Dracula (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Bram Stoker

  The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sun—now close down on the hill tops—and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order.

  In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons or the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, or the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan’s impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

  By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr Seward, had given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well.

  As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

  But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.

  It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

  I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.

  The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun.

  The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone.

  Mr Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:—

  ‘I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!’ he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, ‘It was worth this to die! Look! look!’

  The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest ‘Amen’ broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger as the dying man spoke:—

  ‘Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!’

  And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman.

  NOTE

  Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey.

  In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation.

  When we got home we got to talking of the old time—which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they have been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document; nothing but a mass of type-writing, except the later notebooks of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing’s memorandum. We could hardly ask anyone, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee:—

  ‘We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.’

  JONATHAN HARKER

  ENDNOTES

  CHAPTER I

  1 (p. 5) the traditions of Turkish rule: Jonathan Harker is traveling from the known, “civilized” West into what was perceived as the sinister and mysterious East. The Ottoman Turks struggled for control of central and Eastern Europe for centuries. Large parts of the Balkan Peninsula were absorbed into their empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as was most of Hungary in the sixteenth: Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia all became tributary principalities. Large portions of Eastern Europe still show signs of Turkish influence.

  2 (p. 5) the British Museum: A vast collection of printed books, manuscripts, and journals—England’s greatest research library—was formerly kept in the British Museum’s Reading Room; it is now housed in the British Library.

  3 (p. 5) Transylvania: This high plateau region of central Rumania is heavily forested. During the Roman Empire it was part of the province of Dacia. Contested by many peoples and tribes during the Dark Ages, it came under Hungarian rule in 1003. After the defeat of Hungary by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century, Transylvania became a semi-independent principality under Turkish suzerainty. It was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1711 until the dynasty’s collapse in 1918. In describing Transylvania, Stoker consulted Emily Gerard’s popular book The Lan
d Beyond the Forest (1888).

  4 (p. 6) In the population ... east and north: The Saxons were Germans who settled in Transylvania in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Wallachs, also called Wallachians or Vlachs, are descendants of the Dacians, the people who lived in the area during the Roman period. The Magyars were tribes who first entered the region in the tenth century and still inhabit most of Hungary. The Szekelys are probably of Turkic stock. The three socially privileged “nations” were the Saxons, the Magyars, and the Szekelys; the Wallachs mostly made up the nonprivileged class of serfs.

  5 (p. 6) Attila and the Huns: Attila (died A.D. 453) was king of the Huns, a warlike people originating in north-central Asia who overran and ravaged much of eastern and central Europe. Attila made war on the crumbling Roman Empire and attacked the Balkans in 441. Though he failed to take Rome itself, he hastened the Empire’s fall and has for centuries been perceived as an enemy of Western civilization; his epithet is “the Scourge of God.”

  6 (p. 9) St. George’s Day: In Western Europe, St. George’s Day is April 23. St. George, the dragon-slayer, is the patron saint of England. The word “dracula” means “dragon” in the Romanian language, and when Dracula moves mysteriously up and down walls he is said to do so in a lizard-like fashion. The “blue flames,” or will o’the wisps, that Jonathan witnesses a few pages later are said to be especially in evidence on the eve of St. George’s Day.

  CHAPTER II

  1 (p. 25) London Directory ... Law List: The London Directory lists London businesses. The “Red” book lists British government employees and pensioners; “Blue” books are parliamentary publications. Whitaker’s Almanack is a standard almanac of the British Empire. The Army and Navy Lists are official lists of officers. The Law Lists is a directory of lawyers.

  2 (p. 28) Kodak: The Kodak camera was a relatively new invention, first marketed by George Eastman in 1888. In introducing this newfangled gadget into the ancient, atavistic world of his Gothic tale, Stoker sets a deliberately jarring and anachronistic tone. His Gothic mode is a modern and therefore a more plausible and immediate one. Other up-to-the-minute devices used by Dracula’s characters include the phonograph, the typewriter, the Underground, and the Winchester rifle.

  CHAPTER III

  1 (p. 34) Cassova: Dracula is referring to the first Battle of Kosovo in 1389, a decisive event in Balkan history in which a coalition of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, and Wallachians tried to stop the advancing Turks under Murad I. Murad was killed in the battle, but his son, Bayazid, went on to triumph, executing the Balkan leader Prince Lazar and annihilating what was left of the Serbian nobility after the battle. From then until the late nineteenth century Serbia was a Turkish province. The memory of the battle of Kosovo has continued to haunt the Balkan imagination and to fuel political and religious strife in the region to the present day.

  2 (p. 34) one of my own race ... brought the shame of slavery on them!: Dracula is referring to Vlad IV (1431?—1476), Prince of Wallachia, known to history as Vlad the Impaler; he was the son of Vlad Dracul, or Vlad the Devil, and was therefore called Dracula, or “Son of the Devil.” His brother, Radu, collaborated with the Turks and ousted Vlad, ruling in his stead under Ottoman auspices. Vlad was an efficient ruler, but a bloody and violent one.

  3 (p. 35) Mohacs: In 1526 the armies of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were crushed by the Ottoman forces of Sulayman I of Turkey, a historic defeat that brought more than 150 years of Ottoman domination over Hungary. Like Kosovo, Mohacs was considered a disaster and a humiliation to Christendom, although Hungary would return to the Christian fold much sooner than Serbia.

