CHAPTER 2: Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

5 May.--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight.

When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps,  and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in th e dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins.  The horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor, for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful, and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation. 

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone.  The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man . Again he said.

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely.  Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Dracula?"

He bowed in a courtly was as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest."  As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage. He had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested, but he insisted.

"Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself."  He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight. For here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire, also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door.

"You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared."

The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger. So making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room.

I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said,

"I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will I trust, excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do not sup."

I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely. Then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure.

"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come. But I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters."

The count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old tokay,  of which I had two glasses, was my supper.  During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many question as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy.

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. 

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back. And with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything. But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!" Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added, "Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter." Then he rose and said.

"But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon, so sleep well and dream well!" With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!

Comments

[Elizabeth Miller]

When I used to teach this novel, the students were always surprised at the description of Count Dracula. Doesn't look much like Bela Lugosi, does he? :) Or Lee, or Langella, or Oldman ... Scholars have come up with various speculations as to the physical model: Henry Irving is a popular choice (though again the resemblance is not striking) as are the villains and vampires of earlier Gothic fiction. Of one thing I am certain: it is not based on a portrait of Vlad the Impaler.

[Odette]

Hamlet, Shylock, Iago, and...Dracula? Having The Vampire look like Henry Irving is an interesting idea.

[HP]

I could look all this up, but, for the benefit of people even more ignorant than me, I'll ask anyway: Didn't I read that Stoker was affiliated with a theater company? And that Dracula was based on his mentor/boss at the theater company? Was that Henry Irving?

Was this particular theater later associated with the playwright John Balderston, who adopted both Dracula and Frankenstein for the stage?

I'm always acutely aware of the possibility that I'm confused.

Thanks

[Elizabeth Miller]

Re Stoker, the theatre and Irving

Yes, Stoker was manager of the Lyceum Theatre, owned by Sir Henry Irving, the greatest Shakespearean actor of the 19th century. A case can be made that Irving's roles as villains (especially Mephistopheles) helped Stoker shape his conception of Dracula. Some argue (though I don't happen to agree with them) that Stoker based Dracula on Irving as employer (something like Polidori did with Byron 80 years earlier).

The Lyceum Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1901 (1902?) and the company folded in 1905. So that was too early for any Balderston connection. However, Stoker's widow Florence (Stoker died in 1912) did have contacts with Hamilton Deane who wrote the first Dracula stage play, later adapted for Broadway with Balderston and later further adapted for the 1931 movie (Bela Lugosi).

[Elizabeth Miller]

There is an interesting inconsistency in this entry. Dracula says, I bid you welcome, Mr Harker." But Drac has no way of knowing that it is Harker who has come. He was expecting Hawkins and does not discover about the switch until he reads the letter Harker brings with him. Now I suppose one culd argue that Dracula can penetrate Harker's mind and catch the switch. But I suspect the explanation is more mundane. In his early conception for Chapter 1, there was to be an exchange of letters between Hawkins and Dracula, in one of which Hawkins explains the substitution. Stoker cut this out but forgot to remove the residue in Chapter 2.

This sort of thing happens elsewhere in the novel. We must keep in mind that Stoker wrote _Dracula_ over a period of six years while working at a full-time job and writing other stories/books. He obviously needed a good editor (Mina, maybe??)

[Baby Jinx]

Re: D not knowing it is Harker instead of Hawkins

One might also argue that Harker's journal entry of 3 May ["Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel..."] suggests that there was some previous communication between Harker and Dracula. Otherwise, Harker might have written, "Mr Hawkins directed me..."

[Elizabeth Miller]

That doesn't necessarily mean that he corresponded with Harker personally - just to Hawkins. The Notes do not indicate any correspondence between Drac and Hawkins.
Hawkins had intended to make the trip himself but became ill and sent Harker in his place. He gives Harker a letter for Dracula explaining why he made the change. Would he do that if Dracula already knew Harker was coming?

These loose ends are such fun! :)

[Baby Jinx]

This is really stretching it but, if a letter could get from Transylvania to England in less than a week (see my comment following 9 May) and if Jonathan has been traveling since sometime in March, Hawkins would have had ample time after Jonathan left to contact Dracula about the switch. Dracula may have been leaving little notes along the way for Jonathan. Who knows?

Of course, the most probable answer is, as you suggest, that this is simply another blooper on Stoker's part.

[Elizabeth Miller]

Hey - that's one of those things I love about this novel. You can stretch, bend, fill in gaps, etc. - and who's to say you're wrong. There's no other book quite like it. It's nit-picker's heaven! :)

If anyone does not believe me, get a copy of Clive Leatherdale'a annotated edition entitled _Dracula Unearthed_. There are 3500 annotations!

[Baby Jinx]

Another question about letters to/from Dracula...who would pick them up? Surely there is no postbox for Castle Dracula in the Borgo Pass (or is there?), and what mail carrier would want to go there anyway? Okay, okay, Dracula could fly or drive into town at night to post his letters or he could get one of his gypsies to do it. Or maybe the diligence from Bistritz to Bukovina had the chore of carrying D's mail. Still, the question of mail delivery to and from Castle Dracula presents some interesting questions.

[Marty Busse]

Baby Jinks,

Mail delivery was, until well into the 20th century, quite a chancy thing, and still is in large parts of the world.

People used to depend on friends, travelers and hired couriers to deliver letters before the rise of national postal systems and the international coordinating system.

At the time of Dracula, you could depend on a letter getting to Budapest or Bucharest, at least, and possibly to Clausenberg (Cluj, nowadays): Romania was a member of the Universal Postal Union from 1875. Presumably Dracula, as you surmise, employs couriers (probably his gypsies) to deliver letters, and has them picked up from the post office in Budapest, Bucharest or Clausenberg.