons full of large wooden boxes. In the days that followed, Jonathan heard the sounds of men working with spades somewhere far below, as if digging in the earth in the depths of the castle.
Late one night, Jonathan witnessed the Count crawl down the castle wall again. This time, to Jonathan’s shock, the Count was dressed in Jonathan’s missing suit of clothes, and he was carrying the same bag he had earlier given to those three terrible women. There could be no doubt as to the nature of his murderous quest! Jonathan sat doggedly by the window for a long time, watching for his return. At length, Jonathan became mesmerised by floating motes of dust, which danced in the moonlight. He realised, to his alarm, that he was being hynotised! The dust motes magically materialised into the forms of the three women who had tried to seduce him. Jonathan ran screaming from the place, seeking safety in his room.
A few hours later, to Jonathan’s horror, he heard something stirring from Dracula’s room below. He heard something like a sharp wail, which was quickly suppressed, followed by deep, awful silence. Jonathan wept in anguish for the child that, he presumed, had been kidnapped and murdered. Soon after, a distraught woman appeared in the courtyard below, beating her hands against the castle door in torment and crying: “Monster, give me my child!”
From high overhead, Jonathan heard the voice of the Count, calling out in a harsh, metallic whisper, which seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. In minutes, a pack of wolves poured into the courtyard. There was no cry from the woman, but she disappeared from Jonathan’s sight, as if devoured entirely.
When dawn broke, Jonathan resolved that he must shake off his fears and take action. He did not often see the Count during the day; perhaps that was when he slept. Jonathan knew that the window far below him—the one from which he had seen the Count emerge twice before, in lizard fashion—was the Count’s own, locked room. Somehow, he must gain entrance to it. If an old man could crawl down that sheer castle wall, Jonathan decided, why couldn’t he? Better to risk his own life trying to escape than to remain helpless in the Count’s power.
Jonathan removed his boots and scaled the rough castle wall—a dangerous, terrifying feat—and made it into the Count’s chamber. To his surprise, the room contained only dust-covered furniture and a great heap of gold coins that were more than three hundred years old. Jonathan followed a dark, winding stairway down to a tunnel-like passage. This led to an old chapel where, to his astonishment, he discovered fifty long, wooden boxes lined with newly dug earth. Inside one of the boxes lay the Count, apparently asleep! Terrified, Jonathan made a hasty retreat.
On the night of 29 June—the date of Jonathan’s last letter—Dracula announced with apparent sincerity: “To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we never meet. Your letter home has been dispatched; to-morrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey.” The Szgany, Dracula explained, had some work to complete the next morning on his behalf; after that, they would make ready his carriage and convey Jonathan to the Borgo Pass, to meet the diligence to Bistritz.
Jonathan, suspicious, asked if he could leave immediately, insisting that he would happily leave behind his baggage if allowed to walk away on his own. Dracula expressed concern but acquiesced and opened the front door. To Jonathan’s terror and dismay, a pack of snarling wolves impeded his departure. Later, safely locked in his room once more, Jonathan overheard a voice he thought might be the Count’s, telling the three terrible women, “Your time has not yet come. Wait. Have patience. To-morrow night is yours!”
Terrified, Jonathan determined that he must escape or die. The next morning he scaled the castle wall again and went down to the old chapel, where he found Dracula asleep in a box of earth as before. This time—impossibly—the Count appeared to be much younger than before! His hair and moustache were not white, but iron-grey; his pale skin was a healthy pink; and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth. How could this be? What did it mean? Had he just eaten that woman’s child?
Horrified, Jonathan grabbed a shovel, intending to kill him; but the Count—as if in a trance—turned his head at the last second with a hateful glare, and the blow glanced harmlessly off his forehead. Terrified that the Count might rise and murder him, Jonathan fled the chapel. He heard the gipsies arriving—no doubt to escort the Count on the first leg of his journey to England. There was no way on earth, Jonathan determined, that he would be left alone in that castle with those sisters from Hell! He would scale the castle wall farther than he had yet attempted, taking nothing but the clothes on his back, his journal, and a few pieces of Dracula’s gold. He would make his escape that very day!