  CHAPTER VI

  1 (p. 70) Whitby: An ancient Yorkshire coastal town, Whitby was an important religious center in early Christian days and throughout the Middle Ages; during the Victorian era, Whitby, with the adjacent Robin Hood’s Bay, was a popular summer resort for artists, actors, and writers. When Stoker spent three weeks there in 1890, he began to write his ideas for a story about an undead man. Stoker describes Whitby faithfully in Dracula, from the great staircase Mina ascends when she sees Dracula and Lucy, to St. Mary’s Churchyard, where the local fishermen would congregate and tell tales.

  2 (p. 78) unconscious cerebration: This term, which denotes the unconscious or subconscious workings of the mind, was introduced in 1842 by W. C. Engledue. Ideas about the unconscious developed throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in the revolutionary theories of Sigmund Freud. Freudians, of course, have had a field day with Dracula. But even before Freud published his works, psychiatry was a current and fascinating subject, and many of the themes Freud would elaborate were already in the air. Stoker’s reference to unconscious cerebration as well as to other medical and psychological novelties shows that he had a keen awareness of the subject and its relevance.

  3 (p. 83) ‘men like trees walking’: This phrase refers to the miracle in which Jesus restores a blind man’s sight (the Bible, Mark 8:23-24): “And when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking” (King James Version).

  CHAPTER VII

  1 (p. 91) Demeter: Demeter is the Greek goddess of agriculture and crops, especially grain, and thus a symbol of fertility and motherhood. Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, was abducted by Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. As Hades’ wife, Persephone spent half the year on earth with her mother, the other half in the Underworld with her husband; during her months underground, Demeter’s mourning caused the earth to become barren—the ancient Greek explanation for winter. Is it a coincidence that the two boats Dracula travels on, the Demeter and the Czarina Catherine, are both named for powerful women?

  2 (p. 92) On 11 july .. Matapan: The ship enters the Bosphorus, the strait connecting the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, at Istanbul. The next day it passes through the Dardanelles, the strait that separates Europe (at the Gallipoli Peninsula) from Turkey, in Asia, and connects the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea. The following day it passes Matapan, the southernmost point of the Greek mainland.

  CHAPTER VIII

  1 (p. 100) the ‘New Woman’: This term was used in the 1890s arid early 1900s to describe women who were beginning to challenge the limits imposed by conventional Victorian ideas about women’s roles. The “New Woman” sought independence and frequently worked outside the home. She was, of course, perceived as threatening to the more conservative elements of society, and “New Woman” was often used in a pejorative sense: The stereotypical new woman smoked, even drank, cut her hair, lived alone, and—in the worst possible scenarios, as depicted during the Edwardian era in the feminist novels of H. G. Wells—enjoyed sexual relations outside of marriage. Mina displays an ambivalent attitude: Though an independent career woman before her marriage and clearly a “New Woman” in her own right, she still feels compelled to treat the phenomenon with conventional feminine contempt.

  CHAPTER XI

  1 (p. 155) ‘The blood is the life!’: Renfield uses dramatic, biblical language to distort the central Christian dogma of Communion. At the Last Supper, Jesus, exhorting his disciples, “took the Cup; and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this, as oft ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me’ ” (The Book of Common Prayer). The Bible (John 6:53-54) explicitly connects this quaff with eternal life: “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (KJV).

  CHAPTER XIV

  1 (p. 206) corporeal transference ... astral bodies: Corporeal transference is the ability to move solid objects through the power of thought. A materialization is a manifestation of ghosts or an apparition at a seance. According to occultists, an astral body is the
nonmaterial part of the self that can move independently of the physical body.

  CHAPTER XXI

  1 (p. 306) flesh of my flesh; ... kin of my kin: The reference is to the Bible, Genesis 2:23-24: “And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (KJV). In usurping the language of the Bible and the sacrament of Christian marriage, Dracula creates a scene of extraordinary power, one of the most memorable in the novel. Biblical references throughout the book reinforce the idea of Dracula as a figure who confronts, challenges, and distorts Christian themes and images; specifically, he is an anti-Christ.

  CHAPTER XXV

  1 (p. 358) Transcendentalism: A system of intellectual, secular mysticism, transcendentalism reached its peak in mid-nineteenth-century America; among its adherents were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott. Transcendentalist thought continued to have resonance during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and Stoker’s idol, Walt Whitman, was significantly influenced by its ideals.

  INSPIRED BY DRACULA

  FILMS

  Employing disorienting techniques of perspective throughout Dracula’s pages, Bram Stoker suspends and teases. By presenting his story through letters and journals, he obscures the action until the frightful moment when the reader confronts the horrible Count. So it is no surprise that Dracula makes for such terrific cinema. The book has an illustrious history of film adaptations, the first of which, Nosferatu (1922), is among the best. Directed by F. W. Murnau, this silent film derives from the same wave of German expressionist cinema that produced Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1922). Despite its title, Nosferatu is more faithful to Stoker’s text than most later adaptations. The film revels in shadowed coffins and spiderwebs, and its disturbing soundlessness forces its imagery into focus—in particular, Count Orlok’s pointed nose and ears, and his elongated, claw-like fingers.