“I pray you, my good young friend, that you will discuss only business in your letters. Your friends will be happy to know that you are well. Is it not so?”
As he spoke he handed me three sheets of paper and three envelopes. So I decided to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand.[46] When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book. The Count took my two letters and left, the door closed behind him.
Soon the Count entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then said, “I hope you will forgive me, but I have much work to do this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish.”
At the door he turned, and after a moment’s pause said, “Let me advise you, my dear young friend – let me warn you with all seriousness. If you leave these rooms don’t go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be careful! In your own chamber your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then…”
Same day, later. – I will not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the cross over the head of my bed – I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams.
When he left me I went to my room. After a little while,[47] I came out and went up the stone stair. There I could look out towards the South. There was some sense of freedom. I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I wanted a breath of fresh air. This nocturnal existence is destroying my nerve. As I leaned from the window my eye noticed something moving a storey below me. There were the windows of the Count’s own room. I drew back, and looked carefully out.
The Count’s head was coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. The Count slowly emerged from the window and began to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss. His cloak was spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow. But I kept looking,[48] and it could be no delusion. His fingers and toes grasped the corners of the stones, he was crawling just as a lizard.
What is he? I feel the dread of this horrible place; I am in fear – in awful fear – and there is no escape for me.
15 May. – The Count went out in his lizard fashion[49] again. He moved downwards and vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I decided to use the opportunity to explore the castle. I knew he had left the castle now. I went back to the room and took a lamp. Then I tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new. I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally.
I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty and moth-eaten.[50] At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway. I tried it and found that it was not really locked. So I entered.
The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, and great windows were placed here. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in the past.
16 May, morning. – When I had written in my diary and had put the book and the pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning came into my mind, but it was a pleasure to disobey it.
I determined not to return tonight to my rooms, but to sleep here. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner. I suppose I fell asleep; I hope so, but I fear I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.
I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged since I came into it. In the moonlight opposite me were three young ladies. Though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes. The other was fair, with wavy golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed – such a silvery, musical laugh. The fair girl shook her head, and the other two urged her on.[51] One said, “Go on! You are first, and we shall follow. Just begin!”
The other added, “He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.[52]” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes. The fair girl bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. Scarlet lips, the red tongue, white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below my mouth and chin and was ready to fasten on my throat. Her tongue licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. I felt the soft touch of the lips on the skin of my throat, and two sharp teeth touched and paused there. I closed my eyes and waited.
But at that moment, another sensation came to me. The Count arrived, in a storm of fury. My eyes opened; he grasped the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant’s power drew it back.[53] The blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champed with rage. But the Count! The red light in his eyes was lurid, his face was deathly pale. He said, “How dare you touch him?![54] How dare you cast eyes on him?! Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me!”
The fair girl tried to answer, “You never loved; you never love!”
The Count turned, and said in a soft whisper, “Yes, I too can love; you can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I finish with him you will kiss him. Now go! Go! I must awaken him.”
“We have nothing tonight?” said one of them, with a low laugh. She pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a child. The women disappeared with the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, they simply faded into the rays of the moonlight and passed out through the window.
Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.[55]
I awoke in my own bed. I think the Count carried me here. This room is now a sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were – who are – waiting to suck my blood.
18 May. – I went down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs, it was closed. The door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream.
19 May. – I am surely in the toils.[56] Last night the Count asked me to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. It is madness to quarrel openly with the Count while I am so absolutely in his power. To refuse is to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. I am waiting for a chance to escape.