He penned one last, desperate line: “Good-bye, all! Mina!”
And there the journal ended.
I HARDLY KNEW WHAT TO MAKE OF MY HUSBAND’S JOURNAL. IT was such a terrible record that it left me perplexed and in tears. As soon as I had finished reading, I went back and re-read certain passages again, hoping that I had misinterpreted some of the shorthand symbols; but I had not. Oh! How my poor dear must have suffered! No wonder he arrived at the hospital in Buda-Pesth raving about demons and wolves, and ghosts and blood!
Was there any truth in the account, I wondered, or was it all a figment of Jonathan’s imagination? Did Jonathan get his brain fever, and then write all those strange and horrible things? Or had he some cause for part of it? Jonathan had always been—as Mr. Hawkins had pointed out—the most sensible, calm, level-headed individual I had ever known. He was not the sort to have wild imaginings…which made the contents of his journal all the more confusing and upsetting.
I turned back to the beginning, to the part where Jonathan had overheard the peasants talking about were-wolves and vampires. I had read of vampires before, in poetry and literature; but they were just fictitious creatures, common to the folk-tales and superstitions of Eastern Europe. Jonathan had never mentioned the terms again in the whole length of his journal; and yet his descriptions of events raised many disturbing questions in my mind. Jonathan said that those three awful women at the castle had vanished before his eyes, and then had re-materialised out of the dust particles in the air! Had he imagined the women entirely, or was he merely deluded about that part? If the women did exist, what was their relationship with Count Dracula? Were they trying to seduce Jonathan—or did they mean him some greater harm? What about the creatures in the bag; were they truly children Dracula had brought to the women as treats—to be eaten?
How, I wondered, was such pure evil even conceivable?
As for that fearful, elderly Count, with his cruel manners and strange, loathsome habits, I had so many questions, I hardly knew where to begin—but I knew equally as well that I could not open the subject to Jonathan.
OH! HOW QUICKLY EVERYTHING CHANGED, JUST A FEW SHORT days after that! Sometimes I wonder: would we have been better off if we had never learned the truth?
IT WAS A QUARTER PAST EIGHT WHEN I HEARD THE SOUND OF familiar footsteps on the front walk, announcing Jonathan’s return. I thrust his journal back into the cupboard and went down to greet him, pasting a smile on my face and behaving as normally as I could. The cook had prepared s
upper, but I had little appetite.
We retired early. After his long day, Jonathan fell asleep at once. I was far too distressed to sleep. I could not stop thinking about that man we had seen in London. Jonathan had seemed quite certain that he was the Count. What if he was right? There was a thread of continuity in it, after all: Count Dracula was preparing to come to London. By Jonathan’s description, however, Dracula was an old, pale, white-haired man…and the man we saw had black hair and a ruddy complexion. A man could not grow young—could he? He could, however, disguise himself with a wig and make-up—as Dracula apparently had done the night he posed as the coachman—and perhaps again on that last day, when Jonathan had found him asleep in his tomb-like box, with his lips dripping blood. Who or what had the Count feasted on? If Jonathan had not escaped, would Dracula have murdered him?
With a shudder, I thought: if the man we saw in Piccadilly was Count Dracula—and if he is indeed the monster my husband described—think what havoc he could wreak in this city, among the teeming millions! The words Jonathan had spoken on our wedding-day, with regard to his journal, came back to me: “Let us never mention it again—unless, one day, some solemn duty should command me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, that are recorded here.”
It seemed that there might indeed be solemn duty one day soon. If that duty should come, I decided, we must not shrink from it. We must be prepared.
The moment Jonathan left for work the next morning, I got out my typewriter and began to transcribe his journal. It took the better part of the day; but when I had finished with his pages, I found the journal that I had begun at Whitby, and wrote it out on the typewriter as well. Jonathan was working late, so I continued typing far into the evening with fierce determination. When at last I had finished, I laid the typewritten pages in my work-basket with exhausted satisfaction. Now, I thought, we would be ready for other eyes, should it be required.
